2015 UK General Election

[MartinCarpenter]

So the Scots can vote, you see

The SNP mainfesto really is absolutely explicit about actively voting in Westminster as a party mildly to the left of Labour. The 'small' matter of more devolution aside, I wouldn't expect things to play out hugely differently over the next few years if Labour had won all/many of those seats instead.

England by itself always has been relatively right wing compared to much of Europe, Scotland seems to be turning mildly Scandinavian.

[Angus French]

Not sure about discussing politics here on this forum but...

... while I mostly agree with David P's post above I don't agree that the Lib Dems should be given credit for helping to fix a broken ecomomy. Instead, it seems to me that austerity policies - which the Lib Dems have espoused - have, in addition to shrinking the size of the welfare state, held back economic growth. For more information on this, I suggest reading Simon Wren-Lewis (see here, for example) and Paul Krugman (see here). There's also a good piece here.

Further, while the SNP don't have sufficient votes to affect decisions they will be able to make their views heard through participation in parliamentary debates. I think this will be very important if the Tories attempt to implement a second phase of austerity as they have promised.

[David Robertson]

But for a radically different take on austerity economics, try Niall Ferguson in today's FT. Caution: to be read only by those who can handle a variety of opinion

[Matt Mackenzie]

So the Scots can vote, you see

The SNP mainfesto really is absolutely explicit about actively voting in Westminster as a party mildly to the left of Labour. The 'small' matter of more devolution aside, I wouldn't expect things to play out hugely differently over the next few years if Labour had won all/many of those seats instead.

England by itself always has been relatively right wing compared to much of Europe, Scotland seems to be turning mildly Scandinavian.

Though social attitudes surveys suggest the actual differences between Scotland and England are less than many think......

Its as much about identity as politics IMO.

[John McKenna]

Ironically, a great number of continental Europeans emigrated to the USA and became assimilated into an Anglo-Saxon union, whereas the English have never been assimilated into the EU - last time they even elected a UKIP wrecking team!

Nick Clegg, and others, like to repeat that there are as many émigré Brits living in the EU as there are EU migrants living in the UK. Not a fair, like-for-like, comparison - for one thing the geographical area of the EU is much larger than that of the UK, which is not a Time-And-Relative-Dimension-In-Space country, as some people seem to think.

Following the American model (as per David P's, "low wage, slavery work system.. immigration issues etc...whilst the fat cats continue to enjoy those bonuses, etc..", ) while remaining a reluctant member of the EU bent on converting it to Anglo-Saxon values, such as unbridled Neo-Con-free-market capitalism, is invidious and won't work.

The EU could be better off without the UK. But, would the UK be better off without the EU?

That's the next big question and, rest assured, the same tricks that were used in the Scottish referendum will be used in any EU one, again, and again... in spades.

If Cameron - know in certain German political circles as der Fremdkörper (the foreign body) - returns from Europe after negotiating away the sacred cows for a handful of magic beans that fail to take root, he will find himself leading a largely Euroseptic(!) party campaigning for a better-apart-get-OUT vote along with UKIP. Then Labour, SNP, Libdems and any rebel Tories would join forces to support a better-together-stay-IN vote. How ironic would that be!

[Andy Howie]

Its pretty well known up here that in the event of an Out vote with Scotland voting in, there will be a second indy referendum to attempt to retain our EU membership. With SNP and Labour campaigning for In up here that shoud secure 70-75% of the vote for In. latest polls suggest (and Polls is a dirty word at the moment) that England, Wales and N Ireland will vote out with Scotland voting in. A recent poll up here suggested if the above did happen, the 2nd indy ref would be won by 70% of the vote!!

[Andy Howie]

I should add that I and many of my friends who are SNP party members would like to see PR. Despite our once in a lifetime result last week (which we are still in shock about) we don't like the idea of Scotland being essentially a 1 party state.

Finally, and this is real food for thought. Had 16 year olds been able to vote here as in the Ref, it would have been a 59 seat sweep. The younger generation are predominately SNP supporting Yes voters. As the "Auld Yins" decline in numbers it is a matter of when not If Scotlad becomes independent.

[MartinCarpenter]

Wouldn't bank on that last bit.... If young peoples attitudes never changed during their lifetimes there wouldn't be any right wing parties left by now

It will be gently amusing/alarming if it takes Scotlands votes to keep us in the EU.

[Andy Howie]

Martin, the polls up here show quite a majority in favour of staying in the EU. Alas not the same across all of uk.

[Andy Howie]

Last Poll I saw up here was 65% in 35% out, that has been pretty much the pattern

[Phil Neatherway]

Would an independent Scotland expect to be a net contributor to the EU (as the UK currently is) or a net recipient (like Greece and the Eastern European countries)?

[John McKenna]

Would an independent Scotland expect to be a net contributor to the EU (as the UK currently is) or a net recipient (like Greece and the Eastern European countries)?

Might you expect the Barnet formula to be replaced by a Brussels one in that event?

Not sure about Scotland's financial relationship with the EU at present but Wales certainly receives quite a significant amount of EU cash as a deprived region.

George Osborne is currently in Brussels at a meeting of Euro-zone finance ministers charged with sorting out the Greek debts and loans crisis. The President of the EU, Jean-Claude Junker - the man David Cameron opposed but failed to block - recently said that "the Anglo-Saxon world" (whoever they are exactly) would seek to dismantle the European project (whatever that is exactly) if Greece was ever to leave the single currency. The English want no part of the monetary union and the Americans do not want any rivals to the mighty dollar, so I think Jean-Claude may have a point.

Osborne is in Brussels to start the process of "improving relations" (his words) between the UK and the EU. That's a very interesting choice of words - the Tories' idea of "improving" things is a singularly one-sided one and is always loaded in their favour. For example, today, Cameron announced his government would be "improving" certain people's lives by having DWP Minister Darft Vader (IDS) lower the benefits cap on them, pushing them further towards grinding poverty, in his quest to save £12 bn. in order to pay off the government debt.

I think PM Stanley Baldwin used a substantial amount of his personal wealth to pay off a chunk of the national debt in his time. Times have obviously changed.

Edit: This government is not actually reducing the national debt only the deficit so the debt grows on.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I think PM Stanley Baldwin used a substantial amount of his personal wealth to pay off a chunk of the national debt in his time. Times have obviously changed.

I never knew that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Baldwin

"...in 1917 he was appointed to the junior ministerial post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury where he sought to encourage voluntary donations by the rich to repay the United Kingdom's war debt, writing letters to The Times under the pseudonym 'FST', much of which were published. He relinquished to the Treasury one fifth of his own fortune, estimated at own account as £580,000, held in the form of war loan stock worth £120,000."

(Sourced to the ODNB, so can be checked there if needed.)

[Alistair Campbell]

Should we discuss politics on this forum?

Why not? It's off-topic, and given we are discussing it with fellow chess players (I nearly said "amongst friends" but that would be taking it too far" ) it should be comparatively civilised.

Martin, the polls up here show quite a majority in favour of staying in the EU. Alas not the same across all of uk.

Really? Have you a reference? The You Gov poll in Feb claimed support as 45 In 35 Out 17 don't know. For Scotland the figures were 45 In 34 out 16 don't know - hardly different. There seems to be a high correlation with the “feel-good factor”. Like Matt, I don't believe social attitudes are significantly different north and south of the Rio Tweed; just voting behaviour.

I should add that I and many of my friends who are SNP party members would like to see PR. Despite our once in a lifetime result last week (which we are still in shock about) we don't like the idea of Scotland being essentially a 1 party state.

Finally, and this is real food for thought. Had 16 year olds been able to vote here as in the Ref, it would have been a 59 seat sweep. The younger generation are predominately SNP supporting Yes voters. As the "Auld Yins" decline in numbers it is a matter of when not If Scotlad becomes independent.

Again, have you a reference? The number of 16/17 year old voters would make up about 2.6% of the enlarged Scottish electorate. So that’s just over 1,000 in Orkney and Shetland, so just about all of them would have had to have voted, and voted for Danus Skene, to unseat Alistair Carmichael. In the Borders and Edinburgh the figure is lower, so the same logic would apply to Mundell in DCT and I don’t think there were even enough in Edinburgh South to have made the difference for McSheepie. We shouldn’t forget half the country didn’t vote SNP, and you are probably 100 times more likely to have voted Tory in Scotland than have played chess.

As has been pointed out before, “Yes” voters were predominantly younger, poorer, city-dwelling and “Scottish”. At least some of these factors will tend to weaken over time.

Anyway, off-off-topic. Andy, what happened in the Keti v Jacob game?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I am perfectly happy with the discussion of politics on this forum, provided it stays in Not Chess, and doesn't venture out unless the political issue in question has some connection to chess.