Referendum aftermath

Pretty much, LL, they now have a HUGE membership - nearly 100,000, making them the third biggest party in the UK, never mind Scotland. They also have a loose alliance with the two smaller, 'niche' independence parties, the Greens and SSP, on this matter, as they are all taking the sensible attitude that we get independence FIRST, and then sort out the rest.

It's actually quite easy to follow - the group that 'won' the referendum is tearing itself apart very publicly, and the group that 'lost' is perfectly happy and growing, thank you very much.

If you ever wondered about the real meaning of 'Pyrrhic Victory' - then that vote is it. It's sometimes hard to remember just who won and who lost...

Labor in Scotland will sign their own death warrant if they choose 'China Gold' Brown as their new leader - oh, I'm in favor of them doing just that. LL

They signed their own death warrant when they jumped into bed with the Tories and proclaimed, Oh NO!, LL.

They are NEVER going to be forgiven for that, nor the images that came in with the results - ordinary Scots, people with nothing but hope for the future that had been snatched from them by dirty tricks and bribes, sobbing their hearts out in despair while Lamont and co partied and celebrated with the Tories.

Scottish Labour Party = Parcel of Rogues, 2014.

Do you have to wait long until your separation can be voted on again?

Maybe 4 - 5 years, Lily? By which time hopefully it will have finally sunk in with a fair chunk of the NOs that the one thing London can always be relied upon to do is shaft us.

There are always going to be some die-hard Unionists and Union Jack-wavers, they're a lost cause. But many voted NO because they were foolish enough to believe the Vow nonsense, deluding themselves that this time, London really did mean it....

So, there's a UK general election next May, which is going to be very interesting indeed. I suspect we will see the SNP consolidating its position in Scotland, and UKIP mauling the establishment parties in England. I do get the impression that Farage doesn't care if Scotland goes her own way, it's England he's interested in, not the Celtic fringes.

Scottish parliamentary election in 2016; all being well, the independence parties will swipe the floor with the established parties, and then - GAME ON.

I am not going to attempt to predict what will happen, but it's going to be interesting...

I do so hope you get your wish.  

I see no way any of it is going to carry on as before, Lily. I don't think anyone can calculate what happens when Scots MPs and MSPs are predominantly pro-independence, and Farage is playing Kingmaker in Westminster.

Wales has a degree of devolution, but not as much as Scotland; unhappily for them, Labour has been running their Assembly and appear to have made a complete mess of everything. Except shoving their noses in the trough, of course.

Nu labour has form for troughing, I believe,  so what else is new?

This was just a council byelection, but is a useful straw in the wind:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/snp-by-election-win-reflects-surge-in-party-support-following-the-indyref.1414145516

SNP Councillor Iain MacLean won the by-election for the ward of Argyll and Bute Council, the first vote to be held in Scotland since the indyref, after receiving 40.9% of the vote, a 16.3% boost on its total in the previous by-election held on July 17 2014.

Labour and Conservative both scored a lower vote share, down 1.9% and 2.8% respectively, and the Liberal Democrats did not field a candidate.

The by-election was called following the death of independent Councillor John MacGregor.

Michael Russell MSP said: "This is a tremendous result and I'm delighted for Councillor Iain MacLean; I have no doubt that he will serve all the people of Oban North and Lorn with dedication.

"Significantly this by-election - which is the first since the referendum - mirrors the very positive polling on party ratings since the referendum.

"The victory here in Oban North and Lorn reflects a wider surge in support for the SNP as more and more people have come to realise that the SNP is the only major party that will represent all the people of Scotland, hold the Westminster government to account, by ensuring that Scotland is given the extensive new powers we were promised two days before the referendum.

"The Westminster parties were all losers last night, with a drop in support for Labour and Tory, and the Lib Dems not even bothering to field a candidate in a constituency where they have a sitting MP."

That is a HUGE swing to the SNP.

I didn't see it, but I gather Alex Salmond was the star of Question Time from Liverpool last week, and won new fans by suggesting Liverpool secedes from England and joins Scotland.....

Wow!!!  What a thought.

*chuckle*

Karma at work again?

http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/297361-brown-wont-enter-the-race-to-be-the-next-scottish-labour-leader/

Gordon Brown will not enter the race to be the next leader of Scottish Labour, a source close to the former prime minister has confirmed.

The Kirkcaldy MP was tipped as a possible replacement for Johann Lamont following her bitter resignation on Friday, with some party members holding him up as a unifying figure amid increasingly divergent views on the future direction of the party.

A source close to Mr Brown said: "For the past four years, and on every occasion he has been asked, Mr Brown has made it clear he is not returning to frontline politics. That position has not changed."

Deputy leader Anas Sarwar MP and MSPs Jenny Marra and Kezia Dugdale, who were all widely tipped to enter the leadership race, also ruled themselves out ton Monday alongside bookmakers' outsider Jackie Baillie MSP.

The stage appears to be set for Blairite shadow international development secretary Jim Murphy and Holyrood left-winger Neil Findlay as the likely front-runners.

Mr Murphy emerged as a prominent Labour unionist voice in the independence referendum campaign, sparking heated debates from his soapbox around Scotland with his attempted 100 towns in 100 days tour.

Mr Findlay has criticised Labour's cautious devolution proposals as a member of the left-wing Red Paper Collective, which has called for full devolution of income tax, wider borrowing powers, the power to create publicly owned enterprises and the right to challenge the deployment of nuclear weapons.

Ms Lamont attacked senior colleagues at Westminster when she resigned on Friday, accusing them of treating Scotland as a "branch office".

Too funny, not even Broon wants to be the Boss. I haven't laughed so much since The Rangers went bust and got kicked down the leagues.

Oh, and I think using borrowed money to create 'publicly owned enterprises' - a contradiction in terms - has been tried decades ago and failed every single time.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/poll-labour-would-be-left-with-four-seats-in-scotland-if-general-election.1414679885

The Ipsos Mori poll for STV News found that 52% of Scots would vote for the SNP if there was a Westminster election tomorrow.

The poll puts Labour support at 23%, support for Conservatives at 10%, Liberal Democrats at 6%, the Greens on 6%, and others at 3%.

The findings, according to the Electoral Calculus website, which takes the breakdown in this poll and then assumes uniform swings across Scotland's 59 constituencies, regardless of local factors, predicts the SNP would secure 54 seats at Westminster, with Labour taking four and the Liberal Democrats one. The Tories would loses their solitary Scottish seat.

At the 2010 election, Labour received 42% of the Scottish vote and the SNP 19.9%.

The Electoral Calculus analysis of today's poll figures would slash Labour's 40 current Scottish MPs. Seats in jeopardy would include Jim Murphy, Douglas Alexander and Margaret Curran.

The only Scottish Labour MPs who would survive would be Willie Bain in Glasgow North East, Tom Clarke in Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, Gordon Brown in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and Ian Davidson in Glasgow South West.

Remind me again, who was it that won the election, and who lost?

I think we all knew that something like this was going to happen. What a glorious cock up.

IMO, one of the reasons it's happening, that the YESes haven't gone back into their boxes, is that it was such a horrible, dirty, dishonest campaign, with everyone from Obama down - or up - joining in to threaten Scotland. And the black propaganda from the media, especially the BBC, was an eye opener.

Then the votes were barely counted before the Vowers went back on their word, new wars were started, more oil miraculously found.....and of course, the 'Scottish' Labour party started openly backstabbing each other.

A lot of folk, even if they aren't staunchly pro-independent, now see the SNP as our only protection against whatever fresh horrors are being cooked up in Westminster. Especially if England votes for some ghastly coalition of Tories/UKIP.

Interesting times ahead. I did say a narrow NO win would be the worst of all possible results...even a narrow YES win would have given folk something positive to work towards and aim for.

I suspect we are going to have several years of feuding between Edinburgh and Westminster, with a growing SNP vote. And in the not too distant future a big YES win.

More here, with graphics:

http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/297729-stv-poll-labour-would-annihilated-if-general-election-held-tomorrow/

bb1 wrote:More here, with graphics:

http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/297729-stv-poll-labour-would-annihilated-if-general-election-held-tomorrow/

Oh My.

This is how the Holyrood elections in 2011 went:



You can see the wipeout of unionist parties starting there. Most of the unionist MSPs got there by the proportional representation vote, not the first-past-the-post vote.

It's also worth remembering that the SNP have been the party of government in Scotland for seven years now, and have done a pretty good job of it. Of course they've made mistakes, every government does, but on the whole, they've done nothing but good for Scotland on a very limited budget.

Conventional wisdom is that people tend to vote against the incumbent government after a few years, not for the incumbent government to get more and more popular.

*chuckle*

Oh dear....

This above all, to thine own self be true.  Thou cans't not then be false to any man.

Scottish Labour were bought and sold for London gold, Sabot. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Then there is that other saying........ everything comes to he who waits.