The Tories are running scared

With just a few days to go before the local elections, not only are the Conservatives expecting to lose up to five hundred seats, but they are also expected to lose at least some of them to UKIP.  You may ask whether or not this actually matters.  Surely losing seats to UKIP is no worse than losing seats to any other party.

Senior Tories are courting publicity with attacks on UKIP, which is unsurprising.  If they were expecting to lose seats to Labour, then they would be attacking Labour.  But wait - they are expecting to lose seats to Labour.  Frankly I will be very surprised if UKIP pick up even a quarter of the seats that Labour will gain, and I will be even more surprised if UKIP win control of a single local authority.

Also, the attacks on UKIP are not like attacks on Labour.  Some of the comments, such as those made recently by Lord Ashcroft, are fairly tame.  Nevertheless at least one senior Tory is repeating the fruitcakes and closet racists allegation made by David Cameron back in 2006.  You never hear the Tories describe Labour or Liberal Democrat politicians as racists, and so it is safe to assume that they are running very scared indeed.

Maybe the problem is that the Tories feel that seats lost to UKIP would be hard to win back, but it is a simple fact that UKIP have a truly abysmal record of holding onto council seats.  In fact they have a real talent for losing council seats either by defection or as a result of their councillors deciding not to stand for a second term.

Then again, maybe the Tories are worried about the symbolic nature of the UKIP vote.  A lot of people regard UKIP as being the lost conscience of the Conservative Party.  They feel that UKIP policies are the policies which ought to grace the Conservative manifesto.  But of course people have felt that way before.

UKIP have had false dawns before now.  For example they won two seats in the London Assembly elections in 2004, whereas in 2008 they were outpolled by the National Front.  I have no doubt that UKIP will win seats on Thursday, but I also see no reason for the headlines in the national newspapers on Friday to read anything other than "Another false dawn for UKIP".

The Tories are running scared, but they do not need to be.  UKIP is about as terrifying as a hamster.