I suspect that people are looking at the wrong election. Hitler grabbed power following the November 1932 election when on a turnout of 71% he got 33% of those who voted, losing 34 seats which gave him 196 out of 584. Having grabbed power he changed all the rules to make sure he always had a majority after that. When I suggested that he got 29% support of eligible voters - a figure contained in a reference book I have - I appear to have over estimated his support. I repeat my main point - how many of that 33% realised what they were voting for and how many would still have supported him had they realised the consequences?
No it's simply a mistranslation of the German table. The number of people living in Germany in July 1932 was around 66m, with 44.2m eligible to vote (being 70.84% of the population). The number of voters who voted was just over 37m, so the turnout was 84.1%. The wikipedia editor got it right for earlier elections, but seems to have just made an error here
Thanks for the history lesson but I dont really see the relevance it has! We are talking about a completely different set of elections and about a more sophisticated and media savy electorate. I know its easy to just portray UKIP as a bunch of far right knuckle draggers but the fact is that 5 Million people voted for them and we must respect the democratic process. Whether you like it or not, they do represent a strand of public opinion which cant be dismissed as being simply racist! I notice that a Labour MP has recently had to apologise to the lady who was demonised as a bigot by Gordon Brown! Its good to see that despite all the fine words about listening to the electorate and winning UKIP voters back, Labour are still up to their old tricks! There is no way that UKIP will ever be in a position of power at Westminster because they will never achieve any great breakthrough with the First Past The Post voting system. It is healthy for our democracy, and politics in general, for a new party to come along with new ideas to challenge the perceived orthodoxy and to shake up the cosy 3 party consensus! As a democrat, I welcome this development, and now its up to the other 3 parties to engage with UKIP without resorting to the smear campaigns!
But Gordon Brown and this Labour MP were right. Gillian Duffy is a bigot. Just because they're not supposed to say it in order to show they are in touch with the issues facing people like Gillian Duffy, doesn't alter the fact that they were right.
It's something called PR, something that whichever Sky journalist intentionally left the microphone on in the back of his taxi that particular day was well aware of. They all say things they shouldn't, probably on a daily basis, Gordon Brown was the unfortunate one to get shafted and hauled over the coals for a comment that really was pretty minor, and as Rob says was actually perfectly valid
Um..... this is getting me fuddled now. We all seem to be advocating democracy (which I assume includes freedom of speech which is a democratic privilege in this country) but anyone who does excercise freedom of speech (Gillian Duffy for example) is called a bigot ?
Its called 'lets jump on the PC bandwagon as we can't be seen to say no just in case we are called a racist party'
Brilliant. Sometimes I really can't tell if people are posting on here in seriousness or not. Well played, I'm genuinely baffled.
That would be nice....as a moderator I'd have thought you would have had a quiet word about his offensive and potentially racist name calling rather than just giggling about it.
