General Election 2015 - chat, predictions, results and post election discussion

[JTG]

Have to admit that I hadn't even thought that it might have come from the other part of the coalition.

Makes far more sense. The SNP aren't a direct threat to Tory seats (well, maybe one).

 

[brogdale]

Makes far more sense. The SNP aren't a direct threat to Tory seats (well, maybe one).

Oh yeah, and of a piece with Clegg's pitiful attempt to stab his mate in the back during the 'debate'.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

When Farage says we can't control our borders he is technically correct, because they are marked out by the sea. He thinks he can control them because he is a cnut.

 

[tbtommyb]

i'm struck by the fact that a rather larger economy, that of the united states, has had a corporation tax rate of about 40% for nearly 30 years. are they closed for business?

But how many American corporations pay that rate? Given the extent of tax avoidance I'm not see how relevant any headline rates are

 

[J Ed]

Craig Murray has this to say...

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/04/uk-intelligence-services-attack-snp/

The fake FCO memo has MI5 written all over it. This is the worst example of British security services influencing an election campaign since the Zinoviev letter.

For those whose history is a bit shaky:

The Zinoviev letter – one of the greatest British political scandals of this century – was forged by a MI6 agent’s source and almost certainly leaked by MI6 or MI5 officers to the Conservative Party, according to an official report published today.[4 Feb 1999]
New light on the scandal which triggered the fall of the first Labour government in 1924 is shed in a study by Gill Bennett, chief historian at the Foreign Office, commissioned by Robin Cook

Ever since Treasury Permanent Secretary Nicholas MacPherson stated that civil service impartiality rules do not apply in the case of Scottish independence, I have been warning the SNP that we are going to be the target of active subversion by the UK and US security services. We are seen as a danger to the British state and thus a legitimate target. I spelled this out in my talk to the Edinburgh SNP Club on 6 March, of which more below.

The FCO “memo” reporting that Nicola Sturgeon would rather have a Tory government, is a remarkable document. Firstly, its provenance is very strange. It has been leaked ostensibly by the FCO to the Telegraph. According to the Guardian:

“The leaked document was drafted by a Whitehall official after Coffinier called the FCO, as protocol requires, to pass on a confidential account of several of the ambassador’s meetings in Edinburgh, which included a meeting with Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish secretary.”

The extraordinary thing is, this is just a lie. As someone who worked in the FCO for over twenty years and was an Ambassador myself, I can assure you there is absolutely no protocol requirement on the French Ambassador to give the FCO the content of the meetings she, her Consul-General or anybody else from the French Embassy held in Edinburgh. That claim is absolute nonsense.

Look at it from the Embassy’s point of view. If you repeated everything Nicola Sturgeon told you to the FCO, do you not think she would shortly stop telling you anything at all interesting? That is why diplomats absolutely do not retail such conversations to their host governments.

The second quite extraordinary thing is that both sides of the alleged conversation categorically deny it was said. Nicola Sturgeon denies she said it and the French Embassy deny she said it. So we have a leaked account of a conversation which all the participants say is untrue, yet the unionist media all feel this evidently untrue account is worth splashing as their lead story? The collusion of security services and corporate media is terrifying.

Timing is all. I was wondering how the security services would react to the seemingly unstoppable SNP momentum, following Nicola Sturgeon’s brilliant performance in the leaders’ debate. When I gave that talk to the SNP club, I warned that, as the main threat to the British state, we would suffer the full panoply of dirty tricks from MI5 and CIA. This would include increased penetration, communication interception, agent provocateur activities, forgeries and eventually might include false flag violence blamed on nationalists.

We are at a crisis in our constitutional history. I believe the momentum towards a Scottish exit from the UK is unstoppable. The British state is seeking to appear on the surface to agree to give Scots a free and democratic choice, while using every dirty trick to subvert that choice. Those tricks range from complete control of state and corporate media to the darker arts of the security services.

As I also stated to the SNP club, the USA has decided it is in their interest for the Unionists to prevail, not least so Scotland remains a base for the American controlled Trident missiles the UK taxpayer so obligingly funds. A large part of the CIA’s existence has been and is dedicated to covert activity to keep the forms of government it wants in power in the world. It does not want the SNP.

That the attempt to destabilise Nicola Sturgeon originates with the UK government and the Telegraph should give everyone pause. It is very obviously a security service effort. How otherwise is an account which the French Embassy says is completely false, contained in an official memo to be leaked?

This episode raises very serious questions. But they are not questions about Nicola Sturgeon. They are questions about the subversion of democracy by the security services, and the willing complicity of the corporate media.

 

[jakethesnake]

Milliband totally missed an open goal today and attacked the SNP as if the document were real rather than the media/establishment for spreading a falsehood. What a plonker.

 

[brogdale]

Just seen Sturgeon's interview on the BBC. Transpires the leak may well have been from the Scotland office after all. If it was Carmichael's people that might explain a great deal. Not a vermin strategy at all.

Looks like the NS is reading our posts...

Update: It's been suggested to me from several quarters that the leaker may be Alistair Carmichael or someone in his office. As Secretary of State for Scotland the memorandum would definitely have crossed his desk, and it might help the 10 other Liberal Democrats trying to retain their seats in mainland Scotland.

 

[FiFi]

Milliband totally missed an open goal today and attacked the SNP as if the document were real rather than the media/establishment for spreading a falsehood. What a plonker.

I know. It's almost as though he were part of the Westminster establishment....

 

[brogdale]

Someone on the Guardian has suggested the memo might have been leaked by Michael Green.

Allegedly, obviously. we don't want to hear from his lawyers, do we?

 

[tbtommyb]

Lib Dems are also standing to lose a large number of seats in Scotland to the SNP.

I don't see 'vote SNP, get Tory' being a big vote-winning line for the Lib Dems though....

 

[brogdale]

This is interesting...

Scottish National party leader Nicola Sturgeon has offered to help make Ed Miliband the next prime minister even if Labour wins fewer seats than the Tories on 7 May. Her appeal comes as she angrily rejects claims that she thinks he is not up to the job.

Writing in the Observer – as a furious row erupted over disparaging private remarks she allegedly made about the Labour leader – Sturgeon challenges Miliband to lead Labour into an anti-austerity alliance with the SNP whichever party is the largest in the House of Commons on 8 May.

In terms that will enrage many MPs, Sturgeon throws down the gauntlet to the Labour leader, saying: “If together our parties have the parliamentary numbers required after 7 May, and regardless of which is the biggest party, will he and Labour join with us in locking David Cameron out of Downing Street?”

 

[brogdale]

 

[jakethesnake]

She might save us all yet!

 

[danny la rouge]

It's not exactly new - the SNP has been saying just that for weeks. Lock out the Tories, vote down their Queens Speech if they try to form a minority govt, the biggest party doesn't necessarily get to form the government. I'll get the Observer tomorrow to see if there's anything new.

 

[tbtommyb]

This is interesting...

cleverly negates the 'vote snp get tory' labour line, putting the onus back on miliband. but how do you think labour would respond to a request to go for anti-austerity? the thinking relies on the idea that labour are, in their heart of hearts, anti-austerity and only proposing some in order to seem electable in the coalition's terms.

 

[tbtommyb]

interesting to see a quasi-STV system developing too.

 

[brogdale]

It's not exactly new - the SNP has been saying just that for weeks. Lock out the Tories, vote down their Queens Speech if they try to form a minority govt, the biggest party doesn't necessarily get to form the government. I'll get the Observer tomorrow to see if there's anything new.

Yep, but isn't the timing of this piece interesting? Has the leak 'flushed out' this very explicit offer to Miliband as a response to the accusation that the nationalists would really prefer to see the vermin in power in Westminster?

 

[tbtommyb]

Yep, but isn't the timing of this piece interesting? Has the leak 'flushed out' this very explicit offer to Miliband as a response to the accusation that the nationalists would really prefer to see the vermin in power in Westminster?

it certainly puts her on the front foot and deflects the focus on to miliband.

 

[danny la rouge]

Yep, but isn't the timing of this piece interesting? Has the leak 'flushed out' this very explicit offer to Miliband as a response to the accusation that the nationalists would really prefer to see the vermin in power in Westminster?

It's a good move, I think; labour are all over the place on the French Ambassador story, and Miliband is looking like a bit of a twat.

If you can be bothered with storify (I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't), this version of events seems right to me:

https://storify.com/theSNP/telegraph-and-the-scottish-labour

 

[Hocus Eye.]

This latest twist gives the lie to the Telegraph fiction. Sadly Miliband dare not go along with Sturgeon for fear of losing control of his own party.

 

[brogdale]

This latest twist gives the lie to the Telegraph fiction. Sadly Miliband dare not go along with Sturgeon for fear of losing control of his own party.

Without a doubt; he'll come out with the old "we're aiming for a majority/don't need or want a coalition/arrangement" etc. But she's shut the LD/Vermin up and makes Miliband look like even more of a delusional twat.

 

[danny la rouge]

Here's what Sturgeon said:

"In the meantime, I repeat my challenge to Ed Miliband: if together our parties have the numbers required after 7 May, and regardless of which is the biggest party, will he and Labour join with us in locking David Cameron out of Downing Street?"

This isn't new.

 

[xslavearcx]

It's a good move, I think; labour are all over the place on the French Ambassador story, and Miliband is looking like a bit of a twat.

If you can be bothered with storify (I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't), this version of events seems right to me:

https://storify.com/theSNP/telegraph-and-the-scottish-labour

That's a great website for those of us who don't have/don't get Twitter .. Cheers!!

 

[Dogsauce]

This leak could still be Tory troublemaking, a bit of friction between your opponents can never do any harm and helps illustrate the 'chaos' if Labour form/try to form a government, which seems to be Crosby's main strategic message.

 

[brogdale]

This leak could still be Tory troublemaking, a bit of friction between your opponents can never do any harm and helps illustrate the 'chaos' if Labour form/try to form a government, which seems to be Crosby's main strategic message.

It could be, but I'd say that we won't know for a little while yet. Yesterday Heywood said..

"I can confirm that earlier today I instigated a Cabinet Office-led leak inquiry to establish how extracts from this document may have got into the public domain. Until that inquiry is complete I will not be making any further comment either on the document or the inquiry."

So my best guestimate for the date of the revelation of who leaked the McDodgy memo will be some time late in May once the new parliament has opened and the Queen's speech has been presented in the second week of that session. How neat.

 

[brogdale]

Asked if the memo was an example of “dirty tricks” during the election campaign, Carmichael said: “These things happen from time to time. I think it’s regrettable.”

He added: “I have no idea what Nicola Sturgeon said. We had a third-hand account of it.

“But we know Nicola Sturgeon would like to have the Conservatives in Government on their own at Westminister.

“The one thing that matters more than anything else to the Nationalists is getting independence and they would see that as an opportunity to create a wedge between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.”

Hmmm

 

[brogdale]

Astute response from Sturgeon...

(Sturgeon)...also responded to the latest twists in “Frenchgate” – specifically the Scottish secretary Alistair Carmichael remarks that “these things happen” during an election campaign.

If Alistair Carmichael says that dirty tricks are just one of those things then it’s another illustration of why the Liberal Democrats are in such a perilous poll position. We should never accept that dirty tricks are just a part of campaigning.

 

[bi0boy]

This is interesting...
"In terms that will enrage many MPs, Sturgeon throws down the gauntlet to the Labour leader, saying: “If together our parties have the parliamentary numbers required after 7 May, and regardless of which is the biggest party, will he and Labour join with us in locking David Cameron out of Downing Street?”

Sorry Nicola, it doesn't work like that. There won't be any "locking David Cameron out of Downing Street". As PM he remains PM after the election, unless the Queen chooses to appoint a new PM who can command the confidence of the Commons. What this means is that Cameron gets first dibs at trying to form a government. Cameron needs to be turfed out, not locked out.

 

[brogdale]

Sorry Nicola, it doesn't work like that. There won't be any "locking David Cameron out of Downing Street". As PM he remains PM after the election, unless the Queen chooses to appoint a new PM who can command the confidence of the Commons. What this means is that Cameron gets first dibs at trying to form a government. Cameron needs to be turfed out, not locked out.

Tecnically correct, but he'd have to present a Queen's speech within 2 weeks of parliament being opened. At that point an anti-tory block could out-vote Cameron.

 

[butchersapron]

It most certainly does work like that - on the level intended anyway - that is, to reassure anti-tory but not traditional SNP voters that voting SNP this time will not facilitate a a UK wide tory govt. The rest is just pointless time wasting.