Talk Elections

According to the Spectator, the Scottish Conservatives are to be granted complete independence from the UK rump.

''[David Cameron's] officials have been secretly drawing up the outline of a velvet divorce with the Scottish Conservatives, which would give the Scots a new name and make the Conservatives into a party exclusively devoted to England & Wales. It would, in effect, mean retreat from Scotland."

Expect a CDU/CSU common platform come the general election, but a distinct identy and autonomy. I would support the idea, though I do have concerns over what direction the party would take. However ever since the 'marrige' in the 60's the party has been in terminal decline so while independence may not spearhead a revival it is promising development.

It also avoids the problem that Labour are presently faced with: How do you have a Prime Minister from a Scottish constituency presiding over some affairs related solely to England and Wales when his own constituents would not be affected?

Ultimately it does seem to offer some hope of beginning to rebalance the British Constitution on the issue of devolution, though there will need to be a generally accepted answer to West Lothian as well.

Following the Green example, I see. Or just preparing for an SNP - Scottish Conservatives coalition after the 2011 elections?

I think the Greens have always been separate so it's not quite comparable.

When is the Scottish election anyway?

Would this include MPs?

If so would they automatically tie in with a Conservative government and count toward thier seat number as if they were real Tory MPs?

This is silly nonsense, stop carving up what's left, it's supposed to be a United Kingdom

I hate the SNP

Election is on May 5th (the Welsh election is on that date as well, but it's had (much) less media attention).


Before the '60's the Tories in Scotland were an organisationally seperate party from the Tories elsewhere; they ran as Unionists (same as Northern Ireland).

So they'd be known as the Conservative and Unionist Party? (or more separate than that)...

Just the Unionist Party IIRC. Maybe Scottish Unionist Party?

(Conservative & Unionist Party comes from the merger with the remains of the Liberal Unionists in the early 20th century)

Well...I was refering more to how they'd be known in parliament, would the scottish tories sit with the "british (well, English plus what, 1 welsh) tories...and the delegation be known as the Conservative and Unionist Party...or what

There's only one Scottish Tory M.P now, so would it really matter? ;)

They'd take the Tory Whip if that's what you mean.

3 Welsh MPs thank you.

I do not find the need to continue to retard (devolve if you will) UK politics, splitting the UK into its separate groups would be the end of the unity and strength the UK has, the EU would utterly dominate Europe without any British influence


LORD WOULD THEY PICK BROWN AND SET A DATE FOR ELECTION ALREADY SO ALL THIS CAN BE PUT ON THE SELF FOR A WHILE AGAIN?

I have created this handy map to show the glorious future of devolution.

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9229/ukzd3.png

There'll probably be a few more at the next election. The Tories nearly won Perth and North Perthshire, for example.

Exactly, Thatcher fallout was enormous and I can see a splitting of the Party in order to try and regain ANY popularity in Scotland or Wales, but support in the next election could reach 40% ( I expect the LD's so absolutely implode sorry verily) This just seems like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I doubt the Conservative will end up at 40%. At this point, I think it's likely that the Lib Dems will grow sick of Ming Campbell and toss him out much like the Conservatives did to Iain Duncan Smith, possibly as early as June of this year if the locals are disappointing (or perhaps June of next year). Nick Clegg would be the likely replacement (though Sarah Teather is also possible), and either would bring the Lib Dems back to at least close to 2005 levels.

Ultimately, the Conservatives will do extremely well in the South, with Labour wiped out basically everywhere (losing even Brighton Pavilion to the Greens). The Lib Dems will lose a lot to the Conservatives, too. In London, the combined Conservative and Lib Dem strength will drive Labour into third. (North London saw an extremely steep 11% decline in the Labour vote in 2005.)

In the North, Wales and Scotland, the Tories will have more difficulty. They'll gain some ground in some places, but not a lot. The Lib Dems will make more breakthroughs in urban seats against Labour.

The result?

Conservative: 302 (37%) [24 short of majority]
Labour: 251 (31%)
Lib Dem: 64 (22%)

Tactical vote:
Con to Lib: 1
Lab to Lib: 1
Lib to Lab: -2 (tactical unwind)

Boundaries favor Labour, as do the disproportionate Welsh seats.

Splitting the Welsh Tories off from the main Tory party would be very silly; much of their electoral appeal comes (and has always come) from the fact that they are seen as being the most English of the major parties. Sure, that's also a reason why they're beyond the pale for a lot of other Welsh voters, but those that think that won't be attracted to the Tories no matter what.
And it's not as though the Tories don't have a decent vote in Wales; they've beaten Plaid in every election since 2003 and will likely poll around a quarter of the vote in the Assembly elections.


Too early to make any serious guesses about the next General Election; it's not even clear whether it'll be a low turnout one (as it would be if it was held now; might even *gulps* fall under 50%...) or a high turnout one. It depends how much politics changes over the next two years or so. Obviously a low turnout election would favour the Tories and a high turnout election Labour.


Perhaps. But maybe not; enough LibDems might remember the month or so of terror in early 2006 to try another coup.

Btw, I suspect I'm in a minority of about three here, but I don't think that Ming (the Merciless) has been as bad a leader as is generally assumed; it's just that Kennedy was a very, very good one (as far as electoral appeal goes at least). Better than the alternatives anyway; Huhne comes off as a second hand car salesman and Hughes is beyond the pale in so many ways... and unlike those two there's no chance of Campbell actually losing his seat next election.


Only if they felt suicidal


Labour don't hold many seats in the South as it as.
O/c the most of marginals seem likely to go (even if there's a high turnout election), but not all of Labour's remaining Southern seats are marginals.
And Pavilion is hardly worthy of an "even" in front of a losing prediction; it's not exactly Itchen.


No chance. You clearly don't know London; there's a solid core of inner city constituencies that won't fall in (almost) any circumstances. You should also note that Labour's core vote east of the City held up quite well in 2006.
And I've seen no evidence of a LibDem surge in London of late (because there isn't any).


Labour's vote across the GLA-area fell by 8%; partially because certain unpopular policies are more unpopular within the Metropolis than outside, but also because Labour did very well there in 2001.

Btw, the theory of "trending" has, happily, not crossed the Atlantic; finding people over here who are foolish enough to believe that an 11% fall one year means that they'll be a similer sized fall the next is rather hard.


Where? I can think of about three at the most and I don't see any of them actually falling.
Contrary to their own silly propaganda the LibDems aren't actually surging in the Northern Cities...


No they don't; the boundary changes (like all boundary changes) favour the Tories.
But methinks that isn't what you're getting at. The reason why Labour needs less votes per constituency than the other parties is because turnout is lower (often a lot lower) in Labour areas than elsewhere. That... and class polarisation. Obviously.


lol; Labour doesn't benefit from the few extra seats Wales gets (Wales isn't Scotland you know). If you eliminated a few Welsh seats the eliminated seats would not all be Labour; if the boundaries were drawn in the same odd way as they were in Scotland it's actually possible that all the eliminated seats would be held by other parties.

I tried to bring this up on a soccer board and was shouted down and no one could give me a straight answer on why it works for them and for no one else.

How can 4 countries be unified under one ruler? To me this looks like nothing more than modern colonialism. And if Scotland and Wales have national soccer teams, why can't North Carolina under the same reasoning that they do? :D

How everything describes themselves as Scottish or English or Welsh, it makes me, as an outsider, make the United Kingdom sound like a false country, similar to Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia. No one from those countries ever said they were Czechoslovakian (rather Czech or Slovak) or Yugoslavian (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, etc.).

An argument can be made that if the U.K has four, then the U.S has fifty.


Scotland and Wales have national football sides because they had national football associations from a very early stage. If we'd only taken to football in (say) the '50's there'd only be one side.


A lot of people do describe themselves as British actually; while describing themselves as English, Welsh, Scottish (though not to the extent of the other two, obviously) or whatever as well. People can have more than one identity you know (I view myself as being both Welsh and English for example).

The changes "favor" the Tories, but, yes, that was not what I was getting at. Turnout impacts the difference somewhat, but that aside, the inner-city seats are generally slightly smaller than the rural seats.


Oh, come on. You know and I know that all of the smallest seats in Wales are in the Valleys where Labour routinely wins 60-80% of the vote. The Lib Dems might lose a rural seat, but everywhere else the lost seats would be Labour when dinky little seats such as Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney or Cynon Valley get abolished.

A lot actually; have a look at a map of turnout in the 2005 election. There are a couple online IIRC.


Replace rural with commuterland then that's clearly true. But there's no way round that without gerrymandering. Besides, the worst of the imbalance is dealt with every boundary change. Of course, things always shift back to where they were, but it's hardly the boundary commision's fault that people move.


No, the smallest seat in Wales is actually Meirionnydd Nant Conwy.


So would the Tories (Preseli Pembroke). And if the boundaries were drawn in the way that the Scottish ones were, Clwyd West would go also, and maybe even Monmouth.


Actually an inevitable result of abolishing a seat or two in the Valleys would be for parts of the Valleys not in Valleys constituencies to be added to other constituencies; with predictable results.
Besides, the Valleys seats aren't actually much smaller than seats in the rest of Wales; most Welsh seats have electorates in the 50,000's.

Regardless, I'm of the opinion that the Welsh seats are about the right size anyway. 'tis the English and Scottish seats that are the wrong size.

Used to be. Now it's Aberconwy - a Con pickup opportunity.
;D
Care to do a redistricting project with Welsh-size seats everywhere?

I tried to do the opposite. I nearly cried :)

I can also imagine the chorus of Welsh opposition to having their valley teamed up with another or having a huge rural seat in the middle that pays no attention to anyone. Still it can't be worse than the f-ing Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweedale seat (and I don't care that the Tories hold it!) amongst others that the Scots were saddled with.

As for creating a map of the UK with constituencies of a Welsh size; that would be task in itself and would fall victrim to urban gerrymandering.