May 2011 Election

[vikingTON]

Are the changing voting habits due to the older generation, who in some cases instinctively vote Labour, dying off?

Such is the benefit of our dreadful diet and life expectancy.

To be a little bit fair to Labour they have decided to follow the dead duck that is Calman. It's not really their fault (well, no it's mostly their fault) that the alternative unionist vision was undermined from the start and is barely recognisable. Does anyone even know what the recommendations were?

[Mushroom]

22% Green

22% SNP

8% Libdem

-2% Labour

-8% Conservative.

Considering I hate windfarms I'm surprised the green vote rated so highly.

They're not a single issue party anymore, you're probably with them on alot of the economic and social stuff.

[jester]

I got a leaflet through the door today for the Scottish Homeland party. Democracy, Fairness, Justice. Or should that be just-us? They want to block Turkey joining the EU as it's a nation of '100 million muslims', which will mean that we will be under Sharia law.

[Ivo den Bieman]

I got a leaflet through the door today for the Scottish Homeland party. Democracy, Fairness, Justice. Or should that be just-us? They want to block Turkey joining the EU as it's a nation of '100 million muslims', which will mean that we will be under Sharia law.

wacko one-man-and-his-dog far right outfit hankering for the days of Enoch Powell.

of course the influence of the Scottish Parliament in determining whether or not Turkey joins the EU will be massive. Absolutely massive.

[Swampy]

We believe that Alex Salmond’s independence plan for Scotland could be seen as equal to committing high treason (under UK law) as we believe only her majesty the Queen could and should legally initiate such an independence process for Scotland.

Particularly touching when you see that they want to bring back the death penalty for high reason as a manifesto pledge...

[sophia]

in all my wildest dreams, I never, ever foresaw what a horses arse Labour would make of their campaign. It has been astonishingly bad from start to finish.

I've got to disagree with you there xbl.

I see Labour running just about exactly the same campaign that they have always, in my experience, run in Scotland.

Thing is, they haven't moved on.

We have.

[Dean Court]

22% Green

22% SNP

8% Libdem

-2% Labour

-8% Conservative.

Considering I hate windfarms I'm surprised the green vote rated so highly.

Indeed the greens are avoiding discussing wind farms and the like because the other parties are at long last making this an issue to campaign on, so once again the Greens are setting the agenda elsewhere.

[wearealldoomed]

Greens 44%

SNP 10%

Libdem 9%

Labour -4%

Tories -28%

Not too surprised at those, though Green ranked a wee bit higher than I expected. I've always been slightly sympathetic to the Libdems in spite of normally voting SNP in Holyrood elections, but will never vote Libdem again after last May's fiasco.

There definitely seems to be a big movement towards the SNP at the moment, but the same seemed to be the case in 2007 before Labour mounted a hell of a comeback. My gut instinct is that the SNP will be the largest party again, but not by anthing like the margin suggested in recent polls.

[Ad Lib]

I've always been slightly sympathetic to the Libdems in spite of normally voting SNP in Holyrood elections, but will never vote Libdem again after last May's fiasco.

Sorry, but I have to call you up on this. Exactly what the f**k did people expect them to do when the election result made doing a deal with the Tories the only viable way of forming a government?

[Swampy]

Greens 36%

SNP 26%

Lib Dem 17%

Labour -9%

Conservative -42%

No massive surprise, but if I was voting it would definitely be SNP, who have proven themselves more than fit to govern.

[Swampy]

Sorry, but I have to call you up on this. Exactly what the f**k did people expect them to do when the election result made doing a deal with the Tories the only viable way of forming a government?

Capitulate with slightly less pace and readiness?

[Ad Lib]

Capitulate with slightly less pace and readiness?

Evidence of capitulation, please? Thus far they've given ground on a piece of university funding reform that actually means the poorest pay less. Asides that, they've really not done anything of significance save that either they pretty much promised to do or that would have been forced through by support from the other two parties.

[Davis Love III]

I've been accepted to be a member of the audience at the final Leaders Debate in Perth on the 1st!

So I'll do my best to make the panel sweat with my difficult questioning and interrogation techniques...with possible areas such as:

"I'd like to ask the panel, to see if they agree with me that Iain Gray's hair looks like a rodent that has just crawled onto his head and died."

[Ad Lib]

I've been accepted to be a member of the audience at the final Leaders Debate in Perth on the 1st!

So I'll do my best to make the panel sweat with my difficult questioning and interrogation techniques...with possible areas such as:

"I'd like to ask the panel, to see if they agree with me that Iain Gray's hair looks like a rodent that has just crawled onto his head and died."

Or just go with "See that guy... aye the wan wit looks like Charlie Sheen... wis it him on the killing fields of Cambodia?"

[Davis Love III]

Or just go with "See that guy... aye the wan wit looks like Charlie Sheen... wis it him on the killing fields of Cambodia?"

Or, even better, I could recite to Iain, his 'finest' ever statement.

"Montenegro 40 days is all it took to regain her freedom..... 40 days....yeah...40 days...two world wars...yesh...two world wars, the Balkan conlict, ethnic cleansing, a war crimes tribunal, and a UN peace keeping mission. You could not make this stuff up"

'Was that embarrassing Iain?'

[Swampy]

Evidence of capitulation, please? Thus far they've given ground on a piece of university funding reform

Very nice of you to answer your own question.

[Ad Lib]

Very nice of you to answer your own question.

There was me thinking that in coalitions there sometimes has to be compromise and (especially) the smaller party with one sixth of the seats of such a coalition might not be able to get their own way on everything. Silly me.

I hardly think that for a progressive and liberal party, backing a funding system that left the poorest quarter of graduates better off constitutes a "capitulation" when their actual manifesto pledge was completely unrealistic in the first place. Why is it that people don't regard Labour, who stood on a manifesto pledge not to introduce tuition fees (then top-up fees 4 years later) and then introduced both, as "capitulating"? Will lots of Labour voters "never vote Labour again" because they had the audacity to make students contribute towards the cost of their education?

That's another one for the list "Questions to which the answer is no". The harsh truth is that people are scathing at the Lib Dems because they had the audacity to form a coalition with the Tories. They could have ended global poverty and the Tory wiccaman would still be used to demonise them. You're seeing this rhetorical nonsense from Labour again in this Scottish Election, except targeted at the SNP. It's a palpably ridiculous line to take that anyone who works with the Tories of today must somehow all jerk off to Thatcher while kicking a coalminer whenever they get up in the morning.

[T_S_A_R]

it's not just that they jumped into bed with the tories it's that they intentionally set out to appeal to people who dislike the tories then jumped into bed with them. they reached out to students and people who were disillusioned with labour over iraq and other matters then used those votes to prop up a party their voters despise.

as vince cable said today there is a clear majority in this country for progressive parties. 55% of voters at the last election voted for centre left parties yet we ended up with a right wing coalliton attempting to privatise every single public service. how did this happen? because of quisling clegg.

[Ad Lib]

it's not just that they jumped into bed with the tories it's that they intentionally set out to appeal to people who dislike the tories then jumped into bed with them. they reached out to students and people who were disillusioned with labour over iraq and other matters then used those votes to prop up a party their voters despise.

as vince cable said today there is a clear majority in this country for progressive parties. 55% of voters at the last election voted for centre left parties yet we ended up with a right wing coalition attempting to privatise every single public service. how did this happen? because of quisling clegg.

Sorry, but this is rubbish again. They didn't "jump into bed" with the Tories. They forced them to drop their inheritance tax plans, brought the lowest paid out of income tax completely, increased the rate of capital gains tax, secured control orders reform, stopped the Tories from getting rid of the Human Rights Act, secured a referendum on some sort of voting reform, the like of which we have never seen before, ramped up the pressure for ending child detention at Dungavel, delivered their pupil premium and more besides. If that's "jumping into bed" with the Tories then the Tories really can't be that bad.

You're also completely wrong simply to aggregate the Labour and Lib Dem totals and use that to argue that there is a left/centre-left majority. Indeed a sizeable proportion of Liberal Democrats are centre-right: ffs even factions of Labour are now economically centre-right.

You're also completely wrong to say that they're trying to "privatise every single public service". Involvement of non-governmental entities is NOT the same as privatisation. The last time I checked the state was still funding the NHS (and spending more than it was before) still funding primary and secondary education, still funding lots of public libraries (worth pointing out that Lib Dem controlled councils have managed to *avoid* closing libraries and SureStart centres, unlike their Labour and Tory counterparts), still funding your bin collection, still funding your JobCentres... the list goes on.

[Law Stud]

it's not just that they jumped into bed with the tories it's that they intentionally set out to appeal to people who dislike the tories then jumped into bed with them. they reached out to students and people who were disillusioned with labour over iraq and other matters then used those votes to prop up a party their voters despise.

as vince cable said today there is a clear majority in this country for progressive parties. 55% of voters at the last election voted for centre left parties yet we ended up with a right wing coalliton attempting to privatise every single public service. how did this happen? because of quisling clegg.

Well, let that be a lesson to you....