UK - December 2019 General Election

[Rolfe]

I'm trying to trace a link to the poll. I'll get back to you.

 

[Rolfe]

2017 General election
SNP 977,569
Con 757,949
Lab 717,007

Don't confuse a biased voting system which favours the SNP, giving them ~60% of the seats on ~37% of the vote, with Popularity.

I should perhaps also have mentioned that Labour are currently sitting at about 14% of the vote in Scottish opinion polls. Really, don't confuse "being the third party in terms of total votes" and "commanding 14% of the popular vote" with "Scots vote Labour".

 

[catsmate]

Farage is demanding the Tories drop the Brexit agreement and go for a 'clean break' as condition of a pact.
He wants the Tories to become the Brexit Party.
It's not going to happen.

You never know what BoJo will promise to keep his paws on power.

What happened to the 'technological solutions'?

The pixies died.

 

[Lothian]

I should perhaps also have mentioned that Labour are currently sitting at about 14% of the vote in Scottish opinion polls. Really, don't confuse "being the third party in terms of total votes" and "commanding 14% of the popular vote" with "Scots vote Labour".

I think the SNP and Labour are quite close in policies if you remove the delegated powers / independence question. Certainly they are closer to each other than the Tories. The SNP only stand in Scotland. From a UK perspective I think they are seen as McLabour. When people say Scotland is Labour they mean Scotland is closer to Labour than the Tories and that Scottish MPs are likely to vote in accordance with Labour than the Tories.

 

[Rolfe]

Nice bit of sophistry. Also, you're not up to speed on Labour's constant taunting of the SNP as "Tartan Tories" (while happily cosying up to the actual Tories in various local authority coalitions, voting with the Tories on things like benefits cuts and sanctions, standing shoulder to shoulder with them in Better Together and actually advising their supporters to vote Conservative if the Tory candidate had a better chance of unseating the SNP incumbent in 2017).

In fact it is arguable that the overt urging from the Scottish Labour leader to Labour voters to vote Conservative in 2017 was responsible for Theresa May getting enough seats to form a government after that election.

So no. Scots do not vote Labour, and Labour are so virulently against the SNP that they'd rather see a Tory win a seat than the SNP. I really don't care how people in England see it, that's the reality.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I said I am going to vote Green if they stand, but that my vote won't make the slightest bit of difference under FPTP.

And you said that if the Greens weren't running, you wouldn't vote for anybody at all.

I have no time for these people who get on their high horse about voting as if that's the key to making a difference.

I wasn't getting on my high horse about anything. I was pointing out the hypocrisy in you getting on your high horse about people ******* the country by voting against their own best interests. That's your phrasing, not mine.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I curse the day Labour elected the wrong Milliband brother and then panicked and shifted back to an outdated mode of left wing politics.

I honestly don't think there's a problem with having a left-leaning Labour party again. I think it's great, in fact. And I don't think it's a problem for the general public who, in polls, seem to tend to agree with many left-leaning policies (nationalisation, for example).

The problem for me, specifically, is Corbyn.

 

[Dave Rogers]

If Farage hates Johnson's deal so much, maybe his best strategy would be only to field candidates in Tory constituencies, then he can make certain it doesn't get passed.

I know, even Farage isn't that stupid. But I can dream.

Dave

 

[Lothian]

Nice bit of sophistry. Also, you're not up to speed on Labour's constant taunting of the SNP as "Tartan Tories" (while happily cosying up to the actual Tories in various local authority coalitions, voting with the Tories on things like benefits cuts and sanctions, standing shoulder to shoulder with them in Better Together and actually advising their supporters to vote Conservative if the Tory candidate had a better chance of unseating the SNP incumbent in 2017).

In fact it is arguable that the overt urging from the Scottish Labour leader to Labour voters to vote Conservative in 2017 was responsible for Theresa May getting enough seats to form a government after that election.

So no. Scots do not vote Labour, and Labour are so virulently against the SNP that they'd rather see a Tory win a seat than the SNP. I really don't care how people in England see it, that's the reality.

Ideologically Labour and the SNP are in a similar space, some distance from the Tories. Faced with a choice between the two main UK parties the Scots would I suspect vote Labour.

 

[Rolfe]

Who knows. It's not likely to be tested anyway. That still doesn't make what Vixen said anywhere close to true, and I don't know why you keep defending it.

 

[Nessie]

Way to prove my point. Labour came third. This can by no means be translated into "the Scots vote Labour".

It's the same voting system as the rest of Britain, and the basis for all the comments has been the same as the basis for comments about other electoral battlefields. It's common for a government to be elected on 37% of the vote.

Scotland used to vote Labour. It doesn't do that any more. In the normal terms of how these things are discussed.

I think it would be clearer to say that Scotland used to return lots of Labour MPs, it doesn't do that any more.

 

[Nessie]

Ideologically Labour and the SNP are in a similar space, some distance from the Tories. Faced with a choice between the two main UK parties the Scots would I suspect vote Labour.

Yes, Scotland is more to the left than England and that has become more and more obvious with brexit.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

I honestly don't think there's a problem with having a left-leaning Labour party again. I think it's great, in fact. And I don't think it's a problem for the general public who, in polls, seem to tend to agree with many left-leaning policies (nationalisation, for example).

The problem for me, specifically, is Corbyn.

Sorry, me neither - apologies for being unclear. I am happy with a left of centre Labour party - it's where they should be. It's how far left Corbyn is and how uninspiring* as a leader he is that's the problem I have.

I am also happy with some of the policies - I agree with nationalisation - to a point. Key infrastructure such as water and electricity should never have been privatised. I can also see an argument for the railways (or at least the track**). Car industry, nope, but anything I would class as national infrastructure should 'belong' to the nation.

*Uninspiring to me, and plenty of others, I get he inspires some people but not enough and his leadership / failure to unite his party has been shambolic. Much as I think the whole antisemitism thing is overblown (most of it is anti-Israel apart from a few nutters) it's difficult to see how he could have handled it worse. Same with Brexit.

**Similarly with telecomms.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I wasn't getting on my high horse about anything. I was pointing out the hypocrisy in you getting on your high horse about people ******* the country by voting against their own best interests. That's your phrasing, not mine.

Then I don't understand your point because there is zero hypocrisy there.

Maybe you don't understand the arithmetic.... I am one person, my vote doesn't matter. Whatever I do other people are going to decide who the government is. 'Other people' who vote Tory are counted in millions.

 

[Rolfe]

I think it would be clearer to say that Scotland used to return lots of Labour MPs, it doesn't do that any more.

Indeed, that is perfectly correct.

Yes, Scotland is more to the left than England and that has become more and more obvious with brexit.

And it is also perfectly reasonable to observe that Scotland as a whole appears to be significantly further to the left than England.

However none of that is what Vixen actually said, which Lothian has been getting his knickers in an almighty twist trying to defend.

the Irish element vote Labour, as does it seems the Scots in the UK.

I take that to mean that the Scots vote Labour for Westminster. Not since 2010 (when they successfully held 41 seats) they haven't. This is a fact. End of.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I honestly don't think there's a problem with having a left-leaning Labour party again. I think it's great, in fact. And I don't think it's a problem for the general public who, in polls, seem to tend to agree with many left-leaning policies (nationalisation, for example).

The problem for me, specifically, is Corbyn.

That makes little to no sense. It is Corbyn as a leader who has instigated a lot of these 'popular' policies.

So either the policies aren't popular enough or the policies are popular and people are stupidly voting against what they actually want.

 

[Lothian]

However none of that is what Vixen actually said, which Lothian has been getting his knickers in an almighty twist trying to defend.

Can't people disagree without things getting personal?

I take that to mean that the Scots vote Labour for Westminster. Not since 2010 (when they successfully held 41 seats) they haven't. This is a fact. End of.

Given her next words were "I tend to be left leaning..." Suggests the conversation was more left and right" rather than about parties, but whatever.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Then I don't understand your point because there is zero hypocrisy there.

Maybe you don't understand the arithmetic.... I am one person, my vote doesn't matter. Whatever I do other people are going to decide who the government is. 'Other people' who vote Tory are counted in millions.

Perhaps the people you're railing against also don't think their vote matters?

It's entirely your right to vote or not vote, but I think it's very difficult to take seriously complaints about the outcome of elections or any official parliamentary action from people who don't vote.

 

[Rolfe]

Can't people disagree without things getting personal?

"You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts."

Given her next words were "I tend to be left leaning..." Suggests the conversation was more left and right" rather than about parties, but whatever.

Her actual words said that Scots "tend to vote Labour" (in Westminster). Not that they're more left-leaning, but that they, you know, vote Labour. Which is mince. If she'd wanted to say "tend to vote SNP, which is also a party of the left", she could have said that. She didn't. What she said was entirely wrong. Which is what I pointed out. It's not a matter of disagreement, it's a matter of actual verifiable fact.

Also, considering that your first shot at a response was to try to make out that she was not numerically wrong, by posting voting figured which showed Labour in third place with a whopping 27% of the vote, apparently on the basis that the SNP only having achieved 37% of the vote didn't count (although nobody else had mentioned the SNP until then) suggests you don't believe your own new line either.

I'm struggling to understand why you seem hell-bent on dying on this particular hill, which wasn't even your hill in the first place.

 

[Lothian]

"You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts."

and how well placed are you to decide the factual status of my knickers?

Her actual words said that Scots "tend to vote Labour" (in Westminster). Not that they're more left-leaning, but that they, you know, vote Labour. Which is mince. If she'd wanted to say "tend to vote SNP, which is also a party of the left", she could have said that. She didn't. What she said was entirely wrong. Which is what I pointed out. It's not a matter of disagreement, it's a matter of actual verifiable fact.

Also, considering that your first shot at a response was to try to make out that she was not numerically wrong, by posting voting figured which showed Labour in third place with a whopping 27% of the vote, apparently on the basis that the SNP only having achieved 37% of the vote didn't count (although nobody else had mentioned the SNP until then) suggests you don't believe your own new line either.

I'm struggling to understand why you seem hell-bent on dying on this particular hill, which wasn't even your hill in the first place.

Vixen's post was actually about personality over policy. You picked up on a comment about Labour, suggesting they lack support in Scotland. I pointed out that they don't and later that the SNP and Labour are (Scottish determination aside) in a similar space policy wise

I think every one actually agrees that Scotland is more left wing than England and personalities aside that is where they would vote rather than the charismatic ditch dodger Tory.

I am at a loss as to why you don't think I should contribute to a public thread but hey ho.