UK Parliamentary Elections - Bored?

Feels like trying to pick the least worst option and that is a close run competition... I remember elections where I voted with hope and excitement - this time it's taken a long time to decide. In a fairly marginal seat that swung in the last election I (postal) voted to try to kick the Tories out - but with regret, because I swore never to vote Labour too. They are simply the only party close enough. Meh.

Scotsman69 said:

Whatever the immediate electoral outcome, one thing is certain: May 7 2015 will be remembered in history as the date on which what used to be the world's leading imperialist power finally started to disintegrate internally. Within a decade or so - no longer - the

UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NOTHERN IRELAND

as it is properly known, will have disappeared from the map.

This will have immediate consequences in particular for the USA, the European Union, and NATO; but for some of the rest of the world too.

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I agree and disagree. I agree that it feels like the UK is doomed - and good riddance. The only arguments for keeping it at the referendum were based on history and fear of change. God only knows how the people north of the border swallowed that one.

I disagree with the scale of the immediate consequences however. The imbalance of money/power in the UK would mean that very little would change in the 'remaining UK'. Say what you like about the value of north sea oil, but the costs and the value more or less break even in the wider scheme of things, so losing Scotland would have had very little difference on the lives of people in England and Wales, and very little difference on the spending power of the government or the armed forces etc. A reorg would have been forced, Faslane closed - or more likely moved, but nothing terrible. The population of Scotland represents less than 9% of the whole of the UK, so it wouldn't really be the dawn of anything significant in England other than some serious political and social meditation on 'what to do now'.

Imagine the promise and hope created by starting something new? England would hopefully benefit from seeing the Westminster system broken - and made more local. Also, having a (hopefully) successful, progressive, government and partner north of the border showing us that it's ok to be left of centre would be an example to us all.

I'm English, but a fair proportion of my family is Scottish (and Welsh - I reckon my great grandmother got around...) and I'm probably fairly typical of the social and cultural mash up we've all become, but I support Scottish independence because if I had the chance, I'd be all over it myself. It'd be good for everyone.

By staying in the UK, Scotland put itself at risk of leaving the EU (which few north of the border support - if the reports are correct) and at risk of another national government it didn't vote for deciding what wars to join in with and how much it has to cut welfare for those who need it.

I live in a safe seat constituency too, so it almost seems pointless to put the x on the ballot paper.
But I shall go anyway, because to do nothing & effectively remain silent seems to be the lesser of two evils.

I have been somewhat surprised by my eldest's interest in this election....it gave me a real sense of pride that she cares enough to be interested.

Having immersed myself in the referendum campaign, attending any number of public meeting and discussion forums with experts on economics, housing, broadcasting, constitutional law, defence etc, I came to the conclusion early on that there were two parallel communities involved in the ppolitical discourse - an energised public in Scotland and, mainly oblivious to what was really happening on the ground, an ill-informed combination of media, Westminster establishment and the public outside Scotland.

The complacency of the anti-independence alliance of unionist establishment and national media was badly shaken up by that poll which put the YES camp in the lead, resulting in much panic and the hastily cobbled-up vow. Of course, the unity of the proponents of the vow (which had been enough to sway the devo-max waverers towards a negative vote) fell apart within hours of the result and within days we were back to a majority in favour of independence.

The problem for the unionists is this - once you break free from unionism and Stockholm syndrome to embrace independence as a natural state of being, no less for a nation than for an individual, there is no going back.

We see the insincerity of those who love-bombed us last year with their respect agenda and, from the moral high ground, we can enjoy their discomfort and their insults, secure in the righteousness of our cause and the renaissance of our collective national soul, which was traded away so cheaply by our ruling classes three centuries ago.

The modern day successors of the parcel o'rogues are the labour political establishment in Scotland, and it is most comforting to know that they now face annihilation as the price of their self-serving treachery in putting party, career and enrichment above the interests of the people.

We can also enjoy the fact that independence is no longer a matter of if, but of whether it will be within the life of this parliament or the next.

As before, many have failed to grasp that the (ongoing) campaign for Scottish independence can not be compared to normal electoral trends and patterns. A fire has been lit in the glens and it will never be extinguished. Those self-serving and not particularly democratic unionist politicians who wanted to depict the referendum vote as a "once in a generation" exercise, have been given due notice by the people of Scotland that they should go away and "boil yer heid".

I contended throughout the referendum campaign that Scottish independence would be good for democracy in the other three nations because political reform would become inevitable. Independence may have been temporarily postponed, nevertheless Scotland has forever changed the political landscape of the UK - for the better (you're welcome!).

It's a great time to be a Scot, but "interesting times" for the London establishment.

demos said:

Having immersed myself in the referendum campaign, attending any number of public meeting and discussion forums with experts on economics, housing, broadcasting, constitutional law, defence etc, I came to the conclusion early on that there were two parallel communities involved in the ppolitical discourse - an energised public in Scotland and, mainly oblivious to what was really happening on the ground, an ill-informed combination of media, Westminster establishment and the public outside Scotland.

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Don't lump all of the public outside of Scotland together, that would upset me.. lol

My personal experience was that while the older generation clung to the safety of the familiar there was also a lot of indifference. I do firmly believe that if they had moved the border south, perhaps to just north of Birmingham, that there would have been a clear yes vote. Not many of us up here have any time for Westminster either and the north of England probably has more in common with Scotland than the home counties and London.

The polls have now closed. And tomorrow Little England will wake up to a new world. One England has never known before. One in which, after centuries of oppression, the Scots tail wags the English dug. Not for long, we no longer wish to be united with you, and we'll be very happy to leave you alone in peace once we're a sovereign nation again.

I for one know you're for the most part decent human beings, and value my many decent English friends and relations. But you need a wee political kick up the arse, and today you got it, with love, from your northern cousins.

This was a view today from the only daily paper which supports Scottish independence. (And guess what... its sales are rocketing whilst those of every other paper in Scotland plummet.):

http://www.thenational.scot/comment...he-end-of-days-for-those-who-shut-us-out.2699

Go on, my English, US, and other cousins. Open and read it. I dare you...

IF Scotland gets independence, The Barnett Formula will die.

At present, with the Barnett Formula, Scotland (and Wales and Northern Ireland) get more public money spent per head than in England. That means that English taxpayers are subsidising Scotland (and the others).

Whether Scotland can be financially independent, even with North Sea Oil? I don't know.

If if lived in Scotland, that would worry me.

As a voter in England I do not object to the Barnett Formula because it is more expensive to provide public services to a smaller population spread over a considerably larger area. But those costs will still be the same in an independent Scotland. Could Scotland afford funding at that level? I don't know and I doubt if many SNP candidates know either.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Scotland when all the votes are counted.

As a professional economist OGG

I know what you don't. Barnett does not mean that Scotland is subsidised by England, despite our higher per capita public expenditure, for the geographical reasons you understand.

Au contraire: for most of the past three decades at least, Scotland's higher tax take has resulted in a net subsidy to the RUK.

So please don't worry. Independence means that Scotland will flourish as we haven't been allowed to for over three centuries. Whatever happens to international oil and gas prices.

The English media doesn't allow you to know this OGG, but we're actually a fairly bright and entrepreneurial lot, oil or not. We'll be fine thanks.

And on a personal note. I like and respect most of what I know of you from your life on Lit.

oggbashan said:

IF Scotland gets independence, The Barnett Formula will die.

At present, with the Barnett Formula, Scotland (and Wales and Northern Ireland) get more public money spent per head than in England. That means that English taxpayers are subsidising Scotland (and the others).

Whether Scotland can be financially independent, even with North Sea Oil? I don't know.

If if lived in Scotland, that would worry me.

As a voter in England I do not object to the Barnett Formula because it is more expensive to provide public services to a smaller population spread over a considerably larger area. But those costs will still be the same in an independent Scotland. Could Scotland afford funding at that level? I don't know and I doubt if many SNP candidates know either.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Scotland when all the votes are counted.

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As a Scot who has lived in England longer than I've lived anywhere else, I feel a mix of despair and fury about so many of my fellow Scots being hoodwinked into thinking Scotland going it alone will do any of us in these islands any good at all.

Ogg, why would Scotland be the exception to all the many states which have gained their independence and thrived - and which have expressed absolutely no desire to be re-absorbed?

Is a nation, which has contributed so much over the centuries to science, discovery and invention (the greatest of any country on earth, pro rata - and possibly even in absolute terms), which is blessed with an intelligent and educated population, endowed with a wealth of natural resources and an expanding economic base... uniquely incapable of looking after its own affairs?

I would suggest that if the UK were as successful an economy, as fair a society and as functional a democracy as federal Germany, that independence may never have developed as an issue.

Hoodwinked?

The Sun, Daily Mail, and the Torygraph may hoodwink too many English folk for too long Simon.

But we've had enough of their lies.

You, and any English folk who want to join us, will be most welcome in our new Scotland.

suckonsimon said:

As a Scot who has lived in England longer than I've lived anywhere else, I feel a mix of despair and fury about so many of my fellow Scots being hoodwinked into thinking Scotland going it alone will do any of us in these islands any good at all.

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suckonsimon said:

As a Scot who has lived in England longer than I've lived anywhere else, I feel a mix of despair and fury about so many of my fellow Scots being hoodwinked into thinking Scotland going it alone will do any of us in these islands any good at all.

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So we have been hoodwinked, rather than coming to an informed decision?
You shame both yourself and your fellow Scots with that insult.

Looks like the scumbag sweaties may have put the tories back in. Well done, you bunch of retarded fucks.

Evidence, if it were needed, that professional politicians have little respect for democracy....

Just as Brown, following electoral defeat, manoeuvred to hang on to power, so labour again is trying to repeat his sordid strategy.

According to Ed Balls, expostulating on the basis of the exit polls, if Cameron gets the majority of seats but not an overall majority, then labour should be entitled to try to form a coalition and take power.

This is the party which swore there would be no deals with the SNP, so where else (with lib-dems projected to plummet) would they gain support for that scenario?

Sean said:

Looks like the scumbag sweaties may have put the tories back in. Well done, you bunch of retarded fucks.

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Charming! You are such a great ambassador for your party. Your family must be so proud of you.

Are you suggesting that people should not award their vote to the candidate which will best represent them?

You really do not like democracy, do you?

demos said:

Charming! You are such a great ambassador for your party. Your family must be so proud of you.

Are you suggesting that people should not award their vote to the candidate which will best represent them?

You really do not like democracy, do you?

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Your post above this one proves that you have no idea about democracy. And what exactly is "my" party?

The Sun is so utterly shameless: Nicola Sturgeon is the most dangerous woman in Britain south of the border, but 'vote SNP' north of the border. Pretty obvious they are simply doing everything they can to avoid Miliband and the possibility of press legislation. Well, they seem to have 'won', if losing Scotland forever counts as winning.

If I could commute to work from Scotland I'd move tomorrow.

So what the hell happened.

The Tories scared people into voting for them?

Odd Outcomes

A weird result of the election is that although the SNP did brilliantly in Scotland; by butchering Scottish Labour, they appear to have allowed the Tories an absolute majority, despite the Tories winning only a few more seats on a lower aggregate vote.

Another weird outcome is that voters who went for the SNP indicated in exit polls that their view on independence had not changed since the referendum! Give the English the vote in the next Independence referendum - that will make Scottish independence certain. I suspect that would benefit England even more than the Scots !

English people don't give a toss about Scotland's independence, one way or the other, and would probably like to get shot of Northern Ireland as well. Scotland's and England's common problem is Westminster based politicians.

The SNP hasn't achieved its own objectives yet, but they have helped do the English a massive favour by getting rid, once and for all, the utterly useless Liberal Democrats.

ishtat said:

A weird result of the election is that although the SNP did brilliantly in Scotland; by butchering Scottish Labour, they appear to have allowed the Tories an absolute majority, despite the Tories winning only a few more seats on a lower aggregate vote.

Another weird outcome is that voters who went for the SNP indicated in exit polls that their view on independence had not changed since the referendum! Give the English the vote in the next Independence referendum - that will make Scottish independence certain. I suspect that would benefit England even more than the Scots !

English people don't give a toss about Scotland's independence, one way or the other, and would probably like to get shot of Northern Ireland as well. Scotland's and England's common problem is Westminster based politicians.

The SNP hasn't achieved its own objectives yet, but they have helped do the English a massive favour by getting rid, once and for all, the utterly useless Liberal Democrats.

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I disagree with almost all of this. In Scotland, voters were energized by the referendum campaign, and for Scottish people the almost visceral sense that, at last, someone was paying attention to them and that their voice mattered. The outcome was less important than the process - it made it clear, if it had not been before, that Scotland was in fact if not in name a separate nation. 'They do things differently there'. The vote for the SNP was indeed not a vote for independence, and Nicola Sturgeon made that very clear throughout the campaign and afterwards. But it was a vote for difference - independence for many, devo-max for others, and for many others yet a chance to let the Labour Party know that it could never again offer Tory-lite policies in Scotland and expect to be returned almost by default to Parliament. Moreover, even if every single SNP seat were given to Labour tomorrow, the scale of the party's defeat in England means that it still wouldn't make a difference.

This English person certainly cares about Scottish independence - I would love to see them do it, and to give a bloody nose to all the neo-liberal nay-sayers down south. And by electing 55/58 Scottish Nationalists, they are saying with a very clear voice that the normal rules no longer apply, north of the border.

Labour's trouble is that the country has fractured so much, ideologically, that its traditional base is no more. The traditional strong Scottish Labour voice, based on the premise that it was the only way to keep out the hated Tories, is gone. If it wants to appeal to them it will have to stop sounding like a patronizing Southern English party. But if it does that it will lose, as it has lost, its centrist, Blairite, swing voters, who are frightened by the Tory press into thinking that the break-up of the union spells Armageddon. By appealing to the centre, and pushing a liberal social issues agenda whilst maintaining an almost pure free-market stance economically, it will maintain more of a presence in London and Southern England, but lose its distinctive voice to UKIP in the North, who are already making inroads into that traditional working class constituency, concerned about immigrations pressure on jobs and wages. And, in turn, if it goes the 'Blue Labour' route recommended by some - more conservative on social issues, tacking left economically - it may regain the North and even Scotland, to some extent, just in time to see Scotland disappearing over the horizon.

The Tories have always had the great advantage that one does not need specific reasons to vote for them. One merely has to be selfish. Their message is simple - 'You're being screwed over by foreigners, and by red tape, and Brussels, and the lazy benefits claimants. On no account ever imagine that it may be your bosses who are screwing you. No, no, it's those feckless people on your own economic level. Fuck them. Vote for us and fuck them. Fuck the NHS, fuck schools, fuck poor families and disadvantaged children, fuck the green belt and the environment, fuck young people and the disabled and the unemployed and the mentally ill, fuck universities and fuck, in short, any idea that we are a cohesive society which works best when we look after each other. Fuck all that. Look after number one.'

It's such a well-worn message it barely needs spelling out. Labour is always soul-searching about its purpose, its message, its core, its 'red lines'. The Tories don't need to. They just have to rely on human selfishness and, God knows, that's never been in short supply.

Oh - and, much though I would love to think of the Liberal Democrats as being out of it forever, I'm afraid not. Though in terms of policy there is relatively little to choose between the three traditional parties, in a significant chunk of the public mind Labour is too left wing and the Tories too nasty to vote for. The Lib Dems fill that much-needed gap...

How parliament would look if seats were proportional to votes cast:

Do your arithmetic ishtat

The Tories will still have a parliamentary majority, if you totally discount the SNP seats. Which is to say, Cameron has a majority in England, Wales, and NI.

The SNP vote does not affect this. Which is PRECISELY why Scotland voted SNP. We're sick to the back teeth of being ruled by people we didn't elect.

ishtat said:

A weird result of the election is that although the SNP did brilliantly in Scotland; by butchering Scottish Labour, they appear to have allowed the Tories an absolute majority, despite the Tories winning only a few more seats on a lower aggregate vote.

Another weird outcome is that voters who went for the SNP indicated in exit polls that their view on independence had not changed since the referendum! Give the English the vote in the next Independence referendum - that will make Scottish independence certain. I suspect that would benefit England even more than the Scots !

English people don't give a toss about Scotland's independence, one way or the other, and would probably like to get shot of Northern Ireland as well. Scotland's and England's common problem is Westminster based politicians.

The SNP hasn't achieved its own objectives yet, but they have helped do the English a massive favour by getting rid, once and for all, the utterly useless Liberal Democrats.

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Scotsman69 said:

The Tories will still have a parliamentary majority, if you totally discount the SNP seats. Which is to say, Cameron has a majority in England, Wales, and NI.

The SNP vote does not affect this. Which is PRECISELY why Scotland voted SNP. We're sick to the back teeth of being ruled by people we didn't elect.

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Even though the Conservatives have an overall majority in Westminster, they will have to acknowledge the SNP's massive win in Scotland. It may be easier for the Conservatives to negotiate about the details of Scottish devolution while Scotland has a united voice.

But the real question is "Why did Labour fail so disastrously in Scotland?". My view is not that the Labour party in England was the problem, but the attitude of the Labour party in Scotland. They still seemed to be run by the Scottish trade unions with 1950s mind sets, and a sense of entitlement to Scottish votes.

having spent many years of my life as a senior trades union officer in Scotland OGG, I can assure you that you are totally wrong. Deepest Kent (I know it well, my cousin lives there) is NOT the best place from which to understand what's happening in your far northern neighbour.

Had the unions had more influence recently, the incompetent Jim Murphy (until yesterday an MP with a 'safe' majority) would not have been parachuted in by London to control the Scottish Branch Office of Labour. And Labour would almost certainly NOT have been decimated yesterday.

There are now as many Great Pandas in Scotland as there are Tory and Labour MPs combined. (The figure is two in both cases.) The big difference is that it's at least possible, however hard it is for Great Pandas to successfully mate, that their number in Scotland might just increase in the foreseeable future.

oggbashan said:

Even though the Conservatives have an overall majority in Westminster, they will have to acknowledge the SNP's massive win in Scotland. It may be easier for the Conservatives to negotiate about the details of Scottish devolution while Scotland has a united voice.

But the real question is "Why did Labour fail so disastrously in Scotland?". My view is not that the Labour party in England was the problem, but the attitude of the Labour party in Scotland. They still seemed to be run by the Scottish trade unions with 1950s mind sets, and a sense of entitlement to Scottish votes.

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Its sad about the state of the BNP. UKIP was invented by the new world order to destroy the BNP just as it was starting to gain momentum.

Nick Griffin is still active though, and recently went to show support for the Syrian government. I'm sure he will be back in public life eventually.