Senate The UK Politics discussion

You sound like Neil Kinnock who turned up on telly at 3am and pretty much said the voters were a bunch of lying, greedy, self indulgent, charlatans... If Labour aren't connecting with the people then that's Labour's fault, not the electorate's.

Keep in mind Labour hasn't won an general election without Tony Blair, (who for all his faults, knew how to connect with the "Middle England from the center left" since 1974...

Ed Miliband never looked remotely electable. His personal ratings and Labour's economic competence rating's were always dire and that's what won out in the end.

The issue in Scotland is entirely seperate though and I'm not sure anybody quite understands what's gone wrong for Labour up there...

 

I can't believe I'm agreeing with V-2 on something.

 

Everyone I spoke to at work today said they couldn't vote for ed but would have for his brother.

 

I find it really interesting to see people (both G-FETT and BBC anchors) framing the Scotland results as something "going wrong" for Labour. I think after the results of the independence referendum, which in itself created a really fired up, engaged youth electorate who are very interested in independence and nationalism, it's can't really be down to something going wrong in the Labour campaign as much as it is something going very right, ideologically and in the social and political climate, for SNP. This is an outsider's perspective since I didn't see how Labour ran their campaign in Scotland, really, but one gets the feeling that even if they had run a perfect campaign, Scotland would still have seen a massive SNP victory anyway.

 

I think it's more a case that Scotland was Labour's absolute foundation but to be honest this result has been coming on for a long time.

Labour has been gradually slipping since back since the 2007 assembly election and there's a wide feeling, I think, that Labour has generally been taking Scotland for granted for decades...

It was Labour's defeat at the hands of the SNP in 2011 that paved the way for the indy referendum in the first place.

By the time Labour finally woke up to what was happening and sent Jim Murphy up to try and recover the situation and try to run Labour's Scottish campaign it was too little, too late.

 

The clear issue here is that the conservatives took a majority of seats with 36% of the vote. FPTP sucks.

 

About the same share of the vote as Tony Blair in 2005 (actually about 1% higher) but with 45 seats fewer....

 

I wasn't posting here in 2005...

 

The good thing about FPTP is that, at a certain level, it can basically destroy a Party (as the Tories discovered in 1997 and the Lib-Dems along with SLAB have discovered today) Which makes for VERY entertaining elections and aftermaths if you enjoy the blood sport of politics like I do.

PR elections aren't anywhere near as entertaining...

 

Easy: They all think whatever the Tories do will impact anyone but them negatively.

 

The question I have is: What does this mean for Scotland and the future of the UK? They just had a referenda but does the SNP's wallop of Labour give them more impetus to want out or does it actually work the other way and diffuse the situation by giving Scots more rep in Wesminster?

I noticed Cameron has already mentioned yesterday speeding up devolution processes to the North and Wales.

Lord Vivec When will the EU leave the UK….and the rest of Europe for that matter.

 

Or... They just didn't trust Labour with the economy, didn't think Ed was up t the job of being PM and adding the uncertainty of having the SNP calling the shots, decided to stick with a government they thought was at least competent.

Despite the SNP surge there doesn't seem to be any great increase in the number of people supporting independence.

How things looks after another five years of the Tories running Westminster remains to be seen.

As far as devolution goes, I suspect Scotland is looking at full devo max and possibly fiscal autonomy.

There will be a little more devolution to Wales, though it seems there's no real desire for independence in Wales.

EV4EL will almost certainly be coming in the Parliament as well, which it goes without saying, is very bad news for Lab...

 

I wouldn't believe anything that comes out of Cameron's mouth Shane.

EDIT: G-FETT, ah, optimism, gave that up a long time ago. Where the big two parties are concerned, for me, they are near enough a pestilential plague of insular idiocy.

 

Both Eds (Balls and Milliband) didn't help themselves by leaning so far left. Milliband didn't help things by having the nickname 'Red Ed'. I don't think too many people wanted socialism back in the UK. Blair was smart in not going so far left. And the proposed mansion tax didn't help Labour either - the Tories capitalized on that by talking about all the elderly people who would be hit since the houses they bought years ago have now appreciated so much that they would be above the value limit (2 million, I believe it was). The 'house rich cash poor' group was probably a factor, especially in the London and southeast where property prices are high.

 

Tony Blair was recently reported as saying;

"If we campaign as old Labour we will lose like old Labour"

Galling as it is for Labour supporters, turn's out he was correct with his analysis...

 

Labour got it wrong when they voted in Ed rather than the more popular, charismatic and believable David, everything after that was inevitable.


With the majority they have in scotchland I can see Sturgeon heavily pushing for another referendum too.

 

So? Sturgeon can push, but she'll get told to get stuffed.

 

Between that and the SNP vote in Scotland - yeah, Labour shot itself.. I wonder who will come forward for leader now? Harman is temp leader but she's already ruled herself out of the running, according to BBC News.

 

The Tory's may have a majority at the moment but it's a fine one, give it a couple of years and I can see her pushing for it.

 

Yeah - if the Tories start having back-bench squabbles again like those over Europe in the past they could have problems.

 

That I'm expecting. They have a majority but only with 100% party control and I don't think they'll have that.

But it doesn't help Scotland.

 

As long as Labour don't have Scotland, I can't see anything but a Tory government.

 

I don't think there'll be an independence referendum unless the UK votes to leave the EU, in which case I can't say I'd blame them.

 

The election stats are actually more encouraging than you might expect in that respect!