Left wingers are getting a bit scared

[davepoth]

Mr_B said:

Ed made it pretty clear on the Andrew Marr show this morning that he couldn't give a toss about it. He'd better start some kinda secret funding of Ukip to win him the next election.

He's going to be made to care eventually, I think. It's just a question of how many weeks of being battered with "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ENGLAND" in PMQs it will take.

[RYH64E]

toppstuff said:

RYH64E said:

Johnnytheboy said:

MarshPhantom said:

Fair enough - how many people will vote for a party because they pledge to solve the WL issue. Many?

To put it another way, how many people will vote for a party that refuses to solve it?

Politics is very tribal, a large percentage of voters will vote for the party they've always voted for (often the party their parents voted for) come what may.

It's always been that way. Power is won by winning the swing voters in the middle. And it usually involves just a few percent.

Any sense of unfairness out of this issue will become important. I think Labour are in real danger of running against the mood of people here and it could affect these vital swing voters.

I was answering the question 'how many people will vote for a party that refuses to solve it?' hopefully a more accurate answer would be 'an awful lot, but not enough for Labour to win an election'.

I do think that Labour have a real problem here, they can't convincingly argue for the existing system, but the alternative plays right into the hands of the Conservatives.

[NDA]

MarshPhantom said:

NDA said:

rex said:

MarshPhantom said:

Do voters care about the "West Lothian" issue? I think most people couldn't care less.

Spoke to a few people about this since Thursday. All are very much in the do care about this issue and want it changed. I am unsure why you think people couldn't care less.

The independence vote has brought it into the limelight and I cannot imaging CMD letting it slip out of people's consciousness.

I don't think people did care.

They do now. Very much so.

Fair enough - how many people will vote for a party because they pledge to solve the WL issue. Many?

I suspect there's some distaste for any lopsided agreement that panders to nationalist Scots paid for by English taxpayers. The referendum has flushed out irritation amongst many English voters that we don't want Scots voting on our affairs when we can't vote on theirs. That irritation may be expressed in the next election.

[anonymous-user]

NDA said:

I suspect there's some distaste for any lopsided agreement that panders to nationalist Scots paid for by English taxpayers. The referendum has flushed out irritation amongst many English voters that we don't want Scots voting on our affairs when we can't vote on theirs. That irritation may be expressed in the next election.

How's it paid for by "English taxpayers" Scottish people pay tax also. As ever, people like to imagine their own tax goes on stuff for others as opposed to what they actually use themselves.

Apart from the issue of labour MPs in Scotland, there are also complications with funding, regarding Scotland having their own budgets to allocate whilst "English issues" tend to come from the entire UK budget not a specific English one.

[Rich G]

el stovey said:

How's it paid for by "English taxpayers" Scottish people pay tax also. As ever, people like to imagine their own tax goes on stuff for others as opposed to what they actually use themselves.

Apart from the issue of labour MPs in Scotland, there are also complications with funding, regarding Scotland having their own budgets to allocate whilst "English issues" tend to come from the entire UK budget not a specific English one.

The Scots get approx. £1600 per head spending more than the English. The vast majority of the population of the UK lives in England, so where is the majority of that funding from... England!

[anonymous-user]

Rich G said:

The Scots get approx. £1600 per head spending more than the English. The vast majority of the population of the UK lives in England, so where is the majority of that funding from... England!

So it might be part paid for by the English?

[Troubleatmill]

The Tories offering Scotland the best devo deal. Labour offering the worst deal.

Could we end up with an SNP & Tory coalition govt?

[turbobloke]

RYH64E said:

I do think that Labour have a real problem here, they can't convincingly argue for the existing system, but the alternative plays right into the hands of the Conservatives..

They sure do have a major problem. It got them releasing the £8 NMW stunt as a diversion.

[mph1977]

el stovey said:

NDA said:

I suspect there's some distaste for any lopsided agreement that panders to nationalist Scots paid for by English taxpayers. The referendum has flushed out irritation amongst many English voters that we don't want Scots voting on our affairs when we can't vote on theirs. That irritation may be expressed in the next election.

How's it paid for by "English taxpayers" Scottish people pay tax also. As ever, people like to imagine their own tax goes on stuff for others as opposed to what they actually use themselves.

Apart from the issue of labour MPs in Scotland, there are also complications with funding, regarding Scotland having their own budgets to allocate whilst "English issues" tend to come from the entire UK budget not a specific English one.

IF actual tax take or population share of tax take plus population share of borrowing

is LESS THAN spending in the constituent nation/ region

THEN the other tax payers are subsidising .

[NicD]

turbobloke said:

They sure do have a major problem. It got them releasing the £8 NMW stunt as a diversion.

stunt (or stunted) indeed, though I do think the min wage should be increased.

[Rich G]

el stovey said:

Rich G said:

The Scots get approx. £1600 per head spending more than the English. The vast majority of the population of the UK lives in England, so where is the majority of that funding from... England!

So it might be part paid for by the English?

Considering there are 5m people in Scotland and 60m people in rUK I would imagine that the vast majority of it is paid for by England.

[turbobloke]

NicD said:

turbobloke said:

They sure do have a major problem. It got them releasing the £8 NMW stunt as a diversion.

stunt (or stunted) indeed, though I do think the min wage should be increased.

As somebody mentioned in another thread, by the time anything happens it would probably be somewhere around that level whoever wins the next election. It was all about timing the announcement.

[NDA]

Rich G said:

Considering there are 5m people in Scotland and 60m people in the UK I would imagine that the vast majority of it is paid for by England.

Yes quite.

The Barnett Formula is worth reading up on. The £1,600 per head additional subsidy received by the Scots pays for all sorts of things - free prescriptions charges, university fees etc.

England should now have devolved powers. Much more fair.

[FiF]

I know it's a Mail link but it's where Lord Barnett chose to write his piece.

I demand that the shamefully unfair Barnett Formula is scrapped, by LORD BARNETT, the architect of the hated subsidy to Scotland

[davepoth]

FiF said:

I know it's a Mail link but it's where Lord Barnett chose to write his piece.

I demand that the shamefully unfair Barnett Formula is scrapped, by LORD BARNETT, the architect of the hated subsidy to Scotland

As with everything in politics, it's all weasel words.

Even if we keep the Barnett Formula, it won't work in the same way. As more and more money is raised locally, the block grant from London will reduce. Even though the extra percentage on top of the block grant remains the same, the actual amount of money going north will reduce significantly.

[SpeedMattersNot]

turbobloke said:

SpeedMattersNot said:

As long as Non-Labour voters continue to misspell Miliband then he's probably the right man for the job.

Maybe he'd be good at Scrabble, he must be good at something. As Labour 'leader' or prospective PM he's a joke, so for tory men and women too he's the right man for the job he's in right now.

Ah I see, so the reason Gordon Brown wasn't the right man for the job was because Tory voters could spell his name? Enlightening.

[XJ Flyer]

BlackLabel said:

Cameron has turned a bad situation into a positive one.

If Scottish MPs cannot vote on English economic matters or anything exclusively English then we could have a situation where Labour win power in 2015 with a small majority but then cannot get their policies through parliament because circa 40 of their MPs cannot vote on a particular issue. It opens up a massive can of worms.

So the Tories still have the Union AND they get rid of Scottish Labour MPs. What a stroke of luck.

Firstly there's nothing so far in the existing arrangements concerning the UK Union that says that Scottish MP's can't be counted in terms of the electoral balance of power in UK elections or therefore in parliament.There is also nothing which seems to suggest that the Cons could pass any such amendment unilaterally without Labour and Libdem agreement.It is also doubtful that the Libdems would want to damage any potential of a LabLibdem coalition after the next election by removing much of Labour's Scottish power base from parliamentary decisions by helping their Conservative coalition partners in that regard.

As for the idea of increasing English Conservative influence in English matters,at the expense of Scottish input,it seems obvious that the motivation for that would be to push through the cutbacks needed in English budgets to pay for the economic bribes provided to guarantee the Scottish no vote.Not that the Cons,or UKIP,could care less about the English being that they and UKIP have both shown themselves to put the Unionist cause above that of the English national interest.If that wasn't the case then it is equally obvious that supporting the Scottish yes vote for independence while also supporting same in the case of English independence,would have made much more sense than doing whatever it took to keep the Union staggering on.

The fact is the contradiction in supporting the idea of the Union while at the same time complaining about the political implications of that by calling for devolution of the UK is just likely to damage the credibility of all of those who supported that contradiction.

The confirmation of that is that,as someone who supported UKIP,there's no way that I now intend to vote at the next election.At least without Farage and the 'Conservative backbenchers' who now seem to be so worried about the English national interest all of a sudden, making an admission that following the Unionist line was a mistake in this case when the honourable thing expected of a supposed 'anti federalist' 'independence' Party,or anyone supposedly worried about England's 'national interest', would have been support for Scottish independence and by implication English independence,in addition to our EU withdrawal.

Therefore its my prediction that,without such an admission and change in UKIP's ideological position,any UKIP and rebel Conservative coalition is doomed and therefore leaves the door open for a LabLibdem coalition without Cameron having any chance of rigging the UK parliament to finish of this Scottish stitch up which expects the English to keep on paying for and being ruled by Scottish MP's like Brown,to keep the Scottish onside in an outdated UK union that should have been broken up long ago.

Edited by XJ Flyer on Monday 22 September 00:56

[Octoposse]

Troubleatmill said:

The Tories offering Scotland the best devo deal. Labour offering the worst deal.

Except I'm not convinced that Cameron can get this 'best' deal through Parliament . . . it will have to have English-votes-for-English-matters in there at least to satisfy the party (and heavens knows what else if his backbenchers really smell blood) . . . and will the LibDems go for that?

OK, there's a huge political trap for Labour and other parties to be seen to be voting against both the further powers promised to Scotland, and 'English democracy', but everybody will be spinning the resulting car crash like they've never spun before, so it's not certain where the balme will end up lying . . .

[gpo746]

Meanwhile BBC Parliament are showing live and recorded coverage of the Labour Conference.
Mind numbingly dull they seem more intent on convincing themselves they are "re connecting with the people" than actually engaging beyond. Only saw a bit to be fair but dull as ditchwater.

[MoshiLego]

XJ Flyer said:

As for the idea of increasing English Conservative influence in English matters,at the expense of Scottish input,it seems obvious that the motivation for that would be to push through the cutbacks needed in English budgets to pay for the economic bribes provided to guarantee the Scottish no vote.Not that the Cons,or UKIP,could care less about the English being that they and UKIP have both shown themselves to put the Unionist cause above that of the English national interest.If that wasn't the case then it is equally obvious that supporting the Scottish yes vote for independence while also supporting same in the case of English independence,would have made much more sense than doing whatever it took to keep the Union staggering on.

The fact is the contradiction in supporting the idea of the Union while at the same time complaining about the political implications of that by calling for devolution of the UK is just likely to damage the credibility of all of those who supported that contradiction.

Edited by XJ Flyer on Monday 22 September 00:56

1. Clues are in the names. Conservative and Unionist Party - tends to suggest this party is in favour of the Union. United Kingdom Independence Party - tends to suggest that this party is in favour of the United Kingdom, and is not intended to be a forum for English nationalists. Not sure why this surprised you?

2. Devolution is not the same as independence. If devolution is the only way to keep the UK together, then of course Unionists will support it. There is no contradiction here, just pragmatic politics.