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

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Politics may not stop but the referendum is done for a generation. If Scottish people wanted to be independent from the UK they'd have voted for it.

Given the flavour of your posts here, I don't think you have gotten over it. Not by a long chalk. Salmond doesn't appear to be over it either:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/second-scottish-independence-referendum-horizon-says-alex-salmond-1480417

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/12/20/scottish-independence-alex-salmond_n_6359180.html

I got over the referendum result very quickly. I'm not crying into my tea about it every morning. I'm very optimistic about things too... well, who wouldn't be with the situation the SNP are in now.

The 'flavour' of my posts simply don't agree with yours. And when you have nothing further or constuctive to add to the actual debate on the content, you resort to getting personal about it. And I take the flack for posting something you have no constructive answer to.

The first bit of your post is fine to debate on. The second is just meh.

Salmond hasn't called for a second referendum, nor will he in any official capacity for a while yet, if ever. He's not First Minister anymore, he resigned a few months ago. Do keep up. You're simply doing the same to him ( ie trying to belittle a personality who's perspective you really don't like or agree with ) as you are trying to do here with my own posts.

Salmond is a back bencher MSP at the present time. And if he's elected to Westminster will also, unless Angus Robertson gives up being leader of the SNP at Westminster, be a back-bencher there also. He has no ability to call, or influence anything SNP wise at the moment apart from airtime and being a well-known 'face'.

Either you need to refamiliarise yourself with the actual state of play at the current time re Scottish politics, or else cease posting on things you sadly don't seem to know very much about.

Shakethedisease

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Indeed.

But just occasionally, the facade slips.....

I don't have a facade. Zag would have missed it as it was in the Discussion time thread. But I joined the SNP about a week after the ref. I don't think I was alone..

But before that, no, I'd never voted SNP. And voted Lib Dem mostly. Anyway, whats this got to do with my personal political preferences ? Does everyone here have to be supportive of a specific political party in order to debate here fairly or what ?

Sad times indeed if so.

Who do you vote for Hamish ?

Shakethedisease

Masomnia wrote: »

That's why I think a coalition could be very damaging for the SNP.

At the moment any cuts they have to make are easily passed onto Westminster: 'We'd love to spend more, but we've had the budget cut'. As soon as they have some level of control over the overall UK budget they won't have that luxury.

I'm not too au fait with SNP policy, but it seems to me that they could gain a heck of a lot from a coalition for little loss as their main concern is with devolved matters. They won't have to give up promises on Health and Education because they have control over all that.

How much of their manifesto will be focused on the UK as a whole? How much will people care if they renege on manifesto pledges for the UK, rather than for Scotland?

They're not doing a coalition to answer your question. They'd lose too much support in Scotland if they did. If they do anything at all it will be on a confidence and supply basis with Labour ( Labour won't find that easy either ). They've come right out and said they won't deal with the Tories under any circumstances. However, the same old battlecry is going out all over Scotland at the moment, that a vote for the SNP is a vote to let the Tories in. By hinting that they would be willing to do a deal with Labour.. the SNP in Scotland neutralise this old battle cry for Scottish Labour waverers ( of whom there are many ).. reassuring that they won't let the Tories in because they won't deal with them.

Poll: 60% of Scots say SNP election surge would force Westminster to give Holyrood more powers. THREE-FIFTHS of Scots believe Westminster would have to deliver "substantially more powers" to Holyrood than currently proposed if the SNP held the balance of power after May's General Election, according to a new poll...

...In contrast, support for Labour had nosedived from 42% to 26%, with the LibDems down from 19% to 6%, and the Tories slipping from 17% to 13%. If those numbers were reflected in a uniform swing, Labour would go from 41 MPs in Scotland to just 10, severely reducing Ed Miliband's chance of replacing David Cameron as Prime Minister.

..The Panelbase poll found widespread agreement that greater devolution would flow from the SNP holding the balance of power at Westminster, with the majority of men and women holding the view. Even 44% of No voters agreed compared to 32% who disagreed, with 51% of Labour voters and 44% of LibDem voters in 2011 also concurring.

Among Labour voters in the 2011 election, 42% agreed compared to 37% who disagreed.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/more-than-half-of-scots-believe-snp-surge-in-general-election-would-force.26155722

But, no, no coalition this time.

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

They're not doing a coalition to answer your question. They'd lose too much support in Scotland if they did. If they do anything at all it will be on a confidence and supply basis with Labour ( Labour won't find that easy either ). They've come right out and said they won't deal with the Tories under any circumstances. However, the same old battlecry is going out all over Scotland at the moment, that a vote for the SNP is a vote to let the Tories in. By hinting that they would be willing to do a deal with Labour.. the SNP in Scotland neutralise this old battle cry for Scottish Labour waverers ( of whom there are many ).. reassuring that they won't let the Tories in because they won't deal with them.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/more-than-half-of-scots-believe-snp-surge-in-general-election-would-force.26155722

But, no, no coalition this time.

Correct me if I'm misinterpreting you but are you seriously arguing that the SNP can force the Labour Party to give Scotland some sort of quasi autonomous status while doling out votes in favour of Labour policies (ex-supply) on a vote-by vote basis?

You seem to think that English people are very stupid. Here's another scenario: the SNP offer that sort of agreement, Lab and Cons form a National Government to get supply through and a second election is requested.

The SNP are an irrelevance to the UK no matter how many seats they win in Scotland.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

Correct me if I'm misinterpreting you but are you seriously arguing that the SNP can force the Labour Party to give Scotland some sort of quasi autonomous status while doling out votes in favour of Labour policies (ex-supply) on a vote-by vote basis?

You seem to think that English people are very stupid. Here's another scenario: the SNP offer that sort of agreement, Lab and Cons form a National Government to get supply through and a second election is requested.

The SNP are an irrelevance to the UK no matter how many seats they win in Scotland.

Er... Labour's in quite enough trouble as it is. Look at what getting into bed with the Cons did for the LibDems :rotfl:
Still, that plan would be good news for the LibDems - becomiong the Tories bedfellows will take some forgetting and this might be the one thing that does it. :beer:

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

Er... Labour's in quite enough trouble as it is. Look at what getting into bed with the Cons did for the LibDems :rotfl:
Still, that plan would be good news for the LibDems - becomiong the Tories bedfellows will take some forgetting and this might be the one thing that does it. :beer:

My point wasn't a 5 year Government, it was a 6-12 month one that would basically keep the lights on before having another election.

As things are it's highly unlikely that the SNP will gain a majority in Parliament as they contest fewer than 1/12th of the seats. Just because the SNP is a Socialist party and holds enough seats to put a coalition government in place with Labour, doesn't mean that Labour will play ball. There's a myth that minority parties hold power in coalitions, they don't. At best they can get a few pet policies through that don't contradict the major party. Labour is a Unionist party and I can't imagine they'd want to go down in history as the party that broke the union.

Look at it this way: how many major policies (economics, foreign policy, home office) have the Lib Dem managed to push through in the face of Tory opposition?

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

My point wasn't a 5 year Government, it was a 6-12 month one that would basically keep the lights on before having another election.

As things are it's highly unlikely that the SNP will gain a majority in Parliament as they contest fewer than 1/12th of the seats. Just because the SNP is a Socialist party and holds enough seats to put a coalition government in place with Labour, doesn't mean that Labour will play ball. There's a myth that minority parties hold power in coalitions, they don't. At best they can get a few pet policies through that don't contradict the major party. Labour is a Unionist party and I can't imagine they'd want to go down in history as the party that broke the union.

Look at it this way: how many major policies (economics, foreign policy, home office) have the Lib Dem managed to push through in the face of Tory opposition?

They certainly are in a couple of senses. Scotland was part of their origins and became their heartland. Vince Cable was a Labour Councillor in Glasgow when I was a teen. The Monklands seats in the rustbelt were their reactor vessel for ambitious pols which propelled lots of politicians to the top spot.

When Maggie took over England, Scotland kept Labour's lights burning by supplying 50 of their 170 remaining seats which is almost a third of their Westminster MPs. There are still people who don't realise that and wonder why so many Labour ministers had Scottish accents. It's because they made up a huge proportion of their safe seats. Same with the Lib Dems; 10 of their 20 seats were in Scotland.

As for being unionist, Labour gave up on Northern Ireland a long time ago and effectively boycott it. Their unionism is extremely pragmatic.

I think it's fair to say they need to find someone to vote for them. Maybe they can steal voters from the LibDems. Shame.

padington

Generali wrote: »

At best they can get a few pet policies through that don't contradict the major party. Labour is a Unionist party and I can't imagine they'd want to go down in history as the party that broke the union.

I think it's more of a case of survival, if the union dies, labour may subsequently lose more than any other party.

Ironically the tories are more likely to pragmatically cut the tartan army adrift and settle for a stronger position in the English parliament for ever more should a weird stalemate force their hand.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Correct me if I'm misinterpreting you but are you seriously arguing that the SNP can force the Labour Party to give Scotland some sort of quasi autonomous status while doling out votes in favour of Labour policies (ex-supply) on a vote-by vote basis?

You seem to think that English people are very stupid. Here's another scenario: the SNP offer that sort of agreement, Lab and Cons form a National Government to get supply through and a second election is requested.

The SNP are an irrelevance to the UK no matter how many seats they win in Scotland.

Thank you. But I think you'll find that if the Scottish electorate sends a majority of SNP MP's into Westminster, only to find that the other three UK parties have united, in order that the MP's they have democratically elected to represent them have no power on behalf of their constituents ?... There will be a more than a bit of a problem there..

Just think of them as UK MP's elected to represent UK constituencies in Scotland. Which is after all, exactly what they are, and why the No vote should be respected. I'm sure you'll agree there ?

And that's not even going into what Labour voters, most especially northern UK ones, will think of Labour going into any sort of coalition with the Tories. Wake up. You may have been away too long. All the re-elections you want probably won't change the way Scotland will vote right now. In fact it will probably only harden SNP votes. It would just seem far too desperate to keep them out at all costs. And would weaken the union very quickly. Labour would be completely finished off in Scotland by next Christmas should your scenario play through.

In May, no-one even knows if it will be Tories or Labour in power. However, right now, the polls show a probable hung parliament. With SNP holding the balance of power, not UKIP.

SNP has put forward that they won't deal with the Tories. But they 'may' with Labour on a confidence and supply basis. Non-renewal of Trident is a red-line, among other 'requests' ( the electoral process being one of them ). Its completely up to Labour to accept it or not.

I suspect that if the above came into play Labour would have to choose between appeasing the English based electorate, or keeping their Scottish one on side. Difficult. But I think they'd go for England, since it looks like, currently, Scotland has already been lost to the SNP electorally. Scottish Labour would become a seperate entity.. but the spectre of Labour not keeping the Scots onside would mean Scotland itself also becoming a more separate entity. One way or another.

Time to just face facts sometimes. The SNP may arithmetically hold the balance of power if Labour get in. No-one knows what will happen next. Though the SNP has said what it wants as a 'price' and will do..

If Tories get in, it's a win for the SNP ( in Scotland ). If Labour do, and won't do a deal it's a win for the SNP (in Scotland). If they do a deal, then it's a win for the SNP ( in Scotland ). If Tories and Labour unite to keep the SNP out, then it's a win for the SNP ( in Scotland ). There's no real way round it and there's no point soft soaping it even if you don't want to hear it. But this is one tough, tough situation for all Westminster parties to have to navigate their way round. The SNP being any sort of threat at this stage of the game 3 months after a No vote wasn't in any of the plans. None of them have prepared for it, even if like you they are probably still in the denial/anger phase ( Scottish Labour certainly is ! ).

Unless the polls change...which is perfectly possible of course too. Hope that answers my personal perspective and position for you. The data will back me up if you want to check the polls lately. But the seats in Scotland, really do matter a bit. A Labour majority would be the only thing that would halt any of the above, and that's still very possible too... ish.

CLAPTON

It would seem to me, that if the voters of Scotland will it, they could be independent within 10 years.


Depends upon events of course.