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Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Disinterested posted:

Reminder that a lot of people thought that about Nick Clegg last time.

A thousand times this, to be honest. I'm starting to cringe at the immediate reactions to the debates, and how short people's memories are. You can get such a big bump from positioning yourself as a new, alternative, bresh of fresh air maverick against more of the same old thing. It's a great strategy if you can get people feeling like they're part of something new and exciting, that's why Clegg/Obama/Farage/Sturgeon/the next one do it. I'm sure a lot of people here will consider themselves cynics, but still not spot the same trick that Tony Blair of all people pulled in the 90s.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 16:25

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 20:22

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Rakosi posted:

I don't see why people are singing Sturgeon's praises so much when she stands for a party that literally wants to break apart our country above all other things. She's the worst of the lot; an actual wolf in sheep's clothing that for some reason English people are finding very appealing.

The SNP are a good party outside of trying to push through poorly-thought out and unworkable plans for Scottish independence. I'd trust them to run things but their central tenet is a really bad idea, they're like the opposite of the Greens.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 18:28

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

hakimashou posted:

I'm an American it is my God given inalienable sovereign right to influence the politics anywhere on our earth

Anyway yeah it's probably not kosher. Why can't she stop being Scottish and come be president heeeerrrreeeeee?

You already picked an exciting, progressive, visionary president who was going to shake up the establishment and bring in a new kind of politics, what's the problem?

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 18:39

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Oberleutnant posted:

presumably you would also have been against irish independence

Use punctuation in D&D.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 19:09

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Semprini posted:

The UK has a tradition of imprisoning Irish people for doing things that aren't illegal, but it's not yet been extended to politicians.

This one's a bit of a non sequitur to the discussion at hand I think.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 21:41

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

LemonDrizzle posted:

Uh-oh spaghetti-o's!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11514933/Nicola-Sturgeon-secretly-backs-David-Cameron.html

Don't buy it. Show me the full conversation, and the exact context of the question she was supposedly answering, before I'll believe that the SNP leader said would prefer a Tory government.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 21:51

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

The Supreme Court posted:

Make SNP + Labour look bad = make Tories look good
Make SNP + Labour fight = more money spent not making Tories look bad

Idk its pretty tough to follow both at once, but you can pick one if that's the case

Or Labour do what they were going to do anyway and fight the Tories in England, and then also lose a few less Scottish seats on the back of this. Enough to get them over the line of a majority government. What you're suggesting isn't logically impossible, but trying to goad them into diverting focus towards Scotland is a very high risk strategy, it's basically never a good idea to give your opponent extra options that they didn't have previously.

It's just a newspaper hit job on Sturgeon, you're overthinking it.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 23:52

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

The Supreme Court posted:

I'll lay it out. None of this is rocket science, and every level helps the Telegraph sell papers/ the Tories get votes:
* The Telegraph want to sell papers
* The Tories want votes
Basic knowledge assumed:
* SNP and Labour are fighting a zero-sum game in Scotland
* The Telegraph is no fan of either
High school couse:
* Labour and the Tories are fighting over seats in England
* The Telegraph likes the Tories
* Labour has a limited war-chest

Yeah, all fine and sound reasoning up to this point. But here's where you take the logical scenic route:

quote:

Uber-Advanced, like totally end of high school:
* Labour assumes minority government w/ SNP support
* Tories lose nothing from other parties spending money in Scotland

Tories lose a lot from Labour keeping seats they would have lost to the SNP surge. No-one hates the Tories more than Scotland, so to limit the SNP's upswing in Scotland by showing them as favourable to David Cameron helps Labour in marginal seats, for free. Yes they could conceivably change their strategy weeks before the election and blow all their money on marginal Scottish seats (that they will probably end up in a confidence and supply arrangement with anyway) or they can spend their money on the actual zero sum game which is winning English seats against the Conservatives.

I don't know what the Telegraph's readership is in Scotland, but I imagine it's not very high. They're writing this for their English readers who hate both Labour and the SNP, because as you said they want to sell papers more than anything.

From reading goon posts for about 10 years now, I understand there's some logical principle that states that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Applying this principle (whatever it's called) says this isn't backhanded manipulation to fool Labour's political strategists who have managed and won several elections before.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 00:29

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

The Supreme Court posted:

And yep, it's Occam's Razor.

It hurts me that you've done this.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 00:40

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I think it's fair to say that Labour's chances of a majority are both dead and alive at the same time, and we won't know until we've observed it.

The tories are probably taking pleasure from their misfortune.

It's a literal No True Scotsman.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 00:47

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Disinterested posted:

All this goes to show us that debate performance is highly subjective and that the important thing is media consensus and how it encapsulates the event for voters.

I totally agree really, specifically around Milliband. Not many people will actually have watched it, so if he gets the headline "Ed collapses in debate meltdown" or "Milliband roars to victory over Cameron" then that's the nudge in either direction that voters will get. He's spent three years battling against imagine problems, his chances always hang on whether the image of "dithering Wallace with a headcold" is either slightly solidified or slightl eroded in the public consciousness.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 13:01

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

wrong thread

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 13:07

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Edit; I do this so often lol, I'm very sorry UKMT I really must try harder.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 13:07

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

OwlFancier posted:

It is a lot of money, but it is also literally insignificant. A minute fraction of overall expenditures. Statistical significance is something like 5% most of the time, when something costs around a percent of the total budget of an organisation, it's not a significant issue.

This sentence is making my eye twitch.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2015 19:56

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

OwlFancier posted:

I know statistical significance isn't the same as fiscal significance, I'm more just trying to describe that significant or not is entirely contingent on the size of the thing being discussed. The percentage is what's important, not the absolute value.

Sorry but this isn't true either, this argument falls apart if you spend one second thinking about it. A duck house is a very small percentage of all the MP's expenses. In the scheme of things a very small number of afghan children have been orphaned in the last 10 years. I don't know how to say this without coming across as a real prick, but your use of "statistical significance" is incorrect and inapplicable in this case. We don't disagree on the actual argument on the NHS, I just can't let bad stats like that slide.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2015 20:25

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

My original point was that "statistically insignificant" isn't applicable to a �75m expense within a larger total (however much larger), as it's just a known quantity, you're not testing any hypothesis based on random variables. It's nothing to do with sample sizes or margin for error. It's like saying the �1.50 breadsticks on your �100 restaurant bill are "statistically insignificant", it doesn't mean anything in that context. That's just how much it is.

We all want HIV patients to get treatment on the NHS though, I'm sure we can drop the stats chat.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 01:38

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Clegg's collar is all over the place. Crew necks with a small tucked in collar, Ed knows what's up in 2015 smart-casual.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 02:27

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

vegetables posted:

I personally think at least part of the appeal of Scottish independence is the way it's been sold almost as a movement that can detach Scotland from the post-financial crash world rather than from the UK as such. The fact that an independent Scotland would be subject to international forces in terms of both finance and sovereignty rarely seems to come up, and I think that's at least partially because they impose some limits on the extent to which escape is possible for Scotland. A lot of pro-Yes stuff seemed backward rather than forward looking to me because of that; there seemed to be a temptation to wish problems away through positive thinking rather than attempt to confront them full on. To be honest, though, I sort of feel like that describes most leftism I encounter at the moment; it seems so locally focused as to have nothing to say about international forces, despite those forces being more influential on local conditions than the things that are actually local themselves.

I think this is spot on, the Yes campaign heavily leant away from confronting the downsides and focuses almost entirely on the positives that independence would bring. Push the positives, ignore the negatives. Which was obviously the strategy that any "vote for this" campaign is going to take, but the reliance on labelling every counterargument as "scaremongering" seems to have costs them in the end, if post-vote polling is correct that a lot of No voters felt the economic case had not been made.

There were posts in the Independence thread which really were like "do we really need to talk about all the economic stuff again? It's so boring" (that's a paraphrase but it's a very close one). All the Yes voters wanted to move the conversation to how hopeful a new Scotland would be, keeping it on the philosophical level of self-determinism. We can worry about bond rates and the effects of corporation tax afterwards, just think how amazing the street parties will be. This is why it was always my posiition that independence isn't wrong by its very nature, but the SNP's 2014 plan for independence was really pretty flimsy and would have worked out worse for most people in Scotland.

Also, the Yes campaign definitely made a distinct shift to "let's get away from the Tories" in the final stretch of the campaign. Over and over we heard that it was about the positive case for independence, but "it's nothing to do with England" stance disappeared in the last 3-4 months and the campaign went far more negative. Again, that's probably what I would have done too if I was running a political campaign, but there was certainly no high ground from Yes by the end.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Apr 6, 2015

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 15:30

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

mediadave posted:

We also need to remember the context that 'the vow' was made in (lets remember, the vow was a promise of 1) more devolution and 2) continued Barnett formula.) - there was a lot of talk by yes supporters that if Scotland voted no it was going to be 'monstered' by Westminster for daring to have the referendum, that there would never be another referendum allowed, and likely that the Scottish parliament would be abolished. This was presented as self evidently going to happen by many. (again, a good place to see this is Daft Limmy's twitter feed)

I'm can't agree with all of this bit. I don't remember any claim ever that the Scottish parliament would be affected by a No vote, and Limmy laid everything on thick in order to wind people up, because that's what his comedy is like.

Coohoolin is right that literally hours after the result it was straight on to "okay that conversation's over, let's talk about English votes for English laws". Which was dumb as poo poo and didn't help matters at all. But it still doesn't mean that the plan of "let's keep the pound maybe, and stay in the EU maybe, and oil will go up maybe, and we'll figure the rest out as we come to it after we haven't really thought about it yet" style of declaring secession was ever the right move.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 15:51

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I vote we ignore that post, make no more masturbatory little responses to it, and place an immediate month long ban on Scotpol in the UK thread.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 01:11

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I'm surprised Duncan Bannatyne was a signatory to that letter in the first place. Even when they're self-made make it rich titans of industry you always assume that people who grew up in pre-1970s working class Glasgow are Labour as gently caress.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 23:33

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne#Early_life

His dad worked in a Clydebank manufacturing plant, and he supported Thatcher's government, oooh gently caress you Duncan.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 23:37

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I wonder who the richest and poorest UKMT posters are.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2015 22:40

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Gonzo McFee posted:

I'm rich in spirit.

lol you're definitely loving not

# ¿ Apr 12, 2015 22:48

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Cerv posted:

Mon to Fri 9 to 5 with 1 hour lunch.

Do you want to try that one again?

# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 12:30

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

OwlFancier posted:

Trident is the nation's metaphorical insurance policy, not an actual insurance policy, you won't fix the deficit by burning down the country for the insurance money.

Ironically, GDP would go up massively.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 20:04

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

AMooseDoesStuff posted:

I just wish they'd stop giving farage airtime.

His party is projected to get about 15% of the popular vote, he has every right to be included in the debate. We sort of jut have to live with it.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2015 20:13

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I hope you've all paid your TV license btw

# ¿ Apr 16, 2015 20:50

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

do some of you really not know what a gang master is

# ¿ Apr 16, 2015 21:06

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

edit: nm

# ¿ Apr 19, 2015 13:45

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I'm going to an election night party and I'm not sure if it's going to be fun or unbearable.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 21:23

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Tasty line up on question time. Hague, Harriet Harman, Natalie Bennett, John Swinney, scouse UKIP deputy guy.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 22:49

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I'm going to Edinburgh tomorrow.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 22:54

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

tooterfish posted:

I don't think she posts here, you'll have to ask on her myspace or something.

Surely it would be bebo?

# ¿ Apr 24, 2015 11:10

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

All of you should post your pictures.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 17:38

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Touchdown Boy posted:

First Scotland thought Indy would give it a better shot at the fairer society it thought it was being denied by Westminster (rightly or wrongly), now that that didnt happen and we were supposedly 'convinced to stay in the Union' they are reaching out with that policy to the whole UK and are being chastised for it as danergous and undemocratic.

As others have said you cant beg Scotland to stay, promise them things then basically say 'gently caress you get back in your box' the second we start to assert ourselves within the democratic system.

You're just the latest person to be doing the two classic tricks here. The first (and far worse) is conflating Scotland and the pro-independence movement. Scotland didn't think independence would give it a better shot at a fairer society, one side of the debate did and the majority disagreed. The referendum didn't fail, Scotland didn't lose, it was a massive success.

The second related but much less poisonous is spinning it that it was only the promise of more powers that decided the vote. There's some evidence that isn't the case at all, no evidence that it is, and pushes the narrative that a Scottish person's default position is to want to split from the UK.

I don't know if you and others are doing this consciously or subconsciously, but you are doing it. It's a trick and it needs to be called out every time it happens.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Apr 26, 2015

# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 13:18

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

LemonDrizzle posted:

what the gently caress are the tories even playing at?

They're doing exactly what they believe in, it's not a surprise. The main British parties all span a fairly narrow, 21st century socially capitalist economic platform. But never forget that they're all thatcherites still and it's clear what they really want. The Tories long ago stopped hating blacks, browns and gays but they will never (can never) believe that the government can spend your money better than you can. I don't think that side of the right wing can ever be defeated, it's intrinsic to some people to not understand socialism.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2015 23:22

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 20:22

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Zephro posted:

Technically nothing if he loses his seat, there's no law saying a party leader has to be a sitting MP. For instance: Nigel Farage, Natalie Bennett, Nicola Sturgeon (sort of).

In practice he'd almost certainly have to resign as leader.

I think the Lib Dem charter specifically says the leader has to be an MP actually, someone linked it the other day.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 16:58

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