Call me Dave: the name that Ukip loves

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2014/nov/17/call-me-dave-name-that-ukip-loves

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Name: Dave.

Age: Mixed.

Appearance: Everywhere.

Which Dave are we talking about? David “call-me-Dave” Cameron? Among others.

You mean other politicians? Yup.

Like Dave Davis? Or Dave Davies? And the rest: Amess, Morris, Mundell, Nuttall, Ruffley, Rutley, Willetts …

I get it. It’s a popular name for Tories.

Even more so for Ukippers. Of the 275 Ukip candidates standing at the next election, 15 are called Dave or David. And 11 are called Peter. Add them together and you get – wait for it – 26.

What’s so significant about 26? It is the exact number of female candidates Ukip is fielding.

As many Daves and Petes as women? Shocking. The Steves and Stephens account for another 14.

Remind me – what’s considered an acceptable Dave-to-female ratio these days? That’s a tough question. The Tories currently have 48 female MPs, and 17 Daves.

I call that poor. It’s not great. The Labour party, by contrast, has 86 female MPs – that’s 7.8 women for every Dave.

But the Lib Dems have seven women and three Daves – surely the worst showing of the lot. No, that distinction belongs to the Democratic Unionists: eight MPs, no women, one Dave.

Is David such a popular name outside political circles? Not really – it ranked 50th in baby names last year – but “Dave” has a certain everyman quality. In 2007, the TV channel UKTV G2 rebranded as Dave, because: “Everybody knows a bloke called Dave.”

It’s true! I do know a bloke called Dave! And if you ever miss an episode of Storage Hunters, there’s also a catch-up channel called Dave+1.

That’s funny – that’s what the guest list said that night I went to that gig with Dave. Can we get back to politics?

Sorry – what are the electoral implications, if any, of Ukip having so many Daves? Ukip isn’t terribly popular with female voters anyway, and clearly has a similar problem attracting female candidates.

I might vote for them anyway – they may have too many Daves, but there’s only one Nigel! They’re fielding five Nigels, actually.

Do say: “Hey, Ukip – how many Muhammads?”

Don’t say: “Vote Ukip - because everybody knows a bloke called Dave.”