Scottish Parliamentary Election 2011
Discussion
The latest YouGov poll shows SNP are still sitting with a slim lead over Labour.
The gap has closed from last week when polls were showing a possible SNP/Green majority coalition.
Anyone else following the action today/tonight/tomorrow?
The gap has closed from last week when polls were showing a possible SNP/Green majority coalition.
Anyone else following the action today/tonight/tomorrow?
I tried to goad myself into a frenzy of enthusiasm and actually exercise my franchise for the first time in 40 years......but I just can't.
I'm a unionist so that rules out SNP. I'm a capitalist so that rules out Labour. I don't know what Lib Dems even do, so how can you vote for a party you don't know the first thing about? I'm a human being, so voting Tory's a no-no, and anyway they've only got crank-party status in Scotland so they're a waste of a vote. That leaves voting for the run-of-the-mill crank parties or desecrating the ballot paper.
So, y'know what, I'm just going to leave it to everybody else to vote for whoever THEY like. Doesn't make any difference to me anyway.
As to voting for a voting system, who cares HOW parties or cranks you've no interest in or knowledge of wangle their way into power? I couldn't care less. Do it by eeny meeny miny mo for all I care. Or take it in turns.
I'm a unionist so that rules out SNP. I'm a capitalist so that rules out Labour. I don't know what Lib Dems even do, so how can you vote for a party you don't know the first thing about? I'm a human being, so voting Tory's a no-no, and anyway they've only got crank-party status in Scotland so they're a waste of a vote. That leaves voting for the run-of-the-mill crank parties or desecrating the ballot paper.
So, y'know what, I'm just going to leave it to everybody else to vote for whoever THEY like. Doesn't make any difference to me anyway.
As to voting for a voting system, who cares HOW parties or cranks you've no interest in or knowledge of wangle their way into power? I couldn't care less. Do it by eeny meeny miny mo for all I care. Or take it in turns.
groak said:
I tried to goad myself into a frenzy of enthusiasm and actually exercise my franchise for the first time in 40 years......but I just can't.
I'm a unionist so that rules out SNP. I'm a capitalist so that rules out Labour. I don't know what Lib Dems even do, so how can you vote for a party you don't know the first thing about? I'm a human being, so voting Tory's a no-no, and anyway they've only got crank-party status in Scotland so they're a waste of a vote. That leaves voting for the run-of-the-mill crank parties or desecrating the ballot paper.
So, y'know what, I'm just going to leave it to everybody else to vote for whoever THEY like. Doesn't make any difference to me anyway.
As to voting for a voting system, who cares HOW parties or cranks you've no interest in or knowledge of wangle their way into power? I couldn't care less. Do it by eeny meeny miny mo for all I care. Or take it in turns.
There is always this man, 'vote for me because I can speak English' I'm a unionist so that rules out SNP. I'm a capitalist so that rules out Labour. I don't know what Lib Dems even do, so how can you vote for a party you don't know the first thing about? I'm a human being, so voting Tory's a no-no, and anyway they've only got crank-party status in Scotland so they're a waste of a vote. That leaves voting for the run-of-the-mill crank parties or desecrating the ballot paper.
So, y'know what, I'm just going to leave it to everybody else to vote for whoever THEY like. Doesn't make any difference to me anyway.
As to voting for a voting system, who cares HOW parties or cranks you've no interest in or knowledge of wangle their way into power? I couldn't care less. Do it by eeny meeny miny mo for all I care. Or take it in turns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxZ1agILCLw
groak said:
Caulkhead said:
groak said:
Caulkhead said:
groak said:
I'm a human being, so voting Tory's a no-no,
Why?
kersCaulkhead said:
groak said:
Caulkhead said:
groak said:
Caulkhead said:
groak said:
I'm a human being, so voting Tory's a no-no,
Why?Mrs Thatcher was also very important to the demise of Scottish Toryism, and the rise of the separatist SNP. Whilst easily capable of 'handling' the English working class, she was like a second-rate football manager who loses the foreign players in the dressing room because she doesn't know how to handle them. Previously, Tory leaders had been polite upper classish posh blokes - sometimes firm and demanding, but always kind and respectful - who made Scots (and Welsh) feel they were a valued and appreciated part of something bigger, even if they didn't fully understand us. Thatcher made us feel like tolerated nuisances whose uses were limited to social and legislative experimentation. Our best interests were considered a very poor second to the advancement of her clever working class girl visions and ambitions. Scots like to know their powerful matriarchs (like HRH Liz) love them, and aren't just trying to get wide with them.
See all the trouble with miners etc? That's sort of the same. A proper leader with a mature understanding doesn't just see some uneconomic business activity operated by people whose working politics make it unlikely you'll get their vote, so close them down and their ex-workers can go buy bikes and pedal around to see if they can get another job. That's how a clever jumped up grocer's daughter from Neasden who talks like an elocution teacher's dummy thinks. A proper leader with a mature understanding sees centuries of social and cultural and occupational entertwining. Perceives the nature of the work and the reasons WHY it has evolved such a close need for and bond with union activities. Recognises the importance of restructuring and organising and providing for the aftermath requirements of community survival following the winding up of these deeply embedded traditional industries. In other words shows understanding, respect, and thoughtfulness.
Tories did and still do want to identify Toryism with Thatcher.
So there's a little start to help understanding why toryism isn't welcome in Scotland. Thatcher wanted to fukk around with us. Fine. She did. So she got told to fukk off and take her party with her. The Scots who used to vote Tory voted for a type of individual and a quintessential Englishness and Unionist patriotism that probably doesn't and can't exist anymore.
We've plenty of our own typical politician shifty swivel-eyed venal self-serving mediocrities. We don't need to import any extra ones, thanks.
eldar said:
groak said:
We've plenty of our own typical politician shifty swivel-eyed venal self-serving mediocrities. We don't need to import any extra ones, thanks.
I'd be grateful if you stopped exporting them......groak said:
Traditional Tory values which had previously appealed to a fairly largish number of Scottish people changed to the point of disappearing. The character of Tory candidates also radically altered - doubtless as Southern England socially 'evolved'. The nouveau tories and what they stood for, and just as importantly what they no longer stood for, lost their appeal for many of their previous Scottish supporters.
Mrs Thatcher was also very important to the demise of Scottish Toryism, and the rise of the separatist SNP. Whilst easily capable of 'handling' the English working class, she was like a second-rate football manager who loses the foreign players in the dressing room because she doesn't know how to handle them. Previously, Tory leaders had been polite upper classish posh blokes - sometimes firm and demanding, but always kind and respectful - who made Scots (and Welsh) feel they were a valued and appreciated part of something bigger, even if they didn't fully understand us. Thatcher made us feel like tolerated nuisances whose uses were limited to social and legislative experimentation. Our best interests were considered a very poor second to the advancement of her clever working class girl visions and ambitions. Scots like to know their powerful matriarchs (like HRH Liz) love them, and aren't just trying to get wide with them.
So it's because you don't like Thatcher then?Mrs Thatcher was also very important to the demise of Scottish Toryism, and the rise of the separatist SNP. Whilst easily capable of 'handling' the English working class, she was like a second-rate football manager who loses the foreign players in the dressing room because she doesn't know how to handle them. Previously, Tory leaders had been polite upper classish posh blokes - sometimes firm and demanding, but always kind and respectful - who made Scots (and Welsh) feel they were a valued and appreciated part of something bigger, even if they didn't fully understand us. Thatcher made us feel like tolerated nuisances whose uses were limited to social and legislative experimentation. Our best interests were considered a very poor second to the advancement of her clever working class girl visions and ambitions. Scots like to know their powerful matriarchs (like HRH Liz) love them, and aren't just trying to get wide with them.
groak said:
See all the trouble with miners etc? That's sort of the same. A proper leader with a mature understanding doesn't just see some uneconomic business activity operated by people whose working politics make it unlikely you'll get their vote, so close them down and their ex-workers can go buy bikes and pedal around to see if they can get another job. That's how a clever jumped up grocer's daughter from Neasden who talks like an elocution teacher's dummy thinks. A proper leader with a mature understanding sees centuries of social and cultural and occupational entertwining. Perceives the nature of the work and the reasons WHY it has evolved such a close need for and bond with union activities. Recognises the importance of restructuring and organising and providing for the aftermath requirements of community survival following the winding up of these deeply embedded traditional industries. In other words shows understanding, respect, and thoughtfulness.
Well that's at oods with your claim to be a capitalist. You really believe that she closed the mines because miners don't vote tory do you? Buy much coal do you?groak said:
So there's a little start to help understanding why toryism isn't welcome in Scotland. Thatcher wanted to fukk around with us. Fine. She did. So she got told to fukk off and take her party with her. The Scots who used to vote Tory voted for a type of individual and a quintessential Englishness and Unionist patriotism that probably doesn't and can't exist anymore.
OK, I get. You really don't like Thatcher.groak said:
We've plenty of our own typical politician shifty swivel-eyed venal self-serving mediocrities. We don't need to import any extra ones, thanks.
Importing? I thought you were a unionist?I still don't see how, apart from your irrational hatred of a leader who left power 21 years ago, voting tory makes you inhuman?
Should be interesting. At 9.30 tonight im going to a local sports centre to help with the vote counting, (£100 for a few hours work, aint to be turned down 
)
I hope that the SNP wins my area, they have done loads to boost the local area, kept the A&E open, new health centres, reopened a old railway to allow better train commute across the central belt, also they ran a free central heating upgrade for older people, my late granpa got a brand new boiler, all new pipework and radiators and wall and loft insulation done.
I know a few of the labour folk and they are nice people but i refuse to vote labour so they will not get my vote.
)I hope that the SNP wins my area, they have done loads to boost the local area, kept the A&E open, new health centres, reopened a old railway to allow better train commute across the central belt, also they ran a free central heating upgrade for older people, my late granpa got a brand new boiler, all new pipework and radiators and wall and loft insulation done.
I know a few of the labour folk and they are nice people but i refuse to vote labour so they will not get my vote.
Caulkhead said:
stuff
See, I tried to explain why voting Tory's a no-no here for almost everybody (whereas it once wasn't) but it's complicated and I obviously didn't manage because you've become confused between my attempt at explanation and what you see as MY obvious opinions. Mrs Thatcher doesn't really inspire any feelings at all in me. Soon she'll be dead and I'll neither regret nor celebrate it. I'm not political at all. I can't find any empathy with any party or any enthusiasm for any particular individual within politics. BUT. Mrs Thatcher-though obviously a unionist - appears to have had no talent whatsoever for strengthening The Union and instead appears to have been a most divisive influence. Maybe I'm wrong. She also appears to have inspired divisiveness on an economic class basis as well. And even within her own party she appears to have been so concerned to further her personal agendas that she appears to have divided it into pro-and anti-Thatcher factions which eventually broke the Tories apart. Again, I'm possibly mistaken, but following her departure from office she doesn't appear to have made any contribution to or had any further impact on either the world political or economic stages. And her legacy appears to have been to make Tories unelectable in Scotland, Wales and even the North of England.
Scotland has certain difficulties with politics. A lot of us (Scots) don't really have anyone or anything to vote for, because we have major disagreements with certain bits of all the main parties, and there's a lot of pointlessness in voting for the single issue individuals. So we end up not voting. Like me. There's half an hour till the polling station closes, and I really cannot be bothered going to vote for something/someone I don't really believe in, and, to be frank, don't really trust.
Sorry if that offends your Little Englander tory sensibilities, or your Thatcher nostalgia. But that's life. And the tories will yet again get what they deserve in Scotland. Next to nothing if they're lucky. Or nothing at all if they're not.
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