SNP victory in Scotland will assure Tory victory and end nationalist hopes – Telegraph

[Image: Telegraph.]

[Image: Telegraph.]

David Cameron will be propelled back into Downing Street after the general election thanks to the SNP taking seats off Labour in Scotland, according to a new analysis.

Sure, it’s the Torygraph saying it, but the prediction by a University of Strathclyde Academic would put David Cameron firmly back in Downing Street – and Scottish Independence firmly on the back-burner.

The Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland isn’t going to let the SNP have its way!

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour has proposed further devolution for Scotland, indicating that Labour did not think ‘The Vow’, created by the main Westminster parties together, goes far enough.

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy detailed his party’s plan, which included;

  • Clearer powers to vary social security benefits
  • Wider responsibilities for tackling unemployment
  • Devolution of the £1.8bn housing benefits system
  • And devolution of power to local communities from Holyrood and Westminster

He claimed these would go further than the cross-party promises for Scotland.

What a choice for Scottish Nationalists!

Support the party that wants independence and find yourself further from it, or support the party the SNP has been damning since the referendum, and get closer to what you want.

What are you going to do?

Of course, the Torygraph could be wrong…

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54 thoughts on “SNP victory in Scotland will assure Tory victory and end nationalist hopes – Telegraph

    1. gavinpollock

      It’s a pretty shoddy report by the Torygraph. One analyst claims the SNP wouldn’t be able to support a Labour gov’t even though the SNP have said they’d consider it on a vote by vote basis, and assumes Cameron would win a vote of no confidence.
      The other analyst has Cameron trying to run a gov’t with only 290 MPs, and no allies in the house.
      It’s just desperate speculation, I wouldn’t give it any credence myself.

      1. Willie Smith

        because the Scottish vote has little impact on who sits in power at Westminster …as a country we have always returned Labour MP’s. We have one conservative MP yet we have a conservative government, so the logic in the article is rubbish

      2. Mike Sivier Post author

        In the Telegraph article? Maybe. Aren’t you bothered that it’s based on new information, though?

  1. hugosmum70

    if thats true its about time that Scotland’s people thought of others. them doing that wont do a thing for anyone else but possibly them./ while the English populace , majority of them suffer n die.

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      Experience suggests you’re on a hiding to nothing there. The nationalists will simply say that nobody ever votes in anybody’s interest but their own (as they have in the recent past, I seem to recall).

      1. allicient

        It wasn’t the Scottish that voted in a Tory government in 2010., cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010#mediaviewer/File:2010UKElectionMap.svg (note, one lone Tory MP in Scotland)

        So who really doesn’t have the UK’s interests at heart?

        And need I remind you that Labour is still firmly on the Trident bandwagon whilst both SNP and Scottish Greens are firmly against – that’s circa £130bn that could be used for people instead of unjustifiable and unusable weaponry.

      2. allicient

        “We’re discussing the 2015 election, not 2010.”

        Well perhaps rUK could do the decent thing by not returning another Tory government this time around.

        What I said is also valid comment in response to what hugosmum70 posted,

        “if thats true its about time that Scotland’s people thought of others. them doing that wont do a thing for anyone else but possibly them./ while the English populace , majority of them suffer n die.”

        In other words, if people are dying because of the Tory government then rUK need to look closer to home because it wisnae us that voted the b*****s in.

      3. Mike Sivier Post author

        Of course the point of the article was to suggest to that vocal minority among the people of Scotland that perhaps it’s not a good idea to help another Tory government into office.
        These things are never as black-and-white as we’d like them to be.
        Why do some Scots people – especially the nationalists, I’ve noticed – adopt that strange spelling affectation? You used “wisnae” instead of “was not” or “wasn’t”. You’re writing the words down, so there’s no need to lapse into slang. Is it an attempt at a cultural identifier? How do you think that makes you seem?

      4. allicient

        “Of course the point of the article was to suggest to that vocal minority among the people of Scotland that perhaps it’s not a good idea to help another Tory government into office.”

        How is voting SNP going to help another Tory government in? A split vote isn’t going to give you Tory seats, and neither Labour nor SNP would allow the Tories to form a government if they have enough seats between them.

        As an added benefit, the SNP have consistently opposed the Tories in the Commons, unlike Labour, e.g. their voting with the ConDems to implement ex post facto legislation. The worst that will happen is that the SNP might just be able to hold Labour on the straight-and-narrow and avoid their continuing slide towards the right… lest we forget that it was Labour that introduced policies such as WCAs and started the process of watering-down our civil rights.

        It’s also not a vocal minority: read the polls for Scotland and look at Holyrood. People here are really fed-up with Labour, whenever they are able to distinguish them from the Tories at any rate.

        For the purposes of clarity, I’m not an SNP (or Labour) supporter but it’s important to understand sentiment here is decidedly different as compared to other parts of the UK.

        “Why do some Scots people – especially the nationalists, I’ve noticed – adopt that strange spelling affectation? You used “wisnae” instead of “was not” or “wasn’t”. You’re writing the words down, so there’s no need to lapse into slang. Is it an attempt at a cultural identifier? How do you think that makes you seem?”

        It isn’t slang, it’s used widely in local dialect and the words carry subtly different emphasis and connotation, in the same manner that using the contraction “wasn’t” and “was not” read with a different weight.

        You might draw a comparison with Labour and the Tories: to many observers they look ostensibly the same but one can spot minor differences if you look close enough.

        Out of interest, do you make the same remark when people use Americanized English in written text?

      5. Mike Sivier Post author

        Are you agreeing with what I said about the spelling of “wisnae”, then? That it’s an affectation intended to be a cultural identifier? It’s not in any dictionary (other than dictionaries of slang – look it up on a Search Engine if you don’t believe me) therefore I take it as an attempt to accent that the writer is different to the rest of us. In my opinion it achieves this in the wrong way.
        I don’t like AmericaniSed English in written text, no. It indicates that the writer has succumbed to a form of cultural imperialism – or hasn’t turned off their US-English spellchecker. However, it seems far more likely that this is an error of omission, not an act of intent.
        Labour only look the same as the Tories to people who have a vested interest in presenting them that way.

      6. gavinpollock

        ‘Wisnae’ isn’t slang, it’s Scots. It’s no different from saying ‘aye’ instead of ‘yes’, which lots of Northern English people do too, even when writing.

        I divvent write it, because I divvent talk like that meself, but I can’t see the problem with it.

      7. Mike Sivier Post author

        They do it when they want to accentuate that they’re not English. That’s the problem.

      8. Mike Sivier Post author

        Dialect is an affectation of speech, though, rather than the written word: “a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language’s speakers“, to quote one source. Once it’s written down, it is open to misinterpretation (and then mispronunciation). There’s no need for it in written communication, and the people using it here have switched to it in order to make a point.

  2. Chris Lovett

    There will be a Coalition. Again. Who knows what it will consist of? Unhappily we have a sh**e voting system, or I’d say Green would be a massive influence. However I’d like to think that SYRIZA and PODEMOS will hugely affect all Euro politics over the coming years. I certainly hope so!

  3. Mark Potter-Irwin

    “The Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland isn’t going to let the SNP have its way!”
    You don’t get it do you Mike. It is not a question of “Let” or give or grant or any other patronising words is a question of democracy and people voting for what they believe in.(a strange concept in modern politice I know). If there is a large SNP presence in Westminster, ie the majority of Scots have voted SNP and then there is a vast SNP majority in Holyrood the intentions of the Scottish people will be obvious and the democratic way forward would be another referendum. There are now more Scots than ever wanting independence, since a lot of No voters have woken up to the underhand and frankly mendacious behaviour of the better Together campaign of Fear. And now your precious New Labour party in Scotland (Not “Scottish Labour” they have not been registered as a political party under that name since about 1979) are using the same discredited and frankly devious campaigners to help their cause.
    If New Labour showed any belief in the causes that they were created to stand for you wouldn’t have to be stooping to quoting the Torygraph to support your case.
    I used to like your blog when it stood up for the vulnerable and dispossessed. What happened to you? Blaming the SNP or the Scots for New Labour’s potential defeat is really missing the point that New Labour has blown it in Scotland and I suspect in a lot of areas of England & Wales. I personally find it a total disappointment that there is no credible opposition to the hateful Tories and seeing that New Labour seem to be offering to continue the disastrous Neo-Liberal austerity project there appears to be no hope for the future. No wonder the “Scots separatists” want to get away from Westminster. So do lots of other UK citizens,

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      I think it’s you who don’t get it. Did democracy stop the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from installing privatisation into the NHS? Did it stop the same party from re-orienting the welfare state to push people away from claiming benefits rather than providing them the help their taxes have bought while helping them find new jobs? Did it deter that party from any of the other things it never mentioned in its 2010 manifesto?
      Tories think they are a law unto themselves. Give them the slightest opportunity to take power and you create a world of trouble for yourself and everybody you know.
      It doesn’t matter how many SNP MPs are returned, if there’s a Tory in 10 Downing Street, they’ll say you’ve had a referendum and that matter has been settled – at least for the next generation (I think we’ve heard that line quite recently).
      Who are this ‘New Labour’ of which you write? There’s no such party, but you bang on about it as if there is. If you mean Labour, then your accusations are vague or untrue. Labour has no intention of continuing any form of neoliberal austerity that has been practised by the Coalition. That has been made abundantly clear over the last few weeks and months and if you didn’t get it before, then I’m telling you now.
      I’m not quoting the Torygraph to support any case of my own. As I mentioned earlier, the article presents current developments to this blog’s readers.
      This blog still stands up for the vulnerable. It seems that your attitude has changed because something you like has been shown to be (potentially) something that will harm the vulnerable. Uncomfortable, is it?
      It didn’t have to be.

      1. Mike Sivier Post author

        Shame.
        That’s the response I tend to get when I put an argument in front of someone who doesn’t want to know.

      2. hugosmum70

        wish people would get it into their thick heads . NO ONE VOTED THE CONSERVATIVES IN. NO ONE WANTED THE CONSERVATIVES IN. AND IF NICK CLEGG HADN’T BEEN MORE BOTHERED ABOUT 1. GETTING HIS NAME,IF NOT IN LIGHTS, AT LEAST WELL KNOWN, BY WHATEVER MEANS. (AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT NAME IS NOW).. AND 2. TAKING BACK HANDERS FROM CAMERON… AS I (AND OTHERS) HAVE NO DOUBT HE DID, THUS SELLING HIS OWN CONSTITUENTS DOWN THE RIVER, (AND DAMNING HIMSELF WHILST DOING IT).. THEN WE WOULDN’T BE IN THIS STATE.. AS FOR NEW LABOUR, THAT WAS BLAIR’S GOVT. AND MILIBAND IS VERY FAR FROM WHAT THAT ONE STOOD FOR…. (SORRY BOUT CAPS. NOT INTENDED BUT NOT GOING TO CHANGE THEM. DONT HAVE TIME.)
        SCOTTISH NEW LABOUR (IF PART OF THE ENGLISH LABOUR PARTY, HAS GOT THE NAME WRONG, OR THE COMMENTER ABOVE HAS.

      3. hugosmum70

        SORRY MIKE. THAT WASN’T AIMED AT YOU. I KNOW YOUR FEELINGS ON THAT ANYWAY… YOUR RIGHT IT WOULD BE MARK POTTER-IRWIN. BUT LOADS OF OTHERS TOO, I KEEP COMING ACROSS THE SAME OLD THING BEING TROTTED OUT ABOUT THOSE WHO VOTED CAMERON IN. AND IT GETS ME SO ANGRY.

      4. Mike Sivier Post author

        It’s particularly wearing for me, having to deal with the same dull nonsense being trotted out, day in, day out, by people who seem to want you to think it’s the Word of God – then I have to trot out today’s debunking text… I suppose they’re following that old line that I lie, repeated often enough, will be believed.

  4. Nikkii

    We in Scotland have pretty consistently voted against Tory rule for the best part of 2 if not 3 generations. The fundamental shift is that we have found in the SNP something to vote FOR.

  5. Sandy Merry

    Scottish Labour under Murphy and Brown are proposing new powers for Scotland. Aye right!. If Labour were so keen on powers for Scotland why were their proposals during the referendum the weakest of the three parties? Labour does not want Scotland to have additional powers – all it wants is for Scots to slavishly follow the electoral patterns of the last decades and return Labour. After thats done and dusted then they all return to Westminster and Scotland is left to its own devices. The new proposals by Murphy and Brown are simply half truths and deception. Of course we can decide to have new welfare powers and spend what money we have on that but something else will have to suffer. The Barnet formula isn’t a bottomless pit of cash and everything has to be prioritised. All the new ‘powers’ being suggested can only be funded by increasing tax – something that Labour would love the SNP to do so that they could score political points. If Labour ever got back into power in Scotland then all these new powers would soon disappear and we would revert to the status quo. No matter who is the largest party in Westminster after May only a large SNP contingent can guarantee true additional properly funded powers which will be a benefit to everyone in Scotland.
    Quite frankly your conundrum at the end of your article is easily answered. You can believe Murphy and Brown if you like but the majority of Scots have seen through their lies and will not be deceived again. Voting SNP is the only answer for Scotland. Once Scottish Labour become truly Scottish and separate from London then perhaps their time will come again. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Turkeys and Christmas spring to mind.

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      This claim that Labour’s submission to the Smith Commission was the weakest – who said that, originally? Was it the SNP or someone sympathetic to it?
      It seems to me that bald claims like that cannot be trusted. Where’s the comparison made, so we can all see for ourselves?
      I don’t know about anyone else on this page, but I want to see evidence before I accept such claims!
      Your claim that Labour wants Scots to return Labour is redundant – of course Labour wants Labour candidates elected! That doesn’t mean Labour wants Scots to act “slavishly”, as you put it – it’s a call for Scots to use their judgement.
      Here’s another bald statement. WHY are the Murphy/Brown proposals “half truths and deception”? Your comments about the Barnett formula are strange. If you want to spend more money, you need to get it somehow, and it would be odd for Scotland to rely on the rest of the UK for such funding when the SNP is clamouring for independence.
      Your comments on what Labour would do, in power, are scaremongering speculation based on your own political bias, of course. Isn’t scaremongering something that nationalists accuse Labour of doing?
      Ah. Your line “No matter who is the largest party in Westminster after May only a large SNP contingent can guarantee true additional properly funded powers which will be a benefit to everyone in Scotland” makes it clear that you DO think Scotland should be given more money by the rest of the UK. Why?
      I’m no fan of Murphy, and I wasn’t all that fond of Brown, but I’ll take them any day against this nebulous web of unevidenced, bald statements and demands for the rest of the UK to provide Scotland with more cash. If Scotland was its own country, you couldn’t rely on UK cash then.
      The more I look at this comment, the weaker it seems.

      1. Paul Wilson

        I think you are suffering from Forgetful lying BBC disease after all it was their flagship unionist news bulletins that informed us the minions that Labours sham of a devo mess was the weakest also it was said to be so on the Politics show when Lamont had everyone flabbergasted with her explanation of what their policy actually was.

      2. Mike Sivier Post author

        Link, please?
        Or are you saying it was an opinion, passed by a politician or a pundit, with no factual evidence to support it?
        That would be the norm for SNP tactics.

  6. John Glyn

    Not true.

    This is just rolling out Labour’s same old chestnut which it always uses to try maximize its own chances at the expense of the real needs of Scotland (and Wales).

    A majority of left leaning MP’s elected in May would not see the Tories back in power.

  7. Barry Kirk

    The tories will be returned to downing St by people voting tory not SNP. Scotland needs stronger representation,this will not come from voting for ANY unionist party,it will come through voting SNP.

  8. Mark Potter-Irwin

    To hugosmum70/Mike Silver. No mention of Scottish New Labour from me. Read the comments properly before passing judgement on them. I agree nobody voted the bloody Tories in and certainly not the Scots The Scots have had vertually no influence on what government is elected to Westminster for most of the last 30 or 40 years .

      1. Mark Potter-Irwin

        I apologise for mistyping your name.I may have misspelled his name but I have taken the Mister right out of it. I notice you have nothing of substance to say other than pointing out minor mistakes.

  9. Paul Wilson

    Blue Tory, Red Tory makes no difference Labour in Scotland have been well and truly found out and what they are about to receive is fully merited. Scotland knows that the only vote that counts is for the SNP and not for the forked tongue unionists especially Labour everything they say they are against in public they vote with the Tories through the chamber they are nothing but a shower of self serving opportunists and careerists who’s numbers are up!

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      More bald statements with no more substance than a puff of hot air. Where is your evidence?
      You don’t have any.
      If the SNP ditched the lies about Labour they might have a campaign?
      Or are you telling my that lying about Labour IS the SNP campaign?

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      I fail to see the relevance of this. It’s an old Scotsman editorial about Margaret Curran, claiming that Scottish Labour was rudderless. Things have changed (whether for better or worse remains to be seen) and I’m not sure an article with out-of-date information is helpful.

  10. Alison Briggs

    it was an attempt to help you understand why some people in Scotland will not vote Labour. It is unfortunate fallout for those in the rest of the UK who rely on Scotland’s support of Labour to meet their own ends. Many people in Scotland feel they have been betrayed by Labour. One of the few ways they have to make their opinion known is not to vote Labour in the General Election. I realise that might disappoint you, but to suggest that we should vote Labour to support your aspirations is wrong.

    You said “Meanwhile, Scottish Labour has proposed further devolution for Scotland, indicating that Labour did not think ‘The Vow’, created by the main Westminster parties together, goes far enough”

    This is disingenuous of Labour in Scotland, (there is no such thing as Scottish Labour) as their proposal to the Smith Commission was one of the weakest. When the report was released Margaret Curran said:

    “Today we respond to the call for change that we heard on 18th September with extensive new powers for the Scottish Parliament. This is a promise kept and an agreement delivered.

    “There shall be a stronger Scottish Parliament.

    “Politics in Scotland has changed forever and people want power close to them. This agreement today meets that demand with extensive new powers over tax, welfare and job creation being passed to the Scottish Parliament.”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30226224

    it would seem that Labour in Scotland have changed their view on this since then. I am sure you can understand how many people in Scotland don’t believe them.

    Scotland has traditionally voted Labour, yet there is no evidence to suggest that this has ever had a significant effect on the government we get. Therefore, I would suggest that we should vote the way we see fit in the hopes that we can see a positive change in Scotland.

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      We don’t rely on Scotland’s support of Labour. It is welcome, of course, but – as SNP supporters have claimed themselves – largely irrelevant in general elections. The main focus is always on gaining enough English seats to make the difference. However, the SNP will still want the balance of power if Labour has to try to form a minority government. Is that fair? I think not.

      You make an interesting point where you say many people in Scotland feel betrayed by Labour. We can all see that there has been a groundswell of opinion in this direction over the past few years – but these are years when Labour has not had any influence over Scottish affairs; we’ve had the SNP in Holyrood and the Coalition in Westminster. All the decisions affecting Scotland have been made by other parties, so why blame Labour for them?

      Who actually says Labour’s submission to Smith was one of the weakest? I saw an opinion piece saying that on a pro-SNP (if I recall correctly) site – but then, if you support the SNP, you’re bound to say the SNP submission was strongest. I hope we can all agree on that. I’ll happily confess I haven’t read it myself – I read the Smith Commission report that came afterwards and considerably strengthened the measures offered in the ‘Vow’. People who suggest otherwise are pushing a propaganda line designed to promote support for independence, of course.

      Is anybody denying that the Smith proposals and the forthcoming legislation, as seen in the Command Paper, will lead to a stronger Scottish Parliament?

      Labour has not changed its view on Scotland; the announcement that Labour would add to the proposed legislation makes that clear (although it’s true that independence supporters have spun it to make it seem bad – perhaps they don’t want the extra powers that are being proposed). It has listened to the people of Scotland and reacted to what they have said.

      As for the way the Scottish people vote – that has always been up to them alone; but my hope is that they base their choice on the facts about what each party plans to do, and not on the tissue of nonsense about Labour that has been spun by the SNP and its supporters.

  11. Gavin MacMillan

    I have to admit, I am getting close to giving up on your blog, given your slavish devotion to

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      I’m cutting you off right there. I don’t have “slavish devotion” to anything but your use of those words indicates your own intention to bring this blog into disrepute.
      So you can clear off now. Don’t ever expect to see one of your comments approved here again.
      What a despicable little runt.

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