Ed Milliband is Moses and I claim my 5 shekels.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/03/ed-miliband-sets-promises-in-stone
it would very much appear that a majority of Scots agree with me and no longer see Labour as representing ordinary working people.
hmm, careful with the extrapolation there I think, Labour share of the vote in 2010 was only 42% and the recent poll sees that dropping to 20% - a quick check of previous elections says that Labour have never had a simple majority of votes cast, so I would suggest it's Arguable that the majority of Scots have never seen Labour as representing ordinary working people.
You could probably say a majority of Scottish Labour voters agreed with you though.
Lib dems are the biggest losers here (proportionately) going from 18.9% to about 5%, while it looks like the conservatives may actually slightly increase thrir vote share 😛
5/1 that there will be a Tory majority on Friday.
You woz robbed, odds too short, personally can't see it, they need to be winning Labour facing marginals to achieve that and there is no indication they are achieving that. I can see wins of maybe 15 LibDem seats, but they would still need 8 more Labour seats.
Ive put my money where my mouth is and bet with Ladbrokes at 5/1 that there will be a Tory majority on Friday.
I believe that for the Tories to have a majority they need to have about an eight point lead over Labour. Generally opinion polls are up to about 3% out, to be two or three times that amount out would represent the greatest disaster for the pollsters since '92.
The problem in '92 was the "shy Tory factor", let's face it voting Tory is a dirty and rather disgusting activity best done on your own in a polling booth with the curtains firmly closed and no one looking. So it's hardly surprising that some people feel embarrassed by their dirty little secret and are reluctant to publicly confess.
However since an inquiry held by the pollsters in '92 the methodology has changed and the shy Tory factor is now taken into account. In the last couple of decades the polls have been remarkably accurate, iirc NOP predicted the 2010 general election [i]exactly[/i] - to the precise percentage.
I hope you didn't put more than a tenner Stoner otherwise I fear you might well have to readjust your budget and buy cheap food for a couple weeks or so.
[s]England[/s] Britain votes Conservative and we all get the Conservatives.
Ed Milliband is Moses and I claim my 5 shekels.
Ed's monolith can't stand up without support. Which is beautifully symbolic of a Labour government 😀
No, England votes Conservative and we all get the Conservatives.
Same as it ever was.
England votes Labour and we all get Labour
@ernie, IMO Scotland are voting SNP primarily for independence/referendum related reasons, it's nothing to do with Labour representing working people or not.
No, England votes Conservative and we all get the Conservatives.
Same as it ever was.
Eh? We have a documented, proven case - 1964 - where Scottish MPs have turned what would have been a Conservative government into a Labour one, and 2010 when we ended up with a coalition rather than conservative government because of Scottish Mp's
So its really not the same as it ever was, is it?
@ernie, IMO Scotland are voting SNP primarily for independence/referendum related reasons, it's nothing to do with Labour representing working people or not.
Much as I'd love that to be the case, I don't think it's true. Various polls have shown support for independence has grown a bit, but it's still a couple of % less than 50% probably. What we're seeing is a continuation of the way the SNP took over from Labour at Holyrood, the referendum (and more importantly its aftermath) might have hastened that but it's been a trend that's been happening for a while.
Your opinion (Jambalaya) would be wrong then. I know a lot of people voting for them because there is nobody else to vote for.
Tories have screwed the country.
Labour screwed it before them.
Libs will sell out their principles for a shot with the big boys.
There is nobody else standing that we can hope to represent a leftward leaning view that has a chance of getting in. I'm under no pretence that SNP are actually leftist (at least not as a whole, I'm sure the same cannot be said for factions within) as opposed to populist but that is the point; they are giving us what we ask for, nobody else is.
Of course there comes a point where those concessions need to be paid for and we are seeing the cost already. Am I happy? No but do I trust anyone else to deliver? Even less likely. Criticise all you like but they really are the best of a bad bunch by a fair margin, at least they pretend to be leftist rather than joining a circle-jerk to the bottom that the other three are busy sweating over.
I'm a normal working person and the Conservative's policies are better for me in almost every way - go figure
robowns - Member
I'm a normal working person and the Conservative's policies are better for me in almost every way - go figure
They're better for me too, but they are not better for the weak and vulnerable. In fact they're disgusting IMO.
@ernie, IMO Scotland are voting SNP primarily for independence/referendum related reasons
So now you're accusing the Scottish people of being stupid and not knowing the difference between an independence referendum and a general election.
Assuming that you are correct what do you put this sudden surge in favour of independence down to ? All recent opinion polls in Scotland put the SNP above 45%.
I would be interested in knowing why you think independence now has greater support in Scotland than it had 6 months ago. And how that squares with your pro-unionist stance.
From the New Statesman, some perspective on the real nature of the SNP
Like true vanguardists, the self-styled ‘45’ decided to set democracy and majority opinion aside and behave as if they were real voice of Scotland. Their pledge that the referendum would be a “once in a generation” event was immediately ditched in a frenzy of debate about how soon a rerun could be engineered and what ruses would be needed to secure a different outcome. [b]Everything the SNP does is now framed with that solitary objective in mind.[/b]The effect has been to foster a dominant attitude that is [b]highly sectarian and trending towards totalitarian[/b]. There is only one truth and one way to be authentically Scottish – the nationalist way. Anyone who disagrees with this is, as one SNP parliamentary candidate put it, the moral equivalent of a Nazi collaborator. There is no space for pluralism and honest compromise with a movement in this state of mind. The normal rules of democratic conduct don’t apply because it answers to destiny alone. [b]When Nicola Sturgeon says that she wants to help the Labour Party, she does so in the same spirit that Lenin once advised his British followers support the Labour Party of Arthur Henderson: “as the rope supports a hanged man”.[/b]
[b]The SNP’s progressive credentials don’t, in any case, stand up to serious scrutiny. When Sturgeon was asked at her manifesto launch to name a redistributive policy enacted by the SNP in Holyrood, she was unable to cite a single example. [/b]There has been plenty of middle class welfarism, but no effective measures to reduce inequality or poverty. Indeed, the SNP in power has resembled nothing as much as New Labour in its pomp, [b]combining the worst reflexes of authoritarian statism and market liberalism with a superior, “we know best” attitude that brooks no opposition.[/b]
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/if-you-think-snp-are-left-wing-force-think-again
Be careful what you vote and wish for! It's not always what it seems. 😉
THM, someone's opinion is not proof.
teamhurtmore - Member
From the New Statesman, some perspective on the real nature of the SNP...
Mmm, do you expect us to believe there would be a very objective piece from the rabidly SNP hating Labour NS?
...The SNP’s progressive credentials don’t, in any case, stand up to serious scrutiny...
Maybe not from the twittering classes of pseudosocialism, but the other parties would kill for a street turn out like this in any town. But of course Scottish voters are stupid, eh?
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The only thing that is going to save Labour's arse in Scotland on Thursday, is when the dead rise from their graves and lodge their postal votes.
Indeed, it isn't.
Like the opinion that the SNP is left wing or good for Britain. The proof is in the testing and the facts speak for themselves. How many progressive policies exactly, how many poor folk in tertiary education exactly....the list goes on!
The ends justify the means and at least the ends are clear.
You can make you own views on the stupidly or otherwise epic. The best test and place to start is to compare rhetoric with reality. You soon get a quick indication.
THM,in my opinion,the Conservative party fails your test too.
teamhurtmore - Member...Like the opinion that the SNP is left wing or good for Britain...
I don't care about whether it has left or right ideology.
I do care about whether it tries to protect the weak and vulnerable, and of course that it continues to push for independence now that Home Rule looks like a lost cause. It tries to do both, not perfectly, but it tries.
When Nicola Sturgeon says that she wants to help the Labour Party, she does so in the same spirit that Lenin once advised his British followers support the Labour Party of Arthur Henderson: “as the rope supports a hanged man”.
To be fair it was always on that basis that I previously supported the Labour Party. The problem is that I recognise when a corpse is dead and the stench coming from it suggests that it's time to bury it.
If you read Lenin's critique of the Labour Party you will see that he very strongly argues that everything possible should be done to help it achieve power. Because once in power they would eventually expose themselves to be just another bourgeois and reactionary party and betray the trust placed upon them. Hence the support Labour like a rope supports a hanged man comment. Despite making the comment nearly a hundred years ago Lenin wasn't far wrong.
Sadly imo this leads to the ridiculous situation where the Morning Star still unconditionally supports the Labour Party, instead of accepting that it's time to cut down the corpse and bury it. Mind you their argument is based on the claim that today the Tories have an agenda which is so right-wing that no matter how bad Labour are everything possible has to done to help them achieve power. That to be fair is a powerful argument and I struggle to argue against it.
THM,in my opinion,the Conservative party fails your test too.
Indeed it does - take austerity, what austerity, for instance. The Tories continue to spend more than they earn and that is austerity! Well be calling non-taxes, taxes soon (bedrooms anyone?). Spending more that you earn is so terribly RW isn't it even the poster girl used to do it!!!
Anyway take a look at income inequality under the dreadfully Tories and the progressive SNP and let's see under which the lowest paid have done better. And then..
I do care about whether it tries to protect the weak and vulnerable, and of course that it continues to push for independence now that Home Rule looks like a lost cause. It tries to do both, not perfectly
One of those is certainly true despite the once in a generation promise. Speak no evil.....or should that be EVEL!! 😉
I do care about whether it tries to protect the weak and vulnerable
FFS I hate this soft-left bleeding heart bollox. **** the weak and vulnerable. No one should be weak and vulnerable. I don't want to live in a society where we have to protect the weak and vulnerable. I want to live in a society where no one is weak and vulnerable.
EDIT : For me being left-wing is about empowering people, not protecting them.
As a matter of interest, in England does this happen in your town when Cameron or Milliband come visiting?
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BTW I don't mean do the Scots turn up, I mean do Tory or Labour supporters turn up. 🙂
No they are not allowed to fly nationalist flags - people mistake them for the EDL 😉
EDIT : For me being left-wing is about empowering people, not protecting them.
With jobs??
Crikey Ernie, you are beginning to sound like a Tory boy. 😉
Having a hard time here, which one of those is a nationalist flag?
Incidentally, the bile that article is deriding is exactly the same that you spew on a daily basis. TBH all that post did was make you look either stupid or a hypocrite.
SNP are a means to an end though I suspect you don't quite understand the end that some of us seek. I could take independence or leave it but in the more immediate future a message needs to be sent that business cannot continue as usual.
With political, economic, and state power, THM.
If I'm sounding like a Tory then I've seriously misjudged them. I had no idea they agreed with me that the people have a legitimate and unique right to political, economic, and state power.
Understand it perfectly squirrel. It's the only bit that is true. I'm afraid you may get a shock though. Could have sworn the yellow one with the black bit on represented a nationalist party, must be mistaken.
Just joshing Ernie, we both know state power disempowers people!
Epicyclo - when Dave or Ed come visiting? I live in a key marginal, so we'd had the dubious pleasure of both. Not that you'd ever know it, of course.
They were both whisked in, unannounced, had their rictus grin photoshoots with the local candidates, in airless rooms, with audiences of the fawning party faithful, then whisked off to their next engagement. You saw it on that evenings local news, but you'd never have known they were there. The party apparatchiks made sure there wasn't a cat in hells chance that they'd actually encounter an actual voter! What?!!! Someone with actual opinions?!! Or even worse.... Questions?!!! Not a ****ing chance!!!!
And that's why nobody has any enthusiasm for either main party or their carefully choreographed charades!
I'd pay good money to see Dave go for a meet-the-voters walkabout in Bury town centre. See what reception he got.
Oh.... and whipping up petty and divisive nationalism is fine when Dave's doing it. Which he's been doing rather a lot. It's only nasty and unpleasant when other people do it!
It's laughable to accuse the SNP of nationalism given the present stance of the Tory party. Where petty, small-minded and hysterical nationalist scaremongering seems to have become their main electoral pitch!
It's nasty, divisive, short-termist and pathetic, with potentially devastating long term consequences that they couldn't apparently care less about! But then that's dave and the rest of this present shower to a tee!
It's laughable to accuse the SNP of nationalism
When their manifesto starts "Stronger for who?" And the N stands for what? How else should it be described
Nationalist (cross)
Left wing (cross)
Progressive (cross)
What's left? (Excuse the pun)
Why did you chop binners sentence in half THM?
The full uncut sentence is : [i]"It's laughable to accuse the SNP of nationalism given the present stance of the Tory party."[/i]
It's a perfectly reasonable claim. And just to make it clearer he goes on :
[i]"Where petty, small-minded and hysterical nationalist scaremongering seems to have become their main electoral pitch!"[/i]
Editing and taking out of context someone's comment to make them look stupid is one thing, but I really don't see the point when the full comment and the full context is right there for everyone to see as clear as daylight.
My point is that it's a bit rich accusing people of nationalism, when there has been no more cynical display of it since Dave stood on the steps of number 10 the day after the referendum, and indulged in a display of the most shameless, distasteful example of exactly that he was criticising. And he's not let up since!
It personally disgusts me! At least the SNP have nationalist in their title, so there's the clue. What the present Tory party are indulging in is absolutely abhorrent! Questioning the legitimacy of certain areas of what's meant to be a democracy? And there will be horrendous long term consequences to that! For all of us! Change the names, and It wouldn't look out of place at the breakup of Yugoslavia! As certain cooler headed and wiser Tories have pointed out: it's a very very dangerous game he's playing! And all for his own opportunistic short term political ends!
Nationalism is never pretty! But the Tories are way more guilty of exploiting it at the moment than the SNP!
Odd, when they are one of the main beneficiaries, but if you say so. Dave will be wearing a brown shirt next week.
Opportunistic short term gains - politicians?
So you're saying he Tory party isn't presently basing its main electoral pitch, somewhat desperately, and horribly cynically, on stoking up petty English nationalism?
Seriously....?
I don't see anti-English rhetoric from the SNP. Their pitch seems much more positive than that. And look at the response of the electorate? But shameless, cynical, and horribly arrogant anti-scottish rhetoric is all I seem to be hearing from Dave. It's disgusting!
THM - I'm not sure I will be shocked really, as I said I have no illusions as to what the SNP have been doing for the last eight years or what they hope to acheive in the next eight. they are populist, pure and simple but I'd still far rather have left wing populism than right wing denial. Sure, they're another party that claims the left field but at least they deliver some progressive measures rather than what the rest have been doing with their time.
For your own records that includes free prescriptions, free public transport and maintaining free tuition (even if it was a Lib Dem policy). Sure their taxation hasn't been, well, anything but in fairness it was never supposed to be, all the extra tax powers do is pass all the costs onto Scots as opposed to the block grant, it would be political suicide to even contemplate using them. That being said I'm well aware of NHS problems, missing commitments to reregulate public transport (wonder why?) and the 'burden'* that council tax freezing has placed upon local authorities.
What, in comparison, has everyone else been delivering? If even one SNP leftist populist policy makes it down south I would declare that a victory, I'm sick of seeing people I know getting screwed over by the system and none of the current three have made any commitment to righting those wrongs.
* Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there is a burden but it would be naiive to suggest that they have trimmed the fat appropriately.
Oddly enough THM is wrong about the N in Snp as is Banners . It stands for national.Clearly the Snp is a nationalist party but it isn't in the name. I wonder when the Conservatives will drop the unionist part from their name?
how many poor folk in tertiary education exactly....the list goes on!
A lot more than there used to be.
Editing and taking out of context someone's comment to make them look stupid is one thing, but I really don't see the point when the full comment and the full context is right there for everyone to see as clear as daylight.
Has he mentioned how deceitful the SNP can be when misleading people ?
I don't see anti-English rhetoric from the SNP.
Apparently some english are insisting the SNP are doing this. IIRC its the exact same one who agree you must never ever be in govt with the SNP as they cannot be trusted
Oh the irony on both counts
wanmankylung - Member
how many poor folk in tertiary education exactly....the list goes on!
A lot more than there used to be.
Wanmanetc
I will stick to the experts thanks
The abolition of the graduate endowment fee for Scottish undergraduates in 2008 has become the totemic policy of the SNP but it has not been universally praised.Prof Riddell says the abolition of tuition fees has had [b]no discernible impact on poor Scots’ access to universities.[/b] At the same time, the number of further education colleges has fallen from 37 in 2011-12 to 20 in 2014-15.
Research by Lucy Hunter Blackburn shows the SNP halved spending on student grants in real terms, [b]meaning that many poorer students are worse off under its system.[/b] “Scotland is the only part of the UK where borrowing is highest among students from poorer backgrounds”, the former senior civil servant says.
Is that we mean by a progressive government that is proud of its record on education? Either easily pleased or deceived - you choose.
Good spot Gordie and I stand corrected! It's was www.snp.org that describes themselves as left leaning nationalists that confuse me. But I know now from here, that we not allowed to use that term any more.
That's a little unfair THM, as I assume you are aware the SNP promised in their manifesto to abolish all student debt, I'm sure they will get around to it some time, maybe after their child care reforms.
😀
Use what term you like THM. If you need any more help let me know
Progressive policies?
Fiscal responsibility?
Starters for ten....
Still no one left to blame in a few days time.
