UKIP Gets Mail Support – By Accident

It is crystal clear that the Mail does not want to see a Labour Government in the UK in the foreseeable future, if ever. It is equally clear that, should UKIP maintain its poll ratings through to 2015, and keep abstracting support from the Tories at the same rate as today, that is exactly what will happen. So what is the Mail doing to stop that happening? Well, it isn’t – it’s making it more and more certain.

And, with largely faked headlines like “Exposed: Bulgarian fixers tell new arrivals to UK... We will fake documents so you can claim benefits” which is then explained away later in the article with “There is no suggestion that any of these activities involve any improper activity” and “its staff did not suggest anything improper or illegal” the migrant phobia is clearly being deliberately ramped up.

Then readers are assailed with “Now voters turn against EU in record numbers as floodgates open for Romanian and Bulgarian migrants”, giving the result of a poll which gives the result of which the Mail approves. That, by a 50% to 33% margin, those questioned expressed a preference for leaving the EU did not occur to the hacks and editorial staff that this could hurt their preferred Governing party.

Nor does the giving of a platform to Tory MP Mark Reckless to pen such unadulterated claptrap as “The respected think-tank MigrationWatch reckons 50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians will come here in each of the next  five years – that’s a quarter of a million people in total” cause the Mail’s staff to pause for a moment to think that they are effectively shilling for Mil The Younger.

Only when reporting on the desperation within Tory ranks, manifested by the loathsome Toby Young’s futile gesture of setting up a website to encourage UKIP and Tories to co-operate – fat chance, as they detest one another – does the awful truth emerge. “Mr Young claims it would give UKIP leader Nigel Farage and a handful of his candidates a chance of winning seats” is a sham.

Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his pals haven’t managed better than second, even in the one-off by-election contests in which they have done well. The trade-off would be between letting the Tories win, and UKIP nearly win. For that reason, Tobes and anyone else of like mind will get nowhere. The latest opinion poll, in today’s Observer, shows just how the sums stack up for the two parties – or don’t.

UKIP are stuck in the high teens percent, but are clearly abstracting most from the Tories, on 30%, and then the Lib Dems, on 8%. Labour, on what would be a winning 37%, are the least affected by the Farage fringe. And every slice of rabble rousing pap served up by papers like the Mail, which reaches millions of readers in print and online, will just keep those numbers right where they are now.

Northcliffe House might as well fly a “Vote Labour” flag. It’s that simple.