Scottish Election Results

A section to discuss matters not related to Chess in particular.
John McKenna

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by John McKenna » Mon May 09, 2016 4:16 pm

John McKenna wrote: I will think about it all, but right now the way I read it is that the Scots should have voted for independence in the Scottish Referendum. That would have been the honest way, however, they chose the canny way.

What on earth does this mean? If you are accusing me of not being honest, I think you need to explain.
My statement there was a little too terse and sparse - what I mean is that - as Nick Faulks pointed out - the average voter in the Scottish Referendum cannot have been uninfluenced by the range and power of the propaganda the Unionist side pumped out during the campaign. Given that, I think many an honest Scot would be inclined to be 'canny' about how to vote. (Of course, avoiding splitting away during the oil-price crash was a blessing.)

Alistair, you certainly strike me as a thoroughly honest person. I read what you wrote above with great interest and thank you for saying it as you see it.

Elections these days are far from simple, which is why a great many may have given up voting at all, in my view.

In my own case down here in the London area I had to put four Xs on three different-coloured voting papers.

Two were simple - I just followed the Green cross code. (The traffic pollution in London is killing people, you know.)

However, for the other two - after some mental gymnastics - I went Blue then Purple!!

I know you may struggle to understand that but it made a kind of tactical sense to me and in the end it was all I could do to square that circle. I'm still trying to work out what the impact, if any, my votes may have had on the outcomes. [And why Harry Lamb of UKIP fame seems to live mainly(?) in France.]

All I can say is I am satisfied that I had no part in electing Sheik Sadiq to office, nor his two-timing (he kept two jobs) predecessor Bojo the Bozo.

Adieu.

PS Do you know what the "UKIP spat" you mentioned was about? (Probably the usual sour grapes after the beer's gone flat.)

Alistair Campbell
Posts: 379
Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:53 pm

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by Alistair Campbell » Tue May 10, 2016 12:06 am

NickFaulks wrote:
Alistair Campbell wrote: The Scots do want to be in the UK – we had a referendum on the matter.
The view from England is that they fell for exactly the same scare tactics and foreign interventions now being deployed down here and have been regretting it since the morning after.
Is that view universally held?

I think there was plenty of propaganda from both sides (and most of it was ignored). There was a lot of misinformation propagated. As I said, the polls suggest that any regret is limited. The fact that the oil price is not the suggested $113 per barrel and that we might have been facing a deficit of £15bn does not appear to be being treated as the dodged bullet that might otherwise have been thought.
John McKenna wrote:PS Do you know what the "UKIP spat" you mentioned was about? (Probably the usual sour grapes after the beer's gone flat.)
I don't follow UKIP internal politics that closely but I believe that the leader was accused of interfering with local parties' autonomy by threatening to impose candidates. One or two people in Edinburgh and Glasgow have been publicly critical of Mr Coburn's leadership style - their polling numbers declined during the campaign for what that's worth.

John McKenna

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by John McKenna » Tue May 10, 2016 1:41 am

NickFaulks wrote:

Alistair Campbell wrote:The Scots do want to be in the UK – we had a referendum on the matter.

The view from England is that they fell for exactly the same scare tactics and foreign interventions now being deployed down here and have been regretting it since the morning after.

Is that view universally held?
My view is that a far greater weight of shot from much bigger guns was fired by the Unionists in the Scottish Referendum.

(But, I do not share Nick's view about "the morning after" - Scots had no need of a pill of any kind since on balance they'd got what they wanted. I.e. Some kind of 'devomax' or at least devomor. I think the SNP know that a reborn Scotland will have to be weaned off the milk of its surrogate mother slowly.)

The UK Conservative government already front loaded their campaign for staying in the EU by spending public money on a leaflet.
That spending could not be matched by their opponents and is a sign that, again, more weight will be behind the stay campaign.

If everyone simply ignored such propaganda it would not be produced - it has an effect and even if marginal it can make the difference.

From what is said about UKIP, above, I'd say that they lack cohesion as well as coherence no matter where they stand.
Therefore they are only worth a tactical protest vote, apart from any vote directly to do with the EU when they come into their own.
John McKenna wrote: Would you agree, Alistair, that the results in general in the recent UK-wide elections were a kind of 'potpourri' in the literal French language sense of being a "rotten pot"?

No – I don’t think they were rotten.
Were you satisfied with the results then?

To me they just confirmed that I am living in a kind of electoral LEGOLAND - all very colourful and regular, BUT totally artificial and contrived to look like something it isn't remotely like at all in reality. I.e. an organic democracy "of the people by the people for the people".

Brian Towers
Posts: 1266
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2014 7:23 pm

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by Brian Towers » Tue May 10, 2016 1:08 pm

Alistair Campbell wrote:
NickFaulks wrote:
Alistair Campbell wrote: The Scots do want to be in the UK – we had a referendum on the matter.
The view from England is that they fell for exactly the same scare tactics and foreign interventions now being deployed down here and have been regretting it since the morning after.
Is that view universally held?
Of course it is very easy and natural to make the same mistake Nick made and project one's personal views onto the general population but I think the answer is a resounding "No".

I think the commonly held belief is that the Scots simply showed common sense. Independence in 1975, had it been on offer, would have been a no-brainer with decades of increasing oil revenue to look forward to safe in the shadow of a powerful OPEC flexing its market moving muscles, but in 2014 with perhaps one third of the oil left, fracking starting to take off and massive new reserves of natural gas being discovered, it made very little sense.

I struggle to believe that many Scots were fooled by all the other nonsense that the "in" campaign came up with. The meaningful part of the SNP campaign was that of pride and self determination. In 30 years time I believe the Scots could have ended up being better off but it would have depended on them exhibiting great self-belief and pride such that their brightest and best gravitated towards Edinburgh and Glasgow and not London. A difficult ask when the first 10 years would likely have been ones of misery mitigated only by knowledge of independence. Braveheart indeed.

FWIW the few Scots I know well enough to have discussed this with were all horrified by the prospect of Scottish separation from the UK. But there again they all live in England.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Kevin Thurlow
Posts: 5833
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:28 pm

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed May 11, 2016 12:14 pm

People I know in the Western Isles were horrified by the thought of being governed from far-off Edinburgh, and regarded that as no different from being governed from London.

John McKenna

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by John McKenna » Wed May 11, 2016 2:19 pm

They can be too serious in the Isles...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... azine.html

Alistair Campbell
Posts: 379
Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:53 pm

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by Alistair Campbell » Wed May 11, 2016 11:36 pm

John McKenna wrote:My view is that a far greater weight of shot from much bigger guns was fired by the Unionists in the Scottish Referendum.
Perhaps the Unionists just had bigger guns? I think Better Together outspent the Yes campaign, but only by £3.6m to £3.1m. OK, propaganda must make a difference, but if both sides are at it, it seems that people go with their prejudices.
John McKenna wrote: Were you satisfied with the results then?
Reasonably. The results were not as good as I hoped, but better than I feared. There seems evidence of a return to a norm, albeit not the immediately preceding norm. Different areas of Scotland behaved in different ways.
Kevin Thurlow wrote:People I know in the Western Isles were horrified by the thought of being governed from far-off Edinburgh, and regarded that as no different from being governed from London.
I have often heard those sentiments expressed. There are moves afoot to devolve more powers to the islands (although IMO the Scottish Government likes to centralise)

I note, however, that in the abortive 1979 referendum, the Western Isles were the most pro-devolution whereas Orkney and Shetland were significantly anti.

By 1997, the differences weren’t quite so extreme – and only Orkney and Dumfries and Galloway voted against tax-varying powers.

John McKenna

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by John McKenna » Thu May 12, 2016 1:23 am

John M, "Were you satisfied with the results then?"
Alistair C, "Reasonably... "

Sorry, Alistair, but I meant the overall results in the UK.

It seemed like a potluck patchwork to me, on the whole.

Edit: Sadiq Khan has risen a few basis points in my estimation since he announced he'd be resigning his Westminster seat.

Alistair Campbell
Posts: 379
Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:53 pm

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by Alistair Campbell » Fri May 13, 2016 1:41 pm

John McKenna wrote:John M, "Were you satisfied with the results then?"
Alistair C, "Reasonably... "

Sorry, Alistair, but I meant the overall results in the UK.
Reasonably. The results were not as good as I hoped, but better than I feared. They are of little practical relevance to me.

John McKenna

Re: Scottish Election Results

Post by John McKenna » Fri May 13, 2016 2:04 pm

Alistair Campbell wrote:
John McKenna wrote:John M, "Were you satisfied with the results then?"
Alistair C, "Reasonably... "

Sorry, Alistair, but I meant the overall results in the UK.
Reasonably. The results were not as good as I hoped, but better than I feared. They are of little practical relevance to me.
Alistair, thanks for that uncannily cryptic reply.

I'm happy to leave it at that and sing Farewell to Loch Katrine.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0MKsIVp5AM5ZPjo7AMH1pO