In the pub tonight most people said they favoured Nicola Sturgeon. What a pity this is S E UK..

[xenon]

The rest of the country should just devolve from London and the home counties, and leave the neoliberal westminster elite to it.

Fucking idiot. Yeah London full of rich Tories.

 

[free spirit]

Fucking idiot. Yeah London full of rich Tories.

If the rest of london wanted to devolve from westminster then fair enough, but it'd be a bit like west berlin in the middle of communist east germany.

I'm fairly obviously not being entirely serious, but I would much prefer to be governed from Edinburgh than from Westminster at the moment.

 

[butchersapron]

Well, of course. It is hardly a clever or insightful suggestion on your part to announce that the S.N,P. would not take English seats.

What about the suggestion that i was directly responding to that they could if they did stand in England?

 

[brogdale]

Fucking idiot. Yeah London full of rich Tories.

Yeah, that area of the 'neo-liberal' elite contains 33% of all Labour's English (2010) seats. Idiot indeed.

 

[brogdale]

If the rest of london wanted to devolve from westminster then fair enough, but it'd be a bit like west berlin in the middle of communist east germany.

I'm fairly obviously not being entirely serious, but I would much prefer to be governed from Edinburgh than from Westminster at the moment.

Lots of callers to Nicky Campbell's R5 phone-in saying the same...one notable one claiming Liverpool to be part of Scotland, (and Campbell welcomed this as it would improve the chances of the national football team).

Joking aside, though this might be encouraging to some extent, it speaks of a lack of confidence in English voters that could ever get rid of the tory yoke. I think this misses the point that, had the Scots gone for independence, English politics would have had to change at some point.

 

[youngian]

So a random conversation came up and 5 of 5 people involved wanted to vote for Nicola Sturgeon. We cannot vote SNP here in the South East of England. This does not bode well for Whatshisname, leader of the Labour Party whom everyone has to fall back on if we don't want the Tories back. Miliband, that's his name, I remember it now.

Not only that but she's not even standing as an MP. Of course your pub vox pop is not scientific but its fair to say a lot of people liked the cut of Sturgeon's gib on the leadership debate despite never even having heard of her. I don't think it will do Labour any harm in England where the Tories have been portraying the SNP as a bunch of opportunist pork barrellers lead by a devious operator who is not even their leader anymore.

 

[danny la rouge]

Lots of callers to Nicky Campbell's R5 phone-in saying the same...one notable one claiming Liverpool to be part of Scotland, (and Campbell welcomed this as it would improve the chances of the national football team).

Joking aside, though this might be encouraging to some extent, it speaks of a lack of confidence in English voters that could ever get rid of the tory yoke. I think this misses the point that, had the Scots gone for independence, English politics would have had to change at some point.

I think it speaks volumes of the space that has been opened up, in no small part by the grass roots, bottom up, uncoordinated pro independence campaign. It "lost", but still we are in a position where austerity is being questioned on TV debates and where people in England are asking valuable questions about the "representation" foisted on us and not coming up with "I'll vote UKIP, then".

Sure, there's some way to go - the answer isn't "I'll vote SNP, then", that's a symptom not a cause (and Scotland, actually, may be somewhat delayed in figuring this out, precisely because SNP is available here) - but it shows that acceptance of the neoliberal consensus can no longer be presented as "common sense" without question.

The media scrum around the SNP manifesto launch is part of this. That didn't happen before. There was no such interest in 2010 or before.

The question is, does the SNP get to be the voice of this discontent, or will it find its own voice?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The point about 'grass roots movement' against neoliberalism is an important one.

That and 'pasokification' are the key things in my view.

Neither will happen overnight.

 

[danny la rouge]

The point about 'grass roots movement' is an important one.

That and 'pasokification' are the key things in my view.

Yup.

(Didn't edit out your last comment - you added it after I quoted).

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yeah sorry about that. I'm on a train right now ...

 

[danny la rouge]

Yeah sorry about that. I'm on a train right now ...

I hope you're using voice recognition.

 

[danny la rouge]

Boris likens Sturgeon to Lady MacBeth and King Herod.

http://gu.com/p/47k3f

Because, you know, she wants to massacre babies and get her husband to murder the king.

This is the kind of hysteria that we're seeing every day in response to what? The possibility of a score or more seats going to a party that isn't "acceptable". Mad Scots. Dangerous Sturgeon. And so on. The Telegraph has gone for the enemy within angle today.

FEAR!

 

[nino_savatte]

Lots of callers to Nicky Campbell's R5 phone-in saying the same...one notable one claiming Liverpool to be part of Scotland, (and Campbell welcomed this as it would improve the chances of the national football team).

Joking aside, though this might be encouraging to some extent, it speaks of a lack of confidence in English voters that could ever get rid of the tory yoke. I think this misses the point that, had the Scots gone for independence, English politics would have had to change at some point.

 

[agricola]

Boris likens Sturgeon to Lady MacBeth and King Herod.

http://gu.com/p/47k3f

Because, you know, she wants to massacre babies and get her husband to murder the king.

This is the kind of hysteria that we're seeing every day in response to what? The possibility of a score or more seats going to a party that isn't "acceptable". Mad Scots. Dangerous Sturgeon. And so on. The Telegraph has gone for the enemy within angle today.

FEAR!

Perhaps, though he isnt wrong - what Sturgeon is proposing (an agreement where the SNP supported a Labour government) would probably result in absolute disaster, or an overwhelming Tory majority in five years time (if that doesnt come under the category of absolute disaster).

 

[danny la rouge]

Perhaps, though he isnt wrong - what Sturgeon is proposing (an agreement where the SNP supported a Labour government) would probably result in absolute disaster, or an overwhelming Tory majority in five years time (if that doesnt come under the category of absolute disaster).

What are the mechanisms by which those two scenarios would occur?

What sort of disaster?

Why the overwhelming Tory majority?

 

[agricola]

What are the mechanisms by which those two scenarios would occur?

What sort of disaster?

Why the overwhelming Tory majority?

i) the predicted Labour wipeout in Scotland stopping them getting a majority;
ii) a Labour government would forever be at the mercy of the SNP bloc in order to get anything done, and would have no means of ensuring that the SNP stayed loyal, honoured deals or shared responsibility for what was done beyond giving them what they wanted.
iii) after five years of the above - if it lasted five years - the only option to those in England to get rid of them would be the Tories.

 

[danny la rouge]

i) the predicted Labour wipeout in Scotland stopping them getting a majority;

that wouldn't be the result of a Labour government supported by the SNP.

ii) a Labour government would forever be at the mercy of the SNP bloc in order to get anything done, and would have no means of ensuring that the SNP stayed loyal, honoured deals or shared responsibility for what was done beyond giving them what they wanted.

Why is that a disaster?

iii) after five years of the above - if it lasted five years - the only option to those in England to get rid of them would be the Tories.

isn't that the case anyway?
That's not peculiar to an SNP supported Labour government.

Edit to sort out tags.

 

[danny la rouge]

All this Jockmageddon talk, it makes me want to vote SNP. Do you understand? I have no intention of voting SNP, I've never voted in a general election for decades, but despite my logic, my analysis, my political convictions, I hear this stuff and *feel* it'd be worth it for the craic.

Can you understand that? That's why the surge isn't abating.

 

[Belushi]

It's only going to get more hysterical as the campaign goes on

 

[cesare]

Cameron on the Andrew Marr show yesterday kept going on about Labour being "wiped out" in Scotland. But the Tories have been "wiped out" in Scotland for far longer and the sky hasn't fallen in.

 

[DotCommunist]

It's only going to get more hysterical as the campaign goes on

I expect to see full on losing their shit from the telegraph/mail/sun as we get closer to the day. Elvis on the moon

 

[Belushi]

I'm expecting cartoons featuring Hadrians Wall and a savage looking Sturgeon in a tam o shanter any day now

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Perhaps, though he isnt wrong - what Sturgeon is proposing (an agreement where the SNP supported a Labour government) would probably result in absolute disaster, or an overwhelming Tory majority in five years time (if that doesnt come under the category of absolute disaster).

Predicting electoral fortunes beyond the time of the yet to be voted next government is not realistic. By the time five years have passed, the LibDems might have smarmed their way into more popularity and there will be new voters who will have no real memory of them, partly because they have no distinct character. Tories will always be tories though and still hated years after their period in power. Remember the Tories did not win the last election and they are still tainted with Thatcherism despite the intervening Major years.

Sadly the so called Labour Party is fading into something not unlike the old Liberal Party. They need to up their game as the sports commentators would say.

 

[butchersapron]

Something on all this we/they are going to blow up parliament business.

 

[Sue]

All this Jockmageddon talk, it makes me want to vote SNP. Do you understand? I have no intention of voting SNP, I've never voted in a general election for decades, but despite my logic, my analysis, my political convictions, I hear this stuff and *feel* it'd be worth it for the craic.

Can you understand that? That's why the surge isn't abating.

Was in the newsagent earlier. Most of the press down here is going for full on 'evil SNP holding the country to ransom' headlines. And another couple of weeks (at least) of this to go.

(And hearing quite a bit of the 'scrounging Jocks' narrative as well. Again.)

 

[redsquirrel]

All this Jockmageddon talk, it makes me want to vote SNP. Do you understand? I have no intention of voting SNP, I've never voted in a general election for decades, but despite my logic, my analysis, my political convictions, I hear this stuff and *feel* it'd be worth it for the craic.

Can you understand that? That's why the surge isn't abating.

The anti-SNP campaign, brought to you by the same idiots who led "Better Together".

 

[dishevelled]

I've never voted in a general election for decades.

Yet here you are on this thread...

 

[DotCommunist]

because you can't talk about the realities of electoral politics unless you engage in the current rigged system

 

[xenon]

Yet here you are on this thread...

Shit on the menu. This kind of shit or that kind of shit. How dare you choose nothing. how dare you complain about there being only shit on the menu.

 

[Nylock]

Yet here you are on this thread...

Fascinating contribution there.