If the Tories go through with their promised £12bn of cuts and people pull out of their lethargy, there will be riots when thousands more disabled and terminally ill people commit suicide after IDS and ATOS's "mistakes" in deeming them fit to work and cancelling their help.

Or when the Tories savagely privatise the NHS - something they laid the groundwork for on the last day of parliament by forcing all NHS contracts to be put out to tender.

Or when they take away all support for anyone under the age of 25, despite the lack of job creation and the highest youth unemployment on record.

So one of those reasons, probably.

Ed Miliband has quit as well.

The Tories aren't interested in Scotland at the moment. Which is why they've never really poured serious money into the region in an attempt to buy votes.

Support for the only real Scottish Party has pretty much always been strong. I mean, why WOULDN'T it be (kind of makes one wonder how the SNP could possibly have lost its referendum ...)? But it's one thing to exert influence within the over-arching framework of British government - a bit like a Turkish satrap who ultimately must bow before the Great King of Persia. It's something else to tell Artaxerxes you're going to run his kingdom for the greater benefit of his subjects. Especially when you wield absolutely no political clout and don't possess a couple of thousand bloodthirsty Macedonian mercenaries to serve as an incentive.

Until this point the British establishment has been happy enough to indulge the SNP's little fictions of power. But the moment they decided not to stick to the rules and called for a referendum the gloves came off. They might as well have brandished an IRA flag because from herein they represent a threat to hundreds of years of "successful" establishment.

This election result will only exacerbate tensions. Sure, the SNP can rely on the average Scot's sense of patriotism and dislike of England. But that only stretches so far. If history teaches us anything it is that it doesn't take a great deal of economic strife before even the most entrenched loyalties begin to disappear.

Salmond and company will very shortly reap the whirlwind. And it won't be pretty.

This.

Sales of rose tinted specs are doing well today.

Well, we do know that the Tories are at the very least [ipreparing [/ifor major civil unrest. For instance, Boris recently shelled out a couple of million on two giant riot-control armoured vehicles with whopping great water cannons attached.

Presumably he doesn't want his City of London chums having to commute to work in fear of their safety ...

He should return to being a corridor prefect at Eton.

Seriously, tho - Milliband is just so FREAKISHLY the sum total of every swotty little snot wearing a school prefect badge you ever had to put up with.

I mean, if you were deliberately aiming to lose an election based purely on perceptions of the leader is there a better candidate to pick?

Labour lost this election 4 1/2 years ago when they chose Ed Milliband to lead them. Totally unelectable. Like a masochistic contortionist the Labour party managed to kick itself in the face while lying battered on the ground.

I do wonder what the LimpDem supporters were doing yesterday. Are they angry that their party sold them out by turning Tory? If so then going out and voting Tory (which many seem to have done) doesn't make a lot of sense.

Joking aside (and laughter is a good way of dealing with despair), this seems to be a resounding victory for nationalism. The Tories and UKIP did well with the white working class and that appeal has to be nationalism, leaving the EU, English laws for the English. The SNP by definition only want to leave the UK.
The two parties fully commited to the Union and to the EU are destroyed. Let the rhetoric and the animosity beteween England and Scotland commence. The war on the EU will kick off as well.

Nationalism always works out well in Europe doesn't it.

We were in Skye a couple of years ago obviously before the referendum. Also visited friends in Edinburgh another time. Both before the referendum. Evidence of the SNP and even nationalism? Hardly any. I saw one car sticker in Skye and most of the people we spoke to never mentioned it and those who did were quite hostile.

Something dramatic changed but lets not forget the electoral system has played a part here as well. They got around half the vote yet virtually all the seats. That is a dramatic increase in seats for that sort of share of the vote. So in theory it won't take much to rob them of those gains in terms of a swing. The problem is not the SNP's strength but the weakness of the opposition. It ought not to take much to move that result dramatically the other way but there isn't any party offering up anything to do that.

Ian Duncan-Smith, Micheal Foot? It's close, but Ed Millibland wins it for me.

I think Jimmy Saville would have done better than Ed Balls.

Sturgeon's face couldn't hide their real dissapointment. Their real objective was to be in government in Westminster with a coatlition with Labour or governing by proxy by propping up a Labour minority government. They have nothing now. 1 seat or 50 makes sod all difference when a majority Tory government is in charge. They set their cards on the table by going after Labour - not the Tories. They are not a UK national party, they can never win more than they have in Scotland and maybe the Scots will see that. Better a friendly Labour government that relies on Scottish Labour MP's than a toothless SNP just making a farty little noise in Westminster.

There is also a reason why Salmond has only recently popped his fat f*****g head up. Many Scots think he's a total t0$$er.

The Labour party itself voted for his brother. However because the Trade Unions have a large amount of votes in who is the Labour leader, they voted for the union friendly Ed.

I made the same point time and again elsewhere with people saying they were going to vote SNP. Voting for a party that can only win 50 odd seats is a pointless exercise in a UK-wide election.

Most of the reaction I got was along the lines of "Scotland's voice has to be heard" or "The Unionists said Scotland was important to the UK" (as if that meant they could vote SNP and a UK government would take them seriously). It was pure fantasy.

They clearly banked on a hung parliament as that was the only way their MP's could have any influence.

What they didn't count on was this potential for influence probably cost Labour a shed load of votes in England so not only did their success hurt Labour in Scotland it hurt it in England as well robbing them (the SNP) of the goal they were after.

They have been politically naive in that regard and when the dust settles I do wonder what those ex-Labour voters who voted SNP will think as the Tories get to work. Will they accept they helped deliver a Tory govt or will they stick their heads in the sand and deny the potential success of the SNP had no bearing elsewhere?

It wouldn't surprise me if they blame English voters saying fear of SNP influence means the English voters don't want Scotland to have [iany[/i say at all regardless of supposedly wanting Scotland in the Union and regardless of how the vote went.



Quite right. They kept him well out of the way.

History is repeating itself.

The vote in Scotland for the SNP mirrors the IRISH vote in 1918 for Sinn Fein, and in many ways is more overwhelming.

Previously Ireland had been ruled by the Irish Parliamentary party, but in 1918 this all changed as the nationalists swept to power, winning all but a few seats in the North of Ireland.

There followed a long civil war of which the end result was the Irish Republic.

So far the revolution in Scotland has thankfully been a "velvet" one.

However the London political establishment must learn from the mistakes of the past, and not try to impose their will on the Scottish people.
Any attempt by the Tories to invoke austerity measures up there, or impose Trident on the Scots, will likely be met with resistance that made the poll tax riots seem like a minor disagreement.

Cameron will need to tread very carefully to avoid major civil unrest, his only answer will be to devolve more powers to Scotland, whether his party will accept that is another thing though. Irish home rule was knocked back for many years by Tory grandees in the Lords, alongside Imperial distractions in Europe. Could we see something similar occurring for Scotland?

With regard to the rest of the UK. England and Wales may live to regret what they have voted for.
The Tories policies are to make massive cuts to social and Welfare spending. This will create a society more divided than ever.
I noted with interest how Labour grew its support in many London Boroughs, at the same time some areas of recently gentrified London saw large swings to the Tories. This points to a London that is becoming more divided and ghettoised. With increases in social and wealth divisions I foresee the potential for riots in London, the like of which have never been seen before in the UK.

I think the Labour party is effectively finished as a unified entity.
There will be massive pressure from Scotland and traditional labour elements to move the party back to the left were it once stood proud. At the same time the Blairites who have changed the whole complexion of the party in recent years, will be demanding it needs to move further to the right, and become effectively a party of Tory Wets. Labour will be stuck between a rock and a hard place, as a move in either direction will potentially cost them votes. Hence I suspect a split will occur, perhaps on national grounds, though maybe along the lines of the SDP, Labour split in the 1980's

UKIP as Mugwump has stated were nothing more than the establishment playing its game of chess. Their mythical rise to power based on nothing more than media created hyperbole, has succeeded mainly in taking votes from the more ignorant Labour voters who lap up the mantra of the Sun and Mail, that its all Jonny Foreigners fault, and vote for anyone but the Conservatives. Tory voters with their naturally conservative ways were always likely to take the safe conservative option, and vote for what they felt safe with when push came to shove.

The Liberals. They were seen as a more centrist and inclusive party at the last election, so people voted for them to see if it would shake things up a bit. When they jumped in bed with the tories and showed themselves as nothing but Conservatives in Yellow ties, their days were numbered. Why after all vote for a party that walks like a tory, talks like a tory and works with a tory; but isn't a tory, when you can vote for the real thing instead.
Similarly there were many who felt betrayed at the Liberals revealing their true blue colours. As a result they jumped ship to Labour and the Greens.

There's an unwritten rule in politics which goes back to the beginnings of recorded history and is just as valid today:

Appeal to the working class, plebian ... call it what you will, vote at your peril. It sometimes comes under what's known as the principle of collegiality. One of the major reasons for the collapse of the Roman republic was the politically explosive actions of military tribunes such as Julius Caesar, Gaius Marius etc. who instead of conducting politics through the notoriously conservative Roman Patrician and Optimate classes (of which both were members) chose instead to bypass the Establishment completely and appeal to the mob. There were some good reasons for doing so as the Roman oligarchical system stifled all attempts at even the most minor reforms. But the dangers of upsetting tradition and business elites were invariably lethal.

Both became victims in a gradual slide into civil war with the populist leaders (or Popularii) on one side and the establishment (represented by names such as Cato and Pompeii) on the other. Eventually the Republic could stand no more and Augustus' Imperial "Principate" came into being.

From the days of Rome this political truth has been affirmed on countless occasions across all manner of cultures. This is the reason the differences between political entities have been far less noteworthy than the similarities. You just don't do it.

Of course, things become complicated during times of civil strife. Whilst the dangers are no less lethal - the opportunities (certainly for reform) are far greater. A good example would be Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration elected into office during the worst of the Great Depression. Like Julius Caesar, Roosevelt was also of the Patrician class. But he was far more shrewd at judging precisely what he could and could not get away with without crossing the invisible line and being killed off. Indeed, there was at least one serious plot to overthrow Roosevelt and install a fascist government which was broken up when the man the plotters (the Du Pont and Ford families - amongst others) chose to lead the putsch, two-time Congressional Medal of Honour winner, General Smedley Darlington Butler, blew the whistle. The plot was hastily suppressed and those involved never faced charges. But had Roosevelt pushed his luck just that bit further by hiking taxes on American industry ... who knows?

This is why I believe Alex Salmond miscalculated monumentally in pushing for a referendum. It was too far and too fast for the conservative English establishment. And he never had a strong enough hand to force it through anyhow. There was no way that vote was ever going to be carried. To push it again would be suicidal. In any case, the SNP is now a target. Like the Communist Party during the 30s and early 40s it will undoubtedly be attracting the attention of domestic intelligence services. Phones will be bugged. Calls will be monitored. Senior officials will be monitored and their meetings scrutinised.

You can bet all manner of what Richard Nixon used to term "political dirty tricks" will be employed to neutralise their influence and call into question their competence. Newspapers will dig into their private lives uncovering every little embarrassing affair. The tax system will suddenly become interested in every last invoice and receipt. Blackmail. Bribery. Perhaps worse. Politics is a dirty, squalid business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

Well major cities, including London are largely Labour. In these places the effects of "austerity" are hardest felt. Londoners, for example, are creaking at the seams, despite it being at the heart of the country's prosperity. There are now at least nations - Scotland, urban rest of UK and rural + suburban rest of UK. All three have widely differing needs and one has to wonder whether a public school dominated Tory party will understand the needs of urban Britain (they may well spend time on Scotland because it is obvious something needs doing), which may get pushed to breaking point (especially as the economy may well drop back).

The other possibility is that they will evolve financial responsibility to big cities / areas (like as with Manchester). Then they'll leave the Labour areas to rot to show how bad Labour are at controlling budgets (which will be starved). We could have the spectre of a few Detroits up North!