Shall we have a Scotsnet general election thread?

[JennyLake]

This WILL be interesting. Even if it doesn’t rid us of the SNP from Holyrood, it will provide a good barometer of public opinion on the recent exploits of the SNP.

Farewell Blackman and Black!

I would like to see Labour make big gains but in my constituency it’s realistically only a
vote for SNP that can help keep the Tories from getting the seat back. I don’t feel very happy with the idea of that tactical vote though.

Polls suggesting down to 12 seats for the SNP. I'd like to see it in single figures personally.

Well I’m not voting SNP , I will be voting Tory !! I have voted SNP for years , I’m finished with them.

Not sure about anything else but I would give anything to be taxed like the English! And if Scottish politics is all GRA, a violent, failing education system and failed ferry building, aren’t we better off with English politics? How much worse can it be?

I really struggle to put my finger on anything that the SNP have improved in the 17 years they’ve been in charge. Which really makes the extra tax hard to swallow. If they were doing any good I’d gladly pay it but they just aren’t.

It’ll be a tactical vote for me, counting down to a Scottish election.

I seem to remember a number of seats won by the SNP by a handful of votes. I expect a big drop. I think ‘vote SNP to keep the Tories out’ is a miscalculated slogan. I’m not a particular Tory fan but I’d happily vote Tory to keep the SNP out. In Scotland you are either proSNP or very much anti, and that’s the SNP’s fault.

The SNP need to give Scot’s reason to vote for them as there are an avalanche of reasons to vote against them.

@NotTooOldPaul - curious about your statement re tax
Holyrood sets the tax and if you teeter at 43k ( eg a senior teacher) you pay the higher level tax at42% this is a level 7k less than you could earn in England
SNP tax attitudes are causing higher paid people to leave the county
It needs to be the same level of higher tax as England and Wales ( 50k)

I’m voting for the party that can tell me what a woman is !!

Stephen Flynn is my MP he is more interested in Gaza then Aberdeen, so for the first time in years I won’t be voting SNP

I have absolutely no idea, I can’t bring myself to ever vote Tory, I despise everything they stand for.

SNP have ruined this country (and being a teacher they have fecked up education). Scottish Labour are a bunch of losers who don’t have a clue. Lib Dem’s and Greens well that’s a wasted vote.

Im afraid that the anti-English, get the Tories out, Independence brigade might turn the country yellow again. People like my family who blame everything on the Tories and believe the streets of an Independent Scotland are paved with gold and everything would be different if only we got rid of the English.

I probably shouldn't speak for @NotTooOldPaul , but I suspect the "taxed by the English" part isn't a reference to personal taxation, rather the fact that Scotland sends Billions to London, receives a portion of it back, and then is given no explanation or breakdown on what the rest of it is actually spent on.

Our MP is an utter gobshite

Tories have the best chance of getting rid of him
So they'll get my vote

I think its curious that the barometer for the SNP is "improvement", while the UK as a whole has been in a state of precipitous decline since 2007. If you want to oust the SNP because of poor performance in devolved governance, then fair enough, but then presumably you are espousing replacing them with a Labour party that has, by all measures, performed by an order of magnitude more poorly in devolved government in Wales, or with a Tory party that has reduced the UK to a fiscal basket-case while looting everything not nailed down.

The SNP's record is poor, and they need a step back and a reset, but there is no grounds whatsoever for arguing Labour or Conservative would be better given their own appalling recent records.

ahhh @XDownwiththissortofthingX i see the brexiteer argument has been restated - sending all that money to Europe, no idea what it’s for.

yes I’m looking forward to knowing where the money goes and seeing the day to day improvements independence brings, after all, the snp are so accountable and doing so well on devolved matters. Down with unions.

No I can’t fault you there though, I see few reasons to vote Tory or Labour either except that labour deserve a chance to muck things up on a bigger scale, having not had one for a while and doing some good pre 2010 (see education, health) whilst last in power in the uk.

Despite this being a highly selective interpretation of what Scots politics "is all", and every Scots example having UK comparators which are an order of magnitude more ridiculous, I'll give you one obvious example.

If you are Scottish, your tapwater is currently perfectly drinkable, and you will likely be able to jump in your nearest river, or swim at your local beach without the need of a wetsuit, or urgent hospital treatment afterward.

How much worse could it be?

Well, going by the omnicatastrophic clusterfuck that England is, a whole lot worse.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX by that argument we should just forever accept a Tory government in Westminster because everyone else is doing a shit job too? Scotland is failing against pretty much every single metric available and has been for longer than the current Westminster gov have been there.

i can only be thankful they don’t have even more power than they already do.

Hmmmm:

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23809497.half-scottish-beaches-plagued-sewage/

the data on Scottish water and beaches is harder to find but sewerage overflow and antiquated Victorian sewers is also a problem here..

I’m pretty sure I’m voting Lib Dem, not something I thought I’d ever be doing 17 years ago. Adult DD will maybe spoil her ballot as she will only vote for the SWP and they won’t be standing. I’m so disappointed with the SNP (was a member).

by that argument we should just forever accept a Tory government in Westminster because everyone else is doing a shit job too?

No, the Tories need dispensed with. The point I am making is that there is no grounds whatsoever for castigating the SNP while espousing parties that are failing even harder.

Labour are likely to have nearly two years in Downing Street before the next Scots GE, so if they can show that they can competently run the UK then that stands them in good stead for the 2026 Holyrood election. As things are at the moment though, I see no reason at all why anyone would want to replace the SNP SG with a SLAB one, because the obvious comparator is Wales, where Labour have been running the show for 25 years, and where the areas the SNP are castigated for their poor performance are in an even worse state than in Scotland.

Sometimes it genuinely is a case of "better the devil" even when the incumbent devil is crap and performing poorly.

It looks like my constituency has changed. It was Dunfermline and West Fife but is now Dunfermline and Dollar. I was hopeful D+WF could revert back to labour since the SNP doesn't have a huge majority but no idea how the change will affect this.

I voted SNP in the last election because I believed they had some integrity, obviously my eyes have been opened by recent events.

Hello @Gingerkittykat I'm in with you now in the new bizarrely shaped D&D constituency, there's not that many of us in the long thin bit that sticks into Clackmannanshire so we might not change things that much, we have a Tory councillor so that tells you something!

Having looked up the Labour candidate I think I might vote them. She shared a gender critical post on X which is promising as really didn’t want an annoying candidate only interested in following the herd.

In my ward there is one tory, one SNP and one Labour councillor but an SNP MP and MSP. I don't know if the Dollar part is going to be more right wing than Dunfermline so maybe more tory votes?

For the first time ever I will need to register for a postal vote.

Ive confused myself - do I do this via the form on Scot Gov or can I use the UK Gov online application?

What really irritates.me about the SNP is that we got rid of Sturgeon but got Himza who was just more of the same. Then Humza fell from grace and we got Swinney who again is more of Sturgeon and Humza.
I really feel that the Unholy Trinity are presiding over a country.driven into a decline because of SNP incompetence.