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Politics
Original poster

Extremely dumb-arse questions about UK politics

31 replies

SpawnChorus · 26/04/2010 16:07

I'm too embarrassed to reveal my ignorance in RL, and google research doesn't explain it in sufficiently thickoid language.

  1. How does this election affect the Scottish Parliament? Or does Scot Parliament have its own election? Are MSPs the same individuals as the MPs in Westminister?

  2. Why is it so hard for Lib Dewms to convert votes to seats? I know it's summat to do with first past the post system...is it because in any one constituency they are likely to come 2nd (or better), whereas Con and Lab are likely to come first or third?

OP posts:
stressedHEmum · 26/04/2010 16:38

I would like to hope that a Tory government would make more folk vote for independence, fluffles. I have to say, though, that none of the other parties really work with the SNP at all within the Scottish Parliament, because they have a problem working with a party of independence.

To be honest, I find the whole thing really unfair. Why should Scotland have to be governed by a Westminster government (presuming a Tory victory) when said government might have no representatives in Scotland at all?

AMumInScotland · 26/04/2010 16:35
  1. No the Scottish Parliament is completely separate, and we have different elections at a completely different time. The MSPs are only in the Scottish Parliament, and MPs are only at Westminster.
  1. You're right it's to do with being second a lot - so you'll have seats with a Labour MP who got the majority, with a LibDem second, and seats with a Conservative MP and a LibDem in second place. If you counted up all the votes, the LibDems might have got more overall than either Labout or Conservative, but still not got a seat.
stressedHEmum · 26/04/2010 16:34

THe election affects the scottish parliament in so far as it affects the amount of money it is given by Westminster, MSPs are different from MPs. MPs sit in Westminster but MSPs sit in Holyrood. You can't be an MSP and an MP at the same time. Elections for Scottish parliament are held at a different time, between general elections.

Many of the main debating points between the 3 main parties are irrelevant to Scotland because they are devolved issues (things like education, policing, health etc.) What a Westminster government has to say on these things makes no difference to Scotland. What will affect us is the economic policies of the 3 main, Westminster parties because the Westminster government gives the executive money to fund their devolved stuff. So large public sector cuts could affect Scotland very badly as could a government which fails to realise that Scotland is coming out of recession much more slowly than the rest of the UK or one that doesn't realise that, although Scotland has a small percentage of the UKs population, we have just about 1/3 of the landmass, which means that the cost of delivering our services is proportionately higher per capita. Funding from Westminster is done on a per capita basis and a large cut in the settlement could have a much bigger impact than imagined. All the talk of replacing the Barnett formula with a "need based" idea is pretty frightening as well, because Scotland could end up with a disastrously low level of funding.

Lib dems have a hard time making votes = seats because they keep coming second or third in places, so even with a high percentage of the vote the first past the post system makes it difficult to make gains. In most places the candidate who is returned will have significantly less than half the votes but because they have the most, they win. This is why electoral reform is so crucial to democracy in this country.

fluffles · 26/04/2010 16:33

MSPs are totally different, election is at a different time, there is no effect at all on Holyrood from the westminster election.

EXCEPT.. there are almost no conservatives in the scottish parliament, in theory it might be harder for a conservative government to work with a scottish parliament which is mainly SNP, Labour and Lib Dem (ie. quite left wing).

Many people think that if the conservatives get into westminster then that will encourage more scots to vote for full independence.

longfingernails · 26/04/2010 16:32
  1. The UK (Westminster) Parliament sets policy for the UK.

UK policy is things like defence, tax rates, foreign affairs, national borrowing, etc.

The Scottish Parliament is given a fixed amount by the UK Parliament each year. It decides how to spend this between devolved issues like education, health, policing, etc.

Confusingly, the UK Parliament also decides health/education/policing for England - most people reckon it is too expensive to have a completely separate Parliament for England only, so they fudge it.

  1. Yes, you are exactly right. This is also a problem for the Tories, though less so than for the Liberal Democrats. Labour are very effective at winning votes in the seats where it counts.
Nymphadora · 26/04/2010 16:30
  1. I thought it was the same but never really thought about it so could be wrong!
  1. You need to get the most votes in a contituancy to get the seat and in a lot of cases the Lib Dems don't. Thats why they want PR. PR means that if they get 50% of the countries votes they get 50% of the seats.