Why Ukip doesn't WANT to win in Oldham.

[threegee]

Labour was shaken by Ukip at the General Election. You don't have to look hard to find senior Labour figures that will candidly admit this.  But things have got a lot worse for Labour since - they get worse every week, and every time Corbyn and his communist cohorts open their mouths.  This week's Little Red Book incident could have been scripted by the spin doctors at Tory Central Office; it certainly had the Parliamentary Labour Party wanting to crawl under their seats!

 

Senior Labour figures are coming back from Oldham and reporting that huge numbers of their supporters are telling them that they are switching to Ukip because they won't vote for a Corbyn-led party.  Ukip came very close to kicking out Labour in nearby solidly Labour Heywood, but things have now got to the stage that the previously unthinkable is indeed possible: loss of perhaps Labour's safest seat in the country!  Certainly the Bookies think so and have now dramatically shortened their odds.

 

But, whilst a Ukip win would be welcome to many, it's not all that appealing to senior planners at Ukip, who are playing to the long-term.  Their focus is on the referendum - a referendum which any thinking person must admit was dragged out of Cameron in a moment of panic after seeing huge numbers of working-class Tory supporters defect.  Corbyn is one of Ukip's best assets, and Labour would come to it's senses a lot earlier if the Parliamentary Labour Party had the ammunition to oust him.  A Ukip win would put the nuclear option into their hands.  So, Ukip is hoping for an illustration of the very possible, but not a show of the very probable, or the disaster scenario of an outright win!  If you relish paradoxes this has to be one of the very best.