After THAT exit...

I must not've been paying attention at the time...

 

Ms Lamont said: “Just as the SNP must embrace that devolution is the settled will of the Scottish people, the Labour Party must recognise that the Scottish party has to be autonomous and not just a branch office of a party based in London. Scotland has chosen to remain in partnership with our neighbours in the UK. But Scotland is distinct and colleagues must recognise that. There is a danger of Scottish politics being between two sets of dinosaurs – the Nationalists who can’t accept they were rejected by the people and some colleagues at Westminster who think nothing has changed.

 

I wouldn't personally know how to resign if I was Scottish Labour leader, but her reasoning at least seems pretty on point.

It may have been the most lethal resignation statement ever. Obviously not the cause of last year in and of itself, but it's probably added a good ten years to any possible recovery. In one shot it pretty much validated that 'only the SNP can stand up for Scotland' line.

To be fair, it's an open secret that she was being hounded out of her job by Jim Murphy and his acolytes, who (as usual with that faction of the party) were only thinking about their own personal positions rather than points of principle.

 

I always thought she was rather good at calling out Alex Salmond on his bullshit.

Edited April 18, 20169 yr by Danny

By the time she resigned the damage had already been done. Glasgow voting yes was probably the most obvious sign of the changing attitudes.

 

 

Jim Murphy was just the final nail and burial of the coffin.

I always thought she was rather good at calling out Alex Salmond on his bullshit.

She was. But it's intractable at the moment. So long as the floor for one side is 45 and you have three parties fighting for the other 55, there is no answer. The only solution is someone good enough (or for the SNP to get bad enough) to break the former. So long as that support is an article of faith, there aren't going to be many of those lying around.

Yes the SNPs support is entirely because of the Referendum and has absolutely nothing to do with being an effective government for the past 9 years or the fact that they've largely kept their promises. And we'll ignore the fact that they've made a fundamental difference to the lives of people in Scotland.

 

I forget that people who live hundreds of miles away from Scotland and literally feel no effect of SNP policy are the absolutely the key experts on the political landscape of Scotland and what it's like to live there and that the only possible reason for voting for the SNP is independence.

 

Here are the 5 main reasons that I will be voting for the SNP on May 5th:

 

- Free prescriptions

- Free University Education (The only reason I could afford uni. It's only fair those that follow get the same chance that I did)

- Commitment to improving the infrastructure of Scotland (100's of new Schools and Hospitals, Longest railway line built in Scotland since 1901 and the longest line reopened in British modern history, Queensferry Crossing, A9 upgrade, M8/M74/M73 upgrade, Smart motorway roll out on M9/M90, Clackmannanshire Bridge)

- The Scottish NHS is the best performing of all 4 nations by a country mile

- Heavily in favour of harnessing renewable energy and setting ambitious climate change targets. 57.7% of our electricity in 2015 came from renewables and the SNP Government target is to hit the magic 100% by 2020. Ambitious but feasible given that the 2015 target was 50% and Scotland has some of the best renewable energy potential in the world. The Pentland Firth alone contains a reasonably certain 1GW of power (with upper estimates at 1.9GW and some crazies saying 10-20GW is theoretically possible)

 

 

The constitution doesn't even remotely come into it. I'm voting for a party with a proven track record of delivery and a proven track record of making the country better.

When you've got people blaming SNP cuts on Westminster yet also blaming anything that would alleviate those cuts as 'penalising people to pay for Westminster', then yes, I think it is fair to say their support is in large part constitutional. If you only get to take credit for the good with all the bad being blamed on a nebulous constitutional boogie man, of course the constitution comes into it. Let alone 'remotely'.

The constitution comes into it of course but not as the MAIN reason for SNP support.

 

There have been so many factors in their rise that its not even because of their left of centre stance on many things but also a result of economic and social changes over the past 40 years.

If it weren't primarily a nationalist phenomenon rather than a socialist one, the Greens and RISE would be doing far better than they are. As indeed would a Labour Party going into this election on a more left-wing platform than the SNP.

The Greens are enjoying their highest level of support ever. They could take 8 seats come May6th thanks to a strong list vote.

 

Their support has risen dramatically since 2011 and they are considered a main party and in a couple of weeks time should officially become the 4th party of Scottish politics.

 

Labour haven't benefited because they have no original ideas, have severe reputational damage from 2014 and Jim Murphy, and are led by an idiot.

 

Steve is right. There is more at play here than they are left wing. They have the right mix of policies and a track record in government that obliterates LibLab. They are a proven safe pair of hands for Holyrood that have won the public over with their vision of what will happen over the next 5 years. That's why they are enjoying massive support.

There's no way in hell that a sitting government that's been in power for nine years could be this popular (unless they'd genuinely created some social democratic utopia, which doesn't appear to have happened) unless there were significant other factors at play.

Again, 'proven safe pair of hands' doesn't really work when everything that goes wrong is mysteriously the fault of Westminster. It's more like a goalkeeper taking credit for all the saves but blaming everyone else for the goals.

 

'No original ideas' is fairly rich given anything proposed as a solution to said problems is by turns either 'talking Scotland down' (the most ludicrous and embarrassing retort to a policy critique probably ever conceived by a modern political party. That it somehow has traction says a lot about the state of politics north of the Border), '#snpbaaaaaaaad' (dear me) or 'making Scotland pay for Westminster' (?! for the notion of what would happen after independence!).

It's not 'rich' if it's truthful.

 

The only two SLab policies that come to mind right now are smart ticketing for transport and 1p for education.

 

(http://www.scotrail.co.uk/tickets/smartcard & http://www.transport.gov.scot/public-trans...ated-ticketing)

One is already Government policy and being in the middle of being implemented, and the other they stole from the LibDems

 

:)

 

The 1p tax rise refund for low earners was an original idea i'll give you that much but it was a complete and utter omnishambles it makes the pasty tax look competent.

Ha, 100% by 2020! Talk about deluded! See below from Private Eye...

 

News that Scotland has missed it's targets in reducing CO2 emissions prompts a look at the SNP's much vaunted energy policy, which doesn't add up.

 

The SNP plans to produce ''100 percent of Scotland's electricity needs from renewables by 2020''; to continue to export power to England, and at the same time to say ''no'' to new nuclear power stations. But is has just noticed a serious flaw in this vision and is lobbying in vain to rescue it's position. 

 

As elsewhere in the UK, Scotland's gas and coal fired electricity capacity is falling, and it's two nuclear plants will close and not be replaced if the SNP has it's way. It's renewable generation is predominantly wind-power which is expanding strongly thanks to UK government subsidies.

 

Because wind power is so intermittent, if average Scottish renewables output was to equate to even just a high proportion of Scottish demand, this would mean very large exports of surplus power to England on windy days, and, when the nuclear power stations have closed, imports from England when the wind isn't blowing-as it doesn't in Scotlandon several weeks each year.

 

England already gets more of it's electricity via cross-Channel interconnectors from Continental Europe than it does from Scotland, and a panicky SNP has just noticed that more interconnectors are planned. This would leave an independent Scotland as just one amongst several electricity exporters competing for English business. As the SNP has now realised, this will trash the price Scottish generators receive. 

 

This all goes back to the 'German effect', Germany's very large wind farm sector and phasing out of nuclear power generation have resulted in big periodic power surpluses and a slumping wholesale price of power there. German wholesale prices are even sometimes negative-ie the grid has to play wholesale buyers to take surplus electricity, frequently as exports to neighbouring countries.

 

When the wind isn't blowing in Germany, however, it must import electricity and German households end up paying some of the highest prices in Europe. The same fate is in store for an independent Scotland if it sticks with it's all wind and no nuclear policy. Not only would it lose UK wind subsidies (running at about 4bn per year) and have to pay full grid charges for exporting to England (also currently subsidised), but it's exports of surplus wind power would frequently be at next to nothing prices, while the imports it needed to keep Scotland's lights on when the wind wasn't blowing would be priced at a premium.

 

The SNP is lobbying hard against the new interconnectors, and nobody is listening.

...............

Renewables consists of more than just wind power! But I agree that we need to diversify our energy supply, what I don't agree with is that diversification means nuclear and fossil fuels. Pumped Storage Hydro, Tidal and Wave power are what we should be investing in and a licence has already been granted for a very large tidal array in the Pentland Firth.

Diversification is a must- but when the wind drops out (in Winter anticyclones) where does the additional energy come from to make up the shortfall?

 

Surely nuclear must still have a sizable role in an effective energy strategy. Don't get me wrong at least the SNP have a strategy unlike the hopeless shower of disappointment we have in Westminster (whose policy appears to simply be kick the can down the road for another 5 years)

My preference is a couple of coal plants on back up operating with CCS.

 

Only problem is getting the cash together to actually get CCS R&D'd to the point that it's effective.

 

Peterhead or Longanet with CCS would have been a great back-up for us as coal is cheap (we even have our own) and the CCS ensures that it's clean.

coal = CO2. Not environmentally friendly renewables.

 

Westminster: busy removing subsidies for green power, especially land windpower. Busy caving in to political pressure to cancel offshore windfarms (Tory Dorset). Busy signing on the dotted line with China for nuclear power stations (I would bet in areas that aren't Tory voters). China seems to be giving the Tory party hard-ons thinking of new cash flows. How times have changed, China used to be one of the world's biggest polluters, one of the least-free-market of the big countries (no-one can own land in China), human rights dodgy student-trampling, executing, ruling class cash-stashing-offshore-corruption (presumably), and now it's a model business partner because it has cash to spare.

 

Or at least it appears to have cash until the empty cities and housing bubble collapses taking the banking system down with it. Glass half empty me... :P

 

Now where can I sign up to that microchip interstellar parasol plan...? :teresa::P

coal = CO2. Not environmentally friendly renewables.

 

Westminster: busy removing subsidies for green power, especially land windpower. Busy caving in to political pressure to cancel offshore windfarms (Tory Dorset). Busy signing on the dotted line with China for nuclear power stations (I would bet in areas that aren't Tory voters). China seems to be giving the Tory party hard-ons thinking of new cash flows. How times have changed, China used to be one of the world's biggest polluters, one of the least-free-market of the big countries (no-one can own land in China), human rights dodgy student-trampling, executing, ruling class cash-stashing-offshore-corruption (presumably), and now it's a model business partner because it has cash to spare.

 

Or at least it appears to have cash until the empty cities and housing bubble collapses taking the banking system down with it. Glass half empty me... :P

 

Now where can I sign up to that microchip interstellar parasol plan...? :teresa::P

Ah yes, but you're talking about Gideon's best mates. And, of course, with Tories money talks far louder than anything else. It certainly talks far louder than dead protestors.

coal = CO2. Not environmentally friendly renewables.

 

Westminster: busy removing subsidies for green power, especially land windpower. Busy caving in to political pressure to cancel offshore windfarms (Tory Dorset). Busy signing on the dotted line with China for nuclear power stations (I would bet in areas that aren't Tory voters). China seems to be giving the Tory party hard-ons thinking of new cash flows. How times have changed, China used to be one of the world's biggest polluters, one of the least-free-market of the big countries (no-one can own land in China), human rights dodgy student-trampling, executing, ruling class cash-stashing-offshore-corruption (presumably), and now it's a model business partner because it has cash to spare.

 

Or at least it appears to have cash until the empty cities and housing bubble collapses taking the banking system down with it. Glass half empty me... :P

 

Now where can I sign up to that microchip interstellar parasol plan...? :teresa::P

CCS = Carbon Capture and Storage = No atmospheric CO2