I'm tempted by Nigel Farage !

Should have added that Stansgran makes a very good point when she says "make it marginal". It would give our VERY ruling Labour Council a kick up the backside !

Hollydaze, Hartlepool is Teesside, not Tyneside. But as you do not come from the area, I wouldn't expect you to know the difference.

Oh dear - I was making referring to gillybob's reference to a monkey getting in and what happened to a monkey that got into Hartlepool when they thought he was a .......... oh, never mind

(note to self: do not attempt humour )

What happened to my English in that last post

I got that Hollydaze

Here on South Tyneside we do not hang our monkeys, we vote for them in the local elections !

I'm glad you got it gillybob - it was only said to try and lighten the tension

I don't think it's just Tyneside - there's a fair few that made it into Westminster over the years

Gillybob, that's why I thought it was safe to vote Green in the EU elections. It would give Labour a jolt. However, we got an extra Labour MEP and got rid of the Tory and Libdem.
So how you vote in the EU elections is not at all simplistic. Nobody has yet explained how the rules work. Unless I've missed it, in which case certain people on here will delight in telling me so.

jen This link explains the allocation of seats 'on a proportional basis from party lists'. There are further links giving detailed European election results for each council areawithin the north-east.
www.northtyneside.gov.uk/browse-display.shtml?p_ID=29691&p_subjectCategory=624

Personally I think it would be more representative to have our area split into 3, with one representative each, than to have 3 members representing the whole area.
I agree with you it is as much about those who didn't vote as about those who did. I wonder how many of the 60% who either couldn't be bothered, or stayed away as a deliberate protest, are now reflecting on what we have been saddled with.

I have heard the requests not to descend into UKIP bashing, but my concern is deeper than that. I think the rise of the far right in Europe, of which UKIP is a part, is the most worrying political development for decades.

I really dislike the party list system. It removes the principle of individual accountability and how many constituents know who their MEPs are? I am a political animal and I know the names of only two in our region - one of whom has now lost his seat. Mind you, I doubt if a majority of people know the name or even the party of their MP.

UKIP-bashing doesn't solve anything though, does it Jane? I doubt whether many Gransnetters will seriously be considering voting for them at the next general election.

I take your point about the rise of the far right in Europe, but surely what's needed is more balance, not just a 'knee-jerk shout-fest, as Hollydaze so eloquently put it! It will be interesting to see how the two major political parties in the UK deal with the apparent dissatisfaction of the population with their government and policies/proposed policies.

I know who my MEP is, Marine le Pen.
I agree Jane, the rise of the far right is very worrying.
I don't always agree with Suzanne Moore, but I thought this was quite good.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/28/twelve-ways-to-fix-politics-suzanne-moore
The thing is, everybody complains about politics and politicians, but how many get involved at grassroots level to make it better?

I find I am agreeing with Suzanne Moore more and more often these days. She writes some good stuff. A lot better than Simon Jenkins in the same paper. The good thing about having Marine le Pen is that you will not see her much. Mind, I don't know what ours look like in the first place, so would not know if I passed one in the street. And I speak as someone who used to get involved at grass roots level until we left York five years ago.

If the North East was split into 3, Jane, who would have the Ukipper? I don't want him. It still does not say how they decide on which of the three for each party gets chosen and how they split the number of votes in the system. When the government was talking about changing the constituency boundaries there was going to be one constituency running from Haltwhistle down to Barnard Castle. Can't imagine anyone there will see an MEP.

ana I think you had better either brace yourself or learn to avoid political discussion for the next 11.5 months.
An awful lot of grass roots anti-UKIP stuff is circulating on social media including younger people that are having their political eyes opened for the first time. They have grown up in a time when politicians did not make openly racist, homophobic and misogynistic statements in public and they are shocked to the core that people are voting for those politicians. It is going to be an election like no other - and one in which social media (like GN) are going to play a significant part.

Fine - bring it on! Just seems a bit of a waste of time when UKIP is obviously NOT going to win the election!

jen, I can only speak for the party of which I used to be an activist. A list of potential candidates is chosen after assessment by a panel of leading activists. These are put in order of preference by the Regional Committee and when the election votes are all in, if the party has sufficient votes to have one or more MEPs, the one at the top of the list (sometimes a sitting MEP) will be selected and any others in order of preference.

jen I have 'done the math' and anyone who isn't interested in the politics of the North-east, look away now.
UKIP came first in the following council areas, with their proportion of votes cast in brackets:
Stockton (33%)
Redcar and Cleveland (36%)
Middlesbrough (36.6%)
Hartlepool (39%)
Darlington (30.6%)

They came second in all the remaining areas:
Sunderland (30%)
South Tyneside (30.8%)
Northumberland (27.3%)
North Tyneside (26.3%)
Newcastle (23.4%)
Gateshead (27.3%)
Durham (28.1%)

I think it shows a clear difference between the north and south of the area and perhaps explains why John Prescott's idea of a Northern Assembly got a less than lukewarm response. There is no sense of cohesion between the north and south and that's why I think we should have our own representatives.

Ana those proportions of the vote are quite sufficient to win seats in a general election.

Seats, perhaps - not an overall majority!

No, but enough to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

^ I think the rise of the far right in Europe, of which UKIP is a part,^

Yet the chap from YouGov, on BBC news, described UKIP as centre-left of the right

I agree Jane, the rise of the far right is very worrying.

It would be more beneficial to ask why the far right is now popular - then see what can be done about it in a positive way rather than deriding those who voted for them (I'm not saying you are guilty of that, it is a suggestion in general).

An awful lot of grass roots anti-UKIP stuff is circulating on social media including younger people that are having their political eyes opened for the first time. They have grown up in a time when politicians did not make openly racist, homophobic and misogynistic statements in public and they are shocked to the core that people are voting for those politicians.

Yet no matter how many times I make posts and give links showing that that behaviour is not peculiar to UKIP members, it seems to go unnoticed ...

Yes UKIP holding the balance of power is a gruesome thought.

Well, if it's that gruesome, perhaps some of the many Gransnetters who have become disillusioned with their previous parties of choice should start their own party. There's no point frantically decrying UKIP without offering a feasible alternative.

Good post Ana oh to be a few years younger!

QuestionTime has got off to a hilarious start. Sexist comments from a footballer playing straight into UKIP's hands. Boos from the audience for his crass remark. Ha Ha.

UKIP bashing is so commonplace they don't even bother to find someone articulate enough to put his point across.....I don't even know what his point was.