Where is this "Tory England" from which Scotland needs so urgently to secede for her own protection?
England returns the overwhelming majority of MPs, and the Conservative Party has not won an overall majority in 22 years and counting.
Today's Ashcroft poll shows a Labour lead of seven points, which would translate into a famous Labour victory. There is all of a one-point difference between England and the country as a whole.
Jouissance sets out the reality brilliantly:
England returns the overwhelming majority of MPs, and the Conservative Party has not won an overall majority in 22 years and counting.
Today's Ashcroft poll shows a Labour lead of seven points, which would translate into a famous Labour victory. There is all of a one-point difference between England and the country as a whole.
Jouissance sets out the reality brilliantly:
Here
are some FACTS. Sorry about the injecting facts into this whole debate, but
sometimes needs must. Please, please bear with me, as this is important.
The
67 years since the end of World War 2 have seen 18 General Elections to the
Westminster Parliament, with the following outcomes (sources below):
1945
Labour govt (Attlee)
————————————
Labour majority: 146
Labour majority without any Scottish MPs in Parliament: 143
NO CHANGE WITHOUT SCOTTISH MPS
————————————
Labour majority: 5
Without Scottish MPs: 2
NO CHANGE
1951 Conservative govt (Churchill/Eden)
1951 Conservative govt (Churchill/Eden)
——————————————————–
Conservative majority: 17
Without Scottish MPs: 16
NO CHANGE
1955 Conservative govt (Eden/Macmillan)
1955 Conservative govt (Eden/Macmillan)
——————————————————–
Conservative majority: 60
Without Scottish MPs: 61
NO CHANGE
————————————————————————
Conservative majority: 100
Without Scottish MPs: 109
NO CHANGE
1964 Labour govt (Wilson)
1964 Labour govt (Wilson)
————————————
Labour majority: 4
Without Scottish MPs: -11
CHANGE: LABOUR MAJORITY TO CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY OF 1
(Con 280, Lab 274, Lib 5)
————————————
Labour majority: 98
Without Scottish MPs: 77
NO CHANGE
1970 Conservative govt (Heath)
1970 Conservative govt (Heath)
——————————————–
Conservative majority: 30
Without Scottish MPs: 55
NO CHANGE
1974 Minority Labour govt (Wilson)
1974 Minority Labour govt (Wilson)
————————————————
Labour majority: -33
Without Scottish MPs: -42
POSSIBLE CHANGE – LABOUR MINORITY TO CONSERVATIVE MINORITY
(Without Scots: Con 276, Lab 261, Lib 11, Others 16)
1974b Labour govt (Wilson/Callaghan)
1974b Labour govt (Wilson/Callaghan)
—————————————————–
Labour majority: 3
Without Scottish MPs: -8
CHANGE: LABOUR MAJORITY TO LABOUR MINORITY
(Lab 278 Con 261 Lib 10 others 15)
1979 Conservative govt (Thatcher)
1979 Conservative govt (Thatcher)
————————————————
Conservative majority: 43
Without Scottish MPs: 70
NO CHANGE
1983 Conservative govt (Thatcher)
1983 Conservative govt (Thatcher)
————————————————
Conservative majority: 144
Without Scottish MPs: 174
NO CHANGE
1987 Conservative govt (Thatcher/Major)
1987 Conservative govt (Thatcher/Major)
——————————————————
Conservative majority: 102
Without Scottish MPs: 154
NO CHANGE
1992 Conservative govt (Major)
1992 Conservative govt (Major)
———————————————
Conservative majority: 21
Without Scottish MPs: 71
NO CHANGE
1997 Labour govt (Blair)
1997 Labour govt (Blair)
———————————–
Labour majority: 179
Without Scottish MPs: 139
NO CHANGE
2001 Labour govt (Blair)
2001 Labour govt (Blair)
———————————–
Labour majority: 167
Without Scottish MPs: 129
NO CHANGE
2005 Labour govt (Blair/Brown)
2005 Labour govt (Blair/Brown)
——————————————–
Labour majority: 66
Without Scottish MPs: 43
NO CHANGE
2010 Coalition govt (Cameron)
2010 Coalition govt (Cameron)
——————————————
Conservative majority: -38
Without Scottish MPs: 19
CHANGE: CON-LIB COALITION TO CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY
-
On ONE occasion (1964) Scottish MPs have turned what would have been a
Conservative government into a Labour one. The Tory majority without Scottish
votes would have been just one MP (280 vs 279), and as such useless in
practice. The Labour government, with an almost equally feeble majority of 4,
lasted just 18 months and a Tory one would probably have collapsed even faster.
-
On ONE occasion (the second of the two 1974 elections) Scottish MPs gave Labour
a wafer-thin majority (319 vs 316) they wouldn’t have had from the rest of the
UK alone, although they’d still have been the largest party and able to command
a majority in a pact with the Liberals, as they eventually did in reality.
The
simple reality of the matter, established indisputably and unambiguously by
these stats, is that England
and the rest of the UK are and always have been perfectly capable of electing a
Labour government if they want one, whatever Scotland does.
The
truth is that Labour doesn’t need Scottish MPs, and an independent Scotland
would NOT give the Tories a permanent majority in the remnant UK. So Michael [White] and your daft sub-editors: shut up.
For that matter, where is this "left-wing Scotland" that so needs to secede? The above figures, and the common or garden neoliberalism of the SNP, tell a very different tale.
As does the rise of the Labour Movement simultaneously in England, Scotland and Wales. If there really was some proto-Socialist paradise rooted deep in Scottish culture, then why did anyone in Scotland feel any need of the trade unions, the co-operatives, the ILP, and all the rest of them?
All polling shows that political attitudes in the three parts of Great Britain are practically interchangeable.
The difference is that Scots think that those in Scotland are well to the left, even if their own, as individual respondents, are not. The English, especially, think of their own views as out of step with a right-wing polity at large.
But in fact, those individual views are entirely typical, and effectively identical. On both sides of the Border.
For that matter, where is this "left-wing Scotland" that so needs to secede? The above figures, and the common or garden neoliberalism of the SNP, tell a very different tale.
As does the rise of the Labour Movement simultaneously in England, Scotland and Wales. If there really was some proto-Socialist paradise rooted deep in Scottish culture, then why did anyone in Scotland feel any need of the trade unions, the co-operatives, the ILP, and all the rest of them?
All polling shows that political attitudes in the three parts of Great Britain are practically interchangeable.
The difference is that Scots think that those in Scotland are well to the left, even if their own, as individual respondents, are not. The English, especially, think of their own views as out of step with a right-wing polity at large.
But in fact, those individual views are entirely typical, and effectively identical. On both sides of the Border.
Boris Johnson praises Peter Hitchens and John Redwood for predicting New Labour's abolition of Britain in today's paper.
ReplyDeleteBoris Johnson writes in today's Telegraph:""About 15 years ago people such as John Redwood and Peter Hitchens produced books called The End of Britain or The Abolition of Britain. They saw the principal threat as coming from the EU; and though they were obviously right to be concerned about the erosion of sovereignty, I don’t think either of them expected the constitutional annihilation of the country....Now those book titles look prophetic, frankly.""
Indeed. Redwood also accurately predicted what a disaster a European single currency would be in the 1980's. His book "Our Country, Our Currency; Just Say No! 100 Arguments Against the Euro" is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the European project.
The Abolition of Britain foresaw Labour's destruction of our constitution.
Hitchens and Redwood have always had the air of a prophet about them.
If Redwood wrote that then, then he was only recycling Labour Party policy. As it never ceased to be.
DeleteThe 1997 General Election was a straight choice between the pro-euro Ken Clarke and the anti-euro Gordon Brown for Chancellor of the Exchequer.
All of the heavy economic lifting against the whole thing was always done inside the Labour Party. All of it. It still is being, in fact.
Boris Johnson? If, as is mercifully not the case, there were any serious chance of his becoming Prime Minister, then he would be an unanswerable argument for the independence of Scotland and a great many other places besides.
As it is, he looks quite likely to be refused selection as a parliamentary candidate.
That's silly as Brown was considered keenly pro-euro in 1997 when the 'referendum' on the euro policy was hastily introduced to avoid being outflanked by the Tories.
DeleteAt least his public persona changed with time. If you think he was always anti-euro and pretended to be pro- as such a view was fashionable at the time with the City élites, then do be clear.
No, he was always anti, and well-known as such.
DeleteHe was the despair of the Labour EU zealots who were quite numerous in those days, although few of them would care to be reminded of it now.
Brown, Prescott, Blunkett, Straw: they longed for Blair to sack all four.
Outflanked by the Tories? In 1997? Now I know for certain that you cannot have been born. Absolutely nothing could have had that effect. Nothing.
Redwood actually predicted in detail what a single currency would do to the British and European economies (including turning rich countries like us into a bank for 'basketcase' Mediterrean economies). Only Enoch Powell was more prescient.
ReplyDeleteThe 1997 Election was a choice between a party committed to constitutional revolution (including the replacement of jury led common law with judge led Human Rights and the abolition of 900 years of tradition by removing hereditary peers from the Lords) and a party not committed to that.
If you were stupid enough to vote for constitutional revolution in 1997, you really can't complain now the chickens are coming home to roost.
This all results from Labour's cynical weakening of the Union so it could use its Scottish MP's to ram through unpopular laws affecting only the English and bribe Scottish voters with free stuff paid for by us.
You lot did this (and voted for it) and you now have the cheek to complain about the entirely predictable consequences.
Only Enoch Powell was more prescient.
DeleteYou need to get out more. A very great deal more. Any serious person will have stopped reading at that point. Therefore, I did.
Enoch Powell was the first British politician to predict that a currency union would necessitate a full political Union. In 1972.
ReplyDeleteYou always stop reading at the point at which you encounter anything you disagree with.
Typical of the Left, really.
No he wasn't, nor would he have claimed to have been.
Delete1972 was very late to that party. He was pro-Market when plenty of people were already saying these things.