Clegg’s a genius.

“while the Liberal Democrats would have lost the most relative to their size as a party with 43 MPs, rather than 57 under the current system.”

As CoE representing a Scottish seat and elected by Scottish voters Darling was a key figure in the G20 deal that rescued the world from meltdown in 2009. That strikes me as a pretty compelling story. As Ireland and Iceland discovered, no-one was immune from that cluster-fook, but neither had a role to play (or has a role to play) in trying to find a solution. Scotland, by contrast, played a major and, I would argue, a very valuable role. That sounds like a very positive story to me, though obviously I am biased!

Likewise, Alexander, Reid, Miurphy and co can directly refute claims that Scotland has no influence within the UK. They had plenty – and they were all elected solely by Scottish voters.

Now, of course, that may not work as an argument. But I cannot think of a better one. If the Scots reject it, so be it. But it strikes me that the case for Westminster and the UK is best made by Scots who have been elected to Westminster and have held senior office in the UK government. 

” What I’m wondering is how much you know about ordinary people in Scotland who would prefer to remain in the UK.”

Plenty thanks since I live here. Family members disagree on it as do work colleagues and people from all walks of life. But nobody I know has been impressed by Cameron’s intervention and you’ll struggle to find many who are outside hardcore scottish tories.

“Fair” doesn’t mean Cameron blundering in and telling the scottish people he should dictate the referndum terms and makiing blustering threats about court action. Not from a tory PM who couldn’t even win a majority in westminster and has a scant few scottish MSPs. We understand perfectly well what a mandate is and Cameron simply doesn’t have it to blatantly interfere and try to dictate his terms in the scottish referendum. He is perfectly entitled to make his views known and indeed we welcome that, but the inept Osborne “strategy” he’s following is stupidity on a colossal scale and is well, well, beyond coherently stating his view on independence and the union.

And I’m afraid if the best you can do is complain that someone who doesn’t agree with you is partisan then perhaps politics isn’t for you.

Don’t worry about Scotland.  The Scots will never vote for independence.  I know them.   They’re frit.   For some reason many years ago I was sitting in a Glasgow cinema watching the film ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ in which Robin Williams dresses up as, clearly, a Scottish nanny, but is repeatedly referred to as ‘English’.  There was not a peep of protest from the watching Scottish hordes; that is because most Scots, whilst undoubtedly a complete pain in the arse, are really quite normal, definitely not nationalists.  

For Cameron…?

LOL

“So we are spending 32bn to reduce the current 82 minute fastest time for London to Birmingham down to 45 minutes?”

THERE IS NO MONEY LEFT!!!!

;^)

You sound exactly like those who opposed devolution pongo.

How did that turn out again?

If Crick’s right, combined with the Wells data for Scot/Eng I get

Con 298 (inc Speaker)
Lab 231/2
LD 46/7
Nats 8
NI 16

Actually I flagged up Osborne’s amusing hypocrisy over his IMF u-turn yesterday.

Were you busy downloading you orders from your borg leader Mitt at the time ?

Fascinating watching PBers go sometimes.

40/40/10

Yet one leader is a genius, the other is appalling. Definition of partisan much.

Interestingly the ”10″ leader never gets talked about on PB for some reason (apart from when he upsets Tories by daring to Disagree With Them). 

That you repeatedly use terms like ‘Cammie Blair’ can leave an impression of partisanship in fairness, as it is petty and distracts from argument, though for my part I will say that though I disagree with you (or at the least, where I do agree, am not happy about the subject when you are) on this whole independence malarky, I have not found discoursing with you as unyielding, frustrating  or offensive as I find with the most intense on any side.

I apologise if that sounds condescending – I mean it as a compliment (heh – now that is a trap I imagine unionist south of the border often make, eh? I wouldn’t know)

I find the 10 too depressing to dwell on, quite frankly (more on a ‘downfall of a strong third party’ basis than a personal one, although I do feel Clegg has been ruined as a politician in future and that is a shame). But yeah, I don’t like Ed M, he has not as yet made me think Labour are a valid alternative to current Coalition policies, I do not want him to be the next PM, but his detractors really seem to stretch to see something ‘terrible’ even if  there is something to the argument that given the awful situation we find ourselves in he is probably disappointed not to have daylight between him and the Tories.

I think Miliband is around twice as good as the PB “consensus” reflects, and Cameron twice as poor.

Crunching the numbers, it comes out somewhere near the Mori leader ratings – neck and neck ish – whod’ve thunk it!

I completely agree re Clegg and the Lib Dems. I actually like Nick Clegg. I like the Lib Dems, generally (though they could do with burning the likes of Laws and the Rodent at the stake). It’s desperately sad to see them in a potentially life-threatening position.

So no majority for the Tories still.

No Devomax
No boundary change majority
No saving of the economy

Running out of reasons why you are going to increase your seats and win a majority Tories.  Maybe you should stop treating your coalition partners like such crap.

IoS

you should learn arithmetic.

600 seats less 5 Sinn Fein = 595

298 = majority of 1.

AlanBrooke

LOL That includes the speaker.  But you can keep him.  It doesn’t matter.  You couldn’t govern with 20 let alone a cheeky 1.

Ed Balls is doing the Tories a big favour, annoying though he is.
He just encapsulates so vividly the financial mess this (new) government inheritied and is grappling with.