Reading the Runes

You know, judging by the post local election reporting, you'd think that UKIP had emerged a clear winner, despite the fact that, in reality, the fourth placed party had come fourth, in terms of council seats won, in a four horse race.  Sure, the outcome represents a considerable advance in terms of council seats, but the reality is that UKIP still don't actually control any councils, leaving them, even at the local level, with little real political influence.  Now, I fully expect UKIP itself to big up these results and claim that, somehow, they represent 'progress' and a platform for a breakthrough at parliamentary level.  What has astounded me is the way the media have run with this story with, sad to say, the BBC being the worst culprits.  I had to give up on their TV election coverage last night, so sick did I become of the constant talking up of UKIP's 'success'.  Moreover, trying to extrapolate the outcomes of the next three general elections on the basis of the half a dozen local election results you have is not just bizarre, but down right perverse.  Yet that's what their pundits were seemingly trying to do.

It is this aspect of TV election coverage - the 'projections' by pundits - which I find most exasperating.  Despite what they will try and convince you, this sort of thing is not a science.  It's more like reading the runes.  There are no immutable natural laws at work here: the results of an opinion poll held today ultimately tells you nothing about the possible outcome of an election in twelve months time.  Likewise, the results of local elections - which are not being held universally throughout the UK and which traditionally have a lower turnout and different voting patterns to elections at national level - are not a reliable guide as to who will form the next government.  I remember that, before becoming lickspittles to the Tories and enabling the most right-wing government in living memory, the Lib Dems traditionally always did well in local elections held mid-term in a parliament.  Yet these gains were never repeated nationally come general elections.  Not even the eccentricities of our 'first-past-the-post' electoral system can explain this disparity.  The reality was that the Lib Dems were the beneficiaries of the 'protest vote' - a safe dumping ground, at local level, for the votes of those wanting to register their dissatisfaction with the main parties.  Now that they are part of the establishment, they are no longer  seen in such a light - but UKIP are: they're never likely to get into power so it is safe to use them for a protest vote, is what many people will think.

Now, I might be completely wrong about all of this, (I usually am), but I really think the news media, especially the BBC, need to get a grip on their reporting of the local elections and look at the possibility that the UKIP vote might be a protest.  As it is, their reporting is seriously skewed:  despite increasing seats held and gaining control of at least five councils, you'd think that Labour had suffered a disastrous election.  The problem is that the media have invested in a narrative - the rise of UKIP as a force to break the mould of UK politics - and are now determined to 'make' it happen, even if that means having to distort what actually happened on election night.  Ah well, we've still got the results of the European elections to come - I suspect that even if UKIP lose all of their MEPs, the media will still trumpet the outcome as a glorious victory for Nigel Farage.