Iain Martin
Iain Martin is a political commentator, and a former editor of The Scotsman and former deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph. His book on the financial crisis - Making It Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the men who blew up the British economy - will be published in autumn 2013 by Simon & Schuster. As well as this blog, he writes a column for The Sunday Telegraph. You can read more about Iain by visiting his website
Ukip hit by poll slump
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It seems that what goes up can come down. The latest poll shows Ukip slumping from 18 points back down to 12. This is a big fall.
Lib Dem activists – both of them – are online partying, because the ICM poll for the Guardian also shows them level pegging again with Farage's forces. It is a measure of the long-term success of Nick Clegg's strategy that the party now regards being on a par with a new party with no MPs as a cause for a celebration. But there you go.
It will be fascinating to see how the Ukippers react to this development. Will they say "it's just one poll", which is the kind of spin the political establishment falls back on when it sees a poll it doesn't like? Or perhaps they'll say other polling organisations have them higher, but that might sound a little like nitpicking, as though they're getting overly obsessed with opinion polls – and perhaps even focus groups. They hate it when other parties like the Tories do that …
Or perhaps the previous ICM poll really was a rogue or a fluke, and 12 is simply a more accurate representation of the level of support the party commands. If that is the case then Ukip support may have hit a plateau, which would mean it has lost momentum and is struggling to break out much beyond its core vote.
As I keep pointing out, anywhere between six per cent and 10 per cent, or 12 per cent, would still be at least a couple of million voters in England and enough at the general election to cause absolute havoc for the Tories. But the idea – which seems to be the view favoured by some hardline Ukippers – that this insurgent force is taking on the characteristics of a great soaring, political movement that is going to keep climbing until it produces a massive popular uprising, a millennial cleansing and then an entirely "new politics" in which BLIAR and all the others are put on trial for treason, may turn out to be balls.
What seems much more likely is 10 per cent of the vote, a Labour government and no referendum on membership of the European Union. Just saying.
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