to feel very proud of the Scots' reaction to Nigel Farage?

[HeadFairy]

Particularly the man who yelled at him "foreigners are welcome in Scotland, you're not!"

:o

[claig]

Why do you give up?

Don't you understand the argument between Dan and Galloway? Don't you realise that Galloway is so anti independence that he will even stick up for Farage? Heck he would even stick up for Thatcher if she were against independence. He would swallow every word he had ever said in order to attack independence and defend the Union.

That's why Dan is right to say about him

"It is an imaginative mind that sees a peaceful, diverse, and inclusive movement for independence and concludes that the endpoint is ethnic nationalism. It is the same mind that sees a rowdy student protest directed at an eccentric politician and proclaims the end of democracy creeping round the corner."

[claig]

"So are you actually for grassroots democracy, or would you rather have decisions made by a political elite "with the knowledge and will to do what is best", because that runs rather against the grain of your apparent concern for a lack of democracy in Scotland?"

This is the key to what LessMis is saying and what I think Galloway is like too.

I understand LessMis because she worries about the future and thinks she sees it more clearly and it is possible that she is in fact right. She is right to argue for balance and oppose what is a dominant trend in order to achieve it. But democracy is not about what one individual thinks, it is about what the people think.

I think Galloway is an elitist who thinks he knows best and that is why he is so often on teh wrong side of the argument. Does he really respect democracy and teh votes of people or does he think he knows better than Dan and the majority?

There is a reason that the SNP are in power and that UKIP has risen and it is due to the balance that LessMis talks about. They rose as a balance to things going too far the other way. One day they will wane when the forces of balance reduce their influence too.

You can't always be on the side of the majority, vbut that is what democracy is all about.

I

[LessMissAbs]

There isn't a majority who vote for left wing policies in Scotland. There is a majority of voters who do so, but not a majority of the electorate. I think therefore to make statements such as "the Scottish people are not interested in right wing policies" is a tad controlling.

*Claig is right that I am worried about the future (but not that worried as I will be leaving), but I am also concerned by the legislation we have seen produced by the Scottish Government so far. I really doubt whether some of the stuff produced in the field I work in would stand up to scrutiny under Human Rights legislation. For example, the insistence that landlords of HMOs use leases approved or written by (non-lawyers) in local authority departments is a basic infringement of the individual's freedom to contract. And some of the requirements of particular councils would undoubtedly fall foul of EU Competition law or constitute abuse of a dominant position. Its not been challenged, because access to justice is outwith the realms of the ordinary, affected person who is not a member of a union or entitled to Legal Aid. My former fellow students, all of whom are lawyers, cannot believe it when I describe to them some of the legislative outpourings in Scotland.

[claig]

Newsnight has just said that UKIP is now polling 22%, just 2% behind the Conservatives. This is like the financial crash, not a single expert saw any of this coming. Amazing!

[LadyBeagleEyes]

Well that's rather jolly Claig, unless you take it into perspective, as Nigel Farage is actually a Lizard person.
It's true, I read it in the Daily Mail.

[claig]

"It's true, I read it in the Daily Mail."

I missed that. Have you got a link?

[LessMissAbs]

claig Newsnight has just said that UKIP is now polling 22%, just 2% behind the Conservatives. This is like the financial crash, not a single expert saw any of this coming. Amazing!

My guess would be that its because politics have become so polarised in the UK at the moment. All the leading parties have swung round the political spectrum to have much the same views and policies. Probably because British politics (and Scottish politics is at the forefront of this) is more about what you do in order to get (re) elected than the good of the country.

It will probably settle down before the next General Election, but perhaps (ironically in view of UKIP's main selling point) we may be seeing a move towards a more Continental type of co-alition government.

[claig]

LessMiss, did you watch newsnight just now. There was a Tory councillor on and she was devastating about the Tory party and the leadership who have ignored ordinary Tory voters. She said they have treated their core with contempt and many activists are leaving. It is not about Europe or immigration; it is the fact that they treat their core with contempt and that is now widely understood by the people.

I think it really is over for the Tories in the current form. they can't recover from this. Tory voters know what they think of us and there is no way back. That means that UKIP will not disappear because there is nowhere else for real Tories to go.

I think there will have to be an alliance between the Tories and UKIP and a lot of the current Tory elite will have to go because the cat is out of the bag.

This change in British politics has happened overnight and in the blink of an eye. Labour won't benefit which is why UKIP's ratings are rising.

Such a huge change may affect politics everywhere (even possibly Scotland), because the old establishment parties are in decline in their membership and in their poll ratings.

[Unami]

Yup, the majority of Scottish voters vote for left-wing policies. That's democracy, you seem to have an issue with it.

There's no sure way of knowing how non-voters would vote, and as such there's no reason to believe that their view of voters are vastly disproportionate. You may choose to believe that there's a non-voting majority of Scottish people who would vote for right wing policies but choose not to - but you have no evidence to base it on - other than wishful thinking.

[Unami]

I don't know why Tory voters are shocked that the Tory party have utter contempt for them. The Tory party seem to have absolutely no interest in serving the needs of any ordinary people - their own voters included. I'm baffled by why anyone without a triple digit private income would even consider voting Tory, they don't give a crap about you.

[claig]

Unami, you are right. But ordinary Tory voters are just ordinary people like everyone else and they had to hope that their voice was heard by someone. But it is now clear that the Etonian elite and metropolitain elite really are on a different planet. The ordinary Tory voters loved Thatcher because she was on our side. But the current lot are on a different planet to ordinary people.

I don't think the ordinary voters can pretend or hope anymore. It is now as clear as the nose on Pinnochio's face what they think of us.

Who said politics was boring? Hang on for the ride. It's going to be a thriller and a bare knuckle ride and change will surely come.

[LessMissAbs]

Unami Yup, the majority of Scottish voters vote for left-wing policies. That's democracy, you seem to have an issue with it

Not at all. Haven't I told you before to stop telling me what I think?

The only issue I have is with lies.

The majority of the Scottish people do not vote for left wing policies.

Much as you appear not to like it said.

You may choose to believe that there's a non-voting majority of Scottish people who would vote for right wing policies

I choose to believe no such thing. What an odd thing to say. Again, is it at all possible that you could stop telling other people what they think? Or is it a somewhat illusory attempt at brainwashing? Of whom?

[Unami]

So all you are saying is that the majority of the Scottish people don't vote? Is that it?

[Decoy]

YANBU. It's great that Farage is being shown up for who he really is. What serious politician puts the phone down when asked a pertinent interview question? I'd like to see him interviewed by Paxman next

[Mimishimi]

I am from Scots background on one side but not a Scottish national. However, the immigration questions we've been having in our country pretty much mirror those in other Western countries. I don't think I'm especially left-wing, not the Marxist variety anyway. Our problem is this ... before the bulk of all of this immigration ... we can't forget that we've been in constant war - either on us or with us. Really, on our families experience, on both sides. is that we lose a crop of young men to death or devastating disabilities, to war each and every generation. Those who wage it are scared because immigrants are now perceived to be doing 'their' jobs but the awful truth, for me and many of my background, is that we couldn't do those jobs anyway because our families have teetered on the financial/educational edge for generations and we know exactly the circumstances that put us there. So when you get some beefy blonde or slick neocon whose family has made their bucketloads of money selling guns telling me that some Pakistani doctor, some Indian programmer, an Iranian scientist, some Filipino driver hates our way of life and that we should basically get rid of them, we think "Bollocks" because we know that if we did get rid of all these 'undesirables' we'd be the next target. I'd much prefer an ordinary well-educated foreigner to one of our native monied but useless feckera. They didn't care about us when they sent our men off to die in Flanders or Borneo, they didn't care for widows or wives whose husbands could never work again due to war trauma, they won't care about the mental health problems we'll definitely have if we 'fix' their cheap labour/globalist experiment. Politically disengaged? You bet. Give a shit? No way.

[Toadinthehole]

Speaking of law and the SNP, it amused me to learn that the SNP government has received legal advice on an independent Scotland's membership of the EU but has refused to reveal what it says.

I can't for the life of me think why that is.

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

Decoy Farage interviews well,he is pretty much the only politician who answers the question given at the moment.

That is one of the reasons he is gaining in popularity imvho.

[Toadinthehole]

claig

I think the only kind of alliance UKIP can expect from the Tories is an informal-cum-confidential arranged on a constituency-by-constituency basis. There are plenty of pro-Europe Tories - in fact, if being Europhile means remaining in the EU, the majority of the Conservative Party are Europhiles. Alliance with UKIP would rend the party in two.

Which is not to deny the Tories have been in crisis, even since before the gratuitous insult directed at their rank-and-file members. This is how the Tories have polled since 1992:

1992: 14m (42%)
1997: 9.6m (31%)
2001: 8.4m (31%)
2005: 8.7m (32%)
2010: 10.8m (36%)

In 18 years they still have only two thirds of their previous support. It's interesting to note that the Tories in 92 polled more than Labour in 97.

[Mehrida]

Decoy Farage interviews well,he is pretty much the only politician who answers the question given at the moment.

Except when he doesn't like the question. Then he hangs up.

[claig]

'in fact, if being Europhile means remaining in the EU, the majority of the Conservative Party are Europhiles. Alliance with UKIP would rend the party in two.'

You are right. But I now think that the majority of Tory voters rather than the unrepresentative Tory MPs we see on our TV screens are very close to voting out of Europe.

I think it has come to this because the Tory MPs are now so useless and unrepresentative and even contemptuous of ordinary Tories, that the Tory voters have had enough - which is why they turned to a formerly fringe party that can't seem to vet its own candidates properly - UKIP.

It is almost at the stage that if Cameron has to write a letter saying "we are a team" and he prefers to remain in a reformed Europe, Tory voters as opposed to Tory MPs could do the opposite.

The crisis in the chasm between the chumocracy and the elite and the people is now so deep, that it may not be possible to mend it.

At the moment, the polls in Scotland seem to indicate that the majority will not choose independence. But just imagine if Cameron writes a letter saying "we are a team" and if the gap between the people and teh elite continues to widen over the next year. Then people in Scotland may do what the people in England did in the local elections and vote against the established parties.

Salmond is presenting his economic arguments for independence today. Of course, the established parties will poo poo them, but everybody knows that New Labour was at the helm when the ship of state ran to ground due to their lack of effective economic regulation of banks and the economy. People may prefer Salmond to what went before.

[FannyFifer]

Mehrida, he may answer questions well in England but certainly not in Scotland.

He was up for a by-election in Aberdeen, he didn't even bother going there, just to Edinburgh 150 miles away.

He was calling the people from Aberdeen "clowns & loons" when the expression is "quines & loons".

He was asked questions about education and wasn't even aware we have a completely separate education system in Scotland.

Honestly it was embarrassing the mans pure ignorance.

[claig]

This is how bad it really is behind the spin and schmooze of TV reports


"The reason why UKIP is polling 19 per cent, why record numbers of former Tories are voting for an anti-European fringe party, is not that they are driven by the single issue of Europe ? my father was one of those rare Tories who wanted to join the euro ? but because they are driven by the single issue of abandonment.

Like my parents, they feel they have been deserted by the rich clique of ex-public schoolboys who now run Britain.

Cameron?s chumocracy doesn?t understand my father, a car engineer and former grammar schoolboy, or my mother, the daughter of an Italian immigrant who grew up in a council house in Coventry and left school early without a single formal qualification, but ran a thriving hairdressing salon for 40 years."


www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2327218/MELISSA-KITE-Camerons-chums-DO-despise-grass-roots.html?ito=feeds-newsxml


Who will the Scottish people choose between a coalition of chums of all parties versus the SNP?

It may not be the result the TV reports and polls predict.

[ubik]

"the insistence that landlords of HMOs use leases approved or written by (non-lawyers) in local authority departments is a basic infringement of the individual's freedom to contract. And some of the requirements of particular"

Is this to do with the licensing of HMO's? I thought that was brought in under labour after those boys died in a fire in a basement HMO - it ets out fire regs, minimum standards etc

[ubik]

And after having lived in the same building as many HMOs the more regulation, the better. We live in an ex HMO - the licence was finally rejected after our downstairs neighbour was flooded nine times by the HMO above.

[Toadinthehole]

Regulation is one thing (although it is useless without proper enforcement) but requiring landlords and tenants to use a pro-forma contract strikes me as quite another. It is perfectly possible to legislate to ensuer that landlords maintain properties to appropriate standards. It is another thing to require them to agree to a whole bunch of extra stuff they wouldn't normally wish to agree to, and I think that is what LessMissAbs is talking about.