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Alecto
Feb 11, 2014
August UKMT two and a half hours early. Cameron's Britain.

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Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Gonzo McFee posted:

It's been said 101 times but here goes. No election has ever hinged on Scotland. If Scotland was taken out of the picture then you'd still have all the same winners and losers. It is a bullshit myth.

Besides, Labour have promised to be even worse than the Tories so who gives a gently caress ether way.

I agree with you that the 'permanent Tory majority' line that is thrown around is annoying and wrong, but, what you've said is also quite wrong. Without Scotland, there would've been no Labour majority and they'd have lost ground on the Conservatives in October 1974, 1964, 1950 and would've fallen behind the Tories in February 1974. Perhaps in all these cases there still would've been a Labour PM, but a majority vs a minority/coalition hugely changes what a government goes on to do, and at least in February '64 it's 50/50 that the Conservatives would've retained power. Your whole line is also a little misleading in that before Thatcher Scotland didn't vote how it does now. In those elections there was a ~19 seat lead of Labour over the Tories in Scotland, whereas now it's consistently 40+. The absence of that sort of margin would've changed a whole lot of results, including most probably of the upcoming election.

Obviously if Scotland leaves then Labour will just move to the right and/or majorly re-brand to pick up more southern votes. There will never be anything near a permanent majority for a UK party. It's also not really an independence issue imo; you're running a country not an electoral charity, do whatever's best for you!

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Kin posted:

I'm sorry, he should have said, Scotland's had no significant impact in the chosen government for the UK except for those rare occasions where England couldn't quite make it's mind up about which bastards should rule us all.

The fact that if the majority of England want something in Westminster, then Scotland has to put up with it is totally ridiculous.

That sounds more like an argument against democracy to me. Which is fine, but not what the referendum's on.

Merely pointing out that often the hugely factually incorrect argument pushed around by the English 'left' that Scotland has some sort of duty to protect the North, Midlands and Wales from eternal Tory rule is often responded with the slightly factually incorrect argument that Scotland is always entirely electorally irrelevant. Given that the independence side is right on this issue, it might be a better tactic to avoid the territory of factually incorrect altogether. But I'm just an annoying dick from Yorkshire so I'll stfu now.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Fingerless Gloves posted:

Isn't the magma pasty/tepid block of filling the fault of the pasty tax a few years ago, meaning Greggs can't reheat their poo poo without adding another 20p on to a steak bake? loving tories ruining everything. Not that it matters, the best thing from Greggs are the bandito sandwiches and the chocolate cookies.

Also note that like 3-4 years ago sausage rolls used to be 50p, now they're like 80 last I checked. And McDonalds double cheeseburgers are now £1 loving 50. Happy Meals are £2.40 as well.

Wasn't the pasty tax scrapped, or have I misremembered?

e: yes, it seems it was abolished back in May 2012 or there abouts.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Gort posted:

The Lib Dems aren't going to have a single MP come the next election.

Yes, yes they will. Almost definitely double figures, maybe more than 20. Even with the ~8% of the vote they're predicted, with the distribution as it has been in previous elections, they'd have around 15. Resilient buggars.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Zephro posted:

I think Ukip has a good chance of damaging Labour, too. Its message is going to appeal to a lot of Labour's old core voters; namely older men in semi-skilled work. A good chunk of them feel left behind by the modern world and are tempted to blame migration for their woes.

I don't think it's at all clear that UKIP will split only the Tory vote.

I'm surprised people are still saying this. There's no if's or maybe's, UKIP does hurt Labour, it's a statistical fact. The question is does it hurt them in relation to the Conservatives, most of the time the answer is no. In support levels of <20% it harms the Tories the most then Lib Dems then Labour, at 20% it's still the same order but as they exceed that the other two begin to catch the Tories up. Presumably at some absurd point of insane UKIP support Labour do catch the Tories up. The Lib Dem vs Labour question seems wholly dependent on the constituency, but shouldn't much of a factor this GE.

So the evidence suggests UKIP will be an electoral benefit to Labour, despite reducing their overall vote.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Umiapik posted:

Alistair Darling would be ok, I think?

I had a wonder about something like this a while ago; I remain in hope that Balls is just soaking up punches until he's thrown out of the clown car in time for the election. What Labour really need for shadow chancellor is a dull white man that's already established, i.e. the British political definition of a 'safe pair of hands'. So, the question for the Scottish, in the event of a No vote, would it be too alienating/galling/whatever for Darling to come back as shadow chancellor?

ReV VAdAUL posted:

It was Axelrod wot won it!

Have Labour tried to adopt the Obama campaign's use of quants and data mining at all?

I don't think they have the money for it, but that's just a whiff of a memory of an article some guy wrote.

Alecto fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Aug 8, 2014

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Praseodymi posted:

Cross posting from idiots on social media thread:

Jesus loving Christ, I just went through her feed to find it and it's loving disgusting. It's like she's gone completely insane, just an endless stream of pictures celebrating the US bombing. ISIS are loving disgusting people, but I still find such naked glee unsavory, especially considering the possibilities of civilian casualties. Perhaps a good insight into what Tory politicians would be like if not 'in the public eye'.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014
It's the perfect combination of two pillars of Tory policy. It's almost enough to make me think he wants the leadership again; the party members are gonna love poo poo like this. Feckless poors open door to foreigners. I dream of a day when the entire Tory manifesto can be boiled down to a single line like that, IDS is truly a visionary.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014
Also, Mark Simmonds has resigned from the Foreign Office, though No. 10 claim it's nothing to do with Gaza and that he won't be standing at the next election either, so it probably won't be as exciting as the press are hoping.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014
Since when was someone being homophobic or having other poo poo views and excuse to be transphobic, or any other poo poo like that? I'm sure we can all find a way to insult someone not based on a minority characteristic, the holders of which have a long history of receiving extreme abuse.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014
So there's yet another 'UKIP are racist' story going around, and probably only making it past the fatigue barrier on this topic because it's an actual elected MEP. Apparently she called a Thai woman, and actual UKIP supporter, a 'ting tong from somewhere'.

And also more in 'gee-whiz, isn't privatisation great' news, the government's been ordered to pay £224m by an 'arbitration tribunal' to a company contracted under New Labour to provide the e-Borders programme. The coalition terminated the contract after deciding they were failing to meet the terms, hence the suing. Someone more knowledgeable than me about this could probably tell us whether the government didn't have the right to terminate the contract or whether they just did it incompetently, as is the theme of the Home Office, and also from where the tribunal gets its authority.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Obliterati posted:

A lot of my acquaintances are STEM grads and I can confirm this. Marketisation of universities has, unsurprisingly, produced a lot of bottom-line obsessed people who try and apply hard science laws to, you know, the real world. Unions are a good example: we've been raised in an age where unions have never been considered acceptable. I end up in arguments with people who admit that collective bargaining would work for them but it's somehow entirely wrong - the only occasion they'll argue that 'more money for me' is not a moral good, fwiw, as these are the same people who demand lower taxes for themselves and repost Daily Mail nonsense about the scrounging poors. The reaction towards the various lecturer strikes and so on has been appalling in some quarters.

Do people know if the 40-50% for Labour among university students is lower than it has been in previous decades? Of course, willingness to vote Labour is far from indication of being left-wing, but hopefully most of them aren't total fucks. Might as well just kill myself now if things are only going to get worse.

Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

Obliterati posted:

Yeah, you're correct, but the language of said cognitive dissonance is like how Dawkins supporters talk to religious people - 'religion is a virus' and all that nonsense. Basically by dressing it in psuedo-scientific language it appears to have legitimacy. These aren't people who can dissect The Spirit Level or any other pop-sci economics.


It really varies by department. I studied in the harder end of the social sciences (archaeology), where this sort of me-first bollocks is much rarer because there's absolutely no money in it. My original department was petroleum geology though, and that crowd are with some exceptions classic FYGM.

As regards overall voting intentions, a shittonne of us fell for Cleggmania, myself included, and God only knows whether they'll ever vote again :clegg: That said Sheffield Hallam, Clegg's constituency, is seeing a massive shift to Labour as part of a 'gently caress you' from Sheffield students. If the Lib Dems are abandoned by this generation of students then you'd hope they'd go Labour, but there's no guarantee.

(yes, I know, we shouldn't have made that mistake in the first place)

Well in late 2008, they went to the Conservatives with a peak of about 42%. The Cleggmania kicks in, then tuition fees scandal, and its been Labour ever since, but declining in the last year (like the rest of the country). You'd think that sutdents would naturally stick to Labour, or at least the Lib Dems, when not driven away by the likes of Iraq, but there's no indication that these lot wouldn't vote for Hitler if he was the opposition. Oh and as a STEM student, gently caress STEM students.

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Alecto
Feb 11, 2014

LemonDrizzle posted:

The stated policy aim at the time was to increase university attendance to the point that 50% of school leavers would go. How on earth is that consistent with trying to "shift the demographics of higher education toward the right/rich" ?

Perhaps some horribly cynical people think the stated aims are different to some of those involved's actual aims.

Also, the system does a not altogether terrible job of not making money an *actual* object (it still is, but not really any more than before), but often what's more important is whether prospective students think it's an object. However, the statistics of the last few years seem to show that it isn't keeping poor kids out any more than before. What it is doing is pushing students from humanities and other 'useless' courses towards courses specifically engineered to get you into a job ASAP (or appear like it) and STEM courses.

Alecto fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Aug 24, 2014

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