It was being pointed out in the opinion polls earlier in the week the desire to keep the Tory candidate out was probably going to result in the Lib Dem's holding the seat which they only just managed to do with a vastly reduced majority.



An anti-Tory vote is never stupid in my book so the word I would use for the Lib Dem voters of Eastleigh was pragmatic not stupid.



The big news is the UKIP vote and the effect that is going to have on politics. I am sure there are already calls from within the Tory party to be even more Euro-skeptic than they already are. The number of MP's who are in the extreme Euro-skeptic fold of the Tory party (i.e. are really UKIP'ers in disguise) are in a minority so it's going to be interesting to see if that particular tail can wag the dog even more than it has been doing.



My own view is there is no point the Tories or Labour for that matter trying out UKIP, UKIP. They need to start making the case for Britain remaining in the EU and stop trying be UKIP-light. That is the official position of both the Tory and Labour parties (and the Lib Dem's of course) so instead of running scared of UKIP they need to stand up to it and start exposing the flaws in the UKIP position. At least then we would have a proper debate instead of all parties (bar the Lib Dems) trying to take a piece of the Euro-skeptic pie.

You were listening to Ken Loach then

No it was an original idea of mine honestly! Maybe he has been listening to me.

There's two and a half years to the next election and plenty can change in that time, hence I can see why Miliband etc won't make predictions about what the economic plan will be just yet.



The conservatives think they've got the discussion sewn up with the two responses "What would you do instead?" and "There you go, more uncosted and unfunded spending plans from Labour".

They'd add up every mention of anything new, every opposition to a cut, and total it all as "extra spending" and "same old Labour".



However, hanging back too long and allowing the conservatives to set the agenda looks like inactivity, I want to see some attack, rebuttals of nonsense, economic sense and genuine ideas rather than the same old party-line dross.

Labour should be arguing vigorously on their own terms, not allowing the conservatives to set them up to knock them down.

As you say, there's plenty of ammunition out there.

You start it, I'll join, could do with a bit of marching, chanting and the like to cheer me up. Used to love the old Militant meetings in the 80's.

Quite. I think there is now no doubt whatsoever that they made a colossal mistake in appointing the wrong Milliband brother. Ed seems to think that if he just keeps his head down and does nothing controversial the next election will win itself. I think he'll find that he's deeply mistaken.

Remember the early Thatcher years when the SDP broke away?

Unless you want to hand a whopping majority to Cameron, I wouldn't split the left vote right now.

I think that Miliband (E)'s mention of his intended restoration of the 10p tax rate funded by a mansion tax is a toe-in-the-water for moving away from the Blairite/Brownite ideals and, by saying it was wrong to remove it, show he doesn't adhere to everything that Brown did.



All a bit timid though, I'd like to see more.

This is my worry. I'm no fan of 'style over substance' politics, but Ed seems to have neither. I reckon David would have made far more headway as leader by now, but I suspect at the time he was seen as being too close to Blair.

I read earlier that if the swings were repeated across the country, Labour would return with a 66 seat majority.





Farage's solution to the economy? "stop paying the EU and halt all overseas aid." Sounds like a well thought out plan

To be fair, she was second best panellist after Loach. He hit the nail on the head by saying that the Unions should not give funds to Labour because they don't represent their members nor anyone in particular.

As Ken Loach said - the Unions should fund one.