There's rather a lot of SNP supporters who voted No back in September, so it's not just the 45% that make up their support.

 

For the record. The people on this side of the border will decide what is best for them and their future. If you don't live here then you can't possibly know the realities of life in Scotland so please stop f***ing telling us how to vote, how to live and what is best for us. We'll decide that thank you very much and if you don't like it we will happily take our oil and f*** off.

 

(For all this talk about the Scottish Government deficit running at 7.8% in the event of fiscal autonomy, has anyone worked out what the rUK one would be once you strip out Scottish Tax revenues? Without Oil the UK would be in a serious hole so lets not pretend it's only an Independent/fiscally autonomous Scotland that suffers from downside risk with Oil.)

 

as long as the SNP voters stop deciding to speak for everyone in Scotland on every issue (and Scottish people living outside Scotland) assuming everyone has an identikit Scottish opinion (which I know for a fact is not the case, yes shock horror I have many Scottish friends!), and assuming that anybody expressing an opinion on a nationwide poll, where every elected seat will affect the outcome in deciding who's going to run the UK (including Scotland), then yes we can express an opinion on anything, thank you very much, just as you express an opinion on everything south of the border which affects Scotland (or not).

 

Until Scotland goes independent (if ever), we are one United Kingdom. Sorry, fact of life. I am, by the way, in favour of the SNP doing well, because I think it will be good for the UK to have a decent left-leaning government rather than a Tory-lite version.

 

People south of the border, incidentally, are most definitely NOT one homogenous mass of posh rich London MP's, so please stop lumping everyone into one convenient anti-Scottish nosey busybody package. I come from a mining community, officially the most-educationally-challenged town in the UK, possibly something to do with all the mines closing, the ones like my brother who actually and literally fought for well over a jobless year against Thatcherism and everything negative she wrought on the UK. So to turn your phrase around somewhat, perhaps you should therefore revisit this quote and imagine someone from a midlands ex-mining-town saying it instead:

 

"For the record. The people on this side of the border will decide what is best for them and their future. If you don't live here then you can't possibly know the realities of life in England so please stop f***ing telling us how to vote, how to live and what is best for us"

 

Just a suggestion....

Labour is advocating Keynesianism. Keynes specifically made the point that you reduce the deficit in times of growth to fund stimulus in times of recession. He was never about permanent deficits, and given how many on the left idolise him it's surprising how few seem to grasp that.

 

I know they are I was talking generally!

Of course fiscal autonomy will make Scotland worse off than it currently is (which is the point being made specifically, not that it'll be worse off than the rest of the UK) - if you don't want to take that from me, take it from the SNP's projections for fiscal autonomy which were based on oil prices being double what they are now, and double what they'll likely be for the foreseeable future. It'd need either taxes, cuts, or large deficits during a time of growth. Sturgeon already has rights to adjust the former and has done nothing and has ruled out the latter two. Something would have to give with oil prices as they are.

I'm well aware of the 7.8% figures and where it came from. It's also be compared to the UK stat every single time it's raised as a scare tactic.

 

All I want to know is what the rUK figure would be. It's not for a political reason I want to know. I'm just curious.

In reality though I think the surge for the SNP is much more complex than looking at internal British politics the same is happening across Europe with Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece.

 

2015 is very much like 1935(in an economic sense, hopefully not in a political sense). When a lot especially the centre right parties are advocating austerity policies and there are more left wing parties advocating Keynesianism.

 

Yup. I still think that a lot of the disillusioned Scottish Labour voters' complaints (that the Tories and Labour are too close together on policy, that Labour doesn't care about the working class anymore, that Miliband is crap) are mostly the same as you get throughout northern England (and, I would assume, in Wales). The only difference is they don't have a party precision-packaged to mop up Labour voters as the SNP.

Edited April 17, 201510 yr by Danny

Yup. I still maintain that, for the most part, the disillusioned Scottish Labour voters' complaints (that the Tories and Labour are too close together on policy, that Labour doesn't care about the working class anymore, that Miliband is crap) are mostly the same as you get throughout northern England (and, I would assume, in Wales). The only difference is they don't have a party precision-packaged to mop up Labour voters as the SNP.

 

It is hard for labour though with populist nationalist parties able to beat labour on their left flank in each part of the uk and then in England there is a large group of voters who are clearly Tory/centrists so they have to give a more middle way message since Thatcherism proved so popular.

 

It just shows the divisive effect that UK governance has on the regions of the country.

Edited April 17, 201510 yr by steve201

Yup. I still think that a lot of the disillusioned Scottish Labour voters' complaints (that the Tories and Labour are too close together on policy, that Labour doesn't care about the working class anymore, that Miliband is crap) are mostly the same as you get throughout northern England (and, I would assume, in Wales). The only difference is they don't have a party precision-packaged to mop up Labour voters as the SNP.

 

Yes I will be voting for Yorkshire First.

It looks as if the seat with the least amount of people standing in it is Buckingham, where the current Speaker, John Bercow is standing. It's usually tradition that the major parties don't stand against the speaker as it's more of a formality, with Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems declining to field a candidate. Although interestingly, the other two parties standing are UKIP and the Greens. I doubt that Bercow will lose his seat, and I imagine it would be next to impossible for one of the candidates to lose their deposit.

 

Now here's one for you - which constituency has the most candidates standing in it?

 

The definitive answer now seems to be Uxbridge & South Ruislip, where a certain Mr Boris Johnson is standing. 13 candidates taking part there.

Also, is there anywhere which lists how many candidates are standing for each party, including the smaller ones? I've been looking for a list for the past few days and can't seem to find one definitive one.

There's rather a lot of SNP supporters who voted No back in September, so it's not just the 45% that make up their support.

 

For the record. The people on this side of the border will decide what is best for them and their future. If you don't live here then you can't possibly know the realities of life in Scotland so please stop f***ing telling us how to vote, how to live and what is best for us. We'll decide that thank you very much and if you don't like it we will happily take our oil and f*** off.

 

(For all this talk about the Scottish Government deficit running at 7.8% in the event of fiscal autonomy, has anyone worked out what the rUK one would be once you strip out Scottish Tax revenues? Without Oil the UK would be in a serious hole so lets not pretend it's only an Independent/fiscally autonomous Scotland that suffers from downside risk with Oil.)

 

Oops, and the Shetland Islands would remain part of the Uk with 70% of that vastly diminishing oil supply oops.

 

WHy would ANYONE want to leave the UK, whilst being heavily subsidised by the rest of the country AND having interlinked economies, only to pluge themselves into economic uncertainty on a small corner of a small island in the north-west of Europe with nothing to help them except vanishing oil? God forbid if RUSSIA ever started anything - Scotland would be the first place invaded, leading to the UK after that, the powerhouse of Europe. Oops.

Nah mate. Same country and all, we reserve the same right to express an opinion on how people vote in Scotland as we do on how they vote in Yorkshire, Wales, and the Home Counties. That result last September was a No - you are British. I wouldn't presume to say to any Scot that they had no right to say how people in the rest of the UK should vote - indeed, Sturgeon and Salmond have.

 

And this. Scotland is my country too. This is ALL the same island. Stop dividing people, put our heads together, work together and let's get on with it - together. We're all human, we're all on the same island, and that should be the end of it.

Just the bits that we're ours first. You can keep Carlisle.

 

Come and take them then.

 

And here was I thinking we'd evolved since the days of Braveheart oops. Well, something HAS evolved - the power dynamic and economic strength on both sides of the border. Scotland now gets funded by students from the rest of the UK to keep its free education going, just for example.

 

If anything the concept of 'you people don't have a right to comment on our politics' is more of a unionist idea, given that was their line to both the British and Irish governments during the Troubles.

 

But yes, I am an unashamed (British) unionist, and deeply resent the idea (that has just been rejected) that only Scottish people have the right to comment on Scottish affairs. It's a fucking poisonous idea, and it's the normalisation of that idea that is exactly what the SNP want, because it separates Scotland from the rest of the nation.

 

This.

 

The WHOLE country should have a say on politics within the WHOLE country, and that includes independence for a part of it.

 

I find the very idea of it offensive, separatist and elitist although so VERY human. 'This is MINE - not OURS - MIIIINE!!!'

 

And why want POLITICAL independence for one of the most famous nationalities in the world? Scottish and English are no less famous for being part of the UK and much better off working together than with a contentious border and nationalist egos getting in the way, 'this land mine. Not yours', when you can't have FISCAL independence and still want to use the pound and be linked to the BoE? Oops. Also, do you really think business would stay in Scotland? Of course not. A lot would move and the UK would NEVER build ships in a 'foreign' territory. There is no plan A economically or politically. Hiding behind NATo and the EU will not exactly give you much independence. Getting smaller in a globalised world with large power players getting more powerful and influential by the day is NOT the way to go. And for what? To say you're independent. Great trade-off.

Edited April 17, 201510 yr by #BJSCSLAYERRRRRR

Isn't nationalism charming?

Honestly I thought we LEFT THIS ALL BEHIND AT THE DAYTON ACCORDS

Oops, and the Shetland Islands would remain part of the Uk with 70% of that vastly diminishing oil supply oops.

 

WHy would ANYONE want to leave the UK, whilst being heavily subsidised by the rest of the country AND having interlinked economies, only to pluge themselves into economic uncertainty on a small corner of a small island in the north-west of Europe with nothing to help them except vanishing oil? God forbid if RUSSIA ever started anything - Scotland would be the first place invaded, leading to the UK after that, the powerhouse of Europe. Oops.

 

Ireland wanted to leave at the beginning of the twentieth century. They had to fight for that right though.

 

And also your arguements about the division of an island nation remain relevant to Ireland today.

Ireland wanted to leave at the beginning of the twentieth century. They had to fight for that right though.

 

And also your arguements about the division of an island nation remain relevant to Ireland today.

 

Ireland is a separate island and was not really so much part of the country as a colony in Empire and was mistreated. It's a shame but it was and so the case is totally different.

The Kingdom of Scotland was formed in 843. The Kingdom of England was formed the century after. We existed as a nation for longer than England did before the act of Union in 1707. In the 13th and 14th centuries the Kingdom of England invaded multiple times until after the second wars of independence where England just let us be and turned its attention to the empire instead. That is until they saw the opportunity to strike so they got together with the French, Spanish, Dutch and Portugese to make the Scottish empire persona non grata and force the Scottish state into bankruptcy at which point the English offered up a poisoned chalice. The rich c**ts would get their money back for Scotland joining the empire. So the rich rules voted yes and signed the act of union in a secret location so they didn't have to face the angry public who were against the union. So not really different from Ireland. It was all part of the empire building.

 

And there was me thinking the years of Scottish history in school would never come in handy.

 

 

As an aside, I'm English born and raised in an English family. this isn't some braveheart bullshit. I support a federal United kingdom with Devo Max for all four nations. I voted yes because it was cameron refused to put devo Max on the ballot and general disillusionment with the Westminster establishment.

Devolution of powers to Scotland is far closer to where it should be than devolution within England. It's a sad reality that nationalistic posturing seems to be having far more effect than local leaders sitting down and thrashing out a decent deal (Manchester aside).

I don't like the idea of extensive devolution mainly as I don't like the idea of some UKIP council in Kent or wherever suddenly having the power to change the curriculum to preach the evils of bumming and the glories of the Empire (ironically), but regional devolution really is the least worst option in the face of old sausage-face spreading EVEL wherever he goes.

I don't like the idea of extensive devolution mainly as I don't like the idea of some UKIP council in Kent or wherever suddenly having the power to change the curriculum to preach the evils of bumming and the glories of the Empire (ironically), but regional devolution really is the least worst option in the face of old sausage-face spreading EVEL wherever he goes.

The future looks informal as city and county regions are too messy to legislate for centrally.

Tories have a 4% lead in new Opinium poll as Labour's tactic of endlessly prattling on about "economic credibility" reaps dividends. The pattern of there being an inverse relationship between the plaudits they get from the Tory/Blairite political commentariat and their poll ratings continues.

Edited April 18, 201510 yr by Danny