[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Changing the boundaries to make them more fair is worth 30-40 seats to the Tories I believe.

Isn't "changing the boundaries" a euphemism for "gerrymandering"?

[Ann Drysdale]

Nigel, (re post #13) never dare a fool.

[Nigel Mace]

Woo-hoo, Ann!
Having said which, we are about to entertain for the evening - but I promise to return to the fray tomorrow. Meanwhile - and no doubt more doughtily - let us hope that our fellow prose posters to this thread will seize the moment and weigh in.
Brian, if you can tear yourself away from Sunday's still headier Gallic excitements...? John, will you lift a lance...? Aaron, a note from outside...? Jerome, a hopeful line...?

[David Anthony]

It seems that the popularity of the Scottish Nationalist Party peaked shortly before the Scottish independence referendum. In the subsequent Scottish parliamentary elections they failed to win a majority. I believe the early general election will be bad news for the SNP because the Scottish Conservative Party and unionism are resurgent. Sorry, Nigel.

[John Whitworth]

No, Brian, it is not. It is the opposite. It is making things more fair, more equal. As in Oz.

How can it be fair that an idle Glaswegians vote is worth two form the industrious south?

[Roger Slater]

It's not fair, in my opinion. The same way it wasn't fair that Trump won the election even though Clinton had three million more votes than he did, and it wasn't fair that individual voters in some states had literally triple the voting power as voters in states like New York (where I live). It was legal, however, which is what Trump voters answer when this is pointed out. Yes, legal. But not fair.

[David Anthony]

I think Trump's campaign was more tactical than Clinton's.

[Nigel Mace]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

It seems that the popularity of the Scottish Nationalist Party peaked shortly before the Scottish independence referendum. In the subsequent Scottish parliamentary elections they failed to win a majority. I believe the early general election will be bad news for the SNP because the Scottish Conservative Party and unionism are resurgent. Sorry, Nigel.

Ah.... David, what you seem to see and believe are the stuff that Tory dreams are made on. The facts are actually these.

Just before the independence referendum in 2014, the SNP had six MPs out of 59. By May 2015 it had 56 out of 59. The only party ever to win a majority in the Holyrood elections was the SNP in 2011. In 2016 the SNP achieved the highest proportion of the popular vote that any party has ever done and an overwhelming majority of 59 of the 73 ''constituency members" - also the highest such percentage ever. The combined pro-independence parties, SNP and Greens, also secured a handsome majority in the Holyrood parliament and the SNP was returned to government for the third successive time - a feat unequalled by any other party.

As to Scottish Conservatives being "resurgent", I don't know where you get your news from, but I'd change your source(s?) immediately.

Again the facts are as follows. The Scottish Conservatives (who llike Scottish Labour are merely a sub-office of the UK party) have seemed to 'rise' because of the collapse of Labour, from 15 Holyrood seats to 31, but their percentage performance is actually lower in UK General Elections than at any time since records began in 1832, a mere 14.9% of the vote - even the hated Mrs Thatcher did better at her worst, with 24% three decades ago in 1987. In Holyrood's 2016 election they only managed 22% against the SNP's 46.9%.

This right-wing, 'coup-type' election called by May with the pathetic connivance of the Labour Party is yet another chance for Scotland to show that we are a totally different polity and that our democratic right to self-determination must be respected. The overwhelming mandate that there already is for a new independence referendum will merely be reinforced. Personally - and I suspect that the party will not do this - I would turn the election into a clear 'independence election', for the SNP would win with a substantial majority and even by Mrs Thatcher's test the way would then be clear for the negotiation of our establishment as an independent state. That outcome is, however, now only a matter of time, for the issue in Scottish politics is independence, combined with establishing our place in Europe.

The Tories are attempting to corall all the 'unionist' votes and are welcoming to their ranks, even as candidates in the local elections, people from whom earlier Tory leaders would have kept a very clear distance They will no doubt garner some more 'orange' votes (still a diminishing 'tribe' of rather unsavoury social attitudes) and will be hoping to prize from the rubble of Labour's support some of the footballing unionist persuasion. Good luck with making that combination appeal to more than the crazy and disreputable fringes. For the rest, they remain mired in their xenophobic, Brit-nat 'nasty party' image as the oppressors of the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled and, increasingly, women. Their toxic attitudes to refugees are actively loathed, their leader's defence of the 'rape clause' has shocked the public and their enthusiasm for vast investments in England accompanied by constantly rubbishing their own country are increasingly despised even, as my own campaigning experience attests, in places and among people who might be expected to be their traditional supporters.

Plus, the SNP government's performance in such key areas as health, education and housing enjoys a huge amount of public confidence and with good statistical reason. The SNP keep getting elected because they provide good, fair and respected government - not perfect, of course, but way the best we've had in decades and decades of past mismanagement, neglect and hostile exploitation. The rise of the wider YES movement has this broad base of fairness, respect and confidence on which it has been able to build - and against this the Tories have nothing to offer but prejudice, greed for the few and isolationist xenophobia. They are going nowhere - except to losing yet again.

[Nigel Mace]

This is a separate post in order to deal with a totally separate point.

The Tories' new-found obsession with 'fair' constituency boundaries should fool nobody.
The reasons for odd and numerically non-standard constituency sizes is entirely the product of their own (shared by Labour) attachment to the supposed 'virtues' of MPs as representing particular 'real' communities/places - a concept which, however, they have always been willing to ditch in joint negotiations to 'create' marginals intended to damage third parties, my own constituency being a classic case in point.
IF the basis for First Past The Post (FPTP) is real constituency representation, then all sorts of oddly sized constituencies become an inevitable consequence. To spatchcock that into a system of 'fair and even' sized units on the basis that all votes should have equal value is a dishonest nonsense.
IF, on the other hand, the 'votes of equal value' argument was taken seriously there would have to be a proportional voting system of some kind, for FPTP is well-known to provide the exact opposite of all votes having equal value - most votes have no value at all in a FPTP system.
The Tories' 'reform' is actually a cynical and utterly dishonest jerrymander - and if people, not of my party's persuasion, would like to contemplate how unfair it is, just consider what the make-up of the Holyrood parliament would be if run on FPTP - almost certainly a ludicrous SNP 115 seats, Tories 7, Labour 3, LibDems 4 and Greens 0, instead of the current reality in a semi-proportional system of SNP 63, Greens 6, Tories 31, Labour 24 and LibDems 5 and Independent 1.

Ironically, the Holyrood system - 73 FPTP constituency members and 56 regional list members elected on a d'Hont system - was intended as a jerrymander that would ensure that no one party (and the intended, though carefully unspoken, target was the SNP) would ever get an overall majority. (This makes the SNP's 2011 majority all the more spectacular.) However, despite the system's grubby origins, it has proved to be a remarkably good one - not perfect of course - for encouraging voters to vote only for what they really want, as the system cannot be 'gamed' by manipulations of 'tactical voting' etc. It manages to combine two measures of local responsibility/connection (constituency members and a regional base for list members) with a degree of proportionality. The SNP has always supported proportional voting and in the light of experience over almost two decades is now re-examining its views as to which systems - STV/d'Hont/mixed - it should now press for in an independent Scotland. Personally - and for its encouragement of only positive voting - I will hope to see the Holyrood system, or some adaptation of it, become the democratic standard in our independent nation.

[Jim Moonan]

My overriding thought has always been: what is it about the evolution of our species towards globalization that is so repulsive to some? It's our only hope for world peace, I think.
Fix it, don't nix it.