We’ve long known that Labour’s attachment to the Union was founded on the belief – though a statistically erroneous one – that it couldn’t form a secure UK government without the block of MPs (currently 40) that it sends to Westminster from Scotland.
But a fascinating article from YouGov president Peter Kellner on the YG website today suggests that the party’s desperate and eventually successful efforts to secure a No vote could turn out to be the most Pyrrhic victory of all time.
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Category
analysis, psephology, uk politics
This really happened today:
Bagpipes! Haggis! Tartan! Whisky! Pretty sure we just got trolled, folks.
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Tags: and finally
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comment, culture, uk politics
As the Unionist press and parties indulge in orgasmic paroxysms this week about how “The Vow” has allegedly been delivered and exceeded, it rings even stranger that absolutely nobody wants to claim the credit for authoring the historic document that saved the UK. Our investigations continue.
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Tags: The Vow
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investigation, media, scottish politics, uk politics
We mentioned this story (about David Cameron pushing ahead with “English votes for English laws” legislation that would exclude Labour MPs from budget votes, despite the Smith Commission report categorically saying he wouldn’t) earlier today, but one particular line from it deserves a post of its own.
“In a briefing to journalists afterwards, [Alistair] Carmichael who described the commission proposals as ‘a modern blueprint for home rule’ insisted that the view did not reflect government policy.
He said: ‘This is the Prime Minister’s view, it is not government policy.’”
You heard it right, readers: a never-seen dimwit in a job so pointless he himself stood in the last election on a policy of abolishing it altogether really just said “Don’t listen to anything this idiot says about government policy, he’s only the Prime Minister.”
It’s been that sort of day, folks.
Tags: and finally
Category
comment, scottish politics, uk politics
You have to hand it to David Cameron – he doesn’t hang about. Barely two hours had passed after the declaration of the result of the independence referendum when he started tying new devolved powers into legislation on “English votes for English laws”, in a slick knifing of his unsuspecting hitherto-allies in Labour.
And just as hot on the heels of the Smith Commission’s final report, he’s at it again.
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analysis, comment, scottish politics, uk politics
There was a very disturbing opinion poll published by YouGov earlier this year and recently highlighted by the pollster, which took 16 policy propositions across a variety of subjects and set them against each other in a sort of Politics World Cup to find out the British public’s priorities. The result was predictable but no less depressing for it.
By some chillingly large margins, the policy the people of the UK want implemented more than any other is the spiteful removal of the right to benefits for new immigrants. (We suspect that if the question had offered the option of withdrawing benefits from immigrants full stop it wouldn’t have changed the figures much.)
And we couldn’t help wondering how big a deal that really was.
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Category
analysis, investigation, uk politics
Labour shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves on Sunday Politics.
Did you spot what she got wrong, readers?
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Category
comment, idiots, scum, uk politics
The talk of the steamie in this weekend’s Sunday papers is that Scottish Labour are set to backpedal on the devolution of 100% of income tax, a position previously described by Gordon Brown – the great architect of “The Vow” – as a “Tory trap” which was “not in Scotland’s interests”.
(Coincidentally, the papers also report that Brown, who said he would personally ensure the safe delivery of the new devolution settlement, will stand down at the 2015 election in order to devote more time to his “charity” work.)
It is, of course, a challenge to keep track of Labour’s position on the move from one day to the next. In 2013 it wanted to devolve all taxation, then in 2014 it decided as its final settled position that it wasn’t a good idea after all, and has flip-flopped on a more or less weekly basis ever since. Just this month the favourite for the Scottish branch office leadership, Jim Murphy, poured cold water on the notion, but now it seems yet another U-turn is on the cards.
We wouldn’t put a lot of money on it being the last one.
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Tags: Devo NanoThe Vow
Category
analysis, comment, scottish politics, uk politics
Ed Miliband on the BBC 10 O’Clock News, 21 November 2014.
Category
uk politics, video
