The next election in the UK; will there be some surprises?

Who will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

What happens if David Cameron's Conservatives (the Tories) cannot win seats in Scotland?

What happens if Blair's Labour party loses seats in Scotland to the SNP (Scottish National Party)?

As the Guardian has pointed out: Labour has certain structural advantages in the electoral system: the Conservatives require an 11% lead to win an overall majority.

Conservative leader David Cameron has not made the necessary breakthrough.

There is still not a single Conservative councillor in Manchester, Liverpool or Newcastle in the North of England.

As The Scotsman newspaper pointed out, 'the Conservatives are only managing to nudge the party back to where it was a decade ago, shortly before their 1997 election defeat and the wipe-out in Scotland'.

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=740982006

The Conservatives are seen as a party of the south-east of England, anti-Scottish and unable to represent the majority of the people.

The Conservatives signally failed to make any advance in the Dunfermline or Moray by-elections.

So, will no party gain an overall majority after the next election? We can perhaps expect:

1. the Conservatives to gain seats, but not enough.

2. Labour to lose seats, but mainly in the South East, and in Scotland.

What is happening in Scotland?

The YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph this week: The Conservatives scored 47 per cent support in the south; 24 per cent in Scotland.

The Scottish National Party has pointed out that:

1. Scotland has plenty of oil and gas to meet its needs.

2. London governments have in the past lied about the value of the oil and gas.

3. At present, Scotland is subsidising England. (North Sea Oil revenues)

4. If Scotland was independent, and had control over tax and currency, it could be as rich as Ireland, Norway or Switzerland.

The Economist has pointed out that:

1. Banking and financial services flourish in Edinburgh.

2.Video games are a new industry for Dundee.

3. Biotechnology is well established in Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh.

Why did so many Scots vote Labour in recent decades?

In the Calton district of Glasgow, male life expectancy is 53.9 years, almost ten years fewer than in Bangladesh. 58% of the adults in Calton do not work.

Many people in the poorer parts of Scotland have voted Labour so that they can get hand-outs from the state.

It suits Labour to keep people dependent on the government.

According to The Economist: 'Labour, strongest in the western part of the central belt, is rooted in backward-looking state socialism.'

The Conservatives did well in Scotland in 1955, when they won more votes than Labour. But the Conservatives treated Scotland so badly that they are unlikely ever to make a come-back.

According to The Economist, the proportion of Scots who say they also feel British has diminished since the 1970s.

The Economist reminds us that a number of books have been published recently with titles like:

“Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World”,

“The Scottish Enlightenment: the Scots' Invention of the Modern World”,

“On the Make: How the Scots Took Over London”,

“How the Scots Made America” and so on.

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6941798

Should the Conservatives worry about Scotland, or Wales, or Northern Ireland?

The Conservatives, as a Neo-Con party, are totally opposed to Scottish and Welsh independence and they want to hang on to Northern Ireland.

Yet, if Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were detached from England, the Conservatives would have an almost permanent majority in England.


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