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1 hour ago, AlfieMoon said:

The GE is now a gift to the Tories who are looking likely to get a majority. 

Angus MacNeill has been getting ripped in about the SNP backing this. Hard to disagree with him really. What on earth do the SNP (and Libs for that matter) gain other than the obvious winning of some additional seats that will effectively bring no additional power? In fact, they'll have even less power than they do now under the current hung parliament.

Yes its getting to a point now that the “real SNP” are starting to stand up and say enough of this brexit bullshit stance, i am hearing that there are many with in party who are at the end of their tether, we need a john swinny or such like to take a stand and say enough is enough, we will not protect England from itself. The party is for scottish independence and they should not forget that!!

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I'm not so sure that it's so nailed on that the Tories will win a majority.   While *some* polls show the Tories with a sizeable lead over Labour,  others are much closer.   

Its pretty difficult to get a sense of the shape of the current House of Commons, with all the defections, suspensions and expulsions, however, taking the result of the 2017 General Election as a starting point then the Tories were around 7-8 seats short of an overall majority.

It seems pretty likely that they will lose seats to both the Lib Dems and the SNP.   In Scotland, it's probably likely they'll lose at least 10, the Borders seats might be safer than the rest.   For the Lib Dems, in 2015, the Lib Dems lost 27 seats to the Tories.  They've subsequently won 5 of them back.   There is a big question mark as a number of these seats are in Brexit supporting areas like the SW of England but you have to think they will win a number of these back.

Lets say that means they're 40 short of an overall majority, then where do those 40 seats come from?

The first place to look is the seats that Labour won in 2017 from the Tories, there are 28 of these.   Some of these are in "Remainy" areas but the bulk are in constituencies which have swung between Labour and the Tories and are in areas that backed Brexit.  A good example would be Colne Valley in West Yorkshire.   The Labour majority there is only 915.  The previous Tory MP is standing again.  That's got to be one that they need to win.

Lets say they get 15 of these seats back , where do the other 25 seats come from?

The obvious answer is those traditional Labour seats in the North and Midlands in the towns - not cities - where there was a high vote for Brexit, but there's a problem there.

I think Stoke had one of the highest votes for Brexit and it's no surprise that the MPs from there are amongst the Labour MPs who are looking to get a Brexit deal through.   If you look at Stoke North - Ruth Smeeth's seat, never realised she was born in Edinburgh - then that's been a Labour seat since it was formed in 1950.   She has a fairly narrow majority of 2359, with the Tories in second place, but there was no UKIP in 2107.  If you take the combined Tory and UKIP vote from 2015, then it still doesn't beat her 2017 vote.

Again, these are seats that the Tories need to win in order to get a majority.

I think there are few questions which we don't know the answer to yet which will decide how the election goes.

What impact will the Brexit Party have on the vote share of both Tory and Labour in England and Wales?

To what extent will the election be solely based on Brexit and will other issues dominate the campaign?

Will there be large scale tactical voting from the remain side?

To what extent will traditional Labour voters in the North and Midlands put that to one side to vote for the Tories solely on the basis of Brexit.  I know that in Scotland we've seen the slow decline of Labour over years, and in 2015 some huge Labour majorities overturned by the SNP.   I'd say though that it's different circumstances, for most, other than Independence, it doesn't take a huge ideological shift to vote SNP rather than Labour, I don't think you can say the same about the Tories.

If you look at the two occasions I can think of where there's been a major elections that have ushered in change, then it's Thatcher in 79 and Blair in 97.   In both occasions, there was a sense in the UK - for good or bad - that the previous administration had run its course and it was time for change.

I don't get that sense right now, the UK is basically divided right now over Brexit, Johnson's gamble is that he can corner one half of that vote and have the other half split across the opposition parties but I don't think its as simple as that.

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1 hour ago, exile said:

Could anti/pro Brexit tactical voting come into play as well as anti indy tactical voting?  

Quite difficult if you're a pro-EU, pro-Union voter in Scotland.  Tories are the uber-Unionists but any pretence of the the Ruth Davisson party somehow supporting a soft Brexit has been well and truly shattered. Where exactly does Labour stand on the Eu or the Union?

Leaves you with the Lib Dems but Willie Rennie. 

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39 minutes ago, aaid said:

Quite difficult if you're a pro-EU, pro-Union voter in Scotland.  Tories are the uber-Unionists but any pretence of the the Ruth Davisson party somehow supporting a soft Brexit has been well and truly shattered. Where exactly does Labour stand on the Eu or the Union?

Leaves you with the Lib Dems but Willie Rennie. 

I just wonder if the threat of Brexit could for some be the more urgent 'evil' to vote against. e.g. In Tory v SNP marginals. Last chance to take out a Brexit Tory govt. Business as usual elsewhere. 

Edited by exile
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On 10/26/2019 at 6:54 AM, Dave78 said:

Has anyone ever told you you have a way with words? :lol: :ok:

 

Pap is a dyed in the wool nashnalist.

He'll vote Yes in any coming referendum. In fact i'd take 9/4 and put the wife and kids on it.

But he's perfectly articulating the calculation that 10 to 15 percent of Scottish voters will make come indyref2 (i.e. the ones that will decide the outcome)....short-sighted plebs that he/they are! :P

The reality is a 'hard' Brexit gives Scots indy a moral shot in the arm, but makes the economics harder. I think Sturgeon knows this, and is why she instructed her MPs to vote for the only brexit that keeps the rUK in the single meerkat during the 'indicative votes' months ago.

 

 

 

bang on the money there dave

and this GERS was called out as bs won't wash either.  It's all very well activists saying that but the SNP studiously aren't.  If it's true that it's guff they should be shouting it from the rooftops.  If it's no use, they should be applying motions like nobody's business to get the correct figures.

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RE election - i know i'm sounding like a bit of a doom-merchant here but i think the received wisdom that the SNP will clear up is not as clear cut as is being suggested.

A campaign can change a lot and if you scratch the surface there is nowhere near the goodwill among SNP voters there was in 2015.  in many cases actively grudging support.  a clever campaign, if they had it in them, from the unionist parties could give the SNP a bloody nose especially in Tory and Lib Dem areas.

 

Edited by PapofGlencoe
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My father in law, who was all for indy and been a snp voter his whole life said he will vote torie due to the snp’s antics down at Westminster, he doesn't hold very strong views on the EU, i think there will be a lot of folk like this. He stated before he could never vote torie due to the “unionist” in their name, its a sad day the snp have managed to push him into voting a party he doesn’t like 

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10 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

My father in law, who was all for indy and been a snp voter his whole life said he will vote torie due to the snp’s antics down at Westminster, he doesn't hold very strong views on the EU, i think there will be a lot of folk like this. He stated before he could never vote torie due to the “unionist” in their name, its a sad day the snp have managed to push him into voting a party he doesn’t like 

Any "SNP voter their whole life" would NEVER vote Tory

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23 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

My father in law, who was all for indy and been a snp voter his whole life said he will vote torie due to the snp’s antics down at Westminster, he doesn't hold very strong views on the EU, i think there will be a lot of folk like this. He stated before he could never vote torie due to the “unionist” in their name, its a sad day the snp have managed to push him into voting a party he doesn’t like 

SNP's antics? Well if that is the case he certainly should not be voting Tory as their 'antics' have been 100 times worse.

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18 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Any "SNP voter their whole life" would NEVER vote Tory

Look thats what i am trying to get across, the current stance is changing the party altogether and forcing folk from it, its a divisive, isolating politics they are playing. 2015 GE he had his house plastered with snp posters. 

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7 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

SNP's antics? Well if that is the case he certainly should not be voting Tory as their 'antics' have been 100 times worse.

Some folk just dont like what they are doing, it does look anti democratic from some angles, he wants brexit done with and voting tory will get this in his opinion 

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Just now, hampden_loon2878 said:

Some folk just dont like what they are doing, it does look anti democratic from some angles, he wants brexit done with and voting tory will get this in his opinion 

Brexit was going to get done. The SNP do not have the clout at Westminster to stop it. In any case all the SNP were doing was fighting in the corner of the majority of Scots who voted remain. I can't, for the life of me, see how that is anti-democratic.

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15 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

Some folk just dont like what they are doing, it does look anti democratic from some angles, he wants brexit done with and voting tory will get this in his opinion 

Problem is it won't be done with - I've tried to explain this to my Mum. We'll have 18 months of the withdrawal agreement and transition period and all the negotiations going on alongside that and then ten years of trying to replicate the deals we previously had in place. This will be going on for a decade. 

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2 hours ago, PapofGlencoe said:

bang on the money there dave

and this GERS was called out as bs won't wash either.  It's all very well activists saying that but the SNP studiously aren't.  If it's true that it's guff they should be shouting it from the rooftops.  If it's no use, they should be applying motions like nobody's business to get the correct figures.

I’m in no way shape or form an activist but get annoyed when media are, probably purposefully, spoon feeding folk bullshit and they populace in general are lapping it up without question.  The economist who created it even admitted its fairly rudimentary limitations.    

 

The problem for the SNP is they hitched their wagon to the GERS in the days it was positive so seem hamstrung by it.  Personally I think they need to bite the bullet and explain why it is bollox then take the flak for their change in stance. 

 

Scotland’s deficit is £10bn so if you take the 30,000 Scottish uni students at £10k a year fees = £300m and give 5,000,000 folk a £6 prescription a quarter that’s £120m so that would be less than £500m.  Unemployment is around 4% Scotland and UK and pensioners make up between 18-19% of UK/Scotland’s population so no massive difference there – so what else since 2015 is generating our massive spike in deficit way in excess of our % as a population? 

 

If it was down to SNP wanton spending surely the Scottish Conservatives and the also rans would make massive play on this.  If it is down to the SNP attracting less tax revenue to Scotland than the UK are managing surely again they would make massive plays on this.  However, the last round of GERS made it pretty obvious that it is essentially nothing more than jiggery pokery with the debt figures to make Scotland look crap by giving it way more than 8-9% population share of debt payments. 

 

Plus if Scotland did cost England why is there no real ‘ENP’ looking for a break-up from us and someone would have created the English version of the blue book or put it on the side of a bus surely?   

2 hours ago, PapofGlencoe said:

RE election - i know i'm sounding like a bit of a doom-merchant here but i think the received wisdom that the SNP will clear up is not as clear cut as is being suggested.

A campaign can change a lot and if you scratch the surface there is nowhere near the goodwill among SNP voters there was in 2015.  in many cases actively grudging support.  a clever campaign, if they had it in them, from the unionist parties could give the SNP a bloody nose especially in Tory and Lib Dem areas.

 

It’s hugely frustrating that Johnson is going to come out of this smelling of roses and have some sympathy with the SNP as they are trying to represent the views of Scotland who voted remain.  Surely they’re right to argue why are NI getting a customs union and we’re not as that’s their job in the ‘UK’ parliament. 

 

However, the end goal definitely seems to be muddled and it’s pretty dangerous to accept that the benchmark, in order to beg for a referendum, is that they need to be returning 85%+ MPs and/or winning a majority in a parliament designed to make it impossible as that simply won’t carry on forever.   

Edited by ThistleWhistle
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1 hour ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

My father in law, who was all for indy and been a snp voter his whole life said he will vote torie due to the snp’s antics down at Westminster, he doesn't hold very strong views on the EU, i think there will be a lot of folk like this. He stated before he could never vote torie due to the “unionist” in their name, its a sad day the snp have managed to push him into voting a party he doesn’t like 

You've just made that up.

If you haven't then you have my sympathies having a gimp like that as a father in law!

Edited by Squirrelhumper
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52 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

Some folk just dont like what they are doing, it does look anti democratic from some angles, he wants brexit done with and voting tory will get this in his opinion 

Brexit, assuming it goes ahead, won't be done with for a very long time. We are still just at the beginning. I know people who don't realise that either though.

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6 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

You've just made that up.

If you haven't then you have my sympathies having a gimp like that as a father in law!

I do find it hard to believe. After all if it is truly independence you are after then the very last party you'd ever think of voting for are the Tories led by Boris Johnson. Off to clean my hands after typing that name in.

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1 hour ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

My father in law, who was all for indy and been a snp voter his whole life said he will vote torie due to the snp’s antics down at Westminster, he doesn't hold very strong views on the EU, i think there will be a lot of folk like this. He stated before he could never vote torie due to the “unionist” in their name, its a sad day the snp have managed to push him into voting a party he doesn’t like 

This is essentially why I can’t really get excited about Scotland becoming independent or not.  There’s folk in Hong Kong risking god knows to avoid losing sovereignty to China; Nepal, with barely a pot to piss in, are refusing to dilute their sovereignty despite China trying to essentially buy them; Chileans protesting in their millions trying to shake off US corruption  and Catalans don’t seem to be wavering in their support. 

 

Here though a fella who previously voted for us to be an independent country has taken umbrage at the party who were voted by the majority of said country that then subsequently had the audacity to represent that country’s substantive position from the referendum at a parliament we were assured we were a valued, even equal, partner of.

 

Got to give the English their due in their nationalistic bandwagon they’re not giving two f**ks that the NHS is going to be devoured by US pharmaceuticals (Channel 4 last night), that the Good Friday agreement is essentially shagged or that the drop in immigration they were hoping for is going to actually get worse (or they’ll get no pension).  They’ve actually got the bollox to demand they leave, however foolhardy, whereas even if we did squeak a win I’m pretty sure we’d sh!t out within two years.      

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23 hours ago, aaid said:

I'm not so sure that it's so nailed on that the Tories will win a majority.   While *some* polls show the Tories with a sizeable lead over Labour,  others are much closer.   

Its pretty difficult to get a sense of the shape of the current House of Commons, with all the defections, suspensions and expulsions, however, taking the result of the 2017 General Election as a starting point then the Tories were around 7-8 seats short of an overall majority.

It seems pretty likely that they will lose seats to both the Lib Dems and the SNP.   In Scotland, it's probably likely they'll lose at least 10, the Borders seats might be safer than the rest.   For the Lib Dems, in 2015, the Lib Dems lost 27 seats to the Tories.  They've subsequently won 5 of them back.   There is a big question mark as a number of these seats are in Brexit supporting areas like the SW of England but you have to think they will win a number of these back.

Lets say that means they're 40 short of an overall majority, then where do those 40 seats come from?

The first place to look is the seats that Labour won in 2017 from the Tories, there are 28 of these.   Some of these are in "Remainy" areas but the bulk are in constituencies which have swung between Labour and the Tories and are in areas that backed Brexit.  A good example would be Colne Valley in West Yorkshire.   The Labour majority there is only 915.  The previous Tory MP is standing again.  That's got to be one that they need to win.

Lets say they get 15 of these seats back , where do the other 25 seats come from?

The obvious answer is those traditional Labour seats in the North and Midlands in the towns - not cities - where there was a high vote for Brexit, but there's a problem there.

I think Stoke had one of the highest votes for Brexit and it's no surprise that the MPs from there are amongst the Labour MPs who are looking to get a Brexit deal through.   If you look at Stoke North - Ruth Smeeth's seat, never realised she was born in Edinburgh - then that's been a Labour seat since it was formed in 1950.   She has a fairly narrow majority of 2359, with the Tories in second place, but there was no UKIP in 2107.  If you take the combined Tory and UKIP vote from 2015, then it still doesn't beat her 2017 vote.

Again, these are seats that the Tories need to win in order to get a majority.

I think there are few questions which we don't know the answer to yet which will decide how the election goes.

What impact will the Brexit Party have on the vote share of both Tory and Labour in England and Wales?

To what extent will the election be solely based on Brexit and will other issues dominate the campaign?

Will there be large scale tactical voting from the remain side?

To what extent will traditional Labour voters in the North and Midlands put that to one side to vote for the Tories solely on the basis of Brexit.  I know that in Scotland we've seen the slow decline of Labour over years, and in 2015 some huge Labour majorities overturned by the SNP.   I'd say though that it's different circumstances, for most, other than Independence, it doesn't take a huge ideological shift to vote SNP rather than Labour, I don't think you can say the same about the Tories.

If you look at the two occasions I can think of where there's been a major elections that have ushered in change, then it's Thatcher in 79 and Blair in 97.   In both occasions, there was a sense in the UK - for good or bad - that the previous administration had run its course and it was time for change.

I don't get that sense right now, the UK is basically divided right now over Brexit, Johnson's gamble is that he can corner one half of that vote and have the other half split across the opposition parties but I don't think its as simple as that.

I'm pretty sure Stoke will go full Tory - they're absolutely mental for leaving EU.  

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20 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

You've just made that up.

If you haven't then you have my sympathies having a gimp like that as a father in law!

 

12 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I do find it hard to believe. After all if it is truly independence you are after then the very last party you'd ever think of voting for are the Tories led by Boris Johnson. Off to clean my hands after typing that name in.

Years ago we had Rossy saying the same thing to Hampden Loon that he was making up all this shit about what the fishers were saying etc. Then it all turned out to be true and his predictions off the back of it came true.

Don't be Rossy

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2 hours ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

My father in law, who was all for indy and been a snp voter his whole life said he will vote torie due to the snp’s antics down at Westminster, he doesn't hold very strong views on the EU, i think there will be a lot of folk like this. He stated before he could never vote torie due to the “unionist” in their name, its a sad day the snp have managed to push him into voting a party he doesn’t like 

I am assuming he wants an independent Scotland and to leave the EU? In which case, his thinking is very logical. Plenty other folk will be doing the same. There is probably no point in trying to persuade them to do otherwise, as their reasoning is perfectly sound.

 

 

 

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48 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I do find it hard to believe. After all if it is truly independence you are after then the very last party you'd ever think of voting for are the Tories led by Boris Johnson. Off to clean my hands after typing that name in.

My mother is another one who wont vote snp next election, she wont vote tory and would probably still vote for indy, maybe a local thing god knows.

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