With 18 days to go, Labour are facing a blood-bath in Scottish seats

[-:Undertaker:-]

Of the 50-something Scottish seats, Labour has held a massive chunk of them since 1945. For Labour, losing many of the seats below is as unthinkable as losing seats in Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Newcastle and other northern cities. Yet that, according to polls is exactly what is going to happen.


http://blondemoney.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/316488-projected-map-of-scottish-seats-created-using-may2015com-site.jpg


The latest Lord Ashcroft poll which came out today can be viewed below, and look at those massive swings away from Labour in ultra safe seats to the SNP. As Lord Ashcroft has pointed out, the swing towards the SNP has actually increased in recent weeks and not decreased as many in Labour had been hoping. 18 days to go until the General Election and it is looking like a complete wipeout, with the Labour regional leader in Scotland Jim Murphy expected to lose his seat as well as Liberal Democrats Douglas Alexander and Charles Kennedy.

I keep saying how this is looking to be the biggest story on election night, as swings like this under FPTP happen literally once in a lifetime and the last time we saw something like this nationwide was with the rise of the Labour Party in the early 1900s when it replaced the Liberal Party as one of the major two parties. Interestingly, in the 1874 General Election when the Liberals lost Ireland to a Home Rule party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1874_%28Ireland%2 9), the Liberal Party never recovered from the loss of 56 seats there.

Anyway here's the poll.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CC0Y8TRW8AAfjpi.jpg:large


Any voters in constituencies in Scotland on here who have any thoughts or comments to feelings on the ground?

Personally although a Unionist myself, I am delighted as Labour brought in Devolution as a sneaky way of holding onto power for what they thought would be forever in their Scottish fiefdom seats, in other words putting party before country. They're about to reap what they sowed.

And PS although parties lose and gain seats all the time, something on this scale is usually a permanent shift under FPTP.

[scottish]

I could have told you this was going to happen last year, get with the times.

[Inseriousity.]

I think we're going to have another general election later in the year. I thought the Tories were just being dumb with their Labour/SNP coalition chaos but SNP themselves appear to be less compliant than the Lib Dems. 2015 should be an interesting year. Let the leadership battles commence :P

[Ed.]

I thought it was particularly telling that in the debate the other night, Nicola Sturgeon was clearly trying to get Ed to side with her. He was being very obtuse, but it is clear to the majority of people that he won't get a majority - he will end up going back on his "I won't join force with the SNP".

We could see the SNP holding substantial power in Westminster...

[buttons]

i don't think it'll be as widespread as that. people tend not to vote in general elections, which i'm sure is the same case in england. almost half of the voting electorate in my constituency did not vote last time. although i know there are many people out there voting for the first time just to vote SNP, anyone could do the same for any other party. i think the referendum has opened an eye for others on how important it is to vote, so i'm excited to see if the voting numbers go up!

although i'm pretty sure north east is gonna stay SNP

[Kardan]

I thought it was particularly telling that in the debate the other night, Nicola Sturgeon was clearly trying to get Ed to side with her. He was being very obtuse, but it is clear to the majority of people that he won't get a majority - he will end up going back on his "I won't join force with the SNP".

We could see the SNP holding substantial power in Westminster...

Of course he'll end up going back on the 'I won't join with the SNP' if it means he can form a coalition with them... But he would never openly say 'Sure, let's make a coalition!', because then that's telling Scots that there's no point in voting for Labour. I mean, he's at least got to try even though it's pretty futile.

[-:Undertaker:-]

I could have told you this was going to happen last year, get with the times.

I posted about this last year too, I am referring to pre-referendum when nobody thought this could happen on such a scale. It was also expected and hoped for by the Labour Party that the SNP surge after the referendum would tail off before the General Election, yet it hasn't.


i don't think it'll be as widespread as that. people tend not to vote in general elections, which i'm sure is the same case in england. almost half of the voting electorate in my constituency did not vote last time. although i know there are many people out there voting for the first time just to vote SNP, anyone could do the same for any other party. i think the referendum has opened an eye for others on how important it is to vote, so i'm excited to see if the voting numbers go up!

although i'm pretty sure north east is gonna stay SNP

The thing is, uniform swing under FPTP produces such large swings of seats.

One of the better modern day examples of this is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1993 (Progressive Conservative vs Reform in % + seats).


I think we're going to have another general election later in the year. I thought the Tories were just being dumb with their Labour/SNP coalition chaos but SNP themselves appear to be less compliant than the Lib Dems. 2015 should be an interesting year. Let the leadership battles commence :P

Not sure we can anymore as the morons in the un-Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats tinkered with our constitution and introduced the idiotic Fixed-Term Parliament Act which makes it pretty much impossible to go to the Queen and dissolve parliament before the 5 years are up.

Yet another example of the rotting political parties politicising the constitution for their own benefit.

[Inseriousity.]

There's the vote of no confidence thing which is not impossible if a coalition is based on the shaky foundations of a 3 or even 4 party coalition.

[-:Undertaker:-]

There's the vote of no confidence thing which is not impossible if a coalition is based on the shaky foundations of a 3 or even 4 party coalition.

But I think now it requires a 2/3 majority in the House of Commons to dissolve parliament rather than the simple 50/50 split it used to require. Of course, we could now simply abolish the Fixed Term Parliament Act and then a VOC could take place... but that would take time which you haven't got when you have a neutered government.