| Archive for Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org Scottish Politics Discussion Forum / Messageboard - Dedicated to online discussion about Scottish Politics and an Independent Scotland, as well as Scottish Society today. We also have a section dedicated to Banter, Sport and Recommended Sites. |
| Economist |
Scottish Tory MP states the bleedin' obvious shock!http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6429525.stm
I quite agree that the Scottish Tories are hopeless, who have only got themselves to blame for their self-inflicted problems, but it is sad that is the case. As deeply damaging as this is for them (which will no doubt result in the customary internecine warfare that the Tories are good at) maybe more worryingly it is a case of the Daily Rectum (the Pravda of the Lab/Lib Junta at Holyrood) trying to crush all opposition ahead of the election? Quite likely. |
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| Stockholm |
Mundell isn't exactly a hotshot either. His performances at Scottish questions have been rank rotten. | ||||||
| Reluctant Hero |
"An immediate priority", yet the memo is 8 months old 
I agree Stockholm. New Labour have proved it only takes one or two strong minded people to run a party in modern politics, so why doesn't he do some thinking and put his thoughts forward if he is so concerned. I have to say though, no matter what thoughts come out of the Tory Party, they are unlikely to connect with the vast majority of the Scottish electorate. |
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| Jimbo |
This is just the D/Record doing what they do best, making news out of no news. | ||||||
| Aventinian |
I don't like him, or Peter Duncan for that matter. They're both tossers. I wouldn't say PD is incompetent though, he's just not a particularly likable person, nor does he bring any flair whatsoever to his position. |
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| Economist |
The Scottish Tories used to be remotely interesting back in the days of Nicholas Fairbairn and Michael Forsyth and Malcolm Rifkind. Fair enough, they were at war with each other half the time, but at least you know where they stood and they were marginally interesting.
Nowadays it seems that bland incompetents in Holyrood and Westminster are the order of the day. There's a sense of deja vu again. After all we could be in 1994 again, Labour have a young, charismatic leader who thinks he and his party are the "nice face" of Politics, they are riding high in the polls and a sense of change is in the air. Oh how we learn.... |
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| Aventinian |
It's a fair point.
Of course, Rifkind is still in the Commons, as are a few other Tory characters like Boris Johnson, but the Scottish Parliament - not just the Tory party within it - is a retirement home for dullards. There's two characters I can think of in the entire place and they are Tommy Sheridan and Rosie Kane. And there's a fine line between having a personality and being a heidcase. Equally though, on another thread tonight, you get the usual 'oh, old white male Tories...' line. Ironically it seems they are the only ones who are actually entertaining. I've actually wondered if Rifkind might return from Kensington and Chelsea, or even stand for the Scottish Parliament, after his disagreement with Cameron which saw him end up on the back benches. 1997 did long-term damage to the traditional Scottish Tory - anyone with talent either found themselves with an English constituency or buggered off to the Lords from whence no decent man returns. A shame really, but that's what you get for not voting for them... |
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| Joe Middleton |
It's still funny. The Tories remain an utter irrelevance in Scotland. The new Tony Blair isn't working up here.
This site is quite interesting: http://conservativesforindependence.org/ |
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| Joe Middleton |
There seems to be a lot of ex secretary of states for Scotland in the House of Lords, of course anyone who has been in the cabinet can claim a seat in the house of losers.
Lord Forsyth (still waffling the same tripe that got him humped in Stirling) Lord Lang Sad gits. There is no need for a House of Lords if you have a proper system of elections. FPTP gives rise to dictatorships by the minority and the HofL then acts like a fig leaf to pretend there is some genuine scrutiny going on (though there isn't really). If England had PR they wouldn't require a HofL, pity Tony didn't follow any principled line on this or anything else. I doubt 'call me Dave' will do anything about it. I can't imagine anyone suggesting a HofL in Scotland post indy, but then again there's lots of nutty things about Westminster. Letting Tony use the powers of the crown is hardly sensible either. |
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| Aventinian |
It's funny to hear the third party get described as an irrelevance when their views are the only ones who are actually of any distinct difference to the main four parties.
No it isn't, it is a movement of two people. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they weren't actually Conservatives. |
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| Aventinian |
Of course there is, it brings a wealth of knowledge to the British governmental system. If there was a PR for General Elections, I think we'd need it more, not less.
He doesn't, he advises the Queen on how to use them, in his role as her Chief Advisor. |
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| Londoner |
Tories not up to much
I am amazed there is any interest in the Tories in Scotland. There is a gathering view in England that the Tories will not win the next General Election. Most of us have bought into the diversity agenda and we find it staggering that in the 21st century the Tory inner cabinet is almost wholly drawn from Eton. If, and when, the English people decide to vote again in large numbers in an election, it is possible that there might be some very surprising electoral results. No party can take anything for granted with the disencharted electorate of England. If France can produce another shock result in the forthcoming presidential elections (with possibly neither Royal or Sarkozy romping home) so could England. |
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| Aventinian |
Well, I'm afraid I've yet to hear any such points made by any significant political commentator. As for being drawn from Eton, I'd have imagined the British would've gotten over their prejudices on that front, particularly considering they overwhelmingly elected an old Fettesian Labourite.
The French presidential elections aren't exactly run as British elections, which are very stable in their outcome. |
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| Economist |
Come off it! What fresh, appealing and distinctive policy do they currently have in Scotland, that makes them differ from the other parties? More funding for the treatment of drug users? More police? Business Rates relief? Help for Old Folk in paying their council tax? A feasibility study into a High Speed rail link between Scotland and London (which we know will never happen). Most of these policies are espoused by all the other parties in some form or another. They are a total irrelevance to Scottish politics, and bearing in mind they will never become the largest party in the Scottish Parliament they can afford to be policy-lite. And as their own behaviour shows they are still prone to their regular outbreaks of internal warfare. Who on earth in their right mind would vote for a party in such a state as they are?
You know as well as anyone there are plenty of Tories who support independence, some of them big Tory figures too, like Peter Fraser, Michael Portillo etc. |
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| Aventinian |
Economic and social liberalism.
If the Lib Dems don't go into coalition with the SNP and nor do Labour, it could leave the way open for them to lead a Scottish Executive with the Lib Dems and the Greens. |
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| Economist |
Yes, that's what they are supposed to stand for, especially the former. In theory this would all be good. In practice they are not offering such policies - the Scottish branch of the Tories are offering some bland "maybes" and the UK branch of the Tories are even worse, offering more tax and state interference in our lives, and given the experience of past Conservative Government's, more centralisation.
On current electoral arithmetic, those three parties combined would be about 25 seats short of a majority. You can't form an Executive on that. If the parties were a few seats short of a majority, then feasibly they could form a minority Executive. But for that to happen, all three of those parties would require such a vast improvement in their fortunes to be almost impossible. Not going to happen this May, maybe in the future, more likely in an independent Scotland. |
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| Aventinian |
Yes you can. You can form an Executive on anything, so long as no bloc can command a greater number. It might not be stable, but I rather like the idea of minority government, having to find a decent amount of consensus and cross the party boundaries. I remind you that almost all of the time, the SNP vote with Labour anyway, for example. |
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| Economist |
You could form an Executive on those figures and it would last about about 5 minutes or so. On those forecasts it is likely that the Labour party, possibly the SNP, would, in themselves, be larger than this hypothetical coalition that you suggest. In fact it would still be unstable. Those combined parties, currently, comprise 40 MSPs. So if this were the Executive, at the current time, then they would be unable to support themselves in a Vote of no confidence (because over two thirds of MSPs could vote against them), thus we have instability. Minority government is all fair enough, if the governing parties are a few seats short of a majority - I would guess it would be pretty stable, but not when you are 25 seats short of a majority that would be just too unstable and the larger parties probably wouldn't allow it. |
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| Aventinian |
Well assuming the Lib Dems don't side with either Labour or the SNP, there's not much of a choice but to go back to the electorate - in which case, it'd probably vote overwhelmingly for Labour to the detriment of the SNP and Lib Dems.
Perhaps. But if the Tories and Liberals increase their vote modestly, it's far from impossible.
Well they'd better maintain the confidence of the legislature then! Just as any minority party will need extra-party support for their budget etc. |
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| mac |
You know what? I'm learning so much stuff from this site - discovered it about 3 days ago, it's exactly what I'm looking for, and feel like these threads encapsulate more contrasting and educational opinions, backed up by relevant articles for further discussion, to keep me more than interested - I enjoy the debate from both sides, rightly or wrongly, so thank you my fellow Scots. 
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| mal |
No worries bud,i try my best 
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