To not understand the scaremongering about Labour and the SNP?

[Kampeki]

I am genuinely struggling to understand.

If there is a minority Labour government, the SNP will presumably vote with that government in a lot of the more "left-wing" votes, with or without any deal. Raising the top rate of tax, for example, or introducing a mansion tax. It is my understanding that they support these policies anyway.

The SNP will presumably vote against the government on issues like the renewal of Trident. However, unless they choose to play a very dodgy political game, the Tories will surely vote with the government on such issues, so the SNP will be irrelevant.

What issues would fail to attract support from either side of the house, thereby forcing the Labour Party to enter into a potentially damaging deal with the SNP?

Verypunny that was Scottish labour MPs

The SNP had a policy of not voting on English tuition fees out of principle

I really need to find out more about what happened pre-Thatcher. I've only recently become interested in politics - voted LibDem at the previous GE and was so disgusted by the coalition that I'm taking my vote very seriously this time. But I have much to learn!

The scaremongering is just to sway voters in marginal seats to vote Tory. I think what bothers people is the cognitive dissonance involved if they want a Labour government, voted Labour, believe in the union and then see Labour and the SNP about to form a coalition. It seems academic as Miliband has discounted this anyway, but even on a vote by vote basis there's a chance that a minority Labour govt could depend on SNP (and Plaid, and the Greens) to make decisions. This is a problem for some English voters because, to many of us, we see money travelling over the borders to Scotland and Wales, while we get nothing from the pot. (That is not my personal POV, but one that I've heard mentioned).

For those of you saying that 59 Scottish MPs can't out vote the rest of Parliament, might I remind you that tuition fees only came about because Scottish MPs voted for them safe in the knowledge it wouldn't apply in Scotland?

No one else voted for them? No one at all? Are you sure?

I thin the level of ignorance is quite astonishing. I had a conversation yesterday with someone who was going to "vote for Nicola Sturgeon".

Erm, no you're not, you live rather a long way away in England and even if you lived in Scotland she's not standing, Alex Salmond will be the one in Westminster (among others).

Pausing - I was going to make the same point about the Conservative and Unionist Party. Where's the hysteria about the Tory govt being reliant on the NI vote? Cameron was very happy to forget them when he was lining up diversionary tactics for his 'debate'.

We are going to end up with some kind of coalition government this time round. Seems to me that what we should be aiming for is a conservative - labour coalition which will represent 70% of the electorate rather than going for a main party/fringe party grouping which will give disproportionate influence to a minority party. The Germans seem to manage well with this kind of set up. Why is it never even considered in UK?

The SNP don't give a shiny shite about the rest of the UK so why the hell would we want them governing us? The Scots already receive a LOT more from the exchequer than they contribute. A Labour / SNP coalition will only see them receive MORE as they barter with Labour over which policies they will support!

Labour are a bunch of feckless spendthrifts who seem hell bent on bankrupting the country in order to please their target voters. In order to try and stave off financial meltdown they pursue with a vengeance anyone who has dared to work hard, make a bit of money and improve their lives and bleed them dry!

The Tories have had to make a lot of hard and unpopular decisions over the last 5 years but we appear to be making headway with the nations finances, why people would want to throw it all away now and render the pain of the last 5 years redundant just when things are looking better is beyond me!

I winder what would happen with a Tory/labour equal split government?

It seems like a good idea because, as you say, those are the two parties we voted for. Something would have to change with the current voting system though, wouldn't it?

How does it work in Germany?

Plonky I am pleased you're trying to get informed. People should do that :)

With regard to the idea of the Big Bad SNP thing being bandied about to frighten people into not voting Labour, I find it quite funny that Cameron was very involved in offering all sorts of concessions to Scotland in an attempt to save the Union. Without consultation, without a mandate, without any proper logic, a pile of bribery was flung north in order to secure a vote that might well have been won anyway.
And now an elected government shouldn't be held to ransom by the SNP?

'headway with the nations finances' man ?
By doubling the National Debt?

amicissimma

The English do not pay for free prescriptions in Scotland! The Scottish NHS has a budget - just the same as the English NHS has a budget - because health is devolved in Scotland the decisions about spending the budget therefore are up to the Scottish Government - who have decided to use some of it to provide free prescriptions, unlike Westminister...who provide money for services Scotland doesn't have, like walk in centres. You lobby your MP if you want your NHS to provide free prescriptions then. People in Scotland also pay taxes to.....

The Germans have a very different electoral system, and more experience of coalitions. And despite all those who say Labour and Tory are far too similar (for example, those who claim Labour are 'red Tories' but that vote SNP, put Labour in goverment and everything will be great) they are fighting this election with some fundamental differences of policy.

Bedroom tax - Labour have pledged to abolish this, the SNP are in agreement. The Tories will want to keep it.

Mansion tax/bankers bonus tax/50p higher tax rate - Labour are in favour, I think the SNP have now come round to them all, Tories would oppose.

EU referendum - Tories say they want this, UKIP desperately want this (actually I suspect they'd prefer an immediate departure but know they won't get a majority) but I don't think any other party is backing it.

Tory/Labour coalitions I can think of are the National Government in the early 30s (drastically bad economic conditions, and led to Ramsay MacDonald being expelled from the Labour party) and during WW2 (there was also a coalition in WW1 but that was before the significant rise of Labour). I don't think either Labour or Tories would want to go into one unless it was a dire emergency (or unless the seats were so split that there was no other option to form a government - but I wouldn't expect it to last long).

The opposite end of things is Cameron doing a deal with Farage

That's my dream result. The perfect combination in my opinion.

meditrina: "I thought failing to pass the Queen's speech counted as a 'no confidence vote' (but might be utterly wrong about that). In which case there can be an election, unless someone else attempts to form a government from the existing composition of the House)."

Used to be the case before the fixed term parliament act, but now only explicit votes of no confidence count (i.e. MPs now have to pass a resolution through the Commons stating that they have no confidence in the government).

I'm in Scotland so don't really know much about level of support for UKIP - is there a lot?

GiddyOnZackHunt
By doubling the National Debt?

You see this is the problem, people just don't understand economics. I'll attempt to explain:

Yes the national debt is twice what it was when the coalition took power but it was as a result of the policies put in motion by Labour!
The national debt is currently £1.6 trillion, however if you take Labours spending plans in their manifesto and reverse apply them to the last 5 years we would currently have a national debt of about £1.8 trillion. This means that as a country we are currently about £200 billion better off thanks to the coalition. If Labour had stayed in power and carried on spending at the rate they were before the crash then we would be well over the £2.2 trillion mark in debt by now - they would struggle to have poured cash down the drain faster!

You could in theory eliminate the debt overnight by just stopping spending ANY money and diverting all tax revenue to just paying it back. However that would lead to mass unemployment as all the public sector workers lost their jobs, schools and hospitals would close, the roads would break up as they weren't maintained - the country would shut down overnight.

Think of the deficit (the difference between what we are taking in tax revenues and the money required to run the country) as a tap which is on full flow and the basin of water is the total debt.
All the time we are running a deficit (taking less tax money than we need to spend on running the country), the total debt (amount of water in the basin) is growing.

What this government has had to do is very very slowly reduce the rate of flow while trying not to push the country into chaos and they have done that more successfully than ANY OTHER WESTERN ECONOMY!

The long term goal is obviously to 'turn off the tap' completely and then start draining the basin (paying back the debt) by running a budget surplus (taking more tax revenue than is required to run the country).

So why the hell you'd want Labour back in is beyond me.

ichthegreatcornholio

Yes I'm with you, a Tory led coalition with UKIP! Bring it on!

man I see a few problems with your argument, but the water metaphor you use is helpful in illustrating the difference between debt and deficit.

they have done that more successfully than ANY OTHER WESTERN ECONOMY! And productivity is at its lowest in 25 years. People are working in very unstable conditions.

The crux of the matter for me is this : this government, led by ideology, sees citizens as tax payers and income generators. They don't see people. They hear the figures on food banks and remain wholly unmoved. They don't give a crap about the paupers whose benefits have been (wrongly) sanctioned, and when those paupers die through not being able to afford enough electricity to store their vital diabetes medication, they come out with statistics about why sanctions are good.

They fear the SNP, because Nicola Sturgeon is a left leaning politician who appears to see the welfare of citizens as more important than money. Money is important, but it is not God.

But then if you decide to vote Ukip your believes about people who are not male, white and British are beyond contempt.

I disagree. Perhaps you'd explain economics to the economists who disagree with the 'austerity' programme. Applying one party's plans to the economic reality of another party's action is pointless.

But it can't be denied that if we have a national debt of £1.6 trillion when we haven't been spending, it would be a whole lot worse if we had been spending.

We've been doing a great job moving our country into a more stable position. It won't be good for anyone in the long term if that is undone

prepped it depends on the way you pay off your debt. Good growth, increased revenues and decrease in unemployment fuels growth and can reduce a deficit at least as well as minimal growth and cutting beyond the bone. Prior to the having to bail out the banks we were doing well.

Plonkysaurus
And productivity is at its lowest in 25 years. People are working in very unstable conditions.
Yes you are correct things are pretty bad right now and aren't going to get appreciably better for quite a while yet. However, things are even worse in other countries because our government has done a fair job of starting the long painful process of getting us out of this mess.

I also agree with the rest of your argument about the government seeing us a taxpayers not as people. However I would like to pick you up on one thing - Nicola Sturgeon sees the welfare of SCOTTISH citizens as more important than money - she doesn't give a toss about non Scots!

In an ideal world we would see people as people and put them before money but in this world (the real world) this is just not possible at the moment. Big organisations such as government have to function in the way they do, to try and do otherwise would cause the whole house of cards to collapse and then where would we be? Money is not god - but if you don't have enough money then you're pretty much screwed!

Had you thought that perhaps white middle class males might just be attracted to UPIK because we are fed up of being ignored by successive governments as they pander to the minorities? Why shouldn't someone stand up for us? Being a white middle class male isn't what it was!

I do not intend to vote for them as I do not agree with much of their policy but I would like to see them partnered up with the Tories as I believe that even the Tories are a bit too lefty these days - Farrage might just yank them to the right a bit where they belong.

GiddyOnZackHunt

I am aware that there is more than one point of view and that some economists disagree with the austerity programme. However when you look at the figures it is undeniable that the UK's economy with our austerity programme is outperforming the economies of comparable nations who have not taken such measures. We were the first out of recession, then narrowly avoided going back into recession after the initial recovery stalled and now we have growth figures that the rest of the westernised world look upon with envy. Okay so things aren't exactly brilliant but under the circumstances I think it is fair to say that at this point in time austerity does appear to be working.

I disagree that applying one party's plans to the economic reality of another party's action is pointless. It is the only way we can benchmark one party's plans against another. If we did not do this then we might as well close our eyes and mark our X on the ballot paper wherever the fairies tell us we should.

If Labour wins the election I think we're in for a rocky ride.

I have a political family with close relatives that each represent one of the three main parties at a local level.

Every single one of them feels that Labour winning this election could be an utter boon -- because they think that a term of Ed Miliband as PM will basically destroy this current incarnation of the Labour party and utterly discredit current Labour ideologies.

For the Tory rep, this would then mean the Tories would reorientate and get the terms and parameters needed to really sort the country out.

For the Libdem rep, it would prove that the LibDem's positioning themselves as a moderating force was correct and politically valuable.

For the Labour rep, it would mean that the current manifestation of the Labour party would be smashed to pieces and, from the ashes, a proper party representing the working people of Britain could be forged with local working people who had had proper jobs as representatives. Cue trimphant music and some sort of statue of a man with a hammer rising out of the ground .

I have to say, Labour has lost its good people. I also think it is problematic that the party doesn't have any respected former "statesmen" figures anymore either: for example, where is the Labour version of John Major or Norman Tebbit?

On the doorstep, not one of our lot has come across anyone saying they feel comfortable with Ed as PM. I personally think this is very difficult from a democratic perspective; weak opposition is disastrous for the country whether it be Labour or Tory.

The trouble with that worksallhours is that we would have to sit by for 5 years and watch Milliband and his pals trash our country!

Clever Nicola will run rings around Ed. If Labour have to form a coalition with the SNP, everyone that votes for the Labour Party might as well have driven over the border and voted for the SNP.