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Although I expect the SNP to make large gains in Westminster I think these predictions of 40+ seats (mostly based on Scotland wide polling) are pretty much the new Cleggmania.
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Dec 22, 2014 00:13
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It was never going to be in anyone's interest to freeze Scotland out of the EU and bilateral treaties would've been signed to emulate any important aspects of EU membership whilst negotiations were ongoing.
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Dec 22, 2014 23:32
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Lugaloco posted:I'm not sure the SNP wants a formal coalition since they got to witness the annihilation of the Lib Dems over 5 years. I doubt the Tories will be able to form a government this time round unless they somehow retain enough seats AND their possible coalition partners also get enough, both of which don't seem that likely. But since Labour are the SNP's main competition in Scotland it seems unlikely that people unhappy with a coalition with Labour would vote Labour instead of SNP? Even more unlikely people would turn around and back the Lib Dems....
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Feb 5, 2015 12:55
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Is it the law that council tax bands all have to go up by the same rise? It must be otherwise you'd see way higher rates at like band F+ right?
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Feb 11, 2015 22:36
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LemonDrizzle posted:And replaced with what exactly? Gotta say, the apparent divergence of some people's views on devolution of power and resources at the national and local levels is quite striking. It's a question of critical mass in terms of economies of scale and talent pools. Too much localism can mean too much work being duplicated, too many kind of important jobs filled with incompetent people. Councils are a perfect example of why having dozens of part time amateurs doesn't work a lot of the time. A smaller number of regional governments and professional politicians would be much more effective. E.g. London Assembly, Holyrood, also England police authorities and lol comissioners vs the Scottish police authority.
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Feb 17, 2015 14:02
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LemonDrizzle posted:OK, yes, as a general principle excessive decentralization is inefficient but I don't think I agree that Scottish local government is necessarily over-decentralized. Scotland has 32 councils representing a total population of 5.3m, so each council represents ~160k people on average. Iceland manages to run a full parliamentary democracy with a population of 300k, so unless you believe that Icelanders are uniquely competent or Scots are uniquely dense and unsuited to self-government, it hardly seems credible that you couldn't find sufficient competent administrators to run Scotland's councils well. I didn't really mean localisation in terms of direct proportion to population, but more that competent and successful people often don't stay in "local" government jobs. How many councilors are just reject MSP/MP wannabes? You can't compare Iceland to a city council just because the populations are similar. I think having a lot of unpaid political positions exacerbates this problem - I'd rather have 5 competent professionals than 50 bumbling amateurs running my council. Lord of the Llamas fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 16:56
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SELECT * is pretty close to DROP TABLE on the keyboard after all.
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Feb 19, 2015 18:53
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Acaila posted:I don't think it has to be taken as read that political parties must be locked in hateful opposition to each other. Yeah. And because I can't be bothered making the same point twice (from UKMT): Lord of the Llamas posted:"Kingmakers" implies the SNP have the choice as to which party they would crown. They don't. Labour are the only party the SNP can realistically cooperate with. The only other option is back to the election roulette wheel. There's no doubt the SNP inner circles would love a Conservative government in Westminster to further the wedge between Scotland the rest of the UK but that's by no means what your average 2015 SNP voter wants. The fact is that a lot of people vote SNP because they're disillusioned with Scottish Labour and not because they're legit Nationalists, and the SNP know this full well, so it's a bit absurd to think they would risk their current popularity by getting all meta and pushing for the Tories in some kind of tactical play.
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Feb 23, 2015 23:30
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Jeremy loving Clarkson.
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Mar 1, 2015 21:12
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dadrips posted:Mind when folk said that Scottish independence wasn't about being emotionally invested in rectangles of fabric with coloured shapes on them? That was fun and part of why I voted yes, can we go back to that? Some people just want to kick up a fuss over any change. Let us remind ourselves what local treasure it's replacing...
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Mar 10, 2015 00:13
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Pissflaps posted:I don't think it needs its GDP bringing 'in line' - Scotland is spending £800 more per person than it generates. Of course the whole of the UK has spent more than it makes hence the massive public debt, but i'm not sure how you could have one part of the country running up its own unique, larger debt for the betterment of its residents when the rest of the UK will ultimately be responsible for it. Do we know how this £800 figure is calculated? How much of it might reflect certain public sector 'industries' (e.g. defense, university places, scientific research) being proportionally larger in Scotland relative to its population? For example Scotland has 8% of the UK's population but 9% of university places. If Scotland spends more because it's performing more public sector functions that are beneficial to the whole of the UK it's not the same as having an intrinsic deficit.
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Mar 12, 2015 14:06
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serious gaylord posted:But Scotland gives free university places to all of its residents, that surely balances out the 1% difference in places. In that specific example sure I guess. I never said there aren't areas where Scotland spends more but was just asking whether or not the £800 figure takes these differences into account.
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Mar 12, 2015 16:23
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How dare they represent Scotland as a mythical beast when Scotland is very definitely real. This is an outrageous insult 
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Mar 13, 2015 13:50
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I still think Labour are going to win. So far this year every single poll has showed that the Tories are still polling worse in England than in 2010 and Labour are still polling better in England than in 2010. So the Tory seat-count pretty much has a rock solid ceiling at the 2010 level at best. Unless anyone seriously doesn't think the Lib Dem meltdown is going to help Labour much more than the Tories then it's not hard to see Labour winning at 2005 levels in England which would be an absolute majority even if they lost 30 seats in Scotland. Even with a complete SNP victory in Scotland you could see Labour ending up with ~310-315 seats which wouldn't be very difficult to have a minority government with outside of coalition. Enough seats that they could use the Lib Dems or the SNP to get votes through and not be beholden to either.
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Mar 28, 2015 14:37
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jre posted:Remember when Denis Canavan was going to lead the Yes campaign, and what we got instead was Salmond dominating all of the press time ? He's a good politician but he needs to work on not needing to be the centre of attention at all times. It's a vicious cycle; He takes centre stage because the media cover him, the media cover him because he takes centre stage. Media coverage of politics is more soap opera than analysis, therefore it's very difficult to transfer attention away from any of the traditional main characters even when you want to. That's not to say Salmond is actually trying very hard to be a team player but it's not hard to see why he would think it's his obligation to get involved whenever he thinks he can draw more attention than his colleagues.
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Mar 30, 2015 20:56
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I don't like whisky.
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Mar 31, 2015 17:44
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I'm a champagne socialist. Not ashamed to label myself as such. I understand the unfair advantages the wealthy have precisely because I've experienced them first hand. I don't buy into the idea that I should be discredited as a leftist, or that I should be obliged to be a centrist or conservative because of it. I believe in a fair society and currently it takes the utter piss how much easier life is for those people who a born to the "right" parents.
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Apr 2, 2015 16:08
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No way does Ed want a formal deal with the Lib Dems after the last 5 year shitshow making them so toxic. I think a minority government is def the preferred option.
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Apr 21, 2015 12:35
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UK 68% Scotland 72% SNP 48
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Apr 29, 2015 22:46
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https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/05/05/scottish-independence-no-lead-6/ Things are getting back to normal.
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May 5, 2015 17:58
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I was warming to Pissflaps but this policy on Irn Bru might be a red line.
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May 12, 2015 23:15
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baronvonsabre posted:Most Green party members tactically voted for the SNP this time, since they're a party campaigning for independence like the Greens but are also actually electable in a FPTP system. I'm pretty certain that the last Hollyrood intention poll showed the Greens making significant gains. Tactically voted for the SNP? Because the SNP really needed every vote in this election... The Greens are bad at everything they try and do.
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May 13, 2015 12:44
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Coohoolin posted:Scotland produced Robert Burns and has been coasting on the massive cultural surplus that created ever since. We're still miles ahead of any other country. You clearly never endured being dragged to the Burns centre (later the Tam O'Shanter experience iirc) every single loving time you visited your evil Tory grandmother in Ayr.  Seriously it ruined Burns for me forever. loving Tories.
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May 15, 2015 16:23
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Extreme0 posted:I don't get why Ayr is conservative compared to the rest of Ayrshire. Although I never lived in Ayr, from my many visits there (both parents grew up in Ayr), there is a metric fuckton of reasonably well off old people around Ayr. I'm not sure if Ayr proper is very Conservative but it certainly seemed to me that Alloway/Prestwick and the surrounding area is.
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May 15, 2015 16:39
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ThomasPaine posted:I've been saying they should discuss a merger for ages. They agree on most things and would give each other a huge amount of credibility by moving outside their traditional comfort zones. The 'middle class hippie' label that gets tossed at the Greens really alienates them from a large section of the electorate, just as the SSP's traditional socialist iconography does. They could learn a lot from one another, set an important precedent, and ameliorate many of their perceived weaknesses if they combined efforts and created something wholly new. What would they call the new party?
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May 21, 2015 08:58
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Pissflaps posted:I've never lived in Scotland. Mirror universe Pissflaps does.
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May 29, 2015 13:32
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Yawn.
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Jul 3, 2015 16:16
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OwlFancier posted:How does the scotland bill affect england and wales only? 
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Jul 7, 2015 04:38
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djf posted:Most of the talent involved in the various Yes groups has now moved on to an SNP who want to do anything except talk about independence leaving only Tommy and the Scottish Resistance to do the shouting and screaming so it seems a fair suggestion that he is currently the face of Scottish nationalism. Err yeah, Alex Salmond totally didn't describe a second referendum as "inevitable" recently. That didn't happen at all.
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Aug 3, 2015 23:22
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Extreme0 posted:
Probably mainly a side effect of low turnout.
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Aug 14, 2015 12:37
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Jedit posted:More likely it was people voting against the SNP. As we have seen, the best way to make them irrelevant was to have a Tory majority. Why wouldn't most Labour no voters just vote Labour to be against the SNP in the council Election? I think it's more likely a lot of Labour voters stayed home and a few Blairites and Liberals jumped into bed with the Tories.
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Aug 14, 2015 13:13
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Jedit posted:Please learn the difference between "no" and "yes". We were talking about why the Tories experienced an 8% gain in the vote share not the SNP getting a big bump......
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Aug 14, 2015 15:04
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Jedit posted:No, we were talking about where the Labour share went. The Tories were a sidebar. Like how my post you replied to literally only quoted the part about the where the Tory vote share came from.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:08
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So what are the new provisions going to be?
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Sep 1, 2015 15:56
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I knew a girl that asked a bouncer outside a bar "what's the craic like inside?" but he turned out to be a  MIGRANT and thought she was asking about drugs and refused her entry. Was pretty funny.
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Sep 3, 2015 10:13
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Crameltonian posted:Racismchat's so passe, we don't we have a fun discussion about whether the thread prefers people of faith or not? Presumably it's because "people of faith" are clearly more gullible and easily manipulated.
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Sep 3, 2015 12:31
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Angepain posted:I hate to be a naysayer, but think these studies might have some issues with methodological rigour.
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Sep 11, 2015 09:39
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Coohoolin posted:I saw some numbers going around saying crime is noticeably down, attributing it to the SNP's centralising the police force. I'm very skeptical, anyone know anything about this? Nope but crime is in general decline and has been for many years now and that seems to be a general social trend. Everyone tries to take credit for it though, of course.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:04
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keep punching joe posted:The "flags don't build houses" patter is a bit rich coming from the party who build a grand total of 6 council houses in their last administration. Yes as we all know Corbyn was closely linked with the New Labour administration.
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Sep 28, 2015 09:05
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Leggsy posted:Edinburgh West would be a very difficult seat for Labour to win. They came 4th behind even the Tories in May. If there were a by-election, it would likely be a two horse race between the SNP and Lib-Dem candidates. Labour came 2nd there in 2010.The Lib Dem candidate probably only held on to his voter share due to tactical voting (note Con -10.9% in the 2015 election). I think Labour would stand a very good chance of at least coming a respectable 2nd in a by-election if not squeaking out a win - the Corbynites are probably going to be a lot more energised than the nats.
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Oct 2, 2015 17:36
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