September 14, 201410 yr Ironic that a Lib Dem SUPPORTER (there, is that better?) is so willing to take the electoral maths of FPTP as the honest manifestation of democracy given the party's historical support of electoral reform... As much as you'd hate to admit it, the Lib Dem manifesto was miles closer to Labour's than to the Tories in 2010. So, as has been said before, it's impossible to claim that Clegg had any kind of democratic duty to jump into bed with Cameron when the public so clearly voted for a centre-left majority in all but the House of Commons. Think Ive made it clear before that I want proportional rep, but this is the system chosen by the voters. It's not my taste but it's still democracy and I'm not going to sit and whinge endlessly about the results of democratic elections. That's rather the whole point of democracy, if you don't like it you campaign for an alternative - as is happening in Scotland, and also not to my taste. If the vote is Yes I won't sulk, I'll make comments on how best to avoid the economy of both countries going belly-up given the situation. In the British system (just as the American) total votes cast is irrelevant, it's seats that matter, and as we've also discussed before ad infinitum, Labour were booted out after a long period in power the economy in ruins. How could any sane party have brought them back to power without getting accused of doing wrong? Me, personally, I'll take Labour over Tory any day. ANY day in my whole 56 years on the planet, but it's not about what I personally want. Of course no-one has mentioned the most important issue if Yes happens: when will the OCC stop including Scottish sales...... :lol:
September 14, 201410 yr Back to the topic at hand and away from yet another circular discussion on Labour and the LibDems (keep it to the opinion polls thread please) These are the 32 Local Authorities in Scotland by population (and thus importance on the outcome of the vote) 01 \\ City of Glasgow // 592,800 02 \\ City of Edinburgh // 486,100 03 \\ Fife // 365,000 04 \\ North Lanarkshire // 326,400 05 \\ South Lanarkshire // 311,900 06 \\ Aberdeenshire // 245,800 07 \\ Highland // 221,600 08 \\ City of Aberdeen // 217,100 09 \\ West Lothian // 172,100 10 \\ Renfrewshire // 170,300 11 \\ Falkirk // 153,300 12 \\ Dumfries and Galloway // 148,200 13 \\ Perth and Kinross // 147,800 14 \\ City of Dundee // 144,300 15 \\ North Ayrshire // 135,200 16 \\ East Ayrshire // 120,200 17 \\ Scottish Borders // 112,900 18 \\ South Ayrshire // 111,400 19 \\ Angus // 110,600 20 \\ East Dunbartonshire // 104,600 21 \\ East Lothian // 97,500 22 \\ West Dunbartonshire // 90,600 23 \\ Stirling // 89,900 24 \\ East Renfrewshire // 89,500 25 \\ Argyll and Bute // 89,200 26 \\ Moray // 87,700 27 \\ Midlothian // 81,100 28 \\ Inverclyde // 79,800 29 \\ Clackmannanshire // 50,600 30 \\ Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles) // 26,200 31 \\ Shetland Islands // 22,400 32 \\ Orkney Islands // 20,100 The bottom few really ain't gonna change shit.
September 14, 201410 yr John Major was atrocious and vastly despised up here. That is all. I only said HALF-reasonable...in comparison to all the others....
September 14, 201410 yr Are Scottish Borders pro or against? Also never knew Glasgow was the biggest city there!
September 14, 201410 yr Are Scottish Borders pro or against? Also never knew Glasgow was the biggest city there! Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway are split into 3 constituencies, the middle one of which is the only Tory seat in Scotland... I think both will go No. Yup, Greater Glasgow is almost 1m! The central belt is home to a good 75% of the population of Scotland and there is only 30-40miles between the two so they almost merge into one!
September 14, 201410 yr Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway are split into 3 constituencies, the middle one of which is the only Tory seat in Scotland... I think both will go No. Yup, Greater Glasgow is almost 1m! The central belt is home to a good 75% of the population of Scotland and there is only 30-40miles between the two so they almost merge into one! Do you think Aberdeenshire (and the rest of North East Scotland) will vote for it? I heard it was one of the regions most against independence, which seems strange because it's the SNP's heartland. Also, what happens if the Borders say no, but the overall result is Yes? Berwickshire to join England? Edited September 14, 201410 yr by Danny
September 14, 201410 yr Aberdeenshire know exactly what the ballgame is with the oil that Yes are costing everything with.
September 14, 201410 yr Do you think Aberdeenshire (and the rest of North East Scotland) will vote for it? I heard it was one of the regions most against independence, which seems strange because it's the SNP's heartland. Also, what happens if the Borders say no, but the overall result is Yes? Berwickshire to join England? Honestly, I would imagine so. Like I sad, the difference from travelling north from NE to Scotland is minimal. Even the cities look identical, so it makes sense the closest area would choose to stay in the UK.
September 14, 201410 yr Think Ive made it clear before that I want proportional rep, but this is the system chosen by the voters. It's not my taste but it's still democracy and I'm not going to sit and whinge endlessly about the results of democratic elections. That's rather the whole point of democracy, if you don't like it you campaign for an alternative - as is happening in Scotland, and also not to my taste. If the vote is Yes I won't sulk, I'll make comments on how best to avoid the economy of both countries going belly-up given the situation. In the British system (just as the American) total votes cast is irrelevant, it's seats that matter, and as we've also discussed before ad infinitum, Labour were booted out after a long period in power the economy in ruins. How could any sane party have brought them back to power without getting accused of doing wrong? Me, personally, I'll take Labour over Tory any day. ANY day in my whole 56 years on the planet, but it's not about what I personally want. Of course no-one has mentioned the most important issue if Yes happens: when will the OCC stop including Scottish sales...... :lol: The voters haven't historically had a great deal of choice, but that wasn't really my point. The way Labour left the economy is, like anything else, a sliding scale and if the Lib Dems thought that the Tories would make a worse hash of the recovery (and, looking at their manifesto you'd think they would) then the "sane" option would have been to form a coalition that someone other than Clegg and Alexander thought was a good idea.
September 14, 201410 yr To be fair, I'm not sure that's true. All 3 parties had virtually identical policies on the economy, and in quite a few other areas the Lib Dem manifesto was actually a bit closer to the Tories. The only leftwing things Clegg said were the kind of vague, platitudinous nonsense about "fairness" that the Blairites do, without really giving any concrete policies that were leftwing (tuition fees being an obvious exception). I mean, he'd spent most of the 2 years before the election talking about how the Lib Dems would be "the party of tax cuts", and said at his last party conference before the election that there would have to be "savage spending cuts". That said, there were a LOT of individual Lib Dem candidates who pushed very left-wing messages and said they'd stand up for poor people more than Labour would, but I kind of think a lot of the blame lies with the Lib Dem voters themselves: the sizeable "Guardianista" contingent of the Lib Dem support just hadn't paid attention to how much more Tory-ish Clegg was than Charles Kennedy, despite the many signs. Since Kennedy the LDs have been taken over by the Orange Book liberals who are neoliberals and closer to the traditional 19th century liberal parties whereas Kennedy was last of the former SDP part if the party like the membership!
September 14, 201410 yr The voters haven't historically had a great deal of choice, but that wasn't really my point. The way Labour left the economy is, like anything else, a sliding scale and if the Lib Dems thought that the Tories would make a worse hash of the recovery (and, looking at their manifesto you'd think they would) then the "sane" option would have been to form a coalition that someone other than Clegg and Alexander thought was a good idea. But the arithmetic meant that wasn't an option. There were only two possible two party coalitions - Tory / Lib Dem and Tory / Labour. The only other groupings that could have produced a majority government would have involved several parties. Nick Clegg always made it clear that he would give priority to the party that "won" the election although he didn't make it clear what he would do if one party got more vote while another party won more seats. In the event the same party got the most votes and the most seats. By talking to the Tories first he upset many members and supporters but he kept his commitment to the electorate.
September 14, 201410 yr I'm surprised you still bring up the arithmetic reasoning Suedehead - it's such an elementary-level interpretation of how Commons level politics works that I honestly thought it would be beneath you. A Lib Dem-Labour coalition would have relied on the confidence of the smaller parties, but it's a confidence that could be relied upon. Take out Sinn Fein and the Speaker and deputy speakers and the required figure for a majority is 320. LD + Labour -(Dawn+Lindsay) is 313. That easily outvotes Conservative opposition of 306. The SDLP and Alliance take the Labour and Lib Dem whips at Westminster anyway, so that takes it to 317. The Speaker by convention votes with the government in the event of a tie, so in practicality the coalition figure would be 318 - close. Sylvia Hermon ran as an Independent and left the UUP because they entered a pact with the Tories, and sits with Labour in any case (319), Caroline Lucas is unlikely to back a Tory vote of no-confidence (320 - done), the SNP and Plaid Cymru would be slaughtered by their voting base if they joined the Conservatives in a vote of no confidence (as, indeed, the SNP were for a decade after backing Thatcher in 1979), and the DUP seeing the Conservatives as having betrayed them (not least for entering an alliance with the UUP). Sure, it would've needed a good whipping operation, but it's been done before - and given how skint both Labour and the Lib Dems were after that election, they wouldn't have been up for optionally entering another.
September 15, 201410 yr Nick Clegg always made it clear that he would give priority to the party that "won" the election although he didn't make it clear what he would do if one party got more vote while another party won more seats. In the event the same party got the most votes and the most seats. By talking to the Tories first he upset many members and supporters but he kept his commitment to the electorate. Wait, are we in a universe now where Nick Clegg keeps his promises to the electorate?
September 15, 201410 yr He didn't say he'd give priority. He just said he'd talk to them first. That isn't a commitment to a coalition.
September 15, 201410 yr Do you think Aberdeenshire (and the rest of North East Scotland) will vote for it? I heard it was one of the regions most against independence, which seems strange because it's the SNP's heartland. Also, what happens if the Borders say no, but the overall result is Yes? Berwickshire to join England? I think the city of Aberdeen is the easiest outcome to actually guess. That's a firm No. The surrounding county is less oil dependent the further from Aberdeen you get and the closer to Inverness you go. I think the county could go Yes. The borders will stay for the same reason the islands will stay. They'll get more attention from Edinburgh than London.
September 16, 201410 yr Betfair have paid out early for people who bet on No. Last time this happened for political bets was the 2001 general election if I remember correctly. It's over.
September 16, 201410 yr I saw that at lunch, really odd how the betting has been totally disparate from the polls. About 85% trading volume has been on the NO vote.
September 16, 201410 yr Well, it hasn't really been that disparate. Yes has never had the majority support - the two times it's happened only happen once you take out Don't Knows, and even then it's been more a case of Yes support being abnormally higher than it is in comparable polls, indicating them as likely rogue polls. And the thinking is that a lot of the Don't Knows will be voting and will follow the trend in worldwide referendums where undecideds stick with the status quo.
September 16, 201410 yr Betfair have paid out early for people who bet on No. Last time this happened for political bets was the 2001 general election if I remember correctly. It's over. How can they be so sure though, Cassandra?
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