politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Survation finds that the Tories would be 3% closer without Scotland
Interesting new Survation poll published overnight by Survation with new Westminster numbers showing for the first time two sets of numbers – both with Scotland and without.
UKIP voters least bothered (40% "don't mind" 35% "no" ) on SINDY, while other parties 65-67% "no", also DE nearly three times as likely to not care (33) than AB (12).
Also interesting - 59% of rUK think rUK should continue to receive share of Scottish oil & gas vs 23% who don't if SINDY.
Excluding Don't knows rUK is 74:26 against a Currency Union and also 74:26 in favour of relocating Trident to rUK.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Oh I don't know ...... we could always talk about how we set our alarm clocks for the early hours to claim first place on Mike's new thread. Sixth btw.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Am surprised that this poll shows that at least 25% of London would vote UKIP - this is contrary to most other polls.
Yes: UKIP in London substantially underperformed their national share in the Euros (16% vs 30% in England ex London), and in the locals (just 6% in the Capital).
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Except that it's going to be a thumping victory for 'no'...
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Then again, Salmond migh be refusing to resign after BT's crushing victory in the referendum. "We fight on" he exclaims, demanding another independence vote five years hence.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
, demanding another independence vote five years hence.
Optimist! Two years when "DevoMax negotiations break down irretrievably....."
There will be no happy ending - at least not for a decade or two....
I'm at St Pancras, and Sarah Teather is in the seat across from me. Should I say hello?
Wouldn't goodbye be more appropriate? A classic moment - Teather running down the street refusing to talk to Sky News about her abject sell out over tuition fees.
The Yes campaign in Scotland, as reasonable as it imagines itself, seems to believe in the unreasonable proposition that you can improve your marriage by getting a divorce. It doesn’t work that way. The Yes campaign also promises that post-divorce negotiations will take place in an atmosphere of complete calm and rationality – and that rump Britain will give it what it wants. But that glosses over the fact that the other side has demands, too. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said recently that, if Britain didn’t let an independent Scotland continue to use the pound, Scotland might refuse to assume its share of the national debt.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Except that it's going to be a thumping victory for 'no'...
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Except that it's going to be a thumping victory for 'no'...
The polling data doesn't suggest this. A narrow 'no' is likely, nothing more.
As anybody who has been through an acrimonious divorce would tell you - from hearsay, I might add - both sides are left financially and emotionally worse off. The only ones who benefit are the lawyers, and throughout England and Scotland they will be boning up on constitutional and business law to handle the myriad of both large and small issues that will arise from such a massive bust up.
Am surprised that this poll shows that at least 25% of London would vote UKIP - this is contrary to most other polls.
I wonder if this is because of Labour voters switching in the aftermath of the Rotherham scandal. UKIP are going in hard on this. Certainly Labour seem to being given a free pass on this by the establishment and media. Imagine the wall to wall coverage and howling rentamobs that would still be out in force if Rotherham and the other northern councils were Tory. Compare and contrast with Dame Shirley Porters & co treatment for example.
Maybe the scales have now fallen and the English working class have at last realised that much of Labour since Gaitskills death have increasingly treated them as cretins who need to be kept in their place and farmed for votes, as they were taken over by middle class humanist social liberals as a vehicle for their warped worldview.
As anybody who has been through an acrimonious divorce would tell you - from hearsay, I might add - both sides are left financially and emotionally worse off. The only ones who benefit are the lawyers, and throughout England and Scotland they will be boning up on constitutional and business law to handle the myriad of both large and small issues that will arise from such a massive bust up.
Quite. Until now I had thought it was mainly people in Scotland who were labouring under misapprehensions (currency union and so forth)....but the Survation poll shows rUK voters thinking they should get a share of "Scotland's oil"..,,,,so when that does not come to pass, already pretty hard attitudes will harden further...
I'm at St Pancras, and Sarah Teather is in the seat across from me. Should I say hello?
Wouldn't goodbye be more appropriate? A classic moment - Teather running down the street refusing to talk to Sky News about her abject sell out over tuition fees.
Oh, and wrapping herself in the pride flag before voting against gay marriage.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Except that it's going to be a thumping victory for 'no'...
The polling data doesn't suggest this. A narrow 'no' is likely, nothing more.
Uhndoutably though the SNP are picking up WWC votes for the same reason as UKIP are (see below) which may may it a little closer. When the SNP are found out for what they are UKIP might start doing much better in Scotland too.
Utterly incredible exchange between two journalists on twitter last night in light of the whole Indy Referendum debate over the last few months! For months now, so many have commented on the incredible 'positive' SNP/Yes campaign of dishonest spin while bemoaning the 'negative' fact based response of the Better Together Campaign. Both journalists have obviously forgotten the four year Labour party campaign of scaremongering on English NHS which the SNP/Yes campaign decided to copy in recent weeks.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 9h SNPs Hosie says "real threat to NHS" is "privatisation and charging" down south... Ruth Davidson quotes IFS numbers on Scottish NHS squeeze
Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson 9h @faisalislam never understood how SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood.
I'm at St Pancras, and Sarah Teather is in the seat across from me. Should I say hello?
Wouldn't goodbye be more appropriate? A classic moment - Teather running down the street refusing to talk to Sky News about her abject sell out over tuition fees.
Oh, and wrapping herself in the pride flag before voting against gay marriage.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Except that it's going to be a thumping victory for 'no'...
The polling data doesn't suggest this. A narrow 'no' is likely, nothing more.
Uhndoutably though the SNP are picking up WWC votes for the same reason as UKIP are (see below) which may may it a little closer. When the SNP are found out for what they are UKIP might start doing much better in Scotland too.
When it comes down to it, maybe the Québécois will be shown to be more grounded and less chippy than the Scots? Less inclined to cut off their nose to spite their face? Just because they walked up to the abyss and took a step back, doesn't mean the Scots won't take a step forward....
Utterly incredible exchange between two journalists on twitter last night in light of the whole Indy Referendum debate over the last few months! For months now, so many have commented on the incredible 'positive' SNP/Yes campaign of dishonest spin while bemoaning the 'negative' fact based response of the Better Together Campaign. Both journalists have obviously forgotten the four year Labour party campaign of scaremongering on English NHS which the SNP/Yes campaign decided to copy in recent weeks.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 9h SNPs Hosie says "real threat to NHS" is "privatisation and charging" down south... Ruth Davidson quotes IFS numbers on Scottish NHS squeeze
Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson 9h @faisalislam never understood how SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood.
Fraser Nelson says he can't understand understand how 'SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood'. Isn't it his job as a financial journalist to ensure that they don't get away with it, instead of treating the whole thing as in interesting intellectual exercise?
Fraser Nelson says he can't understand understand how 'SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood'. Isn't it his job as a financial journalist to ensure that they don't get away with it, instead of treating the whole thing as in interesting intellectual exercise?
We still don't know whether they have got away with it. I don't think it's fair to blame him. I dont suppose the spectator is widely read in places like Govan,Springburn and Motherwell.
OT Can we not choose either top-posting (new comment above quote) or bottom-posting (new comment below quote) and stick to it, rather than have each poster do his or her own thing? A random mixture of styles makes it harder to follow extended threads.
Fraser Nelson says he can't understand understand how 'SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood'. Isn't it his job as a financial journalist to ensure that they don't get away with it, instead of treating the whole thing as in interesting intellectual exercise?
I don't know if that is entirely fair, if the penny has dropped that Labour seem to have tolerated members of certain voter groups, who overwhelmingly voted Labour, abusing working class peoples daughters on a large scale at the same time as bringing in authoritarian laws making it a serious imprisonable offence to be rude to members of said voter groups, then it could produce the effect we have seen.
Oddly, no one has commented that the Scottish YES vote rise over the last month co-incided with the Rotherham scandal and the lack of arrests of anyone in authority since (compare and contrast with the media s**storm and rentamobs and official persuit of the councillors after the Westminster Shirley Porter affair).
Quoting error in previous post - that comment was in reponse to Marqueemark's comment below not Duderooster's
"When it comes down to it, maybe the Québécois will be shown to be more grounded and less chippy than the Scots? Less inclined to cut off their nose to spite their face? Just because they walked up to the abyss and took a step back, doesn't mean the Scots won't take a step forward...."
Oddly, no one has commented that the Scottish YES vote rise over the last month co-incided with the Rotherham scandal and the lack of arrests of anyone in authority since (compare and contrast with the media s**storm and rentamobs and official persuit of the councillors after the Westminster Shirley Porter affair).
Probably because they didn't want to appear an idiot.
Oddly, no one has commented that the Scottish YES vote rise over the last month co-incided with the Rotherham scandal and the lack of arrests of anyone in authority since (compare and contrast with the media s**storm and rentamobs and official persuit of the councillors after the Westminster Shirley Porter affair).
Probably because they didn't want to appear an idiot.
Labour are effectively running the No campaign, and the only serious opposition to SNP in Scotland. Labour have been utterly discredited by the Rotherham scandal in the eyes of the WWC to the benefit of UKIP south of the border and SNP to the north of the border. You don't have to be an idiot to work that one out.
The terms of engagement piece is good but involves an astonishing lack of self awareness on the part of anyone who has ever campaigned for Labour and against "tory cuts". It is true that the SNP has taken the lies and the fantasies to the next level but they are very much on the same journey.
Yesterday my daughter was telling me one of her friends had said they were voting yes because if we vote no then we will have to pay for NHS operations. It really is endless.
I would like to think that Labour would feel somewhat uncomfortable criticising people who claim they can avoid "austerity" just by voting something different as if economics were somehow subject to the "sovereign will" of the people. But that is for next week.
Oddly, no one has commented that the Scottish YES vote rise over the last month co-incided with the Rotherham scandal and the lack of arrests of anyone in authority since (compare and contrast with the media s**storm and rentamobs and official persuit of the councillors after the Westminster Shirley Porter affair).
Probably because they didn't want to appear an idiot.
Labour are effectively running the No campaign, and the only serious opposition to SNP in Scotland. Labour have been utterly discredited by the Rotherham scandal in the eyes of the WWC to the benefit of UKIP south of the border and SNP to the north of the border. You don't have to be an idiot to work that one out.
It may be painful for many Yes voters to accept, but the SNP and Ukip share a founding spasm. It is one that rejects the status quo, that sees only the negative in what exists, that backs away from the values of shared responsibility, fellow-feeling and solidarity, and it is one that could fundamentally change all of our lives. Both are willing to gamble our security, prosperity, influence and key relationships on the basis of a romantic, untested theory.
No one has mentioned Rotherham to me in my canvassing but a very strong theme for the SNP, arguably their strongest, is that Westminster in particular and the political establishment as a whole has nothing in common with me, does not care about me and mine and is only in it for themselves.
There is little doubt that horrors such as Rotherham increase that mode of thinking, even if it is purely background.
It may be painful for many Yes voters to accept, but the SNP and Ukip share a founding spasm. It is one that rejects the status quo, that sees only the negative in what exists, that backs away from the values of shared responsibility, fellow-feeling and solidarity, and it is one that could fundamentally change all of our lives. Both are willing to gamble our security, prosperity, influence and key relationships on the basis of a romantic, untested theory.
Untested except for the actual world before 1975? Pathetic attempt to link anticipated No success with the fight against UKIP.
Personally I think they are underestimating the truly massive disruption that the Scottish (and, to a lesser extent the rUK) economy would suffer even in the period running up to independence as companies leave, redundancy notices are issued by banks, insurers, the MoD, the IDA etc etc; Holyrood searches around desperately for staff with the skills to carry out a range of functions, particularly Treasury and regulatory functions not currently done in Scotland; the uncertainty of EU membership and the terms of it paralyses investment and the Scottish people finally realise that the sovereign will of the Scottish people means diddly squat to rUK on the question of currency. I have no doubt that by 2016 Scotland will already be in a deep depression with unemployment rising strongly.
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
No one has mentioned Rotherham to me in my canvassing but a very strong theme for the SNP, arguably their strongest, is that Westminster in particular and the political establishment as a whole has nothing in common with me, does not care about me and mine and is only in it for themselves.
There is little doubt that horrors such as Rotherham increase that mode of thinking, even if it is purely background.
That surely depends whether, as rumour suggests, the same thing has been happening in Scotland under the devolved authority. Which would seem to illustrate that independence will not shut Scotland away from such problems, but rather amputate the leg when the disease has already taken hold in the rest of the body.
Don't want to get the James Kelly fan boys and girls in a frothy frenzy, but he's on BBC tv news at the moment.
Good for him. He's done a hell of a job.
Whatever the result on Thursday, it's an incredible campaign that the nationalists have fought. To have at least 45% of the scottish people support outright independence would have seemed incredible even a decade ago.
It may be painful for many Yes voters to accept, but the SNP and Ukip share a founding spasm. It is one that rejects the status quo, that sees only the negative in what exists, that backs away from the values of shared responsibility, fellow-feeling and solidarity, and it is one that could fundamentally change all of our lives. Both are willing to gamble our security, prosperity, influence and key relationships on the basis of a romantic, untested theory.
Untested except for the actual world before 1975? Pathetic attempt to link anticipated No success with the fight against UKIP.
Don't quite see how that relates to the SNP. If you mean that the stereotypical Kipper would like to be 40 or even 60 years younger, no one will disagree with you.
Personally I think they are underestimating the truly massive disruption that the Scottish (and, to a lesser extent the rUK) economy would suffer even in the period running up to independence as companies leave, redundancy notices are issued by banks, insurers, the MoD, the IDA etc etc; Holyrood searches around desperately for staff with the skills to carry out a range of functions, particularly Treasury and regulatory functions not currently done in Scotland; the uncertainty of EU membership and the terms of it paralyses investment and the Scottish people finally realise that the sovereign will of the Scottish people means diddly squat to rUK on the question of currency. I have no doubt that by 2016 Scotland will already be in a deep depression with unemployment rising strongly.
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
It may be painful for many Yes voters to accept, but the SNP and Ukip share a founding spasm. It is one that rejects the status quo, that sees only the negative in what exists, that backs away from the values of shared responsibility, fellow-feeling and solidarity, and it is one that could fundamentally change all of our lives. Both are willing to gamble our security, prosperity, influence and key relationships on the basis of a romantic, untested theory.
Untested except for the actual world before 1975? Pathetic attempt to link anticipated No success with the fight against UKIP.
Don't quite see how that relates to the SNP. If you mean that the stereotypical Kipper would like to be 40 or even 60 years younger, no one will disagree with you.
Sorry I wasn't clear -I was talking about UKIP. Britain without the EU of course has been extremely well tested -we only joined within (relatively recent) living memory. To conflate this with break up of a 300 year old nation is ridiculous.
Don't want to get the James Kelly fan boys and girls in a frothy frenzy, but he's on BBC tv news at the moment.
Good for him. He's done a hell of a job.
Whatever the result on Thursday, it's an incredible campaign that the nationalists have fought. To have at least 45% of the scottish people support outright independence would have seemed incredible even a decade ago.
It may be painful for many Yes voters to accept, but the SNP and Ukip share a founding spasm. It is one that rejects the status quo, that sees only the negative in what exists, that backs away from the values of shared responsibility, fellow-feeling and solidarity, and it is one that could fundamentally change all of our lives. Both are willing to gamble our security, prosperity, influence and key relationships on the basis of a romantic, untested theory.
Untested except for the actual world before 1975? Pathetic attempt to link anticipated No success with the fight against UKIP.
What the big vote for Yes (I still think No will edge it), the rise of UKIP, and last Night's German and Swedish results have in common is that they show rapidly growing unhappiness with the behaviour of the political class in many democracies.
Whether the political class can change their ways will be the big question of this decade.
No one has mentioned Rotherham to me in my canvassing but a very strong theme for the SNP, arguably their strongest, is that Westminster in particular and the political establishment as a whole has nothing in common with me, does not care about me and mine and is only in it for themselves.
There is little doubt that horrors such as Rotherham increase that mode of thinking, even if it is purely background.
That surely depends whether, as rumour suggests, the same thing has been happening in Scotland under the devolved authority. Which would seem to illustrate that independence will not shut Scotland away from such problems, but rather amputate the leg when the disease has already taken hold in the rest of the body.
I'd also be surprised if Rotherham has played any significant part in indyref - it came out quite late in the campaign. Nor have I heard of any Scottish equivalent. There were, however, scandals in other fields - very poorly reported by the media in Scotland - and I would be very surprised if they had not contributed to the sentiment which DavidL describes.
Personally I think they are underestimating the truly massive disruption that the Scottish (and, to a lesser extent the rUK) economy would suffer even in the period running up to independence as companies leave, redundancy notices are issued by banks, insurers, the MoD, the IDA etc etc; Holyrood searches around desperately for staff with the skills to carry out a range of functions, particularly Treasury and regulatory functions not currently done in Scotland; the uncertainty of EU membership and the terms of it paralyses investment and the Scottish people finally realise that the sovereign will of the Scottish people means diddly squat to rUK on the question of currency. I have no doubt that by 2016 Scotland will already be in a deep depression with unemployment rising strongly.
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
Even if you ignore the mad ravings of Jim Sillars it is hard to find any credible basis for coming to the view that an Independent Scotland is going to be a safe place to do your business. If you take Standard Life, for example, nearly 90% of their business comes from rUK. Why would those clients want to take the currency and other risks of an independent Scotland. These companies, if they want to keep their business, will need to move a lot more than their brass plates. People will want assured their money is safe in England.
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
The modest difference here is why I don't feel very strongly about the referendum from a party perspective - usually one party wins by more than 3% anyway. I've got caught up in the excitement and hope for a No anyway, but the "Labour would be devastated and we'd have Tory/UKIP governments forever" stuff is just froth.
Am surprised that this poll shows that at least 25% of London would vote UKIP - this is contrary to most other polls.
I wonder if this is because of Labour voters switching in the aftermath of the Rotherham scandal. UKIP are going in hard on this. Certainly Labour seem to being given a free pass on this by the establishment and media. Imagine the wall to wall coverage and howling rentamobs that would still be out in force if Rotherham and the other northern councils were Tory. Compare and contrast with Dame Shirley Porters & co treatment for example.
Maybe the scales have now fallen and the English working class have at last realised that much of Labour since Gaitskills death have increasingly treated them as cretins who need to be kept in their place and farmed for votes, as they were taken over by middle class humanist social liberals as a vehicle for their warped worldview.
I wonder how the establishment and media would be acting if councils that were ukip controlled had been covering up assaults by English men against immigrants and ignoring the testimonies of immigrants that had been beaten up with council workers reporting an atmosphere of xenophobia that prevented them from speaking out.
If you take Standard Life, for example, nearly 90% of their business comes from rUK. Why would those clients want to take the currency and other risks of an independent Scotland. These companies, if they want to keep their business, will need to move a lot more than their brass plates. People will want assured their money is safe in England.
Not sure why you're mentioning Standard Life, they said they were moving out of Scotland if we voted for devolution in 1997. Surely they no longer have a presence north of the border?
Morning all and before I go off to the Clan Sutherland Gathering final day of activities, a couple of thoughts.
1) There will be considerable irony if the Scottish Referendum turnout is 80+% making it the highest turnout in Scotland at any election since the Tories won an overall majority of both seats and votes in Scotland in 1955.
2) The Labour Party, especially in Scotland, has spent 35 years demonising the Tory Party and all things Tory. It will therefore be ironic if the Scottish people take Labour at its word, vote YES and in so doing, assign Labour to decades out of government in England.
It is sounding like the Tories will dump Cameron if Scots vote YES. If this is the case, then we might see someone like Theresa May leading the Tories in a early election. I can see Theresa May saying that a Tory government would back coming out of the EU in a referendum in 2017, if the UK did not gain EU reforms on specific issues, which she would spell out in some detail. This might enable the Tories to get back votes from UKIP, enough to win an election.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Then again, Salmond migh be refusing to resign after BT's crushing victory in the referendum. "We fight on" he exclaims, demanding another independence vote five years hence.
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
Even if you ignore the mad ravings of Jim Sillars it is hard to find any credible basis for coming to the view that an Independent Scotland is going to be a safe place to do your business. If you take Standard Life, for example, nearly 90% of their business comes from rUK. Why would those clients want to take the currency and other risks of an independent Scotland. These companies, if they want to keep their business, will need to move a lot more than their brass plates. People will want assured their money is safe in England.
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
David, The lies have already been exposed you can give up , we know it is just brass plates that move and that it is all just Tory lies. For once can BT not have a positive for the union , too busy using your bovver boots to threaten people. It is easy to get lickspittle millionaires chasing gongs to do your bidding but not so easy to cow the people.
Don't want to get the James Kelly fan boys and girls in a frothy frenzy, but he's on BBC tv news at the moment.
Good for him. He's done a hell of a job.
Whatever the result on Thursday, it's an incredible campaign that the nationalists have fought. To have at least 45% of the scottish people support outright independence would have seemed incredible even a decade ago.
We don't know that it will be 45%.
Hard to believe any sensible person would expect it to be that low.
I was talking to someone in Scotland yesterday who said "I could never have as a friend someone who was a TORY" and though I found it surprising I knew what they meant.
I'm beginning to wonder whether there really is an irreconcilable divide between Scotland and Tory England and whether the Scots perhaps are better off out
It just occurred to me there is no way David Cameron could even hint at resigning if scots vote yes on Thursday. It would be the gift of the century to the nationalists.
"Vote yes to bring down a tory prime minister"
So whether Dave actually will resign or not is a completely different thing. Not that I think he will, but it's in every unionists interest to pretend that such an occurrence is inconceivable until 10pm on Thursday.
It may be painful for many Yes voters to accept, but the SNP and Ukip share a founding spasm. It is one that rejects the status quo, that sees only the negative in what exists, that backs away from the values of shared responsibility, fellow-feeling and solidarity, and it is one that could fundamentally change all of our lives. Both are willing to gamble our security, prosperity, influence and key relationships on the basis of a romantic, untested theory.
Now we have dumb and dumber playing tag team. Two blind messiah Tory fans. Will be fun to see when Scotland independent and UKIP wipe the floor with the Tories next year and hand Labour power in England.
Morning all and before I go off to the Clan Sutherland Gathering final day of activities, a couple of thoughts.
1) There will be considerable irony if the Scottish Referendum turnout is 80+% making it the highest turnout in Scotland at any election since the Tories won an overall majority of both seats and votes in Scotland in 1955.
2) The Labour Party, especially in Scotland, has spent 35 years demonising the Tory Party and all things Tory. It will therefore be ironic if the Scottish people take Labour at its word, vote YES and in so doing, assign Labour to decades out of government in England.
2) So again we have a PBer saying it is not the Tories' actual policies that are causing the problem but the way Labour presents them.
I am reminded of the words of a long lost poster: "Only from the PB Tories. Only on PB."
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
Even if you ignore the mad ravings of Jim Sillars it is hard to find any credible basis for coming to the view that an Independent Scotland is going to be a safe place to do your business. If you take Standard Life, for example, nearly 90% of their business comes from rUK. Why would those clients want to take the currency and other risks of an independent Scotland. These companies, if they want to keep their business, will need to move a lot more than their brass plates. People will want assured their money is safe in England.
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
David, The lies have already been exposed you can give up , we know it is just brass plates that move and that it is all just Tory lies. For once can BT not have a positive for the union , too busy using your bovver boots to threaten people. It is easy to get lickspittle millionaires chasing gongs to do your bidding but not so easy to cow the people.
chortle
had this discussion with a couple of work colleagues bhelieve me if SL don't move our pensions to England we'll be doing it for them.
Utterly incredible exchange between two journalists on twitter last night in light of the whole Indy Referendum debate over the last few months! For months now, so many have commented on the incredible 'positive' SNP/Yes campaign of dishonest spin while bemoaning the 'negative' fact based response of the Better Together Campaign. Both journalists have obviously forgotten the four year Labour party campaign of scaremongering on English NHS which the SNP/Yes campaign decided to copy in recent weeks.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 9h SNPs Hosie says "real threat to NHS" is "privatisation and charging" down south... Ruth Davidson quotes IFS numbers on Scottish NHS squeeze
Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson 9h @faisalislam never understood how SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood.
Fraser Nelson says he can't understand understand how 'SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood'. Isn't it his job as a financial journalist to ensure that they don't get away with it, instead of treating the whole thing as in interesting intellectual exercise?
They are useless and amazed that people do not believe their lies and garbage from their tame pets at IFS. How stupid are these people.
The modest difference here is why I don't feel very strongly about the referendum from a party perspective - usually one party wins by more than 3% anyway. I've got caught up in the excitement and hope for a No anyway, but the "Labour would be devastated and we'd have Tory/UKIP governments forever" stuff is just froth.
Labour would be changed by the loss of SLAB though. It would be less Old Labour and rather more centrist and post-Blairite. It would be quite an internal hiatus, but not the devastating psychological blow that Sean T predicts.
It may well become the sensible centrist party that it needs to be. At the moment it is all rather incoherent internally; but so are all of UKIP, Tories and LDs.
I am today more confident of a No than at any point in the campaign. I don't share Robert's view that it will be thumping. But I do think it will be decisive, 47-53 or so. That's still a great run by the nationalists but a miss is a mile.
The Yes campaign in Scotland, as reasonable as it imagines itself, seems to believe in the unreasonable proposition that you can improve your marriage by getting a divorce. It doesn’t work that way. The Yes campaign also promises that post-divorce negotiations will take place in an atmosphere of complete calm and rationality – and that rump Britain will give it what it wants. But that glosses over the fact that the other side has demands, too. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said recently that, if Britain didn’t let an independent Scotland continue to use the pound, Scotland might refuse to assume its share of the national debt.
It is sounding like the Tories will dump Cameron if Scots vote YES. If this is the case, then we might see someone like Theresa May leading the Tories in a early election. I can see Theresa May saying that a Tory government would back coming out of the EU in a referendum in 2017, if the UK did not gain EU reforms on specific issues, which she would spell out in some detail. This might enable the Tories to get back votes from UKIP, enough to win an election.
There are good reasons why Cameron won't tell you what he wants to renegotiate, and they'd apply to May as well. Whatever it was would be either totally unsatisfying to the UKIP-curious or obviously DOA with at least one other member state.
Cameron has thoroughly screwed his successor with this stuff, but the least bad option for them might just be to promise a referendum with no dicking around. Cameron would be persuading more sceptics with his referendum promise if it wasn't wrapped up with a load of other stuff that everyone can see is full of holes.
What will we all talk of come next week? It's going to be positively boring without an imminent referendum.
Next week we'll be talking separation negotiations, Cameron's position having lost the Union, Ed's position having lost all authority, the rUK's diminished global position, how long before the disillusionment kicks in up in Scotland etc. The break up of the UK and the ongoing constitutional crisis it leads to will provide plenty of discussion points for years to come.
Except that it's going to be a thumping victory for 'no'...
The polling data doesn't suggest this. A narrow 'no' is likely, nothing more.
Uhndoutably though the SNP are picking up WWC votes for the same reason as UKIP are (see below) which may may it a little closer. When the SNP are found out for what they are UKIP might start doing much better in Scotland too.
Malcolm, I think you'll find it is the lickspittle millionaires who actually run the country, not the people. And it makes no odds whether the country is the UK or Scotland.
Oddly, no one has commented that the Scottish YES vote rise over the last month co-incided with the Rotherham scandal and the lack of arrests of anyone in authority since (compare and contrast with the media s**storm and rentamobs and official persuit of the councillors after the Westminster Shirley Porter affair).
Probably because they didn't want to appear an idiot.
Labour are effectively running the No campaign, and the only serious opposition to SNP in Scotland. Labour have been utterly discredited by the Rotherham scandal in the eyes of the WWC to the benefit of UKIP south of the border and SNP to the north of the border. You don't have to be an idiot to work that one out.
Utterly incredible exchange between two journalists on twitter last night in light of the whole Indy Referendum debate over the last few months! For months now, so many have commented on the incredible 'positive' SNP/Yes campaign of dishonest spin while bemoaning the 'negative' fact based response of the Better Together Campaign. Both journalists have obviously forgotten the four year Labour party campaign of scaremongering on English NHS which the SNP/Yes campaign decided to copy in recent weeks.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 9h SNPs Hosie says "real threat to NHS" is "privatisation and charging" down south... Ruth Davidson quotes IFS numbers on Scottish NHS squeeze
Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson 9h @faisalislam never understood how SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood.
No one has mentioned Rotherham to me in my canvassing but a very strong theme for the SNP, arguably their strongest, is that Westminster in particular and the political establishment as a whole has nothing in common with me, does not care about me and mine and is only in it for themselves.
There is little doubt that horrors such as Rotherham increase that mode of thinking, even if it is purely background.
That surely depends whether, as rumour suggests, the same thing has been happening in Scotland under the devolved authority. Which would seem to illustrate that independence will not shut Scotland away from such problems, but rather amputate the leg when the disease has already taken hold in the rest of the body.
I'd also be surprised if Rotherham has played any significant part in indyref - it came out quite late in the campaign. Nor have I heard of any Scottish equivalent. There were, however, scandals in other fields - very poorly reported by the media in Scotland - and I would be very surprised if they had not contributed to the sentiment which DavidL describes.
More than one Scottish equivalent was mentioned here when the story first broke. If it has happened, it's clearly in no-ones interest for it to blow up now.
I was talking to someone in Scotland yesterday who said "I could never have as a friend someone who was a TORY" and though I found it surprising I knew what they meant.
I'm beginning to wonder whether there really is an irreconcilable divide between Scotland and Tory England and whether the Scots really are better off out
Not a Scottish/English distinction (whether by birth, residence or state of mind) but a class one primarily - there are quite a few Tories (sensu lato) in Scotland. The voting system of the Scottish Pmt makes this far clearer than Westminster's FPTP.
The other point is that 'Westminster' would be a more accurate description of the 'other'. Many folk here - as do I - reckon that a right-leaning party would do better in Scotland than the current Tories linked as they are to their London-based party, and that their decline began when they merged the Scottish business with the London one in the 1950s. (On the other hand, other factors such as secularization and the decline of religion and therefore of sectarianism played a part.)
The Yes campaign in Scotland, as reasonable as it imagines itself, seems to believe in the unreasonable proposition that you can improve your marriage by getting a divorce. It doesn’t work that way. The Yes campaign also promises that post-divorce negotiations will take place in an atmosphere of complete calm and rationality – and that rump Britain will give it what it wants. But that glosses over the fact that the other side has demands, too. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said recently that, if Britain didn’t let an independent Scotland continue to use the pound, Scotland might refuse to assume its share of the national debt.
It is sounding like the Tories will dump Cameron if Scots vote YES. If this is the case, then we might see someone like Theresa May leading the Tories in a early election. I can see Theresa May saying that a Tory government would back coming out of the EU in a referendum in 2017, if the UK did not gain EU reforms on specific issues, which she would spell out in some detail. This might enable the Tories to get back votes from UKIP, enough to win an election.
I'm surprised anyone thinks a Cameron insider would be in the running. I've heard Hammond, May, Hague, even Osborne mentioned. Quite bizarre. It would of course quite rightly be an outsider.
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
Even if you ignore the mad ravings of Jim Sillars it is hard to find any credible basis for coming to the view that an Independent Scotland is going to be a safe place to do your business. If you take Standard Life, for example, nearly 90% of their business comes from rUK. Why would those clients want to take the currency and other risks of an independent Scotland. These companies, if they want to keep their business, will need to move a lot more than their brass plates. People will want assured their money is safe in England.
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
David, The lies have already been exposed you can give up , we know it is just brass plates that move and that it is all just Tory lies. For once can BT not have a positive for the union , too busy using your bovver boots to threaten people. It is easy to get lickspittle millionaires chasing gongs to do your bidding but not so easy to cow the people.
chortle
had this discussion with a couple of work colleagues bhelieve me if SL don't move our pensions to England we'll be doing it for them.
anyways good to see you back you big tumshee
Alan, back after injustice , I was stitched up like a kipper,
I am today more confident of a No than at any point in the campaign. I don't share Robert's view that it will be thumping. But I do think it will be decisive, 47-53 or so. That's still a great run by the nationalists but a miss is a mile.
Bob, you are not well , take the day off and rest, get your head sorted out.
No one has mentioned Rotherham to me in my canvassing but a very strong theme for the SNP, arguably their strongest, is that Westminster in particular and the political establishment as a whole has nothing in common with me, does not care about me and mine and is only in it for themselves.
There is little doubt that horrors such as Rotherham increase that mode of thinking, even if it is purely background.
That surely depends whether, as rumour suggests, the same thing has been happening in Scotland under the devolved authority. Which would seem to illustrate that independence will not shut Scotland away from such problems, but rather amputate the leg when the disease has already taken hold in the rest of the body.
I'd also be surprised if Rotherham has played any significant part in indyref - it came out quite late in the campaign. Nor have I heard of any Scottish equivalent. There were, however, scandals in other fields - very poorly reported by the media in Scotland - and I would be very surprised if they had not contributed to the sentiment which DavidL describes.
More than one Scottish equivalent was mentioned here when the story first broke. If it has happened, it's clearly in no-ones interest for it to blow up now.
And then hey presto NOTHING, even BT will not stoop to that level
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
Even if you ignore the mad ravings of Jim Sillars it is hard to find any credible basis for coming to the view that an Independent Scotland is going to be a safe place to do your business. If you take Standard Life, for example, nearly 90% of their business comes from rUK. Why would those clients want to take the currency and other risks of an independent Scotland. These companies, if they want to keep their business, will need to move a lot more than their brass plates. People will want assured their money is safe in England.
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
David, The lies have already been exposed you can give up , we know it is just brass plates that move and that it is all just Tory lies. For once can BT not have a positive for the union , too busy using your bovver boots to threaten people. It is easy to get lickspittle millionaires chasing gongs to do your bidding but not so easy to cow the people.
chortle
had this discussion with a couple of work colleagues bhelieve me if SL don't move our pensions to England we'll be doing it for them.
anyways good to see you back you big tumshee
Alan, back after injustice , I was stitched up like a kipper,
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
Even if you ignore the mad ravings of Jim Sillars it is hard to find any credible basis for coming to the view that an Independent Scotland is going to be a safe place to do your business. If you take Standard Life, for example, nearly 90% of their business comes from rUK. Why would those clients want to take the currency and other risks of an independent Scotland. These companies, if they want to keep their business, will need to move a lot more than their brass plates. People will want assured their money is safe in England.
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
David, The lies have already been exposed you can give up , we know it is just brass plates that move and that it is all just Tory lies. For once can BT not have a positive for the union , too busy using your bovver boots to threaten people. It is easy to get lickspittle millionaires chasing gongs to do your bidding but not so easy to cow the people.
chortle
had this discussion with a couple of work colleagues bhelieve me if SL don't move our pensions to England we'll be doing it for them.
anyways good to see you back you big tumshee
Alan, you should be shot for having any money with them in any case, I thought you were financially astute. Pity you will get stung getting out and getting back in elsewhere. Will cost you plenty, those spivs love it.
Malcolm, I think you'll find it is the lickspittle millionaires who actually run the country, not the people. And it makes no odds whether the country is the UK or Scotland.
Innocent, we know that but they are far too greedy just now and need a wake up call.
It may be painful for many Yes voters to accept, but the SNP and Ukip share a founding spasm. It is one that rejects the status quo, that sees only the negative in what exists, that backs away from the values of shared responsibility, fellow-feeling and solidarity, and it is one that could fundamentally change all of our lives. Both are willing to gamble our security, prosperity, influence and key relationships on the basis of a romantic, untested theory.
Untested except for the actual world before 1975? Pathetic attempt to link anticipated No success with the fight against UKIP.
What the big vote for Yes (I still think No will edge it), the rise of UKIP, and last Night's German and Swedish results have in common is that they show rapidly growing unhappiness with the behaviour of the political class in many democracies.
Whether the political class can change their ways will be the big question of this decade.
I doubt it. The vast majority still seem to think it's the fault of their ex-voters for leaving them.
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Which is one reason why it probably won't happen to any great extent. As malcolmg may have said, most firms will prefer to move a brass plate than try to replace thousands of staff. Companies that are happy to outsource to India or China will surely be OK with outsourcing to Scotland. Now, of course, even moving brass plates will make a difference to the economy but staff relocation can be a far more leisurely affair.
Even if you ignore the mad ravings of Jim Sillars it is hard to find any credible basis for
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
David, The lies have already been exposed you can give up , we know it is just brass plates that move and that it is all just Tory lies. For once can BT not have a positive for the union , too busy using your bovver boots to threaten people. It is easy to get lickspittle millionaires chasing gongs to do your bidding but not so easy to cow the people.
chortle
had this discussion with a couple of work colleagues bhelieve me if SL don't move our pensions to England we'll be doing it for them.
anyways good to see you back you big tumshee
Alan, you should be shot for having any money with them in any case, I thought you were financially astute. Pity you will get stung getting out and getting back in elsewhere. Will cost you plenty, those spivs love it.
Not my choice malc, in co pensions schemes you get what you're given - as your employer is currently demonstrating. These days chose to manage my own cash since I don't trust any of the buggers.
It was pleasing to see another hacking and slashing centre right government bite the dust yesterday.
Congratulations Sweden.
The big domino remains to be toppled here in May, but it's certainly wobbling...
I should not be too glad, if I were you. The result of the election was a shift to the right, not a shift to the left. The new government has only 43% of the seats in Parliament.
It is sounding like the Tories will dump Cameron if Scots vote YES. If this is the case, then we might see someone like Theresa May leading the Tories in a early election. I can see Theresa May saying that a Tory government would back coming out of the EU in a referendum in 2017, if the UK did not gain EU reforms on specific issues, which she would spell out in some detail. This might enable the Tories to get back votes from UKIP, enough to win an election.
I'm surprised anyone thinks a Cameron insider would be in the running. I've heard Hammond, May, Hague, even Osborne mentioned. Quite bizarre. It would of course quite rightly be an outsider.
Depends on the timetable. One thing under appreciated, I think, is how much effort Osborne has put into being a network across the party, securing his people in key positions. It will be tough for anyone to beat him, although I do have money on Hague as a transition figure in a 'Yes' crisis and May for longer term.
Comments
My guess is that the little matter of May 7th 2015, the party conferences and the Clacton by-election will figure largely.
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Future-of-the-UK-Poll.pdf
UKIP voters least bothered (40% "don't mind" 35% "no" ) on SINDY, while other parties 65-67% "no", also DE nearly three times as likely to not care (33) than AB (12).
Also interesting - 59% of rUK think rUK should continue to receive share of Scottish oil & gas vs 23% who don't if SINDY.
Excluding Don't knows rUK is 74:26 against a Currency Union and also 74:26 in favour of relocating Trident to rUK.
Sixth btw.
Resign/stay/DK
Cameron: 27/54/19 (CON: 6/83/10)
Miliband: 20/57/22 (LAB: 12/70/18)
None of them: 49
Salmond: 13
Cameron: 8
Miliband: 7
There will be no happy ending - at least not for a decade or two....
I note that the Stars and Stripes still contains British Red in the ground.
Matt
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/33f0e74e-3a6c-11e4-8ee4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3DMGz27iG
The Yes campaign in Scotland, as reasonable as it imagines itself, seems to believe in the unreasonable proposition that you can improve your marriage by getting a divorce. It doesn’t work that way. The Yes campaign also promises that post-divorce negotiations will take place in an atmosphere of complete calm and rationality – and that rump Britain will give it what it wants. But that glosses over the fact that the other side has demands, too. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said recently that, if Britain didn’t let an independent Scotland continue to use the pound, Scotland might refuse to assume its share of the national debt.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/an-open-letter-to-scotland/article20579017/?click=sf_globe#dashboard/alerts
Maybe the scales have now fallen and the English working class have at last realised that much of Labour since Gaitskills death have increasingly treated them as cretins who need to be kept in their place and farmed for votes, as they were taken over by middle class humanist social liberals as a vehicle for their warped worldview.
Goodbye indeed.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/tightening-polls-on-scotland-secession-echo-days-before-quebecs-1995-vote/article20531252/
Uhndoutably though the SNP are picking up WWC votes for the same reason as UKIP are (see below) which may may it a little closer. When the SNP are found out for what they are UKIP might start doing much better in Scotland too.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 9h
SNPs Hosie says "real threat to NHS" is "privatisation and charging" down south... Ruth Davidson quotes IFS numbers on Scottish NHS squeeze
Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson 9h
@faisalislam never understood how SNP get away with that "threat to NHS" canard when health is 100% devolved to Holyrood.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 9h
@FraserNelson we are moving beyond a fact-based paradigm
Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson 9h
@faisalislam and this is what has dumbfounded unionists. It's a fascinating phenomenon.
Two must read articles on the Indy Referendum debate this week.
Ian Smart Blog - Terms of Engagement
Chris Deerin - Salmond and Farage, better together
Oddly, no one has commented that the Scottish YES vote rise over the last month co-incided with the Rotherham scandal and the lack of arrests of anyone in authority since (compare and contrast with the media s**storm and rentamobs and official persuit of the councillors after the Westminster Shirley Porter affair).
"When it comes down to it, maybe the Québécois will be shown to be more grounded and less chippy than the Scots? Less inclined to cut off their nose to spite their face? Just because they walked up to the abyss and took a step back, doesn't mean the Scots won't take a step forward...."
Yesterday my daughter was telling me one of her friends had said they were voting yes because if we vote no then we will have to pay for NHS operations. It really is endless.
I would like to think that Labour would feel somewhat uncomfortable criticising people who claim they can avoid "austerity" just by voting something different as if economics were somehow subject to the "sovereign will" of the people. But that is for next week.
There is little doubt that horrors such as Rotherham increase that mode of thinking, even if it is purely background.
Personally I think they are underestimating the truly massive disruption that the Scottish (and, to a lesser extent the rUK) economy would suffer even in the period running up to independence as companies leave, redundancy notices are issued by banks, insurers, the MoD, the IDA etc etc; Holyrood searches around desperately for staff with the skills to carry out a range of functions, particularly Treasury and regulatory functions not currently done in Scotland; the uncertainty of EU membership and the terms of it paralyses investment and the Scottish people finally realise that the sovereign will of the Scottish people means diddly squat to rUK on the question of currency. I have no doubt that by 2016 Scotland will already be in a deep depression with unemployment rising strongly.
In the longer term, again unlike the fund managers, I would be slightly more optimistic in that Scotland will find an equilibrium. It will be poorer but not that much poorer. It will just be an insignificant backwater that few will even think about. I suppose, if you really don't care about the world, there are worse places to live.
Whether the political class can change their ways will be the big question of this decade.
The point I am making is that is completely daft to believe this is a problem that will manifest itself after Independence Day. In some small respects it has started already. If things go the wrong way it will simply accelerate from Friday onwards throughout the next 18 months.
1) There will be considerable irony if the Scottish Referendum turnout is 80+% making it the highest turnout in Scotland at any election since the Tories won an overall majority of both seats and votes in Scotland in 1955.
2) The Labour Party, especially in Scotland, has spent 35 years demonising the Tory Party and all things Tory. It will therefore be ironic if the Scottish people take Labour at its word, vote YES and in so doing, assign Labour to decades out of government in England.
I'm beginning to wonder whether there really is an irreconcilable divide between Scotland and Tory England and whether the Scots perhaps are better off out
"Vote yes to bring down a tory prime minister"
So whether Dave actually will resign or not is a completely different thing. Not that I think he will, but it's in every unionists interest to pretend that such an occurrence is inconceivable until 10pm on Thursday.
I am reminded of the words of a long lost poster: "Only from the PB Tories. Only on PB."
had this discussion with a couple of work colleagues bhelieve me if SL don't move our pensions to England we'll be doing it for them.
anyways good to see you back you big tumshee
It may well become the sensible centrist party that it needs to be. At the moment it is all rather incoherent internally; but so are all of UKIP, Tories and LDs.
Cameron has thoroughly screwed his successor with this stuff, but the least bad option for them might just be to promise a referendum with no dicking around. Cameron would be persuading more sceptics with his referendum promise if it wasn't wrapped up with a load of other stuff that everyone can see is full of holes.
The other point is that 'Westminster' would be a more accurate description of the 'other'. Many folk here - as do I - reckon that a right-leaning party would do better in Scotland than the current Tories linked as they are to their London-based party, and that their decline began when they merged the Scottish business with the London one in the 1950s. (On the other hand, other factors such as secularization and the decline of religion and therefore of sectarianism played a part.)
It was pleasing to see another hacking and slashing centre right government bite the dust yesterday.
Congratulations Sweden.
The big domino remains to be toppled here in May, but it's certainly wobbling...
WILLIAM WALLACE!
WILLIAM WALLACE!
WILLIAM WALLACE!
FREEDOM!!!!!
One thing I think we might all be able to agree on: roll on Friday am and the result. This has gone on too long now.