The General Election 2015 Thread

[Yngwie]

As things stand, it is looking increasingly likely that the Tories will somehow or other form the next government (helped in no small part by the surge in support for the SNP).

 

At the moment, the majority of voters think Ed Miliband is a bit weird and not particularly credible as a PM - his personal ratings couldn't really be any lower. The more prime time airtime he gets, well prepared and rehearsed, his popularity can only move in one direction, to Cameron's detriment.

 

These debates are always favoured by the politicians who have the least to lose.  Tony Blair was a great speaker/debater and probably the most popular PM in living memory - and always refused TV debates cos it could only sway things the wrong way for him.

[Alex MacLeod]

I wouldn't say the surge in support for SNP will decide the outcome so much as the slow, painful demise of the party for the working man. Remember them? The party built from the blood, sweat and blisters of the UK's shipbuilders, steelworkers, miners.....oh wait!! there's none of them left now. And very soon there won't be a Labour party.

[Charles Bannerman]

 

 

At the moment, the majority of voters think Ed Miliband is a bit weird and not particularly credible as a PM - his personal ratings couldn't really be any lower. The more prime time airtime he gets, well prepared and rehearsed, his popularity can only move in one direction, to Cameron's detriment.

 

 

Yngwie... I'm trying to keep out of this thread because I really had exposure to far more politics than I really wanted to know about in the years running up to 18.9.14.

However I do have to comment on the utter ineffectiveness of Labour in general and Ed Milliband in particular. Here we have a party leader who looks and sounds like Mr Bean and, when he speaks, comes over like a schoolboy in a Fourth Form debating club. I actually think that the more exposure he gets the more the public will realise what an totally ineffectual and unelectable individual he is.

I think I have said before that the Labour Party's problems go back to the Donkey Jacket era where liabilities like Michael Foot made them unelectable. So, to become electable, they had to invent New Labour. Sod the Socialist principles on which the Labour Party was founded. Let's just find a set of "beliefs" that can get us elected... even if it means "Slippery" Tony Blair nicking Tory policies and attempting to rebrand them as New Labour.

Meanwhile the Labour Party continued to take Scotland for granted as their personal fiefdom. For more than a decade the illusion worked and Scottish voters continued to render their X in the (New) Labour box, even though (New) Labour had long since abandoned any semblance of Socialism. Do they still sing the Red Flag at conferences by the way?

But eventually chickens came home to roost and credit must be given to the SNP (SIC  ) for spotting the political vacuum and, despite Nationalist parties traditionally adopting a Rightist agenda, also adopting the politics of convenience and filling the Leftist gap, whereupon hordes of voters who had been taken for granted by (New) Labour have, over the last three or four years, defected - at which the Labour Party duly defecated!

Electoral dynamics in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are a bit different but up here Labour party presumption and complacency have been well and truly shattered.

Add to that the fact that the SNP have replaced Salmond (who retreated to write his Referendum memoirs, delightfully dubbed "Mein Banff"  ) by Nicola Sturgeon. I don't especially like the woman but the switch can only be of benefit to the forces of Nationalism.

[Alex MacLeod]

Thank christ CB was never my english teacher but the only thing I'd counter in the statement above is "credit must be given to the SNP (SIC  ) for spotting the political vacuum". I 'm more inclined to think the SNP realised the working classes needed representation.

[+DoofersDad]

 

 Do they still sing the Red Flag at conferences by the way?

No, I don't think they do.  They still play the music but nobody knows the words anymore

[IBM]

At least the country is in safe hands until May.

 

[Charles Bannerman]

 

 

 

 Do they still sing the Red Flag at conferences by the way?

No, I don't think they do.  They still play the music but nobody knows the words anymore

 

You mean a bit like John "Spock" Redwood famously not knowing the words of the Welsh national anthem?

[Oddquine]

If I were a Unionist, I'd be reading the utter crap and bile being printed in the media and listening to the similar keech being broadcast over the airwaves, since Bitter Together  "won" the election...and I'd be fearing for the continuance of the Union they voted NO to protect for at least a generation.

 

In fact, "Bitter Together" and their MSM lickspittles did a great job at sowing real division in the UK....a much better job than the YES supporters have done in dividing Scotland, methinks, despite the whimpering of unionists.  It is reminiscent of the UK attitude to the Irish when they were ungrateful enough to try for Home Rule, or the view of us from England in the days and years after the Union of the Crowns and Parliament, even down to the vituperative, casual racism......but the difference is that now we know what they all think of us and our place in this "Union of Equals", because this time we have access to the English versions of the printed media, while in the 17th and 18th centuries, we didn't....and this time we have a voice, even if not one in the UK MSM...and it appears, not allowed one in the UK Parliament after 2015.

 

From being sycophantically, mendaciously and cringingly love-bombed, between pointed threats and efforts to undermine any future for Scotland on independence all through the referendum, we now see the real Westminster, the real Union and our real place in it. We see that a democratically elected SNP contingent in Westminster, voted into place under the same rules as every other MP elected in the UK, possibly with a big enough voice to be able to decide vote outcomes, is viewed by the MSM, the Westminster government, most Westminster politicians, including Unionist Scots, and an element in the English population to be unacceptable......although they don't put it quite as politely as I just have.

 

From the MSM, we get the likes of "Invasion of the Ginger Rats" (bliddy hell, just imagine a swarm of Danny Alexanders!); the incest and folk-dancing "cartoon"(and calling it a cartoon is dignifying it almost as much as saying George Osborne can count or Scottish Branch Labour MPs have intelligence); "The Terrifying Prospect of the Scots ruling England" and "Nightmare Scenario facing Britain" (so welcome to the world we have inhabited for the last three centuries, England); "Doomsday Alliance" of the SNP and Labour(though there won't be any Coalition and Labour policies will only be voted for on merit); "Seeds of Tyranny being Sown in Scotland" (as if being controlled for decades by one or other of the two cheeks of one  bahookey, or just one of the cheeks and the bit which separates them from each other. but not from their purpose, isn't tyranny)<think this last bit in brackets after the last example is a bit convoluted.....it's hard trying to get round a swear filter. Happy to explain what I was trying to say including swearies, in a PM if anyone can't work it out. > 

 

How come, though, on the very rare occasions over the last 60 or so years when it was the MPs voted in by Scotland; who decided the Government of the UK, that that wasn't a problem to this almost paranoid extent? It couldn't possibly have been that it was because we voted for a party approved by, and an integral part of, the duopoly system which has effectively made the UK a dictatorship run by by the British establishment for the British establishment and not a democracy run for the people by the people.

 

And before anyone comes in and says that the people elect their representatives......kindly bear in mind they elect the representatives the Political Parties, which have become the UK establishment,  choose to stand in constituencies, even if that means candidates never clap eyes on the place they will represent until they turn up for the interview by the local party constituency panel before facing the Party members, who will choose one of them. Having been heavily involved in SNP politics in my time, knowing our membership numbers at the time, and having a pretty good idea of the membership levels locally of the other political parties, the representative for Moray in Westminster may well have been voted for by a majority of the people in Moray......but they were chosen by political parties who try very hard not to put forward people who are going to seriously rock the party boat, therefore each of them were chosen as candidates by relatively few (or less than that) of the population of the constituency. 

 

(But I am in danger of ranting about the political party system being as pernicious and power hungry as religions, lobbyists, and every other specific interest group which can see power/influence emanating from a relatively few committed people who have an agenda which will make them money, as long as they have a demography they can claim to represent who are too apathetic to  even join them and have input.)

 

But, just think....all this vituperation/nastiness/division could have been avoided.....and the push for independence set at the peep that the devolution settlement of 1997 was meant to set it.........if only Cameron had allowed the Devo-Max option in the referendum options. Where we are now is not because of the SNP, because if the SNP hadn't existed from the 1930's, it would have been any other party with Home Rule/Independence as part of its manifesto......something which both the Liberals and Labour used to include at one time. Where we are now, in this maelstrom of Unionist umbrage because we YES voters haven't folded our tents and slunk off to lick our wounds, before re-emerging as compliant BritNats like the NO voters, is down, imo, only to the belief of Unionists in Westminster, and possibly among unionists in the Scottish population, that Scotland ceased to exist as a nation when a majority of our Parliament signed the Treaty to abolish their institution....for money for themselves...which seems to be more important to people with that mindset than the future of the people who aren't them.  If the Union breaks up, it will be Westminster's and ONLY Westminster's fault, because they refuse to cede any meaningful power.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Charles Bannerman]

You really haven't got over it yet, have you OQ?

Or as that famous srparatist window in Dingwall might say - Day #173 and still no getting over it. Fact!

[Kingsmills]

Since when did the result of a democratic process become petrified never to be revisited ? Applying your 'logic' shall we just skip the General Election and have a Conservative/ Liberal coalition in perpetuity ?

[Charles Bannerman]

Revisited? They've never been away from it! It's emimently clear that the Nats amd fellow travellers are still fighting the referendum and in the forthcoming election for an institution they despise they are asking people to vote for candidates who are only capable of thinking about separation and whose loyalty would be solely to the notoriously iron discipline of the SNP and certainly not to the people they are asking to elect them.

[Oddquine]

You really haven't got over it yet, have you OQ?

Or as that famous srparatist window in Dingwall might say - Day #173 and still no getting over it. Fact!

 

I am facing facts, Charles. Methinks you are the one who isn't.  All my remarks refer to Unionist rhetoric since the referendum, and mostly in the last few days.  I challenge you to comment on the way Westminster and the MSM have reacted to the aftermath of the referendum,without actually acknowledging that there was a referendum.

 

Instead of sneering at me, how's about you respond to my post.......say, maybe, the bit which says   If I were a Unionist, I'd be reading the utter crap and bile being printed in the media and listening to the similar keech being broadcast over the airwaves, since Bitter Together  "won" the election referendum...and I'd be fearing for the continuance of the Union they voted NO to protect for at least a generation.

 

Or even How come, though, on the very rare occasions over the last 60 or so years when it was the MPs voted in by Scotland; who decided the Government of the UK, that that wasn't a problem to this almost paranoid extent? It couldn't possibly have been that it was because we voted for a party approved by, and an integral part of, the duopoly system which has effectively made the UK a dictatorship run by by the British establishment for the British establishment and not a democracy run for the people by the people

 

Like Westminster, you are banging on about us still fighting the referendum....when we patently are not..........we are fighting the GE2015 campaign. In fact, logically, we are fighting the GE2015 in order to make it  more likely that we will stay in the Union.......because, if we can get what the VOW promised us re as near as dammit Federalism and if, using our votes, we can defeat some of either of the two main parties more divisive cuts to the more disadvantaged, then it is quite possible that the result, in the medium term at least, would be that the UK would continue to exist, just as if Devo-Max had been on the ballot paper in the first place. 

 

Alternatively, if you don't like my take on things in the General Election run-up..you might prefer to read and comment on http://williamduguid.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/pigeons-meet-cat.html?spref=fb

Edited March 10, 2015 by Oddquine

[robbylad]

If Scotland can't have independence then surely the next best thing is a stronger voice in Westminster? If people feel they are being ignored by their elected representatives, then they are certainly entitled to elect someone else. We are still members of the UK and can elect who we want. Unionists will just have to like it or lump it.

[Charles Bannerman]

I have to say, my viewpoint on party politics is somewhat Orwellian - all parties are undesirable but the SNP is more undesirable than others.

 

The whole system of party politics is absolutely rotten since the ultimate priority of each and every party chasing your vote and claiming to want to represent you in whichever talking shop the election is for is not you, the voter, but the parties themselves.

"Elected" representatives are not first and foremost where they are to look after the interests of the public but to look after the interests of their parties and, in far too many cases, their own  interests as well.

The campaign process is all about trying to con enough electors into believing that  Party X offers them most, but what Party X does is to launder its "beliefs" at will in such a way as to appear to appeal to more people than its rivals. If they manage to pull off such a con trick, then they will gain power, so elections are actually run for the benefit of political parties which are hence served by the people rather than vice versa.

For instance Labour binned the socialist "principles" it was founded to promote and nicked a chunk of traditional Tory values in order to win in 1997. Now in 2015 we are still unsure whether or not they will definitely rule out some kind of coalition to run Britain along with a bunch of Nats who want to destroy that very same Britain. It's sort of like welcoming a squad of Iranians into the Knesset!

The SNP are worse, because all they have ever been interested in is tearing the UK apart, but they keep standing for things like Holyrood, Westminster and Councils which look after issues which they couldn't really give a toss about, just as they couldn't give a toss about the electorate - as long as they get their votes. "Representing" the interests of their electorate in these assemblies will always be secondary to separation so any vote for the SNP is a vote to render yourself subsidiary to SNP party policy.

Similarly the Lib Dems appear happy to go into coalition with anyone who will provide them with a cut of the action while the Tories just want to keep their rich chums' palms greased.

Then there's the Greens.. those handwringing lentil munchers who nowadays seem to think that the best way to save the planet is to disembowel the UK.

Even the bloody Independents are at it! At least we used to believe that they were in the business for some reason of altruism, but what do they do on Highland Council? They form some kind of Independent Party!

God help us, and save us from politicians.

 

I began with a variation on Orwell so I'll end with a variation on Shakespeare - a plague on all your houses!

Edited March 10, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Oddquine]

I have to say, my viewpoint on party politics is somewhat Orwellian - all parties are undesirable but the SNP is more undesirable than others.

 

The whole system of party politics is absolutely rotten since the ultimate priority of each and every party chasing your vote and claiming to want to represent you in whichever talking shop the election is for is not you, the voter, but the parties themselves.

"Elected" representatives are not first and foremost where they are to look after the interests of the public but to look after the interests of their parties and, in far too many cases, their own  interests as well.

The campaign process is all about trying to con enough electors into believing that  Party X offers them most, but what Party X does is to launder its "beliefs" at will in such a way as to appear to appeal to more people than its rivals. If they manage to pull off such a con trick, then they will gain power, so elections are actually run for the benefit of political parties which are hence served by the people rather than vice versa.

For instance Labour binned the socialist "principles" it was founded to promote and nicked a chunk of traditional Tory values in order to win in 1997. Now in 2015 we are still unsure whether or not they will definitely rule out some kind of coalition to run Britain along with a bunch of Nats who want to destroy that very same Britain. It's sort of like welcoming a squad of Iranians into the Knesset!

The SNP are worse, because all they have ever been interested in is tearing the UK apart, but they keep standing for things like Holyrood, Westminster and Councils which look after issues which they couldn't really give a toss about, just as they couldn't give a toss about the electorate - as long as they get their votes. "Representing" the interests of their electorate in these assemblies will always be secondary to separation so any vote for the SNP is a vote to render yourself subsidiary to SNP party policy.

Similarly the Lib Dems appear happy to go into coalition with anyone who will provide them with a cut of the action while the Tories just want to keep their rich chums' palms greased.

Then there's the Greens.. those handwringing lentil munchers who nowadays seem to think that the best way to save the planet is to disembowel the UK.

Even the bloody Independents are at it! At least we used to believe that they were in the business for some reason of altruism, but what do they do on Highland Council? They form some kind of Independent Party!

God help us, and save us from politicians.

 

I began with a variation on Orwell so I'll end with a variation on Shakespeare - a plague on all your houses!

 

I can't disagree about the political party system. Like religion it is propaganda with a purpose....to keep the masses under control. 

 

Somewhat over excitable about the SNP aren't you. Charles......tearing the UK apart, indeed?  Don't you mean giving we Scots the chance to choose for ourselves, for the first time ever, if we want to be a part of this union or not?   Tearing the UK apart would perhaps be a fair description if they declare UDI on getting over 50% of the popular vote in an election, without having put that prospect in their manifesto......otherwise, if anyone tears the UK apart, it will be the majority of people in Scotland, not the SNP...all however many million of us. 

 

You don't seem to have quite grasped the notion that, even with their increased membership, the SNP is only 95,000 people, not all of whom even want independence, so there is Buckley's chance of the SNP tearing anything apart. 

 

Why don't you consider that the tearing apart might be a direct consequence of the attitude of the Unionist Parties in Westminster to the peripheral nations in the UK, Westminster's obsession with monetarism, and its propensity for clutching every useful power in the UK to the collective Savile Row suited and/or ermine adorned breasts more than to the growth of a relatively small political party.....which would not have grown as much if not for the attitude of the Unionist Parties in Westminster to the peripheral nations in the UK, Westminster's obsession with monetarism, and its propensity for clutching every useful power in the UK to the 1,350 or so expensively maintained Savile Row suited and/or ermine adorned collective breasts.

 

Think on, Charles, if the UK was so great, and our lives were as we would prefer, why would any one of us be seeking to divest ourselves of perfection? 

 

I repeat, and deny it if you can, (and explain why you think it if you do deny it) that if Devo-Max had been among the referendum choices, then the majority in Scotland would have voted for that option, and the UK would have been safe for at least a generation, probably longer. Given we were promised a minimum of Devo-Max in the VOW, the SNP is not going to Westminster to break up Britain, but to try and get the Unionist Parties to adhere to their VOW.....which will make the Union safe for you for a fair while. I'd have thought you'd have been pleased with that prospect.   If they do not succeed,,,,,then the UK may well break up..but that won't be down to the SNP, but to the refusal of the Unionist Parties to derail their gravy train..and you know that very well.

[Alex MacLeod]

Ach Mr Bannerman will never stop spouting anti-SNP drivel. At least the SNP continue to profess what they stand for. Unlike the other parties, who change their policies at the drop of a hat, the SNP continue, regardless of referendum result, to try and persuade the electorate that independence for Scotland is the way to achieve greater prosperity for our country. The referendum may well have been lost this time but thats not to say the same would happen again so we continue to fight for the ultimate goal. The way the other parties are showing their colours just now is playing right into our hands.

 

Why are they constantly barraging the SNP? Because they are scared.

[Oddquine]

I heard about the NuLabour leaflet which was being dished out (by Royal Mail) in the Glasgow area, and have been waiting impatiently for my copy(to give me something substantive on which to rant) but so far nothing....I'm feeling rather neglected....not a leaflet so far from anybody (bar the one I kept from what I delivered myself locally).

 

However, the Rev Stu has been provided with a copy by an alert reader, and critiques it  here http://wingsoverscotland.com/ten-bad-reasons/

 

As he has made a better job of it than I would have, and more politely, I'm afraid you will probably not be getting any pearls of wisdom from me about it (and I can hear you all saying "Thank God for small mercies!)

Edited March 11, 2015 by Oddquine

[IBM]

A lot of junk mail from Desperate Danny, 2 this week and it's only Wednesday   

[Charles Bannerman]

A lot of junk mail from Desperate Danny, 2 this week and it's only Wednesday   

You must be on the LibDems' list of people whose votes they think they've nearly got

[IBM]

 

A lot of junk mail from Desperate Danny, 2 this week and it's only Wednesday   

You must be on the LibDems' list of people whose votes they think they've nearly got

 

You could be right there Charles................but then they haven't got a clue

[+DoofersDad]

 

 

How come, though, on the very rare occasions over the last 60 or so years when it was the MPs voted in by Scotland; who decided the Government of the UK, that that wasn't a problem to this almost paranoid extent? It couldn't possibly have been that it was because we voted for a party approved by, and an integral part of, the duopoly system which has effectively made the UK a dictatorship run by by the British establishment for the British establishment and not a democracy run for the people by the people.

 

 

 

But, just think....all this vituperation/nastiness/division could have been avoided.....and the push for independence set at the peep that the devolution settlement of 1997 was meant to set it.........if only Cameron had allowed the Devo-Max option in the referendum options. If the Union breaks up, it will be Westminster's and ONLY Westminster's fault, because they refuse to cede any meaningful power.

 

Forgive me for deleting most of Oddquine's lengthy post in the quote above but I don't wish my reply to be too long.  I'll focus on these two paragraphs.

 

Firstly I would have thought that the prospect of the SNP holding the balance of power in the UK parliament was obviously entirely different from previous occasions where the colour of the UK government has been determined by Scottish votes.  In those occasions the parties voted for in Scotland were unionist parties who were also voted for by folk elsewhere in the UK.  Whilst one could argue that it was Scotland voting labour that gave the UK a labour government, you could equally say it was because the North East of England or Wales voted labour.  Either way, the fact is that the parties elected to Government were committed to governing for the good of the Union as a whole.  So if Scotland voted labour and the rest of the UK voted Tory but we ended up with a labour Government then fair enough!   But the SNP is not committed to governing for the good of the Union as a whole.  It's raison d'etre is to gain independence for Scotland and to break the Union. It is focused only on Scottish interests.  It is entirely reasonable for people to be twitchy about a party committed to the break up of the country potentially having a role in governing the country!  This Scottish separatist influence at Westminster is seen as particularly unwelcome because, as the referendum demonstrated, it doesn't even reflect the views of the majority of Scots voters.

 

To go on to suggest the UK parliament is effectively a dictatorship really is absurd.  If anyone doesn't like the parties that exist then there is nothing to stop them establishing their own or standing as an independent.  People vote for the political parties they do because they feel sufficiently supportive of that party to do so.  I agree that parties chop and change with their policies but that is only because they are reflecting the changing views of the people who vote for them.

 

Frankly I'm at a loss to understand how anyone can say that Westminster refuses to cede any meaningful power.  We have a Scottish Parliament which currently has wide ranging powers.  And if you haven't already received it, you will soon get a booklet from the Government detailing further extensive powers, including tax raising powers, that are now being devolved.  I should add that these additional powers are being devolved without any proposals relating to them having been put to the electorate.  So, far from no meaningful powers being ceded from Westminster, significant additional powers are actually being ceded whether we like it or not! 

 

And finally - Devo-max.  Apart from the fact that "Devo-max" means different things to different people, the referendum was about independence pure and simple.  There was a referendum on independence promised in the SNP manifesto but not one on Devo-max.  You know as well as I know that had there been 3 options on the ballot paper that the SNP would have been 100% behind the independence option whilst Unionists would have been split between the other two.  We could have had the largest share of the vote (but still a minority) voting for independence and therefore independence could have been established despite a majority of the electorate voting to stay in the Union.  That would have been a preposterous betrayal of the democratic principle.  The people of Scotland have voted to stay in the Union and if people want even more powers devolved to Holyrood then they are, of course, perfectly entitled to argue the case within the democratic process.  Supporters of the democratic process should be happy with that.

 

But that's the thing about the SNP.  It threw this Devo-max nonsense into the referendum debate to muddy the waters in an attempt to get independence through the back door. It's independence for better or worse and independence however it's won - and to hell with the majority of Scots electors who said "no" to independence.  No wonder the rest of the UK is worried about them having any significant influence on the way the UK as a whole is governed!

[Charles Bannerman]

 

But the SNP is not committed to governing for the good of the Union as a whole. 

This reminds me of the famous quote about Ringo Starr not even being the best drummer in the Beatles!! Because along similar lines the SNP isn't even committed to governing for the good of Scotland as a whole.

Even setting aside the longstanding problem of the Highlands being continually dumped upon by the central belt, the only thing the SNP is committed to is separation/independence/breaking up the UK or whatever you want to call it.

All means towards that end are legitimate as far as they are concerned, and I really don't think they give one brass Swinney about the consequences for the folk who live here as long as they get what they want. After all they seem to have managed to leap across the entire political spectrum from the crypto (and not so crypto) Fascists they were during WW2 to the rampant Loony Lefties it became convenient for them to morph into when they spotted the main chance of Labour vacating that sector of the political agenda.

On the other hand it's par for the course for politicians not to give a toss about people in the pursuit of their party political objectives. The SNP are just that bit better at concealing this - which is why such a large number of the electorate's less cerebral members were induced into the ballot box on their behalf on September 18th last year.

Oops... mustn't mention the WAR   I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.

[+DoofersDad]

I don't normally watch question time these days, but given that my MP Charles Kennedy was on the panel I decided to watch last night.  To say I was shocked is an understatement.  Kennedy was simply awful.  He looked and sounded as if he is back hitting the bottle hard.  He said very little and when he did speak it was as though he was struggling to find the right words.  If Dimbleby didn't directly ask his view, I don't think he ever attempted to get into the debate except a single frivolous intervention to say he was also on the "have I got news for you" programme when Clarkson threw a pen at Ian Hislop (who was also on last night).  For the most part he seemed to be sitting with his arms folded looking out into the audience and simply not engaging with the debate.  Whatever your political views may be, he has worked very hard for the Highlands over the years and it really is dreadfully sad to see him like that on a major TV show.  I'm sure we will hear a lot more about his state of health in the near future, particularly with the election looming.

[robbylad]

Less cerebral Charles?? That's a little arrogant don't you think?

[Oddquine]

I have written and discarded three lengthy responses to DD's post #46 so far, and may never be able to construct one to get past the swear filter...so I will only say for now that I am more than somewhat unsettled at the thought that Unionists appear to think that  it would be preferable for UKIP, the BNP and/or Britain First, all UK political parties, to have some decisive say in the governance of this country, but not the SNP, thereby pretty much disenfranchising 1.5 million+ Scots voters. Some democracy, some Union and definitely no Better Together.  

 

Almost makes one wish we had emulated Ireland and killed for independence, instead of trying to be civilised about it against an opposition who couldn't even spell civilised, far less act it.  Unionists are really bad winners......and there is nothing worse, imo. 

 

Edited to add...............A more controlled take than mine on the attitude of those unionists who are becoming little short of hysterical over the possible influx of a number of SNP politicians is on

https://commonspace.scot/articles/679/hysteria-why-the-frenzied-demonisation-of-scotland-and-the-snp-is-doing-little-good-for-unionism

 

And a quote from it......Hugo Rifkind, son of soon-to-be former Tory MP Malcolm Rifkind, said on Twitter: “It's slightly mad that Unionists oppose the SNP being in coalition at Westminster. Is that not what ought to happen? In a union?”

Rifkind went on to point out that the electorate have voted for UKIP in EU Parliament elections despite the fact they want to exit the EU, and the Liberal Democrats have representatives in the House of Lords despite wanting to abolish it. Why is any of this different to the SNP scenario at Westminster?

Edited March 14, 2015 by Oddquine