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.

Nolotterywinyet seems to miss the basic fact that Scotland doesn't have that many people, far less rich people, to tax and says herself that high income folk will flee if they are taxed.

The economy can be managed in other ways too. Unfortunately those ways are mainly controlled by Tories at Westminster.

"The reality of independence will be flight of wealthy tax payers, very high taxes, crumbling house prices and decreased economic activity, most likely."
Or it could be Scotland free to trade within Europe, not tied to a crashing brexit economy, doing well. And people who are not happy with the little England mentality moving to Scotland and being welcomed. Our universities continuing to be well respected.

Unhappy voters rarely up sticks and leave. I don't think many people will leave England to relocate in a higher tax Scotland. We've got plenty of space right now, they aren't kicking our doors down are they.

ah back to the crashing brexit economy - in a worst case, bad brexit scenario, Scotland is still better off than adding another macro-economic shock and more uncertainty. Remember uncertainty isn't a fixed quantity, you can multiply it...

Rich people from England moving to Scotland, or more people that won't pay much tax and need state support? Hmmmm.

I was thinking more of remainers in general moving here.

Also, uncertainty is better than a worst case, bad brexit scenario. It doesn't necessarily mean terrible things will happen, it means people don't know what will happen. And it could be good things.

Scotland will not be immune from the economic effects of brexit. To then layer the shock of independence on top of that is just sheer lunacy.

The cognitive dissonance that separation from the EU will crash the economy yet separation from the UK won't is quite something to behold.

The repeated insistence that leaving the UK is the same as leaving the UK is making me extremely fed up.

D'oh, the EU. Making me unable to type too it seems.

MorrisZapp I agree with your statement but the same is not true of people unhappy about tax reform, so in the event of higher taxes in Scotland I don't think higher rate taxpayers and business owners would have any qualms about moving south. Just look at how many people relocated to London from Paris when France increased taxes.

Nyx leaving the UK would in all likelihood be worse than leaving the EU because the Scottish and rUK are more closely linked economically, culturally, and socially and it makes even less sense to increase barriers between the two and replicate institutions.

The arguments for leaving the UK and leaving the EU overlap to a very big extent (lack of sovereignty, need to control our own destiny, don't want to be associated with x,y,z).

But I do agree that the reality will be somewhat different. As altered suggests, the EU and the UK are neighbours with some joint responsibilities, but the nations within the UK are more like family, with everything, including transport systems and most institutions, being completely integrated. Leaving the UK is a much messier prospect than leaving the EU.

yes the United Kingdom is a far closer union than the one with the EU. You think people will flock to a high tax culture? I hope we don't have to see how that goes.

Where I am, is libdem territory historically (very strongly), but currently SNP. I think there's a significant chance of libdem taking back the seat - but my vote will be going to the SNP.

Did anyone see the on-camera street poll sky news did yesterday? It was iirc conducted in "The North", outside of London anyway.

From my POV, as a left leaning internationalist, I found it quite alarming. Person after person saying they were life-long Labour voters but were going to vote Conservative on the single issue of Brexit (swift delivery of).

Nyx From their website - so that will independent and unbiased then....
Bedroom tax ...is a nice headline but do you actually know the rules about who pays bedroom tax and who doesn't?
england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/housing_benefit/bedroom_tax_are_you_affected
It is actually pretty fair ... why should the state pay more for someone to live in a house with DCs having their own rooms and a spare room? When people who are working and paying rent/mortgage can't afford to?
And it should encourage people to free up larger houses for families...
The problem with it is having enough available adequately sized properties for people to live in -it isn't fair being stuck in a house with an extra room and being penalised if there isn't a smaller property available - maybe that is where they should be spending their money?
The rest is a bit vague - there are still council rebates available down in England - I would suggest the biggest squeeze on Council budgets in Scotland was the freeze...not reduction in 'council tax support'.
Welfare funds...for xyz ...great - where is the money coming from for that? What is suffering because of that? Unless of course it is from the Magic Money tree. Things like Crisis loans have existed for ages ..before the 'tory cuts'..

I agree with the posters who said about the nationalists and othering...many of the problems Scotland has are the same in areas of England ...and Wales... There are (admittedly few now) fishermen in England - there are struggling shipbuilding yards - closed steel works and mines - there are fewer manual jobs - manufacturing jobs - there too. And it seems with mechanisation/robots these jobs are going to reduce even more. And before anyone says 'Thatcher' -this process started way before then -eg in the NW of England cotton mills started closing in the 60s...with improved transport etc these things could be made for less in countries with lower wages and terrible workers rights/conditions...cotton in the 70s was expensive - it is now cheap...
It is a big issue and that one that needs tackling - jobs don't just provide income, they provide way more than that - people who are long term unemployed suffer poorer health and tend to die younger.
I don't know what the solution is - but I do know that these problems aren't Scotland specific problems and the SNP to my knowledge have never said how they are going to tackle this -what their solution is. Just independence - having even less money/resources ...will be a miraculous solution.

(and sorry for slow replies ...I have to keep doing things in pesky RL -then catch up with the thread...)

Unlucky - the website claims are true and verifiable. If they were saying they had achieved x, y, z on there and it wasn't true this would be leapt on. FFS.

If they were saying they had achieved x, y, z on there and it wasn't true this would be leapt on.

I think the point is that they are likely to be very selective in what they say, so that while what's on there is technically true, it leaves out any context or facts that are less flattering. There are many ways to be biased or misleading, and selective reporting is a common one. Having said that, I'm sure all governments do this - but it does mean you have to take it all with a pinch of salt. That's why we have all these independent commissions that are outside of government control - no conflict of interest or temptation to cherry pick the facts to paint a flattering image.

Unlucky asked a direct question and I answered it using facts from the SNP website. No spin, omission, bias or whatever.

Nyx surely you accept that an SNP website is not going to present any facts that don't make them look good though?

Yes, I accept that (obviously).

Youcannot whether it makes them look good is not the issue. It's answering the question. You're trying to discredit the answer because it makes the SNP look good

I am simply pointing out that this is one side of the story, and a complete picture (one including SNP failures in this case) can't be assumed from a single source with a clear interest in presenting a positive image. I would say the same thing about any clearly biased source, from labour, or the lib dems, or the tories or anyone else. For example, the SNP website makes no mention of the independent report that concluded that their council tax freeze policy has led to many cuts in services which Huser the poor disproportionately.

*hurt the poor. Don't know where 'Huser' came from!

I'm not saying it isn't true - I am saying it is likely to be biased - or worded in such a way as to be misleading ... like this eg
After saying
The SNP Scottish Government has taken steps to mitigate the worst aspects of Westminster’s welfare reform. Since 2013, the Scottish Government has spent nearly £400 million in an effort to alleviate Tory cuts to household incomes.
They say
We are providing help through the Scottish Welfare Fund, which consists of Crisis Grants for when someone experiences a disaster or emergency, and Community Care Grants to enable independent living.

This is from citizens advice
From 1 April 2013, community care grants were abolished. In their place, top-tier local authorities in England, together with the Scottish and Welsh governments, have set up welfare assistance schemes to provide some form of replacement help.

Soooooooo....the 'Scottish Welfare Fund' was not the SNP's idea - it is not something special they have decided they had to do to 'mitigate the worst of Westminster's welfare reforms' - it is actually part of a UK wide change in the way these payments are made/managed. England and Wales have more or less the same set up ...it is actually a Westminster driven policy...