Liberal Britons Deciding Whether To Flee To Scotland Or Brighton After General Election Results

[Ken Burch]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/08/general-election-2015_n_7239810.html

Thousands of left-wing Britons are queuing to enter Scotland and Brighton today following the Conservative victory in the General Election.

Liberal-minded voters and people on zero-hours contracts are expected to request refugee status in Green-held Brighton Pavilion or the SNP territories in Scotland to gain access to the UK's last remaining public libraries.

The country's economy is also expected to take a hit today as thousands of people ask for compassionate leave from work while they decide between moving to the Highlands or the seaside.

As traffic lines the streets leading to the Scottish border for miles, one Green Party voter from the constituency of Holborn and St. Pancras is urging other like-minded people to weather the storm and stick to their guns to stop Ukip winning an absolute majority at the next general election.

"We need to stay the course," Green voter Barry Surname said. "Ukip came second in 118 constituencies. If we head to Scotland, they could take all of England."

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

1. Can you translate this for me?

I have no idea what any of it means. I understand the individual words but.......

[enlightenment]

2. There was an election in the UK yesterday.

The Conservative party (Tories) won close to a clear majority in Parliament.
Labour (the Liberal party) lost seats in Parliament.
UKIP - a party that opposes immigration (and other progressive policies) did sickeningly well - much better than anyone would like to see in an enlightened democracy.

SNP is the Scottish National Party crushed Labour in Scotland, which has long been a Labour stronghold - the SNP supports Scottish independence from the UK.

The Greens are a liberal environmental party.

Make more sense?

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

4. Thanks!

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Ya gotta wonder what the outcome would now be

if they re-held the Scottish Independence referendum.

[Ironing Man]

5. difficult to know.

the opinion polls on Scottish independence - in Scotland - haven't changed much since the referendum, however several things might effect a future result, and in different and contradictory ways: its an unknown as to whether the general election, with England (and wales!) voting more conservative that previously would have an effect, its also an unknown as to whether the recent 50% fall in the oil price (and therefore a massive fall in the expected tax revenues on an independant Scotland) would make Scottish voters less sanguine about a Scottish governments ability to fund the kind of society Scotlands electorate seem to want.

one interesting little titbit that perhaps demonstrates that all is not quite as simple as some might wish is that the Scottish electorate elect parties that protest against austerity (though on Thursday, some 400,000 Scottish voters voted for Conservative candidates, around 1/3rd of the number who voted for the SNP, but the vaguries of our electoral system mean that the SNP got 56 seats, and the Conservatives just one..), and stand on a platform of higher public spending. however, the current Scottish government has the power, and has had the power since the creation of the parliament, to increase direct taxation to provide additional funds for public services.

it has chosen to not exercise this power. ever. the niave might think that the Scottish government had forgotten it had this power, the cynical on the other hand...

[Denzil_DC]

6. "It has chosen to not exercise this power blah blah, the cynical on the other hand ..."

One reason might be that if the Scottish Government had used its tax varying powers, the only beneficiary would have been the UK exchequer, as under current arrangements any extra tax income raised would be offset by a reduction in the block grant from central funds (and besides, administering it would be a costly and tangled problem under current arrangements).

Why, a cynic might say that this power was only set up so that the "cynical" could use it as another stick with which to bash the Scottish Government. The "naive" might even pick up that stick and try to use it.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

7. They'll probably stay

When they find out the SNP actually cut spending on the NHS and has given out private contracts (weight watchers is one such contract). Of course, the SNP campaign on the mantra that the Tories would cut and privatise the NHS. There's so much smoke and mirrors that people forgot that the Scottish NHS is run by the people who are the majority in Holyrood, the SNP. It is completely separate from the English NHS (Cameron, in the coalition, actually increased spending on the NHS). The Welsh NHS is run by the majority in the Senedd as well as the NI NHS (I think it even has a different name as well) is run by Stormont.

The SNP are sneaky bastards.

[Ken Burch]

8. The article at the link was a satire.

Last edited Sun May 10, 2015, 04:28 PM - Edit history (2)

SNP probably isn't as left as some think-but Labour made their own Scottish wing's campaign against SNP into an excercise in futility by not running on a program in Scotland that was clearly to the SNP's left-and because they never apologized for running an essentially Thatcherite joint campaign with the Tories against Scottish independence.

If SNP's popularity has declined by the time of the next Holyrood(Scottish Parliament) elections, the only parties that will be able to gain at the "Nats" expense will be parties to the left of both them and Labour. Scottish Labour is already guaranteed of defeat in that contest, since it is already clear that they won't change at all between now and then and will settle for simply trying to blandly win by default, as they foolishly tried to do this time.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

9. Oh man!

That's what I get for not looking closely!

I have to say that Labour did shoot themselves in the foot with SNP this election. The Tories, however, seem to be making some leeway, giving the SNP greater fiscal responsibility as they promised after the referendum.

We shall see what happens in the next 5 years.

[Denzil_DC]

10. "the SNP actually cut spending on the NHS ..."

Public satisfaction levels with the NHS in Scotland are pretty high:

Since devolution, the NHS in Scotland has taken a very different path to that of NHS England. It has embraced co-operation rather than competition. And new figures show that Scots reckon that it delivers for them.

Findings just released from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) 2013 have found satisfaction with Scotland’s NHS increased by over 20 per cent since 2005. The official survey of around 1500 Scots found that 61 per cent of people in Scotland were either very or quite satisfied with the NHS, compared with only 40 per cent in 2005.

This high level of satisfaction is reflected in the patient experience as well. In last year’s Health and Care Experience Survey, 85 per cent of Scottish inpatients say their overall care and treatment was good or excellent, and 87 per cent also rated the overall care from their GP surgery as good or excellent too.

...

The findings contrast with a reduction in UK-wide NHS satisfaction levels since 2011. Comparisons must be made with care - but the survey authors speculate that the different trend may be due in part to concerns about the changes in the English NHS following the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act in 2012.

Scots continue to reject the commercialisation of care, both in hospitals - where few have ever wanted the private sector or even charities running things - and in care services.

Private sector involvement in the NHS may be minimal in Scotland, but it is common in the social care sector, particularly residential and home care.

Most (59 per cent) thought the government would provide better quality care services than the private sector. There has even been a drop in support for charities running care services.

Scotland’s approach to health care organisation has cross party support. There is little difference between the SNP and Scottish Labour positions.

...

In 2001 Malcolm Chisholm took over as health minister. Chisholm completed the reform process with the NHS Reform Act of 2004. This Act formally abolished trusts and established a duty of cooperation. This radical policy was viewed as the right approach for a country the size of Scotland and more in keeping with Scottish collectivist traditions. For this reason it was maintained even when New Labour implemented market based reforms in England.

The SNP administrations since 2007 have continued this approach. In 2009, they made it unlawful for health boards to contract with private companies for GP services.

Not everything is perfect. One area of private sector involvement common to both administrations has been the use of expensive PFI schemes. Even if this is driven more by financial considerations than ideology. Scottish health ministers have always used PFI reluctantly but the application of the block grant and no devolved borrowing powers led to PFI being ‘the only game in town’ approach that remains to this day.

Politicians in Scotland will therefore take comfort from the latest survey that the political consensus against the marketisation of health services has broad support amongst people living in Scotland.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/dave-watson/scots-nhs-satisfaction-soars-as-englands-falls

As pointed out above, one of the reasons why NHS expenditure is lower in Scotland includes the fact that the Scottish government's been much more reluctant to take on the PFI and PPP liabilities that are ballooning the budget in rUK. It's just managed to build and open a massive new state-of-the-art hospital in south Glasgow, bringing the project to fruition within budget and without the use of PFI:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7360345.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-32450836

As for the Weight Watchers thing, are you really holding that up as a damning example of "private contracts" compared to what's happening in rUK? It looks more like avoiding reinventing the wheel, and ties in with the Scottish government's drive to integrate social care and health care.

The only people who seem to have forgotten that the NHS is a devolved matter in Scotland have been the SNP's rivals, who campaigned in the recent Westminster elections on the issue, which left a lot of us scratching our heads when we recieved their election literature.

There's no doubt that the SNP could be more left-wing, and that's likely to develop under Sturgeon, not least because of the massive influx of ex-Labour supporters, who've added to the party's 115,000-plus membership.