Outrageous.... or not?

[Biggus]

BBC News - 'No Trident renewal' key to any post-election SNP deal (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-30479621)

It would appear that the price of SNP co-operation in a hung parliament would be the enforced nuclear unilateral disarmament of the UK.

Whatever your personal feelings on the issue of a nuclear deterrent, what do people feel about a party representing at most 5M dictating defence policy to a combined nation of 65M.

Outrageous... or not?

[Rosevidney1]

It seems to be a very clever gambit on her part....

[KenV]

In my opinion it's ridiculous and further argues against the Parliamentary System in the UK.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

They are not 'dictating' it. It is a proposed policy for a voluntary coalition. Any outrage should be addressed at the putative coalition partner.

I suspect your problem is that you think any or all of the major parties will do anything to gain power, and that is a much bigger problem; and one that, by making its policies clear, the SNP does not seem to suffer from.

[Biggus]

Fox3,

Diverging slightly from the topic (but hey, I'm the OP, if I can't who can), if you had been living in Scotland during the independence referendum campaign, you would be fully aware that the SNP are as guilty as any other UK political party in terms of being willing to do anything to gain power.

e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/oct/19/alex-salmond-snp-vote-nato

Hopefully back to the main thrust of this thread now....I can at least hope.

[Saintsman]

What happens when all the work and money disappears from the area?

Or perhaps they are prepared to sacrifice one area to get a seat at the table.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Your privilege, Biggus. ;)
but your point merely expands the concerns about unprincipled parties, not about dictatorship.

[Archimedes]

Well, bearing in mind that the polls suggest that Mr Miliband will have a majority of 10 (when you average out the returns and translate that into share of the vote), it seems fairly unlikely that the SNP will be in government.

Particularly when the same polls show that even with their projected measly 8% of the vote, the Lib Dems will get 23-25 MPs, which will still be more than the SNP musters if it trebles its number of MPs. I suspect that the appearance of Jim Murphy as the Labour leader in Scotland will have some positive effect for the party in due course, making a trebling of SNP seat numbers even less likely.

The notion that Labour wouldn't do a deal with the Lib Dems because of their involvement in the current coalition, and would rather team up with the SNP - laying itself open to four years of the press banging on about 65m people in England being the hostages of 5m in Scotland (and similar hyperbolic statements) if it did - is a bit er...., err... odd.

All that would be required would be a swift palace coup against Clegg (if he retains his seat in Sheffield) - doubtless one of the conditions of doing a deal from the Labour side - and the assumption of the leadership by Cable/Hughes/Bruce in his stead. This wouldn't even require a delay in forming the government, since the obvious leadership candidates would all be cabinet members anyway; they would simply add the title 'Deputy Prime Minister and...' ahead of 'Secretary of State for...' in their job description.

And it might not even come to that - you can see a 'Nick Clegg struggled valiantly to restrain the Tories, and this is why I am delighted that he has agreed to be deputy Prime Minister' line emerging. Forging coalitions leads to some very strange things happening - but as things stand, the Lib Dems remain more likely coalition members than the SNP, I'd contend.

That - as another thread on here might suggest - would open a different set of questions about Trident and its replacement...

Sturgeon knows that the polls are likely to close as we near the election, and talk of being a party of national government does little harm - but the wider implication of having policy dictated by the SNP while the English media fumes will make a Labour-SNP coalition very much a second choice option...

(All the above, of course, presumes that a coalition is required and that the polling results translate into the currently projected number of Lib Dem seats).

[Hangarshuffle]

Is it a sign that the SNP have quickly recognised we are now an increasingly fractured state with many differing views, colours and creeds?
And as a political gambit I think its worth a swipe at, many people now thing Trident and our so called independent nuclear deterrent is not worth the cost.
I mean, taking out SNP from the equation I think if you presented the cost in money of Trident, and its replacement to the UK public, many would seek its removal anyway.
I would. We can no longer afford this weapon that we will never use anyway.Sorry, just my single view.

[skydiver69]

It's their opening gambit and would probably change to no Trident in Scotland i.e. shut the Faslane base, if negotiations start.

[Biggus]

Archimedes,

Tone is sometimes difficult to read in posts on this forum, believe me when I say I'm not attacking you personally, or trying to hack you off (although you might feel hacked off by what I'm about to say) but you come over as another person living in England who has no real idea of what's going on in Scotland other than the little reported by the English media. I know my (well read) friends and family in Cambridge and Surrey were totally surprised by what was going on vs what they read/knew.

You seem to find it inconceivable that the SNP could as much as triple their current number of 6 MPs. The latest poll in Scotland is here:

SNP support soars to record 47% | Herald Scotland (http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/snp-support-sours-to-record-47.1418489055)

Neither is it a one off aberration. Current predictions say the SNP could well be on for achieving 40 odd MPs in the next Westminster parliament, and certainly puts them at 25+, most of the extra seats being taken from Labour. SNP voters are enthused, motivated and have a high turn out rate. By contrast Labour in Scotland is shell shocked and demoralised. A new leader will undoubtedly help, but Jim Murphy starts off 20% behind, and the SNP political machine runs very good campaigns.

Quite how losing 30+ seats in Scotland effects your polls predictions of a majority of 10 for Labour I don't know, but I would suggest a body of 40 ish MPs would make the SNP a major player in a hung parliament/coalition situation, ahead of the Liberals.

Throw in significant number of UKIP MPs, loss of numbers to both Labour and Tory, and the permutations for the next UK Westiminster parliament are many and varied. I wouldn't discount the SNP as a significant factor.

[HAS59]

Slightly off tack here but ... INS Arihant has just sailed on sea trials. This is India's first home built nuclear powered ballistic missile firing submarine.
Maybe we could ask them to run off half a dozen for us - at a discount - after all the cash we give them must have contributed a little towards the development cost. We could even forward base them at our new Navy Base in the Gulf!

[Archimedes]

Biggus - well, you can view it like that, but I was applying psephology to it. All too-often, people read the headlines and make direct correlation between support and what will happen without looking at the 'hidden wiring' - the stuff which means that with the Tories and Labour each on 32%, Labour wins 70 more seats; the stuff which means that UKIP's possessing double the support there is for the Lib Dems translates to UKIP perhaps getting half the number of seats at most (see, Nick, losing the AV referendum wasn't all bad...)

First past the post makes trebling the number of seats difficult. Not impossible, but difficult, even allowing for the SNP's vastly-improving electoral fortunes over the years.

The polling average I cited takes all of this into account; this isn't an exact science by any means, but it tends to be a reasonably accurate indicator of outcomes, and has been for over half a century.

It's not a case of saying that the SNP won't be a significant factor, merely that historical trends in elections suggest that their chances are not as great as some suggest assuming that the current polling figures remain the same.

And there are variables even in this - first, is the local MP a popular MP? If they are, then you often see them keeping their seat. Second, how is the support distributed? If the surge in SNP support comes from Labour's potential vote collapsing in constituencies already held by the SNP - i.e. they were going to win the seat anyway - then while the headline figures are great, that translates into a smaller number of seats than the polls might suggest if you do a raw calculation. Third - how many of those now supporting the SNP will (a) turn out or (b) change their mind in the polling booth? Precedent - again, an imprecise and unreliable thing - suggests (no more than that) that (b) often happens. After the referendum, (a) would appear less of a factor.

This is why - despite the press reports - I'd rather not completely throw precedent and polling prediction (prediction based upon a significant reassessment of the minutiae of elections worked after 1992 made the pollsters look very silly) and offered the view that based on all of this 'it seems fairly unlikely' (as per my original)


I'm not airily writing the SNP off, merely attempting to suggest that confident perorations about what their demands to be coalition partners would be are perhaps a little misplaced at the moment and Ms Sturgeon needs to be working hard to ensure that the 47% support does translate into 40 seats once most/all the variables have played out.

And I am not making a prediction beyond pointing out what the reasonably sophisticated psephological approach now in use says even in the face of the SNP's remarkable surge in support.

I'd not claim to be an expert in this, but having taught British politics (to undergraduate historians rather than those doing the politicians' training course that PPE was becoming), I'm always wary of headlines...

Home was meant to lose by a street in 1964. Wilson got a majority of 4 (3 after the Patrick Gordon Walker fiasco cost him a seat)

Wilson was meant to win in 1970 by a reasonable margin. He lost.

Major was meant to lose in 1992 by some way. He got a majority of 21.

The press assumed that Cameron would have a substantial majority given Brown's unpopularity in 2010. And it didn't quite work like that, as we are experiencing.

On the flip side, Blair's majority in 1997 was greater than generally predicted - he was going to win comfortably, but the extent of victory was greater than the polling suggested.

Put in a less long-winded manner, perhaps I should've written - 'Analysis of election results since the late 1950s suggests that Ms Sturgeon is not quite as likely to be in a position to demand anything as a coalition partner as she seems to think'...

It could happen - which is why the process is so interesting - but I'm simply urging caution, that's all.

[Biggus]

Archimedes,

Fine - and I'm glad I didn't hack you off - I'll try and remember to come back to this thread in May 2015 and point out that your psephology was wrong in this case (in terms of predicting the number SNP MPs elected). :ok:

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

I live in the area and if I were younger and not retired I'd be very afraid. Beautiful 5 bed listed houses in half an acre plus, 60mins from Glasgow with fantastic sea views are selling for 280k.
The SNP will kill this area just to taste power

[barnstormer1968]

Just to throw in in another way to look at this, there is more than one reason the SNP want rid of the tridents.
It's very nice of the SNP to wave a morale flag and say no Nukes here, but quietly talk of joining NATO.

Some posters see the SNP line about Faslane as being similar to Valley in that the politicos will complain, but wouldn't want to lose the MOD money in the area, and that the area may become poorer with a sub base there. The SNP on the other hand are saying that the sub base is keeping the area poor, and that once it's gone the Scots will be able to open up new oil fields in the area in bring in vast amounts of long term revenue.

I can't say for sure what would happen if the base was closed, but I do remember one pre referendum interview on TV where viewers were told that 'London' were trying to dupe the Scots and that an independent survey had shown vast oil reserves that the MOD had banned the Scots from exploiting due to the proximity to the sub base. Viewers were urged to look up the survey, which I did, only to find it was the website for an offshore recruiter offering jobs to oil workers. I concluded that the site wasn't all that independent :)

[Archimedes]

Archimedes,

Fine - and I'm glad I didn't hack you off - I'll try and remember to come back to this thread in May 2015 and point out that your psephology was wrong in this case (in terms of predicting the number SNP MPs elected). :ok:

Not if I get here first....

(It can be wrong, but needs politicians to make sure that it is, rather than apparently sitting back and believing the raw poll data.)

[A A Gruntpuddock]

Quite apart from the politics, the Trident subs always seemed to be a total waste of money.

The missiles cannot be launched without US approval, which effectively means that we get to spend a fortune just to be part of the US missile defense programme!

Looks like a total con game to me.

[sitigeltfel]

The missiles cannot be launched without US approval...

Looks like a total con game to me.

If that is what you believe, or have been told, you have indeed been conned.

It is obvious you have no knowledge of, and have never had any involvement with NWRPs.

[ShotOne]

To come back to the original question, whatever anyone's views on Trident, the issue is actually far more outrageous than the OP has stated. At the last general election, just 491,000 people chose to vote SNP. Even allowing for a big increase if Labour slumps, as predicted by some, it surely is the most appalling perversion of democracy if they are allowed to dictate to 65 million people on this issue.

[cokecan]

the SNP are nothing if not clever - by making their demands so unpalletable they put themselves in a win-win situation:

if a UK party were to accept their conditions in return for a coalition it would provoke massive anti-Scottish feeling in the rest of the UK, making a break-up far more likely, while if the SNP were told to **** off and the UK parties formed whatever unholy coalition was required to form a UK government without them, they could return to Scotland and say 'look how they treat the people you elect - they'll do anything to avoid listening to you' making a break-up more likely...

personally i think the chances of a SNP coalition are vanishingly small - simply because to agree to their demands on austerity for England - spending for Scotland, not to even go near the issue of Trident, would be political suicide for an party that primarily relied on English constituancies for its MP's.

[ShotOne]

They're certainly street-wise. The fact we're even discussing the chances of their will being forced on the British public on the strength of the support of just over 1 (yes, one) per-cent of the UK electorate tells us that.

"Political suicide..." I hope you're right there -but I wouldn't bet on it. It's only four years since Gordon Brown's determined bid to ally with lib-dems in order to cling to power despite having been convincingly rejected at the ballot box.

[Courtney Mil]

I wonder how many people recently Googled "psephology". I know one. :O

[cokecan]

SO - i see it the other way around: Brown might have wanted a coalition deal with the LD's, but the LD's wouldn't touch him with a barge pole because of his political toxicity, despite Labour being, probably, more comfortable bedfellows than the Conservatives.

i'd see the SNP being similar - can you imagine the damage to Labour in the North if they imposed swinging cuts on services in England but exempted Scotland from such pleasantries?

[Biggus]

Archimedes,

In response to your posts 8 and 13 on this thread, back in December 2014 I wrote the following:

Archimedes,

Fine - and I'm glad I didn't hack you off - I'll try and remember to come back to this thread in May 2015 and point out that your psephology was wrong in this case (in terms of predicting the number SNP MPs elected).

So here I am, to point out that, as I predicted, your psephology was wrong in terms of predicting the number of seats the SNP would win - but then first hand experience of the situation seems to count for nothing!!

[Surplus]

After tonight's result, should the title of the thread be changed to "Irrelevant.... or not?"

The maths are quite simple, Labour + SNP = Not enough.

[Archimedes]

Archimedes,

In response to your posts 8 and 13 on this thread, back in December 2014 I wrote the following:

Archimedes,

Fine - and I'm glad I didn't hack you off - I'll try and remember to come back to this thread in May 2015 and point out that your psephology was wrong in this case (in terms of predicting the number SNP MPs elected).

So here I am, to point out that, as I predicted, your psephology was wrong in terms of predicting the number of seats the SNP would win - but then first hand experience of the situation seems to count for nothing!!


Trying to find where this thread was, that's where!


I did, in my defence include (emphasis in original) the view


It's not a case of saying that the SNP won't be a significant factor, merely that historical trends in elections suggest that their chances are not as great as some suggest assuming that the current polling figures remain the same. And they didn't stay the same; by about February of this year, the historical trend pattern was clearly not going to apply in the case of Scotland and somewhere (was it on Arrse or somewhere else - I forget), I can be found stating that this was one of those moments Jim Callaghan had described as a 'sea change' that occurs every thirty years. And expressing mystification that I couldn't find my original post about this on that forum. Which was because it was actually here on Pprune.


I also refer you to the following:





Archimedes,

Fine - and I'm glad I didn't hack you off - I'll try and remember to come back to this thread in May 2015 and point out that your psephology was wrong in this case (in terms of predicting the number SNP MPs elected). :ok:Not if I get here first....

(It can be wrong, but needs politicians to make sure that it is, rather than apparently sitting back and believing the raw poll data.)


You got here first, though.:ok: