Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Yes Norman, we need another Black Wednesday and further relaxation of regulation in the city.

Perhaps, our donors will give us jobs on the board of a few hedge funds.

(Sorry, we already promised.)


Mind labour might cut down on back handers and part time MPs!

Mind if we can split the NHS and sell off part of it, that should get rid of one of the tory problems.

Snippet from the link in post 980, in the latest prediction of the result (GE) from YouGov President Peter Kellner, he sees the Conservatives getting 293 seats, and Ed Miliband’s Labour Party 270 — both well short of the 326 target for a parliamentary majority.
2517

2157,

Can you see Lib.Dem wanting to be blighted by the Tories again.


Can you see SNP forming a coalition with Tories. Hell would freeze over first.

Can you see greens trusting the tories.

Can you see 5 UKIPPERS MPS.

Plaid would never join the tories and only 50% of the Irish, but the charge for doing do would be interesting.

Either Ed Miliband or no government, but none of the Left leaning parties would want an another election until they rebuild their kitties.

Fred.

All of them (all) would sell their souls for a sniff of power.


Cleggy's a good example:

Andrew Whitaker: Scottish independence take two
COULD a Tory General Election win and an SNP landslide provoke a second referendum, asks Andrew Whitaker.

The SNP leadership made it plain during the referendum campaign that the independence vote was a “once in a generation” event, and even appeared to suggest it was a once-in-lifetime thing, with no chance of a rematch.

Although there were somewhat ambiguous hints the weekend after the referendum from Alex Salmond that Scotland could achieve independence by stealth, the party’s big hitters have, for the most part, boxed clever on the topic.

Nicola Sturgeon has very effectively kept the party’s guard up, by stating that a second referendum would be held only if and when the majority of Scots wanted such a vote.

The carefully crafted line – that a fresh independence vote is not in the gift of the SNP leadership, it’s for Scotland to “decide” – has given the SNP room to breathe in the five months-plus since its referendum defeat. So given the dominance of the SNP and the very real prospect that it could come close to sweeping the board in May’s General Election and then go on to become the first party to win a third term at Holyrood in 2016, are there then circumstances in which a second referendum might be possible?

Of course, Ms Sturgeon is far too astute to suggest that overwhelming majorities for the SNP at Holyrood and in the Scottish section of the General Election would mean a mandate for independence.

Likewise Mr Salmond, who is almost certain to win a return to the Commons and once again emerge as the SNP’s dominant figure at Westminster, has done more than any Nationalist politician to see off the tendency within the party that has been out of favour for decades – a position associated with figures such as the late Margo MacDonald, Jim Sillars and Winnie Ewing.

Just as at the 2011 Holyrood election, when the SNP campaigned on a “re-elect a competent SNP government” platform, Ms Sturgeon has appealed to Scots who “don’t normally vote SNP” to lend her party their votes in May to boost Scotland influence in the Commons and deliver more powers for Holyrood.

But could various scenarios play out whereby the SNP overwhelmingly wins the election in Scotland in May, as in 2011, on a platform of being a “strong voice that stands up for Scotland”, but of which the main consequence is a vote on independence?

There’s every chance the SNP could take between 30 and 40 seats at Westminster on 7 May, with the Tories wiped out and Labour and the Lib Dems left with massively depleted Scottish representation in the Commons.

What then if David Cameron were to remain in Downing Street with a majority of any kind, but with no MPs in Scotland, which would be represented almost completely by Nationalists at Westminster?

Such an outcome would precipitate a constitutional crisis of sorts and be the first time a Nationalist party had won a Westminster election in a constituent part of the UK since Sinn Fein won the 1918 election in Ireland – prior to it seceding from the UK with the creation of the “Irish Free State”.

Imagine then a second-term Tory government with a programme of welfare cuts, along with policies already announced such as a plan to effectively outlaw public sector strikes and workfare for young people – policies that would affect Scotland despite the lack of a mandate for Mr Cameron north of the Border.

With the Tories’ plan to hold a referendum on European Union withdrawal, there would also be the prospect of Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will and it’s hard to imagine Mr Cameron agreeing to the SNP’s already stated demand for a Scottish veto on the nation’s own status in Europe.

Ms Sturgeon will know that the SNP faces a choice at its annual conference in late 2015 about whether to include a pledge for a second referendum in its manifesto for the 2016 Holyrood election.

Any ambiguity would dominate the 2016 election campaign, with the SNP under fire for refusing to state one way or another its intention on holding an independence vote, handing Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy an open goal and, who knows, a possible lifeline for his party.

The First Minister would not have too much difficulty convincing her party that “circumstances had changed” since the talk of a “once in a generation” independence vote, with Mr Cameron ruling over what could be a Tory-MP free zone and an SNP-dominated Scotland about to be hit by ultra-austerity from Westminster.

Of course, the SNP would then have to win the 2016 election and even with Labour taking a drubbing in Scotland this May, it’s possible the party under Jim Murphy’s leadership could make a limited recovery and deprive the Nationalists of an outright majority at the Holyrood election next year and block a second referendum by teaming up with the other Unionist parties.

However, voting overwhelmingly for the SNP is something that many people now just appear to do in the same way as they voted New Labour in the late 1990s until the mid-2000s and for the Tories in the 1980s.

Such is the current dominance of the SNP, that the Nationalists are in with a chance of successfully styling themselves as the “party of Scotland”, with a populist style that could establish a political hegemony not dissimilar to that of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael – two centre-right parties that have dominated politics in the Irish Republic for almost a century.

Another enduring political hegemony involving a populist-style nationalist party, that has often used social democratic or leftist language, is that of the Peronist movement in Argentina, one which has been in and out of power for much of the past five decades based largely around the legacy of the country’s former president Juan Peron and his wife Eva (Evita).

But whatever differences or similarities there are with such parties and the nationalist movement here in Scotland, it may well be that the SNP dominance is now such a fact of political life in Scotland that a second referendum is coming one way or another.

Of course, it’s completely possible that even with massive SNP gains at Westminster that the scenarios of a Tory victory will not play out and that Labour will in fact be the biggest party – which is still a highly possible outcome.


I love reading the comments on here. Everyone feels so hard done to which is totally hilarious. If Scots vote in the SNP then they are telling Westminster that the Tories and Labour are not representing the best part of the UK. It is most likely inevitable that Scots will separate and the only real option to stop it would be to create a completely federal system. Smith is a joke the vow is also a joke. I would actually think the Tories would offer a proper federal Scotland in exchange for giving the power. If the SNP had all those seats all they would have to do to let the Tories vote in whatever they want is abstain. Scotland on the other hand would have autonomy which is really what the whole referendum was about
I notice that there has been a fair bit of talk about tactical voting against the SNP lately, both on forums and from Labour.

Indeed Robert James McNeill, Labour's Scottish Policy Forum, Vice-Chair of East Lothian Constituency Labour Party, has been caught red handed encouraging people to vote against the Labour candidate in many constituencies and vote Tory or LibDem instead to keep the SNP out.


So not only have Labour betrayed the people of Scotland, they even betray their own candidates!

I notice that Whitaker makes reference to Labour being the largest party at the end of his article.

This is, in fact, irrelevant if Labour do not get a majority, as "In a situation of no overall control the Government in power before the General Election gets the first chance at creating a government. If they cannot do so, the Prime Minister will resign."

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/elections-and-voting/general/hung-parliament/

So if you hear Scottish Labour spouting "the largest party gets to form the government", they are lying. Again.

It is what you do with power which matters.

Fred re post 992
Lib Dems will be decimated
Correct re SNP
The Greens showed their ineptitude yesterday
UKIP won't have enough MP's
Plaid see UKIP
Miliband hopefully not.
2517

The economy is booming...



Zero-hours contracts 'save UK from eurozone levels of unemployment'

Business groups defend companies who use zero-hour contracts after new figures reveal 697,000 people in the UK are on them



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/11435789/Zero-hours-contracts-save-UK-from-eurozone-levels-of-unemployment.html

Zero-hours? quite right to... soon be down to Bangladesh levels of prosperity?

A few weeks ago.

215,

Have this feeling that Lib/Dems may not do as badly as is currently supposed.

Also, the unemployment figures are also being camouflaged by "low paid apprenticeships".

It is repeat behaviour of Maggie Thatcher period with expansion of students in the 90s to camouflage her failings.

Followed by Blair's Stupidity of 50% of "school leavers going to university".

Better than Labour in Scotland anyway, which won't be hard :0)

All it needs is a little smear here and there!

Or perhaps more specific!

On that topic Fred, something else for you not to read...



The Red Princes: Minister warns of rise in political dynasties as sons of Kinnock, Straw, Prescott and Blair seek election

Education minister Liz Truss warned of 'usual suspects' in elections

She took aim at Labour, but said problem could be found in every party


By Tim Shipman

Published: 00:50, 24 March 2014 | Updated: 10:56, 24 March 2014



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2587628/The-Red-Princes-Minister-warns-rise-political-dynasties-sons-Kinnock-Straw-Prescott-Blair-seek-election.html

Max.

I don't know what you were on last night, but stop seeing "pink elephants".

There you are, you have done it again!


8-)

PS.

Why shouldn't they seek election, or even you doing similar!

It's no different from #57004 ... money/connections seeking influence.

As long as they are on the straight and narrow, no problems.

Otherwise a teacher's child could not become a teacher etc. which seems daft to me!

Q. What did the buffalo say to his son as he went off to school?

A. Bison