renton Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 (edited) 48 minutes ago, Paco said: Alex Salmond lost 8000 votes in 2017. Labour gained 3000, Conservatives gained 15,000. Angus Robertson lost 6000 votes, Labour lost 400. Conservatives gained 17,000. Mike Weir lost 9000 votes, Labour lost 1200. Conservatives gained 6000. Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh lost 7000 votes, Labour lost 6000, Conservative gained 12,000. Eilidh Whiteford lost 11000 votes, Labour gained 1300, Conservatives gained 6000. I’ve picked five blue constituencies at random there. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Tory MPs being elected were not due to ‘unionists’ or ‘champagne socialists’ or ‘red Tories’ or any other cliche you wish to throw out. In these cases, it was because SNP voters either switched to Conservative or didn’t vote. In itself, not entirely important, but don’t try to pass it off as the fault of Labour or unionists. The article picks out three, possibly four elections where Scotland decided the election, not influenced it. Scotland influences every election, whether the UK Government ends up the same or not, in the same way every area of the UK influences it. A vote for a losing party is not automatically a ‘wasted vote’. I think there’s a definite point to be made for independence in this area, especially around Brexit. But thankfully for the movement, it won’t be made by you. Well, quite. The North East was always full of people who's primary constitutional goal was removing themselves from the EU, and who saw removing Scotland from the UK as the most obvious means of achieving that. No wonder then, that the SNP under Sturgeon - adopting a Europhile position and moving the party's centre of gravity towards the central belt - was going to end up alienating those voters in the most Eurosceptic part of Scotland who then adopted the Tories, ironically as a result of the pro-EU vote being split, rather than the Unionist vote being split as is generally the case in constituency elections. These same people are probably going to suffer more than most from the anticipated Brexit mess. There is also no doubt that the SNP campaign for that election was very milquetoast, with little traction: The SNP's biggest problem, overall, was voters staying at home. As to the second part, to influence would seem to imply changing the overall direction of the result. Given the UK electoral process is predicated on a winner takes all basis then the language gap between 'influencing' and 'deciding' pretty much closes up. Otherwise we must take 'influence' to mean 'turned up' - so yeah Scotland, as a corporate identity can only really influence a UK electoral result by denying or carrying a majority by greater than the difference in the English only results. This of course is only the first issue: For even when Scotland is the deciding factor in an election, that force quickly dissipates when applied to actual governance. The two test cases are a bloc of MPs of the UK government party, or a bloc of MPs from a Scotland only party. In the first instance, as seen in countless examples including our latest bunch of brain dead tories - party loyalty trumps any constituency or country loyalty. In the second instance, a Scotland party with a commitment to Scottish only issues cannot command the parliament by itself. Therefore the eye of the needle to be thread, to allow Scotland to influence both an election and a government (the important bit) would rely on a minority UK government requiring the votes of the Scotland party to govern - a situation that can only apply to one of the two UK parties for various historical and cultural reasons, and which the other UK party has used as a nightmare scenario to scare off English voters. Poll after poll has shown an appetite for more legislative responsibility to reside at Holyrood rather than Westminster - people clearly understand the very limited scope for anyone improving the lot of Scotland from that place. Edited September 13, 2018 by renton 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
git-intae-thum Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 4 hours ago, Detournement said: Lol at Peterhead, Angus and Ardrossan being full of Champagne Socialists! It's incredible how little some Scottish nationalists know about Scotland. Lol...a wee bit of auld style new labour spin and deflection. Cannae help yersels eh. Nothing like using specifics to hide a general trend. The labour vote collapsed in 2015 and barely recovered in 2017. The breakdown shows the majority of these labour votes went to the SNP in 2015. However the vote that switched from labour between 2015 and 2017 went majority Tory. Obviously the Tory 2017 revival just happened to be coincidental. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
git-intae-thum Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 The term "champagne socialists" fits many of these types just fine. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Aye Peterhead is awash in Krug, Bolly and Moet..... Let's look at Angus Robertson 2010 SNP 16kTory 10k Labour 7k Lib Dem 6k 2015 SNP 24K Tory 15k Labour 5k 2017 Tory 22k SNP 18k Labour 5K It's not possible to identify the exact shifts but it's fairly obvious that Labour>Tory wasn't a significant one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeTillEhDeh Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 The evidence that's there points to brexit voters in the old SNP strongholds going straight over to the Tories from the SNP.In the central belt and elsewhere it's less clear - there appears to have been an SNP to Labour shift due to Corbyn but also a Labour to Tory shift due to the WAPT vote. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highland Capital Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 With talk of the previous right wing SNP stance decades ago, I have wondered in the past if the Scottish independence debate loses something by not having a mainstream centre-right voice. The independence movement at this time is the SNP who are by-and-large centrist and the Greens who are left wing, along with the likes of the SSP and Margo MacDonald being elected in the past. The left to centre spectrum is pretty much covered, but who can persuade those on the centre-right? If you look at other independence movements (such as Catalonia), their support comes from across the spectrum. We don't seem to have that here and while such a party wouldn't be to my taste, I do wonder if the Yes movement as a whole is weakened by not having this voice. The only ones filling this type of gap in the market are the pro-independence, pro-Brexit Scottish Libertarian Party but they are absolute lunatics. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Bouji Catalans are only for independence because they think being in the Eurozone will protect their wealth. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Detournement said: Bouji Catalans are only for independence because they think being in the Eurozone will protect their wealth. Why would they want to leave Spain then? They want to leave Spain to stop subsidising regions with worse climates and transport links. I'm assuming Bouji is alt left slang for bourgeois. Edited September 13, 2018 by welshbairn 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 (edited) 16 minutes ago, welshbairn said: Why would they want to leave Spain then? They want to leave Spain to stop subsidising regions with worse climates and transport links. I'm assuming Bouji is alt left slang for bourgeois. Aye they want to leave cause because they think they will be richer plus historic grievances. And unlike us there isn't any risk around the currency due to being in the Eurozone. If we had no currency issue then there would probably be more Murrayfield types on board. Also Alt-Left Edited September 13, 2018 by Detournement 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banana Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Ctrl-Left 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melanius Mullarkey Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Wish somebody would Ctrl-Alt-Delete this thread. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banana Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 5 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said: Wish somebody would Ctrl-Alt-Delete this thread. BSOD the motherfucker, pewpewpew! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Why would they want to leave Spain then? They want to leave Spain to stop subsidising regions with worse climates and transport links. I'm assuming Bouji is alt left slang for bourgeois. Didn’t realise Migos were socialists 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 2 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said: The evidence that's there points to brexit voters in the old SNP strongholds going straight over to the Tories from the SNP. In the central belt and elsewhere it's less clear - there appears to have been an SNP to Labour shift due to Corbyn but also a Labour to Tory shift due to the WAPT vote. In the central belt the vast majority of SNP switchers was to Did Not Vote. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrewDon Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 Twitter is still free, folks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmothecat2 Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 Twitter is still free, folks. Reading the replies to some of this guy's tweets is eye opening. Is there not someone on here who has linked to this account (in a supportive way) a couple of times? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 Kudos to whoever was involved in blocking his attempt at standing for the SNP. What a minter that would’ve been. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jambo: First Blood Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 10 hours ago, DrewDon said: Twitter is still free, folks. Bloody hell 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdog Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 11 hours ago, DrewDon said: Twitter is still free, folks. Never heard of anyone using Novichok at the gym. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdog Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 Excuse me, which way to the Salsisbury Cathedral please? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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