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It’s Sir Keir

Yes but the majority of left minded people vote SNP in Scotland, picking up on your "Scotland very much didn't" comment.

I genuinely don't see much difference between the Scottish SNP Government 2007-2020 and New Labour 1997-2010. 13 years of welcome but timid reform. Both social democratic administrations.
 
Starmer destroyed Johnson again at PMQ'S.
 
20200513_133146.jpg
 
I genuinely don't see much difference between the Scottish SNP Government 2007-2020 and New Labour 1997-2010. 13 years of welcome but timid reform. Both social democratic administrations.

Somewhat, and its been disappointing how the SNP have tread water, especially under Nicola Sturgeon's leadership. However I don't remember New Labour abolishing tuition fees, providing free prescriptions, free school dinners, or providing universal access to sanitary products for women, and the SNP certainly didnae take us into an illegal war? ;))
 
Somewhat, and its been disappointing how the SNP have tread water, especially under Nicola Sturgeon's leadership. However I don't remember New Labour abolishing tuition fees, providing free prescriptions, free school dinners, or providing universal access to sanitary products for women, and the SNP certainly didnae take us into an illegal war? ;))

Let HenryLB remind you then.

"Lifted 600,000 kids and one million pensioners out of poverty

Employed 85,000 more nurses and cut NHS waiting times by over 80%

Began the largest ever investment in school facilities the country has seen and doubled funding for every pupil

Added 36,000 new teachers

Opened 2200 Sure Start centres
Introduced minimum wage while halving long-term unemployment

Increased child benefit, introduced child tax credits, and brought in Winter Fuel Payments

Enshrined workers rights to statutory holidays and paternity leave

Brought peace to NI

Doubled GiftAid and overseas aid

Devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales

Scrapped Section 28 and introduced civil partnerships."



I support any reforms whìch help workers and their families whether in Scotland or the UK. I could also make a list as long as my arm of policies that I have criticised both the SNP Government and New Labour for.
These reforms took place in the context a relatively strong economy. The UK economy was in a dire condition prior to the pandemic and a hell of a lot worse now. Reformism without reforms and Austerity will be the order of the day.

BIG G
 
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Let HenryLB remind you then.

Lifted 600,000 kids and one million pensioners out of poverty

Employed 85,000 more nurses and cut NHS waiting times by over 80%

Began the largest ever investment in school facilities the country has seen and doubled funding for every pupil

Added 36,000 new teachers

Opened 2200 Sure Start centres
Introduced minimum wage while halving long-term unemployment

Increased child benefit, introduced child tax credits, and brought in Winter Fuel Payments

Enshrined workers rights to statutory holidays and paternity leave

Brought peace to NI

Doubled GiftAid and overseas aid

Devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales

Scrapped Section 28 and introduced civil partnerships.



These reforms took place in the context a relatively strong economy. The UK economy was in a dire condition prior to the pandemic and a hell of a lot worse now. Reformism without reforms and Austerity will be the order of the day.

BIG G

Excellent, pleased to read that. Looks like New Labour done a better job than some suggest?
 
Excellent, pleased to read that. Looks like New Labour done a better job than some suggest?

British Capitalism allowed New Labour reforms, at a cost of course, for more than a decade he acted as the mouthpiece of Big Business. These were his real masters, the rich and mighty. The City of London.

BIG G
 
Let HenryLB remind you then.

"Lifted 600,000 kids and one million pensioners out of poverty

Employed 85,000 more nurses and cut NHS waiting times by over 80%

Began the largest ever investment in school facilities the country has seen and doubled funding for every pupil

Added 36,000 new teachers

Opened 2200 Sure Start centres
Introduced minimum wage while halving long-term unemployment

Increased child benefit, introduced child tax credits, and brought in Winter Fuel Payments

Enshrined workers rights to statutory holidays and paternity leave

Brought peace to NI

Doubled GiftAid and overseas aid

Devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales

Scrapped Section 28 and introduced civil partnerships."



I support any reforms whìch help workers and their families whether in Scotland or the UK. I could also make a list as long as my arm of policies that I have criticised both the SNP Government and New Labour for.
These reforms took place in the context a relatively strong economy. The UK economy was in a dire condition prior to the pandemic and a hell of a lot worse now. Reformism without reforms and Austerity will be the order of the day.

BIG G

The line you edited in, I cannae mind any compliments from you regarding any of the reforms introduced by the SNP whìch help workers and their families in Scotland?

Anyhow much of what you say I agree, austerity will reign, vicious, murderous decisions will be made to protect the rich, the tories can only be replaced be the likes of Starmer and co and with a massive change in voting in England, we are cream crackered in the UK.

Where we don't agree is I think we would make a better job of it alone. Luckily a majority of Scots now agree, pity Nicola Sturgeon and her cohort cannae grasp that nettle.
 
British Capitalism allowed New Labour reforms, at a cost of course, for more than a decade he acted as the mouthpiece of Big Business. These were his real masters, the rich and mighty. The City of London.

BIG G
What was British Capitalism's interest in 'allowing' the New Labour reforms? Why trust any flavour of leftist thinking above the surety of any conservative policy?
 
What was British Capitalism's interest in 'allowing' the New Labour reforms? Why trust any flavour of leftist thinking above the surety of any conservative policy?

Blairism is not Leftist and never will be. It guarenteed after the discontent by workers of Thatchers brutal regime and it's imminent demise, a safe Second 11 for Big Business. He was lauded by the very same reactionary billionaire owned press, as Starmer has been recently, why you may ask?
Perhaps starting with The Guardian reporting at the time that, “Tony Blair helped Murdoch overcome an official investigation which was jeopardising one of his big investments...Blair, while Prime Minister, immediately ordered his top officials to help the tycoon.” Remember Blair having a splendid time on Murdoch's yacht and the gutter scabby Sun ,The Times, the Sunday Times and the News of the World (all owned by Murdoch's News International) exalting their readers to vote for Blair's Labour in1979. Jesus.

Not lifting a finger to reverse Thatchers anti Trade Union legislation. Music to Big Business.

Initiating privatisation within the NHS, music to the ears of Big Business again.

Initiating PFI, more music for Big Business,
PFI debt for the British taxpayer is more than £300bn for infrastructure projects, with a value of £54.7bn.This means hospitals will have paid £80 billion by 2050for infrastructure worth £13 billion.

Blair gutted the Labour Party of internal democracy, subordinated it to US imperialism and prostituted Labour to the City of London.

Documents that were released as part of the Chilcot Report . Showed Tony Blair's government had taken on this disgrace big time, to make sure British companies benefited from the potential riches involved in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction, and plaudits from Britain's armament industry. Fuck sake 500,000 civilian deaths worth it Tony?

How that fucker ever got free rein in the MSM along with, Campbell, Lord Mandelson who not unsurprisingly joined George Osborne on a yacht belonging to Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, as a guest of financier Nathaniel Rothschild. Both daily attacked Corbyn in the Tory free newspaper with a massive circulation in London,The Evening Standard edited by Osbourne and owned by Russian Oligarch
Alexander Lebedev. Whats with it with these right wing Labour apologists and yachts and billionaires .

If you want more amigo, as I have said the list of my criticisms is as long as my arm.

Most Nats on here could express their criticisms of anything Nat on the back of a postage stamp.
Several Nat pals on here over the years very much the minority have had the balls to critisise SNP/ Government policies/actions. I salute you. To the vast majority who have not . Grow a pair. My critisism of things I disagree with in the Labour Party has not been ephemeral but constructive and over 50 years of membership. Definately not to the liking of the Party establishment over the years.

For those Nat Hibee amigos I know , who do not have constructive criticism of your own Party, you do no justice to yourselves and will not further the Scottish Independence cause in a progressive direction in my opinion.


BIG G
 
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Yes but the majority of left minded people vote SNP in Scotland, picking up on your "Scotland very much didn't" comment.

They're not a left-wing party, though. Certainly not of the kind that Big G or his ilk would recognise as such, which was the benchmark I was using.
 
this of course is true, but there's a big difference between beliefs and behaviour and the reality is that there is a much bigger difference in terms of actual voting habits in elections than the social attitudes results would suggest

Depends where you slice the cake. There's a big difference between how people vote in Liverpool and Surrey, so I'm not sure how useful or accurate it is to tell me that 99% of English people are crazed Thatcherites.
 
Depends where you slice the cake. There's a big difference between how people vote in Liverpool and Surrey, so I'm not sure how useful or accurate it is to tell me that 99% of English people are crazed Thatcherites.
Jesus. Ok, where did I say anything about anyone being a Thatcherite, that's a ridiculous straw man. Secondly, it was you taking each nation as one singular entity and saying that there is no difference. And regardless of where cakes are sliced, England as one national entity consistently votes to the right os Scotland as one national entity despite similar social attitudes responses. Thats inarguable, which is probably why you introduced the scarecrow
 
Jesus. Ok, where did I say anything about anyone being a Thatcherite, that's a ridiculous straw man. Secondly, it was you taking each nation as one singular entity and saying that there is no difference. And regardless of where cakes are sliced, England as one national entity consistently votes to the right os Scotland as one national entity despite similar social attitudes responses. Thats inarguable, which is probably why you introduced the scarecrow

You haven't followed the conversation, clearly.
 
You haven't followed the conversation, clearly.
Oh I see, so your response to my post was about things other people have written.
 
Oh I see, so your response to my post was about things other people have written.

Yes. Because my post that you responded to was dealing directly with that point. If you want to talk about things in the abstract we can of course do that but it's not completely barmy to assume you might be taking part in the discussion that's actually happening.
 
Yes. Because my post that you responded to was dealing directly with that point. If you want to talk about things in the abstract we can of course do that but it's not completely barmy to assume you might be taking part in the discussion that's actually happening.
I don't even understand what you're trying to say here. I came in at the point when you said that social attitudes suggest similarities in beliefs in both countries, and i pointed out that actual voting suggests that despite answering social attitudes questions similarly, when it comes to behaviour, e.g. voting, that there are clearly differences, at which point you started on about 90% Thatcherites. Nothing I said was abstract, in fact the opposite, it was based on things such as an election just a few months ago. What the above seems to suggest is that you simply think that everybody who argues that the polity in scotland is different from england in any way believes exactly the same thing, so you can answer any of my points in exactly the same way as anybody else who thinks there is a difference, regardless of what they say and why. So you are homogenising many separate arguments and debates, either because you believe 'we' all believe the same, or you can't be arsed with any nuance, or you're too blinkered to even see any nuance.
 
Would staus quo remainers feel better if the present incumbents in our Holyrood parish church council were pillioried left right & centre for their shortcomings on this board? (they should vent their ire at the shocking cost to the public purse of these councils in Edinburgh Cardiff and Belfast, which you all seem to accept as second nature).

There is far more shite going on in the English Nationilst run Houses of Parliament. I for one will be moaning and sniping from the sides against that shower of shite until I have no need to.

When the scandals from "wee nic" and co begin to get anywhere near the scandels I have seen from Tories, Labour (and Lib Dems) in England, Ill maybe vent a bit more closer to home.

Too many entrenched in their ideological mind battles, too much infighting posturing from labour. While they to and fro for the soul of their party, the fucking beat goes on, and on , and on , and on.

The majority of Independence voters want this shite show to stop. To have a control over ALL its affairs. To control her borders and her economy and her people. To attempt to leave behind the never ending shite show.

The vast vast majority of Independence voters are NOT nationailists in the sense of the NF / BNP (or watevs these fucktards call themselves) or any populist right wing parties springing up all over Europe. They are just people pig sick of forever being at the back of the queue, but at the front of the queue when it comes to social depravity.

Should we ever grow some balls and see our country stand free, I could see "wee nic" and her clan being in goverment for no more than 1 session. Scotland could then vote in the type of party and leaning she wants. If they end up not being for the people the electorate can vote the feckers out in a short period of time. Would love some of those entrenched in the 70 and 80s to project their ideas. Trying to fix something so fundamentally wrong means nothing really ever progresses.

Sniping wrongs and rights up here is just noise. The king is dead! Long live the King.


yawn.
 
Would staus quo remainers feel better if the present incumbents in our Holyrood parish church council were pillioried left right & centre for their shortcomings on this board? (they should vent their ire at the shocking cost to the public purse of these councils in Edinburgh Cardiff and Belfast, which you all seem to accept as second nature).

There is far more shite going on in the English Nationilst run Houses of Parliament. I for one will be moaning and sniping from the sides against that shower of shite until I have no need to.

When the scandals from "wee nic" and co begin to get anywhere near the scandels I have seen from Tories, Labour (and Lib Dems) in England, Ill maybe vent a bit more closer to home.

Too many entrenched in their ideological mind battles, too much infighting posturing from labour. While they to and fro for the soul of their party, the fucking beat goes on, and on , and on , and on.

The majority of Independence voters want this shite show to stop. To have a control over ALL its affairs. To control her borders and her economy and her people. To attempt to leave behind the never ending shite show.

The vast vast majority of Independence voters are NOT nationailists in the sense of the NF / BNP (or watevs these fucktards call themselves) or any populist right wing parties springing up all over Europe. They are just people pig sick of forever being at the back of the queue, but at the front of the queue when it comes to social depravity.

Should we ever grow some balls and see our country stand free, I could see "wee nic" and her clan being in goverment for no more than 1 session. Scotland could then vote in the type of party and leaning she wants. If they end up not being for the people the electorate can vote the feckers out in a short period of time. Would love some of those entrenched in the 70 and 80s to project their ideas. Trying to fix something so fundamentally wrong means nothing really ever progresses.

Sniping wrongs and rights up here is just noise. The king is dead! Long live the King.


yawn.

Social depravity you say. Has Sir Shrink been up to his public indecency tricks again. Please tell but no photos please.

BIG G
 
Instead of constantly ripping Sturgeon, Starmer and Johnson tae bits it wid be quite refreshing tae here what Gareth and Big G think Corbyn , Karl Marx or the editor of www.canary. would have done differently, bearing in mind hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'm a socialist, I've got no time for blinkered marxists ideology or conservative right wing ideology. Sturgeon ,IMO has done as good a job as could be done under the circumstances, Starmer is starting tae look electable, much to the ire of Gareth and Gordon, and Johnston is our PM , thanks to Corbyn and his Marxist cabal.I'm with Emerald Green the SNP is not so much a political party as a means to an end, get independance and Scotland can vote in the party IT wants. In my experience , and I've been on this earth nearly 69 years, most folk want a left of centre govt. they're not interested in marxism or calling people comrade but as long as so called labour supporters keep slagging off what will hopefully be an electable Leader then we will be under the Tory jackboot for the foreseeable. Rant over.
 
Somewhat, and its been disappointing how the SNP have tread water, especially under Nicola Sturgeon's leadership. However I don't remember New Labour abolishing tuition fees, providing free prescriptions, free school dinners, or providing universal access to sanitary products for women, and the SNP certainly didnae take us into an illegal war? ;))

Labour did provide a form of free school dinners did they not? I was one of them

Also I can't remember any government having such a poor record in education. Its a travesty. And we could go on and on about the continued social deprivation. We've had 13 years of mediocrity under this mob. No doubt they've done some good things but this is a government that's tired. Unfortunately there is no alternative which means we are stuck in a quaigmire for another generation.
 
Between Rosena Allin-Khans shitstorm with Hancock last week and Sir Keir calling arsehole Johnson to account yesterday I'm quite enjoying this New New Labour.

I don't care if they're left, right or centre of Labour, they are making the torys feel very uncomfortable and that's a decent start.
 
If I were a Tory Jack I would be taking some comfort from the recent Ipsos Mori poll indicated that the public thinks TV presenter Piers Morgan and even the hopeless journalists allowed to ask questions at the government’s daily briefings are doing a better job than Starmer at holding Johnson’s Government to account over its mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. In fact, it finds that the public thinks everyone is doing a better job than Starmer. Amongst Labour voters, only 33% think Labour’s front bench team under Starmer is doing a good job.
Early indications on policy and general direction are confirming my fears.


BIG G
 
Instead of constantly ripping Sturgeon, Starmer and Johnson tae bits it wid be quite refreshing tae here what Gareth and Big G think Corbyn , Karl Marx or the editor of www.canary. would have done differently, bearing in mind hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'm a socialist, I've got no time for blinkered marxists ideology or conservative right wing ideology. Sturgeon ,IMO has done as good a job as could be done under the circumstances, Starmer is starting tae look electable, much to the ire of Gareth and Gordon, and Johnston is our PM , thanks to Corbyn and his Marxist cabal.I'm with Emerald Green the SNP is not so much a political party as a means to an end, get independance and Scotland can vote in the party IT wants. In my experience , and I've been on this earth nearly 69 years, most folk want a left of centre govt. they're not interested in marxism or calling people comrade but as long as so called labour supporters keep slagging off what will hopefully be an electable Leader then we will be under the Tory jackboot for the foreseeable. Rant over.
Where to start with this, the first thing to say is you obviously don't know what Marxism is. Now that's not an issue in and of itself, but when you use it as a term of abuse it makes you just look a bit daft. Its like me peppering my critiques of people with scientific terms i have no understanding of. Or calling you a fascist because you;re more right wing than I am.
In any case, would you care to point to where i've been ripping into anyone of late. On here I've said very little about covid 19, but that clearly doesn't matter as the real point of you ire appears to be about anyone to the left of you. Dear oh dear
 
So, I cant say anything about marxism but Gordon can rip into nationalists and suggest that anybody that voted for new labour is a big business, sun reading tory in disguise. I've never voted tory in my puff, when I lived up the road I voted SNP. Down here, up until the Iraq war I voted labour, now I look for independents I feel I can support.i've not heard you or Gordon give the SNP any credit for any of the steps they've taken. If you have and I've missed it I'll apologise.
 
If I were a Tory Jack I would be taking some comfort from the recent Ipsos Mori poll indicated that the public thinks TV presenter Piers Morgan and even the hopeless journalists allowed to ask questions at the government’s daily briefings are doing a better job than Starmer at holding Johnson’s Government to account over its mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. In fact, it finds that the public thinks everyone is doing a better job than Starmer. Amongst Labour voters, only 33% think Labour’s front bench team under Starmer is doing a good job.
Early indications on policy and general direction are confirming my fears.


BIG G
Early days yet.
 
So, I cant say anything about marxism but Gordon can rip into nationalists and suggest that anybody that voted for new labour is a big business, sun reading tory in disguise. I've never voted tory in my puff, when I lived up the road I voted SNP. Down here, up until the Iraq war I voted labour, now I look for independents I feel I can support.i've not heard you or Gordon give the SNP any credit for any of the steps they've taken. If you have and I've missed it I'll apologise.
What I think is don’t throw terms about as a term of abuse that you don’t fully understan. The idea that Corbyn was a Marxist is risible.
I’ve argued with big g about nationalism. If you can be a supporter of the union and not be a nationalist then you can also be a supporter of independence and not be a nationalist. Alternatively it’s british nationalism against Scottish nationalism. where I put myselfis as a non nationalist supporter of a more radical independence than the snp offer. Not sure you’re correct on new lab given Gordon himself voted for them, just not unquestioningl. I couldn’t vote for them as I felt it would give tacit support to the horrible things they were doing.
I don’t tend to write anything about the positive things any government does, never have done.
 
I take it you didn't read the bit that said the SNP is a means to an end and not a political party as such
 
I take it you didn't read the bit that said the SNP is a means to an end and not a political party as such
I did, so? What’s that got to do with anything else I’ve said?
 
You said you want a more radical independence than the SNP can offer, vote SNP to gain independence because that's the only way you'll get it then vote for the political road map you want in an independent Scotland. Or do you think that your particular brand of politics wouldnt get voted in whether Scotlands independent or not
 
You said you want a more radical independence than the SNP can offer, vote SNP to gain independence because that's the only way you'll get it then vote for the political road map you want in an independent Scotland. Or do you think that your particular brand of politics wouldnt get voted in whether Scotlands independent or not
Well that's a very different set of questions mate and I see the logic, but I also think the SNP have to show that things can be better under independence, or else why bother. But they are just too timid.
I'm under no illusions that mine is a majority view, but I think we need a left indy to keep the SNP from morphing into a centrism that improves nothing and cant win over people desperate for change
 
His mum was a nurse and his dad a toolmaker. He was named after Keir Hardie. Let's hope he remembers his roots...
Don't think his hair matters that much.
 
Labour did provide a form of free school dinners did they not? I was one of them

Also I can't remember any government having such a poor record in education. Its a travesty. And we could go on and on about the continued social deprivation. We've had 13 years of mediocrity under this mob. No doubt they've done some good things but this is a government that's tired. Unfortunately there is no alternative which means we are stuck in a quaigmire for another generation.

You can have the Tories, the only other viable option in Scotland? Means to an end as others have correctly stated.
 
Don't think his hair matters that much.

Ask William Hague and IDS.
 
I don't even understand what you're trying to say here. I came in at the point when you said that social attitudes suggest similarities in beliefs in both countries, and i pointed out that actual voting suggests that despite answering social attitudes questions similarly, when it comes to behaviour, e.g. voting, that there are clearly differences, at which point you started on about 90% Thatcherites. Nothing I said was abstract, in fact the opposite, it was based on things such as an election just a few months ago. What the above seems to suggest is that you simply think that everybody who argues that the polity in scotland is different from england in any way believes exactly the same thing, so you can answer any of my points in exactly the same way as anybody else who thinks there is a difference, regardless of what they say and why. So you are homogenising many separate arguments and debates, either because you believe 'we' all believe the same, or you can't be arsed with any nuance, or you're too blinkered to even see any nuance.

You entered a conversation to make a tangential answer to a point I'd made in response to someone saying that English people are "99% Thatcherites" and then expressed amazement that I repeated that as context because you appeared not to have read what I was responding to. I'm not sure why you're doing that or what argument you're trying to have.
 
Would staus quo remainers feel better if the present incumbents in our Holyrood parish church council were pillioried left right & centre for their shortcomings on this board? (they should vent their ire at the shocking cost to the public purse of these councils in Edinburgh Cardiff and Belfast, which you all seem to accept as second nature).

There is far more shite going on in the English Nationilst run Houses of Parliament. I for one will be moaning and sniping from the sides against that shower of shite until I have no need to.

When the scandals from "wee nic" and co begin to get anywhere near the scandels I have seen from Tories, Labour (and Lib Dems) in England, Ill maybe vent a bit more closer to home.

Too many entrenched in their ideological mind battles, too much infighting posturing from labour. While they to and fro for the soul of their party, the fucking beat goes on, and on , and on , and on.

The majority of Independence voters want this shite show to stop. To have a control over ALL its affairs. To control her borders and her economy and her people. To attempt to leave behind the never ending shite show.

The vast vast majority of Independence voters are NOT nationailists in the sense of the NF / BNP (or watevs these fucktards call themselves) or any populist right wing parties springing up all over Europe. They are just people pig sick of forever being at the back of the queue, but at the front of the queue when it comes to social depravity.

Should we ever grow some balls and see our country stand free, I could see "wee nic" and her clan being in goverment for no more than 1 session. Scotland could then vote in the type of party and leaning she wants. If they end up not being for the people the electorate can vote the feckers out in a short period of time. Would love some of those entrenched in the 70 and 80s to project their ideas. Trying to fix something so fundamentally wrong means nothing really ever progresses.

Sniping wrongs and rights up here is just noise. The king is dead! Long live the King.


yawn.

I appreciate what you're saying for the first two thirds but you lose me when you say stuff like

Scotland could then vote in the type of party and leaning she wants.

What party does 'Scotland', this homogenous polity, want? It feels like the same sort of thinking that pretends all English people are Thatcherites, when what I see in both Scotland and England a very widely spread set of opinions that differ massively across each country from person to person but, in that variety, are strikingly similar.
 
I appreciate what you're saying for the first two thirds but you lose me when you say stuff like

Scotland could then vote in the type of party and leaning she wants.

What party does 'Scotland', this homogenous polity, want? It feels like the same sort of thinking that pretends all English people are Thatcherites, when what I see in both Scotland and England a very widely spread set of opinions that differ massively across each country from person to person but, in that variety, are strikingly similar.

I think what EG is suggesting is that independence comes first, regardless of your political hue for many of us, then people will vote in more left/right/ centre patterns in Scotland?

I vote SNP as I want independence. Once achieved, I would expect new parties such as Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Lib Dems, etc. to appear as the SNP vanish having achieved their goal. I would expect that there would be a larger support for a left leaning party than say the tories in the Central Belt and major towns and cities up the east coast, and a return of the Liberal/ Tory voting patterns in rural areas? I suspect that is the same in England, although cities like Sunderland and areas like County Durham now suggest that may have changed forever?
 
You entered a conversation to make a tangential answer to a point I'd made in response to someone saying that English people are "99% Thatcherites" and then expressed amazement that I repeated that as context because you appeared not to have read what I was responding to. I'm not sure why you're doing that or what argument you're trying to have.
are you being deliberately obtuse. My point wasn’t at all tangential. You were saying attitudes are similar, I was suggesting that that tells you only so much as behaviour often conflicts with professed attitudes. It’s both a relevant point and one that is pretty easy to understand.
 
are you being deliberately obtuse. My point wasn’t at all tangential. You were saying attitudes are similar, I was suggesting that that tells you only so much as behaviour often conflicts with professed attitudes. It’s both a relevant point and one that is pretty easy to understand.

Person one: "All English people are tories"
Person two: "They're not actually. In fact attitudes are broadly similar - and equally broad - across both countries."
Person three: "Actually although attitudes are similar, behaviour conflicts blah blah"

Thanks for your input, I guess.
 
I think what EG is suggesting is that independence comes first, regardless of your political hue for many of us, then people will vote in more left/right/ centre patterns in Scotland?

I vote SNP as I want independence. Once achieved, I would expect new parties such as Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Lib Dems, etc. to appear as the SNP vanish having achieved their goal. I would expect that there would be a larger support for a left leaning party than say the tories in the Central Belt and major towns and cities up the east coast, and a return of the Liberal/ Tory voting patterns in rural areas? I suspect that is the same in England, although cities like Sunderland and areas like County Durham now suggest that may have changed forever?

Yes, I certainly don't disagree with that. I just get a bit wary of these arguments that begin - and I fully accept it may be a sort of shorthand - that "Scotland will then choose the government it likes" because it strikes me as a rhetorical attempt to suggest difference from England and homogeneity in Scotland. The latter I think is obviously real but not that pronounced, and the latter is illusory.

I'd think Scotland would settle into a centre-right vs centre-left paradigm like most western European countries? I expect the centre left would win a bit more than in England. Although an interesting point I've seen made only occasionally (I don't necessarily agree with it) is that if independence is more of an economic or social shock than people expect there's a chance Scotland might lurch right-wards for a while.

I'd be amazed if sans brexit and sans crank leftism places like Durham and Sunderland don't return pretty quickly to the Labour fold.
 

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