UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[afleitch]

As much as it pains me one half of the discourse is extremely litigious so it's best not to directly state a view on any private organisation, person or charity having any responsibility for anything.

[Torrain]

Sturgeon is resigning.

Knew it was coming (mood music has been that way for a while), but thought she still had another 6-18 months in her before she stood back. Not sure we exactly have an heir apparent, so is going to be a rather interesting contest.

I assume Angus Roberson has the inside track. Can’t imagine Kate Forbes can turn the party without having to walk the same tightrope Tim Farron became exhausted by, and John Swinney has a bad track record in elections/cabinet/media appearances/etc. Not sure Humza Yousef has the stature yet - although I’m sure he’ll get promoted in the inevitable reshuffle.

[Blair]

Well there goes any coverage of Corbyn!

There was an interesting article in the Sundays re sturgeons successor Kate Forbes

[Coldstream]

This day keeps getting better and better.

[Blair]

It must be said she was one of the most successful and skilled politicians we’ve seen over the past 20 years; she was aided ofc by outside factors but it’s really only been in the last 12 months when the wheels have came off and her operation has looked shabby.

[TheTide]

It must be said she was one of the most successful and skilled politicians we’ve seen over the past 20 years; she was aided ofc by outside factors but it’s really only been in the last 12 months when the wheels have came off and her operation has looked shabby.

I'd say Salmond (a now-disgraced figure o/c) was more skilled at his height, but yes there isn't anyone presently in the SNP who can match her. The Central Belt suddenly looks more vulnerable.

[afleitch]

Yes.

She is a giant in UK politics. It's that simple and it's that fact that has irked so many others she has outlasted.

Truthfully, she was done a few years ago. I don't think she expected the good result at Holyrood in 2021, months after 'Salmondgate' and otherwise would have went. Despite taking a hit in personal ratings, she still easily outpaces everyone else. She's just acquired a core of opponents who really dislike her.

[CumbrianLefty]

Forbes would maybe be the best successor, *but* for the "social conservatism" elephant in the room - and that alone may be enough to in reality sink her chances.

[afleitch]

Forbes would maybe be the best successor, *but* for the "social conservatism" elephant in the room - and that alone may be enough to in reality sink her chances.

Possibly. But she is fairly pragmatic about them. But being a 'Wee Free' is a bigger liability than social conservatism stemming from it.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

[Torrain]

[oldtimer]

That the SNP is on the rocks everytime Labour are on the upside is to be expected.

The SNP has 3 legs: the Highland Liberals, the N.E. Tories and the Central Belt Socialists.
You remove 2 out 3 and they implode.

But Sturgeon resigning without having a clear successor was a bit surprising, it might indicate the SNP's problems are bigger and getting more serious.

One just doesn't resign like that if they haven't seen a cliff right ahead.

[oldtimer]

Also to add the smell of scandal to Sturgeon's abrupt resignation:
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1625843103092408320

[CumbrianLefty]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

[afleitch]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

[oldtimer]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

They didn't exactly rebound much when they shifted much further left under corbyn.

[Cassius]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

They didn't exactly rebound much when they shifted much further left under corbyn.

Yes, in 2019 Labour performed significantly worse in the Scottish popular vote than they did in 2015. Their modest dead cat bounce seats wise in 2017 can mostly be attributed to the plunge in the SNP vote (the SNP ran explicitly on the unpopular promise of a second referendum and suffered accordingly) and some degree of unionist tactical voting. I am somewhat sceptical of the argument that Labour has fallen back in Scotland due to being insufficiently left-wing. Whilst it certainly has been handy for the SNP to have a succession of Conservative governments in Westminster against which they can pose as a ‘progressive’ alternative, it seems to be far more the case that SLab’s problems derive principally from being seen as insufficiently Scottish as opposed to insufficiently progressive.

[Oryxslayer]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

They didn't exactly rebound much when they shifted much further left under corbyn.

Yes, in 2019 Labour performed significantly worse in the Scottish popular vote than they did in 2015. Their modest dead cat bounce seats wise in 2017 can mostly be attributed to the plunge in the SNP vote (the SNP ran explicitly on the unpopular promise of a second referendum and suffered accordingly) and some degree of unionist tactical voting. I am somewhat sceptical of the argument that Labour has fallen back in Scotland due to being insufficiently left-wing. Whilst it certainly has been handy for the SNP to have a succession of Conservative governments in Westminster against which they can pose as a ‘progressive’ alternative, it seems to be far more the case that SLab’s problems derive principally from being seen as insufficiently Scottish as opposed to insufficiently progressive.

Don't forget all the structural, systematic, and internal failures within Scottish Labour that allowed the SNP to win power 15 years ago, and then subsequently coopt many of Labours political machines, leaving the party in an identity and organizational crisis until a few years ago.

I have always perceived these problems to have stemmed not from any ideology or personage whatsoever, rather they emerged because Labour insiders, in their hubris, assumed Scotland to be 'theirs' and electorally safe, and nobody else could or would seriously challenge them. So the politics of safe seats and internal machines played out until the voters had enough, and voted for change. And the plurality of voters quite liked what followed from that change, and so proceeded to realign Scottish politics in their image.

[bore]

There's a potentially serious corruption case about SNP donations (which given her husband lent the party over a hundred grand might implicate her personally) rumbling away which might be a contributing factor, but I think we have to take her stated motivations for this seriously.

She's been at the top for nearly a decade, including the particularly stressful covid years, and has been the subject of an enormous amount of quite personal abuse. With the intransigent tory majority in westminster looking likely to be replaced by a similarly intransigent labour an independence referendum is at least a decade away, so its not really any wonder that she's decided not to stick around any longer.

[Cassius]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

They didn't exactly rebound much when they shifted much further left under corbyn.

Yes, in 2019 Labour performed significantly worse in the Scottish popular vote than they did in 2015. Their modest dead cat bounce seats wise in 2017 can mostly be attributed to the plunge in the SNP vote (the SNP ran explicitly on the unpopular promise of a second referendum and suffered accordingly) and some degree of unionist tactical voting. I am somewhat sceptical of the argument that Labour has fallen back in Scotland due to being insufficiently left-wing. Whilst it certainly has been handy for the SNP to have a succession of Conservative governments in Westminster against which they can pose as a ‘progressive’ alternative, it seems to be far more the case that SLab’s problems derive principally from being seen as insufficiently Scottish as opposed to insufficiently progressive.

Don't forget all the structural, systematic, and internal failures within Scottish Labour that allowed the SNP to win power 15 years ago, and then subsequently coopt many of Labours political machines, leaving the party in an identity and organizational crisis until a few years ago.

I have always perceived these problems to have stemmed not from any ideology or personage whatsoever, rather they emerged because Labour insiders, in their hubris, assumed Scotland to be 'theirs' and electorally safe, and nobody else could or would seriously challenge them. So the politics of safe seats and internal machines played out until the voters had enough, and voted for change. And the plurality of voters quite liked what followed from that change, and so proceeded to realign Scottish politics in their image.

Of course, absolutely right and this tallies very much with what I’ve read on the subject. Still it’s interesting to note that Labour actually increased its Scottish vote share in 2010, when it was led by a Scottish leader who was rather popular in Scotland even as he was deeply unpopular everywhere else, and only really began to go down the tubes once that leader was replaced by an English one who was just unpopular everywhere full stop. Probably plays into the comments made by Johann Lamont (I think) who very publicly fell out with the national leadership and accused them of treating SLab as a ‘branch office’.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An extraordinarily talented politician, though an incompetent administrator (in a low-key sort of way like David Cameron rather than in an utterly catastrophic manner like Johnson or Truss). It is an interesting comment on how true the former is (was?) that the latter never caught up with her; she had a remarkable talent for keeping the plates spinning.

[afleitch]

2010 was an odd duck, given the absolute hammering Labour took at Holyrood a year later.

Labour's performance in 2010 was as much a unwinding of the 'Scottish dimension' of Charles Kennedy's leadership of the Lib Dems on the 2001/2005 results as it was an artefact of the 'Scottish dimension' of Brown.

Which does go some way to prove the point.

 
Scottish Labour are not seen as distinctively Scottish.

That's as true under Starmer as ever, particularly with the party's positioning over the Schedule 35 Order in which it is reluctant to defend its own Devolution settlement.

The Scottish Tories are if your version of Scottishness is of a certain tribe, or a desire not to be distinctively Scottish at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Brown might not have been massively personally popular in Scotland by 2010, but he understood the Scottish electorate in the same way that Sir Mr Tony understood the electorate of the North East of England or how Cameron understood the electorate of the Home Counties, and knew how to press its buttons. Much the same can be said of Sturgeon, of course, which is one reason why she was such a formidable political operator. Now, this was not actually true of Salmond, even at his peak: he was fundamentally a demagogue who got lucky, which is also why his appeal has withered away to dust so dramatically.

[afleitch]

Also, as a signed up member, we knew Sturgeon we likely to go midterm. The 2021 election was a massive result which none of us expected. The Boris-Truss-Rishi second half of last year was a lot of short term uncertainty but coming into 2023 it is clear the government at Westminster will last until there's finger nail marks at the door No10.

Judge Keith's Glorious Isocube awaits us all.

So given there are some domestic blips, which are actually quite navigable, it's not really worth the internal strife. So she goes now rather than orchestrate a drawn out timeframe.