Our next prime minister is either going to be David Cameron or Ed Miliband. Both guys have said they won't work with the SNP. So basically they are telling you Scottish voters that if you vote for SNP it's a wasted vote because they won't give them any power anyway.
My experience with proportional representation was in South Africa and it doesn't work there as you can get the farcical situation where the likes of that terrible woman Winnie Mandela becomes an MP and rides the gravey train when she should be sitting in a cell.
I'm pretty sure he added the caveat unless they agree not to push for an 'in/out' referendum in the next five years.
Miliband hasn't ruled out working with the SNP though (or anyone else for that matter). He has ruled out a coalition with the SNP (ie having a shared cabinet), or doing a single deal with the SNP (ie a formal agreement at the start of parliament that in return for supporting a minority Labour government the SNP will get x, y and z).
Never heard that Pete but a fair compromise IMO. People voting for the SNP for a bigger say at Westminster and NOT Independence. We had our chance as some have said and TBH you cannot keep having referendums until you get the result you want. Although if Westminster keeps ignoring us and do not keep the promises made to us pre independence election then who knows what will happen.
And if this were to happen Dreamboy I'd imagine the SNP would be pressing very hard indeed to have another referendum to leave the UK and maybe this time we would be successful. BTW there was only 375,000 votes in it.
Haha, good joke it never was and still isn't. Just another sad African state I've seen a lot of them and they all have something in common - blatant corruption, including this so called angel call Nelson who Europe worships and in Britain they even named streets after him which I find bizarre, but people conveniently forget that he was a mass indiscriminate murderer who organised bombs in public places, much like the IRA. God bless him and his murderous first wife who organised murder as well.
Top post. He's treading a careful path of political expediency and principled policy. Tories just waiting for him to cosy up to SNP. Really hope Labour can do it or firm coalition with Liberals otherwise. Come on you reds.
And he will possibly have to mate to have any chance of becoming PM. Unless Labour do much better than expected in England. The Tories will have no scruples of enlisting the help of Lib/dems again along with the Irish and UKip. What a worrying thought.
And this is why. Screwed over by colonialism and still being screwed by neo-liberalism. Given an illusion of power and freedom: "The focus on reducing inflation and privatising held through South Africa's change of government in 1994. The new government under Mandela, heady with their long-fought freedom from apartheid, was immediately instructed through privatisation and debt restructuring. Rather than imposing taxes on companies that had become wealthy during apartheid, the new government was pressured to privatise remaining state firms so as to be seen 'open for business' to the international community. Though desperate to support the poor populous, the government was instructed to carefully avoid any legislation or even public comments that could be construed as marxist or statist; this was to avoid another stock crash as such was seen after the ratification of the Freedom Charter of 1990. Morals were clearly not at issue as former apartheid officials and businessmen of the de Klerck era blocked land and asset redistribution, separated and autonomized the central banks, and were guaranteed pensions and investments profits. Simultaneously the new government was held to call for the huge debts that had formerly brutalised and subjugated the population. Discouraged from social spending, aid, and government sponsored job-creation, the quality of life in South Africa actually declined during Mandela's reign. Sadly, his successor Mbeki took IMF and international advice to increase the Chicago style reforms, that MORE of the same was needed before the situation would improve." http://shockdoctrinesummary.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/1990s-south-africa.html?m=1
AV was the biggest load of ****** ever put forward on a ballot paper,it was designed to flummax the electorate to make sure that we got nowhere near PR.But with the rise of ukip,snp,and the greens hopefully the time will come when we get the chance of pr.
Spent 23 years there pre and post apartheid end, and although what you say is partly true insomuch as the Yanks tried to recolonise through financial rape after 94, the rest is poppycock you must have read on the Internet by someone who has never been there, someone who can only be called an armchair expert. Truth be told the ANC have had over 20 years to uplift the population but have failed miserably because they are more intent on lining their own pockets and building swimming pools in their palatial homes. They can't continue blaming apartheid for everything for ever, it just doesn't wash. Now they have a currency in free fall, little investment in infrastructure, which you would have thought the World Cup would have been a springboard for. Engineering projects have ceased, crime is escalating due to unemployment. Bottom line, and with all respect to you, listen to someone who's been on the ground instead of quoting some verbal diarrhoea from a bookworm.
The SNP are even more anti what I stand for as a patriotic Socialist than the Tories are, so I agree with him.
So they have the economic freedom and power to do those things and are just spending it all on themselves? I've no doubt there will be corruption (see our own political system) and that huge mistakes have and are being made. But Naomi Klein's point is that in handing over electoral power the real power to actually do anything has been withheld through enforced free market capitalism and privatisation. She's actually quite critical of Mandela for focusing on democratic freedom whilst missing the real opportunity and abandoning the ANC's stated aim to nationalise industry and services. The wealth to improve the situation isn't held by the people and they repaying the debts that were racked up in oppressing them.
