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2015 General Election Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'TalkCeltic Pub' started by Ledleysleftfoot, Feb 21, 2014.

Discuss 2015 General Election Discussion Thread in the TalkCeltic Pub area at TalkCeltic.net.

  1. Jack Torrance Heeeeeere's Johnny! Gold Member

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    the last resort, bringing up the referendum again, * rats.
     
  2. Jack Torrance Heeeeeere's Johnny! Gold Member

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    the last resort, bringing up the referendum again, * rats.
     
  3. Markybhoy

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    This interview with Jim Murphy is * embarrassing. All he can come up with is "the SNP won't say they're against a second Independence referendum" and "the only way to get rid of David Cameron is to vote Liebour". That's it. That's all he's got to offer. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. When asked to put forward what his ideas are, and the Liebour Party's ideas are, he has nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

    When Murphy first got the job as Scottish Liebour leader I was actually a wee bit worried that he might be a good appointment for them. That fear is subsiding by the day. He's hopeless.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 30, 2015
  4. Markybhoy

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    This interview with Jim Murphy is * embarrassing. All he can come up with is "the SNP won't say they're against a second Independence referendum" and "the only way to get rid of David Cameron is to vote Liebour". That's it. That's all he's got to offer. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. When asked to put forward what his ideas are, and the Liebour Party's ideas are, he has nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

    When Murphy first got the job as Scottish Liebour leader I was actually a wee bit worried that he might be a good appointment for them. That fear is subsiding by the day. He's hopeless.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 30, 2015
  5. Dáibhí

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    I fail to see how it can be an affront to democracy when the system that they're sweeping is of a democratic nature!

    If anything it may force the other Scottish parties to up their game, which they hopefully will set about doing once they realise that fear politics isn't working.
     
  6. Dáibhí

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    I fail to see how it can be an affront to democracy when the system that they're sweeping is of a democratic nature!

    If anything it may force the other Scottish parties to up their game, which they hopefully will set about doing once they realise that fear politics isn't working.
     
  7. Celticbhoy97

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    Imagine if the SNP got 55 seats. It could be the biggest mindfuck on the planet having nationalists nation wide saying We are the 55
     
  8. Celticbhoy97

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    Imagine if the SNP got 55 seats. It could be the biggest mindfuck on the planet having nationalists nation wide saying We are the 55
     
  9. Dáibhí

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    Aside from the untimely and sad death of Donald Dewar, is it possible that James F Murphy could be the shortest reigning Scottish Labour leader in party history?

    I mean, I assume he'll have to step down if it's a total whitewash next month, right? He'll have lasted less than six months by that point.
     
  10. Dáibhí

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    Aside from the untimely and sad death of Donald Dewar, is it possible that James F Murphy could be the shortest reigning Scottish Labour leader in party history?

    I mean, I assume he'll have to step down if it's a total whitewash next month, right? He'll have lasted less than six months by that point.
     
  11. Celticbhoy97

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    Jim Murphy has no shame, he'll milk this role as a victim of the nationlist agenda for as long as possible
     
  12. Celticbhoy97

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    Jim Murphy has no shame, he'll milk this role as a victim of the nationlist agenda for as long as possible
     
  13. Tifosi Celtic

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    You would think so..but don't see many wanting what almost is a 'poisoned chalice'.

    Same with the Labour party down south, if Milliband. I can't see the party surviving much longer, as an election winning force.
     
  14. Tifosi Celtic

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    You would think so..but don't see many wanting what almost is a 'poisoned chalice'.

    Same with the Labour party down south, if Milliband. I can't see the party surviving much longer, as an election winning force.
     
  15. Dáibhí

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    I'm not so sure to be honest. It's blatantly obvious that he's a fallguy for the party at the moment. I mean, look at who contested the position with him.

    Neil Findlay and Sarah Boyack. Yeah, I don't know who the * they are either.

    Where were the heavy hitters? Curran? Bain? Jamieson? Sarwar? Nowhere to be seen.

    I wouldn't bet against any of those names wanting to wait until the party hit rock bottom before staking their claim leading into the Scottish elections.

    Especially Sarwar.
     
  16. Dáibhí

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    I'm not so sure to be honest. It's blatantly obvious that he's a fallguy for the party at the moment. I mean, look at who contested the position with him.

    Neil Findlay and Sarah Boyack. Yeah, I don't know who the * they are either.

    Where were the heavy hitters? Curran? Bain? Jamieson? Sarwar? Nowhere to be seen.

    I wouldn't bet against any of those names wanting to wait until the party hit rock bottom before staking their claim leading into the Scottish elections.

    Especially Sarwar.
     
  17. Intellectually Absurd Gold Member Gold Member

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    Jim Murphy has already said he'l stand for a seat as an MSP come 2016 and remain leader of the Scottish Labour party. He has no shame. I imagine his seat will be safe though, so he'l use that as legitimacy to keep his leadership.

    I think they mean that it will be similar to a one party state - at least in Scotland, which is bad for politics in general. They want more of a 'mix', more 'representation'.
     
  18. Intellectually Absurd Gold Member Gold Member

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    Jim Murphy has already said he'l stand for a seat as an MSP come 2016 and remain leader of the Scottish Labour party. He has no shame. I imagine his seat will be safe though, so he'l use that as legitimacy to keep his leadership.

    I think they mean that it will be similar to a one party state - at least in Scotland, which is bad for politics in general. They want more of a 'mix', more 'representation'.
     
  19. Markybhoy

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    I'll tell you what's an actual affront to democracy. Postal ballots being sampled to such an extent that within minutes of the polling stations closing the leader of the Scottish Conservatives can sit smugly on TV and declare she's extremely confident the No campaign have won the postal ballot.
     
  20. Markybhoy

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    I'll tell you what's an actual affront to democracy. Postal ballots being sampled to such an extent that within minutes of the polling stations closing the leader of the Scottish Conservatives can sit smugly on TV and declare she's extremely confident the No campaign have won the postal ballot.
     
  21. Dáibhí

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    Well, maybe the other parties simply aren't offering enough to make people vote for them. Hopefully as we see Labour and the Liberals die off the Greens and any Socialist party except the SSP make the step up.
     
  22. Dáibhí

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    Well, maybe the other parties simply aren't offering enough to make people vote for them. Hopefully as we see Labour and the Liberals die off the Greens and any Socialist party except the SSP make the step up.
     
  23. Tim-Time 1888 Always look on the bright side of Life Gold Member

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    Aye they should dump the * statue in WM or about 10 miles off shore from Carnoustie, which is English waters now thanks to him helping hand away his countries resources, * that he is.
     
  24. Tim-Time 1888 Always look on the bright side of Life Gold Member

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    Aye they should dump the * statue in WM or about 10 miles off shore from Carnoustie, which is English waters now thanks to him helping hand away his countries resources, * that he is.
     
  25. Dáibhí

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    Speaking ill of the deid :nonono:
     
  26. Dáibhí

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    Speaking ill of the deid :nonono:
     
  27. Tifosi Celtic

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    Fair point.

    Don't remember them sticking their hat into it, but at the same time I would probably still class Murphy as the biggest.

    I would say he was parachuted in here by the Labour party down south to save them up here.

    Curran? I think would be worse than Murphy. Comes across the school teacher you pelted their house with eggs with growing up.

    Jamieson - No chance. Sarwar - Perhaps but noticed he's getting a bit of a backlash. I cant see any of the big hitters saving the party....Bar maybe Gordon Brown, but he's retiring.

    They people mentioned haven't half kept a low profile for months though.
     
  28. Tifosi Celtic

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    Fair point.

    Don't remember them sticking their hat into it, but at the same time I would probably still class Murphy as the biggest.

    I would say he was parachuted in here by the Labour party down south to save them up here.

    Curran? I think would be worse than Murphy. Comes across the school teacher you pelted their house with eggs with growing up.

    Jamieson - No chance. Sarwar - Perhaps but noticed he's getting a bit of a backlash. I cant see any of the big hitters saving the party....Bar maybe Gordon Brown, but he's retiring.

    They people mentioned haven't half kept a low profile for months though.
     
  29. wulliebad

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    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11570792/The-historic-link-between-Labour-and-the-trade-unions-is-about-to-break-thanks-to-the-SNP.html



    Earlier this week Unite leader * McCluskey gave an interview for the Times. Buried within it was a seemingly innocuous line. Asked about whether Ed Miliband should consider working with the SNP if he finds himself leader of a minority administration, McCluskey said he should. The SNP had, he said, “undoubtedly changed the contours of the political scene”.

    The SNP surge in Scotland has prized open such a vast political Pandora’s box that it’s proving very hard to keep track of all the potential implications. Will it mean legislative chaos at Westminster? Will it cause a constitutional crisis over the legitimacy of a minority Labour government? Will it finally push Scotland towards independence?
    We probably won’t be in a position to answer any of those questions until weeks, months or even years after the election. But there is one significant – as yet widely overlooked – result of impending events north of the border that we can now predict with absolute certainty. Next Thursday, the historic link between the Labour party and the trade unions that has existed for 115 years will finally be severed.

    The reason it will be severed is a simple one. In Scotland trade unionists are about to vote in huge numbers for a party other than the Labour party. Obviously, trade unionists have done so in previous elections. A poll for YouGov taken back in 2013 showed only 54 per cent of trade union members were actually Labour voters, with the rest spread amongst the Tories (16 per cent), Ukip (12 per cent), the Lib Dems (6 per cent), and the remaining 12 per cent spread amongst the “minor parties”.
    But in Scotland as we now know, the SNP are no longer a minor party. In truth, they are not a political party at all - more a social phenomenon.
    And they sweeping up Scotland’s trade unionists in the same way they are sweeping up the rest of the country.
    Nine days ago Ed Miliband addressed the Scottish TUC in a desperate attempt to stem the tide. Citing Kier Hardie, who lived in Ayrshire, Labour’s leader said:“His picture hangs on my wall as a constant reminder of all the strength and courage of the people who built this movement."

    His appeal fell on deaf ears. And the reason we know it fell on deaf ears is the reaction of the leader of the biggest trade union in Britain. Invited to attack the SNP, * McCluskey said: “It would be wrong of me to launch an attack against the SNP, who have a manifesto that is anti-austerity, which is Unite’s policy, and many of the issues that they talk about are in line with the policies of my membership."
    When a trade union general secretary with McCluskey’s political and industrial muscle acknowledges he can no longer resist the SNP surge, it’s over. Scotland is about to turn yellow and black, thanks in part to the votes of his members. A new poll has just been released showing Nicola Sturgeon's party poised to win every single Scottish seat. And as a result, once the election is over, it will impossible for Unite – or indeed for any of the other unions with a major presence in Scotland – to ignore political reality.

    Before the autumn the SNP’s nationalist trade union group had 800 members. It now has 14,000. According to the Financial Times it is preparing to hold its inaugural conference this summer. The mainstream unions cannot allow themselves to be outflanked like this. And they cannot continue to ask their members to pay fees into a political fund that will then be used by Labour to attack the party those members are voting and campaigning for.
    In truth, the writing has been on the wall for some time. During the independence referendum Unite failed to endorse either the Better Together or Yes Scotland campaigns. Speaking to a senior Unite official at the time, he said to me: “That’s the best we can do. Most of the active membership up there support independence. To be honest, if I was living up there I’d be voting for independence too."

    So next week the people of Scotland will vote, and then the unions will begin the process of asserting their own independence from the Labour party. At the moment it’s not clear what form that independence will take. There may be some attempt to put in a place a devolved “Scottish settlement” that will allow the unions to overtly support, campaign for and fund the SNP, whilst retaining the traditional link in the rest of the UK. There may be some other convoluted deal cobbled together to paper over the cracks in the short-term. But the days of British trade unions exclusively supporting the party they founded way back in 1900 are drawing to an end.

    And that, in turn, will change the Labour party for ever. How it is financed. How its leadership elections are conducted. How its policies are formed. How it retains its already tenuous link with its traditional working class base.

    Pandora’s box is open. By the time it is shut again the historic Labour-union link will be resting deep inside it.
     
  30. wulliebad

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    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11570792/The-historic-link-between-Labour-and-the-trade-unions-is-about-to-break-thanks-to-the-SNP.html



    Earlier this week Unite leader * McCluskey gave an interview for the Times. Buried within it was a seemingly innocuous line. Asked about whether Ed Miliband should consider working with the SNP if he finds himself leader of a minority administration, McCluskey said he should. The SNP had, he said, “undoubtedly changed the contours of the political scene”.

    The SNP surge in Scotland has prized open such a vast political Pandora’s box that it’s proving very hard to keep track of all the potential implications. Will it mean legislative chaos at Westminster? Will it cause a constitutional crisis over the legitimacy of a minority Labour government? Will it finally push Scotland towards independence?
    We probably won’t be in a position to answer any of those questions until weeks, months or even years after the election. But there is one significant – as yet widely overlooked – result of impending events north of the border that we can now predict with absolute certainty. Next Thursday, the historic link between the Labour party and the trade unions that has existed for 115 years will finally be severed.

    The reason it will be severed is a simple one. In Scotland trade unionists are about to vote in huge numbers for a party other than the Labour party. Obviously, trade unionists have done so in previous elections. A poll for YouGov taken back in 2013 showed only 54 per cent of trade union members were actually Labour voters, with the rest spread amongst the Tories (16 per cent), Ukip (12 per cent), the Lib Dems (6 per cent), and the remaining 12 per cent spread amongst the “minor parties”.
    But in Scotland as we now know, the SNP are no longer a minor party. In truth, they are not a political party at all - more a social phenomenon.
    And they sweeping up Scotland’s trade unionists in the same way they are sweeping up the rest of the country.
    Nine days ago Ed Miliband addressed the Scottish TUC in a desperate attempt to stem the tide. Citing Kier Hardie, who lived in Ayrshire, Labour’s leader said:“His picture hangs on my wall as a constant reminder of all the strength and courage of the people who built this movement."

    His appeal fell on deaf ears. And the reason we know it fell on deaf ears is the reaction of the leader of the biggest trade union in Britain. Invited to attack the SNP, * McCluskey said: “It would be wrong of me to launch an attack against the SNP, who have a manifesto that is anti-austerity, which is Unite’s policy, and many of the issues that they talk about are in line with the policies of my membership."
    When a trade union general secretary with McCluskey’s political and industrial muscle acknowledges he can no longer resist the SNP surge, it’s over. Scotland is about to turn yellow and black, thanks in part to the votes of his members. A new poll has just been released showing Nicola Sturgeon's party poised to win every single Scottish seat. And as a result, once the election is over, it will impossible for Unite – or indeed for any of the other unions with a major presence in Scotland – to ignore political reality.

    Before the autumn the SNP’s nationalist trade union group had 800 members. It now has 14,000. According to the Financial Times it is preparing to hold its inaugural conference this summer. The mainstream unions cannot allow themselves to be outflanked like this. And they cannot continue to ask their members to pay fees into a political fund that will then be used by Labour to attack the party those members are voting and campaigning for.
    In truth, the writing has been on the wall for some time. During the independence referendum Unite failed to endorse either the Better Together or Yes Scotland campaigns. Speaking to a senior Unite official at the time, he said to me: “That’s the best we can do. Most of the active membership up there support independence. To be honest, if I was living up there I’d be voting for independence too."

    So next week the people of Scotland will vote, and then the unions will begin the process of asserting their own independence from the Labour party. At the moment it’s not clear what form that independence will take. There may be some attempt to put in a place a devolved “Scottish settlement” that will allow the unions to overtly support, campaign for and fund the SNP, whilst retaining the traditional link in the rest of the UK. There may be some other convoluted deal cobbled together to paper over the cracks in the short-term. But the days of British trade unions exclusively supporting the party they founded way back in 1900 are drawing to an end.

    And that, in turn, will change the Labour party for ever. How it is financed. How its leadership elections are conducted. How its policies are formed. How it retains its already tenuous link with its traditional working class base.

    Pandora’s box is open. By the time it is shut again the historic Labour-union link will be resting deep inside it.
     
  31. shaun.f

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    cracking chopper nicola sturgeon's got seen it the day in gala.
     
  32. shaun.f

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    cracking chopper nicola sturgeon's got seen it the day in gala.
     
  33. Jeannie960 Gold Member Gold Member

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  34. Jeannie960 Gold Member Gold Member

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  35. The Celtic Way

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    i dont much about politics, but i do no that miliband is a liar, and i hope everyone seen him fall off the stage as he walked off
     
  36. The Celtic Way

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    i dont much about politics, but i do no that miliband is a liar, and i hope everyone seen him fall off the stage as he walked off
     
  37. AJ Styles Moussa Dembele's eyes Gold Member

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    I didn't :54:
     
  38. AJ Styles Moussa Dembele's eyes Gold Member

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    I didn't :54:
     
  39. The Celtic Way

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    he tried to look down the camera as he walked away, and forgot there was a step :56:
     
  40. The Celtic Way

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    he tried to look down the camera as he walked away, and forgot there was a step :56: