Whit?! What I’m actually saying is that I wouldn’t put money on her backing a no confidence vote because she’s a self serving twat who’d be voting to lose her own job a week after gaining it.

 

I want independence for Scotland but please do go and find where I have ever said, non-sarcastically, that I back no deal as a means to achieve it. To get independence that way would mean having to actually go through a no deal Brexit which would be a f***ing unmitigated disaster for both Scotland and rUK.

 

She’s not the leader of the main opposition party tho. Even under the specific circumstances of the Euros they came third. Scottish polling is significantly more stable than UK wide polling and the LD are 5th. I’m far more interested in what the Greens are up to than the three indistinguishable shades of unionist

Whit?! What I’m actually saying is that I wouldn’t put money on her backing a no confidence vote because she’s a self serving twat who’d be voting to lose her own job a week after gaining it.

 

I want independence for Scotland but please do go and find where I have ever said, non-sarcastically, that I back no deal as a means to achieve it. To get independence that way would mean having to actually go through a no deal Brexit which would be a f***ing unmitigated disaster for both Scotland and rUK.

 

She’s not the leader of the main opposition party tho. Even under the specific circumstances of the Euros they came third. Scottish polling is significantly more stable than UK wide polling and the LD are 5th. I’m far more interested in what the Greens are up to than the three indistinguishable shades of unionist

 

 

1. You implied she's a self-serving unscrupulous woman based on....nothing. I pointed out that following your logic she is basically going against what she has just said in a speech as her priority: stopping Brexit, What evidence do you have that she's a liar who'd turn round immediately and support anyone going for Brexit that wasn't supported by either a referendum or a GE?

 

I never implied that you said anything about Brexit. I pointed out that your logic would be Jo Swinson immediately lying about her main point, therefby supporting a Hard Brexit by not dumping Johnson at the first opportunity, and which is most likely to lead the disintegration of the UK leaving her as both out of a job AND out of a career, and incidentally f***ing us all up. What part of my logic do you have a problem with? Isn't it just more likely that she won't act as you suggest cos you have a chip on your shoulder about her for slagging off the SNP?

 

I said main opposition party to most likely switch from the SNP. The SNP support Remain. The Lib-Dems support remain. The Tories and Labour haven't a clue what they support. Feel free to persuade me that SNP voters are more likely to vote Labour, Tory or Brexit Party - I could make a case for Labour (social policy wise) but they ain't that different from Lib-dems and they still support Brexit officially.

Is this the time to remind people of the time the SNP had to rely on Tory support to govern Scotland?

Is this the time to remind people of the time the SNP had to rely on Tory support to govern Scotland?

As a minority administration they approached all parties to do a budget deal that would enact their agenda. That is *specifically* how the devolved administrations work. At no point did either compromise their ideals nor was their a pact or confidence and supply arrangement. The SNP have supported Tory bits of legislation in Westminster since 2010 as all parties have.

 

At no point have they propped up a Tory government or voted to enact devastating austerity selling all their morals and values for a ministerial jag

1. You implied she's a self-serving unscrupulous woman based on....nothing. I pointed out that following your logic she is basically going against what she has just said in a speech as her priority: stopping Brexit, What evidence do you have that she's a liar who'd turn round immediately and support anyone going for Brexit that wasn't supported by either a referendum or a GE?

 

I never implied that you said anything about Brexit. I pointed out that your logic would be Jo Swinson immediately lying about her main point, therefby supporting a Hard Brexit by not dumping Johnson at the first opportunity, and which is most likely to lead the disintegration of the UK leaving her as both out of a job AND out of a career, and incidentally f***ing us all up. What part of my logic do you have a problem with? Isn't it just more likely that she won't act as you suggest cos you have a chip on your shoulder about her for slagging off the SNP?

 

I said main opposition party to most likely switch from the SNP. The SNP support Remain. The Lib-Dems support remain. The Tories and Labour haven't a clue what they support. Feel free to persuade me that SNP voters are more likely to vote Labour, Tory or Brexit Party - I could make a case for Labour (social policy wise) but they ain't that different from Lib-dems and they still support Brexit officially.

1 - did I say that she would support Brexit? No. Stop inventing words to put in my mouth thank you. I said that I wouldn’t hold my breath on her supporting a no confidence vote. That is not the same as turning around and supporting Brexit.

 

As for why I think she’s self serving please see the entitled bollocks she came out with between 2015-17 after losing her seat.

 

2 - your post was about as clear as the Thames. I didn’t follow your logic because you made a few leaps that were tough to follow. I now see your logic.

 

3 - no chip. I dislike all hypocrites equally.

 

4 - Scottish politics doesn’t divide Leave vs Remain like rUK. An estimated 33% of SNP voters backed leave after all. Unionist vs Nationalist lenses need to be applied to everything, in this case the primary threat is from the Greens (4th). The LibDems need to demonstrate the wider and sustained backing of unionist former labour voters in order to gather up the unionist remain vote. Problem is that that pool isn’t that big with more unionists backing leave (see the correlation between leave vote and which seats went Tory in 2017). This is why the LD comeback narrative doesn’t apply to the same extent in Scotland and why at this present time i don’t believe them to be the opposition party to the SNP.

 

Before the centre-right realignment of the LD I was a LibDem voter, should they swing back to centre-left I’d probably vote for them again in an Indy Scotland. I don’t believe that Jo is the right person to do that. Her voting record is centre-right and she voted through some pretty ghastly policies which does offset the good they’ve done for me - mainly because while it’s wonderful that i can marry whoever I end up with their enablement of austerity can not and should not be overlooked given that it’s a big driver in the vote to leave the EU. No viable plan to remain is going to succeed without a corresponding plan to end austerity or at the very least challenge the narrative that immigrants are to blame for stretched services.

 

As a minority administration they approached all parties to do a budget deal that would enact their agenda. That is *specifically* how the devolved administrations work. At no point did either compromise their ideals nor was their a pact or confidence and supply arrangement. The SNP have supported Tory bits of legislation in Westminster since 2010 as all parties have.

 

At no point have they propped up a Tory government or voted to enact devastating austerity selling all their morals and values for a ministerial jag

In other words, they worked with the Tories because that’s how the electoral arithmetic worked out. Ditto the Lib Dems in 2010.

The two are not in anyway comparable situations and you know that.

 

For one the SNP were the larger party and for two it was only for a specific piece of legislation. The LD voted with the Tories en mass and we’re an active participant in the government of cruelty. No Tories were part of the SNP administration

But the Lib Dems were a part of a Labour-led administration in Scotland which destroys the claim that they "always" side with the Tories.

 

Anyway, this whole argument is based on a premise that Labour would somehow have avoided any austerity measures. Labour went in to the 2010election promising to halve the deficit within five years. That is almost exactly what the coalition achieved. For Labour to have achieved their target, they would have had to introduce further tax increases or made cuts elsewhere.

 

There was one major difference between Scotland and the UK you didn't mention. In the UK, the Tories had the option of calling a general election at any time. We all know that they would have done so at the earliest opportunity. Surely the events of the last few years have made it abundantly clear what a Tory government with a majority (probably greater than the one Cameron won in 2015) in 2010 or 2011 would have been like.

The Libdems in 2010 were face with 2 choices;

 

Go with an austerity Labour Party who had just presided over f***ing up the economy by letting British banks do what they like, and getting involved in a war in Iraq (which the Libdems voted against) with the main man behind the banking sector propping up the UK economy and ignoring it's behaviour for a decade in charge of the party.

 

Go with an austerity Tory Party who had more votes, democratically not having just been rejected by voters.

 

 

The third choice - to let no party have control at all - is not too far from the mess of the last 3 years where nothing has been achieved and life is much much worse.

 

Sometimes in politics you get faced with 2 shit choices and you can't avoid opting for one or other. Having opted you do your damndest to remove the extreme, more damaging legislation to the best of your ability.

 

Anyone slagging off the Libdems is free to suggest what they could and should have done. No-one that I have ever seen has come up with a working alternative that didn't involve national chaos and worse suffering.

 

 

 

 

It's being reported in The Times that Heidi Allen & Sarah Wollaston may be joining the Lib Dems. Heidi Allen was spotted campaigning for the Lib Dems in Brecon ahead of the upcoming by-election there.

 

*edit* realised that Times article was actually from last month (pesky paywall), but Heidi Allen is still a likely defector.

Sarah Wollaston would be a great recruit for the Lib Dems. I've had a lot of respect for her from her early days as an MP. A lot of her instincts are vaguely Tory, but very much on the left of her former party. She was selected under Cameron's short-lived open primary process with her lack of political history as her main selling point. I suspect that the longer she has been involved in politics, the more she has realised that she was never a true-blue Tory and certainly doesn't fit in with today's hard-right party.

Anyone with an astrophysics degree is far too smart to be a Tory, as she found out when she started hanging around with them at length :P

Sarah Wollaston would be a great recruit for the Lib Dems. I've had a lot of respect for her from her early days as an MP. A lot of her instincts are vaguely Tory, but very much on the left of her former party. She was selected under Cameron's short-lived open primary process with her lack of political history as her main selling point. I suspect that the longer she has been involved in politics, the more she has realised that she was never a true-blue Tory and certainly doesn't fit in with today's hard-right party.

And she has finally taken the plunge and joined the Lib Dems.

Too many plastic progressives in the Lib Dems for my liking!

 

Enjoy your Chukka Ummuna parties flip flopping in the middle of the road all the time.

Lol I just realised I posted this last night, apologies I was intoxicated!!

 

Maybe that's when the truth comes out though :lol:

You were completely right. They are vile Tory lite.

I reiterate the point given her behaviour this afternoon demanding a Clarke or Harman led government lol.

Like that Tory douche has any right choosing the Labour leader!! Entitled Tory BRAT

See and that's where your argument collapses. It's not the Labour leader. It's someone who can command loyalty, even if only briefly, across the house. Inevitably that'll be someone who's shown they are open to accepting several parts of the political spectrum. Certainly not Corbyn.

 

One of the worst trends in current politics is to demonise people for 'changing sides'. People don't stay the same and if they're willing to work with people from a number of different ideologies, all the better.

So being a Tory stooge for 5 years is fine, but moving away from Tory policies towards a left wing caretaker government to free of us Bojo and his far right autocratic government is not? If that's what she thinks, she's the same old right wing Jo Swanson as ever and has NOT changed. Three weeks with Corbyn running the government should be palatable to anyone, especially someone who vlaims to be lefr wing. She's not and she showed her true colours. This is 2010 all over agaon. Tories before flagship policy!