Attention Scots! What do you really want?

Pigtail

Greg66 wrote:

baronsouthside wrote:

In Scotland just as the tories lost a whole generation or 2 during the Thatcher years, Blair and Brown have lost a generation of twenty somethings because they knew nothing but labour way down south in westminster and in the end didnt like it. This partly explains why labours vote collapsed.

Likewise the lib dems now have lost almost all support because of their coaliton with the tories. Centre left labour voters who voted lib dem as a protest were utterly scunnered by them prostituting themselves by jumping into bed with the tories.

I beleive people are overlooking this centre left non labour supporting scottish youth vote and personnally because of this a referendum will be closer than we all think. If this youth vote mobilises en masse then its not looking good for the union. The people have the power .

I've seen this theme (the Tories are dead, labour is dead, the LDs are dead in Scotland) a few times in this thread. It's very hard to argue that it is anything other than bang on the money.

But it has got me thinking. It tends to disclose (IMO) a tendency for Scots to never forgive and never forget when they feel they've been let down (yes, generalisations again, but there you go).

No political party in the history of mankind has been able to deliver sustainable and unbroken good times. So what is going to happen when the Scottish electorate decide that they've been let down by the SNP (because they will at some point in the future). Who is there left to vote for?

I think you're seeing something you don't understand - and are drawing inferences that just don't stand up. At least you're trying to work us out though - most people beyond our own border simply have no interest!

The Scottish parliament is elected under the Additional Member System, which requires a degree of sophistication from the electorate. It allows an opportunity for smaller parties to get a seat and lends itself to more genuine contenders than happens at Westminster.

The SNP failed to deliver several key promises last time - and the electorate understood and accepted that. They also did deliver on some big ones that have made a real difference on the ground, 1000 extra police, a council tax freeze etc. The difference though in this election was that they presented a picture of a better Scotland - with a plan for how they would get there.

All Labour did was say the SNP have broken all these promises- vote for us. They presented no vision, no alternative and no credible policies. Everytime they were asked a question they started the answer with what the SNP hadn't done, rather than what they would.

People in Scotland can be incredibly loyal to their political parties. Scotland has supported and stood by the Labour Party for at least 50 years - long beyond the point that it was sensible to do so. There is a real chance they would go back if the Labour party would offer them what they want, but I doubt if it is capable of that.

The other point of course is that the SNP didn't come out of nowhere. They have been building support for at least 40 years. The difficulty for them was that it was fairly evenly spread, rather than concentrated, so the number of seats they had didn't reflect their popularity. However, when you get a big swing, like happened on Thursday, that weakness becomes a strength. Many of these seconds or close thirds become wins and you suddenly appear to have made huge gains, when it has simply built on a pretty substantial base.

Initialised

If they'd move the border a bit so say Carlisle and Newcastle upon Tyne were in Scotland I'd be voting for independence.