Comments on: The Lib Dems just can’t win

By: duncan2

duncan2 — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:24:53 +0000

good article about the whole thing by Neal Ascherson

By: Scottish Roundup » Blog Archive » Coalition talks, Presiding Officers and spoilt ballots (again)

Wed, 09 May 2007 15:13:09 +0000

[...] My views on this whole situation are here (I try to avoid including my own posts in the roundup, but I couldn’t resist this time I’m afraid). [...]

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:16:12 +0000

Yes, I think that is actually a likely possibility — that the Lib Dems just don’t want to go into government at the moment. As I think I said in another post, they were getting a bad image as being political prostitutes. Being a bit stubborn and refusing to negotiate is probably a calculation that they have made for electoral gain as much as anything else.

By: Richard Thomson

Richard Thomson — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:35:26 +0000

I disagree with the Lib Dem stance on an independence referendum but ultimately, that’s a stance for them to reconcile with their voters and supporters. What I do find objectionable is the precondition the Lib Dems are setting on talks with the SNP - namely, that the nationalists must drop all talk of a referendum before they’ll even sit round a table to discuss anything.

I can think of quite a few potential compromises on the constitution which might satisfy both parties in the end, but they would require the parties to get together for talks first. Since the basic principal of any negotiation is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, I really don’t see why the Lib Dems want to put this barrier in place.

Unless, of course, they really don’t want to be back in government at all, but are too shy to say as much publicly…

By: jameshigham

jameshigham — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:10:03 +0000

Very brave, Doc. So brave that I’m nicking it for the Focus this evening.

By: Richard Havers

Richard Havers — Mon, 07 May 2007 13:13:48 +0000

Well argued piece, makes all the points I would and then some!

Just take a look at this statistic for a moment.

The SNP had the top four polling MSPs. Besides Swinney, 18,281, there was Fergus Ewing (16,443), Stewart Stevenson (16,031) & Andrew Welsh (15,686). In all 73 constituency votes the SNP polled 8,742 more than Labour, but if you take away those top four seats, where the SNP annihilated Labour, in the remaining 69 seats Labour polled 629,438 votes to the SNPs 590,707.

As always the devil is in the detail.

By: Calum Leslie

Calum Leslie — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:51:58 +0000

Is nationalism a liberal ideology? Hmm.

Depends how you define liberalism, but I think that decentralisation of power is often seen as a fairly classically-liberal ideal (less distance to the top, etc.).

I was surprised and pleased to see the Lib Dems not entering into a coalition, though; it’s good to see a party which is commonly characterised as being wishy-washy taking an actual stand.

As for the independence argument, I think the SNP should first lobby for Westminster to stop providing huge subsidies to Scotland and see how we fare then, before they drive our nation into the ground with their lack of any grasp on reality.