Scottish Parliamentary Elections May 2021

[Ginaro]

2 minutes ago, Paco said:

People in Edinburgh Western have (rightly) been complaining for years about pollution levels, it was barely a year ago Mr Cole-Hamilton was on St John’s Road wearing a gas mask, and now he’s running an election on getting the roads back to how they were.

Exactly what I was going to mention. Edinburgh Western seems to attract the numpties as Sue Webber is standing there for the Tories.

[Granny Danger]

40 minutes ago, betting competition said:

Last day to register to vote:

https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Tories get up until next Tuesday (27th April).

[Juanhourjoe]

22 minutes ago, It's my pancreas, John. said:

I was speaking with an elderly neighbour ( 100% will be a Tory ) and she was telling me how disgusted she was that Scottish NHS workers were paid 500 pounds.   She was giving it full on "What about the supermarket workers!  They've worked through the pandemic"     My neighbour gave her 500 pounds (shes a speech therapist) to charity.  

What about the the supermarket workers? Give  them NHS wages!

[Wile E Coyote]

1 hour ago, It's my pancreas, John. said:

I was speaking with an elderly neighbour ( 100% will be a Tory ) and she was telling me how disgusted she was that Scottish NHS workers were paid 500 pounds.   She was giving it full on "What about the supermarket workers!  They've worked through the pandemic"     My neighbour gave her 500 pounds (shes a speech therapist) to charity.  

She didn't get £500. It was taxed. I got less than £300

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Are the Tories real?

Douglas Ross says there will be an NHS catch up fund but there will be no new money. It will come from NHS efficiency savings of £600m.

So cut backs while trying to catch up and do more? What a complete moron.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Jim McLean's Ghost

[GordonS]

4 hours ago, steelmen said:

To be fair to him he is doing a great PR job with the 'spaces for people' pish that Edinburgh Council are pushing. i have had him round the doors checking on people’s opinions and ensuring everyone knows he is single handily fighting the SNP council on the stupid cycle lanes and extended pavements. I'd be impressed if he wasn't a complete self serving cnut.

 

I might be making this up, because i got roughly 20-30 pieces of lib dem mail through for the last 2 elections, but did the Lib Dem's get fined for breaking election spending? i get so much through with Cole-Hamilton’s face on it.

 

 

Spaces for People is great, has the support of most people in Edinburgh and most of those against it are small-minded f*nnies who would rather see children and pensioners killed than be delayed by 30 seconds every day or, God forbid, occasionally leave their Qashqai at home.

It's not an SNP council, it's SNP-Labour, and those two parties plus the Greens support Spaces for People. Literally the only reason the Lib Dems don't support it is because they think it helps them in Cole-Hamilton's seat and they are shameless opportunistic kunts who would sell their grannies for a handful of votes.

Cole-Hamilton is a hypocrit who lives in a cul-de-sac while opposing other streets being turned into cul-de-sacs, poses in a gas mask and talks about air pollution while opposing absolutely every policy to do anything about it, including Spaces for People, the parking levy, congestion charging and LTNs.

There's no constituency result I want more than to see him do a Swinson.

[MONKMAN]

Can’t be arsed looking into it, but why do the Northern Isles consistently vote Lib Dem?

[Highland Capital]

I'm starting to think that Wightman might have an outside chance of getting elected in the H&I.  I wouldn't put money on it just yet, but he does seem to be picking up some steam.

[Highland Capital]

11 minutes ago, MONKMAN said:

Can’t be arsed looking into it, but why do the Northern Isles consistently vote Lib Dem?

It's often said that the reason for this because there was a time when the old Liberal Party were the party of the workers prior to the rise of the Labour Party and as the industrial revolution didn't affect the Highlands and Islands so much, those fisherman, farm hands, etc. stuck with the Liberals and thus the Labour Party never really got the traction it got in the Central Belt and in the big industrial cities in England. 

It's interesting to note as well though that at the last Orkney council election, the biggest party was the Greens.  They had one councillor elected and everyone else was independent! 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Highland Capital

[Florentine_Pogen]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/19/boris-johnson-drops-plan-for-pre-election-visit-to-scotland?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
SpiffSpaff abandons plans to visit Scotland after Dross tells him he's a walking bag of toxicity.

[Granny Danger]

2 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/19/boris-johnson-drops-plan-for-pre-election-visit-to-scotland?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
SpiffSpaff abandons plans to visit Scotland after Dross tells him he's a walking bag of toxicity.

There need to be a “Where’s Boris” campaign.

[Arch Stanton]

In the latest Labour PEB, Anus  being entirely realistic that his party are not going to win the election and that the parliament needs "a strong opposition".

I genuinely do hope that Labour have more MSPs than the Tories but as long as they continue to stand against a 2nd Independence referendum they will always only be "an opposition".

[G51]

10 hours ago, MONKMAN said:

Can’t be arsed looking into it, but why do the Northern Isles consistently vote Lib Dem?

Because in the Far North, the actual candidate is normally far more important than the party they represent because everyone knows the candidate. It's why the councils are made up almost entirely of independents - even people who are actually members of a political party don't tend to stand under that banner.

The Central Belt parties like Labour and the SNP have never really cared about these constituencies, so they always ended up fielding shite candidates.

 

[G51]

Just now, Pato said:

Why don't they elect independent MSPs and MPs then?

It's easy to run as an independent for a council, it's more difficult and expensive to do it for Parliament.

[LongTimeLurker]

28 minutes ago, G51 said:

...The Central Belt parties like Labour and the SNP have never really cared about these constituencies, so they always ended up fielding shite candidates.

With the exception of the Western Isles, the Lib Dems seem to do a better job of working out how to have a candidate viewed as representing local rather than a generic central belt driven culture. For example, if you want to represent Shetland knowing how to pronounce Lerwick, Whalsay, etc like the locals do among themselves is the sort of small thing they tend to manage to get right. There is also the way they try to resonate with rather than being affronted or gleefully amused by how many Shetlanders are ambivalent at best about being Scottish because of the Norse history angle. Maybe they get better candidates because it's one of the few areas where you can have a stable career out of being a Lib Dem politician. Jo Grimond vs Jo Swinson on career longevity terms basically.

Edited April 20, 2021 by LongTimeLurker

[G51]

1 minute ago, Pato said:

OK, so they need the cash and resources of a party for that - question remains why do they keep electing liberal democrats? Am I to believe of all the candidates with the backing of a party, the individual with the greatest appeal is this guy?

Because, like I said, none of the other parties have ever cared about these parts and keep nominating shite candidates.

Even the rare SNP candidate who was successful in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross in 2015 - largely as a result of everyone hating the Lib Dems at that point - was an absolutely terrible candidate and an awful p***k to boot, which is why he got chucked out in 2017 for Jamie Stone.

Carmichael obviously gets stick from Central Belters because of his association with Better Together and the whole French ambassador thing, but no one up north really gives a f**k about that anymore.

What he did do was lobby to ban a book written by some smug Central Belt p***k about how Orcadians were all drunks stuck in the 1950's that shagged their sisters, which understandably made him quite popular. He's also campaigned a lot for reducing ferry fares and campaigned to eliminate the extra delivery charge imposed on people to the Highlands and Islands, which is something people get really fucked off by. He also, somewhat importantly, actually lives there, which isn't something you can say for every candidate.

He probably wouldn't be that hard to beat to be honest. Reading it above, you recognise that all he's done is really the bare minimum you'd expect. What does it tell you about the SNP that they can't beat him?

[G51]

3 minutes ago, Pato said:

From memory Danus Skene came quite close to beating him but he's deid now so no chance of a repeat of that I guess.

Does nobody give a f**k about austerity?

He did, but then again that was in 2015, which was definitely a low water mark for the Lib Dems.

People do give a f**k about austerity, but that cuts both ways when you see the money the SNP have cut from council budgets and the power they've centralised and taken away from the area. Life there isn't any better since the SNP took control of Holyrood, and it's arguably worse given the SNP's inability or unwillingness to address the sustainability of these communities.

[G51]

32 minutes ago, Pato said:

Is it honestly the case that the SNP (or anyone else who's not a lib dem tbh) have not done anything on stuff like ferries, postage charges and the like? You'd think these things would be very obvious campaign issues on which you'd struggle to differentiate any candidate.

Ah, but such is the charmed life of a politician that isn't actually in power.

The SNP can claim to have done something on this, but ultimately these issues still remain and they have the power to fix the overwhelming majority of them at the stroke of a pen. They are very good at making life needlessly difficult for people in the Far North because they simply don't think or care about the place.

For example, consider the incumbent SNP MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, a lassie named Gail Ross. She's not standing for Parliament in this upcoming election because she has a young family, and having one is completely incompatible with being a northern MSP. The reason for this is:

a) it's extremely expensive to travel to Edinburgh quickly through the air, a problem exacerbated by the lack of a Scottish Government PSO on these routes (though there is some talk that they're going to look at this now, but they've had years to do it already)

b) it's extremely impractical to travel to Edinburgh by train, because it takes eight hours and also costs a fortune, a problem exacerbated by the SNP's shambolic handling of Abellio etc. and a complete lack of investment in new infrastructure projects.

c) they simply won't allow her to work from home, for some inexplicable reason. I literally have no idea why the SNP wouldn't allow this.

Gail is very well known and quite popular in the constituency - the family are active in the local community, her husband is very involved with local football and they're all generally quite well thought of. The SNP have lost a good candidate, and someone that people liked, as a consequence of their policies for the Far North. People know why she's quit and even folk who didn't vote for her think it's an outrage. A candidate from Glasgow or Edinburgh wouldn't be forced to make such a choice, and people know that. This is a situation that could very easily have been fixed.

 

Edited April 20, 2021 by G51

[renton]

Is it just me or is there very little going on in this campaign. Pollsters seem to have given up a bit too

[ICTChris]

5 minutes ago, Pato said:

It's an interesting idea, the SNP which has historically had quite strong links to the north losing a bit of this perspective in its taking over the central belt.

The SNP were historically strong in the North East.  The Highlands were Liberal Democrat, although I think the MP for Caithness for many years was Robert MacLennan who was elected Labour, and then joined the SDP and eventually Lib Dems.