... because these were local elections?

It's the other way around. Conservative only got 40ish% of the vote but control 52% of councils declared.

Labour are getting 27ish% of the vote and control 10% of councils.

Ahh right, getya. You're just talking about the fact that that happens, in general elections.

Aye, first-past-the-post on a constituency basis innit. When a party's been in as long as Labour has, they get the opportunity to redraw the electoral boundaries in their favour. I think it happens every 8 years or so and the body who oversees it is appointed by the govt.. It's then passed on to the electoral commission (or whatever), who are independent and gets passed back and forth till they're both happy. It generally means a spot of gerrymandering in favour of whoever's in power. The Tories did the same when they were in for a long time.

So yeah, it's an inevitable possibility with first past the post, and increasingly likely. And whichever party got to set the boundaries last tends to have an advantage. S'one of the reasons why it's so hard for parties like the Lib Dems to make much headway (like now - they're getting roughly the same proportion of the popular vote as Labour, but far fewer seats/councils).

Hahaha!

It's official - SNP have the majority in Scotland!

I dunno, I sympathise with that to an extent - his dad could always vote for Labour because, whatever else changed, they represented an ideology he agreed with. He might not (not meaning to be patronising, just realistic) understand the ins and outs of politics, but he knows they represent him nontheless. And his son inhereits that trust. Labour have cynically abused that trust.

But yes, people should learn. After 10 years and an illegal war.

(cheer) (cheer) (cheer) (communist)

Going to be interesting for the Lib Dems now. They've been saying categorically they will not form a coalition with SNP if one of the conditions is a referendum on Independence. But the Scottish Lib Dem leader has also been saying whoever has the majority (of seats) in Scotland has the moral right, and the Lib Dems would look into allying with them.

I wouldn't put it past the Lib Dems to form a coalition with Labour. But fuck me, if they do I will never fucking ever ever vote for them ever again.

It's interesting that the Lib Dems refuse to enter into a coalition if the referendum happens, even if it's multi-question. Their arguments are total shit, saying "what party has ever commissioned a referendum on something they don't want?". Who gives a fuck? You're just the tiny bit that makes governing possible. And can they really justify that lack of democracy? Basically saying 'we don't care if the people want it - we don't'? Weird.

I understand the arguments. Scotland would be economically fucked etc.. But the way I see it, if they did gain independence, part of the agreement would be a huge fuckoff reparation settlement from England.

Not sure about the Scottish Sun - I live in London now so don't really see any of that stuff anymore. I can ask around, though I'm not sure I know anyone who would have it/have kept it.

As for the rest of it - I guess it all depends on what you define as 'working people', how 'working people' define them selves, and how you define an ideology.

Certainly from my experiences the most prevalent ideologies seem to be based on individualism, but as they have become so natural and ingrained, as you mention, it's hard to separate the ideology from the actions of survivalism.

Capitalist market forces invariably mean that individual people come last in the pecking order, so people have to be suitably individualist to ensure they get what they need and want. In many ways we fight to fulfil our basic needs without even realising it.

If Labour formed with Lib-Dems, they'd also need all the independants and the greens to get the 65 seats required.

As most of the independant candidates are independant because Labour no longer represents the socialist left, I don't see them agreeing to that. I reckon they're more likely to agree to form with the SNP.

I'm not sure how the Lib-Dems will go, I think they'll probably give in like they did in the first parliament. They vehemently said "We're not forming any colation with Labour unless student loands are scrapped", but then formed anyway. I've never seen them actually stick to a principle or policy, especialy one so hard to justify as "we're not even going to give you the option of deciding".

I think the anti-independance stance comes from the wider, UK Lib-Dems rather than the Scotish branch. But hmm.

As for the economic stuff, I don't think scotland would be fucked up at all. The overall Scottish economy is stable and growing. We'd have a hell of a lot less in the way of costs as independants as there'd be practically no millitary spending etc to deal with, and our payment to Europe would be less too as we'd have a much smaller economy compared to the UK.

We'd almost certainly have to adopt the Euro, though, I reckon that'd be a condition of an independant scotland joining europe. But that's going to happen to the UK eventually anyway, if not the Euro then some other multi-national currency further down the line.