A brief history of the Glenrothes By-Election

[andrewducker]

Alex Salmond: Scotland should be independent, like Iceland and Ireland - our financial industries will make us a fortune, and Oil is very expensive, so we'll all roll around in cash!
Ireland: *Banking Fail*
Iceland: *Epic Banking Fail*
Bank of England: *Bails out the Scottish banks, with more money than Scotland has*
Oil: *plummets in price*
Salmond: *I blame Gordon Brown!*
People: *Vote Labour*

No, I'm not entirely serious.
Note for those people living outside of Scotland- Alex Salmond is the leader of the SNP, who are the current government of Scotland.  Which is part of Britain, which is run from London.  Ireland is the country to the West of us, Iceland is somewhat North.
Note for those people living in the US - you should probably have skipped all of that, as it happened outside of your country, while you were Having An Election, and thus is Not Important.

Comments

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

If they were going to becoem fully independent they should have done it before the North Sea oil fields started to run down. Without oil I rather think the union is beneficial to the Scottish. Where does Iceland get its military protection from? who bails out icelandic banks? It either falls back onto London or the IMF, either way the benefits have conditions attached. Take your pick Scotland!

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Where does Iceland get its military protection from?

NATO.

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

Indeed, that was my point. Being able to make your own laws is all very nice but if you don't have an independent military and banking system then you're going to get leaned on by these external powers, greatly diminishing the point IMO.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Oh. In that case I think your point is stupid.

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

Unless you have a counter argument I stand by my original points. Let me put it this way - there's a dude in London with his finger on THE button and at present the Scottish people have a say in who that dude is. Declare indepence and you're still reliant on that dude but don't have any say in who he or she is.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that Scotland has its own regiment (which has been cut down dramatically admitadly) and traditional recruiting grounds. It's also worth noting that if any of the powers capable of doing so attempted to strike at the UK then it's highly likely the UK would need NATO's support anyway...

RE:North Sea Oil. The leader of the SNP, yon Alex Salmond designed the very thing that tells the Banks and financial types in this country what the oil price is going to be. He knows a bit about it and the economics of the situation. Besides which Scotland has the UK's biggest export industry (in terms of worth) - Whisky.

Oh and projections for the amount of North Sea oil always indicate its "about to run out" sometimes for reasons less then honest...

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

It's also worth noting that if any of the powers capable of doing so attempted to strike at the UK then it's highly likely the UK would need NATO's support anyway...

We'd need their support but not their permission - we could make a significant dent in most aggresors without outside help.

Alex Salmond designed the very thing that tells the Banks and financial types in this country what the oil price is going to be.

Not sure what you're refering to here. The price is determined by the market - and to some extent the OPEC cartel and government subsidies (price distortions) around the world.

Oh and projections for the amount of North Sea oil always indicate its "about to run out" sometimes for reasons less then honest...

Production is falling, fact. And despite the stimulus of a 10x rise in price until the recent retreat. Also it's widely acknowledged that oil reserves around the world are over stated due to distortion from OPEC production quotas and creative accouting to push up share prices.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

We'd need their support but not their permission - we could make a significant dent in most aggresors without outside help.

Anyone with the resources to undertake an attack against Britain would be doing so from a position of strength. Ergo it's more then safe to assume they would outnumber or outgun our armed forces in some significant way. Thus it's also fairly safe to assume if any world power capable of invading Britain attacked Britain (as in the British isles) we would require NATO or UN assistance.

Not sure what you're refering to here.

He devised the Royal Bank / BBC Oil Index.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Note for those people living in the US - you should probably have skipped all of that, as it happened outside of your country, while you were Having An Election, and thus is Not Important.

Generous of you to include the 'while you were Having An Election' clause - not everyone would have. :)

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

A rather glib assesment.

Also rather ignoring the recent forecasts that the UK's recession will, in all likelyhood, be one of (if not the worst) in the developed world. (Irelands will be relatively mild by comparison and Icelands PM still reckons Iceland could avoid a recession (although thats probably hot air)).

The election, despite the media froth (no doubt resulting from an attempt to make a bi-election in Fife more interesting in Presidential election week) the SNP were not incumbents (to suggest otherwise suggests that the people of Glenrothes were reasonbaly ignorant) they were the favourites, but when you consider why it's easy to see that there was only one single SNP election win to extrapolate the result to - Glasgow East. (Which was probably just to give Brown a bloody nose and we will lose it soon enough again).

Also despite the medias "a tale of two governments" take the issue that dominated the campaign was that of the SNP led council, led by the SNP's candidate, had increased the charge for home-care to the elderly. Which he was taken to task for whilst on the campign trail in his capacity as council leader.

In short I doubt the SNP would ever have won this one (and it's an opinion shared by many grassroots supporters of the party - we did find the "overconfidence" of our own leadership a bit galling. When Big Eck starts to believe his own propoganda he's in trouble granterd - which is a shame but Angus Robertson is a waiting in the wings (one would hope).

All this is much of a muchness as objectively the SNP vote went up, Labours majority was lost and everyone treating it as an SNP loss seems to be ignoring the fact this is a labour safe seat and has been for quite some time...