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So explain to me how it does it - I don't want quotes or WOS links, I want an explanation how the voting system is designed to prevent the SNP "specifically" getting a majority. How does it achieve what you claim it does?
Surely if it were explicit...
designed by a Labour goverrnment at Westminster with the "explicit" intention of preventing the SNP from gaining a majority of the seats[b] on a minority of the popular vote[/b]."
It takes on a very different meaning when the last bit of that sentence is added on surely.
I'd be interested to see a link to anyone who counters the arguments presented in WoS
Easier to attack the messenger than the message 😉
I'd be interested to see a link to anyone who counters the arguments presented in WoS
😀
isn't WoS a spoof? I thought it was a Scottish Mash?
Champit Tatties or Rumbledethumps?
It takes on a very different meaning when the last bit of that sentence is added on surely.
If only the same system was used for the UK elections...
Easier to attack the messenger than the message
If you're talking about irelanst then all he or she is doing is asking you to clarify your point. This is a perfectly reasonable request. If you can't do that then your on pretty shaky ground.
teamhurtmore - MemberI'd be interested to see a link to anyone who counters the arguments presented in WoS
isn't WoS a spoof? I thought it was a Scottish Mash?
Aye, you're not wrong, been a long time since I looked at it but it was cringeworthy.
Anyhow, you're a man that's always on about the record. What in your opinion has the scottish government got wrong, and for the purposes of balance(something this forum really struggles with) what do you think they have done right?
What in your opinion has the scottish government got wrong, and for the purposes of balance(something this forum really struggles with) what do you think they have done right?
I know you're not talking to me but...
From personal experience they've got education wrong.
Right? Off the top of my head: Smoking ban, drink driving limit, plastic bag charge, outdoor access and hopefully land reform.
...and hopefully land reform.
I'm interested in why this land reform thing is seen as a good thing? Admittedly, I've not read a great deal about it, but I can't see what benefits there are to be gained from the Scottish Government forcing the sale of x acres of moorland in the middle of McNowhere. You can't just build council houses and leisure centres and expect big employers to move into the area, especially with transport links being practically pre-industrial revolution once you get north of Perth.
Plus, I'm fairly sure that in a pilot scheme on one of the islands, a landowner who previously employed 60-odd folk in the upkeep of his land was forced to sell to some community enterprise with the net result of most of those 60-odd being made redundant. What's progressive or fair about that? If I can find the article I will post it.
Joe, I am afraid I do not know the details of the individual bits of legislation, so my observations are of a much wider nature.
I think the successes and failures ae essentially the same thing. The cuts in education and health have been more stringent than in the UK but they have successfully positioned themselves as the only major anti-austerity party. Extraordinary. Their record on education and social mobility is equally poor but they are seen as the saviours of (free) education and a left wing government that cares about social mobility. They fight for independence and devolved power yet are fierce decentralisers and controllers from the centre etc.
So their success - the gap between what they say and what they do
Their failure - the gap between what they do and what they say
Perhaps the most remarkable thing is the fact that in reality and in practice they are hardly left of the Tories at all. No wonder they have no need for Tories in Scotland 😉
Right? Off the top of my head: Smoking ban, drink driving limit, plastic bag charge, outdoor access and hopefully land reform.
Smoking ban and outdoor access predate the current SNP government I think Spin.
Smoking ban and outdoor access predate the current SNP government I think Spin.
Oops! Good call. Guess I was thinking about good stuff done post devolution.
Education "cuts"... Further and higher education is my thing, so, all I can say is take all talk of cuts on this subject with a pinch of salt, the spin is massive. The truth's fairly simple but not so easy to put into a headline. ZOMG COLLEGE FUNDING CUTS and ZOMG LESS COLLEGE PLACES are both very misleading.
There's been 2 major changes in Scottish further education concurrent with the budget cuts. The big one is the college mergers; there's now half as many colleges as there were 4 years ago, which has generated massive efficiency savings roughly equivalent to the cuts (which should grow further, once reorganisation costs reduce) and removed some pretty absurd duplications. Audit Scotland concluded that colleges' financial situations have been left fairly equivalent, though the comparisons are pretty broad brush.
And when I say efficiency, it's not just cost; better sharing of facilities and best practice, better liaisons with schools, industry and universities etc. One frinstance, if you want to go on to higher education, it's far better to be a FVC student than it was to be a clackmannanshire college graduate, because the merger brought with it huge improvements in progression. We provide much better support to the rationalised colleges and their students, with the same resourse, than we could before. It's better and it's fairer, and we've got more students progressing into uni via college than ever before. Obviously this is just my field, but you hear similiar stories from employers and from schools. (here i run into confidentiality issues, but hearing A Local Council talk about the improvements in school/college liaison, it's massive. Simply, they have less people they need to talk to, to provide the same level of support to kids)
This looks likely to be a policy where you can judge its success by the fact that the rest of the UK copies it. Audit Scotland found minimal negative impact on students and considered that most was due to short-term disruption during the execution of the change.
The other is the change in course provision- people say "College places have dropped" and that's absolutely true. But college hours taught have remained the same. This is because of a move away from short courses and courses which don't lead to a recognised qualification, and into longer, recognised courses.
Obviously if you stop teaching 10 hour courses and switch to highers, or HNCs, you'll see a massive drop in the number of places- instant headline. But looking at FTEs, which is a far better way to measure the amount of college tuition, you get this:
[img] 
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In other words; the level of tuition remains pretty much the same. It's purely how it's distributed that's changed. Measuring the number of places just isn't a useful tool for assessing college provision.
This is where it all gets batshit complicated, because there are definitely negative impacts to losing some of those short courses. But there are also massive positive impacts too. It's a balance of outcomes situation and most people seem to agree that on balance the new system gives much better outcomes for the young, and has removed large numbers of low-value courses. IMO it's led to less support for older people which it's hoped will be picked up by other outlets like council night schools etc, but I've not seen any evidence to support that (or to contradict it, to be fair). Supposedly there is enough capacity in other outlets to cover this and the ILA should help that; but lots of people don't know about these, colleges were simpler to access. (and the jobcentres, who should promote these routes, bloody don't in my experience)
The last concern is that unqualified courses were a good way back into education for those that had left it entirely. It's definitely easier to get into a meaningful course now than it was 5 or 10 years ago; but there's some suggestion that the demographics have changed a bit and that there might be a "lost generation" effect where today's 25-30 year olds are less likely to re-enter education. In the long term, that should be more than offset by the improvements for this generation's 16-25 year olds. But I don't know how quantifiable this all is.
bencooper - Member
Really? Who's limiting my free speech? Much more under threat from the Tories than from the SNP.
As you stick to spouting the SNP line I'm sure you'll be fine but Jim Murphy probably has a different view on the SNP's version of free speech.
Your're right about independence vs. democracy. Problem is, we don't live in a democracy, we live in a pseudo-democracy
Do you ever raise your head from your pool of indyfail misery and look further afield? The UK is 16th out of 174 on the Democracy Index list, ahead of those great "new" republics of of France and the USA. Interestingly we're way ahead of some other EU countries who are firmly in "flawed democracy" territory. There's nothing pseudo about the UK's democracy.
Remember the Holyrood voting system was specifically designed by Donald Dewar to prevent the SNP getting a majority
Eh? That's the Holyrood (as in current devolved parliament) voting system. You can be sure that the constitution that Salmond and Sturgeon were knocking up for their "One Scotland" would have been designed to secure the SNP power for a couple of decades.
I'll ask again Beargrease any links or actual evidence to back up your statements about the SNP being a threat to democracy?
bearGrease - MemberJim Murphy probably has a different view on the SNP's version of free speech.
Heh. The SNP would never have done anything to limit mad Jim's freedom of speech, he was their greatest recruiting tool among Labour voters.
cheers northwind, interesting comments.
beargrease, turn off confrontation mode and speak to people! 😆
Beargrease, is there aything you like aboutthe SNP.
same questions goes to everyone else that has only posted negative stuff.
What's the positive?
I love WoS. It's so far the other way from the 'establishment' and always puts a completely different spin on things from the usual unionist msm agenda.
Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle?
Oh, SNP bad stuff; Dithering about fracking, get it banned! Rehabilitation of offenders, leave it alone, they did the crime....
So a quick look at WoS shows that lots of Yes supporters are very angry that JK Rowling tweets stuff about supporting Scotland in the rugby despite supporting the No campaign.
Oh dear.
I'm getting a mild amount of grief on facebook for suggesting the SNP were hypocrites for awarding the steel contracts for the Forth Crossing to foreign firms when the now-moribund Dalzell is less than 35 miles away, so I must be on to something. So I'd say that is something they've got horrifically wrong.
And if we want to go on about demonstrable failures, all we need to do is look at the SNP manifestos that they've been elected on. I find it absolutely incredible that the SNP somehow manage to be seen as a paragon of integrity in governance (at least amongst the faithful) despite failing to deliver on many, many election promises. A particularly irksome one is the constant hounding of the Lib Dems (and rightly so) for abandoning their tuition fees pledge, whilst themselves abandoning in its entirety their 2007 manifesto pledge (it was conspicuous in its absence from their 2011 manifesto) of "removing the burden of the debt repayments owed to the student loans company."
Apparently no UK companies put in a bid for the forth bridge contracts
BTW I reckon if youse canny even come up with one good thing, your bias is much worse than mine! 😆
Apparently no UK companies put in a bid for the forth bridge contracts
Weasel words. TATA aren't a UK company, but they were involved in the tendering process.
Or, possibly, maybe, an assessment of what they've done results in a negative view of them. Or maybe this forum isn't representative of the demographic they appeal to. Just because they have been in government doesn't mean the balance of what they've done has to be good.BTW I reckon if youse canny even come up with one good thing, your bias is much worse than mine!
Arguably, it would be a surprise for any party which had no previous government experience to do well because suddenly they have to deal with reality instead of the comfortable non-delivery zone in which opposition parties can live.
And the nonsense about the voting system being designed to avoid SNP majority? It works the same for any party. If you want bias in the voting system you play with constituency boundaries.
Education "cuts"... Further and higher education is my thing, so, all I can say is take all talk of cuts on this subject with a pinch of salt
Most of the comments so far have not been so specific, they have simply said that education is an area where the SNP have not delivered. This is backed up by the SNP themselves who seem to think they are failing the young people of Scotland with regards to education;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-32874215
😀 at least acknowledge your bias. I do, its not difficult! My politics are wildly different from the SNP.
I don't find the SNP to be great but if you can't think of one thing you need to take a look at yourself!
Tbh I think it's pretty obvious most of you haven't a Scooby!
And what's with the weasel words patter! 😆 says more than you think, and not in a good way.
A couple have been specific about Curriculum for Excellence being part of the problem. If we want to go further I suspect there's a need to apportion responsibility between local authorities and government, but there's an increasing feeling of the combination of CfE, discipline policies and school management letting down both teachers and pupils.Most of the comments so far have not been so specific, they have simply said that education is an area where the SNP have not delivered
I'm off out now but I'll try to get time later to write a detailed response about what's wrong in Scottish secondary education. At this point I'll summarise it in three letters: SQA
Spin - Member
I'm off out now but I'll try to get time later to write a detailed response aboutin Scottish secondary educationwhat's wrong
That cannot be a balanced opinion! 😆 you're starting from a point of bias before you've even written a word!
@Northwind interesting post thank you. I think less regionalisation is generally a good thing for the reasons you say
I find it absolutely incredible that the SNP somehow manage to be seen as a paragon of integrity in governance (at least amongst the faithful) despite failing to deliver on many, many election promises.
@Flying indeed, just like all the other members of the political elite
@seos, SNP are consomethinge politicians very very good at today's "sound byte" interviews and "messaging". Their biggest achievements of the last 12 months have been losing the referendum (a huge positive result for Scots), delivering the coup de grace to Miliband and handing the Tories a majority having humiliated Labour and frightened Lib Dem English marginal constituency voters.
jambalaya, welcome. You're just the person to give this balance! 😆
Don't think of it as bias. Think of it as expert opinion!
😆
And what's with the weasel words patter! says more than you think, and not in a good way.
Not meant in any way other than the phrase "no Scottish companies were involved..." is econimical with the truth. Kind of like Armstrong's, "I have never failed a drugs test" nonsense - you never failed a test, no, but you were out of your tiny little mind on the gear.
"No Scottish firms were involved in the tendering process." - no, but foreign firms which own Scottish plants were.
Did TATA bid for the contract?
Don't knock foreign firms - a quick comparison of Scotlands GNI v GDP will explain why...
Joe, good for you, for attempting to have a serious balanced debate, so in that spirit
1. opposing UK military action in Syria
No- according to tata they were a potential plate steel subcontractor for one of the losing bids. Never saw much info on how much they hoped to supply, or even if they were assured of supplying anything, or if it was guaranteed to come from UK plants.
As is quoting something I never said! 😆The Flying Ox - Member
Not meant in any way other than the phrase "no Scottish companies were involved..." is econimical with the truth
cheers thm! 🙂
As is quoting something I never said!
I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here...
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And regardless of that, the "weasel words" comment was referring to the statement from the Scottish Transport Minister which said that no UK companies were involved. I assumed you were quoting from that source (despite failing to attribute the quote...) 😉
Did they put in a bid to supply steel for the forth road? being involved with and actually putting in a bid are 2 very different things.
i was only quoting from something I heard elsewhere. tbh, i have no great knowledge. But i'm interested if people do, why I posted it to see if someone would counter it. I would like to know the truth, not get involved in headline grabbing snippets.
Isn't that missing the point somewhat? The point being that the Scottish Government tendered out the management of the FRC project and followed all the relevant EU procurement rules. The cheapest tender came from the FRBC consortium. You can't tell me that the Scottish Government just looked at the bottom line and said, "Yep, that'll do" with no concern as to how that bottom line had been costed. They knew the steel was coming from China/Poland/Spain/not Scotland, but it wasn't their problem. They could have managed the construction themselves. They would almost 100% guaranteed still arrived at the end result of Dalzell being uncompetitive from a financial perspective and therefore unsuccessful in any tender they may have put forth, but at least Holyrood could point to how their hands were tied by public procurement legislation from further up the food chain. It would have added tremendous weight to their separation/independence argument.
But no. Rather than actually having to do something unsavoury but ultimately beneficial to your cause, better to give the job to someone else - preferably Scottish so you can claim you're "protecting Scottish jobs" - and then walk away from the mess. Ruthless.
BTW, I'm more than happy to have my opinion on this corrected.
I would like someone that knows about this to join into tbh.
The biggest mitigating circumstances I heard that the dalzell plant could only manage about 1/3rd of the capacity of the steel required and that even if they did, they would have made a loss on it.
tbh, with chinese steel, it's a grim market for UK companies. We could subsidize them, but it'll be long term subsidy in the face of Chinese steel and europeans also subsidizing their steel indistries.
It's grim yip. And tbh, I don't expect it to be the last. China is getting bigger and bigger. And with it's cheap labour, it'll become harder and harder to compete as the years go by.
It's an utter ****. but what can you do in the face of that, subsidise or diverge/inovate into new industry is probably the only options.
As, just an opinion, but t just seems like a pretty grim situation all round.
i can't really blame the Scottish government for it. it's just a consequence of global economics.
And tbh, considering that the help that the steel industry was asking for, I don't particularly blame the tories for being reluctant to help either.
It's a terribly situation all round.
The Dalzell TATA situation is awful. I agree with flyingox that Dalzell should have have been considered even as a potential sub contractor for one of the bidders. However as flyingox concludes that
What real benefit would have been gained from any extra consideration? How much time would this have taken? This is the proverbial lose-lose situationend result of Dalzell being uncompetitive from a financial perspective and therefore unsuccessful in any tender
I got to visit Clydebridge and Dalzell a few years ago - amazing places, but even then I got the impression that they were just hanging on. Back then it was Corus, and there was a feeling that these relatively small Scottish mills weren't in a brilliant position WRT the larger mills down south. Since then, of course, the price of steel has almost halved and Chinese exports have gone up 50%.
[url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4110/5021161907_366bb41f1b_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4110/5021161907_366bb41f1b_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/8DGLv2 ]Steelworks 58[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/cycleologist/ ]Ben Cooper[/url], on Flickr
It's very sad for the people who work there - the skill base is immense, these machines may be computer controlled but it still needs very experienced operators to use them.
More pics:
http://catchingphotons.co.uk/blog/industrial/active-steelworks/
Dalzell should have have been considered even as a potential sub contractor
Why? If what is said above is true that they couldn't supply anything close to the required amount of steel, then why use them?
or if it was guaranteed to come from UK plants.
TATA's International sales division didn't even need to source from TATA, so even if they'd won the contract I'd be surprised if it was guaranteed to come from anywhere, let alone Scotland/UK.
I do feel sorry for the guys that have lost their jobs at the steel works all over the UK, however, unfortunately this is a cyclical oversupply issue and it will keep occurring every 10 years or so. Best way out is the way some of UK's steel has gone and focus on the high end and value added products that places like China struggle to supply with the required quality.