I have been travelling on business all week, hence the silence. The dangers of travel were brought home to me on Wednesday when, at the White Hart hotel in Lincoln, I inadvertently found myself sitting next to Nigel Farage at breakfast.
I find myself unable to get back home to Edinburgh today and cast my vote, which is frustrating. In Scotland, I do urge everyone who has not yet done so to get out and vote for Independence. I have been slightly downhearted by the tenor of some of the discussion as to whether it is safe to give the list vote to parties other than the SNP. Certainly for any supporter of Independence to give their constituency vote other than to the SNP is Quixotic. But in the entire central belt and in NE Scotland, I am prepared to state boldly – and twelve hours will prove the case – that a list vote for the SNP in those regions is almost certainly wasted, and could rather have helped elect a different pro-Independence MSP.
But I have no argument with the SNP, with Rise, with Solidarity or with anybody else supporting Independence. Differences on how to cast the list vote are largely over calculations of the best tactic, and for that reason some of the hard words and intolerant attitudes I have seen on social media – including on my favourite sites Wings over Scotland and Scot Goes Pop – are not appropriate. We should save our hard words for our enemies, not those fighting for the same cause who may have a different tactical preference. And we should look in future to change the horrible voting system to STV to give voters real choice.
On the Scottish Greens, I should say it very much differs from person to person but I am unconvinced of the strength of their collective commitment to Independence. I am afraid to say I have always found it hard to believe their leader is committed to anything but his own personal advancement. I confess it is not entirely rational, but sometimes I judge people by the feeling I get about them, and in Patrick Harvie’s case it’s “self-serving weasel”.
In England, for the first time in my entire life I find myself wishing well to the Labour Party. This is because the Blairites are self-evidently hoping their own party crashes and burns so they can launch a coup. I hope Labour does well in England because the media campaign against Corbyn has been absolutely disgusting – and because I hate the blue Tories. But even in England, I could never actually vote Labour myself until they expel all the Blairite and Brownite war criminals.
Down is up, black is white, spin, spin, spin go the mainstream media on this morning after the elections.
Votes are still coming in, but inevitably most of the MSM are headlining on ‘Tories look certain to beat Labour into third place in Scotland’. Meanwhile, Labour are doing much better than expected in England, leaving the MSM like a rabbit caught in car headlights.
It’ll be interesting to see the turnout.
Kudos to the electors of Rhondda for electing the delectabler Leanne Wood to the Wales Assembly in place of Leighton Andrews; but terrible that the regional list votes have seen four EUGHKIP fuckers get seats, including English turncoat tory Mark Reckless。
And it seems no overall majority for the SNP in Scotland.
The parties certainly need to work out some better strategies for managing and winning the regional vote.
SNP fails to win overall majority ending up with 63 MSPs (-6), the tories on 31 (+16) Labour on 24 (-13), the Greens 6 (+4) and the Lb Dems on 5.
The independence party must rally behind the SNP to ensure they don’t lose constituency seats, and short of a real proportional representation system, such as STV, come up with an effective strategy for winning the maximum number of regional list votes.
Suggestions, anybody?
Suggestions? Embrace the Greens, keep independence on the back burner, and pull the remaining Labour lefties your way. Come up with a credible economic strategy, while hammering away at the failings of the global market. Decline to be a service economy. Could be tricky, though; some of the SNP establishment only differ from the Tories as regards independence and are extremely relaxed about Peter Mandelson too.
seconded
CM
“here is absolutely no danger at all that the SNP will lose its majority.”
Ouch. Really ouch. Move on please.
New post up about football.
It now seems certain that Sadiq Khan will be the next mayor of London, with a comfortable majority. This of course is a little bit of history, because not only is Khan the first Muslim mayor of London, he’s also the first Muslim mayor of any major western city. This despite the backdrop of the ‘war on terror’ and one of the most despicable slur campaigns I’ve ever seen, fronted by the most corrupt and immoral prime minister this country has ever seen. A number of times over recent weeks, David Cameron has used parliamentary privilege to slander the likes of Khan and Corbyn, stuff that he’d get his arse sued-off for if he said it outside of Parliament.
I’m sure Mr Farage is now suffering from indigestion after those kippers the other morning, when he shared a breakfast table with Craig. The thing is, Muslims only make up 13% of the population of London. Khan’s comfortable win shows that a large majority who voted for him are non-Muslims.
If interested, here’s Chunky Mark getting somewhat excited about it all…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvdsPkPxZ88
Rotterdam’s mayor is Muslim
The Canary suggests 8-11 police forces are investigating the Conservatives for electoral fraud in 2015
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/05/06/breaking-police-launch-investigations-tory-electoral-fraud-across-country/
The Guardian and other MSM have also been reporting this today.
I would suggest that the powers that be, despite the tidal wave of anti-Corbyn propaganda from their presstitutes, realise the real mood of the nation, and the presstitutes have been directed to reflect this to some extent, in order to further con the public.
Also not much reported is that Cameron has continually refused to testify before a parliamentary committee about Britain’s role in Libya in 2011. As a result of this a large group of cross-party MPs are now lobbying to make it a legal requirement for prime ministers to testify to such committees.
Also not mentioned is that a report came out last month which provided damning evidence that the British government has been carrying out extrajudicial killings overseas, via drone strikes, since 2003.
Cameron stood up in parliament recently and told a direct lie about this; as he often does about many things whenever he opens his mouth.
How people can vote for these corrupt vermin is beyond belief.