Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Shakethedisease

HornetSaver wrote: »

The one flaw in this otherwise reasonable sequence.

Labour's strategy (enforced by the election admittedly), is to rip everything up since 2001 and start afresh. The Tories' is to continue to maintain that right is right for Scotland and they'll eventually win the nation back (in reality their best hope is evenly split opposition in the sort of seats that would be Tory in England. Had Labour's collapse been slightly less extreme the Tories might have gained a few in 2015). The Lib Dems' is to continue to remind people that they exist and worry about the rest later.

Only one of those parties really needs to look inwards to achieve what they're setting out to achieve.

Oh I think Scottish Labour are starting to do just that....

For Labour simply does not think the same. Or at least does not unanimously think the same. It's not just Jez, it's Kez as well. Kez stood for the Scottish Leadership on an open platform of not being the solution to Scottish Labour's problems and has since gone on prove it.

She gives the impression of having no idea why she is there, other than to acquire a momentary, very minor, celebrity. Having embraced, in theory, the argument that no-one knows what we stand for, far from clarifying that, she has instead cast doubt on two of the few things about which it was thought we were reasonably clear: that Scotland should remain within the United Kingdom and that the United Kingdom should remain within the European Union.

Strangely I even feel some sympathy for the “#SNPbad” school of criticism. I know what we are against but I have absolutely no idea what we are for.

We are against the Council Tax freeze but will we lift it? No idea. We are opposed to the SNP failing to use the Calman powers but would we have used them? No idea. We believe Forth Bridge maintenance was underfunded but would we re-introduce tolls? No idea. We think the NHS needs more resources but do we support Prescription Charges? No idea. We oppose cutting college places and maintenance grants to fund free university education but would we introduce fees, or even bring back the Graduate Endowment? No idea.

http://ianssmart.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/a-one-party-state.html

Generali

The Tories won majorities in Scotland since the war (certainly into the 50s) even now gets 15% of the popular vote despite having little if any chance of winning in pretty much every seat.

If the Scottish people honestly want to rip up hundreds of years of a very successful country because they get a Tory government then good riddence quite frankly. However, I don't believe that they do.

Shakethedisease

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Because the SNP have not yet come out and stated clearly to the nation the costs of leaving the UK.

They still persist with delusions like 'oil is just a bonus'.

When the SNP and everyone else in the Yes campaign comes out and states the truth, that the economic costs of leaving will be huge, that enormous tax rises and service/benefits cuts will be required, that people will be poorer and less secure, that their wealth and prosperity will be blighted for a generation at least, only then can an honest conversation happen about indy.

So ? Everyone else has ? Frequently, loudly and widely. They've trashed just about every single thing the SNP has ever said on independence, and still do.

The Scottish public all have access 24/7 to exactly what you're saying. So what's your problem ?

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

The Tories won majorities in Scotland since the war (certainly into the 50s) even now gets 15% of the popular vote despite having little if any chance of winning in pretty much every seat.

If the Scottish people honestly want to rip up hundreds of years of a very successful country because they get a Tory government then good riddence quite frankly. However, I don't believe that they do.

There was no Scottish Conservative party in Scotland until 1965 Generali. Before that... ( I've posted this before).

This may seem paradoxical, but the Unionist Party had benefited greatly from its projection as an independent Scottish party opposing the London-based British Labour Party.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Shakethedisease wrote: »

So ?

So if you ever want to win a referendum you need to be trusted to make a once in a lifetime major constitutional change, not just to run a regional assembly or have some opposition MP's, and that means telling the truth about the economics.

So admitting that the costs will be severe to ordinary people, that austerity will be much worse than under the Tories, that services and benefits will be subject to much more severe cuts, that many more people will lose their jobs, and that ordinary people will take a hit to their prosperity and standards of living that it'll take decades to recover from.

And then you need to convince them of why exactly it is worth it anyway.

Last year the handful of areas to vote Yes were the areas with the highest proportion of people with nothing to lose. Basically just Glasgow (and surrounds) and Dundee.

The poor, the benefits claimants, the least educated, voted Yes in the highest numbers. The middle classes, the educated, those with something to lose, voted No in overwhelming numbers. Even in areas where they voted SNP in previous elections.

Clearly those all important middle class voters did not believe or trust the SNP's story on the finances of an iScotland. Even though they were happy to vote for them on other occasions.

To win them over you need to tell the truth. And then convince them the loss is worth it. But if you do tell the truth, then you also have to admit to the poor and the working classes that indy means more austerity not less. So then you lose some of that vote.

I don't see any way of winning a referendum without an honest and credible plan for addressing the financial and economic implications to people's lives.

And clearly the plan last year was neither credible or honest.

Generali

I don't see any way of winning a referendum without an honest and credible plan for addressing the financial and economic implications to people's lives.

And clearly the plan last year was neither credible or honest.

Fundamentally, that's the bridge that the Yes campaign needs to cross.

If we take the SNP's figures from the last Yes campaign

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2013/11/9348/7

That c. 18% of the Scottish economy was oil and gas and we completely ignore any multiplier effect, without the stabilising mechanism of cash transfers from the rest of the UK 12% of GDP would have gone down the Swanee with the fall in the oil price. Unless the Yes campaign can serious say what they would do in the face of this fall in price, most of which is probably permanent, any pretence that there is any kind of serious plan for independence is risible.

Moby

Shakethedisease wrote: »

And you think Conservative governments over the next 10, 15 years... going all out at election time, every time.. denigrating Scottish MP's as pickpockets, 'most dangerous people in Britain' blah blah.. is promoting our union of nations ?

Labour was the 'glue' holding Scotland and England together politically. It was the only party in common. They're now imploding and losing ground in both. Either imo they'll have to 'officially' split, they already are split... geographically ( separate Scotland/England), or idealogically ( right/left/get rid of the 'Blairites' ). Or they can limp on until 2020 infighting for all their worth and no one having a clue what they stand for.

Until they start recovering ground the SNP will remain dominant north of the border with support increasing ( the demographics for SNP/independence says time is on their side )... and the Conservatives will remain dominant in England. While the Conservatives remain dominant in England, support for independence/SNP will grow in Scotland.. and so on and so on...

It'll all come to a head sooner or later over the next electoral cycle.

Your analysis is spot on. Labour made a major strategic error in standing on a joint platform with the tories during the referendum. The reality was they were the only credible party in Scotland to put the unionist argument. There is a significant democratic deficit in the UK. Even Heseltine has recently acknowledged the tories have no idea how to appeal in Scotland, Northern England and Wales.

Scotland will therefore ultimately go its own way and the rest of us will be stuck with the tories.:eek:
I think polling research is showing an increase in support for independence amongst younger voters. I wonder how long this will take to tip the balance?

.string.

Moby wrote: »

Your analysis is spot on. Labour made a major strategic error in standing on a joint platform with the tories during the referendum. The reality was they were the only credible party in Scotland to put the unionist argument. There is a significant democratic deficit in the UK. Even Heseltine has recently acknowledged the tories have no idea how to appeal in Scotland, Northern England and Wales.

Scotland will therefore ultimately go its own way and the rest of us will be stuck with the tories.:eek:
I think polling research is showing an increase in support for independence amongst younger voters. I wonder how long this will take to tip the balance?

It's the other way round.

The vilification of the Tories by the left is part of the problem. It hands a free propaganda weapon to the SNP in their similar remarks.

It's also rather daft and hinders rational thinking.

.string.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Because the SNP have not yet come out and stated clearly to the nation the costs of leaving the UK.

They still persist with delusions like 'oil is just a bonus'.

When the SNP and everyone else in the Yes campaign comes out and states the truth, that the economic costs of leaving will be huge, that enormous tax rises and service/benefits cuts will be required, that people will be poorer and less secure, that their wealth and prosperity will be blighted for a generation at least, only then can an honest conversation happen about indy.

You have it spot on there Hamish. The SNP refusal to consider reality is very evident in this thread where financial issues are avoided and direct challenges about the honesty of economic claims are ignored or deflected.

Generali

Moby wrote: »

Your analysis is spot on. Labour made a major strategic error in standing on a joint platform with the tories during the referendum. The reality was they were the only credible party in Scotland to put the unionist argument. There is a significant democratic deficit in the UK. Even Heseltine has recently acknowledged the tories have no idea how to appeal in Scotland, Northern England and Wales.

Scotland will therefore ultimately go its own way and the rest of us will be stuck with the tories.:eek:
I think polling research is showing an increase in support for independence amongst younger voters. I wonder how long this will take to tip the balance?

Labour are polling at the same levels as the Tories in Scotland. If Labour can't win in Scotland they will never form a Government. I doubt that they will ever lead a Government as it is, they're yesterday's party.