General Election May 2015

[Little John]

No, that's not right.

Firstly, for the last 40 odd years, they have had their eyes and ears filled with a neo-con narrative that tells them that it's every man for himself, that everyone else is a mark and that there is no such thing as society. They have also been lied to over and over again by politicians from the trivial to the serious. Consequently, they are massively apathetic and cynical. Which is, of course, a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs for our ruling elites who are thus given even more carte-blanche to take the piss out of the rest of us. Which, in turn, has led to even more apathy and even more cynicism. But that era is drawing to a close. Partly because our economic elites overstretched themselves due to their rapacious greed and, secondly, even if they had been more careful, the resource buffers would have been eventually hit and so this day would have arrived a bit later, that's all.

To take one example of the truth: we nlonger have the wealth to have an NHS that provides all of the care we have hitherto come to expect. So, we need to have a fully open and honest debate about how much we can afford to spend and then how we intend to allocate it as equitably as possible. At the moment, such a debate is impossible because the media would shred anyone who came out and told that straight, The other parties would equally shred them. Given the 5 year time horizon of government, it's not worth anybody telling the truth and so they all lie.

That's the reason we are not given the truth. Only in very small part is it due to an inability or unwillingness to not hear it by the public

[biffvernon]

To take one example of the truth: we no longer have the wealth to have an NHS that provides all of the care we have hitherto come to expect.

There's the size of the cake and there's how the cake gets divided. I guess we 'choose' what proportion of GDP we spend on health and social services and what proportion of that is spent by government and what by individuals. Compare the UK in those respects with, say, USA and Sweden.

[Tarrel]

To take one example of the truth: we no longer have the wealth to have an NHS that provides all of the care we have hitherto come to expect.

There's the size of the cake and there's how the cake gets divided. I guess we 'choose' what proportion of GDP we spend on health and social services and what proportion of that is spent by government and what by individuals. Compare the UK in those respects with, say, USA and Sweden.

There's also how efficiently the slice of cake is used. The amount of resource poured into administration and waves of reorganisation in the NHS is scandalous.

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."
Charlton Ogburn - "Merrill's Marauders"

[biffvernon]

Yes, very true.

[Little John]

To take one example of the truth: we no longer have the wealth to have an NHS that provides all of the care we have hitherto come to expect.

There's the size of the cake and there's how the cake gets divided. I guess we 'choose' what proportion of GDP we spend on health and social services and what proportion of that is spent by government and what by individuals. Compare the UK in those respects with, say, USA and Sweden.

I am not denying that there is a covert agenda under way to "reorganise" the NHS to the point of collapse in order to pave the way for the private sector to eventually "come to the rescue" in much the same way it "came to the rescue" of the railways and a host of other previously public utilities. Nor am I denying that there is a choice as to how to whole cake gets divided vis a vis NHS, social services and all the rest. However, notwithstanding all of the above, the cake is smaller and is going to get smaller still as the years and decades progress into the long emergency and we get pushed off our industrial perch. This is utterly unavoidable and it is political and moral cowardice on the part of our political leaders and anyone else, for that matter, to pretend otherwise. We don't get a choice about reality. We do, however, get a choice about how we deal with it. But, only if we acknowledge that reality in the first place.

[PS_RalphW]

Well the royals have done their duty and popped a princess right on cue. That's got to be worth a couple of million votes to the Tories.

[Snail]

Here's a link I came across which explains what might happen next week. And how the whole process works etc. The comments are interesting too.

http://www.headoflegal.com/2015/04/19/e ... olas-keys/

[UndercoverElephant]

Here's a link I came across which explains what might happen next week. And how the whole process works etc. The comments are interesting too.

http://www.headoflegal.com/2015/04/19/e ... olas-keys/

Yes.

Or the simplified version, which I'll cut and paste from a facebook conversation with a Scottish nationalist friend of mine (and some of what is in here has become clear to me while reading other people's comments in this thread):

There's another reason why Miliband definitely won't do a deal with the SNP: he doesn't need to.

Think about the permutations. It looks like Labour and Tory will take almost the same number of seats, and both will be well short of a majority. The libdems will suffer badly, and the SNP will do well, so let's assume they win every seat in Scotland. UKIP will probably win about 5 seats, and if they take any more it will be at the expense of the tories.

So where does that leave us? Cameron will not be able to make a minority government work, because even with the LDs and UKIP (can you imagine those two together in a coalition??), they won't have enough seats to get a Queen's speech through, because Labour and the SNP will both oppose it. Which leaves Labour, who have ruled out any official agreement with the SNP. What happens next? Answer: Labour will put a Queen's Speech together and the SNP can either choose to support it, or join the tories in voting it down. One presumes they would support it, given that it will be largely socialist in nature, and then labour would be dependent on the SNP deciding whether or not to support them on a bill-by-bill basis. But can you imagine a piece of legislation where the SNP and Tories get together to stop Labour passing something?? Because I'm having trouble doing so.

But let's say the SNP don't like this, because, say, Labour decides to renew Trident and will rely on tory votes to get it through. What options does the SNP have? Well, their only realistic option is to get together with the tories on a vote of no confidence and force another election. But what on earth would they possibly have to gain from doing so? They would already hold every seat they can contest, so unless they are going to start standing in non-Scottish seats (which would be absurd), they would have absolutely nothing to gain, and a very real possibility of losing some seats to Labour. Or risk the tories picking up some more English seats and forming the next government. How will SNP voters feel about that?

I think we are heading for a minority Labour government where the SNP technically holds the balance of power, but cannot actually do anything with it apart from support Labour, even in the absence of an official deal.

The SNP aren't going to be as powerful as their number of seats suggests. They can never grow beyond Scotland, and they will never support the Tories on anything that matters. They've got no realistic choice but to support a minority labour government, and Ed Miliband knows it. Having spent months saying this election was uncallable, I've changed my mind. The only thing that could upset the above prediction about what is going to happen is UKIP doing extra-ordinarily well and taking sufficient seats from Labour to allow a Tory/UKIP coalition.

Also, it seems likely to me that if what described above is the outcome of this election, it is going to send British politics down an entirely new path.

I don't think there's going to be another referendum on Scottish independence any time soon - no referendum could be granted without either the Labour party or Tory Party agreeing to it. The Labour party is not going to do so because it is going to find itself dependent on votes from Scottish seats to remain in power (if Labour holds no seats in Scotland, but still ends up governing, then it has no reason to care about retribution from Scots for not granting another referendum). And the Tory party is not going to do so because it is going to be locked out of power, and therefore couldn't do so even it wanted to (and it might actually want to be rid of Scotland after it realises it is locked out of power). Basically, if we end up with a minority labour government dependent on an SNP who have no realistic option but to support labour, we are highly likely to have a similar result the next time, and the next time. Scottish voters will continue to vote for the SNP, the tories are highly unlikely to be able to win a majority as long as UKIP is bleeding votes from their right, and there isn't going to be an EU referendum so UKIP will continue to exist - and probably get stronger. And the LD's are going to repeatedly pay the price for propping up a tory government, because English voters now fear that if the LD's get enough seats, they will prop up another tory government. Clegg's decision to go into coalition with Cameron is going to haunt the LD's for decades to come. It was a truly horrendous strategic error.

I am actually quite hopeful about this. Maybe the Labour party will come to realise it is in a position where it can implement more progressive policies without fear of letting the tories back in. The big winner here is the labour party, and the losers are the tories and LDs. The SNP will be in a good position to fight for progressive/socialist policies on a UK-wide scale - they will have nothing to lose by trying to influence Labour to implement more left wing policies which will benefit people north of the border, and they may well succeed in some areas. But they will not be in a good position to fight for independence, because if Scotland were to leave the union then it would hand permanent power to the tories in England, and no Labour PM is going to let that happen.

[PS_RalphW]

I'm not so sure that the SNP could not break out of Scotland. It might take a name change to reflect a change of focus, but if their brand of socialism is such a huge hit north of the border, it my well be very attractive south as well in many big cities. They could lobby for city regions to gain the same level of independence as Scotland - image one set of legislation for cities and another for countryside. Each area could decide to be in our out of the 'Scottish Model'.

Could be a hit...

[biffvernon]

Pirates ho!

http://rt.com/news/255061-iceland-pirat ... 4E.twitter

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm not so sure that the SNP could not break out of Scotland. It might take a name change to reflect a change of focus, but if their brand of socialism is such a huge hit north of the border, it my well be very attractive south as well in many big cities. They could lobby for city regions to gain the same level of independence as Scotland - image one set of legislation for cities and another for countryside. Each area could decide to be in our out of the 'Scottish Model'.

Could be a hit...

They'd have to completely rethink their nationalism if they were to do this.

[OrraLoon]

I'm not so sure that the SNP could not break out of Scotland. It might take a name change to reflect a change of focus, but if their brand of socialism is such a huge hit north of the border, it my well be very attractive south as well in many big cities. They could lobby for city regions to gain the same level of independence as Scotland - image one set of legislation for cities and another for countryside. Each area could decide to be in our out of the 'Scottish Model'.

Could be a hit...

They'd have to completely rethink their nationalism if they were to do this.

An article which "namechecks" some of the incipient English regionalists:

http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... of-uk.html

Would it make sense for the English Greens to cooperate with these groups or even run joint candidates?

[SleeperService]

To take one example of the truth: we no longer have the wealth to have an NHS that provides all of the care we have hitherto come to expect.

There's the size of the cake and there's how the cake gets divided. I guess we 'choose' what proportion of GDP we spend on health and social services and what proportion of that is spent by government and what by individuals. Compare the UK in those respects with, say, USA and Sweden.

Both the main parties, Tory and Tory Lite,(other liars and charlatans are available) are run for the benefit of big businessmen, these individuals want ALL of the cake even though they can't eat it. They will be satisfied when even the crumbs are theirs.

I've be a regular customer of the NHS over the last year or so and see lots of money being mined out of the NHS into consultants and contractors and, particularly the owners of these 'businesses'.

The one hope the general population has is that a majority don't bother to vote, in that case a well organised campaign can have a result out of all proportion. Until then we're lambs to the slaughter....

[clv101]

I expected this election campaign to be one of the 'nastiest' in a long time... it's turned out not nearly as exciting, and just the stupidest campaign I can remember. Every interview I heard from a senior Tory, Labour or LibDem has mostly been ridiculous.

Silver lining is how amusing it'll be to see how they backtrack on the pre-election rhetoric in the post-election reality.

[Catweazle]

I expected this election campaign to be one of the 'nastiest' in a long time... it's turned out not nearly as exciting, and just the stupidest campaign I can remember. Every interview I heard from a senior Tory, Labour or LibDem has mostly been ridiculous.

Silver lining is how amusing it'll be to see how they backtrack on the pre-election rhetoric in the post-election reality.

What can they say ? They all know that the game is nearly up, they can't point out the futility of their opponents policies without exposing the futility of their own.

The main parties are still talking about "recovery" as if it's possible, they can't afford to tell people it isn't because people really want to believe it can happen, and if the main parties admit the game is up then people will vote for whatever crackpot party claims to be able to "fix" things.

UKIP is proof.