Freedom for Tooting! And other similar nutty fringe communities

[KentVillan]

14 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

I'll be amazed if Starmer appeals to the North of England or Scottish voters

I doubt he has enormous personal appeal, but Labour have surged in polls in the North of England and Scotland since he took over.

[chrisp65]

There’s no doubting the corruption and chaos of the last few years in Westminster must have boosted the SNP and their share of the vote. Followed by the appearance of something similar happening with the SNP, the reverse looks like a sensible prediction.

I don’t think the AUOB march will be helped by Salmond and Yousaf missing it as they will both be at a royal coronation. That for me, is a pretty damning set of prioritise from that pair.

But gleeful predictions of a unionist landslide kind of ignores that the SNP and Greens first took the Scottish Parliament in 2007. Ten years in to Labour control of Westminster, pre financial collapse, post Labour’s illegal war in Iraq.

I’m not saying it won’t happen. I’m just suggesting that to dismiss the SNP as anti tory might be a bit too one dimensional. I think there’s a chance some of them do actually believe they could make a better fist of running their own affairs than simply working with Westminster allocations of spending pots.

You’ve got to look at Ireland, or Malta, or well pretty much anywhere and think there’s a better way of doing things than managed decline whilst pandering to the billionaires.

Somebody on another thread recently suggested Lisa Nandy, a current shadow minister, was a prospective leader of labour. You’ll remember it was Nandy, during the violent suppression of the Catalans by Spanish special police, that suggested we should take a leaf out of Spain’s book when dealing with independence movements. So yeah, it could be that all Scotland was waiting for was Starmer, Streeting, and Nandy. 

I think I’ve always pitched my guesstimate as ‘in my lifetime / 20 years’ sort of timescale for indy. I think I’m sticking with that.

[blandy]

12 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

I doubt he has enormous personal appeal, but Labour have surged in polls in the North of England and Scotland since he took over.

It’s more of a bounce back, really, perhaps. I read recently that at the last general election, which the Tories romped home in, they gained 360,000 votes, but Labour lost 2.6 million votes. In that there “the north” ( where I am) Corbyn was a very major factor in that, and Brexit the other. Those people are over Brexit now, and Corbyn has gone, so …

[VILLAMARV]

I don't doubt that labour will be seeing a surge in 'the polls', but we don't know yet the damage this could do to the SNP vote at a GE. If they fall apart what comes up in their place? More nationalist parties? will it split into various factions?

So at the moment the options are on the poll but that may look very different.

And then what proportion of the SNP vote are dissilusioned labour voters of old? Not necessarily wedded to the idea of nationalistic seperation ideology, but unwilling to vote tory and yet wanting "their voice" heard in westminster, or just post Blair/Brown era never voting for them again.

Labour is a damaged brand to a lot of the left leaning populace.

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m not saying it won’t happen. I’m just suggesting that to dismiss the SNP as anti tory might be a bit too one dimensional. I think there’s a chance some of them do actually believe they could make a better fist of running their own affairs than simply working with Westminster allocations of spending pots.

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve posted there, but I think there’s another consideration, which is that a lot of people either don’t really care about Independence for Scotland, or actively oppose it, but mainly just want their country to be run well. Those people are likely to jump to another non Tory party, if there’s one available, as a result of all these SNP shenanigans, perhaps?

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

If they fall apart what comes up in their place? More nationalist parties? will it split into various factions?

I wonder if the mess that Brexit has been has rather weakened the desire amongst many for “taking back control”. The SNP can and has used “we didn’t vote for this damaging mess”, but after a while it’s the “mess” part that remains with more resonance than the “we didn’t vote for..” part. So if the SNP largely disappears so too does much of the soft support for independence for Scotland.

[KentVillan]

8 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

But gleeful predictions of a unionist landslide kind of ignores that the SNP and Greens first took the Scottish Parliament in 2007. Ten years in to Labour control of Westminster, pre financial collapse, post Labour’s illegal war in Iraq.

The SNP got 31% of the regional vote in 2007, very narrowly beating Labour. At the 2010 UK general election, Labour won 41 seats and the SNP won 6.

It wasn't until the 2011 Scottish Parliament election that the SNP really started routinely dominating Scottish politics.

Of course it's not entirely an anti-Tory movement, but the SNP's ability to dominate Scottish politics 2011-2021 was hugely influenced by what was happening south of the border.

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve posted there, but I think there’s another consideration, which is that a lot of people either don’t really care about Independence for Scotland, or actively oppose it, but mainly just want their country to be run well. Those people are likely to jump to another non Tory party, if there’s one available, as a result of all these SNP shenanigans, perhaps?

Hence my memory jogger of the illegal war, I could also have added the privatisation of the NHS by Brown and Blair but discreetly called PFI. Wes Streeting yesterday declaring he couldn’t support NHS staff striking. Nandy admiring the Spanish skull crackers.

I think it needs time for people to learn and re learn and give second chances and realise so much of it is just rinse and repeat and what they need is to take their own future in their own hands.

I’m working on the presumption that eventually, people will realise that yes, politicians are politicians the world over, but we have more sway over them if they are our politicians in our parliament, in our cities. That’s my theory.

 

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The SNP got 31% of the regional vote in 2007, very narrowly beating Labour. At the 2010 UK general election, Labour won 41 seats and the SNP won 6.

It wasn't until the 2011 Scottish Parliament election that the SNP really started routinely dominating Scottish politics.

Of course it's not entirely an anti-Tory movement, but the SNP's ability to dominate Scottish politics 2011-2021 was hugely influenced by what was happening south of the border.

That looks like we agree. 

Pro indy parties won in 2007 when labour were in power in Westminster. The pro indy vote has since got stronger. It’s not just an anti tory vote, but that did help. We’ve said the same thing.

[mjmooney]

50 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

I'll be amazed if Starmer appeals to the North of England or Scottish voters

There is that. But I suspect a degree of nose-holding will occur. 

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m working on the presumption that eventually, people will realise that yes, politicians are politicians the world over, but we have more sway over them if they are our politicians in our parliament, in our cities. That’s my theory.

For what it’s worth mine is that people (generally) don’t care about having “sway” over politicians, other than being able to vote them in or out every 5 years. They don’t like being overlooked or ignored, true, and that can foster huge resentment, whether against local or distant politicians. I also think there’s a very negative sentiment about politics and how “it isn’t working”, but I don’t think there’s really an offering from anyone, whether that be nationalist or unionist that is remotely catching a mood of “this is how it’ll be better”. Neither nationalists saying “we can be better by getting rid of the oppressors in London” , nor the unionists saying “breaking up the uk will make things worse” offer any compelling argument to a majority of people either in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps the strongest sentiment is in Ireland for unifying the island, but even there, there’s still a long journey to go on.

[KentVillan]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

That looks like we agree. 

Pro indy parties won in 2007 when labour were in power in Westminster. The pro indy vote has since got stronger. It’s not just an anti tory vote, but that did help. We’ve said the same thing.

If you like, but I do disagree in that I think the unionist landslide is quite possible because of the nature of FPTP elections. The SNP vote doesn't need to fall back very much vs Labour for a lot of seats to change hands. It was the ~10-15% gain they made post 2010 that really turned Scotland into a single-party state. As that falls back, I think we'll see a return to Scotland being the old mix of the four parties.

[VILLAMARV]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

I wonder if the mess that Brexit has been has rather weakened the desire amongst many for “taking back control”. The SNP can and has used “we didn’t vote for this damaging mess”, but after a while it’s the “mess” part that remains with more resonance than the “we didn’t vote for..” part. So if the SNP largely disappears so too does much of the soft support for independence for Scotland.

There's also perhaps an anti-Westminster angle to be played here. We didn't want it - it's a mess - we'd have done a better job than those Westminster types who still/demonstrably don't care about you.

Maybe Chrisp says it better than me (some things don't change then )

24 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

politicians are politicians the world over, but we have more sway over them if they are our politicians in our parliament, in our cities

Kind of the central tenet in the idea of more regionalised governance.

And on top of that of course is the notion of joining the EU post independence. Since Brexit is a thing the pro EU vote is with us, no other party can offer what we are. None of the Anglo-centric parties will be able to offer that.

 

[MakemineVanilla]

 

[KentVillan]

46 minutes ago, blandy said:

For what it’s worth mine is that people (generally) don’t care about having “sway” over politicians, other than being able to vote them in or out every 5 years. They don’t like being overlooked or ignored, true, and that can foster huge resentment, whether against local or distant politicians. I also think there’s a very negative sentiment about politics and how “it isn’t working”, but I don’t think there’s really an offering from anyone, whether that be nationalist or unionist that is remotely catching a mood of “this is how it’ll be better”. Neither nationalists saying “we can be better by getting rid of the oppressors in London” , nor the unionists saying “breaking up the uk will make things worse” offer any compelling argument to a majority of people either in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps the strongest sentiment is in Ireland for unifying the island, but even there, there’s still a long journey to go on.

Yes well said, and I don’t think that’s an opinion, but a pretty factually grounded assessment of how elections usually play out. Most voters don’t pay much attention to the fine detail at all, and those that do, mostly pay attention immediately before an election.

The idea, for example, that Lisa Nandy’s comments on Catalonia will have any significant impact whatsoever on the next election in Scotland seems pretty fanciful. Most people aren’t even aware of her existence, let alone what she said once to Andrew Neil in an interview.

[VILLAMARV]

3 hours ago, blandy said:

an offering from anyone, whether that be nationalist or unionist that is remotely catching a mood of “this is how it’ll be better”.

hang on, I thought I was the dreamer

[Seat68]

7 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

hang on, I thought I was the dreamer

you may say you're the dreamer, but you're not the only one.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

Luckily for the SNP,  today only 1 person has got arrested in connection with,  how long you got ?

SNP treasurer Colin Beattie arrested.
When parties are unopposed like the SNP,  they mostly go corrupt and criminal I suspect.
 

 

[desensitized43]

2 hours ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Luckily for the SNP,  today only 1 person has got arrested in connection with,  how long you got ?

SNP treasurer Colin Beattie arrested.
When parties are unopposed like the SNP,  they mostly go corrupt and criminal I suspect.
 

 

It'll be really interesting at the election how this affects them. Do you think a lot of their voters actually care or is the cause of independence more important than any wrongdoing they've done?

I don't know as I'm not a Scot and don't live there, but I suspect you'll see some vote share decline but not enough.

The irony of the SNP is that if they achieved their flagship policy it would almost certainly destroy them. What does a single issue party do when that isn't an issue anymore?

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

What does a single issue party do when that isn't an issue anymore?

Fights for the branding