General Election 2015 - Thoughts/Predictions/Results

[Greenback]

But trying to justify that action through deceit, downright lies and spin? Surely the invasion of Iraq should have stood on it's own merits.

Quite. I was against the second Iraq War. I didn't believe the stuff the government (or parts of the government as some members had the good grace to resign) were coming out with.

If a future government decided not to involve this country in military action, then they we all have to live with the consequences, just as we do with Iraq.

I know a lot of people think that the end justifies the means (not aimed at you!), but people are a little more politically savvy these days, plus they have access to facts and information via the internet which weren't previously available (or would have only been revealed 40 years later!)

I think that there is greater cynicism about politicians and what they say these days compared to a decade ago, and I think Iraq has contributed to that.

I remember arguing against getting involved in Iraq at the time with members of my own family. Their trust in the establishment was sad, and I hope that they have learned a lesson from it.

 

[Oswyntail]

...
In terms of history being a tutor: What examples are you thinking of? Offhand I can't think of any recent pre-Iraq cases in which we successfully invaded a country, occupied it, and the result was chaos....

I was thinking more of the effects of removing apparently "evil" absolutist regimes without thinking of what to do in the ensuing vacuum. And, being me, I was immediately thinking of the Late republican era of Rome:roll:, though later examples come to mind (Bourbon France, Germany after 1918. Rhodesia, even Kenya).

 

[Tetchytyke]

You just don't get it do you ? the mp's who voted for war did so on the contents of a dossier which was lies.

Did they? Have you asked them all? And they would say that, wouldn't they? They were free to disregard the dossier if they didn't agree with it- plenty did.

But the international law defends their right to self determination.

Define "self determination". Regardless of whether he had WMD or not, Hussein was undoubtedly a despotic dictator who undertook many war crimes against his people. Just ask the Kurds how they felt when he gassed them.

Actually, at the time many did predict precisely that (History is a fair tutor in such respects) and asked loudly what plan was in place for after Saddam was removed. No answer was given, and it emerged that there was, in fact, no plan other than to install democracy. To my mind this was a less forgiveable set of decisions even than going to war, and does reflect terribly on Blair and his advisers, including Campbell.

Indeed.

Most sensible observers knew that Iraq was only being held together with an iron fist, and that when that was removed there would be a vacuum that others would try to fill through force. And so it happened.

If we're being charitable, expecting the Sunnis and Shia to play nicely together was extremely naive.

I was against the Iraq War then and I'm against the Iraq War now, but I'm tired of hearing the right-wing (and it is always the right-wingers) schtick about how Blair is a "war criminal" for Iraq. He's not, no more than Thatcher or Major were for their wars* (the circumstances weren't that much different, despite the spin) and certainly no more than David Cameron, who wanted to impose regime change in Syria through violence. We can disagree with him, and disagree with the war, without the hyperbole.

(* No, I don't think they are war criminals either)

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I was thinking more of the effects of removing apparently "evil" absolutist regimes without thinking of what to do in the ensuing vacuum.

I wouldn't have minded, but we had the perfect example of what would happen not ten years earlier.

What happened in Yugoslavia after Tito died was pretty much the blueprint for what happened in Iraq.

 

[table38]

Define "self determination"

A cardinal principle in modern international law, binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter’s norms. It states that nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or interference.

Regardless of whether he had WMD or not, Hussein was undoubtedly a despotic dictator who undertook many war crimes against his people. Just ask the Kurds how they felt when he gassed them.

What, in 1988? Why didn't we do something then?

But that wasn't the justification for intervention in 2003 (despite certain people desperately trying to rewrite history), because, as above, that would have been illegal under international law. There are many far worse than Hussein, yet we do nothing.

Or maybe we should invade the USA, who gave Hussein the chemical weapons in the first place.

And perhaps we should ask the families and friends of the estimated tens of thousands of casualties of the war in Iraq how they feel about a war based on a lie.

We can disagree with him, and disagree with the war, without the hyperbole

Did they? Have you asked them all? And they would say that, wouldn't they?

Lovely irony!

 

[Tetchytyke]

Where's the irony? If you're going to claim MPs only voted yes to war because of a "dodgy dossier" then some evidence to back that up might be nice.

 

[table38]

Where's the irony?

It just amused me that you were suggesting "We can disagree with him, and disagree with the war, without the hyperbole" whilst employing it yourself.

If you're going to claim MPs only voted yes to war because of a "dodgy dossier" then some evidence to back that up might be nice.

Not unreasonably, they voted on the information that the were given by the Joint Intelligence Committee. What other information did they have at the time of the vote?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Where was the hyperbole? You can't just guess why someone votes yes to something.

Plenty of MPs decided to vote no to war, both with Iraq and with Syria, despite the JNIC reports. The MPs who voted yes had the same opportunity, and part of their role should have been to scrutinise the report rather than taking it at face value. It may be convenient for them to claim they were duped by a Labour PM- especially if they're of a Conservative disposition- but they had a free choice.

 

[table38]

Where was the hyperbole?

See post 214

You can't just guess why someone votes yes to something.

Plenty of MPs decided to vote no to war, both with Iraq and with Syria, despite the JNIC reports. The MPs who voted yes had the same opportunity, and part of their role should have been to scrutinise the report rather than taking it at face value. It may be convenient for them to claim they were duped by a Labour PM- especially if they're of a Conservative disposition- but they had a free choice.

No, but I can make an educated guess. Again, what other information did they have at the time of the vote?

Easy enough to say with hindsight that they shouldn't have taken a Joint report at face value, but at the time they had no reason to believe Blair and Campbell had exaggerated it. That was all revealed much later, by which time it was too late.

 

[Tetchytyke]

MPs are employed to scrutinise the executive. They shouldn't take anything at face value.

I'm still not seeing any hyperbole. Asserting "they all voted yes because of the report" requires some evidence, especially as all MPs saw the report and some of them voted no. Did you (or johngill) ask them all?

 

[table38]

MPs are employed to scrutinise the executive. They shouldn't take anything at face value.

MPs can't be experts in everything. They rely on advice.

Fortunately I doubt they will make that mistake again, thanks to Blair and Campbell crying wolf.

I'm still not seeing any hyperbole. Asserting "they all voted yes because of the report" requires some evidence, especially as all MPs saw the report and some of them voted no. Did you (or johngill) ask them all?

More delicious irony!

Yes, we did ask them all. johngill asked half of them, and I asked the other half.

 

[rdeez]

I would vote for a SNP copycat if there was one. The Yorkshire and Humber region needs devolution on a par with London or Scotland. If Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and London all have devolved assemblies it's only fair all the other regions get one too.

But that isn't comparing like for like. Except for London those are countries. London is the capital and largest city. Yorkshire and Humber is none of the above. I'm all for local decision making but in terms of 'fairness' that's not really a fair comparison!

 

[St Rollox]

But that isn't comparing like for like. Except for London those are countries. London is the capital and largest city. Yorkshire and Humber is none of the above. I'm all for local decision making but in terms of 'fairness' that's not really a fair comparison!

Didn't the North East have a vote on very limited devolution.
Sure something like 10% of voters bothered turning up to vote.
And they voted No.
What is really needed is an English Parliament.
Cost of which would be nothing since Westminster is already there.
English votes for English and all that.

 

[muddythefish]

The North East vote was sold badly to the public. If a similar vote were held today, I think the outcome would be very different.

 

[St Rollox]

The North East vote was sold badly to the public. If a similar vote were held today, I think the outcome would be very different.

It looked at time like a smokescreen to cover New Labour's tracks on Scottish and Welsh devolution.
Now Labour is facing meltdown in Scotland with one major city (Glasgow) voting to leave the UK.
Doubt Labour can ever live that down.
All very embarrassing.
That will be mentioned a 100 years on from now even if Scotland never becomes independent.
It would make a good quiz question.
"Which British city in a referendum voted to leave the UK"

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Didn't the North East have a vote on very limited devolution.
Sure something like 10% of voters bothered turning up to vote.
And they voted No.
What is really needed is an English Parliament.
Cost of which would be nothing since Westminster is already there.
English votes for English and all that.

I have to detest the "English Parliament" stuff.
The Tories have said it's unfair having Scottish MPs doing virtually any work.
Yet this will have the same problem.
Why should a London MP be able to vote on my transport planning when I can't vote on London transport stuff???

The only fair system is equal devolution.
This is done in Germany, USA and most countries with high level devolution have the whole nation covered (sometimes except the capital) England is run in an umfair way compared.

Just because Scotland's a country doesn't make it's people more deserving of Devolution than Yorkshire and the Humber!

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

It looked at time like a smokescreen to cover New Labour's tracks on Scottish and Welsh devolution.
Now Labour is facing meltdown in Scotland with one major city (Glasgow) voting to leave the UK.
Doubt Labour can ever live that down.
All very embarrassing.
That will be mentioned a 100 years on from now even if Scotland never becomes independent.
It would make a good quiz question.
"Which British city in a referendum voted to leave the UK"

Which one?! Dundee and Glasgow voted for independence.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I have to detest the "English Parliament" stuff.
The Tories have said it's unfair having Scottish MPs doing virtually any work.
Yet this will have the same problem.
Why should a London MP be able to vote on my transport planning when I can't vote on London transport stuff???

The only fair system is equal devolution.
This is done in Germany, USA and most countries with high level devolution have the whole nation covered (sometimes except the capital) England is run in an umfair way compared.

Just because Scotland's a country doesn't make it's people more deserving of Devolution than Yorkshire and the Humber!

Where is the line drawn though? For example, using Yorkshire and the Humber as a boundary, why should a representative for Whitby have a say in matters affecting transport provision in Grimsby (or vice versa), when ones from, say, Lincoln or Louth have none, when the latter two are astronomically more likely to be impacted by it?

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Where is the line drawn though? For example, using Yorkshire and the Humber as a boundary, why should a representative for Whitby have a say in matters affecting transport provision in Grimsby (or vice versa), when ones from, say, Lincoln or Louth have none, when the latter two are astronomically more likely to be impacted by it?

Because Grimsby MP will have a say in Whitby.
What I'm suggesting is simple All regions on an equal footing.
I wouldn't mind a Whitby person moaning about Grimsby transport provission as they may be funding it.
And with the Lincolnshire towns, yes, they would have to have cross border funding. But that's no different to now.
What I'm suggesting is fairer and better than the present.

The line can be drawn at lower levels, but regional assembleys have been shown to work best around the world. It needs to cover a large area to lobby the government successfully.

 

[St Rollox]

The only problem with devolution is that in two of three cases there's a large group of voters who at some point might decide to say goodnight and goodbye to the UK which obviously upsets a lot of people.
At that point anything can happen as seen when places in eastern Europe break up.
Personally i think Labour made a mistake with devolution in both Scotland's and in Northern Ireland's case.
Westminster is now left in a holding operation for decades to come.
And we now have Westminster promising more power for Scotland.
Even i can figure out where that's leading to.
Still as a YES voter bring it on, as they say.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

The only problem with devolution is that in two of three cases there's a large group of voters who at some point might decide to say goodnight and goodbye to the UK which obviously upsets a lot of people.
At that point anything can happen as seen when places in eastern Europe break up.
Personally i think Labour made a mistake with devolution in both Scotland's and in Northern Ireland's case.
Westminster is now left in a holding operation for decades to come.
And we now have Westminster promising more power for Scotland.
Even i can figure out where that's leading to.
Still as a YES voter bring it on, as they say.

Surely if people vote to leave the UK it should be respected.
You must admit both Scotland and Northern Ireland have improved since.
The Yugoslav crisis happened as people were grouped up with a more aggressive group in control of the larger nationality. If devo max or independence happened first it would have been okay.

 

[St Rollox]

As a YES voter there's part of me that wishes the referendum never happened for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I didn't think it could be won without at least half the Labour MPs supporting it.
Secondly, it gave rise to certain sinister forces on the unionist Right at Scottish and UK levels.
On the Internet it can be ignored at street level it becomes more problematic.
You can see the stages of conflict around the planet.


I didn't expect the aftermath of the referendum being the possible death of the Labour Party in Scotland or the SNP having a 100000 members.
That is a surprise even to me.

Still events have happened and the story moves forward to May 2015.

One last thing, i predict there will never be another Scottish referendum.

 

[Johnuk123]

i predict there never be another Scottish referendum.

I think there will be one within 5 years.

 

[Morden Via CHX]

I think there will be one within 5 years.

You can get 4/1 on that with William Hill

 

[St Rollox]

Personally i'd rather see an election used (majority of MPs or MSPs) than a long drawn out referendum.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The North East vote was sold badly to the public. If a similar vote were held today, I think the outcome would be very different.

I'm not convinced.

The 'no' campaign was very negative, focussing on how we have "too many politicians" and how the assembly would be "very expensive". It was very cynical, focussing on the distrust people have of MPs. Most people lapped it up and it was overwhelmingly no.

I think the people who voted no were idiots then- we still got an assembly, just an unelected one- but I think they'd still be idiots now. Look at people voting against electoral reform because they didn't like Nick Clegg.

 

[Senex]

I'm not convinced.

The 'no' campaign was very negative, focussing on how we have "too many politicians" and how the assembly would be "very expensive". It was very cynical, focussing on the distrust people have of MPs. Most people lapped it up and it was overwhelmingly no.

I think the people who voted no were idiots then- we still got an assembly, just an unelected one- but I think they'd still be idiots now. Look at people voting against electoral reform because they didn't like Nick Clegg.

I agree with you about the negativity of the No campaign, but the proposal itself was a pretty unsatisfactory one, involving half-hearted and rather undemocratic devolution.

As for the electoral reform vote, you may well be right about Nick Clegg, but there was also the point that what was put before us was not a very satisfactory proposal. I wonder how many more of us might have voted Yes if we had been offered the single transferable vote, multi-member constituencies, etc.

The professional politicians (i.e. the party elites, the people who now think they are born to govern us) offer us as little as they think they can get away with. Do we do better to accept their miserable offers and then press for more, or to turn down suggestions that are basically unacceptable to us?

(The only people who do not seem to get miserable offers are the Scots, for whose benefit it seems that all English interests can happily be sacrificed.)

 

[Tetchytyke]

The professional politicians (i.e. the party elites, the people who now think they are born to govern us) offer us as little as they think they can get away with. Do we do better to accept their miserable offers and then press for more, or to turn down suggestions that are basically unacceptable to us?

The way to get reform is step-by-step. Anyone with half a brain could see that voting against AV would be taken as meaning that there is no appetite for electoral reform at all.

AV was a very poor offering, but it was still better than FPTP and also would have showed politicians that people want change.

(The only people who do not seem to get miserable offers are the Scots, for whose benefit it seems that all English interests can happily be sacrificed.)

Scotland get nothing that we shouldn't get, they just have an administration who are relevatively socially progressive rather than a load of sociopaths from Eton. I find it interesting how the Tories try and show that the Scots are "stealing" from the rest of us, rather than work out how they manage to afford things that we "can't afford".

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Talking of referendums.

When the Alternative Vote was proposed it was rejected.
Yet when everyone voted for John Prescot as Humberside Crime commissioner all the right wing votes were counted again and again until he lost.

Why was the Alternative Vote forced on us anyway?

 

[Senex]

Scotland get nothing that we shouldn't get, they just have an administration who are relevatively socially progressive rather than a load of sociopaths from Eton. I find it interesting how the Tories try and show that the Scots are "stealing" from the rest of us, rather than work out how they manage to afford things that we "can't afford".

I find the dynastic Labour families and their MPs who have never done anything in the world outside politics but still think they are entitled to rule over us every bit as bad as the Toty "load of sociopaths from Eton".

You're absolutely right that the Sots manage some things better than Westminster does (I can't say "than the English do" as there is no English parliament), but I think the "stealing" is still there under the Barnett formula (which Barnett himself said had passed its sell-by date) and the offers now being made by the appalling anti-English Brown and the new man Murphy.

 

[Oswyntail]

.....AV was a very poor offering, but it was still better than FPTP .....

There is something to be said for and against all voting systems in about equal measure. Because changes to them are addressing the wrong problem. We are choosing a representative, and people get angry because the representative they choose then makes no attempt to represent the constituency, rather than the people who voted for her. So we "demand" more representatives, or a different way of selecting them, until we find one that agrees with us - but not everyone else. (The only genuinely democratic solution is direct voting - which is quite feasible in this day and age.) But all this is shuffling deckchairs until we reform the way our representatives view their job. He is not a "Labour MP", she is not a "Green MP" - they are both the representatives of their constituencies, and should be free to "rebel" against their party line whenever their constituency requires it.