To wonder what the scots are thinking

[Ruperta]

If the exit polls are to be believed then tge Scots will have massively turned out in favour of SNP. This is less than 12 months after voting no to independence.

Why then vote SNP? Have they shot themselves in the foot or are the Scottish going to be protected from the welfare cuts that are going to be imposed on us? Are there NHS and education budgets more protected? Honest questions as I'm very confused!

Feeling very disappointed

I agree Peter.

Once the flag waving has stopped, people are going to realise they effectively put a cross in the blue box.

OOAOML mine was mocking me for not voting SNP.

All the SNP voters on my Facebook are still busy crowing about how proud they are of Scotland and laughing about Jim Murphy.

To me it's not really all about Scotland though is it? Maybe why I don't like the SNP.

Our new SNP MP is an ex Tory/ex Labour supporter who doesn't live in the area and apparently just wanted a seat and wasn't bothered where. So not feeling too rosy really.
I personally think whilst independence is still on the table (whether imminent or 10 years away) that political decisions will always slightly be motivated by positioning themselves to play the big bad Westminster, poor old Scotland card and not purely in the best interests of the country

We have no tuition fees and no private companies in the nhs and no fracking and no academies, SATs or free schools.

- am considering a move to Scotland

Look at it like this....

Most, if not all, 'yes' voters will have supported SNP. Take the remaining percentage of voters.....their votes will have been spread across three/four parties. Therefore they lacked weight.

I can't count the number of pieces of propaganda that said 'Vote for X to stop SNP here.' It's sad to think that people would vote in order to stop a party rather than on the merits of the other party. But that's tactical voting I guess.

I'm right cheesed off this morning at some of my 'shouty' SNP friends heralding that Scotland has spoken as if the referendum never fecking happened. SNP are strongly opposed in some areas but it's not what the polls show. And it pisses me off that they gloat using flowery poetic language. Politics and national pride are different things in my opinion.

Anyway, rant over. Still don't know who won in my area. Stuck wAtching Teddington on Show Me.

I completely agree Catsahoy

I couldn't have said it better myself.

You know that in the end it doesn't matter what Scotland voted. Conservatives would still have a working majority

Ubik1 - I don't think we know that yet.

I'm anticipating some crowing from my Yes voting friends. They'd have had plenty to say if I'd been preening post referendum of course - we had to "have a heart" and "think about how hurt they were", but I get a feeling it ain't gonna cut the other way.

peter - yes, it's pretty much the end of the Union. Which is why the SNP will be whooping this morning.

OOAOML Personally I'm thinking my husband is a fucking twat who I have lost all respect for. And that we have lost a brilliant hardworking MP to be replaced by a second rate nationalist councillor.

Hope you didn't get the 20 year old student!

(not that it matters, the SNP will control her every thought and movement).

Interesting that Scotland consistently shows voting trends in favour of one party for lengthy periods of time, then suddenly swings en masse to another party. Not so long ago, admitting to voting anything but Labour in some areas would have been quite unwise, now its the SNP. I believe in the past it used to be Conservative. And then some very rural parts of Scotland still seem to vote an entirely different way altogether.

Its like a kind of mass hysteria at times, and I'm just too phlegmatic to be drawn into that.

Sold our family home in Scotland just after the Referendum, although I still have a small house there which entitled me to a vote. None of this made me want to return to Scotland and buy a family home there. I don't want benefits, I don't want any more of my income redistributed, I'd happily pay for my prescriptions and I've been much happier using a private healthcare system abroad than the NHS.

The council tax freeze was long overdue though since council tax levels in Scotland were (and may still be) mostly much higher in Scotland than in England for the same band of property.

Yes, FB is mighty depressing today.

Scotland has played right into the hands of the SNP. We can only hope Westminster blocks another referendum and the SNP fall apart.

No tuition fees... But no pencils in P1 either.

OOAOML I feel a bit dejected this morning too - I thought our MP was a pretty damn decent chap...and I generally agreed with his voting record too. He was a very experienced MP who has been involved in local politics for decades.

Well said Santana.

This Scot is pretty sad about the outcome in Scotland and also nit looking forward to the post election crowing.

I was hoping for an end to the divisiveness of the referendum and am worried about the future here.

surely it would be pretty much impossible for Westminster to block another referendum. I know we have the Holyrood elections next year but given we now have a tory government, again, the SNP will capitalise on that and another x years of debate and division looks pretty much inevitable, to me anyway. making me very fed up today...

I'm much more shocked by the way England has voted than Scotland tbh. England has clearly embraced Tory austerity.

Westminster from a practical perspective could easily block another referendum. Which I think they might do tbh. But what an SNP Scottish Government would do if that happened and they'd campaigned on it...

I think WM could block another one once, maybe twice.

I don't know why people are surprised the Tories did so well on England. If Scotland thought they weren't worthy, why should/ would England?

They being Labour in that last sentence.

I hope they would block it. By Holyrood elections next year we'll have had three years of elections and the campaigning that goes with it. Which inevitably detracts from the job of running the country. I'd rather they focused on that for a while, prove all the sceptics wrong and present a well thought out case for independence in 10/15 years backed up by a strong track record and economic strength rather than nationalist rhetoric

I didn't vote SNP. But I was worried about everyone saying that we needed to vote SNP that it was tactical voting and we'd end up with the same mess from Lib Dems tactical voting.

Perhaps the SNP could hold a referendum on having another referendum. It wouldn't have legal force but would have political force. Constitutionally, Scotland doesn't have the power or the parliamentary sovereignty to call another Referendum. But arguably the UK has a political rather than a legal constitution, and the last referendum was as a result of political negotiation, not legal argument. So it seems unlikely that the UK Government would refuse calls for another one.

I'm very tired of the constant Scottish crowing too, and I'm Scottish. At some stage, some SNP diehards will have to move on from nose-thumbing and playground tactics and actually run a country with the powers they have available.

I think even if in the future, Scotland did become independent and the country turned into an economic backwater like Latvia, even half a century from now, the SNP would still be blaming it on the Conservative government and Margaret Thatcher.

Because the SNP are a more favourable option when you, oh I don't know, live in Scotland?! I fail to see why Scottish voters get the blame for the Tories. Scotland has one conservative seat at the minute, one. How many are there in England?! Perhaps focus on why voters south of the border are choosing to keep a Tory government rather than blaming the Scottish swing from labour. At the end of the day people vote for who they want to vote for and that's who is in power. Blaming "the scots" for voting for a party that they feel represents them is really just quite ridiculous.

Exactly itwontletme...I think if their focus was doing the best for Scotland then they'd concentrate on running the country really well for a while and possibly trying an approach of getting more powers gradually so that a future separation was gradual. Maybe they'll campaign on devo-max next year?