Wot!

[shazsha]

Did you see who Salmond's new friend is? Kim Yung Wotsit from North Korea.

I have to admit to having a laugh at the photoshopped picture in today's DM.

[Workingman]

Oh dear, another screen wipe needed.

That's good, Shaz, very good.

[cromwell]

Politically speaking, the BBC is massively biased. Yesterday on national TV Dame Helen Leddel of the No campaign was allowed to speak.. and speak... and speak... on and on and on, virtually unchallenged. I don't remember any member of the Yes campaign being allowed such latitude.

ps Look North is leading the campaign for a regional assembly for Yorkshire, and using the Scottish referendum to push its case.

[Kaz]

That is funny

[KateLMead]

Salmon A Marxist to the Highest degree, he always has been. Something he and Ed Miliband ] have in common..

[Suff]

But the interesting point is that Marxist or not, he's giving the people of Scotland a choice they would not have without him.

Just because they choose independence does not mean they will then choose Marxism.

A point constantly ignored in the politics of Scotland is the fact that in Westminster politics Labour dominates. Yet in Scottish Politics the Tories have a healthy representation and SNP dominate.

The message is that the "defence of Scotland" politically, on the front of Westminster, does not necessarily represent the views and aspirations of Scots in Scotland.

Very few actually get that and even fewer who do get it actually want to talk about it. It's why very English attacks on Salmond are driving people to vote Yes. I'm expecting to hear in the press, any minute, that Robbie Burns was a womaniser and adulterer.

Wot next!!!!

[Workingman]

Yet in Scottish Politics the Tories have a healthy representation and SNP dominate.

What?

Wiped out in the 1997 GE

Now have:
1:59 MPs
1:6 MEPs
15:129 MSPs
115:1,222 Councillors

Scottish Conservatives are less healthy in Scotland than the LibDems will be in the UK after the next election.

[Suff]

Yet in Scottish Politics the Tories have a healthy representation and SNP dominate.

What?

Wiped out in the 1997 GE

Now have:
1:59 MPs
1:6 MEPs
15:129 MSPs
115:1,222 Councillors

Scottish Conservatives are less healthy in Scotland than the LibDems will be in the UK after the next election.

1:59 in Westminster is not proportionate to 15:129 in Hollyrood or 115:1,222 councillors.

You just made my point exactly. In 97 it was 0:59. Or whatever the number was then. That is not proportionate to Scottish Tory balance in the country but is all we will get when most people believe, even Tories, that we are better off with Labour representation in Scotland than Tory at Westminster.

Think about that for a while. Also if the Westminster link is broken, the Tory rift will heal. After all Scotland is, in area at least, largely a farming community.

[Workingman]

Suff, I think I see the point you are trying to make: There are more Tories in Scotland than the number of representatives shows; and that they are further diminished when looked at from representation in Westminster.

But that's FPTP democracy for you. Nobody likes it except those who can win, and the winners never want to change it. The figures for Hollyrood and the councils are probably more representative, but they still leave Scotland without a Conservative government forever more. If Scottish MPs are removed from Westminster there is also the likelihood of a Conservative or ConUKIP government in rUK for a very long time indeed. A lose lose situation all round.

We might even have the case of ships passing as Scotland docks with the EU and rUK sails of into open waters.

[Suff]

Yes and No.

Yes the point I'm making is that Scotland, internally, has a different balance. No it has nothing to do with FPTP. It doesn't matter what system is used, FPTP, PR, AV or pass the sweetie jar, there would still be only one or less Tory MP's in Westminster and that situation is going to continue until Scotland is free of the United Kingdom.

I was one of the Scots Tory Voters that consigned them to the pits of hell back in 92, in 97 and every Genearal Election I have voted in since 1992. Many other Scots are like me. It is where a large part of the SNP vote comes from. Before the 92 election Scotland had ~10 Tory seats in Westminster.

In an independent Scotland, there would be more than the 15 Tories we see in the parliament today. What people forget and ignore and choose to bury is that Scots politics is still bounded by the independence debate. Even in Hollyrood.

In the event of Independence, those voters who are specifically voting SNP to get a majority in Hollyrood to push the referendum, will change their vote and move to their traditional voting. Absent Westminster, with a local Scots true parliament that they can vote in, Scotland will be a totally different political landscape.

I've lived it. I've seen how attitudes have changed. I understand it. Probably more than most voters on the street do because I care more than most voters on the street do about the whole political ramifications.