UKIP and The Election

From the Daily Echo

Ukip is well placed to replace Labour as the natural party of the north, its only MP has said.

Douglas Carswell told the BBC Sunday Politics programme the party's success in winning more than 100 second place finishes at the general election showed where its future was.

OK, everyone's been talking about this point. Paul Nuttall's 2020 strategy is based on winning lots of 2nd places, to be the rival party for the next election. In many seats, there's some wisdom to this strategy. Under FPTP, people group around the top 2 parties in a constituency. If you're running say, the Labour party and you can get above the Lib Dems in a seat, next time, you'll be the non-Conservative party that people will vote for. You'll be the rival that can win the seat. Amongst all the crap in party election flyers, this is one thing that's emphasized: "we're the only party that can stop the Tories" with a chart showing them above the Lib Dems.

So, using the Guardian's map, I'm going to pick 20 constituencies at random that have UKIP in 2nd. 10 Labour, 10 Conservative:-

Rother Valley: 7,300 Labour majority over UKIP.
Liverpool Walton: 28,000 Labour majority over UKIP
Doncaster North: 11000 Labour majority over UKIP
Oldham West and Royton: 14,800 Labour majority over UKIP
Rotherham: 8400 Labour majority over UKIP
Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford: 14,500 Labour majority over UKIP
Houghton and Sunderland South: 12,900 Labour majority over UKIP
Blyth Valley: 9,200 Labour majority over UKIP
Heywood and Middleton: 5,200 Labour majority over UKIP
Liverpool West Derby: 27,300 Labour majority over UKIP
Dorset North: 21,100 Con majority over UKIP
Surrey South West: 28,500 Con majority over UKIP
Worcestershire Mid: 20,500 Con majority over UKIP
Hereford and Herefordshire South: 16,800 Con majority over UKIP
Rochester and Strood: 7,100 Con majority over UKIP
Surrey Heath: 24,800 Con majority over UKIP
Wiltshire South West: 18,000 Con majority over UKIP
Christchurch: 18,200 Con majority over UKIP
Rutland and Melton 21700 Con majority over UKIP
Cambridgeshire North East 16800 Con majority over UKIP

Of the seats randomly picked, there's really 3 that have any hope of swinging anytime soon. Swinging by more than 7,000 would require a Lib Dem level meltdown or New Labour level victory in that seat. Which might happen, but doesn't look likely any time soon.

As far as I can tell, all they really have is Farage in South Thanet, who is a couple of thousand behind.