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The General Election 2015 Thread


Oddquine

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I know New Zealand television is renowned for being appalling but it seems in this case that their news reporting isn't just out of touch, but on a completely different planet. 

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Most reports in NZ are now equating the SNP and supporters as Fascist, bigoted and racist. It is reported that SNP supporter tactics, antics and behaviour are reminiscent and consistent with those of Nazi Party supporters in the early 1930's.  The most disturbing of the lot is the hatred being levelled at English people. Some of the video footage is a very ugly and disturbing.

 

It is also reported that some on-line comments are being made by SNP supporters that they wished that they had used violence during the referendum to secure a Yes victory.  Is this true? I cannot believe that Scottish people are heading down this road.  One panel commentator here in NZ compared the situation in Scotland as similar to that of Ireland in the early 1900's when the Irish Nationalist returned around 59 MPs to Westminster.  They felt it was only a matter of time before SNP Nationalists pick up arms and started killing fellow Scots.  There is a very strong view here that the SNP are a racist organisation supported by racists.

 

Sad days.

If that is indeed the information you have then it is not just wrong but, as said on another post, from another Planet not Scotland 2015.

 

Perhaps you might ask New Zealand television to cite a single instance of a successfully prosecuted anti English hate crime or any violence at all arising out of the last year's referendum campaign or the current General Election campaign.

 

You are the other side of the world and I have to say that my knowledge of your beautiful land is a bit sketchy but am I right in thinking that New Zealand is a country which was once ruled directly from Westminster, that it has a population about a million less than Scotland but is perhaps less blessed than us in terms of natural resources.

 

Am I also correct in assuming that New Zealand has for some time been wholly independent of the UK other than sharing a monarchy, a common but somewhat different cultural hetitage, and membership of the Commonwealth. The same New Zealand that in the early years of independence did not have a separate currency but happily shared the pound Sterling with some success.

 

Would it be the same New Zealand that exists perfectly safely despite having a ban on nuclear weapons on it's territory and the same New Zealand that weathered the recent World wide financial crisis without extreme austerity or am I thinking of a different New Zealand all together ?

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Most reports in NZ are now equating the SNP and supporters as Fascist, bigoted and racist. It is reported that SNP supporter tactics, antics and behaviour are reminiscent and consistent with those of Nazi Party supporters in the early 1930's.  The most disturbing of the lot is the hatred being levelled at English people. Some of the video footage is a very ugly and disturbing.

 

It is also reported that some on-line comments are being made by SNP supporters that they wished that they had used violence during the referendum to secure a Yes victory.  Is this true? I cannot believe that Scottish people are heading down this road.  One panel commentator here in NZ compared the situation in Scotland as similar to that of Ireland in the early 1900's when the Irish Nationalist returned around 59 MPs to Westminster.  They felt it was only a matter of time before SNP Nationalists pick up arms and started killing fellow Scots.  There is a very strong view here that the SNP are a racist organisation supported by racists.

 

Sad days.

By the way, I am an SNP supporter and now member. Many of my friends, family and colleagues are. I can assure you that none of us are anti English, in fact a number of us ARE English and none of us are racists.....

 

Rather happier days....

Edited by Kingsmills
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I know New Zealand television is renowned for being appalling but it seems in this case that their news reporting isn't just out of touch, but on a completely different planet. 

So the thinking here seems to be that since the SNP couldn't possibly be wrong, the fault must lie instead with another country's entire broadcasting infrastructure. 80 years on in time, this appears to reflect the sentiment "if it's not in the Volkischer Beobachter, it's all lies!"

I don't know how acceptable the Inverness Courier is to nationalist orthodoxy, but today's edition offers a couple of interesting insights. On the news pages (and I have to be careful about terminology since charges have been made) it's reported that a man, it's claimed wearing an SNP badge, has been charged with assaulting the son of the Conservative candidate for Inverness as various parties campaigned in the city centre on Saturday.

Then in the letters page a correspondent recounts how, in 1942 when Scottish regiments were fighting Fascism across the world, the SNP held a "rowdy" (sic!) debate before deciding to oppose the war against Hitler which, they concluded, was being fought for the benefit of the "English rich". Not much change in rhetoric there then.

I am also quite intrigued about what might happen within the SNP now that its ranks have been massively swollen following promises over benefits, welfare and squeezing the rich. This is going to produce a membership quite different from the "ideologically pure" (my inverted commas) SNP of previous years and would seem ripe for some sort of internal bloodletting. The parallel here, of course, is the Night of the Long Knives of June 1934 where the streetfighting wing of the NSDAP was purged by those who considered themselves of rather greater ideological purity than the ruffian Johnny Come Lately Sturmabteilung. The purpose wasn't to reduce streetfighting but to eliminate the infuence of Ernst Rohm after which they carried on as before.

Meanwhile in the wider contemporary world, and not just in New Zealand, I detect a rapidly increasing awareness of the repetition of history.

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You are actually deluded. Actually completely and utterly senile.

 

Charles, you might as well just leave the country now if this is honestly what you believe because obviously what you are doing here is painting every single member of the SNP, every single supporter of the SNP and every single voter of the SNP with a brush so insanely vile that if you truly believe it then one day they will hunt you down and lynch you.

 

My God, I have never read anything so utterly ridiculous.

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Charles, there is one fundamental difference between now and the 1930's you choose to continually harp on about. Nowadays the people are more informed and more educated about politics. Nowadays the political parties are, in general, more open and honest on their policies. Nowadays the people are able to make learned judgement and are making choices based on that judgement and not on coersion.

Good debate is about good arguement. Unfortunately the side you're on have lost the arguement. They've lost the people. Now all they can do is resort to ridiculous comparrisons with 1930's Europe instead of convincing the people that their policies are the right ones.

 

As for NewZealands journalistic endeavours re carnage in Glasgow the other day. Its pretty much identical to the crap reporting by the BBC about the same stage managed PR stunt that has backfired. Meanwhile, because of the hatred and lies being spouted, innocent party campaigners out on the street distributing leaflets are being assaulted by people who are actually believing the hatred and lies being spouted by people like you.

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Charles, you might as well just leave the country now if this is honestly what you believe because obviously what you are doing here is painting every single member of the SNP, every single supporter of the SNP and every single voter of the SNP with a brush so insanely vile that if you truly believe it then one day they will hunt you down and lynch you.

 

Brilliant! :smile: You couldn't make this up! The comparisons just become clearer and clearer.

So what are the SNP going to do before they come to lynch me? Put in my wiondows? Burn copies of Against all Odds in the high street? Paint a St George's Cross on my door?

(That, of course, is if I fail to take your standard advice and follow Albert Einstein out of the country.)

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Charles, you might as well just leave the country now if this is honestly what you believe because obviously what you are doing here is painting every single member of the SNP, every single supporter of the SNP and every single voter of the SNP with a brush so insanely vile that if you truly believe it then one day they will hunt you down and lynch you.

 

Brilliant! :smile: You couldn't make this up! The comparisons just become clearer and clearer.

So what are the SNP going to do before they come to lynch me? Put in my wiondows? Burn copies of Against all Odds in the high street? Paint a St George's Cross on my door?

(That, of course, is if I fail to take your standard advice and follow Albert Einstein out of the country.)

 

You've clearly misunderstood what I was saying.

Edited by EvilWhiteStripe
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Talk about putting words into other peoples mouths

Say a misinterpretation often enough and every body believes it

Nobody on this board called anyone a Nazi. The reference is general to the way Nazis went about getting public support. Charles is an historian, but it is well known that certain procedures influence peoples voting intentions. In 1932 Hitler was voted in on a wave public support on the testimony of the Catholic church to keep out communism.

It shows that public support is not always correct. Symbols were used, propaganda was used.

We all know when the brain washing machine gets rolling like a snowball you can get anyone to vote for

Charles is just pointing out the similarities in approach I am sure he is not calling anybody a gangster.

I know of no one who lives in Scotland and very few who don't are anti - Scottish.

There are a lot of Scots behind your back are anti - English

The Scottish paranoia with the Saltire is apparent every where. When I was a kid the only place you ever saw one was on a church.

The Same in England you saw more Irish Tricolours than you saw the flag of St George. But all that is changing St George flags are starting to appear in English towns as well.

I don't like it is smacks of the old parish pump brigade, or the wild western syndrome get the strangers out of town.

The philosophy of a stronger Scotland, what does that mean exactly? Does it mean give Scotland more than it's fair share of wealth? If so it is patently wrong and grasping for every fast buck, for one region over another.

The SNP know this there aim in life is to spread discord until the system cracks

I for one don't want Scottish parliament to set its own tax. This nation needs over $40 billion just to stay as it is. Oil wealth is about £10 billion , so 30 billion has to be raised from taxation. In a country of 5 and half million I would be surprised if more than a million of them pay £1000 in taxes,

Even if its 2000 it doesn't come to much. That is working within the Union. Outside the Union Scotland would have to pay for its massive import bill.

The public have been led by the nose by a party within nothing to lose can say what it wants and thinks the tail will wag the dog.

Ed Milliband will not put up with it I am certain

I was in London the other day, a lot of people are coming round to the view why should 5 million control 60 million people one said to me " Let the buggers stew in their own juice".

This how the SNP is ruining the goodwill between the nations. Everybody in England used to like the Scots, I am not sure now. There is a problem folks and elections and rhetoric like the SNP are pulling out is not helping.

Not sure where you get your figures from Laurence. As of Nov 13 there were 2,547,000 people in work in Scotland earning an average £26,472. Assuming a 20% tax rate across the board then thats an income of roughly 12 billion in income tax alone. Add to that NI, VAT, Employers contributions and all the other taxes generated in the country and you'll see the reason why Westminster doesn't want to hand over powers. Incidently all those figures are in thepublic domain if anyones bothered to look for them.

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Charles, you might as well just leave the country now if this is honestly what you believe because obviously what you are doing here is painting every single member of the SNP, every single supporter of the SNP and every single voter of the SNP with a brush so insanely vile that if you truly believe it then one day they will hunt you down and lynch you.

 

Brilliant! :smile: You couldn't make this up! The comparisons just become clearer and clearer.

So what are the SNP going to do before they come to lynch me? Put in my wiondows? Burn copies of Against all Odds in the high street? Paint a St George's Cross on my door?

(That, of course, is if I fail to take your standard advice and follow Albert Einstein out of the country.)

 

 

How you would love for any of this to actually happen.

 

No offence, but you are becoming delusional, no one in the real world gives a flying one what some doddery old gadge is saying on the internet. 

 

Godwin's Law was never more aptly proven, well done. :clapping:

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Alex

 

I am not running the Quote as it fills the page

 

Couple of points ( Not saying I don't respect your research ) .

But it doesn't add up  - On the one hand you are telling me that the people of Scotland are broke suffering from austerity and on the other hand they are earning £26, 000 a year on average and paying mountains of tax.  I expect you have taken into account personal allowances , tax credits, and claims against tax like business do for expenses . So is it unbounded austerity ( put down our throats )  or a quite wealthy society with over half the population earning a decent wage. Putting 12 billion into the treasury and the other half  of the population using food banks.

I suspect a lot of political expediency is at foot.

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Alex, I'd hoped we'd seen the last of fag packet economics on Sep 18. For a start you don't appear to have allowed for the tax exempt personal allowamce making about 40% of the average wage non-taxable. Nor, of course, do you allow for how much of this might be recouped through higher rates. And although 12 billion seems a large number in absolute terms, you fail to give us the vital comparison of how big this is compared with the UK whole.

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Alex Salmond in a TV interview claimed to be a socialist

He claimed that Scotland would be good neighbours to England

On the one hand I can tell him that a true socialist does not respect national boundaries, That is why many refused to take up arms in two world wars. The statement that why should a butcher in Birmingham shoot a butcher in Munich was used as a defence in a first world war tribunal

Good neighbours that's a laugh. A guy doesn't steal his next door neighbours apples off his apple tree on the grounds he need them more.

It is plainly obvious that the slogan " stronger Scotland, is an attempt to get a better deal for Scotland over and above its fair share. If that is socialism, or being a good neighbour you can't convince me.

If someone can justify to me that a souvenir seller in Wick should have better life style than his counterpart in Lands End . I would be surprised.

And on the good neighbourly front the scots cant even put members of a team in the football section of the Olympic games .

Good neighbours , socialists , never.

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Alex, I'd hoped we'd seen the last of fag packet economics on Sep 18. For a start you don't appear to have allowed for the tax exempt personal allowamce making about 40% of the average wage non-taxable. Nor, of course, do you allow for how much of this might be recouped through higher rates. And although 12 billion seems a large number in absolute terms, you fail to give us the vital comparison of how big this is compared with the UK whole.

You'll notice Charles I used a blanket 20% rate against average earnings. When you consider that high earners dont get allowance and that there are obviously a lot of high earners to arrive at the 26k average earnings then I think you'll find my figures are pretty close to reality

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It is plainly obvious that the slogan " stronger Scotland, is an attempt to get a better deal for Scotland 

The Scottish National Party standing on a platform of attempting to get a better deal for Scotland. What on Earth has the World come to ?......

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I know New Zealand television is renowned for being appalling but it seems in this case that their news reporting isn't just out of touch, but on a completely different planet. 

So the thinking here seems to be that since the SNP couldn't possibly be wrong, the fault must lie instead with another country's entire broadcasting infrastructure. 80 years on in time, this appears to reflect the sentiment "if it's not in the Volkischer Beobachter, it's all lies!"

I don't know how acceptable the Inverness Courier is to nationalist orthodoxy, but today's edition offers a couple of interesting insights. On the news pages (and I have to be careful about terminology since charges have been made) it's reported that a man, it's claimed wearing an SNP badge, has been charged with assaulting the son of the Conservative candidate for Inverness as various parties campaigned in the city centre on Saturday.

Then in the letters page a correspondent recounts how, in 1942 when Scottish regiments were fighting Fascism across the world, the SNP held a "rowdy" (sic!) debate before deciding to oppose the war against Hitler which, they concluded, was being fought for the benefit of the "English rich". Not much change in rhetoric there then.

I am also quite intrigued about what might happen within the SNP now that its ranks have been massively swollen following promises over benefits, welfare and squeezing the rich. This is going to produce a membership quite different from the "ideologically pure" (my inverted commas) SNP of previous years and would seem ripe for some sort of internal bloodletting. The parallel here, of course, is the Night of the Long Knives of June 1934 where the streetfighting wing of the NSDAP was purged by those who considered themselves of rather greater ideological purity than the ruffian Johnny Come Lately Sturmabteilung. The purpose wasn't to reduce streetfighting but to eliminate the infuence of Ernst Rohm after which they carried on as before.

Meanwhile in the wider contemporary world, and not just in New Zealand, I detect a rapidly increasing awareness of the repetition of history.

 

 

I'd previously been keeping my posts on this thread to a minimum.  Thanks for reminding me why that was a good idea...

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It is plainly obvious that the slogan " stronger Scotland, is an attempt to get a better deal for Scotland 

The Scottish National Party standing on a platform of attempting to get a better deal for Scotland. What on Earth has the World come to ?......

 

 

 

Kingsmill for someone who is well education, you seem incapable at times of grasping the obvious

Scotland is part of the British Isles

 

At moment a greater proportion of the wealth of these islands is per person on the residents of Scotland

 

These residents want even more there are only 5+ million of them the rest of the Union has 60 million people

 

There are about 3 million voters in Scotland there are about 24 million voters in total

 

Now logic defines that 3 million cannot dictate to 24 million

 

If it those through a democratic quirk of seats in the assembly in the Palace of Westminster, some will see that as blackmail.

It will be seen as grasping , to a extent that the Merchant of Venice, would be proud ot. This is not a TV panel game tey used to call top town. But it is serious.

 

To stand on a platform to get an advantage over your fellow citizens for geographical reasons cannot be justified

 

Once upon a time a Roman General marched through Britain he came to wild desolate waste land. It had no name so he called it Caledonia which I don't know Latin well enough but I suspect it means a waste of space.

 

Countries on the planet where not God given and set in tablets of stone,  They developed to become sovereign nations. If these nations change that allegiance freely a new set up emerges, 

 

So when a grasping Scottish king decided to move from Stirling Castle to the Tower of London  for the good life. You cant blame anybody else but yourselves.

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This waste of space as you wish to call it seems to be good enough for you to live and trade in Laurence. But to further advance your historic knowledge the name Caledonia used by the Romans for the lands they couldn't conquer is believed to have come from the largest Pictish tribe in the country of Pictavia, the Caledonii.

 

And finally Laurence the Scottish Nationalists dont want more than they are entitled to. They want what is rightfully theirs and what was taken from them by act of parliament and a handful of bribes in 1707.

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Given I didn't mention Charles, I am interested that you automatically assumed I was talking about him, and not you, or DD, or others who have been, for some long time, enthusiastically denigrating the SNP and their leaders, the YES campaign and its leaders, and Independence supporters in general....a trend which appears to have continued even though we are still in the Union and are still trying to play by the Union rules, as we always have.  In other countries that would be called democracy......but in the UK it appears to be called unacceptable and outrageous.

 

I think one of the things that so angers the Unionist Parties and ordinary members of the public throughout the UK about the SNP is this smug attitude which claims the moral high ground and which suggests that the SNP are treading the true democratic path.  This goody, goody image is spearheaded by nice wee Nichola at the helm who obviously couldn't possibly be associated with anything underhand or dishonest - or could she?

 

Willie Rennie had it right yesterday when he said that the SNP were not interested in stability and unity but in instability and division.  Sturgeon's clarion call yesterday was for all voters, Yes and No, to come together in a spirit of unity to "make our voice heard".  She went on to say "The more seats the SNP wins on Thursday, the more power Scotland will have - it is that simple."  I am sure that all sounds very nice - but it is fundemenally dishonest.

 

The implication is that without the SNP, Scotland's voice is not heard and Scotland will have little power.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Ask people down South and they will tell you that Scotland already has far too much power.  Arguably it will have less power with a large SNP contingent because Scotland is likely to have no more than 2 or 3  MPs at most who are actually in the Governing parties.  But that is no matter to Sturgeon because the power she is talking about is the power to disrupt and whinge - and she'll have plenty of that 

 

The SNP have stated that they will abandon the rather more principled previous position of not voting on matters which are devolved to Scotland - such as the NHS.  This means that policy on specifically non-Scottish matters supported by a majority of democratically elected non-Scottish MPs can be thrown out because a block of SNP MPs vote against it.  In addition, Sturgeon's refusal to accept the referendum result in deed rather than word and rule out a 2nd referendum means that a Labour Government could potentially fall within the 5 year term when Scottish MPs are withdrawn.  How on earth can one plan for any kind of stable Government or policy development with that kind of uncertainty!  The SNP continue with their threat of brakling up a Union and seem totally unconcerned of the fact that 90% of the electorate are directly affected by this and yet have been given absolutely no say whatsoever on this major constitutional change.

 

Of course people are denigrating the SNP.  They have good cause to.  If the SNP wants to stop that then the ball is firmly in their court.  They need to start having a bit more respect for the democratric process and a bit more respect for people in the rest of the UK.  But, they won't.  The disharmony, the anger, the divisions are grist to the mill.  All this dreadful negativity is designed to fuel the sense of grievance which underpinned the case for independence.  We saw during the referendum campaign when the momentum suggested that the Yes campaign just might win, that rational argument went out of the window and it was "independence come what may".  It is now clear that it is also "independence any way".

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This waste of space as you wish to call it seems to be good enough for you to live and trade in Laurence. But to further advance your historic knowledge the name Caledonia used by the Romans for the lands they couldn't conquer is believed to have come from the largest Pictish tribe in the country of Pictavia, the Caledonii.

 

And finally Laurence the Scottish Nationalists dont want more than they are entitled to. They want what is rightfully theirs and what was taken from them by act of parliament and a handful of bribes in 1707.

 

I was making a point that countries are not made in heaven It was a quirk of a military man to divide Brittania into two.

You know as well as I do that .  No GOD  said that is Scotland and drew a map, In fact the Scots came from Ireland and drove the indigenous population out, or murdered them. The Romans also drove the Brits north so most Scots are descended from Brits that lived in the South.

 

I go back to my point that why should an electorate of 2+ million dictate to an electorate of 23+ million .

 

Regarding my move here is none of your business. I can choose to live were I want.

 

I pay my council tax here so I can say my piece

 

Anyway all the above is irrelevant

 

Most people on this forum have long since made up their minds.

 

If anyone is undecided remember D Alexander is 14 to 1 on to lose his seat. Vote Labour.

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You'll notice Charles I used a blanket 20% rate against average earnings. When you consider that high earners dont get allowance and that there are obviously a lot of high earners to arrive at the 26k average earnings then I think you'll find my figures are pretty close to reality

 

 

Irrespective of how close to reality or not the £12bn figure is, there is absolutely no point whasoever in pulling a number like 20%, which is at best a guesstimate, out of a hat and using it to derive the figure you want.

And then there is the lack of context for the £12 billion when you get it. What is the relevance of this number in terms of the UK? Given that the UK DEFICIT alone has been relatively recently in the region of £100bn

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/23/uk-deficit-lowest-financial-crisis-osborne-budget

 

the £12bn from Scottish income tax is, in the necessary relative terms, sort of like farting into the wind.

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This waste of space as you wish to call it seems to be good enough for you to live and trade in Laurence. But to further advance your historic knowledge the name Caledonia used by the Romans for the lands they couldn't conquer is believed to have come from the largest Pictish tribe in the country of Pictavia, the Caledonii.

 

And finally Laurence the Scottish Nationalists dont want more than they are entitled to. They want what is rightfully theirs and what was taken from them by act of parliament and a handful of bribes in 1707.

 

1707!  What was theirs was a political system where there was no democracy and the ruling classes made the Tories look like commies.  Is that what you want back?  Political structures, borders and above all the movement of people change over the years and is an essential element of the constant evolution of human society.  Whatever the truth of what happened in 1707 (and there are certainly more than 1 version of that) we are now in 2015.  Looking back to the perceived wrongs of the past has been a cause of conflict down the ages.  Can we not get real and move forward in a spirit of mutual cooperation and leave these petty historical grievances in the past?

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