Yesterday we learnt that David Cameron and Ruth Davidson believe that the No vote in the Scottish referendum is likely to bolster the Conservative party vote share in Scotland. Oh, how short their memories are. They seem to have forgotten that they formed a tri-partite alliance with Labour and the Lib-Dems to get the No vote, and both of those parties have far more supporters in Scotland than the Tories. I can't see that that has changed.
Well, actually I think that support for Labour and Lib-Dems in Scotland has changed, and not in their favour. The Lib-Dems have done themselves no favours by forming a coalition with the Tories as part of the current government, and around 40% of Labour supporters voted Yes in the referendum, many of whom having now moved on to join other parties in Scotland. The General Election in May is going to prove quite interesting. While I like to imagine a scenario where pandas > Labour MPs > Tory MPs in Scotland, reality is likely to be a reduced numbers of Labour and Lib-Dem MPs, but still outnumbering the pandas. I'm not sure David Mundell can expect any new friends to accompany him to Westminster though.
In other news Theresa May is proposing wide-ranging powers to prevent 'extremism'. This would include bans on appearances in the media and on Internet access to those deemed to “spread or incite hatred” on grounds of gender, race or religion or who take part in “harmful activities” for the “purpose of
overthrowing democracy”. Those criteria are remarkably vague and woolly. For example, would those of us in the Yes movement fall under the definition of having the purpose of overthrowing democracy? Looks like it would depend on the opinion of politicians, and we know how neutral and unbiased they are.
As for banning Internet access, that would be like trying to herd cats. How would they prevent someone from having access to a smart phone or a tablet? 24-hour surveillance? If they were banned from owning such items, what's to prevent them borrowing one? And having got onto the Internet, are they really going to post openly about their intentions? They could use the idea from the TV show 'Luther', where they write the dullest blog imaginable and the discussion goes on in code in the comments.
This seems to me to be gesture politics, and as with all such, it doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. However, I would not be surprised to see some attempt to implement this if the Tories are re-elected in May.
Interesting times ahead politically. Saddens me we aren't engaging now with politics to make Scotland a better place, but for now I will content myself with seeing Labour turned into Scotlands second toxic party. The difference between them and Tory is unmeasurable so it shouldn't be hard. Lastly tri party was kinda underselling the Better together campaign which Ruthy thinks her party have done well from, she was also standing shoulder to shoulder with UKIP, BNP, Orange Order, Britain First, she should be proud to be listed amongst what could only be described as Rightwing facist scum.
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