Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Tromking

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I've read all about SNP supporters in denial.. but oh boy do some above take the biscuit. You all still think the Tories will be in charge after May 7th. Able to deny the SNP ( ie the MP's Scots choose a 'say').

Time to wake up now. There's a 90% chance of a hung parliament. With the SNP looking like being the third largest party in the UK. I don't really think any of you above have actually taken in yet what that means at all.

I`m no Tory and reasonably progressive in my politics, so I have no particular fear of a LAB/SNP alliance, but like Generali I`m trying to imagine the SNP going back to Scottish electorate boasting about gaining FFA in an oil slump and the loss of circa 4K (?) jobs with a nuclear free Scotland.
It just does`nt compute.

kabayiri

I don't really understand how an SNP/Lab coallition would work.

Apparently cancellation of Trident is a red line issue for the SNP.

If there was an open vote in the House wouldn't it be more likely to be won by the group of Tory/MP/Lib MPs in favour of replacement?

Where would this leave the SNP/Lab coallition?

.string.

kabayiri wrote: »

I don't really understand how an SNP/Lab coallition would work.

Apparently cancellation of Trident is a red line issue for the SNP.

If there was an open vote in the House wouldn't it be more likely to be won by the group of Tory/MP/Lib MPs in favour of replacement?

Where would this leave the SNP/Lab coallition?

Agreed, and by the same logic if an amendment to any bill put forward by the SNP favouring Scotland at the expense of the rest of the UK, or damaging the Union, the same situation would apply.

What would the SNP do then, I wonder? Vote with the Tories in a vote of no confidence.

.string.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

McCrone report, and Dennis Healy. Dennis was reported in all the the newspapers too. You kind of like newspaper articles and what they 'prove' when it suits I think. Not so much when you don't like what they're reporting. McCrone was a Freedom of information request direct to/from the Treasury.

Keep up.

Your logic never ceases to amaze me. I can understand that you may feel grieved at the political decision regarding the British North Sea Oil all those years ago, but that was indeed years ago and you may have noticed that there is much more transparency now in Government with the Freedom of Information Act and so forth.

So how you use the fact that this new transparency has enabled access to what happened many yonks ago to justify "Documented Proof", as you now do, that the Treasure Figures of today are incorrect is very inventive to say the least.

Documented Proof - I don't think so - it's just another deflection.

ruggedtoast

kabayiri wrote: »

I don't really understand how an SNP/Lab coallition would work.

Apparently cancellation of Trident is a red line issue for the SNP.

If there was an open vote in the House wouldn't it be more likely to be won by the group of Tory/MP/Lib MPs in favour of replacement?

Where would this leave the SNP/Lab coallition?

I suspect the SNP's red lines aren't quite as indelible as they would like to make out.

Their political narrative is extremely confused post their humiliating defeat last year. Without a coherent nationalist narrative they are left casting around for some kind of common ground that won't alienate their diverse supporters.

As with all mainstream parties, the interests of the Shakeys will be pretty low down their agenda before long.

purch

kabayiri wrote: »

I don't really understand how an SNP/Lab coallition would work.

It won't work, which is why it won't happen.

The more votes & seats the SNP win, the further Scots will be from having any say in Westminster over their own affairs.

First they vote down Independence, next they vote for extremist fringe politicians who will never get close to being able to influence any UK Government policy.

Strange lot.

kabayiri

I think the Tory / Lib coallition has worked pretty much.

This is probably as much a reflection that British political parties have all tried to occupy the centre ground. Labour claim to court big business and growth; so do the Torys; as do the LibDems.

A coallition can work if there is a commonality of cause. I don't see this with the SNP and the major parties though.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Far from it. I'm looking at the impact of a Lab/SNP alliance and the impact on Scotland of FFA.

Scotland would be FUBAR'd by any measure I can see. What's Plan B for the SNP I wonder. Surely they're not stupid enough to go through with their own campaign promise given that it would be economic suicide.

Is FFA still a central plank of the SNP's economic policy? I haven't seen any announcement to the contrary. Has the SNP said how they are going to fill the massive hole at the centre of Scotland's finances that would result from this? Given that they plan to put up the minimum wage by £2/hr and reverse austerity, the gap between spending and taxation is set to grow even wider.

Better hope this mess in Yemen blows up.

This morning on BBC Good Morning Scotland.

James CookVerified account ‏@BBCJamesCook

SNP leader @NicolaSturgeon tells #bbcgms her policy is moving towards a position of full fiscal autonomy over time. Not overnight. #GE2015

Smaller countries with small populations also tend to do quite well in the Western world. Scotland needs to become less reliant on fossil fuels over time and needs to diversify it's economic activities, and restructure it's economy. Oil is going to run out or perhaps become unprofitable to extract at some point anyway. May as well make a start towards an economy that deals with that sooner rather than later.. SNP MP's at Westminster is just the beginning of that.

Left to Westminster, Scotland will never have the chance to do any of the above, or improve it's position. And it's not like the UK as a whole isn't facing bad times ahead with big cuts as it is anyway.

And like you say, there's a good chance oil will rebound at some point. Not that I'd wish a war in order that happens though. It s all uncertain. I've said several times now that the referendum is over that things will happen in a more gradual manner. ( Unless there's another reason to hold a referendum ). But once whatever powers Scotland gets go to Holyrood, there's very little chance they'll ever be taken back. Just think it it as 'loosening ties' gradually in the below area's, rather than severing them all at once. There's much more to this than oil prices.

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Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

This morning on BBC Good Morning Scotland.

Smaller countries with small populations also tend to do quite well in the Western world. Scotland needs to become less reliant on fossil fuels over time and needs to diversify it's economic activities, and restructure it's economy. Oil is going to run out or perhaps become unprofitable to extract at some point anyway. May as well make a start towards an economy that deals with that sooner rather than later.. SNP MP's at Westminster is just the beginning of that.

Left to Westminster, Scotland will never have the chance to do any of the above, or improve it's position. And it's not like the UK as a whole isn't facing bad times ahead with big cuts as it is anyway.

And like you say, there's a good chance oil will rebound at some point. Not that I'd wish a war in order that happens though. It s all uncertain. I've said several times now that the referendum is over that things will happen in a more gradual manner. ( Unless there's another reason to hold a referendum ). But once whatever powers Scotland gets go to Holyrood, there's very little chance they'll ever be taken back. Just think it it as 'loosening ties' gradually in the below area's, rather than severing them all at once. There's much more to this than oil prices.

I'm not surprised that the SNP wants a gradual move to FFA. They want to retain a subsidy from the UK (well London and SE England in reality) until the oil price bounces back.

Shakethedisease

kabayiri wrote: »

I think the Tory / Lib coallition has worked pretty much.

This is probably as much a reflection that British political parties have all tried to occupy the centre ground. Labour claim to court big business and growth; so do the Torys; as do the LibDems.

A coallition can work if there is a commonality of cause. I don't see this with the SNP and the major parties though.

There will be no Labour/SNP coalition. It'll be either a confidence and supply agreement ( deals done beforehand in forming government in order to secure SNP votes, for a more stable basis to move forward )... or much more likely, on a vote by vote basis on every issue that comes up. Which is much less stable. I suspect the SNP will sit back and let Tories/Labour slug it out over a lot of issues, and just abstain. That could make things difficult for Labour if the Tories and other parties have more seats overall.. and Labour may have to cut a few deals here and there in order to gain SNP support. Fixed term parliaments mean calling a new election is much more difficult than it used to be.

Trident renewal, the SNP will simply vote against if a minority govt is formed and things are on a vote by vote basis. Leaving it to Tories, Labour, Lib Dems etc to decide. There is however a fair proportion of Labour and potential Labour MP's against it's renewal also. And Lib Dems have been making noises about scaling things back too.

The irony is that, amid David Cameron’s indignation, some in his own party have been considering how he and the Nationalists could work together. One Conservative MP recently suggested to me that the Tories could offer Scotland full fiscal autonomy in return for support or abstention in confidence-and-supply votes. Yet Alex Salmond’s vow to bring down any Conservative-led government at the first opportunity (made in his interview with the New Statesman) has closed off this option just as it was beginning to gain traction. Cameron, in a surreal moment of indiscipline, ruled out serving a third term; Salmond may now have ruled out a second.

If Labour and the SNP hold at least 323 seats between them (the number required for a majority excluding the abstentionist Sinn Fein), the Prime Minister will have no means of survival...

...Even if the two parties fall short of this total, Cameron could still be forced to depart if they outnumber the votes he can amass. It is this that creates the possibility that, for the first time since 1924 (when Ramsay MacDonald became the inaugural Labour prime minister), the second-largest party could form the government...

...The most momentous decisions facing Britain are external to the election. In 2017, the UK could vote on whether to end its 44-year-long membership of the EU. At some point in the next decade, Scotland will almost certainly again be invited to secede. Rather than resolving these existential questions, the election will sharpen them.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/ultra-hung-parliament-seems-likely-and-it-labour-has-upper-hand