It's going to be really interesting to see what happens at Holyrood next year, and what the result of the promised 2017 EU referendum is. Although I am sceptical that we'd see independence before 2020 for Scotland, a big constitutional shakeup does seem to be on the cards.
> Although I am skeptical that we'd see independence before 2020
Wait, didn't we just have a democratic vote on that in 2014 and the result was no? Are we going to have another one because the yes people aren't happy about the result?
No, we'd probably see a second vote only if the SNP took a majority in the Scottish parliament again and the UK voted to exit the EU. Leaving the EU is really bad for Scotland (arguably all parts of the UK, but Scotland especially for many economic reasons), and might spur a bunch of people that voted "no" last time to vote "yes" if it were held again.
Like I said, I consider that unlikely, but it's a risk.
"Holyrood" is the part of Edinburgh in which the Scottish parliament is located. In this context it's being used to refer to the Scottish government collectively, in the same way that "Washington" is often used to refer to the American government.
The SNP are nothing to worry about, really. They're centre-left and moderate. They might campaign for another referendum but it would be silly to class them as xenophobic.
However, from a technology perspective the new Tory majority really worries me. They have no understanding of tech. They want to reintroduce sweeping surveillance legislation that was blocked by the Lib Dems in the previous government.
They also want to ban encryption (!) and will continue to attempt to censor the internet.
They will also likely fail to reform the current system that sees people being arrested for making jokes on Twitter (or, more widely, our terrible libel laws). They also have no real interest in ensuring widespread rollout of high-speed fibre broadband. They'll pay lip service to it, but that's easy to do.
They are also unconcerned about data protection and will likely continue to allow more care.data-style schemes with little effective oversight.
The only upsides: GDS and open data initiatives will probably survive.
I have Scottish family, but I have always lived in England. Most of the Scots I'm related to or know are fairly anti-SNP/anti-independence. I don't really care (a sentiment shared by many outside Scotland) - although I suspect Scotland might struggle as an independent economy.
I don't think the SNP are necessarily bad for tech savvy people - I just don't think they care much about any of those issues at all. By contrast, the Conservatives are looking to enact actively anti-tech legislation.
To counter your claim I'll point out that the Inland Revenue (non-uk people, that's the IRS/tax central) for the whole of the UK is based in Scotland. Under international law (EU law?, IANAL) it is illegal to keep or administer tax records for a foreign nation(1). Thus, the Inland Revenue for England and Wales would be forced to move from Scotland once Scotland gained independence. The economy could first see high unemployment with the knock on effect of falling property values and a few other negative side effects. Maybe in the long term, for many voters, it's worth it, or maybe not?
1.Source: a civil servant with 40+ years experience in the Inland Revenue (not me).
I think you may have misread the comment -- it's the Conservatives (who now have a parliamentary majority on the national level) that will prove problematic on technology, surveillance, and encryption issues, not the SNP.
The SNP is centre-left (and probably to the left of Labour at the moment, which is one reason for their victory in Scotland) and oppose the Conservative position on those issues.
I think you've misunderstood GP's comment, the second paragraph onwards is about the tories (conservatives), not the SNP. AFAIK the SNP has regularly condemned surveillance plans and monitoring expansions.
Nationalist in this context has nothing in common with how the word is generally used in politics. The SNP are in favor of ethnic diversity, this is about control of resources, both natural and political, for the people who live in Scotland (wherever they came from originally). IT's about wresting control from the south of England who Scots feel have marginalized their country (yes, 'country', although technically no longer a country in the proper sense, I should like to point out to other HNers that Scotland has retained judicial, taxation and education systems separate from England and Wales).
There is definitely a pretty strong element of 'us vs. them' with the SNP, but I wouldn't say it's any different to the same sort of thing which happens in almost any nation state. i.e. they're nationalist in the same way that a French person believes that France should be a nation. There is, I would say, unpleasantness and irrationality in it, but no more so than in the usual way that people rally round to defend against foreign criticism, or judge practices or ideas in terms of whether they are 'truly British', 'anti-American', or whatever.
No reason to worry, they're left-wing nationalists who want an independent scottish nation.
They're civic nationalists and social democrats, in German politics they're around the Greens, maybe mixed with a bit of SDP, in the European Parliament they're currently part of the Green/EFA alliance (same as the german Greens and Pirate Party)
"Nationalist Party German History" peek what google has to say about that topic if your memory from school and grand parents isn't sufficient already. ;)
> Pffft. Same argument can be used against socialism.
Sure, but it's understandable that a german would be slightly worried no? Though nationalism in general is benign in most of the world, it remains a worrying sight in Germany (IIRC a few years ago there were comments that Germans only allowed themselves waving the flag for football matches) for perfectly good historical reasons.
The last time time the opinion polls were so wrong was in 1992, when similarly they overestimated support for a somewhat awkward Labour leader who had been the subject of a massive negative campaign by the popular press. I suspect that this kind of personal campaign had an effect when people came to the morning of the election and thought 'actually, do I really want this guy to be Prime Minister?'.
Note that the same polls were all pretty accurate in regards to the result in Scotland, which makes the errors even odder (and gives a bit of support to the "shy conservative" theory).
Possibly the highly promoted guides to tactical voting provided by the right-wing press had a disproportionate impact on the marginal seats?
How does the "shy conservative" come into play in telephone polls, for example? I guess it may well, but it seems a little strange.
Is there something where on the day people swing more towards the safety of the incumbent? This study seems to suggest the opposite should true [0], at least when it comes to undecided voters.
It's definitely an interesting question. How were the polls so wrong? Maybe in the closely contested seats the minor parties split labour? But why didn't the polls show that?
I'd love to paw through the data. Really need to look at it on an electorate by electorate basis to see the variation between the parties (opinion vs actual).
The basic theory is that people are embarrassed to vote in their own selfish self-interest. There are some who claim you get more conservative voters with online polls, because there's no human being there to judge them.
I'd always heard that the undecided break towards the incumbent. I believe all the polls took that into account already though, and still got it wrong.
Oddly enough I would rather not have someone patronizingly voting for what they believe is in my best interests. How do they know what that might be? I would hope that people would always vote in their own 'selfish' self-interest.
I might vote for something that's not directly in my self-interest, believing it's more in the collective interest. I'm part of the collective and I feel a more even society is in my interests, even if that means I personally might not be as well off as I could be. That's really not patronizing.
Though you could argue that I've done it for my own self-interests in the long term (who knows when you or your kids might rely on essential services) :)
EDIT Also, it's pretty obvious that there are choices that are better for some groups of people (that aren't me). I don't know who "you" are, but there are voting choices that I can make that will help those classes of people, you may or may not be among them. I resent the idea that I'm being patronizing by making that choice (though in the strictest sense of the word "patron" maybe you're right).
'Collective' suggests to me we're not going to agree. Patronizing in this context only means making assumptions (likely to be unwarranted I’d argue) about what someone else wants. But who is the 'someone' affected by a vote in a general election? How many people? To what extent? What about unknown/known effects on other people who you do not have in mind? You cannot know and the assumptions pile up. So much easier to vote on what you really do know to the extent that you can know or rationalize. As you say, we can surely agree that it isn’t always our immediate concerns that best serve our interests as in the simple example of imagining ourselves out of work or needing medical attention. As you say, this benefits everyone – point being that we also are ‘everyone’.
There was discussion about the variance between phone and internet polls before the result, but the differences between the two types of polls were minute compared with the change in the actual results.
Tactical voting in an opinion poll doesn't make any difference, so I'd guess there's a danger of misleading answers. I'm sure the pollsters are at least aware of the issue, though what they can do about it I'm not sure.
The Liberal Democrats have always (well, till now) been at their strongest in progressive rural areas that have little to no urban blight (so, much of Scotland, much of the South West, parts of East Anglia, Northumberland, mid Wales).
Now for my personal opinion.. I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties - they're progressive without being overtly socialist, and that appeals to the "hey, I'm still cool" element of the rural middle class that still likes their cars, village fetes, and horsey stuff, but is also pro gay marriage, pro equality and pro welfare.
Labour are the most left leaning, but still kinda centrist. Liberal Democrats are relatively centrist for the major parties but still quite right:
This sums it up best... the UK is mostly a right leaning authoritarian country, we vote on the relative differences between parties rather than the overall thing.
Seem about right to me. The NZ[0] or German[1] compasses cover much more of the spectrum, especially towards left-libertarianism. It's not politicalcompass's fault that US politics live entirely in the right-authoritarian corner and English politics have significantly shifted towards it with New Labour's realignment on US democrats.
Yes those NZ and German charts look a bit more balanced - but being from Australia, their 2013 Aussie election chart is just a bit silly to be honest - two of the parties listed had no chance of even getting any seats, and despite most parties being fairly centrist in their economic policy they all seem to be bunched up in the top right corner. My only guess is that the analysis was done using a small sample of international media.
I think it's just the world we live in. The left and more liberal options exist but none of them are mainstream and we mentally re-draw the extents of the political compass to cover the politics we experience (the major parties).
That should be how the political compass is drawn since it is based on human experience, no?
I think that chart is crazy though. The Conservatives are far from a far right party. Christ, if you dropped the Conservatives in America, they'd be considered a right bunch of commies - even the Democrats would be off the scale to the right by that chart.
Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right-wing authoritarian section of the graph - unless there's a whole lot of countries with extreme left-wing governments which are very pro-choice, which I highly doubt.
> Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right-wing authoritarian section of the graph
Dunno, if you consider that much of the anglosphere is patterning itself more and more after US politics which lives solely in the top-right corner of the top-right quadrant it makes sense that they would coalesce there. And "labour" parties have definitely been shifting their stances towards US dem inspiration.
Having had a look through political compass's past predictions (primarily Australian, since I'm Australian) their analysis is very odd. I mean, there is no way that you can seriously put three quarters of the parties on the top right 16th of the chart.
They were the centrist party, labour was the binary left (centre-left). The Dem part of LibDems had split from labour in the 80s because labour was getting too left-wing. With New Labour moving to centre-right, LDs moved to right-right (explaining the coalition being "basically tory"). The left-leaning parties remaining are the SNP (center-left) and the Greens (left) (Sinn Féin can be ignored as they refuse to sit in Westminster)
Long-term, no, but due to New Labour (1997-2010) being slightly right of centre, the Lib Dems were "left" in relation to that, yes, but not in relation to Labour's traditional position.
I am not particularly savvy when it comes to Scottish politics, but I was under the impression that Scottish Labour was considered somewhat more left than Labour proper even during the New Labour years.
Scotland votes far left of the rest of the UK typically, Lib Dems have historically been more left than Labour however they formed a coalition with Tories to form the last government (and as a part government instituted policies the opposite of why anyone would ever vote for them, ie university tuition fees). So they are no longer considered actually a liberal party.
That is probably the weirdest comment I've ever seen on the election. I didn't realise the tories had a position on "ruby on rails". :)
On a more serious note, the tories are not offering to get us out of the EU, they are providing a referendum. It is likely that most Conservative (tories) MPs will support staying within the EU as it is "good for business".
Yep. Selling off the NHS. Taking money from the poor and disabled. And offering an EU referendum which at the very least will hurt the economy for a while and if it passes will decimate it. Back to business as usual.
The Conservatives are highly unlikely to campaign against the EU despite promising a referendum on it. Indeed, I think they're breathing a sigh of relief only 1 UKIP MP will be sitting opposite them in the house pushing forward the No vote. The lack of any cohesive UKIP vote this time around demonstrates the will of the UK is not to abandon the EU, so the Tories won't really bother to campaign either way IMHO.
This is quite an interesting stance. While I'm glad as an Englishman who appreciates the EU that UKIP didn't come to more power, I think it's unfair to say there was no UKIP vote, they came second or third in a lot of Labour areas and actually netted around 12% of all votes, which is huge, beating the Lib Dems outright.
It's only our messed up FPTP system that means we're safe from UKIP, which doesn't resonate well with me. When a party can net 12% of the overall vote, coming third overall and only get a single seat in Parliment, something is seriously wrong with our voting system.
Your parent didn't say there was no UKIP vote, he said there was no cohesive UKIP votes: UKIP got a bit of voice everywhere but as a result got nothing due to FPTP. Compare to the SNP who got less overall votes than UKIP but focused their effort in a much smaller number of constituencies.
I believe the prime minister specifically stated that they would hold the referendum but campaign for people to vote to remain in the EU. I'm guessing at least a subset of his party will campaign on the opposite side.
In a referendum, it's the number of UKIP voters that they'll need to be wary of, not the number of UKIP MPs in the House of Commons as a result of the well-known distortions of the PFTP voting system. In fact, it's the number of people who ever expressed a desire to vote for UKIP that's the worry, even if someone tactically voted Conservative or Labour in the end, that doesn't mean they're going to vote to remain in the EU.
I assume big business will ensure we stay in, but even the two years of uncertainty beforehand is going to be very costly.
It's not forced. You can very easily not pay the license fee. I don't, and haven't for ~18 months, with the full knowledge of the TV License authority. You just have to follow a simple rule of not watching or listening to live TV or radio broadcasts.
My understanding is that while people may go to jail in relation with the BBC license, they go to jail for not paying the fine, not as a result of not having purchased the license. Now, you may disagree with the fact that people face imprisonment over a fine, but that's a different matter.
"Women make up about 70% of those prosecuted and convicted, and half of those jailed for not paying the fine. When people fail to pay other utilities, such as energy companies, they are guilty of a civil offence, not a criminal one, and they cannot be prosecuted and fined for falling behind with their payments. Civil action can be taken for recovery, but without fines and jail terms."
