Rise of the Tories...........

[babychunder]

Ah now ye can be patriotic and still not want to vote for Nicola and co.

[AthensSaint]

With Zac losing out in Barnes, the Brexit will dominate British politics for some time to come. 

[Saintdunc]

 

With Zac losing out in Barnes, the Brexit will dominate British politics for some time to come. 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2317689/pm-theresa-may-shrugs-off-lib-dems-richmond-park-by-election-victory-by-insisting-brexit-is-on-track-as-remains-sarah-olney-ousts-zac-goldsmith/

[Smarmy Arab]

Oh dear......well your reap what you sew.....

[Abernethy Saint]

At 23%, Ruth the Tank hasn't even got them back to their vote in the Thatcher years, yet she's a veritable surging hero superbeing. Corbyn, at 28%, is meanwhile a cataclysmic disaster feck. The SNP, who actually won the Council elections at a canter despite a third or more of their supporters not being bothered to vote, are apparently "past peak Nat" (for I think the 47th time now), "on the slide", "coping with huge losses" etc etc. 

If you operate on the basis that the vast majority of U.K. Media headlines are the precise opposite of the truth, you will be fine.

What's actually happened is that the Orange Lodge Sevco element of the Labour vote has finally abandoned the Red Tories and crossed to the Blue Tories. It's a shuffling of the deckchairs on the Unionist Titanic. This wee surge might see Roothie pick up a handful of seats next month, but that's about it.

wont be long before the first corruption arrests in Glasgow, after the SNP finally open the books and have a look...

 

 

 

 

[Gussie]

 

 

wont be long before the first corruption arrests in Glasgow, after the SNP finally open the books and have a look...

 

 

 

 

If you have knowledge of corruption or fraud, it should be reported to the police. 

[Abernethy Saint]

Tick tock.

[sixties saintee]

How many independants from the snp were there

[Smarmy Arab]

 

At 23%, Ruth the Tank hasn't even got them back to their vote in the Thatcher years, yet she's a veritable surging hero superbeing. Corbyn, at 28%, is meanwhile a cataclysmic disaster feck. The SNP, who actually won the Council elections at a canter despite a third or more of their supporters not being bothered to vote, are apparently "past peak Nat" (for I think the 47th time now), "on the slide", "coping with huge losses" etc etc. 

If you operate on the basis that the vast majority of U.K. Media headlines are the precise opposite of the truth, you will be fine.

What's actually happened is that the Orange Lodge Sevco element of the Labour vote has finally abandoned the Red Tories and crossed to the Blue Tories. It's a shuffling of the deckchairs on the Unionist Titanic. This wee surge might see Roothie pick up a handful of seats next month, but that's about it.

wont be long before the first corruption arrests in Glasgow, after the SNP finally open the books and have a look...

 

 

 

 

It will not surprise you to know I read this differently AS.  

I have never subscribed to the idea that Scotland had rid itself of the Tories.  They have always been there, but for a complex of reasons kept their heads down.  Nor have I subscribed to the idea the there is something inherently progressive of egalitarian about Scottish culture, there was a degree of Scottish civic welfarism, entirely a construct of the Labour movement on the back of significant heavy industrial demographic trends, the 'destroy Labour' narrative of the 21st century has been more effective than even the SNP could have dreamt, but unfortunately it has resulted in a diversion away from progressive politics and instead produced a polarising of politics along constitutional lines.  These elections should have been about education, social care, and other service provision, all of which are approaching crisis point yet all I heard were nationalist flag-shaggers on both sides goading the other.  The destruction of the Labour Party by a right of centre Scottish nationalist party, dressed in Labours clothes, was always going to leave the door open for the other right of centre UK nationalist party to fill the gap and move the body politic to the right.  This is significant.  One of the central planks of the debate surrounding indy is that the cultures of Scotland and England have now diverged to such an extent that the union is undesirable or even unworkable, and England's move the right under UKIP and Tories is somehow a different to the situation in Scotland......'we have more Pandas than Tories' was the witty soundbite famously used by Alex Salmond.....well either fly in a load of Pandas or start to accept that the SNP have done the work of the Tories, like they always do....but they don't even notice such is their zealotry. 

 

It would of course be wrong to read too much into the locals, low turn out, people vote differently and the STV system changes the options for the voter in the booth, but as boosts go, the Tories got a big one. Compare it to the results in 1999, and every one since, there is no doubt this is good news for the Tories, and bad news for Scotland.  We now have a constitutional stalemate with support for independence flat-lining at circa 40% and an increasingly belligerent and vocal unionist vote at circa 60%.....real handy for the Tories who are yet again raising champagne flutes and toasting the SNP........remove the Labour Party......divide and conquer....and of course the wee bonus of Tories now representing some of the poorest council wards in Western Europe...don't you just love nationalism! 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_local_elections,_1999

 

My Bet is Sturgeon will publish a manifesto that boots indy ref2  into the long grass, (5 years min) because she knows at the moment it is utterly unwinnable. 

Edited May 8, 2017 by Smarmy Arab

[Abernethy Saint]

Awwwww bless. Even as the labour coffin is lowered into the ground, faint, plaintive cries of "SNP bad......SNP bad......." can still be heard..........

Eventually you will leave the Tories and cross over to the progressive SNP Smarmy, and you will be very welcome.

[Smarmy Arab]

Interesting detailed break down of voting patterns.....

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39846268

[Smarmy Arab]

 

Awwwww bless. Even as the labour coffin is lowered into the ground, faint, plaintive cries of "SNP bad......SNP bad......." can still be heard..........

Eventually you will leave the Tories and cross over to the progressive SNP Smarmy, and you will be very welcome.

Always with the visceral hatred of Labour.....even to the point a Tory revival is a matter of humorous jibes.  It is this air of inevitability that might sink your campaign.  Everything is up for grabs..still.  Labour will regenerate over the coming years, it is still the largest political party in Europe, and even at this low ebb can command 20-30% of the vote, but this is exactly what you have in common with the Tories a pathological fear of an effective Labour Party in Westminster, that's why you both dance to the nationalist tune, never mind policy look a flag!  

 

Did I show you this before?  Its where we are headed......

 

[Abernethy Saint]

Nobody I know in the SNP hates Labour, because about 80% of them spent years IN Labour. The overriding sense is sadness looking back at the betrayal, but optimism looking forward as members of a left of centre party that won't vote with the Tories every time their expense accounts look to be at risk.

Labour saying they are the largest political party in Europe - on the back of memberships sold for pennies with no voting powers attached - is like those sad Sevco types who claim that Rangers are the world's most successful club. Mmmm there's a coincidence..... most folk will have noticed the Orange Lodge leadership boasting at the weekend about their members who are now Labour councillors. 

 Labour is an establishment political party which has fundamentally failed its followers and moved so far from its roots it is indistinguishable from the party it was established to fight. The SNP is the parliamentary wing of an independence movement where the political objectives are vastly more important than the party. In fact, the party doesn't really matter that much at all. Like the labour movement before it was hijacked by Oxbridge clones and pretendy working class troughers. Corbyn has quite specifically said that that is where he wants to take Labour back to, but it's just too late. If you can ever bring yourself to understand the difference between loyalty to a party, and loyalty to the interests of the people, something Labour once prided itself on, your recovery from your present absurd delusions (backed by the usual sprinkling of highly dodgy statistics) can begin.

[Smarmy Arab]

As ever, whilst I don't disagree with everything you say, I still have to point out the Labour Party are peerless when it comes to  improving the lives of ordinary people...like all centre left political parties in Western Europe they are in an existential crisis in the face of neo-nationalist populism, UK and Scotland are no different.  It would be a huge error to think Scottish nationalism is of the left, it is not. I've lost count of the number of times I've asked you to name a single progressive measure from 10 years of SNP governance.......still waiting......

As goes the Orangemen in Glasgow...I'm shocked and stunned! ;).......'Ulsterising' Scottish politics into unionists v nationalists .....that's a very dangerous game given our history as a grubby sectarian sewer, but from where I'm standing Scottish political discourse is sliding into something akin to an Old Firm game...Scotland's shame.......how ugly.................. how 'Scottish'.

Finally, the SNP are the Scottish political establishment, their moment as an anti establishment force passed some years ago, they are now treading water in the Tory austerity they were elected to challenge, and their momentum has stalled, it is very difficult to re energise a movement whose surge in the last decade was largely founded upon populist bullsh*t anyway.  Like I say vote SNP make the Tories in London smile, its been a win win for the Tories.  

 

The indy movement needs to answer the big questions on currency, deficit, pensions, market access, why have they not published the findings of the growth commission? Genuine question.

[Abernethy Saint]

On a lighter note, here's today's tweet of the day:

 

Me from 2002: so what's 2017 like 
Me, 2017: well, France is about 40% Nazis
02: Holy shit
17: also, that's the good news

[Abernethy Saint]

Treading water? The SNP just increased their Council vote by 21%, and are the largest party or equal largest in more than half the Councils, including the four big cities.

So.....adopting Orange Order Bigots as candidates is fine, but pointing out that Labour is doing this is sectarian? Sums up modern labour to a tee.

i don't recall you ever asking me to name progressive SNP policies. OK, just off the top of my head:

Free prescriptions. Free bus passes. Free eyesight tests. Free home care for the elderly. Mitigating in full the Bedroom Tax. Vastly better NHS performance stats, and no NHS privatisation. Lower threshold for 40% taxpayers, and opposition to labour's plans to increase taxes for basic rate payers. Ten year Council Tax freeze. Highly ambitious green energy targets (being achieved). Building vastly more social housing than labour. Opposition to Trident. Opposition to Labour's illegal wars. Baby Boxes. Offensive Behaviour at Football Act. Legalisation of Gay marriage. Highly ambitious emissions targets. Gender-balanced cabinet.

Thats off the top of my head in five minutes. Of course, the list would be far, far longer had labour not sabotaged the Smith Commission and prevented the devolution of far greater powers that would really begin to change Scotland and rescue it from your Tory policies once and for all.

[Smarmy Arab]

Off to make the tea AS....but really looking down the list none of that is true...none of it!

 

I'll respond properly later on.

[Abernethy Saint]

I'm confused - you're not off to make the tea and you're not looking down the list??

[south inch]

 

Treading water? The SNP just increased their Council vote by 21%, and are the largest party or equal largest in more than half the Councils, including the four big cities.

 

Very clever use of statistics Abernethy.  The SNP vote has indeed increased by 21% but their share of the vote is static  The Conservative vote on the same basis has increased by 131% and their share is not static.  Nonetheless the real test will come on June 8 when, like you, I do not think their overall majority will increase greatly, between 40 and 50 would be my bet. 

[Smarmy Arab]

First up   'SNP just increased their Council vote by 21% talk about dubious statistics, and fake news!  

The last two national plebiscites (2015 and 2016) the SNP share of the vote stood at 50% and 46.5% these elections their share was 32%.  This is not exactly good news for a party who shout from the rooftops that 'independence transcends all'.  This is self evidently a steep drop in the number of votes cast for what is essentially a single issue party.

Free bus passes, free care for the elderly predate the SNP administration.

For me progressive policy must raise revenue to redistribute up wards;

Prescription charges are a clear illustration of this.  Prescription charges brought in between £50-60 million per year, (chronically ill, children, pensioners, pregnant women, those on benefits, were exempt)  as health secretary Nicola Strugeon slashed the number of places available for training nurses and midwifes, over a decade that is circa half a billion £ that should be used to train nurses...go figure.  Middle class people should pay for prescriptions to ease the growing pressure on the NHS, or the measure becomes regressive.....these are regressive charges.

Council Tax Freeze....(how much has that saved the Mr and Ms Murrell...........thousands!)  As local authorities have had their hands tied by a measure that is the very definition of regressive.  The poorest and most vulnerable do not pay CT but depend very much on the services they finance...yet another regressive measure tarted up to look like a progressive measure....another junket to the middle classes. (Labours tax increase was income tax, by definition progressive the more you earn the more you pay!)

University Tuition Fees- Money taken directly out of the Further Education sector (where the poorest and most vulnerable have a lifeline to education and betterment) and given to the middle class institutions of HE where middle class kids go.......more regression masquerading as egalitarianism.

NHS and other private finance initiatives...........the SNP use them as much as previous Scottish government regimes.  Throughout the Blair years the SNP were demanding greater deregulation of all markets, they were (and still are) to the right of Labour. 

 

Offensive Behaviour at Football....an absolute clusterf*ck....targeting...you guessed it, the working class leisure industry, I suspect this will be ditched shortly, it is utterly friendless.

 

Opposition to Trident?  I am personally opposed to Trident, but this policy is nothing more than a populist chimera; 

'get your weapons off our soil, but we will still shelter under the protection they provide, but will not pay for them!' 

Displacement at best, at worst insipid and cowardly....certainly not disarmament of any description.

 

I could go on, but I really have to get back to work....my god though they have done a number on you, do you simply accept whatever shite they spout?  Time you re-engaged some critical thinking and took off the tartan blind fold!  

[Gussie]

Smarmy is at his best here folks.

I remember my parents saying that the SNP back in the day were tartan tories. Now its vote for them and still get tories. Indyref2  is going nowhere. Too many people have a vested interest in the status quo (and lets leave the orangemen out of this one for once). Just think how many people in public sector (central govt...DWP etc) would lose their jobs following independence or those who rely on a public sector pension not sure whether the best wee country in the world will pay up following le grand depart. 

 

[babychunder]

 

 Just think how many people in public sector (central govt...DWP etc) would lose their jobs following independence or those who rely on a public sector pension not sure whether the best wee country in the world will pay up following le grand depart. 

 

I'm all for a smaller public sector. So much so that if independence were to force it upon us, I might be persuaded to vote "yes"

[Abernethy Saint]

 

Smarmy is at his best here folks.

I remember my parents saying that the SNP back in the day were tartan tories. Now its vote for them and still get tories. Indyref2  is going nowhere. Too many people have a vested interest in the status quo (and lets leave the orangemen out of this one for once). Just think how many people in public sector (central govt...DWP etc) would lose their jobs following independence or those who rely on a public sector pension not sure whether the best wee country in the world will pay up following le grand depart. 

 

The UK government has confirmed on numerous occasions that it accepts its on-going liability for occupational/state pensioners who have left the UK. Why on earth would it do otherwise? How could it do otherwise! Why is it paying CS/state pensions to immigrants from the UK all over the world, but would suddenly stop if one of those CS pensioners re-located from Majorca to Dundee?

[Abernethy Saint]

 

First up   'SNP just increased their Council vote by 21% talk about dubious statistics, and fake news!  

The last two national plebiscites (2015 and 2016) the SNP share of the vote stood at 50% and 46.5% these elections their share was 32%.  This is not exactly good news for a party who shout from the rooftops that 'independence transcends all'.  This is self evidently a steep drop in the number of votes cast for what is essentially a single issue party.

Free bus passes, free care for the elderly predate the SNP administration.

For me progressive policy must raise revenue to redistribute up wards;

Prescription charges are a clear illustration of this.  Prescription charges brought in between £50-60 million per year, (chronically ill, children, pensioners, pregnant women, those on benefits, were exempt)  as health secretary Nicola Strugeon slashed the number of places available for training nurses and midwifes, over a decade that is circa half a billion £ that should be used to train nurses...go figure.  Middle class people should pay for prescriptions to ease the growing pressure on the NHS, or the measure becomes regressive.....these are regressive charges.

Council Tax Freeze....(how much has that saved the Mr and Ms Murrell...........thousands!)  As local authorities have had their hands tied by a measure that is the very definition of regressive.  The poorest and most vulnerable do not pay CT but depend very much on the services they finance...yet another regressive measure tarted up to look like a progressive measure....another junket to the middle classes. (Labours tax increase was income tax, by definition progressive the more you earn the more you pay!)

University Tuition Fees- Money taken directly out of the Further Education sector (where the poorest and most vulnerable have a lifeline to education and betterment) and given to the middle class institutions of HE where middle class kids go.......more regression masquerading as egalitarianism.

NHS and other private finance initiatives...........the SNP use them as much as previous Scottish government regimes.  Throughout the Blair years the SNP were demanding greater deregulation of all markets, they were (and still are) to the right of Labour. 

 

Offensive Behaviour at Football....an absolute clusterf*ck....targeting...you guessed it, the working class leisure industry, I suspect this will be ditched shortly, it is utterly friendless.

 

Opposition to Trident?  I am personally opposed to Trident, but this policy is nothing more than a populist chimera; 

'get your weapons off our soil, but we will still shelter under the protection they provide, but will not pay for them!' 

Displacement at best, at worst insipid and cowardly....certainly not disarmament of any description.

 

I could go on, but I really have to get back to work....my god though they have done a number on you, do you simply accept whatever shite they spout?  Time you re-engaged some critical thinking and took off the tartan blind fold!  

Shit, guys, the SNP have implemented progressive measures. What do we do?

i know, let's just re-define "progressive" to exclude everything they've done.

WINNER!

[Abernethy Saint]

 

Very clever use of statistics Abernethy.  The SNP vote has indeed increased by 21% but their share of the vote is static  The Conservative vote on the same basis has increased by 131% and their share is not static.  Nonetheless the real test will come on June 8 when, like you, I do not think their overall majority will increase greatly, between 40 and 50 would be my bet. 

Don't think it was particularly clever - the media have been pumping out "Tories double their vote" for days. The SNP took 110,00 more votes, six more councillors, largest party in half of the councils and control of COSLA. After 10 years in government. In a normal world, this would be recognised for the unprecedented result it is. But in a normal world, 95% of the media are not hysterically opposed to a party supported by half the population.

On the SNP vote share declining, exactly the same thing happened in the 2012 locals, three years before the SNP tsunami. 

My feeling is the SNP will retain around 48 - 50 out of 54 seats, probably wiping out the last Labour dinosaur in Edinburgh, but seeing a return of Tories to their heartlands in rural areas such as the borders, Perthshire and the NE. This phenomenal election success will then be represented by the U.K. owned Scottish media as a crushing defeat, and the end for Indy 2. Again.

On the U.K. level, I see a clear Tory majority. The size is difficult to estimate. Corbyn is a disaster on the doorsteps, but as the campaign goes on, May's robotic, policy-free, for Christ sake dont expose me to any real people approach is going to piss off a lot of folk. And every couple of days loonytune Boris will say something. Everyone keeps waiting for a libdem surge, but every time it seems likely, Farron fecks up again.

My guess would be a majority large enough for Cruella to claim it was all worth while, but not enough to "crush the saboteurs". The Labour vote is still weighed in many constituencies, and unlike in Scotland, there seems nowhere else for anti Tories to go other than labour. So, 50 - 75 mebbee?