Election result - what does it mean for Scotland?

[Rosssco]

90% sure scotland will be independent within a decade

And broke 3 years later and it will all be the fault of thatcher

If it happened now, I'd be surprised if it took 3 years..

There still seems to be no comprehension of this by most nats however..

This level of numerical illiteracy / ignorance for those supporting Scotland's monopoly party is ever so slightly concerning.

What has happened to all the Scottish (small c) conservative voters that apparently dominated? Has years of left-wing socialist labour governments and policies relagated this cultural / fiscal conservatism to a past era? We seem to be (like the SNP) starting to believe our own hype up here a bit..

[GBOBM]

Welcome to our new one-party state..

Where do you live Ross? I thought you lived in Aberdeen?

"A one-party state is a country that uses a one-party political system, meaning only one political party exists and the forming of other political parties is forbidden."

[thinfourth]

Welcome to our new one-party state..

Where do you live Ross? I thought you lived in Aberdeen?

"A one-party state is a country that uses a one-party political system, meaning only one political party exists and the forming of other political parties is forbidden."

Give it time


As it sounds very much in the style of nationalists


List one country which has improved its lot by going down the route of nationalism

[Rosssco]

Welcome to our new one-party state..

Where do you live Ross? I thought you lived in Aberdeen?

"A one-party state is a country that uses a one-party political system, meaning only one political party exists and the forming of other political parties is forbidden."

It was a tongue in cheek comment mostly, but with sinister undertones..

However, we now have a party well known for its relative intolerance of internal decent, "rumours" of attempted coertion of certain influencers (like in the referendum), now in complete control (democratically of course) of our regional parliament, and acting as (virtually) our sole representatives on a national level..

I'm sure that's a paradise if you're an big independence fan, but it does not fill me with happy thoughts. Call me paranoid..

Ps.- are you about this weekend and I'll try pick up that subframe (unless you've binned it!)?

[pete]

The Labour apologists are blaming the Scots yet had Labour won ALL the Scottish seats they still would not have a majority.

Labour lost the argument on the economy 5 years ago and has been forced to play the game that Cameron wrote the rules for.

I think Cameron will struggle, yes he has a majority but only just and the EU vote is going to be difficult.

[Kelvin]

Agreed Robin.

It's not a great outcome. The Nats can now really rail against Westminster and its Tory masters that next to no one in Scotland voted for.

We've been talking about our future retirement plans in 10 or so years time and it's less clear cut retiring back to Scotland.

And I also agree that 'better dead than Ed' weakened Labour. I know you should look beyond the leaders and look at the policies but there was no chance I'd be able to bring myself to vote Labour as Ed was completely unelectable for me. In the end I voted Lib Dem who match my view of what I'd like society to be. It's a shame they've been completely decimated as I think their term in office will be looked on favourably in years to come.

[woody]

The Labour apologists are blaming the Scots yet had Labour won ALL the Scottish seats they still would not have a majority.

Labour lost the argument on the economy 5 years ago and has been forced to play the game that Cameron wrote the rules for.

I think Cameron will struggle, yes he has a majority but only just and the EU vote is going to be difficult.

It's not as simple as that though; the SNP were used as a Tory weapon against Labour as Nicola kept asking/begging/threatening Milliband to form an anti-Tory coalition. Milliband is not a strong leader, Sturge is. Fear of an SNP planet was a usesful tool for the Tories in the election. No doubt a Tory government will be an excellent tool for the SNP in the coming 5 years in furthering their aim.

[robin]

I find the concept of blaming a party for being successful distasteful - clearly they better represent the people that voted than the less successful parties.

Labour failed to persuade people to vote for them and the call-me-Dave succeeded in scaring people about the SNP.

Kelvin, I am seriously considering discussing where we live with Katie - it will cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth but if we stay and we get sucked into whatever disaster happens here, I don't want to be the one that gets blamed

P.S. Kelvin - "to decimate" is a widely misused verb - literally it means to kill 1 in 10 - how the Liberals might wish for that:
<monty python>Decimation?! Luxury ... when I were a lad we lost all our seats before breakfast</monty python> Of course it is so widely disused that the modern meaning has become accepted as the inverse of its original meaning ...

P.P.S. This daily mash article now quite appropriate in the context of this thread and sinister undertones:

salute

[graeme]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[Kelvin]

We could get into a debate about the origin of the word decimate as it's not so clear cut it originally meant to literally kill 1 in 10 or at least this was the only accepted meaning. It was retrospectively applied to the Roman soldier practice of punshing every tenth soldier. Common accepted usage if the word nowadays just means to remove a large proportion of. The reason I'm aware of this is because it came up in a pub quiz last year and Ginny's dad is very particularly correct in his use of English and he argued this point with the question master even referencing some obscure early dictionary entry.

5 of the 8 barns are still for sale where we've bought ours Although you'd have the same challenge come the general election as it blue for as far as you can see across the countryside.

[GregR]

I hate politics.

Everyone is harping on about the next referendum. Why on earth would the tory government sanction one after the 'once in a generation' chat. Unless of course 'central' UK would be better off without us...

Yes the SNP hold Scotland in Westminster, but what clout is that? None. They can't table and carry a bill for Referendum Jnr. If anything the election result illustrates the need for proportional representation when you see other party's shares and the seats they ended up with.

So, the question is whether the post Indyref groundswell of support will carry to the Scots election next year (probably) and whether Scotland will remain Nat in five years? I doubt it - what's the point? However useless a Labour majority in Scotland might appear to those in Scotland looking for 'a voice' in Westminster, there's more chance of a UK party with a majority having enough clout to do something than 56 MPs in opposition. There are other UK parties, I'm not biased. Ironically, if Scotland had voted tory, wouldn't 'we' have had more say as government?

[robin]

We could get into a debate about the origin of the word decimate as it's not so clear cut it originally meant to literally kill 1 in 10 or at least this was the only accepted meaning. It was retrospectively applied to the Roman soldier practice of punshing every tenth soldier. Common accepted usage if the word nowadays just means to remove a large proportion of. The reason I'm aware of this is because it came up in a pub quiz last year and Ginny's dad is very particularly correct in his use of English and he argued this point with the question master even referencing some obscure early dictionary entry.

5 of the 8 barns are still for sale where we've bought ours Although you'd have the same challenge come the general election as it blue for as far as you can see across the countryside.

In digital signal processing terms it also means the exact opposite of the supposed Roman usage of the word (which is the only thing I remember from doing Latin at school - not to say it's actually true) - it means to remove x-1 of x items, leaving just one item for the next stage in the pipeline.

Hmm ... not sure Katie's ready for a barn in deepest bluest England just yet ...

[campbell]

I felt a strange sense of "new broom" when I awoke to the "seismic" news this morning. I tried to stay up but lost the battle with fatigue at 1.30am.

I am not an SNP supporter. I voted, with a sense of futility, for Lib Dem.

Yet, I am willing to trust the SNP's Tartan Army to represent our country amongst the other regions of the entire UK, and in some ways I'm more than happy to give them a shot at that. But not at running our nation as a fully independent entity. I won't be abandoning my company's offshore bank account quite yet, clearly the risk of separation has not gone away by any means.

I don't feel the sense of foreboding that Robin and Kelvin have expressed, yet I do confess to being rattled by the insights from two of the people I trust the most in our eclectic little online community here! We shall see, eh.

Meantime, there are sources of hope...

- Many of the ousted MPs (and I take it this amounts to "redundancy", which I sympathise with deeply) now have the opportunity to campaign and stand as MSPs for the Scottish Parliamentary Election in 2016. It will be really interesting to see what happens there.

- The SNP are not in power at Westminster. They are in Opposition. As the 3rd largest party. So they may set out to give Crazy Dave a hard time (or, more radically, they may set out to have constructive debate in the House...we'll see). But whatever the case, they will have to learn a few things and it might not be the big knees-up they imagined.

- "English votes for English laws" will give them something to get their heads round.

- And the forthcoming EU in-out-shake-it-all-about Referendum could be a right hoot for them too.

The other source of hope is that Cameron's new government, unencumbered by a reluctant coalition, can complete the rescue of the UK economy and (selfishly) lay a platform for my kids to enter into adult life with half a chance.

And therein lies my main focus. I'm a great believer in the Francis of Assisi soundbite:

“Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change,
he courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

...so I am getting involved in some local community things where I hope to make a true difference to our kids' future. It's only a small step. But it's a step, and it's me that 's taking it, and it doesn't matter to me what colour of rosette other participants might be wearing. Whether other people take that view is, of course, another matter...

[thinfourth]

I can see the tory party giving the SNP exactly what they have been screaming for and give them full fiscal autonomy

Then watch it go completely tits up

Sadly it will be people like ourselves who aren't on the dole or in a crappy dead end job that will get the flack

But people like ourselves can happily up sticks and take our skills elsewhere

Then the SNP can tax high earners at 99% if they wish

Just there will be no high earners to tax


But i will laugh when i hear the SNP banging on about how we must not leave the EU union and we can't blame everything on a parliament to the south where we have no voice but we must immediately leave the UK union and everything is the fault of a parliament down south where we have no voice

[BigD]

But i will laugh when i hear the SNP banging on about how we must not leave the EU union and we can't blame everything on a parliament to the south where we have no voice but we must immediately leave the UK union and everything is the fault of a parliament down south where we have no voice

I agree it makes no sense at all.

I'm also not sure that Scotland wants indy. SNP got 50% of the Scottish vote which came from labour and lib dem voters. (Scottish Tory votes were pretty similar to last time). If there was another referendum I still think the result would be the same. I guess people are giving snp a shot at running the country (without the risk of full Indy) so if they make a hash if it they'll loose their votes just like labour and lib dens have.

Personally I'd like to see SNP making a positive contribution in Westminster and not just being difficult for the sake of it. Hoping Nicola will realise this as I don't think Alex salmond would have.