Farage accuses TV debate audience of being packed with left-wingers

[Goober]

That is usually a sign of low self esteem. Maybe we shouldn't pick on him.

No he has no issue with Esteem.
I spoke with Esteem and he confirmed it.

 

[Blackleaf]

Yes the opinion of someone with impartial views on the UK elections. Still you could argue Miliband won if you like, but Farage was awful and barely noticeable.

Most people would say Mr Farage won the debate hands down on Thursday night. His was commonsense views up against four left-wing numpties who will ruin this country if any of them form a government. Those other four must be kept out for the good of this country and I'm hoping for a Tory/Ukip/DUP coalition after the election. In fact, after last Thursday's "debate" (although it wasn't much of a debate, just four left-wing numpties making it look like a students' union debate on how to spend other people's money with the only sensible person on the panel booed and hissed and jeered by Left-wing BBc rent-a-gobs who want to stifle any debate and any views which go against the cosy British liberal Establishment), I think that scenario is now even more likely.

I also noticed just after the debate that Sky News's Adam Boulton commented that it did look as though the audience was packed full of Left-wingers and was biased against Mr Farage. Sky New Political Editor Faisal Islam, who was talking to Boulton, said the same.

He blamed his lack of positive reactions on the leftism of the crowd when in reality it was wholly due to his lack of debating prowess.

The comments sections in the British print media are showing backing for Farage's claims that the BBC deliberately packed its audience with Londoncentric, left-wing, liberal rent-a-gobs on Thursday night's TV debate - just as it does on its weekly Question Time show - and show a deep mistrust of the BBC and the Establishment. I really do hope Ukip take action against the BBC like they are threatening to.

The audience in Westminster on Thursday night - like the BBC's Question Time audience - does not represent the views of the British people as a whole, merely the views of a Londoncentric left-wing metropolitan elite who are completely out-of-touch with the lives of ordinary people.

As for Mr Farage's debating prowess, he's well-known as being a great orator and a great debator. His debating prowess is second to none, certainly of a much higher quality than the four gormless left-wing twonks he was up again on Thursday night whose profligate, take-take-take-take economic policies will ruin Britian if any of them get into power.

But the Left can do all they like to try and destroy Ukip, but ut's just not working. Polls show they are going to have a very successfuil election. The Left-wing establishment's dirty, anti-democratic tricks, like we saw on Thursday night, just aren't working. In fact, such diagraceful booing and hissing of Ukip politicians when they say that immigration should be cut and Scotland's funding through the Barnett Formula should be cut and that Britain should leave the EU only STRENGTHENS Ukip and rallies even more people to their cause.

Packing audiences full of left-wingers during TV debates to bully Farage just shows how worried the Left-wing establishment are at the continued rise of an anti-EU party which wants to cut immigration. They're definitely worried.

Ukip on track for 100-plus second places across England

Analysis predicts huge breakthrough as Nigel Farage provides main threat to three parties


Nigel Farage explains Ukip’s policy on immigration earlier this week. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

Toby Helm
Saturday 7 March 2015
The Guardian

Ukip is on course to come second in at least 100 seats at the general election as it displaces the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems as the main opposition across large parts of the country, according to new analysis of the party’s electoral prospects on 7 May.

The extraordinary potential haul of Ukip “silver medals” – in an addition to a likely tally of half-a-dozen or so seats at Westminster – would represent a massive breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s anti-EU party, which failed to achieve even a single second place in 2010.

The analysis, conducted by Robert Ford at the University of Manchester for the Observer, suggests that the biggest threat to the established parties from Ukip will come in future local and national elections after May, once it has put down local roots and established itself in the minds of voters as a real alternative to the incumbent party.

It also means that the future of the UK in the EU – normally not a top issue on the doorsteps – will become far more central to election debates, as Ukip candidates press the case for the country to quit the EU and apply pressure for an in/out referendum.

Examining Ukip’s strength, as well as byelections in this parliament, Ford concludes that Farage’s party will pile up “silver medals” across industrial and urban regions in the north of England, as well in parts of the Midlands, the south east and East Anglia and the south west.

The party is polling at between 10% and 15% in most polls. In today’s Opinium/Observer poll it is on 14%.

Ukip stand to finish second in at least 100 seats in England in the election, giving them a great platform to build on in subsequent local and national polls

“At a conservative estimate, there look like being 70 to 100 Ukip silver medals at the election and it could well be more,” said Ford, who co-authored a book on the rise of Ukip – Revolt on the Right – with fellow don Matthew Goodwin..

Ukip currently has two MPs following successive byelection wins for Tory defectors Douglas Carswell in Clacton and Mark Reckless in Rochester and Strood, last autumn. The party is hopeful of winning a handful of others on 7 May, including Thanet South, where Farage is facing a close fight to defeat the Tories.

Ukip’s own strategists believe the party could come second in at least 100 seats in the north alone, as it replaces the severely weakened Tories as the main opposition to Labour, and begins to breathe down the necks of Labour MPs. Ford sees Ukip coming second to several shadow cabinet members including Ed Miliband in Doncaster North, Ed Balls in Morley and Outwood, Yvette Cooper in Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and Rachel Reeves in Leeds West.

Just as Ukip is on course to replace the Tories as the main opposition in parts of the north, it is set to do the same to Labour and the Lib Dem in parts of the south and south east, and the Lib Dems in the south west.

Ford cites Essex, Kent and East Anglian seats – such as Castle Point, Basildon South and East Thurrock, Thanet North, Sittingbourne and Sheppey and Norfolk South West – as examples of where Ukip is likely to secure solid second places.

In the south west, Ford says Ukip “will be most likely to gain their silver medals at the expense of the Lib Dems in Conservative-held seats” listing Cambourne and Redruth in Cornwall and Devon South West and Bridgwater and West Somerset as examples.Mark Reckless, the Ukip MP for Rochester and Strood, said he believed the estimate of 100 second places for Ukip was too low. He predicted that their second places in the north would be the beginning of a huge transformation in British politics.

“I do not believe the Tories will win enough seats on May 7 to be able to deliver David Cameron’s plan for an in/out referendum on Europe. It will only be when enough of the third-placed Tories join Ukip in the north that there will be a majority in the House of Commons that we need to change Britain.”

Ukip on track for 100-plus second places across England | UK news | The Guardian

yea so legit. polling systems are the perfect example of incorruptible evidence we have. what was the source again?

Who won Thursday night's TV debate?

Nigel Farage (Ukip): 43%
Nicola Stugeon (SNP): 32% (Scottish nationalist vote and she can be dismissed anyway as only 9% of the electorate can vote for the SNP)
Ed Miliband (Labour): 18%
Natalie Bennett (Green): 4%
Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru): 3%

BBC TV debate on Twitter: who is winning? - Telegraph


Seems like, yet again, Farage was RIGHT!

Did you hear that anti-Ukippers on here? Farage was RIGHT when he said during the debate on Thursday night that, even by the BBC's standards, it was a very left-wing audience.

I hope Ukip take action against the BBC or, at the very least, the BBC can apologise to Mr Farage, to Ukip and to Ukip's supporters for deliberately packing their audience full of left-wing rent-a-gobs on Thursday night.

Anyone who doubts that Britain is run by an out-of-touch left-wing, metropolitan, liberal elite which tries to stifle any debate about immigration and the EU and anything else which goes against their cosy left-wing consensus must now be seriously reconsidering their opinions now.

(I'm just amazed at the Daily Mail's headline. It was an anti-Ukip audience. Not an anti-Tory one. Cameron chickened out of even taking part in the debate - probably scared that Farage would run rings around him again. Even the DM is as anti-Ukip as most of the rest of the Establishment. I'm also sure the Scots and Welsh were in the audience because of the presence of SNP and Plaid Cymru in the debate. Other than that, though, the article is spot on)....

Anti-Tory bias of BBC debate audience: More than half were left-leaning voters - with some brought in from Scotland and Wales

They cheered calls for more public spending and defences of immigration
When Ukip leader Nigel Farage said they were prejudiced, he was booed
Host David Dimbleby pointed out that audience wasn't selected by the BBC
But by a ‘reputable polling organisation’, later to be revealed to be ICM

By Katherine Rushton and Jack Doyle for the Daily Mail
18 April 2015
Daily Mail

It seems that Mr Farage was right when he angrily accused the audience of being left-wing

The BBC filled more than half its election TV debate audience with left-leaning voters, some of whom were brought in from Scotland and Wales, it emerged last night.

The audience at the filming of Thursday night’s debate in Westminster repeatedly cheered calls for more public spending and strong defences of immigration.

When Ukip leader Nigel Farage interjected and said they were prejudiced, ‘even by the Left-wing standards of the BBC’, the audience only booed him further.

David Dimbleby, who hosted Thursday night’s debate between the Labour, Ukip, Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru leaders, pointed out that the audience had not been selected by the BBC, but by a ‘reputable polling organisation’, later to be revealed to be ICM.

The BBC initially refused to disclose the political make-up of the audience but eventually released figures late yesterday. Of the 200-strong audience, about 58 were Conservative or Ukip supporters while about 102 backed left-leaning parties – Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru or the SNP. The rest – 40 – described themselves as undecided.

The figures mean just 36 per cent of the audience members with a declared political allegiance were supporters of the Tories or Ukip.

But the latest ICM poll for the Guardian put the Tories on 39 per cent and Ukip on 7 per cent – a total of 46 per cent overall.

Last night Mr Farage said: ‘If the audience make-up didn’t reflect that then it’s wrong.’

Bias: When Ukip leader Nigel Farage (right) said the audience was prejudiced, they only booed him further (they obviously didn't see the irony)

Out in the cold: Ukip leader Nigel Farage cuts an isolated figure at the end of the BBC TV debate on Thursday

The BBC told ICM to make sure a fifth were so-called floating voters, and for every five Labour supporters in the room, it made sure there were five for the Conservatives, four for the Lib Dems, two for the Scottish National Party, two for the Green Party and one for Plaid Cymru.

The figures suggest supporters of the Tories and Ukip were significantly under-represented.

Yesterday the BBC refused to disclose how many people had complained about its broadcast.

‘Our data shows the number of audience contacts were heavily influenced by the issue being raised during the debate and therefore we won’t be giving out figures,’ a BBC spokesman said.

Conservative MP Andrew Percy said: ‘The audience should reflect the opinion polls and the fact is that nearly half of the country say they would vote Conservative or Ukip,’

‘You have to ask yourself what would have happened if the audience had been right of centre. The left would have had a field day. They would have been so holier-than-thou.’

John Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, said the BBC’s behaviour was ‘ludicrous’ and its refusal to publish the number of complaints ‘added insult to injury’.

The contest saw Labour's Ed Miliband, SNP's Nicola Sturgeon, Ukip's Nigel Farage, Green's Natalie Bennett and Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood go head-to-head

COMMENTS

Sick of Tory lies, Chester, United Kingdom, less than a minute ago
I think UKIP re doing a marvellous job taking votes off the Tories. The more votes they manage to take, the happier I will be. More power to their elbows, I say. Go UKIP.

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Robert Valentino, Sin City, United Kingdom, about a minute ago
They were anti UKIP not anti Tory. Get it right!

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Chas, Reading, 2 minutes ago
On BBC Five Live on the Radio they had a "carefully picked audience", one of them was a woman who quite obviously opposes Ukip from Farages own constituency, she was very well rehearsed and quite obviously planted to discredit him. I have to say this election which has given a national voice for regional parties has filled me with disgust and fear. Nothing more nothing less.

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Bother, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 7 minutes ago
Just what is it that the media and establishment are so afraid of? All the sickening events that are happening in our country, and indeed around the world, and they still want to suppress democracy. The daily mail would rather we voted labour than UKIP and that says it all really. The so called big boys are in for a good old stuffing in a few weeks.

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OldBossNewBossMeh, London, United Kingdom, 3 minutes ago
In the 1990s New Labour filled the BBC full of acolytes at every level, they only recruit in the Guardian. Now these Common Purpose Marxists are in positions of power and wish to convey a Socialist Marxist agenda. Add that they also receive a large pot of EU money and there you have it.

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cwjones, london, 9 minutes ago
I've worked at the BBC. Mentorn make Question Time etc for the BBC. The personnel are largely ex BBC and they well know that the BBC wants a particular type of audience. The BBC is left wing. Whilst I worked there (for several years) I never once met someone who wasn't. The reason they're so leftie is that they don't want to be seen as a puppet of the Establishment. They think that having a left wing bias deals with that. So Dumbledore was wrong when he implied that the selection of the audience was random. It damn well isn't. Mentorn wouldn't get the contract every year if they behaved that way. And well they know it.

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Honest_Guv, London, 13 minutes ago
DM, it wasn't "anti-Tory" bias - the Tories weren't there. It was anti-UKIP bias. Even your headline is biased and distorted so you're as bad as the BBC.

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LeeW, Fylde Coast, United Kingdom, 2 minutes ago
Anybody doubting the BBC's bias simply Google 'BBC bias'. The 21.5 million search results must tell even the most indoctrinated sheeple that this latest scandal is not a one off phenomena and something is very wrong with the way that this supposedly impartial, publicly funded media company abides by its public service contract.

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BaerkshireJake, Maidenhead, United Kingdom, less than a minute ago
What's the point anyway! We aren't even represented by per head or population!? Democracy is a myth! It's the 1800's with rotten boroughs! Scotland receives more money pre head of capita than anywhere else yet wants more and more! Should of given them independence

Read more: BBC debate audience were half left-leaning with some from Scotland and Wales | Daily Mail Online
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Alan Hardman on the neurotic, far-Left dinosaurs of the Scottish National Party (SNP) who'll wreck our booming economy should they get some power in the election:

Scotland has lost its marbles - and we'll ALL pay the price: ROBERT HARDMAN spent this week north of the border and was chilled by voters' blind determination to elect a party of bungling, neurotic far-Left dinosaurs who'll wreck the booming economy

By Robert Hardman for the Daily Mail
18 April 2015
Daily Mail

For years, it has been the golden rule of electioneering, drummed in to political candidates around the free world and embodied in Bill Clinton’s victorious 1992 campaign slogan.

But perhaps, after this week, the time may have come to shelve the mantra: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ Because this General Election is rapidly turning into a freak show in which the old rules no longer apply — with potentially ruinous consequences for us all.

For here in Scotland, it’s not the economy; it’s the Saltire, stupid. National prosperity is almost an irrelevance in an election driven by synthetic grievance and down-right fantasy.

And the rest of the United Kingdom can do precious little about it.

Calling the shots? Ed Miliband is in SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon's pocket in this Conservative election poster

For the entire complexion of the next government could very well be determined by a woman waving a tax-and-spend, ban-the-bomb manifesto worthy of Michael Foot’s Old Labour dinosaurs.

Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon is not actually standing in this election. Yet, even though her party is projected to secure just 4 per cent of the national vote, she could very well be ‘kingmaker’.

Day after day, the national opinion polls show the two main parties shuffling up or down a point or two with no clear lead. Not so in Scotland. Labour’s enormous tribal vote, which has turned out dutifully for more than 50 years, has crumbled. Last night’s fresh polls in key Scottish seats reinforced predictions of a rout.

Now, with the prospect of winning up to 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats, the hard-Left Scottish National Party could be dangling the keys of No. 10 Downing Street under Ed Miliband’s nose on May 8 — as Miss Sturgeon made abundantly clear on Thursday night’s television debate.

Trying to find out what she will demand in return, on the other hand, is virtually impossible, as I have found for myself.

This is a leader who has come a long way untroubled by forensic media scrutiny (with honourable exceptions, not least the Scottish Daily Mail, which this week exposed her hypocrisy in blocking the right-to-buy scheme for Scottish tenants despite the fact her family bought their council house for £8,400 in 1984) and she is in no mood to be questioned now.

For the past week, I have been travelling across Scotland, from inner-city Glasgow to booming Edinburgh, from an anti-Trident demo on the Clyde to Culloden and the Speyside whisky belt. And the Nats are in the ascendant everywhere.

One morning, I arrive in time to see Miss Sturgeon invade what is almost sacred Labour territory. She is in Kirkcaldy, the Fife town where, last time around, Gordon Brown was returned with the biggest Labour majority in the land.

While the former Prime Minister is promoting his Labour successor Kenny Selbie, a personable 33-year-old equalities officer, the SNP tanks are already rolling into town.

As staff prepare for Miss Sturgeon’s arrival at the Fife HQ of the charity Barnardo’s, the buzz is worthy of a middle-ranking royal visit. All that’s missing is a red carpet.

Barnardo’s Mark Ballard tells me people have even been ringing up to ask if they can stand in the car park just to see Miss Sturgeon.

‘Gordon Brown was a great supporter but that never happened when he came to our shop in town,’ he admits.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and UKIP leader Nigel Farage take part in the Live BBC Election Debate 2015

Even so, it is a scrupulously sterile off-street photo-opportunity, the crowd restricted to charity workers and party apparatchiks. The SNP spin machine is every bit as controlled and ruthless as New Labour’s was under Alastair Campbell.

Dressed immaculately in a crimson dress and matching shoes (no coat), Miss Sturgeon is dropped, alone, at the entrance to the car park allowing the cameras a long shot of her striding purposefully. No flunkies. No former SNP leader Alex Salmond. Look who’s in charge.

She appears weary and rather nervous but, once inside, she works room after room with the easy charm of an old pro, picking up props to nudge the conversation along. She is not over-folksy or patronising as her predecessor could often be.

Yet the paranoia is all too obvious. At the end, television and radio are allocated their daily dose of soundbites — ‘the country can’t afford further Tory austerity’ etc. But newspaper reporters, with their irksome habit of raising difficult issues, are informed that there is ‘no time’ for any questions.

Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon is not actually standing in this election. Yet, even though her party is projected to secure just 4 per cent of the national vote, she could very well be ‘kingmaker’

It is risible, certainly a far cry from the tough-talking ‘kingmaker’ routine in this week’s TV debate.

Miss Sturgeon still finds time to inspect a display of children’s art and baby bibs.

When I attempt to chuck in a disobliging question about the disappearance of Alex Salmond from this campaign, Miss Sturgeon dashes for the door as if someone has just lobbed an egg.

My columnist colleague Stephen Glover has written eloquently about the extent to which party leaders are being hermetically sealed from the electorate in this election. The SNP are every bit as neurotic as the rest of the ‘Westminster elite’ they love to demonise.

Let us set aside the widely accepted SNP narrative that Scotland is a land of food banks and absentee lairds; a downtrodden people saved only by Miss Sturgeon’s ‘progressive’ Nationalists running the Scottish government on meagre rations from Westminster.

The true picture is very different. Quite apart from the Barnett Formula, whereby Scotland gets an extra £1,600 per head of public money than England, the country is enjoying faster growth than the rest of the UK.

In-depth polls show that most Scots (from the glens to the inner city) think the economic outlook for both the country and themselves is a good one.

Heavens, in many former Labour heartlands, most say they would even prefer to see David Cameron running the country rather than Ed Miliband.

Yet when it comes to casting their votes, most look set to vote SNP. And, thanks to the way votes translate into seats, that could create some extraordinary scenarios.

As things stand, for example, the SNP are on course for a third of the number of UKIP’s vote but ten times the number of seats (not to mention added electoral clout).

SNP candidate for Perthshire South and Ochil, Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh, is joined by Alex Salmond, the SNP candidate for the Gordon constituency

That is because UKIP’s current 12 per cent of the vote (around 3.5 million voters on a 2010 turnout) would be spread across the country, delivering four or five seats at most. The SNP on the other hand could be looking at 1.2 million votes and 50 seats.

It would be a democratic deficit to make blood boil in parts of the Home Counties. But why should the SNP care? The main parties continue to trumpet new policies and to argue about each other’s spending plans. Yet they might as well be debating pizza toppings up here because more than a million Scots will be swayed purely by the notion that Westminster has somehow reneged on its referendum ‘vow’ (though few can tell me what it even was) and thus deserves a kicking.

Take, for example, the people in the Maryhill area of Glasgow North, a prime SNP target. It was in the community centre there that Gordon Brown delivered that electrifying speech which turned around last September’s referendum campaign.

Today, on the street outside, I meet several former Labour voters who might have good things to say about sitting Labour MP Ann McKechin but they will still vote for an SNP candidate they cannot name.

Miss McKechin points out: ‘There hasn’t been a single new house built in this constituency in a year and that is down to an SNP Scottish government but they are blaming us.’

In the printing shop next door, Ian Anderson, 28, says that business round here is on the up. He reckons the Coalition government has done a decent enough job. Ed Miliband? ‘A bit of a joke. I would rather stick with the government we’ve got.’

So how will he be voting? Down south, I’d guess he’d be a likely Tory. ‘Oh, it will be SNP,’ says Ian. ‘They’re strong and young. I never voted before the referendum but that’s got me going. The other parties have broken their promise to us.’

There we have it. Forget the economy, stupid.

No wonder so many Labour MPs from the last parliament are in a state of shock.

Iain McKenzie is fighting to retain his Renfrewshire seat of Inverclyde. At a hustings in Greenock, he talks passionately as he makes the case for Labour anti-austerity plans that sound no different to the SNP’s. Yet Nat supporters shout: ‘Shame on you.’

His rival SNP candidate, on the other hand, is cheered as he bumbles his way through prepared statements. He cannot reply to a question without writing down an answer first. Yet he could be an MP next month.

Mr McKenzie looks on like a man who has come home to find his house flattened by a meteorite.

The following night, at another hustings in Dundee, it’s a similar story. Though the atmosphere is not (yet) as menacing as it was during the referendum, the vitriol is mounting on the internet and on the streets.

One hotelier whispers that he fears an orchestrated savaging of his hotel on TripAdvisor if he voices any anti-SNP sentiment. Labour candidates complain of being followed by SNP activists with cameras, looking out for footage to exploit.

What makes all this so astonishing is that Scotland was little more than a footnote at the last general election. None of its 59 seats changed hands in 2010. Labour grabbed 41 with just over a million votes while the other three parties — Scottish Nationalists, Lib Dems and Tories — were fairly evenly matched at just under 500,000 votes each.

Thanks to the spread of voters, though, that translated into 11 seats for the Lib Dems, six for the SNP and one Tory MP. Hence the joke that Scotland had more pandas (in Edinburgh Zoo) than Tories.

In many former Labour heartlands in Scotland, most say they would even prefer to see David Cameron running the country rather than Ed Miliband

We can expect a whole new raft of endangered species gags after next month’s election. Labour could be down to half a dozen seats and the Lib Dems could be level-pegging with the Loch Ness Monster.

How on earth has it happened? Last September, after the poisonous referendum campaign which ultimately saw independence rejected, it was generally assumed that the issue was settled for the foreseeable future and that the Nationalists would retire to nurse their wounds.

Yet the truth is that Scotland was quietly in the throes of a revolution. While the 45 per cent who voted for independence have solidified into the SNP core vote, those who voted ‘No’ remain split between all the other parties, the don’t knows and the don’t cares. And all the time, that SNP vote keeps surging, having now burst through the 50 per cent mark.

Even in an area of Scotland so prosperous it has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country (just 1 per cent) and where I feel as if I might be in Surrey, people seem set to return an MP whose dream is to carry on where Michael Foot left off — and transform Britain into a socialist utopia before dismantling it altogether.

This is Gordon in Aberdeenshire from where Alex Salmond is planning his return to Westminster.

There is no sign of the former SNP boss. I am told that he is 200 miles away flogging his memoirs in an Oban bookshop. His main challengers, the Tories and Lib Dems, are working flat-out on the doorsteps while Labour have little appetite for a contest here, fielding a 23-year-old former assistant manager at McDonald’s. For years this seat remained loyal to the respected Lib Dem Sir Malcolm Bruce, who is standing down.

The new Lib Dem candidate is trying to shore up party loyalists and win defectors from an energetic Tory campaign. But unless his opponents encourage concerted tactical voting, Mr Salmond seems safe enough.

For now, he can continue signing books while Miss Sturgeon does the heavy lifting.

Scotland’s only cheerful minority are the Tories, led by a straight-talking, kick-boxing Glaswegienne. They are in revivalist mood and would regard a couple of seats as a triumph. ‘You don’t turn around 20 years of stagnation in one electoral cycle,’ says party leader and member of the Scottish Parliament Ruth Davidson over a Diet Coke in an Edinburgh pub.

A former BBC journalist and ex-Territorial Army soldier, she is generally accepted to have played a blinder during the referendum campaign. Even Tory-haters admire her pluck.

‘I don’t have a battle bus, I have a battle hatchback,’ says Miss Davidson, 36. She is in no doubt about the threat from Miss Sturgeon, with whom she regularly quarrels in the Holyrood Parliament.

‘We’re both from Glasgow. She’s smart and capable. I think it would be silly to deny these qualities.’

And Miss Sturgeon is on a stupendous roll. Hence this week’s trip to Kirkcaldy. ‘Every academic I’ve talked to is completely surprised about what’s happening,’ says Roger Mullin, an honorary politics professor at Stirling University.

And he should know. Because he is Kirkcaldy’s SNP candidate. ‘We will be writing books about this for years to come.’

Scholars will certainly have plenty to chew on. Up in Inverness, Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, faces eviction. He’s not in when I arrive (this seat is more than twice the size of Luxembourg) but his team explain how he has used his Cabinet influence to obtain extra benefits for the Highlands. They include fuel subsidies and funding for a Loch Ness visitor centre.

‘He must be the only MP who gets criticised for doing too much for his constituency,’ sighs his former special adviser Peter Carroll.

On the streets, gratitude is thin on the ground. ‘I voted for Danny Alexander last time and he’s done a good job,’ says retired teacher Marvia McCulloch, ‘but it’s his coalition with the Tories that’s the problem. I’m SNP now.’

On a nearby housing estate, I find the SNP challenger and local council leader Drew Hendry knocking on doors. Unlike his party leader, he is happy to chat. ‘We’re taking nothing for granted but we’re getting support across the board, including “No” voters,’ he says.

As leader of the local council, he knows Danny Alexander well. ‘But I’m not buying the “he’s done lots for the constituency” line. He has used his position in government to punish people and cut our ability to invest here. When we put things in our manifesto, we deliver.’

And that’s the issue. Because, if they do, the rest of the UK may not know what has hit it after May 8.


AMANDA PLATELL: WHY WE WOMEN CAN'T STAND STURGEON

PLATELL'S PEOPLE: Why we women can't stand Sturgeon | Daily Mail Online

Read more: ROBERT HARDMAN chilled by Scotland's determination to elect neurotic far-Left dinosaurs | Daily Mail Online
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[DaSleeper]

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

Here is the Poll I saw

Poll

Who won last night's debate?

Nicola Sturgeon (SNP): 62.857%
Ed Miliband (Labour): 82.99%
Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru): 29.231%
Natalie Bennett (Green): 68.432%
Nigel Farage (Ukip): 199.01%

Again bright read letters so must be true.

 

[gore0bsessed]

Most people would say Mr Farage won the debate hands down on Thursday night. His was commonsense views up against four left-wing numpties who will ruin this country if any of them form a government. Those other four must be kept out for the good of this country and I'm hoping for a Tory/Ukip/DUP coalition after the election. In fact, after last Thursday's "debate" (although it wasn't much of a debate, just four left-wing numpties making it look like a students' union debate on how to spend other people's money with the only sensible person on the panel booed and hissed and jeered by Left-wing BBc rent-a-gobs who want to stifle any debate and any views which go against the cosy British liberal Establishment), I think that scenario is now even more likely.

I also noticed just after the debate that Sky News's Adam Boulton commented that it did look as though the audience was packed full of Left-wingers and was biased against Mr Farage. Sky New Political Editor Faisal Islam, who was talking to Boulton, said the same.

The comments sections in the British print media are showing backing for Farage's claims that the BBC deliberately packed its audience with Londoncentric, left-wing, liberal rent-a-gobs on Thursday night's TV debate - just as it does on its weekly Question Time show - and show a deep mistrust of the BBC and the Establishment. I really do hope Ukip take action against the BBC like they are threatening to.

The audience in Westminster on Thursday night - like the BBC's Question Time audience - does not represent the views of the British people as a whole, merely the views of a Londoncentric left-wing metropolitan elite who are completely out-of-touch with the lives of ordinary people.

As for Mr Farage's debating prowess, he's well-known as being a great orator and a great debator. His debating prowess is second to none, certainly of a much higher quality than the four gormless left-wing twonks he was up again on Thursday night whose profligate, take-take-take-take economic policies will ruin Britian if any of them get into power.

But the Left can do all they like to try and destroy Ukip, but ut's just not working. Polls show they are going to have a very successfuil election. The Left-wing establishment's dirty, anti-democratic tricks, like we saw on Thursday night, just aren't working. In fact, such diagraceful booing and hissing of Ukip politicians when they say that immigration should be cut and Scotland's funding through the Barnett Formula should be cut and that Britain should leave the EU only STRENGTHENS Ukip and rallies even more people to their cause.

Packing audiences full of left-wingers during TV debates to bully Farage just shows how worried the Left-wing establishment are at the continued rise of an anti-EU party which wants to cut immigration. They're definitely worried.

Ukip on track for 100-plus second places across England

Analysis predicts huge breakthrough as Nigel Farage provides main threat to three parties


Nigel Farage explains Ukip’s policy on immigration earlier this week. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

Toby Helm
Saturday 7 March 2015
The Guardian

Ukip is on course to come second in at least 100 seats at the general election as it displaces the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems as the main opposition across large parts of the country, according to new analysis of the party’s electoral prospects on 7 May.

The extraordinary potential haul of Ukip “silver medals” – in an addition to a likely tally of half-a-dozen or so seats at Westminster – would represent a massive breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s anti-EU party, which failed to achieve even a single second place in 2010.

The analysis, conducted by Robert Ford at the University of Manchester for the Observer, suggests that the biggest threat to the established parties from Ukip will come in future local and national elections after May, once it has put down local roots and established itself in the minds of voters as a real alternative to the incumbent party.

It also means that the future of the UK in the EU – normally not a top issue on the doorsteps – will become far more central to election debates, as Ukip candidates press the case for the country to quit the EU and apply pressure for an in/out referendum.

Examining Ukip’s strength, as well as byelections in this parliament, Ford concludes that Farage’s party will pile up “silver medals” across industrial and urban regions in the north of England, as well in parts of the Midlands, the south east and East Anglia and the south west.

The party is polling at between 10% and 15% in most polls. In today’s Opinium/Observer poll it is on 14%.

Ukip stand to finish second in at least 100 seats in England in the election, giving them a great platform to build on in subsequent local and national polls

“At a conservative estimate, there look like being 70 to 100 Ukip silver medals at the election and it could well be more,” said Ford, who co-authored a book on the rise of Ukip – Revolt on the Right – with fellow don Matthew Goodwin..

Ukip currently has two MPs following successive byelection wins for Tory defectors Douglas Carswell in Clacton and Mark Reckless in Rochester and Strood, last autumn. The party is hopeful of winning a handful of others on 7 May, including Thanet South, where Farage is facing a close fight to defeat the Tories.

Ukip’s own strategists believe the party could come second in at least 100 seats in the north alone, as it replaces the severely weakened Tories as the main opposition to Labour, and begins to breathe down the necks of Labour MPs. Ford sees Ukip coming second to several shadow cabinet members including Ed Miliband in Doncaster North, Ed Balls in Morley and Outwood, Yvette Cooper in Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and Rachel Reeves in Leeds West.

Just as Ukip is on course to replace the Tories as the main opposition in parts of the north, it is set to do the same to Labour and the Lib Dem in parts of the south and south east, and the Lib Dems in the south west.

Ford cites Essex, Kent and East Anglian seats – such as Castle Point, Basildon South and East Thurrock, Thanet North, Sittingbourne and Sheppey and Norfolk South West – as examples of where Ukip is likely to secure solid second places.

In the south west, Ford says Ukip “will be most likely to gain their silver medals at the expense of the Lib Dems in Conservative-held seats” listing Cambourne and Redruth in Cornwall and Devon South West and Bridgwater and West Somerset as examples.Mark Reckless, the Ukip MP for Rochester and Strood, said he believed the estimate of 100 second places for Ukip was too low. He predicted that their second places in the north would be the beginning of a huge transformation in British politics.

“I do not believe the Tories will win enough seats on May 7 to be able to deliver David Cameron’s plan for an in/out referendum on Europe. It will only be when enough of the third-placed Tories join Ukip in the north that there will be a majority in the House of Commons that we need to change Britain.”

Ukip on track for 100-plus second places across England | UK news | The Guardian




Who won Thursday night's TV debate?

Nigel Farage (Ukip): 43%
Nicola Stugeon (SNP): 32% (Scottish nationalist vote and she can be dismissed anyway as only 9% of the electorate can vote for the SNP)
Ed Miliband (Labour): 18%
Natalie Bennett (Green): 4%
Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru): 3%

BBC TV debate on Twitter: who is winning? - Telegraph


Seems like, yet again, Farage was RIGHT!

Did you hear that anti-Ukippers on here? Farage was RIGHT when he said during the debate on Thursday night that, even by the BBC's standards, it was a very left-wing audience.

I hope Ukip take action against the BBC or, at the very least, the BBC can apologise to Mr Farage, to Ukip and to Ukip's supporters for deliberately packing their audience full of left-wing rent-a-gobs on Thursday night.

Anyone who doubts that Britain is run by an out-of-touch left-wing, metropolitan, liberal elite which tries to stifle any debate about immigration and the EU and anything else which goes against their cosy left-wing consensus must now be seriously reconsidering their opinions now.

(I'm just amazed at the Daily Mail's headline. It was an anti-Ukip audience. Not an anti-Tory one. Cameron chickened out of even taking part in the debate - probably scared that Farage would run rings around him again. Even the DM is as anti-Ukip as most of the rest of the Establishment. I'm also sure the Scots and Welsh were in the audience because of the presence of SNP and Plaid Cymru in the debate. Other than that, though, the article is spot on)....

Anti-Tory bias of BBC debate audience: More than half were left-leaning voters - with some brought in from Scotland and Wales

They cheered calls for more public spending and defences of immigration
When Ukip leader Nigel Farage said they were prejudiced, he was booed
Host David Dimbleby pointed out that audience wasn't selected by the BBC
But by a ‘reputable polling organisation’, later to be revealed to be ICM

By Katherine Rushton and Jack Doyle for the Daily Mail
18 April 2015
Daily Mail

It seems that Mr Farage was right when he angrily accused the audience of being left-wing

The BBC filled more than half its election TV debate audience with left-leaning voters, some of whom were brought in from Scotland and Wales, it emerged last night.

The audience at the filming of Thursday night’s debate in Westminster repeatedly cheered calls for more public spending and strong defences of immigration.

When Ukip leader Nigel Farage interjected and said they were prejudiced, ‘even by the Left-wing standards of the BBC’, the audience only booed him further.

David Dimbleby, who hosted Thursday night’s debate between the Labour, Ukip, Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru leaders, pointed out that the audience had not been selected by the BBC, but by a ‘reputable polling organisation’, later to be revealed to be ICM.

The BBC initially refused to disclose the political make-up of the audience but eventually released figures late yesterday. Of the 200-strong audience, about 58 were Conservative or Ukip supporters while about 102 backed left-leaning parties – Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru or the SNP. The rest – 40 – described themselves as undecided.

The figures mean just 36 per cent of the audience members with a declared political allegiance were supporters of the Tories or Ukip.

But the latest ICM poll for the Guardian put the Tories on 39 per cent and Ukip on 7 per cent – a total of 46 per cent overall.

Last night Mr Farage said: ‘If the audience make-up didn’t reflect that then it’s wrong.’

Bias: When Ukip leader Nigel Farage (right) said the audience was prejudiced, they only booed him further (they obviously didn't see the irony)

Out in the cold: Ukip leader Nigel Farage cuts an isolated figure at the end of the BBC TV debate on Thursday

The BBC told ICM to make sure a fifth were so-called floating voters, and for every five Labour supporters in the room, it made sure there were five for the Conservatives, four for the Lib Dems, two for the Scottish National Party, two for the Green Party and one for Plaid Cymru.

The figures suggest supporters of the Tories and Ukip were significantly under-represented.

Yesterday the BBC refused to disclose how many people had complained about its broadcast.

‘Our data shows the number of audience contacts were heavily influenced by the issue being raised during the debate and therefore we won’t be giving out figures,’ a BBC spokesman said.

Conservative MP Andrew Percy said: ‘The audience should reflect the opinion polls and the fact is that nearly half of the country say they would vote Conservative or Ukip,’

‘You have to ask yourself what would have happened if the audience had been right of centre. The left would have had a field day. They would have been so holier-than-thou.’

John Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, said the BBC’s behaviour was ‘ludicrous’ and its refusal to publish the number of complaints ‘added insult to injury’.

The contest saw Labour's Ed Miliband, SNP's Nicola Sturgeon, Ukip's Nigel Farage, Green's Natalie Bennett and Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood go head-to-head

COMMENTS

Sick of Tory lies, Chester, United Kingdom, less than a minute ago
I think UKIP re doing a marvellous job taking votes off the Tories. The more votes they manage to take, the happier I will be. More power to their elbows, I say. Go UKIP.

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Robert Valentino, Sin City, United Kingdom, about a minute ago
They were anti UKIP not anti Tory. Get it right!

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Chas, Reading, 2 minutes ago
On BBC Five Live on the Radio they had a "carefully picked audience", one of them was a woman who quite obviously opposes Ukip from Farages own constituency, she was very well rehearsed and quite obviously planted to discredit him. I have to say this election which has given a national voice for regional parties has filled me with disgust and fear. Nothing more nothing less.

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Bother, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 7 minutes ago
Just what is it that the media and establishment are so afraid of? All the sickening events that are happening in our country, and indeed around the world, and they still want to suppress democracy. The daily mail would rather we voted labour than UKIP and that says it all really. The so called big boys are in for a good old stuffing in a few weeks.

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OldBossNewBossMeh, London, United Kingdom, 3 minutes ago
In the 1990s New Labour filled the BBC full of acolytes at every level, they only recruit in the Guardian. Now these Common Purpose Marxists are in positions of power and wish to convey a Socialist Marxist agenda. Add that they also receive a large pot of EU money and there you have it.

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cwjones, london, 9 minutes ago
I've worked at the BBC. Mentorn make Question Time etc for the BBC. The personnel are largely ex BBC and they well know that the BBC wants a particular type of audience. The BBC is left wing. Whilst I worked there (for several years) I never once met someone who wasn't. The reason they're so leftie is that they don't want to be seen as a puppet of the Establishment. They think that having a left wing bias deals with that. So Dumbledore was wrong when he implied that the selection of the audience was random. It damn well isn't. Mentorn wouldn't get the contract every year if they behaved that way. And well they know it.

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Honest_Guv, London, 13 minutes ago
DM, it wasn't "anti-Tory" bias - the Tories weren't there. It was anti-UKIP bias. Even your headline is biased and distorted so you're as bad as the BBC.

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LeeW, Fylde Coast, United Kingdom, 2 minutes ago
Anybody doubting the BBC's bias simply Google 'BBC bias'. The 21.5 million search results must tell even the most indoctrinated sheeple that this latest scandal is not a one off phenomena and something is very wrong with the way that this supposedly impartial, publicly funded media company abides by its public service contract.

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BaerkshireJake, Maidenhead, United Kingdom, less than a minute ago
What's the point anyway! We aren't even represented by per head or population!? Democracy is a myth! It's the 1800's with rotten boroughs! Scotland receives more money pre head of capita than anywhere else yet wants more and more! Should of given them independence

Read more: BBC debate audience were half left-leaning with some from Scotland and Wales | Daily Mail Online
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Alan Hardman on the neurotic, far-Left dinosaurs of the Scottish National Party (SNP) who'll wreck our booming economy should they get some power in the election:

Scotland has lost its marbles - and we'll ALL pay the price: ROBERT HARDMAN spent this week north of the border and was chilled by voters' blind determination to elect a party of bungling, neurotic far-Left dinosaurs who'll wreck the booming economy

By Robert Hardman for the Daily Mail
18 April 2015
Daily Mail

For years, it has been the golden rule of electioneering, drummed in to political candidates around the free world and embodied in Bill Clinton’s victorious 1992 campaign slogan.

But perhaps, after this week, the time may have come to shelve the mantra: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ Because this General Election is rapidly turning into a freak show in which the old rules no longer apply — with potentially ruinous consequences for us all.

For here in Scotland, it’s not the economy; it’s the Saltire, stupid. National prosperity is almost an irrelevance in an election driven by synthetic grievance and down-right fantasy.

And the rest of the United Kingdom can do precious little about it.

Calling the shots? Ed Miliband is in SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon's pocket in this Conservative election poster

For the entire complexion of the next government could very well be determined by a woman waving a tax-and-spend, ban-the-bomb manifesto worthy of Michael Foot’s Old Labour dinosaurs.

Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon is not actually standing in this election. Yet, even though her party is projected to secure just 4 per cent of the national vote, she could very well be ‘kingmaker’.

Day after day, the national opinion polls show the two main parties shuffling up or down a point or two with no clear lead. Not so in Scotland. Labour’s enormous tribal vote, which has turned out dutifully for more than 50 years, has crumbled. Last night’s fresh polls in key Scottish seats reinforced predictions of a rout.

Now, with the prospect of winning up to 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats, the hard-Left Scottish National Party could be dangling the keys of No. 10 Downing Street under Ed Miliband’s nose on May 8 — as Miss Sturgeon made abundantly clear on Thursday night’s television debate.

Trying to find out what she will demand in return, on the other hand, is virtually impossible, as I have found for myself.

This is a leader who has come a long way untroubled by forensic media scrutiny (with honourable exceptions, not least the Scottish Daily Mail, which this week exposed her hypocrisy in blocking the right-to-buy scheme for Scottish tenants despite the fact her family bought their council house for £8,400 in 1984) and she is in no mood to be questioned now.

For the past week, I have been travelling across Scotland, from inner-city Glasgow to booming Edinburgh, from an anti-Trident demo on the Clyde to Culloden and the Speyside whisky belt. And the Nats are in the ascendant everywhere.

One morning, I arrive in time to see Miss Sturgeon invade what is almost sacred Labour territory. She is in Kirkcaldy, the Fife town where, last time around, Gordon Brown was returned with the biggest Labour majority in the land.

While the former Prime Minister is promoting his Labour successor Kenny Selbie, a personable 33-year-old equalities officer, the SNP tanks are already rolling into town.

As staff prepare for Miss Sturgeon’s arrival at the Fife HQ of the charity Barnardo’s, the buzz is worthy of a middle-ranking royal visit. All that’s missing is a red carpet.

Barnardo’s Mark Ballard tells me people have even been ringing up to ask if they can stand in the car park just to see Miss Sturgeon.

‘Gordon Brown was a great supporter but that never happened when he came to our shop in town,’ he admits.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and UKIP leader Nigel Farage take part in the Live BBC Election Debate 2015

Even so, it is a scrupulously sterile off-street photo-opportunity, the crowd restricted to charity workers and party apparatchiks. The SNP spin machine is every bit as controlled and ruthless as New Labour’s was under Alastair Campbell.

Dressed immaculately in a crimson dress and matching shoes (no coat), Miss Sturgeon is dropped, alone, at the entrance to the car park allowing the cameras a long shot of her striding purposefully. No flunkies. No former SNP leader Alex Salmond. Look who’s in charge.

She appears weary and rather nervous but, once inside, she works room after room with the easy charm of an old pro, picking up props to nudge the conversation along. She is not over-folksy or patronising as her predecessor could often be.

Yet the paranoia is all too obvious. At the end, television and radio are allocated their daily dose of soundbites — ‘the country can’t afford further Tory austerity’ etc. But newspaper reporters, with their irksome habit of raising difficult issues, are informed that there is ‘no time’ for any questions.

Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon is not actually standing in this election. Yet, even though her party is projected to secure just 4 per cent of the national vote, she could very well be ‘kingmaker’

It is risible, certainly a far cry from the tough-talking ‘kingmaker’ routine in this week’s TV debate.

Miss Sturgeon still finds time to inspect a display of children’s art and baby bibs.

When I attempt to chuck in a disobliging question about the disappearance of Alex Salmond from this campaign, Miss Sturgeon dashes for the door as if someone has just lobbed an egg.

My columnist colleague Stephen Glover has written eloquently about the extent to which party leaders are being hermetically sealed from the electorate in this election. The SNP are every bit as neurotic as the rest of the ‘Westminster elite’ they love to demonise.

Let us set aside the widely accepted SNP narrative that Scotland is a land of food banks and absentee lairds; a downtrodden people saved only by Miss Sturgeon’s ‘progressive’ Nationalists running the Scottish government on meagre rations from Westminster.

The true picture is very different. Quite apart from the Barnett Formula, whereby Scotland gets an extra £1,600 per head of public money than England, the country is enjoying faster growth than the rest of the UK.

In-depth polls show that most Scots (from the glens to the inner city) think the economic outlook for both the country and themselves is a good one.

Heavens, in many former Labour heartlands, most say they would even prefer to see David Cameron running the country rather than Ed Miliband.

Yet when it comes to casting their votes, most look set to vote SNP. And, thanks to the way votes translate into seats, that could create some extraordinary scenarios.

As things stand, for example, the SNP are on course for a third of the number of UKIP’s vote but ten times the number of seats (not to mention added electoral clout).

SNP candidate for Perthshire South and Ochil, Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh, is joined by Alex Salmond, the SNP candidate for the Gordon constituency

That is because UKIP’s current 12 per cent of the vote (around 3.5 million voters on a 2010 turnout) would be spread across the country, delivering four or five seats at most. The SNP on the other hand could be looking at 1.2 million votes and 50 seats.

It would be a democratic deficit to make blood boil in parts of the Home Counties. But why should the SNP care? The main parties continue to trumpet new policies and to argue about each other’s spending plans. Yet they might as well be debating pizza toppings up here because more than a million Scots will be swayed purely by the notion that Westminster has somehow reneged on its referendum ‘vow’ (though few can tell me what it even was) and thus deserves a kicking.

Take, for example, the people in the Maryhill area of Glasgow North, a prime SNP target. It was in the community centre there that Gordon Brown delivered that electrifying speech which turned around last September’s referendum campaign.

Today, on the street outside, I meet several former Labour voters who might have good things to say about sitting Labour MP Ann McKechin but they will still vote for an SNP candidate they cannot name.

Miss McKechin points out: ‘There hasn’t been a single new house built in this constituency in a year and that is down to an SNP Scottish government but they are blaming us.’

In the printing shop next door, Ian Anderson, 28, says that business round here is on the up. He reckons the Coalition government has done a decent enough job. Ed Miliband? ‘A bit of a joke. I would rather stick with the government we’ve got.’

So how will he be voting? Down south, I’d guess he’d be a likely Tory. ‘Oh, it will be SNP,’ says Ian. ‘They’re strong and young. I never voted before the referendum but that’s got me going. The other parties have broken their promise to us.’

There we have it. Forget the economy, stupid.

No wonder so many Labour MPs from the last parliament are in a state of shock.

Iain McKenzie is fighting to retain his Renfrewshire seat of Inverclyde. At a hustings in Greenock, he talks passionately as he makes the case for Labour anti-austerity plans that sound no different to the SNP’s. Yet Nat supporters shout: ‘Shame on you.’

His rival SNP candidate, on the other hand, is cheered as he bumbles his way through prepared statements. He cannot reply to a question without writing down an answer first. Yet he could be an MP next month.

Mr McKenzie looks on like a man who has come home to find his house flattened by a meteorite.

The following night, at another hustings in Dundee, it’s a similar story. Though the atmosphere is not (yet) as menacing as it was during the referendum, the vitriol is mounting on the internet and on the streets.

One hotelier whispers that he fears an orchestrated savaging of his hotel on TripAdvisor if he voices any anti-SNP sentiment. Labour candidates complain of being followed by SNP activists with cameras, looking out for footage to exploit.

What makes all this so astonishing is that Scotland was little more than a footnote at the last general election. None of its 59 seats changed hands in 2010. Labour grabbed 41 with just over a million votes while the other three parties — Scottish Nationalists, Lib Dems and Tories — were fairly evenly matched at just under 500,000 votes each.

Thanks to the spread of voters, though, that translated into 11 seats for the Lib Dems, six for the SNP and one Tory MP. Hence the joke that Scotland had more pandas (in Edinburgh Zoo) than Tories.

In many former Labour heartlands in Scotland, most say they would even prefer to see David Cameron running the country rather than Ed Miliband

We can expect a whole new raft of endangered species gags after next month’s election. Labour could be down to half a dozen seats and the Lib Dems could be level-pegging with the Loch Ness Monster.

How on earth has it happened? Last September, after the poisonous referendum campaign which ultimately saw independence rejected, it was generally assumed that the issue was settled for the foreseeable future and that the Nationalists would retire to nurse their wounds.

Yet the truth is that Scotland was quietly in the throes of a revolution. While the 45 per cent who voted for independence have solidified into the SNP core vote, those who voted ‘No’ remain split between all the other parties, the don’t knows and the don’t cares. And all the time, that SNP vote keeps surging, having now burst through the 50 per cent mark.

Even in an area of Scotland so prosperous it has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country (just 1 per cent) and where I feel as if I might be in Surrey, people seem set to return an MP whose dream is to carry on where Michael Foot left off — and transform Britain into a socialist utopia before dismantling it altogether.

This is Gordon in Aberdeenshire from where Alex Salmond is planning his return to Westminster.

There is no sign of the former SNP boss. I am told that he is 200 miles away flogging his memoirs in an Oban bookshop. His main challengers, the Tories and Lib Dems, are working flat-out on the doorsteps while Labour have little appetite for a contest here, fielding a 23-year-old former assistant manager at McDonald’s. For years this seat remained loyal to the respected Lib Dem Sir Malcolm Bruce, who is standing down.

The new Lib Dem candidate is trying to shore up party loyalists and win defectors from an energetic Tory campaign. But unless his opponents encourage concerted tactical voting, Mr Salmond seems safe enough.

For now, he can continue signing books while Miss Sturgeon does the heavy lifting.

Scotland’s only cheerful minority are the Tories, led by a straight-talking, kick-boxing Glaswegienne. They are in revivalist mood and would regard a couple of seats as a triumph. ‘You don’t turn around 20 years of stagnation in one electoral cycle,’ says party leader and member of the Scottish Parliament Ruth Davidson over a Diet Coke in an Edinburgh pub.

A former BBC journalist and ex-Territorial Army soldier, she is generally accepted to have played a blinder during the referendum campaign. Even Tory-haters admire her pluck.

‘I don’t have a battle bus, I have a battle hatchback,’ says Miss Davidson, 36. She is in no doubt about the threat from Miss Sturgeon, with whom she regularly quarrels in the Holyrood Parliament.

‘We’re both from Glasgow. She’s smart and capable. I think it would be silly to deny these qualities.’

And Miss Sturgeon is on a stupendous roll. Hence this week’s trip to Kirkcaldy. ‘Every academic I’ve talked to is completely surprised about what’s happening,’ says Roger Mullin, an honorary politics professor at Stirling University.

And he should know. Because he is Kirkcaldy’s SNP candidate. ‘We will be writing books about this for years to come.’

Scholars will certainly have plenty to chew on. Up in Inverness, Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, faces eviction. He’s not in when I arrive (this seat is more than twice the size of Luxembourg) but his team explain how he has used his Cabinet influence to obtain extra benefits for the Highlands. They include fuel subsidies and funding for a Loch Ness visitor centre.

‘He must be the only MP who gets criticised for doing too much for his constituency,’ sighs his former special adviser Peter Carroll.

On the streets, gratitude is thin on the ground. ‘I voted for Danny Alexander last time and he’s done a good job,’ says retired teacher Marvia McCulloch, ‘but it’s his coalition with the Tories that’s the problem. I’m SNP now.’

On a nearby housing estate, I find the SNP challenger and local council leader Drew Hendry knocking on doors. Unlike his party leader, he is happy to chat. ‘We’re taking nothing for granted but we’re getting support across the board, including “No” voters,’ he says.

As leader of the local council, he knows Danny Alexander well. ‘But I’m not buying the “he’s done lots for the constituency” line. He has used his position in government to punish people and cut our ability to invest here. When we put things in our manifesto, we deliver.’

And that’s the issue. Because, if they do, the rest of the UK may not know what has hit it after May 8.


AMANDA PLATELL: WHY WE WOMEN CAN'T STAND STURGEON

PLATELL'S PEOPLE: Why we women can't stand Sturgeon | Daily Mail Online

Read more: ROBERT HARDMAN chilled by Scotland's determination to elect neurotic far-Left dinosaurs | Daily Mail Online
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I'm not sure how you talk with a delusional xenophobe who thinks internet website polls and cherry picking favourable comments from random UKIP supporters is proof Farage won a debate. This despite the reality of him being barely noticeable in the debate in comparison to Miliband and Sturgeon.

I think you know he lost too, that's why you're being a sore loser and blaming the BBC about the poor response from the crowd.

 

[Blackleaf]

I'm not sure how you talk with a delusional xenophobe

It's not me who's delusional. It's you.

I've noticed how you've skirted the fact that Mr Farage has been proven RIGHT and that the audience WAS a left-wing audience on Thursday night with, deliberately, not enough Tory and Ukip voters in it.

who thinks internet website polls and cherry picking favourable comments from random UKIP supporters is proof Farage won a debate.

I've noticed that only one "official" poll was released after the debate. In the previous debate, two weeks before, FOUR polls were released and each of the four polls showed a DIFFERENT winner. The polling was all over the place. One poll said Mr Farage won. Another said Millipede won. Yet another said Wee Jimmy Kranky won. And the other one showed that THREE of them were JOINT winners. And yet, after this, you expect me to believe the "official" polls, even though they themselves can't decide who won the debate? I'll rather believe the messages I read on online newspaper comments sections and discussion forums rather than these unreliable polls.

Now, with this most recent debate, only ONE poll was released compared to four the last time. Now why was that? My theory is that all the other polls that were conducted showed that Farage won, but the media didn't want that to be known, so the only poll they've released is the one that shows Wee Jimmy Kranky won. And that hardly matters because she isn't even standing in this election. Her party isn't a national, UK-wide party and she is merely the leader of the largest party in the "Scottish Parliament", which is nothing more than a large parish council seeing to the needs of just five million Scots, a population just two thirds that of London alone.

As for these polls, Mr Farage came out the day after the debate and said, quite rightly, that they are now highly unreliable as they, too, have a left-wing, liberal, Londoncentric slant.

This despite the reality of him being barely noticeable in the debate in comparison to Miliband and Sturgeon.

Barely noticeable? He was the ONLY ONE in that ludicrous non-debate who actually had the courage just to say things as they are rather than burdening himself with the usual boring, predictable, platitudinal, PC claptrap like the four out-of-touch Loony Lefties he wiped the floor with.

He merely said the reality: namely that too much immigration is placing pressure on housing and other public services; that Scotland is getting too much money from English taxpayers through the Barnett Formula and it needs to be cut; that Britain must keep her nuclear weapons; and that Britain must leave the EU. The four left-wing clowns he soundly defeated, though, are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, and have a 1970s vision of turning Britain into a communist/socialist utopia. The last time the Left had such a vision in Britain, back in the 1970s, they completely wrecked the economy, Britain had to go begging to the IMF and the great Mrs Thatcher had to come in and rescue things.

Should the dangerous Millipede and Wee Jimmy Kranky get to form a government next month then they will do the same to Britain again, and that is why they must be kept out and a Tory/Ukip/DUP coalition must be formed.

I think you know he lost too, that's why you're being a sore loser and blaming the BBC about the poor response from the crowd.

Farage won the debate against four very dangerous Far-Left numpties whose dangerous, old-fashioned socialist policies hark back to 1970s Britain and they will bankrupt Britain and destroy her booming economy if any of them get into power in May.

I'm voting Ukip for a better Britain.

Beware this very sinister brand of Left-wing populism: Dominic Sandbrook on why TV debate group huddle peddles message of class resentment

By Dominic Sandbrook for the Daily Mail
17 April 2015
Daily Mail

There was a telling moment at the end of Thursday night’s ludicrous non-debate.

Four of the five speakers – Ed Miliband, Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood and the Greens’ Natalie Bennett – moved into a little huddle of smirking self-congratulation. Meanwhile, on the right, Nigel Farage stood alone, exiled to the edge of the stage.

What that image symbolised is perhaps the most powerful and the most dangerous force in British politics today – a new brand of Left-wing populism that peddles a message of class resentment, seeks to profit from a rhetoric of division, and holds up a fantastic, fairytale vision in which, if only the rich are properly squeezed, the government can splash money around to its heart’s content.

Four of the five speakers moved into a little huddle of smirking self-congratulation, while on the right, Nigel Farage stood alone

Dangerous foursome: SNP's Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood and the Greens’ Natalie Bennett hug as Labour's Ed Miliband looks on

As the editor of the Spectator magazine, Fraser Nelson, noted in an astute essay this week, this phenomenon is not limited to Britain. Across the Western world, it taps into ordinary people’s fears that ever since the financial crash of 2007-8, the system has been rigged against them – the same fears that helped to drive the rise of Ukip.

And not surprisingly, it has proved most seductive in countries where the impact of the recession was far greater, notably the bleeding economies of the Eurozone.

Already this strange blend of 1960s-style student-union idealism and old-fashioned hard-Left class warfare has catapulted the anti-austerity Syriza to power in Greece. Indeed, only this week there were renewed warnings that Greece’s new hard-Left rulers might pull out of the euro and default on their debts, with devastating repercussions for the European economy.

Elsewhere, similar gaggles of socialist professors, student activists, high-minded liberals and unrepentant class warriors are carrying all before them. The most extraordinary example is the Spanish party Podemos (which means "We Can"), which was founded last year by a 36-year-old political science lecturer called Pablo Iglesias.

With the exception of Mr Farage (pictured), the speakers were united in their preposterous belief that there is an easy, painless answer to deficit reduction

Today, Podemos is the most dynamic force in Spanish, if not European, politics, with 350,000 members and five MEPs. Like its Greek counterpart, it promises jam for everyone, except the rich. Its programme is full of woolly, well-meaning waffle about liberty, equality and fraternity, but the specifics are simply old-fashioned tax and spend, cranked up to the maximum.

As the New York Times remarked, Podemos’s manifesto ‘reads like a wish-list, with little detail about how it could be financed at a time when Spain is still struggling under a heavy debt burden.’

But in a political landscape where so many are bruised by austerity, this kind of fairytale economics, in which debts can be wished away with a magic wand, has a terrifyingly potent appeal.

It is this lazy, demagogic populism – blame the bankers, soak the rich, promise billions for all and pay homage at the shrine of the NHS – that has defined Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour Party.

Indeed, it is this populism that unites him with his rivals in the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party, who appear to believe that Britain’s national debt will simply disappear if they close their eyes and make a wish.

I doubt I am alone in finding this election campaign one of the most disheartening in living memory. All the parties are locked in a demeaning bidding war, promising endless impossible goodies in return for our votes.

Thursday’s leaders’ debate, though, really took the biscuit. With the exception of Mr Farage the speakers were united in their preposterous belief that there is an easy, painless answer to deficit reduction.

The fact that parties such as the Greens and the SNP believe this kind of twaddle does not surprise me at all. The depressing thing, though, is that Mr Miliband earnestly believes it, too.

Ever since becoming Labour leader in 2010, this quintessential Hampstead intellectual has been convinced that Britain is on the brink of a dramatic conversion to the politics of the Left. He is the first Labour leader for almost two decades who instinctively dislikes capitalism, distrusts the free market, sneers at businessmen and despises talk of wealth creation.

What Mr Miliband peddles is a simplistic credo of heroes and villains – for example, saintly NHS nurses on the one hand, villainous City financiers on the other.

Gone is the mantra of ‘One Nation Labour’. Instead, the Labour programme offers only what critics describe as ‘the politics of division’.

In different circumstances, this formula would take Mr Miliband only to an ignominious and well-deserved defeat. But these are strange times. As we saw in Thursday’s BBC TV debate, in which Mr Farage loudly complained about the apparent Left-wing bias of the audience, there is a distressingly large and vociferous market for Mr Miliband’s class-war politics.

Read more: Beware this very sinister brand of Left-wing populism by Dominic Sandbrook | Daily Mail Online
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Ukip sets lawyers on biased BBC: Furious Farage goes to war over Left-wing debate audience

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has instructed the party’s lawyers to act over BBC bias.

By Caroline Wheeler
Sun, Apr 19, 2015
Daily Express

Ukip leader alone at the end of the TV debate as Left-wing rivals talk together GETTY

The move plunges the corporation into a new impartiality row following claims of a Left-wing slant in Thursday’s TV debate.

The BBC’s Director General is being pressed to answer searching questions about the make-up of the audience as opposition leaders including Mr Farage clashed.

In a formal letter to the BBC, Ukip's lawyer Andrew Reid has requested details of the company used to select those who were there, how the company was chosen, who at the BBC was involved in the instruction of the company and what research had been done into the ownership of the company and political make-up of its staff.

Mr Farage claimed the audience was “remarkable, even by the Leftwing standards of the BBC”.

Mr Reid, who is also the party treasurer, told the Sunday Express: “I think it is right that the British public are told how the BBC selects its audiences and what safeguards are in place to guard against a loaded audience.”

Last night Mr Farage told the Sunday Express: “There is certainly potential for complaint. I can’t comment on whether there will be a legal complaint because there are precise details about broadcasting legislation, so I will let my lawyer deal with that.”

The audience at the filming of Thursday night’s debate in Westminster repeatedly cheered calls for more public spending and strong defences of immigration.

When the Ukip leader interjected to suggest the audience were prejudiced, they booed him even further.

David Dimbleby, who hosted the debate between the Labour, Ukip, Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru leaders, pointed out that the audience had not been selected by the BBC but by a “reputable polling organisation”, later revealed to be ICM.

The BBC initially refused to disclose the political make-up of the audience but eventually released figures to Express online, which showed that the audience was Left-leaning.

Of the 200-strong audience, about 58 were Conservative or Ukip supporters, while about 102 backed Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP or Plaid Cymru, all Leftist parties. The remaining 40 described themselves as undecided.

The figures mean that just 29 per cent of the total audience were supporters of the Tories or Ukip even though around half of voters in the country say they will be voting for either of those two parties in the election.

The BBC has also faced a string of accusations of bias from the Tories.

It has been alleged that the Question Time audience is weighted towards Labour and the Tories accused the corporation of “bias” and “systematic exaggeration” after its coverage of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last year.

Nigel Farage at the Sunday Express office

"I would like to see a BBC stripped to the bones. It clearly needs absolutely radical root and branch reform"
Nigel Farage
​

“There is an institutional problem,” Mr Farage told the Sunday Express.

“I have spent several years saying that I think our political class are the problem but my view is changing. I think the media class is perhaps an even bigger problem.

“I would like to see a BBC stripped to the bones. It clearly needs absolutely radical root and branch reform.”

Last night a BBC spokesman said: “Ahead of the debates the broadcasters and the political parties agreed that it was appropriate that a reputable independent polling organisation selected the audience.

“ICM, which also selected the ITV debate audience, recruited an audience based on present polling and past electoral support to give a cross section of political opinion.”

An ICM spokesman said that “orthodox random location selection techniques” were used. The BBC also came under fire for using a “worm graph” during the debate to take an instant poll of up to 20 voters in the studio.

The worm graphs (which they rather ridiculously used after the debate to try and show viewers how "unpopular" Nigel Farage was every time he spoke in the debate) were used live on the BBC News channel, online and then in the programme immediately following the debate.

Professor Colin Davis, of Bristol University, said the worms can produce as much as a 30 per cent swing in voting intentions.

The professor, who gave evidence to the House of Lords supporting a ban on worm graphs, said the BBC had ignored a recommendation from the Lords Communications Committee to “not include them”.

The BBC spokesman said: “The debate was available without the worm during the main broadcast on BBC One, where the great majority of the audience tuned in.”

Nigel Farage wants to 'strip the BBC to the bone' in fury over left-wing TV debate crowd | Politics | News | Daily Express

 

[Walter]

BBC admits it stacked the audience.
BBC Admits Political Debate Audience Was Stacked Left

 

[Blackleaf]

I think a full BBC apology to Ukip is warranted.

And then the BBC should be cleaned out. Too left-wing and PC nowadays and is not represent of British society generally.

It should also bring back Clarkson, whom it sacked solely because it disagrees with his politics and non-PC views.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6E0PvFgPHco

 

[MHz]

That is not the first time they have been caught doing that. Galloway and Scotland independence. Childish but it does show what the future will hold as to what is tolerated and what is not.

 

[gore0bsessed]

It's not me who's delusional. It's you.

I've noticed how you've skirted the fact that Mr Farage has been proven RIGHT and that the audience WAS a left-wing audience on Thursday night with, deliberately, not enough Tory and Ukip voters in it.

I've noticed that only one "official" poll was released after the debate. In the previous debate, two weeks before, FOUR polls were released and each of the four polls showed a DIFFERENT winner. The polling was all over the place. One poll said Mr Farage won. Another said Millipede won. Yet another said Wee Jimmy Kranky won. And the other one showed that THREE of them were JOINT winners. And yet, after this, you expect me to believe the "official" polls, even though they themselves can't decide who won the debate? I'll rather believe the messages I read on online newspaper comments sections and discussion forums rather than these unreliable polls.

Now, with this most recent debate, only ONE poll was released compared to four the last time. Now why was that? My theory is that all the other polls that were conducted showed that Farage won, but the media didn't want that to be known, so the only poll they've released is the one that shows Wee Jimmy Kranky won. And that hardly matters because she isn't even standing in this election. Her party isn't a national, UK-wide party and she is merely the leader of the largest party in the "Scottish Parliament", which is nothing more than a large parish council seeing to the needs of just five million Scots, a population just two thirds that of London alone.

As for these polls, Mr Farage came out the day after the debate and said, quite rightly, that they are now highly unreliable as they, too, have a left-wing, liberal, Londoncentric slant.


Barely noticeable? He was the ONLY ONE in that ludicrous non-debate who actually had the courage just to say things as they are rather than burdening himself with the usual boring, predictable, platitudinal, PC claptrap like the four out-of-touch Loony Lefties he wiped the floor with.

He merely said the reality: namely that too much immigration is placing pressure on housing and other public services; that Scotland is getting too much money from English taxpayers through the Barnett Formula and it needs to be cut; that Britain must keep her nuclear weapons; and that Britain must leave the EU. The four left-wing clowns he soundly defeated, though, are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, and have a 1970s vision of turning Britain into a communist/socialist utopia. The last time the Left had such a vision in Britain, back in the 1970s, they completely wrecked the economy, Britain had to go begging to the IMF and the great Mrs Thatcher had to come in and rescue things.

Should the dangerous Millipede and Wee Jimmy Kranky get to form a government next month then they will do the same to Britain again, and that is why they must be kept out and a Tory/Ukip/DUP coalition must be formed.

Farage won the debate against four very dangerous Far-Left numpties whose dangerous, old-fashioned socialist policies hark back to 1970s Britain and they will bankrupt Britain and destroy her booming economy if any of them get into power in May.

I'm voting Ukip for a better Britain.

Beware this very sinister brand of Left-wing populism: Dominic Sandbrook on why TV debate group huddle peddles message of class resentment

By Dominic Sandbrook for the Daily Mail
17 April 2015
Daily Mail

There was a telling moment at the end of Thursday night’s ludicrous non-debate.

Four of the five speakers – Ed Miliband, Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood and the Greens’ Natalie Bennett – moved into a little huddle of smirking self-congratulation. Meanwhile, on the right, Nigel Farage stood alone, exiled to the edge of the stage.

What that image symbolised is perhaps the most powerful and the most dangerous force in British politics today – a new brand of Left-wing populism that peddles a message of class resentment, seeks to profit from a rhetoric of division, and holds up a fantastic, fairytale vision in which, if only the rich are properly squeezed, the government can splash money around to its heart’s content.

Four of the five speakers moved into a little huddle of smirking self-congratulation, while on the right, Nigel Farage stood alone

Dangerous foursome: SNP's Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood and the Greens’ Natalie Bennett hug as Labour's Ed Miliband looks on

As the editor of the Spectator magazine, Fraser Nelson, noted in an astute essay this week, this phenomenon is not limited to Britain. Across the Western world, it taps into ordinary people’s fears that ever since the financial crash of 2007-8, the system has been rigged against them – the same fears that helped to drive the rise of Ukip.

And not surprisingly, it has proved most seductive in countries where the impact of the recession was far greater, notably the bleeding economies of the Eurozone.

Already this strange blend of 1960s-style student-union idealism and old-fashioned hard-Left class warfare has catapulted the anti-austerity Syriza to power in Greece. Indeed, only this week there were renewed warnings that Greece’s new hard-Left rulers might pull out of the euro and default on their debts, with devastating repercussions for the European economy.

Elsewhere, similar gaggles of socialist professors, student activists, high-minded liberals and unrepentant class warriors are carrying all before them. The most extraordinary example is the Spanish party Podemos (which means "We Can"), which was founded last year by a 36-year-old political science lecturer called Pablo Iglesias.

With the exception of Mr Farage (pictured), the speakers were united in their preposterous belief that there is an easy, painless answer to deficit reduction

Today, Podemos is the most dynamic force in Spanish, if not European, politics, with 350,000 members and five MEPs. Like its Greek counterpart, it promises jam for everyone, except the rich. Its programme is full of woolly, well-meaning waffle about liberty, equality and fraternity, but the specifics are simply old-fashioned tax and spend, cranked up to the maximum.

As the New York Times remarked, Podemos’s manifesto ‘reads like a wish-list, with little detail about how it could be financed at a time when Spain is still struggling under a heavy debt burden.’

But in a political landscape where so many are bruised by austerity, this kind of fairytale economics, in which debts can be wished away with a magic wand, has a terrifyingly potent appeal.

It is this lazy, demagogic populism – blame the bankers, soak the rich, promise billions for all and pay homage at the shrine of the NHS – that has defined Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour Party.

Indeed, it is this populism that unites him with his rivals in the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party, who appear to believe that Britain’s national debt will simply disappear if they close their eyes and make a wish.

I doubt I am alone in finding this election campaign one of the most disheartening in living memory. All the parties are locked in a demeaning bidding war, promising endless impossible goodies in return for our votes.

Thursday’s leaders’ debate, though, really took the biscuit. With the exception of Mr Farage the speakers were united in their preposterous belief that there is an easy, painless answer to deficit reduction.

The fact that parties such as the Greens and the SNP believe this kind of twaddle does not surprise me at all. The depressing thing, though, is that Mr Miliband earnestly believes it, too.

Ever since becoming Labour leader in 2010, this quintessential Hampstead intellectual has been convinced that Britain is on the brink of a dramatic conversion to the politics of the Left. He is the first Labour leader for almost two decades who instinctively dislikes capitalism, distrusts the free market, sneers at businessmen and despises talk of wealth creation.

What Mr Miliband peddles is a simplistic credo of heroes and villains – for example, saintly NHS nurses on the one hand, villainous City financiers on the other.

Gone is the mantra of ‘One Nation Labour’. Instead, the Labour programme offers only what critics describe as ‘the politics of division’.

In different circumstances, this formula would take Mr Miliband only to an ignominious and well-deserved defeat. But these are strange times. As we saw in Thursday’s BBC TV debate, in which Mr Farage loudly complained about the apparent Left-wing bias of the audience, there is a distressingly large and vociferous market for Mr Miliband’s class-war politics.

Read more: Beware this very sinister brand of Left-wing populism by Dominic Sandbrook | Daily Mail Online
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Ukip sets lawyers on biased BBC: Furious Farage goes to war over Left-wing debate audience

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has instructed the party’s lawyers to act over BBC bias.

By Caroline Wheeler
Sun, Apr 19, 2015
Daily Express

Ukip leader alone at the end of the TV debate as Left-wing rivals talk together GETTY

The move plunges the corporation into a new impartiality row following claims of a Left-wing slant in Thursday’s TV debate.

The BBC’s Director General is being pressed to answer searching questions about the make-up of the audience as opposition leaders including Mr Farage clashed.

In a formal letter to the BBC, Ukip's lawyer Andrew Reid has requested details of the company used to select those who were there, how the company was chosen, who at the BBC was involved in the instruction of the company and what research had been done into the ownership of the company and political make-up of its staff.

Mr Farage claimed the audience was “remarkable, even by the Leftwing standards of the BBC”.

Mr Reid, who is also the party treasurer, told the Sunday Express: “I think it is right that the British public are told how the BBC selects its audiences and what safeguards are in place to guard against a loaded audience.”

Last night Mr Farage told the Sunday Express: “There is certainly potential for complaint. I can’t comment on whether there will be a legal complaint because there are precise details about broadcasting legislation, so I will let my lawyer deal with that.”

The audience at the filming of Thursday night’s debate in Westminster repeatedly cheered calls for more public spending and strong defences of immigration.

When the Ukip leader interjected to suggest the audience were prejudiced, they booed him even further.

David Dimbleby, who hosted the debate between the Labour, Ukip, Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru leaders, pointed out that the audience had not been selected by the BBC but by a “reputable polling organisation”, later revealed to be ICM.

The BBC initially refused to disclose the political make-up of the audience but eventually released figures to Express online, which showed that the audience was Left-leaning.

Of the 200-strong audience, about 58 were Conservative or Ukip supporters, while about 102 backed Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP or Plaid Cymru, all Leftist parties. The remaining 40 described themselves as undecided.

The figures mean that just 29 per cent of the total audience were supporters of the Tories or Ukip even though around half of voters in the country say they will be voting for either of those two parties in the election.

The BBC has also faced a string of accusations of bias from the Tories.

It has been alleged that the Question Time audience is weighted towards Labour and the Tories accused the corporation of “bias” and “systematic exaggeration” after its coverage of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last year.

Nigel Farage at the Sunday Express office

"I would like to see a BBC stripped to the bones. It clearly needs absolutely radical root and branch reform"
Nigel Farage
​

“There is an institutional problem,” Mr Farage told the Sunday Express.

“I have spent several years saying that I think our political class are the problem but my view is changing. I think the media class is perhaps an even bigger problem.

“I would like to see a BBC stripped to the bones. It clearly needs absolutely radical root and branch reform.”

Last night a BBC spokesman said: “Ahead of the debates the broadcasters and the political parties agreed that it was appropriate that a reputable independent polling organisation selected the audience.

“ICM, which also selected the ITV debate audience, recruited an audience based on present polling and past electoral support to give a cross section of political opinion.”

An ICM spokesman said that “orthodox random location selection techniques” were used. The BBC also came under fire for using a “worm graph” during the debate to take an instant poll of up to 20 voters in the studio.

The worm graphs (which they rather ridiculously used after the debate to try and show viewers how "unpopular" Nigel Farage was every time he spoke in the debate) were used live on the BBC News channel, online and then in the programme immediately following the debate.

Professor Colin Davis, of Bristol University, said the worms can produce as much as a 30 per cent swing in voting intentions.

The professor, who gave evidence to the House of Lords supporting a ban on worm graphs, said the BBC had ignored a recommendation from the Lords Communications Committee to “not include them”.

The BBC spokesman said: “The debate was available without the worm during the main broadcast on BBC One, where the great majority of the audience tuned in.”

Nigel Farage wants to 'strip the BBC to the bone' in fury over left-wing TV debate crowd | Politics | News | Daily Express

you're a whack job that needs medication for such extreme delusions. farage only whined about immigration anytime he opened his yap and was soundly shut down by sturgeon. this is like trying to argue sarah palin won her debates during the 2008 elections.

 

[Blackleaf]

you're a whack job that needs medication for such extreme delusions. farage only whined about immigration anytime he opened his yap and was soundly shut down by sturgeon.

Yeah. It's typical of the modern Left to deliberately shut down any debate about immigration. That non-debate was a blatant non-example of that. Immigration is a perfectly reasonable topic to discuss during a general election debate, yet Sturgeon wasn't interested in debating it. She was just a potty-mouthed little harridan who did nothing but call Mr Farage a bigot and try to move the topic onto something else. Such a stance will not win her and her party many friends. People like Sturgeon just don't realise that it's such a stance - calling anyone a bigot just for saying, perfectly reasonably, that immigration should be cut - that is causing Ukip to do well in the first place. I'm sure she's just gone and recruited even MORE Ukip voters now. That's all she's gone and done. She's just gone and given Ukip even more votes.

Thank God for Ukip that they are prepared to bring the topic of immigration - a very IMPORTANT topic - up during such debates. They're a breath of fresh air and is one reason why they are so popular. Who the hell Sturgeon is to think that voters concerned about immigration should not have their concerns aired during a general election debate on the telly, I don't know. Sturgeon's a disgrace. I bet she lives in some leafy suburb without an immigrant in sight. She'll do well to remember the Gillian Duffy affair of the 2010 election campaign.

Why having Sturgeon and the SNP in any position of power in a UK government would be a disaster for the country.....

Scottish leftists should stop kidding themselves - a vote for the SNP is a vote to end the Union

Nicola Sturgeon's leftism is just the latest pose adopted by the shapeshifting Scottish National Party in its neverending quest for independence

Photo: AFP/Getty Images/ Stefan Rousseau

By Jenny Hjul
20 Apr 2015
The Telegraph

87 Comments

The scary advance of the Scottish Nationalists just got scarier with the launch today of the party’s manifesto and the unveiling of its "alternative" vision for the whole of the UK.

This, based on the forecast of massive Nat gains, involves policies on how to run the rest of Britain’s health system, its defences and, God forbid (from the people who promised us an oil fund), its economy.

Despite the fact that about 60 million British people can’t vote for the SNP (only about 9% of the UK population can do so), Scottish nationalists could end up dictating a domestic agenda that would affect most aspects of daily life for the entire country.

If the party wins enough of the vote north of the border – and latest predictions suggest it will wipe out Labour- it could carry out its threat to keep the Tories out of office, prop up a minority Labour government and insist that "Scotland’s voice is heard".

This is surely a nightmare scenario – to have a cadre of politicians drive through policies that have no bearing on their own constituents (health, education and so on being devolved matters) but that may wreck the wellbeing of the vast bulk of the British population.

They must be stopped - but how? Here in Scotland we know that the English, Welsh and Northern Irish are looking at us as if we’ve taken leave of our senses. But that’s not quite fair; more than half of us are still of sound mind.

We are the ones who faced down the separatist enemy last September, or thought we had, when we opted by 55.4 per cent to 44.6 per cent to keep Britain united. But saving the Union was easy compared to holding back the rampant SNP now.

The secessionists’ current success is rightly attributed to the collapse of the Labour party north of the border, and the skill of SNP strategists in exploiting the gap that left – "left" being the operative word.

For the Nationalists have become, without doubt, the anti-austerity, anti-reform, no-nukes bleeding heart of modern Scotland, shaming even the right-on credentials of Ed Miliband.

In fact, they have only recently occupied this territory. Traditionally, the SNP have been the third party in Scotland, the party of protest, a refuge for unhappy voters from across the spectrum; left wing in the Central Belt and Tory in the north-east. In short, opportunists.

Disaffected Tories (some of them my best friends), as well as idealistic socialists, have put the Nats into power in successive Scottish elections, although many of these swing voters were then aghast when Scotland was dragged through two years of constitutional navel gazing.

Yet Nationalists making independence their priority is what Nationalists do. There are thousands of Scots who understand this and are voting for them anyway because that’s what they want too.

But it seems that many normally rational people are backing Nicola Sturgeon merely as a more left-wing option than Labour. They have fallen for the rhetoric, they are impressed with the new Nat leader, who has out-performed her rivals in televised debates, and they think she will deliver them from the evils of a Conservative prime minister.

They have not questioned her on her party’s threadbare economic arguments, or challenged her on any of the major planks of devolved policy. Her party’s record on the NHS, where spending in Scotland has fallen in real terms while England's has risen, remains unexamined in this campaign. She boasts she will save the English NHS, after making a mess of Scotland’s (mostly when she was health minister), and is praised as a progressive.

And on schools - where spending again trails that in England, where literacy and numeracy have dropped below the rest of the UK’s levels, where the only figure going up is the gap in attainment between poor and rich kids - the SNP somehow escapes blame.

More ominously, the party, which claims to favour increased immigration, has loud-mouthed activists whose approach to "incomers" would embarrass Nigel Farage.

Sturgeon herself may have an unblemished socialist background, unlike many SNP luminaries of the past. She sounds a more convincing battler of the Westminster "cuts consensus" than Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, who is trying desperately to ditch his Blair years.

But, like all good nationalists, Sturgeon is a single issue politician and in this election that issue has not changed. She wants to break up Britain and every ploy is aimed at that one goal. For all her talk of democracy, she and her party cannot accept the democratic will that decided the referendum.

They mean to stage another, or to introduce separation by the back door via full fiscal autonomy. How convenient if they get a platform in Westminster from which to antagonise English voters and create so much division that the Union is damaged beyond repair.

That is what comes with an SNP vote. Be aware, be very aware.


Scottish leftists should stop kidding themselves - a vote for the SNP is a vote to end the Union - Telegraph

 

[Blackleaf]

I wonder what that Left-wing-vetted BBC TV election debate crowd who booed and hissed the best politician in Britain today think about this interesting bit of research - with just eight days to go until polling day - which seems to show how out of touch they are with the views of ordinary Britons...

Today sees the release of new data from TNS that shows whose policies are preferred for Education and Health by a representative sample across Great Britain.

It's especially interesting to me because the poll used the data and format from Vote for Policies, a service I set up before the 2010 election, where participants compare policies taken directly from the manifestos of the main political parties - but without knowing which parties they belong to.

Vote for Policies users are a self-selecting survey group, so the results from a national poll were always going to be different. And while the outcome is certainly unexpected, this is exactly the kind of research that has been needed for a long time - not just because of the policy preferences it reveals, but also the impact the poll had on the participants' voting intention. That's where the real gold can be found.

But as I said, the results were pretty surprising so let's get those out of the way first...

The most preferred Education policies were those of the Liberal Democrats (23%) just ahead of UKIP (21%), followed by Green (15%), Labour and Conservatives (10% each). Other parties consisted of the SNP, Scottish Greens and Plaid Cymru (2%, 2% and 1% respectively).

The most preferred Health policies were UKIP's (28%), followed by Lib Dems (16%), Green (15%), Labour (14%) and Conservatives (11%). Other parties consisted of the SNP, Scottish Greens and Plaid Cymru (2%, 1% and 1% respectively).

Vote for Policies is a completely non-partisan service so I'm reluctant to interpret the data and its meaning for each party (not to mention the fact that I'm not qualified to do so). But whatever your thoughts about the results I think it's fair to say they are indeed surprising.

The area that I can comment on, and what to me is even more revealing, is how the participants responded to the survey. Specifically:

A third of the public (35%) agree they are now more likely to vote in the general election as a result of taking part and seeing their results.
​

This supports the 'policies matter' drum that I have been banging on about for the last 5 years. But it's not a concept unique to me. It's what the creators of the many brilliant voter advice services also know: that if you want to engage more voters, you just need to give them the information to make an informed choice. What is that information? Policies.

With the release of this research, the message couldn't be simpler, or more conclusive. If we want higher turnouts, and to know what we're actually voting for, we have to know what the policies are.

Half (50%) agree that they are surprised by the results.
​

If you have ever thought there was a disconnect between the party we think we align with and the party whose policies we actually prefer, this says you were right. What the data also reveals is that it doesn't matter which end of the political spectrum we (think we) are, there's a fairly equal chance we'll get a surprise.

The main take is, wherever we get our information about who to vote for - whether the media, our friends, family or guided by our own preconceptions - that information probably needs updating. That might not be easy for those who consider themselves life-long supporters of a particular party, but given how little we appear to know about what we're voting for, the incentive is there.

A fifth (20%) said they are now reconsidering who they might vote for.
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So clearly not everyone who gets a surprise is going to change their vote off the back of it, but 20% is still enough to dramatically change the balance of power as it stands today. This proportion varies, with one quarter (25%) of those planning to vote for Labour at the beginning of the survey reconsidering who to vote for. This compares with 20% of UKIP supporters, 18% of Conservatives and 16% of Liberal Democrats.

And the big question is where will the changed votes go to? Seeing the results from the representative poll you may think that's a good thing, or you might be praying nobody else takes the Vote for Policies survey between now and polling day.

What can we learn?

For me this is further evidence that policies need to be 'mainstream' in the political discussion. And I hope the rest of the media will take heed and start supporting what the burgeoning digital democracy sector of non-profits and charities have been doing so effectively on their own - getting more people to the ballot box by helping them make an informed decision.

Where do we start? For me, the lowlight of the 2015 election campaign has been been how late the manifesto policies were announced. It's bewildering to see that political parties don't know what their policies are at any given time, but it also prevents us from getting informed and having useful discussions around them. Rather than allowing political parties to delay the release of their manifestos until they see fit - and clearly as part of their campaign tactics - manifestos should be released with the convenience of voters in mind. For me that would mean at least 2 months before polling day, with an agreed deadline.

I'd reluctantly describe myself as a campaigner, but this is one campaign I am prepared to fight for, and something I hope the rest of the media will come together and fight for too. It's the route to better advice services, more informed voters, and higher turnouts. Policies matter.

TNS Omnibus interviewed a representative sample of 1,199 adults in Great Britain between the 21st and 23rd April 2015. Interviews were conducted as online self-completion and results have been weighted to make them representative of the general population.
Full data tables and details on the methodology can be found at: www.tns-bmrb.co.uk.
Matt Chocqueel-Mangan is founder of Votes for Policies, an independent, not-for-profit service where users compare policies on topics such as education, health or the economy without knowing which party they belong to. The policies come direct from the political parties' manifestos, written in their own words. Vote for Policies is crowd funded by over 900 individuals and received match funding from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.


Policies Matter - But the Results May Surprise YouÂ*|Â*Matt Chocqueel-Mangan