Economists Urge Scotland to Vote No......

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

So would be unable to support a Government in Westminster as you can't have a Government that can get through bills on Britain but not on England.

Unless they change their stance of course.

You must've missed this then. Yesterday in most of the newspapers. It was the reason the bookies odds shortened on Milliband in charge of a minority govt ( the quote I posted). And the article itself was the one I was saying I was surprised about re the comments underneath. Most quite welcomed the idea. While I do understand it's the Guardian and not the Telegraph. And without stereotying 'too' much, it seems English Labour voters are not so adverse to the idea of a Labour/SNP/Greens deal as I thought.

Alex Salmond has hinted that the Scottish National party would be prepared to set aside the convention that its MPs do not vote on laws that only affect England in order to support a minority Labour government at Westminster.
Such a move – on a “vote by vote” basis – could put Ed Miliband into Number 10 Downing Street even if Labour was not able to secure an outright majority. It would infuriate the Tories who could argue that Scottish MPs were pushing through legislation for which there was no majority in England.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/19/salmond-snp-backing-labour

He got quite a bit of love for this one today too.

Alex Salmond has called for a “peasants’ revolt-type” referendum in England to abolish the House of Lords.
The former Scottish first minister said such a vote was needed to “clean out the stables” and provoke a “constitutional revolution — let’s get rid of the House of Lords and stick in a people’s senate”.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/20/alex-salmond-peasants-revolt-type-referendum-abolish-house-of-lords

I must say Salmond 'off the leash' does make politics more interesting. But anyway, yes, they're hinting that they may indeed change policy on a case by case basis in order to support a minority Labour govt. Depending of course of if a deal can be done. Labour has been very quiet about it ( with good reason I suspect ).

So you may get those bills through after all.

Shakethedisease

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Been apparent for some years that the available choices are at best limited. The May 2015 election was always going to be a watershed. Politicians may huff and puff, but the inevitably that certain courses of action are a necessity hasn't gone away. Bridging the deficit gap is going to require some unpopular decision taking. These have little to do with politics. Far more to do with sound financial management.

Oh I agree, perhaps not renewing Trident and the associated costs would help ? Getting rid of the House of Lords, austerity isn't working as hoped, mabye a different approach ?

Am not saying any of the above are the way to go, far from it. But there are unpopular decisions to be made whatever a govt does. Unpopular with 'whom' also matters. This one seem to have made little economic progess in five years re the deficit. Certainly nothing much to shout about anyway. Might be time to try something else ?

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

You must've missed this then. Yesterday in most of the newspapers. It was the reason the bookies odds shortened on Milliband in charge of a minority govt ( the quote I posted). And the article itself was the one I was saying I was surprised about re the comments underneath. Most quite welcomed the idea. While I do understand it's the Guardian and not the Telegraph. And without stereotying 'too' much, it seems English Labour voters are not so adverse to the idea of a Labour/SNP/Greens deal as I thought.


http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/19/salmond-snp-backing-labour

He got quite a bit of love for this one today too.


http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/20/alex-salmond-peasants-revolt-type-referendum-abolish-house-of-lords

I must say Salmond 'off the leash' does make politics more interesting. But anyway, yes, they're hinting that they may indeed change policy on a case by case basis in order to support a minority Labour govt. Depending of course of if a deal can be done. Labour has been very quiet about it ( with good reason I suspect ).

So you may get those bills through after all.

So, to be clear, the SNP is happy to ditch its principles in order to force through Scottish independence in the face of massive opposition from both Scots and Brits.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

So, to be clear, the SNP is happy to ditch its principles

I think they might consider sinking to the same level as the unionist parties whose Scottish MPs all vote on English matters. Nobody seems to have noticed they haven't voted on English-only issues, or, at least, they haven't given them credit for it.

Generali wrote: »

in order to force through Scottish independence

Nope. Wrong time for it. He needs to wait for the unionist parties to make a spectacular mess of the union, while his own party grows and watches and learns and grows. If he had another referendum in the next couple of years and lost again he'd look like a spectacular eejit.

Generali wrote: »

in the face of massive opposition from both Scots and Brits.

Well, luckily for the SNP, polls in Scotland seem to show the opposition are the ones having buyer's remorse. That could have been the SNPs fate. Turned out otherwise; to the losers, the spoils!

Judging how the meeja down here rant on, they'd be glad to se the back of Scotland. It's a miracle they can put up with the cost of "subsidising" them.:D

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

Well, luckily for the SNP, polls in Scotland seem to show the opposition are the ones having buyer's remorse. That could have been the SNPs fate. Turned out otherwise; to the losers, the spoils!

As the Nationalists on here were very keen to point out, there was only one poll that mattered and that went very decisively in favour of the Union.

As for Scotland paying her own way, AIUI including oil revenues spending in Scotland roughly equaled taxation plus borrowing at a similar rate to the UK as a whole in Scotland. Now, of course, oil revenues have fallen by at least £9,000,000,000. Has spending fallen in Scotland by almost £2,000 a head or did taxation rise by that amount? I missed the announcement of that change in taxation but it's hard to keep track from abroad.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

As the Nationalists on here were very keen to point out, there was only one poll that mattered and that went very decisively in favour of the Union.

As for Scotland paying her own way, AIUI including oil revenues spending in Scotland roughly equaled taxation plus borrowing at a similar rate to the UK as a whole in Scotland. Now, of course, oil revenues have fallen by at least £9,000,000,000. Has spending fallen in Scotland by almost £2,000 a head or did taxation rise by that amount? I missed the announcement of that change in taxation but it's hard to keep track from abroad.

There has been a novel, and rather febrile environment, for the last couple off years where much of our politics has been seem through the prism of Scotland's referendum.

Scotland has had its say, it voted for the status quo, and now the spotlight is moving towards England, UKIP and, Euro-membership and EVEL.

The SNP's contribution to the UK's political landscape will be based around disruption. Possibly a good thing. I actually found myself agreeing with Alex Salmond when he was calling for an end to the House of Lords.

My politics is much more Scottish than English anyway, though I appreciate that isn't shared by that many of my Tory voting countrymen, and it's their country too.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

So, to be clear, the SNP is happy to ditch its principles in order to force through Scottish independence in the face of massive opposition from both Scots and Brits.

Yes, they might. But as Zav says, not for an independence referendum. They'll push for as many powers as they can get for Scotland.

And lets face it, after campaigning so hard to keep Scotland in the union, those that did can hardly turn round and deny democratically elected UK MP's, representing UK constituents.. (even if they are SNP ), a full say in it. There are very, very few English Laws that don't affect the Barnett formula one way or another.

Scottish voting intentions for the May 2015 UK general election :
SNP 48.2% (+2.4)
Labour 24.4% (+0.5)
Conservatives 15.9% (-0.8)
Liberal Democrats 5.3% (-0.8)
UKIP 4.0% (-0.8)
Greens 1.1% (-0.4)
BNP 0.4% (-0.3)
SSP 0.1% (-0.1)

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/December-Scotland-Daily-Record-Scottish-Voting-Intention-ONE.pdf

If those sorts of poll numbers keep up, that's an awful lot of seats. I'm not convinced there will be a wipe-out, those percentages for SNP seem so high. :eek: Seem consistent though over the last few weeks. Also, there has seemingly been no Jim Murphy bounce. Westminster should prepare itself...And if a stable, functioning government ( tm Liberal democrats 2010 ) needs political parties to put aside former practices then mabye that's what will just have to happen.

Of course, this is just one possibility of what might happen 20 or so weeks from now. But if there is some sort of Labour/SNP/Greens deal, I would imagine economic policy in the UK will take a big turn in another direction. And very quickly too.

diamonds

zagubov wrote: »

Nope. Wrong time for it. He needs to wait for the unionist parties to make a spectacular mess of the union

Has the Toerags and Lapour not been doing that for 50 years ?

diamonds

Generali wrote: »

As the Nationalists on here were very keen to point out, there was only one poll that mattered and that went very decisively in favour of the Union.

As for Scotland paying her own way, AIUI including oil revenues spending in Scotland roughly equaled taxation plus borrowing at a similar rate to the UK as a whole in Scotland. Now, of course, oil revenues have fallen by at least £9,000,000,000. Has spending fallen in Scotland by almost £2,000 a head or did taxation rise by that amount? I missed the announcement of that change in taxation but it's hard to keep track from abroad.

When did a rich subsided "dependency" become abroad ? lol

Generali

diamonds wrote: »

When did a rich subsided "dependency" become abroad ? lol

I live in Australia which is neither subsidised nor dependent but is undeniably abroad.