What's the score with Scotland then?

[Sue]

Your thirteen though, I had kind've hoped, hadn't got a snowball's chance. There was a time when Labour relied on the Scottish voting for them, and yesterday was a time when Labour relied on Scotland voting for the SNP. I don't take it personally and neither should anyone else. Ruth Davidson tonight though, that was brilliant. Scottish politics is something of an unreported mystery down here, but that was a revelation. First split in the Tory Brexit plan.

What a load of bollocks. How come it's Scotland’s fault when the voting there doesn't go as some people in England seem to expect? People have the right to vote for whoever they want to.

Why not look to the people voting Tory with abandon in England? I've heard this umpteen times and it utterly fucks me off.

 

[inva]

5 minutes ago we were all going to be fleeing to Scotland to escape everlasting Tory rule in reactionary England
now Scottish people are supposed to be to blame for the Tory government lol

 

[editor]

Let's just blame England then.

 

[equationgirl]

Your thirteen though, I had kind've hoped, hadn't got a snowball's chance. There was a time when Labour relied on the Scottish voting for them, and yesterday was a time when Labour relied on Scotland voting for the SNP. I don't take it personally and neither should anyone else. Ruth Davidson tonight though, that was brilliant. Scottish politics is something of an unreported mystery down here, but that was a revelation. First split in the Tory Brexit plan.

If Scottish politics is such an unreported mystery to you then I respectfully suggest you do some more reading up on it before posting, because your posts do not reflect what I and other Scottish urbs have actually lived through.

You state that you are not interested in blame yet your first post on this thread was

The SNP had one job. Just one. They fucked us over again.

If that's not blame I don't know what is.

 

[equationgirl]

Let's just blame England then.

Well they did vote for a lot of tories...

 

[equationgirl]

What a load of bollocks. How come it's Scotland’s fault when the voting there doesn't go as some people in England seem to expect? People have the right to vote for whoever they want to.

Why not look to the people voting Tory with abandon in England? I've heard this umpteen times and it utterly fucks me off.

This really fucks me off too.

 

[redsquirrel]

5 minutes ago we were all going to be fleeing to Scotland to escape everlasting Tory rule in reactionary England
now Scottish people are supposed to be to blame for the Tory government lol

Yes both equally silly.

 

[spanglechick]

Is it not worth noting, though, that Scotland is the only part of the country that swung to the right? I don't think Scotland is to blame, any more than central london is to blame for the Tory heartlands of middle England... but statistically, it's a huge, unprecedented lurch that is worth of some serious analysis.

 

[equationgirl]

Is it not worth noting, though, that Scotland is the only part of the country that swung to the right? I don't think Scotland is to blame, any more than central london is to blame for the Tory heartlands of middle England... but statistically, it's a huge, unprecedented lurch that is worth of some serious analysis.

I think it might be tactical voting to ensure SNP losses rather than a true swing to the right. I fucking hope so anyway.

 

[weepiper]

It hasn't swung to the right. It's swung back a bit from the left. Tories got more than half the vote in Scotland as recently as the fifties. What's happened is a bit of rolling back towards the status quo from the incredible SNP high tide mark of 2015. It was always going to happen. I'm unhappy about it but pragmatic.

 

[starfish]

Im angry. For so long we've blamed the English for Tory shite but when called upon in the whole countrys hour of need they got tribal/unionist/loyalist & gave them a dozen fucking seats.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Is it not worth noting, though, that Scotland is the only part of the country that swung to the right? I don't think Scotland is to blame, any more than central london is to blame for the Tory heartlands of middle England... but statistically, it's a huge, unprecedented lurch that is worth of some serious analysis.

It's a reshuffle of the unionist (note the small "U") vote. And Scotland voting unionist is hardly unprecedented. It's the norm.

 

[redsquirrel]

Is it not worth noting, though, that Scotland is the only part of the country that swung to the right?

But has it? As danny la rouge has pointed out time and again there's always been a Tory vote in Scotland. For a variety of reasons over the last 20 years that didn't translate into seats at Westminster, now it has. It's as much to do with the vagaries of FPTP as anything else.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There is a problem here with us communicating I hope because I have zero interest in the blame game. In my world it is a fact that losing Scotland lost Labour the 2015 election (and really gave traction to the media "unelectable" shite) and losing so many SNP seats in Scotland has changed the face of the 2017 election. That is a great loss, certainly for England and Wales, but also I think for the rest of the union. But it is what it is - we can look back and try to decide what went wrong before looking forward, or we can just keep looking back and rehashing history.

Tories got a majority in 2015. Even if labour had won every single Scottish seat they would still have had a majority.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

But has it? As danny la rouge has pointed out time and again there's always been a Tory vote in Scotland. For a variety of reasons over the that didn't translate into seats at Westminster, now it has. It's as much to do with the vagaries of FPTP as anything else.

Back in the 50s Scotland was very tory indeed.

Eta as wp said above

 

[spanglechick]

It hasn't swung to the right. It's swung back a bit from the left. Tories got more than half the vote in Scotland as recently as the fifties. What's happened is a bit of rolling back towards the status quo from the incredible SNP high tide mark of 2015. It was always going to happen. I'm unhappy about it but pragmatic.

Well, it depends when you're measuring from. At general elections we normally talk of 'swings' being measured from the last GE. In this case, because there's been such a short time since then, the analysis often includes 2010 too. Any longer, though and you're talking about trends. It would be fairly meaningless in most cases to talk about the swing in 2017 from the 1951(?) GE, at least in terms of Britain as a whole / England and Wales / England.

 

[equationgirl]

Im angry. For so long we've blamed the English for Tory shite but when called upon in the whole countrys hour of need they got tribal/unionist/loyalist & gave them a dozen fucking seats.

Again, I think this was more about 'not the SNP' rather than anything else.

 

[spanglechick]

I am curious, too, about Scottish Labour not quite being dead, since i had thought the SNP offered a very similar social democratic set of policies to labour, and therefore rendering Scottish labour surplus to requirements.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It hasn't swung to the right. It's swung back a bit from the left. Tories got more than half the vote in Scotland as recently as the fifties. What's happened is a bit of rolling back towards the status quo from the incredible SNP high tide mark of 2015. It was always going to happen. I'm unhappy about it but pragmatic.

snp still have over half the seats. Without that freakish 2015 result I think that would be seen as huge. How many seats did they have 20 years ago?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I am curious, too, about Scottish Labour not quite being dead, since i had thought the SNP offered a very similar social democratic set of policies to labour, and therefore rendering Scottish labour surplus to requirements.

Hmm. Plus nationalism, which is still a minority opinion.

 

[starfish]

Again, I think this was more about 'not the SNP' rather than anything else.

Fuck that. This was a Nationwide vote for all our future & the loyalist/unionist cunts up north sucked the big Union Flag cock.

 

[AllEternalsHeck]

A lot of people just wanted to vote for Corbyn, even if they'd support independence in a referendum. The Labour manifesto offered an exciting vision to get behind.

I am curious, too, about Scottish Labour not quite being dead, since i had thought the SNP offered a very similar social democratic set of policies to labour, and therefore rendering Scottish labour surplus to requirements.

They talk a good game but I don't think they're as left-wing as they make out.

Scottish Labour are widely mistrusted mind you (anti-Corbyn Blairites, willing to work with Tories against SNP etc) but people were voting for Corbyn. I had never even heard of my SLab candidate when I voted. I voted Labour in spite of Scottish Labour, it's quite annoying seeing them celebrate as if they have achieved this themselves.

 

[pogofish]

I am curious, too, about Scottish Labour not quite being dead, since i had thought the SNP offered a very similar social democratic set of policies to labour, and therefore rendering Scottish labour surplus to requirements.

IMO, Labour under Corbyn appealed much more to the traditional-minded Scottish Labour voters than any other flavour of Labour for the last couple of decades. That undoubtedly brought people back.

In the North East anyway and very possibly in Perthshire/Borders where a similar demographic applies, the Tories campaigned longer, harder and dirtier than I think I've ever seen before. They have been going strong pretty-much since the last Ref, with confidence/competence of the SNP a big target - and very much went for the farming/fishing vote that has always been a bit mistrustful of Labour/SNP (usually seen as the "city"/urban choice) and ambivalent towards the EU, despite doing extremely well from them (its a shit or get-off the pot situation IMO), Also the more traditional rural opposition - the Liberals, have been dead ducks for a long time now. Caithness was a bit of a surprise.

Meanwhile, neither of the recent SNP/Labour councils in Aberdeen have particularly covered themselves in glory - The SNP were largely seen as inexperienced, led by the lure of big money/shiny things over absolutely everything else, whilst the Willie Young matter breaking just weeks before the election did look very much like the corrupt labour of old and really did scunner a lot of people.

I'm also still firmly of the opinion that its going to need another 80s-style period of the Tories truly fucking-around with the Scottish economy for their own obvious benefit/self-interest to get people really in-behind independence. So to that end, a few Tory MPs north of the border might actually be a good thing as they will be the most obvious targets/rallying points when that inevitably happens.

 

[SpookyFrank]

A few more SNP seats at the expense of the tories would have made fuck all difference anyway. Corbyn would still have no way to form a stable government. And any SNP losses have to be seen in the context of their extraordinary victory in 2015, and the inevitable reversion-to-mean effect this time round.

 

[equationgirl]

As I said on the other thread, I'm really pleased Mhairi Black has been reelected. Could do with a few more straight talkers like her in Westminster.

 

[Yossarian]

Doesn't make a lot of sense to blame Scotland when London alone elected as many Conservatives as Scotland and Wales put together.

 

[Combustible]

Another difference is there was a drop in turnout, in 2015 the turnout in Scotland was 71%, compared to 66% nationally. This time it was 66% in Scotland compared to 69% nationally. But obviously that doesn't explain the SNP only getting 2/3 of the number of votes they did two years ago. Actually the number of Labour votes is almost the same but Tories have 300k more. Its possible that the Tories gained a lot of votes from Labour, who in turn took a load from the SNP, it also seems likely there would have been some SNP to Tory crossover. Is there any evidence that the Tory vote particularly stayed home in 2015, or voted SNP to give Labour a bloody nose?

 

[Gromit]

The feeling from some of my Scottish friends was that the referendum was quite damaging to Scotland turning friend against friend and everyone was quite bitter at the end of it.

Banging on about another one so soon probably had some who were even in favour of independence feeling a bit 'well yeah but can we just leave it a bit first. We're all still sore after the last referendum.'

Still to vote Tory though. Labour weren't pushing indyref2 were they?

 

[rubbershoes]

Let's settle this discussion with our Scottish friends in the traditional way.
*fetches halberd *

 

[danny la rouge]

Yep, looks like the SNPs continued demands for Scotexit have lost them a lot of votes, That has resulted in a Tory government. If I was scottish, I would have voted SNP, I think Nicola's politics are fucking excellent, But the SNP sunk us.

You'd need to explain this logic to me. If you were in Scotland you'd have voted SNP, but the SNP "sunk us"? So if you were in Scotland would you have "sunk us" or not?

Your logic is all over the place.