General Election - June 8th

[TinfoilHattie]

Another vote.

Can totally understand why May has made this move and it is very interersting from a Scottish perspective. Less about Brexit, more about another independence referendum.

I am very torn on who to vote for. It was exceptionally close between SNP and Lib Dem here last time round so it will probably be Lib Dem, but if polls show more chance of the Conservatives or Labour getting the SNP MP out on his ear I'd vote for either of those too. (V unlikely that Labour would be in that position though). Wouldn't ever vote Green.

Well certainly in David Mundell's constituency they only got 1.6% of the vote, so its probably viewed as financially non viable. Why would then stand in constituencies they know they have no hope of winning, plus it costing them financially, when rather they can not stand a candidate, in the hope that this will be repaid in another election? It politicking.

I remember PH being quizzed on independence during indyref 1 and he made it clear then that he supported an independent Scotland. Im not aware of anything changing between then and now. The only way to tell if voters are unhappy will be to see what the next Holyrood elections show.

Greens support Indy because it gets them so many column inches, hitching themselves onto the SNP bandwagon. If they opposed Indy, we'd all be like "Green who?"

Yes, the only point of the Scottish Greens is to fawn at the SNP. Do they even talk about Green issues?

i assume they do, otherwise how would they trick all those 'traditional green voters' who are now apparently angry at them

It seems STV is also wondering what the point of the Scottish Greens is. Patrick Harvie has not been invited to participate in the leader's debate. Perhaps they reckon Sturgeon will have his responses covered already?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39736031

Scottish Greens arent a main political party tho in the UK General Election. They dont have any MPs. Its hardly then surprising then that they are not asked to the TV debates. Otherwise they'd have to ask every independent and other minor parties to the debate.

Have just read as well that the Green membership saw a huge increase after the indy vote. So maybe Green voters arent as unionist as you think they are.

Personally, I have no idea what proportion of Green voters are Unionist, but their party membership is just over 9000 I believe and they received over 150,000 regional list votes in the 2016 Scottish elections (and just over 13,000 constituency votes). Even if all the new members were pro-indy that still leaves a large majority of Green voters than we just don't know about. Only time will tell if/how badly they'll be punished by the electorate.

I don't think that anyone has suggested that the Green voters are necessarily Unionist.

The point being made is that the Greens, prior to the indyref, don't seem to have specifically expressed that they were a independence party. Presumably their original stance was to stand on environmental issues.

Now they seem to be happy to make their raison d'etre to give support to the SNP, this seems to be their priority rather than a side issue. Leaving their original voters who may or may not be unionist, no place in the party thoughts unless they are also independence supporters.

I suspect the rise in membership is down to indy supporters who like the new stance but don't want to join the SNP.

I mean it's fair enough that they change their priorities and views, all parties do that, but it's a bit disingenuous that they continue to call themselves "The Green Party" when actually they are the Scottish Independence Party #2.

But if their objectives are the same pre independence, then why would they not still be the Green party? Supporting independence doesnt mean they have changed their stance on trident etc. If anything, it endorses it.

This is still about them saying that they are not standing in order for the votes to be available to support the SNP. So, they are putting their support of indy above that of their particular environmental stance. If I was a non indy supporting green party member or supporter I'd feel sold down the river.

This is still about them saying that they are not standing in order for the votes to be available to support the SNP

Harvey is a twerp. Wightman's only agenda is "land reform"

Nyx 2m people voted to stay in the Uk vs 1.66m who voted to stay in the EU. 55% of an 85% turnout is bigger than 62% of a 67% turnout and more people were eligible to vote in indyref.

You can spin it how you like but the fact is a lot more people cared about staying in the uk than cared about staying in the EU.

DH and I are both Green minded on lots of issues. Their current stance on Independence and the EU are both deal breakers for us as we have an Internationalist rather than a Nationalist / Europhile outlook. I don't think we are that unusual. Their NIMBY stance on some of the City redevelopment projects is not helping their credentials any either.

This makes for interesting reading. It seems to suggest, as I think many of us suspected, that the 'compromise proposal' was unworkable because it would put up barriers against trade with the rest of the UK.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39744871

I also thought Mike Russell's response was telling as it seems to concede that the UK government had invested a lot of time and effort into examining these proposals - he talks about engagements between officials in both governments over a period of months. This is somewhat at odds with the impression Nicola Sturgeon gave when she announced her plans for a second referendum:

"Our efforts at compromise have been met with a brick wall of intransigence."
"a point blank refusal to discuss in any meaningful way a differential approach for Scotland."

This is interesting from the Times, leading cancer specialist slams SNP's management of the NHS:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/nhs-under-snp-starved-of-cash-says-cancer-specialist-g00gzqt2j

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4434506/England-one-worst-places-cancer.html

I've written about this before, but very briefly, family members working in both NHS England and NHS Scotland see, and comment upon, the fact that things may be less than idea in NHS Scotland but are much worse within NHS England. DH, a senior Dr involved in the management of NHS Scotland, and no fan of the SNP, states that the policies of the SNP have, to an extent, protected NHS Scotland from some of the worst effects of policy changes which have affected NHS England so badly. There is a limit to what they can do within the budgetary constraints...

What about the specific allegation made in this times article that the SNP have not passed on all the funding they could have to the NHS? As far as I understand it, it's saying they've misused the Barnett top up funds.

Nyx like it or not Scotland will be leaving the EU. To purposely leave the UK in addition would be like jumping off of a cliff but knifing yourself on the way down to make sure.

Governments haven't caught up with modern industry yet. A friend of mine writes software for a company in Edinburgh, last year he moved to Madrid. Still the same job, for the same company, just paid and taxed in Spain. Anyone in the knowledge industries could do the same.

andhold - NHS Scotland should be doing much better than NHS England. We haven't had the same rapid increase in population in the last 10 years or so seen south of the border.
From 2004 -14 in Scotland we had an extra 200,000 people who potentially need treating - in England they had an extra 4.1 million - 80% of the population of Scotland!
To be relative though we do have a much smaller population so have fewer facilities in the first place - still our increase was about 0.5% compared to England at 0.8% - with areas of England up to 1.4%....
To be honest if NHS England wasn't struggling I would be more surprised. They have a good excuse - NHS Scotland - not really - especially not as we get more money a head to spend on us...

CD Taylor - I see it more like being pulled off the cliff as tied to the rUK, and leaving UK is cutting that rope that's dragging us down and enabling the parachute that will save us

well you may see it that way Nyx but if we're going for vivid imagery, it's more like a storm (EU exit) being turned into a tornado (Independence).

About that story in tne Times...

Could people please make clear where any links posted come from? I really don't want to give that racist arsehole any more clicks on his website.

Hirples this doesn't address the specific allegations made about senior clinical vacancy rate, and also the rate of health spending increase being higher in England 2011-2016.

It's just a rehash of a few statements about the NHS in Scotland being good.

In fact, are there SNP really saying they've got so much money for health they felt they could spend it elsewhere? I'm sure voters would like to know.

It's funny that he accuses her of a relentless barrage of negativity when posting something that merely adds up to vague reassurance and character assassination.