Result Arrow valley East, Worcestershire CC, 17/7

Originally Posted by Wowbanger TIP:
Councils are even more irrelevant in France than they are in the UK as most towns have a Mayor charged with executive responsibility, it seem to me that PR would be a problematic way to elect a mayor, unless each party gets to run the show for 11.5% of the time or whatever its vote was.

The FN's greatest success was getting into the second round of the presidential contest. They did this under a system which is far more weighted in favor of establishment parties than ours is. That was the only occasion in history that I an aware of where both of the big two French parties did not make it to the run off.

The FN gained prominence in exactly the same way as the BNP did, by being reviled by the Establishment. However they have been far more effective in professionalizing and, Le Penn aside, reducing their target profile and this accounts for their success, relative though that is.

And you still haven't explained away the half dozen other UK parties have found a way over the FPTP hurdle. Or explained how the BNP intend to go about it. Not that it matters much at this point.

Le Pen got into the second round because Chirac only got 21% and the sitting Prime Minister only got 18%.

It is the case that the PR system there gave the F.N. councillors early-on which assisted them:it simply is.

The F.N. has no members of Parliament,under FPTP.

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Originally Posted by Wowbanger TIP:
If you need PR to win give up now.

I suppose thought if you take a party and systematically strip it of anyone capable of independent original thought then getting the tired excuses of decades of failure parroted constantly back is only to be expected.

After all if you have swallowed Griffin's bald excuses for his own behavior and his naked lies on every subject then accepting his excuses for electoral failure must be very easy.

In all the "Celtic" nations the "nationalist" parties established themselves years and decades before PR. Le Penn (although I have no affinity for this particular moron) has scored his biggest successes in a system even more weighted in favor of Established power than FPTP. Euro nationalists have won dozens of Mayoral contests on the basis of FPTP. Martin Bell has won a Parliamentary constituency on FPTP along with Kidderminster Hospital in the last decade. Respect have won a parliamentary constituency on FPTP for God sake. And yet it is beyond the BNP to even get close because of FPTP.

The really is no hope for the BNP, the sooner Common Purpose have them all dragged off to the REX84 camps the better. Darwin demands it.

Martin Bell fought the Brentwood and Ongar seat in 2001 without the media attention on him and he lost.

I wouldn't have thought the Galloway contest was typical either,or Kidderminster where it was a single-issue campaign.

Ukip and the Greens have never had any M.P.s elected under their party names.

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Originally Posted by Shaun:
UKIP have not been elected in Scotland and Wales.

Why is that then?
The BNP did get close to having an A.M. in Wales

The BNP do get elected in England under FPTP,where they can concentrate their resources.

"UKIP have not been elected in Scotland and Wales.
Why is that then?"

I would think it is the UK in their name. The B in BNP has the same effect in Scotland. A 5% vote in Scotland is a fantastic result for BNP.

"The BNP do get elected in England under FPTP,where they can concentrate their resources."

Anyone could!

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Originally Posted by Shaun:
Martin Bell fought the Brentwood and Ongar seat in 2001 without the media attention on him and he lost.

I wouldn't have thought the Galloway contest was typical either,or Kidderminster where it was a single-issue campaign.

Ukip and the Greens have never had any M.P.s elected under their party names.

Of course they were not typical, Bell won because he picked a good target and manipulated the media, Galloway did the same (AND overcame an entrenched Labour vote), Kidderminster was a single issue campaign, so what? The Scot and Welsh nationalists and Northern Irish Parties changed the rules, manipulated the media and set the agenda. This is how it is done. To some extent Barnbrook has done the same and to a lesser extent so have some isolated units of the BNP. However the leadership have never understood this and have chosen instead to pick up the dregs of PR contests and instill a defeatist attitude in the Party.

It's no good looking for excuses or thinking it can't be done, it can and it can be done easily with the resources the BNP has. That other parties have failed is irrelevant.

Originally Posted by James T Kirk:
I don't believe in the no-win scenario.

(On the Kobayashi Maru test.):-)

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Originally Posted by ANGLO-STAFFS:
"UKIP have not been elected in Scotland and Wales.
Why is that then?"

I would think it is the UK in their name. The B in BNP has the same effect in Scotland. A 5% vote in Scotland is a fantastic result for BNP.

"The BNP do get elected in England under FPTP,where they can concentrate their resources."

Anyone could!

Apart from UKIP.

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"The BNP do get elected in England under FPTP,where they can concentrate their resources."

Anyone could!

Originally Posted by Shaun:
Apart from UKIP.

Concentrate is the operative word. UKIP would be able to win election IF they could concentrate on a ward. But what passes for leadership in UKIP seems totally incapable of joined up thinking.

Elections are left to branches, or even individuals.
Meaning that results are poor.
Members become disillusioned and drop out.
Fewer to fight the next election.
Results even worse.
More drop out
No one willing to fight next election.
Branch folds.
End of.

In by-elections the BNP are able to bus people in from all over the country. They still don't get elected though.

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Originally Posted by ANGLO-STAFFS:
"The BNP do get elected in England under FPTP,where they can concentrate their resources."

Anyone could!

Concentrate is the operative word. UKIP would be able to win election IF they could concentrate on a ward. But what passes for leadership in UKIP seems totally incapable of joined up thinking.

Elections are left to branches, or even individuals.
Meaning that results are poor.
Members become disillusioned and drop out.
Fewer to fight the next election.
Results even worse.
More drop out
No one willing to fight next election.
Branch folds.
End of.

In by-elections the BNP are able to bus people in from all over the country. They still don't get elected though.

Probalby better for UKIP people to raise morale amongst their own people than to continually watch,paralysed as the BNP beats them in by-elections.

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Originally Posted by Shaun:
Probalby better for UKIP people to raise morale amongst their own people than to continually watch,paralysed as the BNP beats them in by-elections.

True Shaun, the BNP almost always do beat UKIP in by-elections.
The problem for the BNP is that to win a by-election you have to beat ALL of the other parties, this the BNP have only done once in the past two years and that was a seat they were defending, they then lost the seat in May.
If the BNP are happy with just beating UKIP then I am quite happy for them to keep coming 3rd or 4th.

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The idea that the BNP is highly organized is a myth from what I have seen in the West Midlands, there is no formal organisation or co-ordination above branch level other than that effected rarely by particularly influential members. Where the BNP win it is usually the result of the local branch alone. The BNP are capable of mobilizing fairly substantial numbers of activists for Parliamentary by-elections and GLA elections but this capability is severely under utilized by the current leadership. Mostly, I believe, because they would be expected to take part.

This is particularly concerning for the opposition because if some BNP units can achieve results unsupported then many more could with the application of the same tactics. And with an interventionist and aggressive leadership thousands of wards could be in danger.

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