Devolution Matters

[Sput]

So long as it's not the pylon, eh chie?

[barcode]

It seem that most scots blame the foamer labour government for the incoming cuts, although some also blame the current snp government, not sure how that happened.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/p ... ll1010.pdf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11516478

I do believe, that the actical is correct and blame could will swing to to other factors once the cuts come in.

[barcode]

Some more good points about sunny scotland

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11506103

When a London think tank said last year that Scotland is on track to have the third largest state sector in the world, after Cuba and Iraq, it wasn't intended as a compliment.

Yet the evidence is that Scots rather like their state to be big. That's what they vote for.

[barcode]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ts_Are_In/

It up for the till next week.

I do agree PROFIT is a dirty word, why should Private companies provide fundamental public service

[barcode]

The times have got opion poll/question in today edition, and its just keeps repeating what we already know.

Labour win 57 seats:
Snp 37
Tories 13 ( Down )
Lib dem 9 ( Down )
Greens 3
others 10

There a high chance Mr grey will go it alone as many of his back benchers do not want to touch lib dems with a stick.

Both the tories and lib dems, will take a right battering and will, its seems both will lose seats and lib dems would only get 9 % vote below Other parties its going to be a really bloody battle

[barcode]

Well the SNP are not getting anywhere fast,

Stewart Stevenson has had to resign, for the utter joke and gridlock what has been going on for the past 2 weeks, saying that he been in that role since 2007, so he been in control while all the dissenters with the snow last year as well.

Many of the papers have been kind to Mr Stevenson

[Gavin Scott]

Well the SNP are not getting anywhere fast,

Stewart Stevenson has had to resign, for the utter joke and gridlock what has been going on for the past 2 weeks...

Without the necessary equipment to clear massive volumes of snow, I can see what he was expected to do - other than issue warnings which nobody takes heed of anyway.

"Only travel if its necessary" - well, getting to work is necessary for most of us, so 95% of people will embark on their journey to see if they get through. Those that couldn't abandoned their cars, and that caused problems when the ploughs came into action.

Was chatting to a woman this morning who has relatives in Canada - and apparently they make use of those mini diggers (the types used for landscaping) to clear sidewalks and residential roads.

I think that's what Salmond referred to when he mentioned putting in place the necessary "tools" for the inevitable next blizzard.

Which is to be this Thursday, by all accounts.

[barcode]

I do like that by-law in which NO cars can be parked on the main road etc when it snows. This has also helped caused some of the problems.

[barcode]

With a 100 days to go, its seems a new opion polls see the Lib dem and tory support dropping big time

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home ... -1.1080206


Lab: 49%
Snp: 33%
Con 9%
LD: 7%
Others 2%

[iSon]

I meant to post on this when the poll came out the other day - I thought of you straight away barcy!

I think it's the Lib Dem support that will be most worrying for the coalition - I don't think the Conservatives will be overly concerned about making too much headway as they haven't been popular in Scotland for years. However, if opinion polls are to be believed then it does mean that their support has halved which will have an impact on their influence with the newly formed parliament. The same goes for the Lib Dems too, who would have expected to have done better as the "other side of the government" but it looks as though the protest votes are going straight to Labour with a small increase for the SNP too.

In 2007, the Conservative and Lib Dem share of the vote combined was around 29% which the coalition may have accepted as it's not that far behind what Labour and the SNP polled. However, if they're on around 16% combined then it's going to be hard to justify. Although it's to be expected in some capacity as there will always be a protest vote against the government but we're in a unique situation where two parties are getting hit.

However, there's a few months to go until the election and it will be interesting to see if there's any movement in poll numbers and whether - like in Oldham East and Saddleworth, Conservative voters are asked to lend support to the Lib Dems in certain areas.

But in true polling tradition...if we take these numbers and put them through as to what would happen at the election...

TNS-BRMB for The Herald

• SNP - 33%
• Labour - 49%
• Conservative - 9%
• Liberal Democrat - 7%
• Others - 2%

Based on UNS

• SNP - 43 seats (-4)
• Labour - 69 seats (+23)
• Conservative - 8 seats (-9)
• Liberal Democrat - 7 seats (-9)
• Others - 2 seats (-1)

Labour - Majority 9

[barcode]

TNS-BRMB for The Herald
Based on UNS

• SNP - 43 seats (-4)
• Labour - 69 seats (+23)
• Conservative - 8 seats (-9)
• Liberal Democrat - 7 seats (-9)
• Others - 2 seats (-1)

Labour - Majority 9

I think the UNS results are a bit too high for labour, There best there could get would be 65seats at the very most and that would be pushing ( really pushing) as there would loss list mps, and there would have to win ALOT of the constituency. If we there get that then SNP, Lib dem and Tories will all be in free-fall.

The best I can see for labour would be 60 seats, with the greens and lefty getting some more, with the interesting point of asking Tory voters to vote Lib dem, that may be harder that down south, there are a number of places where this could take place.

• Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale ( SNP are in 2nd place by 600 votes)
  Edinburgh South
  Aberdeen South

But many other places Tories are not where in slight and would not make any real difference, also many lib dem votes would rather vote for labour as there more left wing of the party, this make a real chance the SNP could keep same amount of seats as now, labour going up, green, left getting seats and lib dems and tories going out the window big time. BUT its all to play for...... I do know there at least 2 lib dem seats that there going to lost no questions asked.