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General Election 2019


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1 minute ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Great contribution. Look forward to your next snide remarks

That is rich considering your post history.

2 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Herpes? 

I have eczema as it happens. Not pleasant. I need help managing it. The NHS have done a great job and the professionals that have helped me have been Eastern European. Want me to upload photographs ?

Otherwise stick your comments.

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Just now, ErsatzThistle said:

I have eczema as it happens. Not pleasant. I need help managing it. The NHS have done a great job and the professionals that have helped me have been Eastern European. Want me to upload photographs ?

Otherwise stick your comments.

Fasting might help with that. 
My old man benefited with the same thing.

No thanks to the photos though. 

Love the immigration virtue signalling thought.

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16 hours ago, aaid said:

The BBC don't even try and hide it.  Lead item on Reporting Scotland was basically a party political broadcast for Lesley Laird.  Trying to track down the "elusive" Neale Hanvey.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the similar features on the four other candidates who've been suspended by their parties.

Aye, that was shocking.  Elusive?  The guy was out canvassing.  I would imagine he had made it known where he would be, but hey, just pretend he's in hiding and hope viewers are completely gullible.  The BBC is a UK establishment propaganda organisation and BBC Scotland's news team are the worst of the lot.

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22 minutes ago, Eisegerwind said:

Just that the views you've expressed on this thread re voting and politicians are generally of an anarchist nature. It's not bad thing.

I’m not against having a state, give me party worth voting for and I’d consider voting.

Edited by ParisInAKilt
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15 hours ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

definitely a void in scottish politics that needs filled 
 

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/12/09/meet-the-scottish-nationalists-who-voted-leave/

Loon, you are , by your own admission, pretty critical of Nicola Sturgeon but from that article it would appear the SNP’s affiliation with the EU started long before she was ever in charge. 
I would suggest most of  the voters in that article already have a political party, its called the Brexit party. If they are prepared to give their vote to another party, or refuse to vote SNP in an election where the SNP make Indyref2 part of the manifesto , because they do not like the SNP’s direction on Europe,  then being out of the EU is clearly more important to them than scottish independence. This is absolutely fine, they make their choice like anyone else.

Creating another independence party , one that is anti EU , I think is too much of a risk and is simply going to split the independence vote and let the unionists in. I am not even certain that offering an EU vote , should we gain  independence, would be sufficient for Eurosceptic / Pro independence voters to vote Yes in another Indyref in fear we may then vote to stay in the EU . Why would they risk it if being out the EU  was more important than in the EU in an independent Scotland ? They would just stick with the UK. 

There are many people who vote SNP , not because they think the SNP excel in their job, but because they are adequate and realise the only way we will get independence is to stick with the one party that has the strength in numbers to deliver it. I am not saying that is right , infact  its shit , but much bigger sacrifices will be required further down the line if we do gain independence so if people are not prepared to back them now I doubt they will have the appetite for what is to come. 

It really is an awkward situation and I genuinely sympathise with people who are Eurosceptic for the right reasons. But I am not convinced playing a neutral card on the EU would garner more support for the SNP or  independence. 

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43 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

Loon, you are , by your own admission, pretty critical of Nicola Sturgeon but from that article it would appear the SNP’s affiliation with the EU started long before she was ever in charge. 

The prime architect of the Independence in Europe strategy was ironically enough Jim Sillars in the 1980s and this has been pretty much the line since then.

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1 hour ago, TDYER63 said:

then being out of the EU is clearly more important to them than scottish independence.

 

As someone who spoke to Fairlie quite a bit when he posted here, that's not how i understand his argument.

He doesn't see it as "Scottish Independence" unless out of europe. So it isn't a case of it being more important.

Sillars being the architect isn't as ironic when you read the reasoning.

Sillars was also key in moving the party to adopting a position of Independence in Europe to alleviate the "separatist" tag that the SNP's unionist opponents attached to them.

The ‘Independence in Europe’ policy was explicitly intended to take advantage of the incentives and opportunities that the EU system was offering in order to increase the appeal of independence – hence of the SNP – at mass public level. In Gordon Wilson’s words, “I wanted to make it easier for people to vote for the SNP and for independence [and] I saw Europe as a counterweight to London"[1]. In the party’s discourse, the European Union was portrayed as a confederal union of independent member states and contrasted with a unitary, centralised UK state with the obvious claim that the former was providing a much more favourable framework for Scotland than the latter. In the words of the party’s spokesperson, Kevin Pringle, "the whole concept of a small country in Europe has become a powerful argument for us…Europe is a powerful campaigning tool for the SNP"[2]. More particularly, the SNP claimed that the concept of ‘Independence in Europe’ would remove the charge of separatism, would eliminate the economic costs of secession and would increase Scotland’s influence on policy-making at the Union level.


[1] Interview with the author; Cunningham, interview with the author, expressed the same perception of the EU as a facilitator of independence. 

[2] Interview with the author. See also SNPower for Change, p. 4 and 8-9. 

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19 hours ago, thplinth said:

I linked to House of Lords study on the cost-benefit of immigration on here a while ago (but not that long ago). It is I believe the only such study (costs v benefits) to come out of parliament on it. If you can find it I suggest you read it. You only have to read the conclusions... I think it was about 8 pages. It is far less 'this is a good thing' than you would think given all the press and politician chat.

The reason we have BREXIT is because the left did not allow any meaningful discussion on immigration and they did so by instantly smearing anyone critical as racist.

So now 'they' (the smeared) are just going to ram BREXIT, the tories, etc, etc... up their arses in revenge. I honestly cant say I blame them. They gave gave them no other political avenue.

The poor working class took the economic brunt of mass uncontrolled immigration.

Remind me who is voting for BREXIT again? The arrogance over these people is astonishing. They are all racists. 

 

I looked at the Scottish Government report but in terms of the HOL report is that the one from 2008?  If it is then the credit crunch and Brexit have superseded it plus immigration policy has moved on significantly since but agree there is still some interesting points in it. 

The tiered system was brought in after it was published introducing a point based system for those outside the EU.  In terms of Tier 2 I think your points are dependent on whether your skills transfer is on a list of occupations where there is a shortage eg: midwifery.  Tier 3 has also been introduced recently for temporary visas which on the face of it seems to be catering for employers who are reliant on EU migrants like berry pickers unless I’m missing something. 

Family members have also been restricted since this.  It’s a lot more difficult to take over family members beyond dependents and spouses.  If my wife wanted to take her 90 year old mother here when her dad died earlier this year we would need to prove there was nobody else locally, or potentially internationally, who could care for her.

Students were tightened too - 309,000 students entered in 2006 and subsequently made it more difficult for them to stay at the end of their study.  This was putting off the numbers of students applying from overseas thereafter, plus training skilled folks for other economies isn’t a great idea, so there was a u-turn this year where they can stay two years afterwards.   

The report overall  confirms the data they’ve used is inadequate and although it has been improved there was still criticism this year.   It does note GDP per capita as a better measure rather than GDP– it increased from USD28k in 2000 to USD41,500 in 2011 and reduced to USD39k by 2017. 

The key though is this needs to be reflected in investment and with NHS funding increasing barely in line with inflation this hasn’t been the case so it’s pretty obvious the local population will get pissed off.  The other point to this is the Tories note that the average annual usage for a Non-EU migrant worker or students to the NHS is between £480 - £625 each whereas the levy against each person (including same charge per sibling) is £400 each but that is before considering their taxes and the cost of visas (family of 4 on Tier 2 visa would be £2400 for the first three years).  For me I would suggest the problem in the health service as an example isn’t migration but that this money isn’t being used to increase spending on the NHS in line with demand as given those figures their impact should be cost neutral at worst. 

https://fullfact.org/election-2019/nhs-surcharge-tax-contributions/

In terms of EU migration attached study found they contributed on average £2300 more than average UK resident and, including non-eu migrants, ‘Taken together, means that the migrants who arrived in 2016 will make a total net positive contribution of £26.9 billion to the UK’s public finances over the entirety of their stay. The value of this to the UK’s public finances is equivalent to putting approximately 5p on income tax rates (across all marginal rate bands) in that year’.   If you also consider that EU migrants are looking likely to have to pay the NHS surcharge following brexit then the fault for the underfunding of the NHS shouldn’t be laid at the door of migrants. 

https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/8747673d-3b26-439b-9693-0e250df6dbba

It also notes that immigration to deal with the ticking time bomb on the pensions isn’t accurate as it assumes the pension age will remain static.  There lies a key question I think – how long do we want to work vs how many immigrants do we want in the country?   

Didn’t really understand the point on looking to other avenues around employment as even at its most recent peak unemployment was 7.5% and currently sits at 3.5% whereas immigration is about 14% UK wide.  Training youngsters should definitely be a priority but even that would have us going backwards in isolation as the % of population under 16 is contracting whereas pensioners are expanding.  Add into that the current 10-25 year old are 18-19% compared to 35-50 being 21-22% of the population this could get even more pronounced over the next 25 years. 

It notes that lower paid/ low skilled may have been impacted and that a section of these will be immigrants.  However, it says businesses are relying on low paid wages rather than investing in other solutions.  This wouldn’t help the lower skilled as it would seem to be hinting towards investments in automation or other efficiencies thus reducing jobs anyway.  I really have no idea with globalization how to protect lower skilled employees with wages in some of the EU, India and China so low in comparison other than sticking tariffs on imports.     

I think the media since this report was published has also turned – every time a boat tries to cross the channel you’d think we were going to be invaded and it was an absolute circus when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU.  We were going to be overrun by them but at the moment they account for <500,000 or 0.7% of the population.    

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29 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

I've a bad feeling that the SNP are going to lose a few seats and the Tories to gain, especially in terms of vote share and probably a few seats.

 

I’m worrying about that too.  ‘Get Brexit done’ is a far more simplistic message than whatever the SNP are trying to convey and, although there has been minimal kickback against it being obviously bollocks that it’ll be finished short-term, I don’t really think people care to be honest. 

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48 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

I've a bad feeling that the SNP are going to lose a few seats and the Tories to gain, especially in terms of vote share and probably a few seats.

 

I can't see it. All polls are suggesting SNP to win 40+ seats so an increase of a minimum of five seats. The only way the Tory seat count is heading is down. Damage limitation is the name of the game for them.

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1 hour ago, phart said:

The ‘Independence in Europe’ policy was explicitly intended to take advantage of the incentives and opportunities that the EU system was offering in order to increase the appeal of independence – hence of the SNP – at mass public level. In Gordon Wilson’s words, “I wanted to make it easier for people to vote for the SNP and for independence [and] I saw Europe as a counterweight to London"[1]. In the party’s discourse, the European Union was portrayed as a confederal union of independent member states and contrasted with a unitary, centralised UK state with the obvious claim that the former was providing a much more favourable framework for Scotland than the latter. In the words of the party’s spokesperson, Kevin Pringle, "the whole concept of a small country in Europe has become a powerful argument for us…Europe is a powerful campaigning tool for the SNP"[2]. More particularly, the SNP claimed that the concept of ‘Independence in Europe’ would remove the charge of separatism, would eliminate the economic costs of secession and would increase Scotland’s influence on policy-making at the Union level.

 

Sillars say now that the EU has changed and it's not the same as when he put forward Independence in Europe.   On the basis of the part I've bolded above, the EU hasn't demonstrably changed in that respect and this still forms the basis of the SNP's core argument.   When you hear people from the SNP talking about the political benefits of being in the EU vs the UK, its exactly that.

I suspect that its more that Sillars has changed his view on the EU.

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5 minutes ago, aaid said:

Sillars say now that the EU has changed and it's not the same as when he put forward Independence in Europe.   On the basis of the part I've bolded above, the EU hasn't demonstrably changed in that respect and this still forms the basis of the SNP's core argument.   When you hear people from the SNP talking about the political benefits of being in the EU vs the UK, its exactly that.

I suspect that its more that Sillars has changed his view on the EU.

 

" the European Union was portrayed as a confederal union of independent member states and contrasted with a unitary, centralised UK state "

Unless you look at Greece

On the point of being more favourable that's a case of your mileage may vary.

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12 minutes ago, kumnio said:

Friday the 13th when the results come in, not overly confident for the SNP, think they will gain a few seats, but not that many. Still confident that the Tories will romp home with a significant majority, unfortunately.

Polls might be tightening - Boris Johnson has just driven a union jack emblazoned JCB through a polystyrene wall with ‘Get Brexit Done’ stuck on the tipper. 

 

This is essentially the response to him looking bad over the kid in Leeds hospital - what the absolute **** is going on!!    

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41 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I can't see it. All polls are suggesting SNP to win 40+ seats so an increase of a minimum of five seats. The only way the Tory seat count is heading is down. Damage limitation is the name of the game for them.

Opinion polls are pish at the best of times. In this election they haven't got a clue. This election is different to any other in our lifetimes.

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