Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Lib, Lab and Cons are all declining as well in terms of their core voters. And it's a mistake to think that the politics of yesterday will be the politics of tomorrow.

Things did change after the referendum. Who would ever have predicted in 2004, just 10 years ago that the SNP would even be considered as some sort of threat to Labour in Holyrood, never mind in 2011.. who would have forseen they now are considered as serious candidates in the balance of power in Westminster in terms of UK seats ? However remote the chance of it happening. The fact that it is shows just how far things have shifted in less than 10 years.

A generation.. I'm not sure. Things seem to be accelerating really quickly. Whether it eases off, or continues apace seems to hinge on this election. Because if the SNP do do what the polls are pointing to ( and I'm not convinced myself, I think even 20 odd seats would be a tremendous result for the SNP from 6 ).. I think Labour will also give up in Scotland. Just like the Tories did in 1997 after a similiar wipeout. Jim Murphy is the last throw of the dice..

@elantan am enjoying it too. But what I really want to know is what Jim Murphy is going to do to become an MSP ? He needs to announce soon if he's standing again as a Westminster MP. And if he does, then his constituents will know he only plans being there for a year until the Holyrood elections in 2016, ( not a vote winner I'd imagine ). But if he stands down, and lets someone else stand in May he risks the seat falling and himself without a seat in Westminster OR Holyrood. He's been very coy so far. And with other Westminster candidates of all parties being declared left, right and center last few days. He hasn't got long to make a jump one way or the other.

Wonder what jiggery pokery they'll employ there. Because I can't see any completely safe way for him to do it. They'll have to come up with something very soon though. Am not sure he's had much of a 'bounce'.

* Joins with the popcorn.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-scots-want-labour-govern-5001611

Note : Daily Record is a staunchly unionist/Labour backing newspaper.

it may well be a mistake to think that the politics of today will be the politics of tomorrow.

.string.

A warning about Polls:

Polls are like masturbation - some people think they are the real thing.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Can the journalists at the Daily Record count? It seems to me that Scots don't want a Lab SNP coalition if only 35% are in favour!

I sincerely hope for the sake of Scots that Labour aren't wiped out in Scotland permanently. A single party state is not a good place to live. Corruption becomes inevitable, regardless of which party is the single party.

If the SNP actually manage to win 50% of the vote then they will presumably win almost all the seats in Scotland. Looking back at past General Elections:

2010: Labour won 42% of the vote and 41/59 seats. LD won 11 with 19% and SNP won 6 with 20%
2005: Lab 40% and 41/59 seats. LD 23% and 11. SNP 18% and 6.
2001: Lab 43% and 56/72 seats. LD 16% and 10. SNP 20% and 6.

That makes me think that the SNP vote is highly concentrated so perhaps 50% won't be an absolute landslide as it would be for Labour. There is a poll due to be conducted about now for Scottish marginals which will give a much clearer picture of what this sort of lead in the polls means for the SNP.

The 35% was the most popular choice amongst ALL voters.. of any choice given by the poll.

Our survey found that a Labour-SNP alliance was the most popular of all the scenarios put forward for the make-up of the next UK government. A Labour majority was second choice on 20 per cent, followed by a Tory majority on 14 per cent.

The 50% was for Holyrood elections. For Westminster they are between 10% and 20% in front of Labour depending on the pollster. In 2010 the situation was almost exactly the reverse re polling, and Labour won 41 seats.

SNP however, have some pretty big majorities to overturn, not least Jim Murpy's. It's all very interesting to follow.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

The SNP vote seems quite concentrated into the larger urban areas so more votes doesn't necessarily mean a lot more seats.

No, just the opposite. Large urban areas contain more seats and are where the traditional Labour 'heartlands' lie. The larger ( geographical ), but much more sparsely populated rural areas have up until now been more SNP/Lib Dem.

John Curtice :-

“It is becoming clear that the independence referendum has reset all the dials. Previously rock-solid Labour seats in Glasgow voted yes in the referendum, and this now appears to be giving rise to a particular surge of nationalist sentiment in those parts of Scotland where it was once assumed that the SNP couldn’t reach.”

With the nationalists also advancing by 20-plus points in the more competitive Liberal Democrat and Labour-held seats, they are on course to capture all the more obvious targets, securing a total of 53 seats under this more refined projection. The Lib Dems are again reduced to three and the Conservatives are wiped out entirely.
Curtice cautions that the polling samples are small for some categories of seat, but nonetheless believes there is enough evidence to conclude that the SNP is “on the march in heartland Labour seats, and – if anything – to a greater extent than elsewhere”.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/26/labour-bloodbath-scotland-general-election-2015-snp-westminster

Shakethedisease

CLAPTON wrote: »

it may well be a mistake to think that the politics of today will be the politics of tomorrow.

Yes that's what I meant. Generali seemed to be under the impression that the old Labour/Tory/Lib Dem tri-party thing will still be going on after 2015. Forever in fact. Negating any negotiation possibilities re further powers, and blocking any further referenda in future. The established 3 party system we have at the moment is already looking shaky with record low vote shares for all three.

Shakethedisease

.string. wrote: »

A warning about Polls:

Polls are like masturbation - some people think they are the real thing.

Cameron, Milliband and Clegg are certainly guilty of that I agree. ( the Vow ).

They're snapshots, not predictions. Trends are the only thing to worry about.

elantan

Shakethedisease wrote: »

@elantan am enjoying it too. But what I really want to know is what Jim Murphy is going to do to become an MSP ? He needs to announce soon if he's standing again as a Westminster MP. And if he does, then his constituents will know he only plans being there for a year until the Holyrood elections in 2016, ( not a vote winner I'd imagine ). But if he stands down, and lets someone else stand in May he risks the seat falling and himself without a seat in Westminster OR Holyrood. He's been very coy so far. And with other Westminster candidates of all parties being declared left, right and center last few days. He hasn't got long to make a jump one way or the other.

Wonder what jiggery pokery they'll employ there. Because I can't see any completely safe way for him to do it. They'll have to come up with something very soon though. Am not sure he's had much of a 'bounce'.

* Joins with the popcorn.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-scots-want-labour-govern-5001611

Note : Daily Record is a staunchly unionist/Labour backing newspaper.

shares the popcorn out ... yes it will be fun to watch, dont forget though wee Eck managed it so they may attempt that ... although tbh i think if they do its going to be serious issues .. did you watch Kezia and Jackie crash and burn on Thursday? ohhh that was fun, and i am not a huge Nicola fan tbh, but yep its good to see her teeth finally she was being far too polite

did you see also the video of Jim Murphy and the Yes supporters?

lets enjoy the ride and see what happens

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Yes that's what I meant. Generali seemed to be under the impression that the old Labour/Tory/Lib Dem tri-party thing will still be going on after 2015. Forever in fact. Negating any negotiation possibilities re further powers, and blocking any further referenda in future. The established 3 party system we have at the moment is already looking shaky with record low vote shares for all three.

It may well be what you meant but that is what it means.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Interesting.

The SNP were at past elections winning fewer seats per vote than the other parties, polling slightly above the Lib Dems and getting several fewer seats.

It will be interesting to see how this surge translates into seats. If it means lots of seats where the SNP is getting 40% and Lab 50% it's no use. The Lord Ashcroft polling for Scottish marginals is due out soonish I think.

Yes I think everyone is waiting on those at the moment ( the Ashcroft polls ). You're also correct that in a lot of seats, Labour 2010 majorities look pretty solid, if not totally impossible to overcome.

On the other hand Glasgow was one of the few areas to vote Yes. Which, this being an election, not a re-run of the referendum.. polling wise at least, is showing to be one of the strongest factors indicating SNP voting intentions in May. In fact Survnation has started weighting their results by it. And a lot of other areas are a straight fight between Lib Dem/SNP rather than Labour. And most pundits/polls think that the Lib Dem vote has collapsed from 2010. Turnout is also likely to be significantly higher in Scotland than usual which will also play a part either way.

A mixed bag from Ashcroft most probably. Most keenly watched will be Danny Alexander's seat no doubt.. along with Jim Murphy's own, and Dougie Alexander's one. Salmond looks almost certain to win Gordon.

Interesting times. I like Iain McWhirter's take on things. It sums up my own pretty well. That a total wipe-out could happen, as it's happened before to the Tories.. but it's unlikely. And it's hard to imagine after Labour dominance for so long in Scottish politics.

Professor John Curtice, !analysing these polls, concluded that a sea change had taken place in Scottish voting intentions. "In short," he writes in his blog What Scotland Thinks, "pretty much every Labour seat in Scotland has to be regarded as currently at risk of being lost to the SNP." The UK's leading electoral analyst does not make pronouncements like that lightly. We really are in uncharted territory.

Do I believe the SNP will win more than 50 seats in May? No, I don't. It is just too much of a !paradigm shift for an old hack like me to grasp. The SNP returned only six MPs in 2010. There is not a single Scottish Labour seat in which the SNP is less than 10 points behind, but thanks to our first-past-the-post voting system, if the Nationalists get a swing larger than 10% they start to take Labour seats by the bucket-load. And this shouldn't be so hard for me to grasp, since something very similar has happened before in Scotland in my lifetime.



The Conservatives used to dominate Scotland's electoral landscape, at least in the days when they were still the Unionist Party, and they remain the only party since the Second World War to have gained more than 50% of the votes and seats in a Scottish election. But in the 1980s, Labour tipped the balance against them, and within a decade the Conservatives were wiped out as a political force. In the 1997 General Election, the Tories lost every single Scottish MP. We have to consider the possibility that something similar is now happening to Labour.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/deliver-us-from-evel.26176095

Shakethedisease

elantan wrote: »

shares the popcorn out ... yes it will be fun to watch, dont forget though wee Eck managed it so they may attempt that ... although tbh i think if they do its going to be serious issues .. did you watch Kezia and Jackie crash and burn on Thursday? ohhh that was fun, and i am not a huge Nicola fan tbh, but yep its good to see her teeth finally she was being far too polite

did you see also the video of Jim Murphy and the Yes supporters?

lets enjoy the ride and see what happens

Yes it's good to see her finally losing her rag and get stuck in for a change. Being so 'nice' all the time does grate a bit sometimes. And I can't stand Jackie Ballie. Kezia looks well out of her depth.

Be interesting to see how Jim wangles his way into Holyrood anyway. If he even bothers after May if things don't go to plan. I get the feeling he's only there to throw everything he possibly can at the SNP until the election, even if it's daft ( I'm no unionist').. Then if Labour do better than expected. Slowly edge out back to Westminster...and leave someone else to take over now that disaster has been averted and business as usual with no pesky SNP MP's causing bother in Westminster..