Holyrood '16 polls and predictions

[Bishop Briggs]

Ireland.... Greater than the UK in almost every quantifiable measure. Unlucky nawbags

Then it should pay us back the £3 billion now.

ETA - if it's so great, why don't you move there?

[AUFC90]

Then it should pay us back the £3 billion now.

ETA - if it's so great, why don't you move there?

Naw

[kevthedee]

Ireland.... Greater than the UK in almost every quantifiable measure. Unlucky nawbags

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10198532/Alex-Salmond-North-Sea-oil-worth-300000-for-every-Scot.html

I could have voted yes and according to alec salmond(2013)be better off by £300,000 thanks to the oil boom,i feel a right nawbag now so i do.

[Bishop Briggs]

People are still in referendum mode on this. There's a reason why only about 3% of the population in the failed gerryamandered entity under the jackboot of ongoing British military occupation currently want an immediate UI and it's not a suddenly acquired deep love of the Windsors and GSTQ as a national anthem in hardline Republican areas. They know which side their bread is buttered on.

To a large extent the Celtic Tiger was a fleeting phenomenon because the effects of the eastward expansion of the EU and the housing bubble there was genuine and did result in a massive setback for the RoI economically that led to a massive wave of emigration among the younger generation in recent years. It's also worth bearing mind that the RoI has some corporation tax policies that makes it attractive for multinationals to declare their income there, so raw GDP numbers don't tell the whole story.

Does this relate in any way to whether Scotland could make a go of it as an independent state? Naw, which means no in the language of the Ulster Scots. The sensible analogy for Scotland is Norway given the shared oil and gas angle and the huge potential for renewables in electricity supply terms.

Norway is indeed the model - own currency, out of the EU but in EFTA and the Single Market.

Unfortunately Sturgeon and her SNP colleagues want the Irish/Baltic model.

[Mr Bairn]

Gaelic football is pretty good tbh.

[kevthedee]

http://m.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/holyrood-to-get-more-devolved-powers-year-early-1-3841104

New powers ahead of plan,lets see how the snp use them or if they even use them.

[xbl.]

I actually have no idea who to vote for next year. I'll be back resident in Quislingland, but I really don't know who to vote. Not sure I want to vote SNP, as aside from Sturgeon and independence, Im a bit unhappy with them, and if we had viable alternatives, I'd like to see them in.

I'll never vote for the unionist bloc.

I like a lot of what the Greens have to say, I like Patrick Harvie, but I can't shake the feeling that the Greens are a bunch of middle class studenty posh types. I just get the feeling they don't stand for ghetto scum like me.

And then there is the SSP. I like their policy, I like their anger, I like their class roots. But they are a mess. The whole left seems to be a mess of parties forming, splitting, merging, infighting. Apparently they are under a new name now? Scottish Left or something?

Im not giving my vote to a fly by night amateur operation! So aye, conflicted. Anyone else having voting indecision?

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I actually have no idea who to vote for next year. I'll be back resident in Quislingland, but I really don't know who to vote. Not sure I want to vote SNP, as aside from Sturgeon and independence, Im a bit unhappy with them, and if we had viable alternatives, I'd like to see them in.

I'll never vote for the unionist bloc.

I like a lot of what the Greens have to say, I like Patrick Harvie, but I can't shake the feeling that the Greens are a bunch of middle class studenty posh types. I just get the feeling they don't stand for ghetto scum like me.

And then there is the SSP. I like their policy, I like their anger, I like their class roots. But they are a mess. The whole left seems to be a mess of parties forming, splitting, merging, infighting. Apparently they are under a new name now? Scottish Left or something?

Im not giving my vote to a fly by night amateur operation! So aye, conflicted. Anyone else having voting indecision?

Me.

Voted for Hosie but didn't vote for his missus in the previous election.

Last few Labour candidates have been a joke.

Greens I have a major problem with regards some of their policies on population.

SSP - not a Trotskyite so I won't vote for them.

Tories - pigs will fly before I ever vote for them.

UKIP - would vote Tory before UKIP - a nasty racist party that needs put in their place.

It will probably come down to who the individuals standing are.

[xbl.]

If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by population policies? Have they started to propose death camps since I've moved away?

Because that would be a bit of a departure.

My issue with the greens (apart from the studenty middle class thing) is that they can seem a little authoritarian.

Im actually more of a lib dem by policy. But like hell does a unionist party get my vote!

[LongTimeLurker]

http://m.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/holyrood-to-get-more-devolved-powers-year-early-1-3841104

New powers ahead of plan,lets see how the snp use them or if they even use them.

That throws the cat amongst the pigeons. An increase in income tax isn't how politicians usually increase tax, nowadays. The extra powers were deliberately designed to never be used.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by population policies? Have they started to propose death camps since I've moved away?

Because that would be a bit of a departure.

My issue with the greens (apart from the studenty middle class thing) is that they can seem a little authoritarian.

Im actually more of a lib dem by policy. But like hell does a unionist party get my vote!

In recent years, the Green Party has done its best to distance itself from its Malthusian, pro-population-control roots, claiming that the UK’s problems are problems of overconsumption not overpopulation.

Until 2003, it was still saying that the UK was suffering from overpopulation problems and that we had to make sure we didn’t exceed our natural ‘carrying capacity’. The Green Party has since stopped using such arguments, perhaps because the British National Party adopted near identical language in order to claim the UK needed to deport all immigrants to make room for Proper Brits.

However, no matter how much the Greens try to distance themselves from the stigma attached to Malthusianism, there is no escaping the fact that arguments about consumption and population are inextricably linked. If you believe that all of the UK’s resources are finite, and that we must all temper our consumption to live within those limits (as the Greens do), then having to deal with more people is obviously going to be seen as a problem.

[kevthedee]

That throws the cat amongst the pigeons. An increase in income tax isn't how politicians usually increase tax, nowadays. The extra powers were deliberately designed to never be used.

We got promised more powers hopefully this is the start of that promise being kept.

[xbl.]

I've never heard the Scottish Green Party advocate such views. Society wide, I do worry about over consumption, hence I'm a great believer in renewables and neutral effect, but its very difficult to call for population control in an empty country like Scotland!

I'm no expert on the theory, but surely there can be a bit much nuance? For example, as a nation, we still over consume and can do more with renewables, moving to move tech, reducing finite resources etc. But we still have plenty of room for more people.

As I said, I'm no expert on the area, but I thought the Scottish Greens were massively pro immigration?

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I've never heard the Scottish Green Party advocate such views. Society wide, I do worry about over consumption, hence I'm a great believer in renewables and neutral effect, but its very difficult to call for population control in an empty country like Scotland!

I'm no expert on the theory, but surely there can be a bit much nuance? For example, as a nation, we still over consume and can do more with renewables, moving to move tech, reducing finite resources etc. But we still have plenty of room for more people.

As I said, I'm no expert on the area, but I thought the Scottish Greens were massively pro immigration?

They are still fundamentally Malthusians at heart - it's not just about Scotland.

The party was born in the early Seventies, when a middle-class couple from Coventry came across an article on overpopulation in Playboy. Solicitor Lesley Whittaker and her husband Tony, a former Tory councillor, decided something must be done. They formed the cloyingly named People Party – the Green Party’s first incarnation. The party subscribed to the Blueprint for Survival, a manifesto for sustainability by environmentalist Edward Goldsmith which, among other things, advocated deindustrialisation, a return to living in small peasant communities, the sterilisation of women and an end to all immigration. Up to the early Nineties, the Green Party, and its then spokesman David Icke (he of lizards-run-the-world fame), still wanted to reduce the UK’s population by 20million.

Over the past decade, the Greens have attempted to distance themselves from Malthus’s arguments – perhaps because the only other party advocating Malthusianism is the BNP. But although the Green Party’s recently published manifesto makes no mention of overpopulation, its website still has a population-policy page that talks about striving to achieve ‘sustainable population levels’. In order to do so, the page encourages people to live ‘sustainable lifestyles’ – ‘sustainable’, in this case, being a thinly veiled euphemism for ‘childless’.

Central to the Green ideology is the idea that humanity is a burden on the planet; that we should be subservient to nature, not masters of it. The Enlightenment idea that humans should seek to control and dominate the world around them is wrong, Greens say, as it undermines ‘healthy interdependence of individual, nature and society’. Instead, the Green Party believes we need a ‘reduction in the physical burden human societies place upon our planet’.

[xbl.]

I've never really heard much of this argument, so I can't comment any further Im afraid. You've got more knowledge than me.

However, I would point out that there is no connection between the UK Greens and the Scottish party. It isnt even federal, there is zero connection.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I've never really heard much of this argument, so I can't comment any further Im afraid. You've got more knowledge than me.

However, I would point out that there is no connection between the UK Greens and the Scottish party. It isnt even federal, there is zero connection.

Not true.

The Scottish Greens cooperates with (but are independent from) the Green Party of Northern Ireland and the Green Party of England & Wales.

All three parties have their roots in the original Green Party that split into separate independent parts in 1990.

They are also a full member of the Global Greens and the European Green Party.

Both organisations are still heavily rooted in Malthusian ideology.

Patrick Harvie MSP, leader of the Greens at the Scottish Parliament, has appeared on a platform organised by the Optimum Population Trust, the Malthusian and eugenicist organisation that wants to cut world numbers.

This organisation is comprised of fruitcakes and eccentric extremists, but is now being openly embraced by mainstream politicians in the Scottish Greens.

[LongTimeLurker]

We got promised more powers hopefully this is the start of that promise being kept.

Labour are making sensible suggestions on VAT:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/labour-will-move-to-return-scots-vat-to-holyrood-1-3834679

If the Tories block that, it is because they want to box the SNP (or whoever is in power at Holyrood post-2016) into a corner.

[xbl.]

Not true.

The Scottish Greens cooperates with (but are independent from) the Green Party of Northern Ireland and the Green Party of England & Wales.

All three parties have their roots in the original Green Party that split into separate independent parts in 1990.

They are also a full member of the Global Greens and the European Green Party.

Both organisations are still heavily rooted in Malthusian ideology.

Patrick Harvie MSP, leader of the Greens at the Scottish Parliament, has appeared on a platform organised by the Optimum Population Trust, the Malthusian and eugenicist organisation that wants to cut world numbers.

This organisation is comprised of fruitcakes and eccentric extremists, but is now being openly embraced by mainstream politicians in the Scottish Greens.

As I said, I don't have the knowledge to argue this with you, and I'd like to think Im not HB, so I'll have to take you at your word until I do some research of my own.

You're not bloody helping my vote indecision! I've always voted for what I believe in, for positive reasons, never negative. Even when I once voted Lib Dem, it was because I believed in what they offered. I've never voted blindly, pragmatically, or negatively. Struggling here though!

[DeeTillEhDeh]

As I said, I don't have the knowledge to argue this with you, and I'd like to think Im not HB, so I'll have to take you at your word until I do some research of my own.

You're not bloody helping my vote indecision! I've always voted for what I believe in, for positive reasons, never negative. Even when I once voted Lib Dem, it was because I believed in what they offered. I've never voted blindly, pragmatically, or negatively. Struggling here though!

I have voted Lib Dem in the past due to federalist/PR leanings, by, given their ConDem coalition, I don't think that's an option I'll be taking for some time.

[Crùbag]

They are still fundamentally Malthusians at heart - it's not just about Scotland.

The party was born in the early Seventies, when a middle-class couple from Coventry came across an article on overpopulation in Playboy. Solicitor Lesley Whittaker and her husband Tony, a former Tory councillor, decided something must be done. They formed the cloyingly named People Party – the Green Party’s first incarnation. The party subscribed to the Blueprint for Survival, a manifesto for sustainability by environmentalist Edward Goldsmith which, among other things, advocated deindustrialisation, a return to living in small peasant communities, the sterilisation of women and an end to all immigration. Up to the early Nineties, the Green Party, and its then spokesman David Icke (he of lizards-run-the-world fame), still wanted to reduce the UK’s population by 20million.

Over the past decade, the Greens have attempted to distance themselves from Malthus’s arguments – perhaps because the only other party advocating Malthusianism is the BNP. But although the Green Party’s recently published manifesto makes no mention of overpopulation, its website still has a population-policy page that talks about striving to achieve ‘sustainable population levels’. In order to do so, the page encourages people to live ‘sustainable lifestyles’ – ‘sustainable’, in this case, being a thinly veiled euphemism for ‘childless’.

Central to the Green ideology is the idea that humanity is a burden on the planet; that we should be subservient to nature, not masters of it. The Enlightenment idea that humans should seek to control and dominate the world around them is wrong, Greens say, as it undermines ‘healthy interdependence of individual, nature and society’. Instead, the Green Party believes we need a ‘reduction in the physical burden human societies place upon our planet’.

Really? Were they not called the Ecology Party for years?

I haven't heard about the population control either. It may have been a core policy of the People/Ecology Party but has it surfaced in the independent Scottish Greens? Anyway, we don't have to look very far to find parties who have changed radically since the early seventies.

I would welcome an increased Green vote for the reasons of plurality though I do sympathise with them anyway. I do find them to be a bit aloof and middle-class though, Patrick Harvie being a notable exception. They could learn much from groundwork with ordinary people as we saw in the Yes campaign.