Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread

[Lancebloke]

Will be doing mine in a bit. I think we all know where it is going tonight... remains to be seen where it goes over the next couple of years!

[malickfan]

Happy kicking out the Tories day everyone  

With the exception of the 4 month period between my 18th bithday and the 2010 election I've spent my entire adult life under a Tory goverment, to say I'm ready for a change is an understatement.

Voted this afternoon, as with Petty I work nights but will be checking the results during my breaks, there seemed to be a good turnout at the polling station, though at least one person seemed confused about the photo ID rules.

Due to the 2023 review I'm in a newly created parliamentary seat and will be electing my MP for the first time (my previous seat had been conservative since the 1920's and even now I have my doubts it will change), it looks to be a tight race between LibDem/Conservative.

Labour will be our next goverment regardless of how any of us vote, still not sure how I feel about Starmer, but things can't get much worse can they?

Very curious to see what Reform's vote share (predicted to be 15-20% last I checked) translates to in terms of actual MPs, should Farage finally get elected I wonder how he''' actually do in the job dealing with local issues rather than grandstanding infront of the cameras.

[Lancebloke]

Well, that went about as expected down south.

Petty - do you think this is a tactical vote in Scotland to get the Tories out or a reflection of the current state of the SNP?

[malickfan]

Both me and my girlfriend's parilimentary seat boundaries changed this election, both of us were in Tory safe seats that hadn't changed hands in decades, both of us voted Lib Dem without much hope of change.

And sure enough my new MP is a Conservative...who actually used to be my Girlfriend's MP before the boundary change...and now her new MP is a Liberal Democrat...the irony is not lost on me.

[Pettytyrant101]

Petty - do you think this is a tactical vote in Scotland to get the Tories out or a reflection of the current state of the SNP?

{{ As always here it's a complex mix, the margins for seats changing hands across the central belt (labours old heartlands which the SNP took off them and are now back to Labour) and where Labour made the bulk of their gains, only ever require a small percentage swing either way to change hands. But there was a palpable 'we can not just get rid of the Tories but punish them this time as England for once is one side with doing it' feeling in the air. Not just getting rid of the Tories, but getting back at the Tories for all they have done was quite a strong sentiment.

There was certainly an annoyance with the SNP and coming from different quarters - there are those who did not like Sturgeon's focus on social matters, there are those who do not think they have handled NHS or education well enough, on the islands and west coast there are issues with the time taking and cost in procuring ferries, then there are the traditional Unionists who simply are opposed to them.
On top of all those contenders you have in this election the massive change in England towards Labour, which was non-existent last time round - it was obvious Corbyn was never winning and Scotland voting Labour that time round would not be of any use, which contributed to the unprecedented number of seats the SNP won, and of course when you get an unprecedented number and it inevitably reverts to normal it looks like a worse collapse than it is.
So you have to drill down a bit into the voting percents in each seat- and much as in England this time out there is a notable lack of enthusiasm for Labour- they took seats off the SNP but not often by much and never a big vote swing. The vote swing was about 20%, but as its first past the post that translates to a loss for the SNP of about 70% of their seats, just as when they won nearly every seat in the country they did it on about 30% of the vote share. So most certainly the electorate have punished the SNP here, but at an election where it doesn't matter a great deal in terms of the SNP can't do much at Westminster anyway. So I feel it's more like the electorate firing a warning shot across the SNP's bow in view of the Scottish Parliament elections in 2 years time. Which of the factors pushed folk to vote labour this time, or a combination of them is hard to know exactly. But it looks pretty clear the SNP vote didn't completely collapse, but it fell just enough to give Labour the seats in a host of close marginals.

So far the independence polling remains unchanged, so I think the real tell will be the Scottish elections in two years time. Labour have their eyes on it, their campaign in the general election was more a pitch for the Scottish elections, with Scottish labour making promises in their campaign they can't actually deliver in Scotland unless they take over the Parliament. But two years is a long time, Swinney will have that long to show he has righted the ship and got the country working again, and Labour have 2 years to prove the Union works or prove it doesn't by failing.
Starmer is starting his Premiership with a tour of the nations (I always find thee rather too reminiscent of the royalty of old's Tours of the Nation, to be comfortable with them) and he has chosen to start it in Edinburgh, our capital and seat of the Scottish Parliament.

I suspect he will talk a lot about working with Scottish Labour, listening to Scotland and making the Union work for all parts of the nations, what will be more interesting is if he backs that up with more actual devolved powers or not.
If I could ask him a question in this regard it would be that, given in the past Scottish Labour leaders have described the way Westminster Labour views and treats them as, 'no better than a branch office', and with new promises of finally listening to Scotland and Scottish Labour, will he remove nuclear weapons from Scotland? Given that is the repeated position of the Scottish people in poll after poll and Scottish election after Scottish elections, as well as being the official position of his own party in Scotland. And if he won't listen doesn't that prove that it's business as usual, we will be listened to only when it suits, but not if it disagrees with England. }}}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Remember Douglas Ross? He is the guy who was head of the Scottish Tories and whom I have described on here as the worst politician I have ever seen, a master of snatching defeat from victory and of fumbling the ball at every crucial moment, if there is a wrong political decision to make Ross would make it.
Well he went in the election, and it could not have been funnier or more typical of the man.

He was Scottish Tory party leader, which mean he was an MSP, you can't be an MSP and an MP at the same time, but he decided to try to hedge his bets in the election by standing as an MP, saying if he won he would give up being an MSP. This of course looked like he was treating being an MSP and Tory leader in Scotland as being second-best and just a backup for his career compared to being an MP, and just a backbencher in Westminster. On top of this outrage the seat he parachuted himself into to stand was one that belonged to a Tory who had been ill and was in hospital, with Ross claiming he was too weak to stand for reelection. But then the guy tweeted from his hospital bed that actually everything had gone fine and he was just recovering.
So on the back of these scandals around it all Ross decided to gamble his entire career on becoming an MP, in this election, which was obvious to anyone was going to be a Tory bloodbath. So he resigned as an MSP and as Tory Party leader (a job he still had 2 years left in), stood in his stolen constituency, and of course lost.
Losing his entire career in the process. The manner of it, the lack of political smarts at every decision, is a fitting testament to the man's career. Who was it said, 'nothing became him so well as the manner of his departure'? }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Israel continue to show their true aims with their recent assassinations, to prevent a ceasefire at any costs until the possibility of a 2 state solution is no longer possible (because one side is all dead or utterly displaced and their land entirely occupied).
They choose, of all Hamas leaders to go after, to pick Ismail Haniyeh, the most moderate and the one heading the negotiations for a ceasefire for Hamas.

As the Egyptian PM put it, “Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask how mediation can succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side.”

It can't of course, that's the point, Israel does not want it to work, they never have and have lied all along, attended negotiations in bad faith whilst they continue their massacre of civilians and to expand the illegal occupation of their land. And all with not only our blessing, but our tax money too. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well things have gone a bit mental.

First Israel where even the pretence of having a pretence at not being an evil murderous regime has slipped form Israel, now they are openly stating how much they would like to be an evil murderous regime if only the rest of the world would let them-


'Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, "...no one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral...”- CNN

They also say that there is only need for minimal aid to go in which Israel should control, as "Gaza in the next two years is (going to be) a war zone."  So apparently for the 2 million Palestinians living there, in Israel's own words there is "No need to unclog sewers, no need for education, no need for welfare."



Meanwhile In England there are riots breaking out all over the shop, well in certain urban areas at least, and being stoked and provoked and partially organised by such figures as Tommy Robinson.

If any doubt his nastiness and intent to cause trouble since his 'conversion' from leader of the British National Party to his current messiah of the hard right position here's why he's still scum, this whole thing started with the tragedy of the stabbing and murder of children during a dance class. The 17 year old who committed this horrendous act was born in Wales and has a history of mental health issues, but as he was black and born to Rwandan parents who had immigrated here the right took it up as the flame to ignite the anti-immigration anger in England. Spurred on by Tommy and his followers filling social media with false claims he was an immigrant who came here three months ago illegally. The riots then spread to other parts of England.

Five days into the riots, here in Scotland, a woman was stabbed and killed and Tommy Robinson did as he had in England, he began circulating rumours online that she too was stabbed by an immigrant, hoping to spark the same response here. Fortunately the First Minster was quick to respond alongside Police Scotland letting everyone know the suspect was in fact a local and white.
But it showed clearly how Robinson and his ilk are operating, in the absence of information as there was with the original stabbings in England (as the perpetrator was a minor) they stoked the fire in England, fortunately here the perpetrator was an adult so it could be immediately countered. So far these nasty right wing fires have not made it to Scotland, though they are trying hard to fan the flames, and I don't think they'll take root here, and if they did it'd but be a minor display outmatched by the counter ones.

But the Tories and the right wing press in this country have been using immigrations as an excuse and as a political lever for years now, and this is what it has resulted in. The worst is, I think it's utterly deliberate. The pattern of behaviour over immigration whilst the Tories were in power indicates they deliberately made it worse. At a time when the whole globe knew immigration was a problem and surging, they cut the funding to administer and process immigrants, they closed the processing centres down, they cut the civil servants working on immigration, they refused the deal with France to build, fund and process immigrants on the French side, and all so they could say look how bad immigration is, and only we can fix it, you can't trust the left they love Johnny Foreigner.

Well here we are, with towns burning and terrified immigrants trapped in hotels while mobs draped in the St George's flag try to burn the building down with them in it. Oh England, what have you become? }}

[azriel]

" Oh England, what have you become? }}
Desperate Id say. We have riots planned for Brighton, I wont be a part of it thats for sure. I hear people tho, when I walk my dog, when I sit on the bus or go into a shop. There is a tension but at the moment its not serious tension, its an awareness. Im wondering if this is ( for some people ) the excuse theyve waited for to go all crazy about immigrants ? People are ticked off by the amount of illegal immigrants that populate this country, I hear talk of us being the dumping ground, of criminals from other countries, escaping the law from where they originate from, and carrying on doing things like prostitution, drugs, etc, etc, I dont know. Its a powder keg at the moment and I dont like violence. I do believe everyone has a right to say what upsets them, I think peaceful protest is ok, but lynch mobs are a much more serious thing.

[halfwise]

Everybody who's complaining about immigration says the same thing: they are bringing in crime, etc. It's pure poppycock: immigrants don't want to get caught doing anything illegal (except crossing the border) and the statistics show that crime is lower among illegal aliens than among the legal population.

The second generation may be another story, but that's too far removed for people to hang their hats on, so they displace the crime story a generation. Lying ain't gonna help you solve the problem.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Good to see there are still plenty of Englishmen and women willing to stand up and say not in our communities, with all the planned right wing 'protests' last night coming to nothing in the face of much larger counter protests. Good on you England. Well played. }}