You really think anti-Catholicism is an element here or are you just being contrarian?

 

That's a bit of a false dichotomy you're creating there, so I'll try to answer around it.

 

I have no idea if all those who voted in favour of the restriction of child tax credits did so because of a hatred of Catholics. Having said that, they surely must have realised that Catholics tend to have bigger families than normal people, and are therefore likely to be greater hit by the change than the average family, so it wouldn't surprise me if many MPs did have that in the back of their minds as they voted in favour of it.

 

One also suspects that the SNP's strong opposition to the child benefit restriction might be because of the strong support the party has among Catholics within Scotland. 48% of Catholics voted for the SNP in 2015, so keeping them on side will be important for the party going forward.

Much as I loathe Tories in power, I think the main reason for tax credits is to hit the poor who habitually have loads of kids and avoid work, and the rest is just fall-out from that. It is a fact that people who don't work, but have kids, will be getting more cash to spend/in hand than large numbers of people who do work. We can argue about the numbers involved (and I'm not pointing the finger or judging, as members of my own family fall into both those categories) but I imagine the woolly thinking is it will force people to go to work rather than have kids (which it won't) but will have negative consequences for children in poor families (which the Tories love doing, having that underclass of poorly educated workers to exploit and manipulate and then brainwash with propaganda to give them even more power to screw them up).

 

Now, THAT they are definitely guilty of....

That's a bit of a false dichotomy you're creating there, so I'll try to answer around it.

 

I have no idea if all those who voted in favour of the restriction of child tax credits did so because of a hatred of Catholics. Having said that, they surely must have realised that Catholics tend to have bigger families than normal people, and are therefore likely to be greater hit by the change than the average family, so it wouldn't surprise me if many MPs did have that in the back of their minds as they voted in favour of it.

 

One also suspects that the SNP's strong opposition to the child benefit restriction might be because of the strong support the party has among Catholics within Scotland. 48% of Catholics voted for the SNP in 2015, so keeping them on side will be important for the party going forward.

I've only just seen this. It's difficult to prove or disprove what you're saying because, as far as I can tell, there's been no mention of Catholics in the child tax credits debate outwith this thread.

 

The SNP don't have strong support amongst Catholics. They got 50% of the vote across the entire Scottish population in that election so if anything, Catholic support is a little below average. I think it's a little unfair to suggest that the SNP are only opposing this to appease a certain minority, whether or not that minority like the SNP. It's not that Catholics are irrelevant by virtue of them being a minority, but anti-natal/pro-natal policies and welfare more generally have a lot greater scope than religion, especially in a country where only a tiny minority of the population of childbearing age are practising Catholics.

Edited April 29, 20178 yr by Harve

Westminster voting intention:

 

CON: 44% (-1)

LAB: 31% (+2)

LDEM: 11% (+1)

UKIP: 6% (-1)

GRN: 2% (-1)

 

(via YouGov / 27 - 28 Apr)

Oh. My. God.

 

The grassroots campaign is working!!

Get f***ed with this grassroots shite.

 

It's still within the margin of error.

We do seem to be trending towards the high rather than the mid 20s, which may be the difference between a thrashing and a complete wipe out.

It'll be something like 170/180 seats I would say and taking away Scotland's 40 seats no worse than Foot/Kinnock 87 did as the right reunite and ukip fade!

Westminster voting intention:

 

CON: 46% (-1)

LAB: 28% (-)

LDEM: 10% (+2)

UKIP: 8% (-)

 

(via @ICMResearch)

It'll be something like 170/180 seats I would say and taking away Scotland's 40 seats no worse than Foot/Kinnock 87 did as the right reunite and ukip fade!

Saying 'no worse than Foot' isn't a particularly great metric considering it was our worst election defeat since 1935 - and just slipping us out of the fact we don't have Scotland anymore is a fairly big caveat.

Edited May 8, 20178 yr by Qassändra

It is but considering the task it wouldn't be totally disasterous in the way the media are talking - Foots 206 seats included 40-50 Scottish seats. Think they will do better than that anyway - vote seems to be closing in on 30% less than 2% off 2015 - but the question is where is the vote spread?

Edited May 11, 20178 yr by Steve201

Westminster voting intention:

 

CON: 46% (-1)

LAB: 30% (+2)

LDEM: 11% (-)

UKIP: 5% (-1)

 

(via @YouGov / 09 - 10 May)

Chgs. w/ 05 May

Westminster voting intention:

 

CON: 48% (+1)

LAB: 30% (-)

LDEM: 8% (+1)

UKIP: 4% (-)

 

(via @Survation / 12 - 13 May)

Westminster voting intention:

 

CON: 46% (-1)

LAB: 30% (+2)

LDEM: 11% (-)

UKIP: 5% (-1)

 

(via @YouGov / 09 - 10 May)

Chgs. w/ 05 May

This poll had SNP up 5% to 46%, Labour down 5% to 14% and the Tories down 2% :cheer:

This poll had SNP up 5% to 46%, Labour down 5% to 14% and the Tories down 2% :cheer:

If it's a normal poll size (around 1,000 nationwide) the margin of error for Scotland, where the sample size will be under 100, will be huge.

Westminster voting intention:

 

CON: 47% (-1)

LAB: 33% (+2)

LDEM: 7% (-1)

UKIP: 5% (-)

GRN: 3% (+1)

 

(via @PanelbaseMD / 12 - 15 May)

Talking of massive margins of error. The Scottish subsample for that poll above has SNP on 56% and Tory on 20%

What would a 47%, 33% split look like in Parliament?

 

Corbyn is doing better than Milliband! The Tories just seem to have a unified right, that's all :/

He's adding a lot of traditional labour votes back but unfort won't get the spread of the vote to help him gain seats especially in the south east!

Saying 'no worse than Foot' isn't a particularly great metric considering it was our worst election defeat since 1935 - and just slipping us out of the fact we don't have Scotland anymore is a fairly big caveat.

 

Good point about Labour in Scotland.