Where are all my No-mates?

[HamletsSister]

In despair. Absolutely in despair. Do we have to go through this again? And with such a long lead up to the referendum? Really? What happened to the settled will of the Scottish people?

@statisticallychallenged Will you help me get through this again? (Was Roseformeplease then).

We have the benefit of a council election just before the general election.

Perhaps we could vote tactically for the most popular unionist party to come out of the council elections in the general election. Voting intentions are so fluid atm we can not rely on the data from the last elections or the polls, but could get an indication from the council elections of the most popular pro union party in each area. There are some areas where we will never get them to vote conservative, but damaging the snp is the goal here so if we can get all pro union parties to make gains that would be great. The important thing is that they are not competing against each other in any area. After the results are in I'll try and put together a spreadsheet of tactical votes.

To be fair I wish all unionists would just come out and vote conservative in the gen election this time. This is because we are going to have a Tory majority in Westminster anyway so our votes are not going to make the difference between a conservative or a labour government on this occasion it would also stop the snp from being able to perpetuate the "Scotland would never elect a Tory govt" myth. It would remove one of their slurs against the English and stop them being able to paint us out as different to our English neighbours. I think we can cause most damage by embracing all pro union parties though, because there are some staunchly left wing unionists that will not make the switch even for one election.

We might even like what the conservatives do... Thatcher is long gone.

I tried to look if our LibDem MP who lost to an SNP candidate is standing again but couldn't find anything. When will the list of candidates be finalized? There must be a deadline surely.
I can't actually vote in the GE.

There is a list of candidates for council elections. Don't know about gen election yet.

Good idea Nippy, although if that means I have to tactically vote labour whilst Corbyn is in charge I cannot do it! Must get Corbyn out...

Corbyn is a wazzock, but there is no chance he'll get in because of the huge Tory surge in England. So we'd still get May, but a labour mp instead of an snp one.

Well, I'm a leftie no-voter and as quandaried as can be. I'm in a safe SNP seat which used to be a safe Labour seat, but Tories came second last time. So if I want to tactically vote to get the Tories out of Westminster then I'd have to vote SNP, but there's no way I'd do that. If I want to tactically vote to get the SNP out then I'd have to vote Tory, and there's no way I'd do that either.

I don't suppose it matters anyway since the SNP are going to walk it in my constituency. I'm very worried that whatever mandate this election may give Theresa May over Brexit, it'll give the SNP an even stronger one for another indyref.

Only because the anti-indy group is split between parties - the bar is set so low for the SNP to claim they've got backing for a referendum. At least in a referendum the no vote isn't split.

It's a crap shoot isn't it? I wish we could have a progressive 'get the SNP out of Scottish government' alliance.

The general election is a nightmare from the perspective of indyref. I really wish we had some form of pr rather than fptp.

I'd like to see a labour, Tory conservative alliance in the next Hollyrood election.

Sorry I mean labour lib dems tory

PR let's the loon bags in though.

Yep. PR gave us the loonbags in Holyrood and now look where we are. Loonbags all over the map and no Scottish Labour MPs to sort them out.

I would rather go back to Scotland split 50% Labour seats, 25% LibDem and 25% Conservative to give a moderating Scottish influence on all the UK wide parties.

Moderating influence could be had even if we all voted conservative. Remember all parties need to appeal to their audience. If the Scots started to vote conservative it would undoutably move them to the left.

The problem has arisen that because of the huge snp audience and the other pro union parties are split pro union parties do not have a large enough pool of potential voters and therefore they tailor policies around places they will get enough vote share to win seats.

I don't think pr is perfect and yes it can let the loons in...but when all bar 3 of the Scottish mps are snp at the moment despite them getting just under 50% of the vote it's not exactly representing the breadth of views in Scotland either. Maybe some sort of in between with pools of seats could work?

I agree statistically challenged. It does seem unfair.

I wish Nicola would sort our farm payments system. They held on to the money to pay for something else it is said. The SNP is fiscally inept
I don't have a vote here but would definitely vote NO. Is there any point in getting angry with the SNP though? The clue is in the name of the party. Blame that idiot Cameron.

Have you seen the latest polls? I have mixed feelings about it being a lefty no voter, but I really really hope the snp lose seats.

This one?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-revival-on-course-to-foil-independence-0kwxzclfw

Oh God, I really hope they lose seats to the Tories, at least for now. The SNP are determined to frame this election as 'us vs the Tories', and are using it a proxy independence referendum. Its clear that if the Tories do badly in Scotland but well elsewhere they'll use it as 'evidence' that Scotland is just so different from the rUK and obviously we need independence to be free. On the other hand, if the Tories take seats from the SNP this indicates that not only are Scots not that different after all, but they hate the idea of independence more than a Tory government.

Once the SNP threat is dealt with normal service can resume, but for now I'll certainly do what it takes to give the SNP a bloody nose and stop them forcing through another indyref.

Youcann0tveser10us I couldn't have put that better myself.

In the UK we flip and flop between socialism and capitalism. One thing I can say is that occasional socialist governnent provides relief and acts as a good balancer for the poor in RICH (previously capitalist) countries.. My belief is that an independent Scotland would be very poor so if it is a choice between living in a country where some are extremely rich, lots are in between and some are comparatively poor, but with reasonable chances of social mobility OR living in a very poor country (independent scot) where we are all the same, but all poorer than the poorest are now under a continually socialist government who scare business, jobs and taxpayers away with no prospect of anyone being successful and all people with aspirations emigrating then I opt for option one.
Nobody, not even the tories want anyone to be poor. Poverty is a huge problem in all society and benefits absolutely nobody. Huge social problems arise in areas with high poverty which are expensive to fix which means paying higher tax. Poverty benefits nobody and scaring away wealthy people in no way benefits the poor.

I think after independence people would turn immediately against the snp because they would massively hike taxes and public services would collapse, people would turn to far left government (communists) in their pursuit of a "fairer" society, businesses would suffer and the wealthy would flee. There would be no jobs and no wealth to tax.

It is often the loveliest people who believe in socialism, but reality it never works long term. It hurts the people it is designed to help when it becomes a long term plan.

The UK has worked so well because it has been well balanced flipping and flopping between socialism and capitalism breaking the union will not be good as neither rest of UK or scotland will have the counterbalance needed to remain centrist.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/dc4e8cfa-19e6-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f81f

There is a graphic in this article about the damage already being done to Scotland's economy because of the snp obsession with independence. I believe it will only get worse unless enough people can stomach voting conservative to get them out. Come on scotland... Thatcher is dead, her policies were not well suited to scotland, but she has not been in government for 30 years and she is dead... she can not come back from that.

In a few years when things settle down the interest in independence will have susided and we can get back to left right politics again. At the moment we are needing to deal in anti union, pro union politics and as Nicola s and the pm have said it is a 2 horse race this time.

Once the SNP threat is dealt with normal service can resume So you can go back to voting Labour because it's more socially acceptable to you.
www.heraldscotland.com/news/14930662.Revealed__The_secret_multi_million_pound_corruption_report_at_scandal_hit_Labour_council/
More of this sort of thing?

Not one single party is free of corruption at the moment.
The reason I won't vote Corbyn is that he in my eyes is close to communist and will scare business away and pacifist to the point he would willingly leave us defenceless. How can he run the country when for 2 years running he has screwed up his own tax return. I am not anti labour and would seriously consider them under different leadership.