Tania Mathias at Twickenham looked like she had just won a night out with George Galloway

Nigel Farage is quitting. What now for UKIP?

Quote: Nogget @ 8th May 2015, 11:47 AM BST

Nigel Farage is quitting. What now for UKIP?

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...or is he just having a holiday...!?

Quote: Nogget @ 8th May 2015, 11:47 AM BST

Nigel Farage is shitting. What now for UKIP?

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thats just his face

1

Cameron, May, Davis, Maude, (even Boris)........they all looked knackered. It wasn't to do with staying up all night. Never before have we seen so many individuals in a majority Government who didn't want it except for what it says on their CVs and keeping out Her Majesty's opposition. This in itself doesn't bode well. Lame, lacklustre, disappointing.......these words applied on the night to the performance of every opposition party apart from SNP but it will soon apply to the new Government itself. If nothing else, that will be in sync with the views of the general public. They don't want it either apart from the fact it has kept out Labour and they half-heartedly hope it might help with their grandiose ambitions.

Thank the lord for Nicola Sturgeon and the man who used to be Nigel Farage. Coping with appeasing the Scots and addressing the concerns of Europhobes will be so gruelling that there is just.... just...a possibility that there won't be the time as well as any energy to do Tory things. Like forcefully eject people with disabilities from the country. Or turn the BBC World Service into New Dave. Or raise the pension age to 93. Or frack up every National Park from the New Forest to Northumberland. As Mr Salmond has said, the Scottish lion has roared. Even with no arithmetical clout SNP's power is not inconsiderable. Hence every area of policy that has ever been invented now does need to be devolved. Only then can SNP prove that a one party state is as adept at bungling as any democratic government and so lose its allure. It is the sensible unionists' only option but to achieve it the work will be tiring.

Actually I thought Sturgeon looked tired by her standards while Mr Salmond looked halfway between tired and knackered. The fun will only start when everyone sleep walks out of the EU and the United Kingdom disintegrates in the middle of several hundred dream like states. So don't expect anyone to wake up until 2018 at the very earliest. The next three years will simply be one helluva long(er) night.

I wonder if there will be a new appreciation for the Liberals in the coming months, when the Tories can act without taking Liberal views into account at all?

I think the SNP are going to have a very cold of time it.

When the Cons can vote through a new Barnett formula and a reduced grant, without needing a nod from anyone in Westminster.

I'd advise Salmond to stop flying her chopper around blasted heaths and get on with independent controls of sterling and what's left of North Sea Oil.

They'll need it when they go for independence again.

If Cameron hacks the jocks off too much that's the end of the union, not something any leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party wants on his CV. With an overall majority in Westminster he can soft pedal on the land of shortbread and special brew and concentrate on gerrymandering English consitiuency boundaries to ensure his thousand year reich.

He doesn't have to hack them off too much.

The awful truth is Scotlands got 3 industries; public service, tourism and being a useful annex to the city of London.

Lose the Union and that all goes up the swanney or rather the Clyde. It's why it failed last time, people vote with their wallets not their hearts. Unless maybe Sturgeon can make the case for noble poverty.

The EU and the Norther European states all said no thanks to currency union with Scotland.

I think Cameron will get very good at throwing crumbs and stroking egos, whilst getting exactly what he wants. He broke the Libs and UKIP exactly that way, SNP is more gauche and parochial than either.

F**k it suits me.

Less cuts and taxes for the rest of the country (including the actual poor bits).

And Scotland; well they'll have to make do with prescription costs for the well to do and a graduate tax for well to do students.

2

Have we just heard a new definition of One Nation from David Cameron? Yes. I think we have. It used to be principally about economics and especially equality of opportunity. Now it's just about gluing on Scotland. To bring out the phrase like a rabbit from a 1950s hat was a glorious magic trick. Much like the election victory itself. The lizards definitely had a hand in it. That victory. The Tory Nicholas Clegg was indeed elected in Sheffield Hallam contrary to all the national trends. It was simply the trends themselves that were less manipulable but then that's bloody voters for you. Some forget they are are the string and not the pencil. The reptilian master stroke was delaying the Prime Ministers's count in Witney until precisely the point when the number of Tory seats overtook those of Labour. As the figure flashed across the screen, his speech could be given with an inference of a tsunami of support.

I doubt that a year will pass before Clegg triggers a by-election. He no longer has the full patronage of underground overlords so he will have to be placed into some non-national orbit. Brussels perhaps. Ashdown was always the facilitator but he has now become the problem. He said that he would eat a hat given the right conditions on the basis that those conditions couldn't possibly arise. They did arise. The Lib Dems got less than 10 seats just as the exit poll suggested. Not for the first time he was caught with his pants down. Did he renege on his commitment? Why of course. The hat was tuition fees all over again or was it rather just more rabbit? Anyhow, nothing was eaten except his own credibility as he turned from self-styled superhero into a pompous, bumbling, old fool. Oh and of course David Laws. Students will recall that he was the quiet man who was mainly responsible for "the Orange Book" which took the party to the right of Redwood. The flooded out ones of Somerset had him for breakfast. One Nation or not, they and we shall hopefully not see the likes of him ever again.

3

Where did Labour go wrong? They will be told by the Milburns, Clarkes, Mandelsons and Blairs that they failed because Tony Blair wasn't leading them and that only with Tony Blair as leader will New New Labour win again. Ever. Tony Blair will only be 67 in 2020. That means Labour can win every election from 2020 until 2050. Even in 2050, Tony Blair will only be 97. So only Tony Blair is the answer. Tony Blair will only ever be the answer for New New New Labour. Ever. It can only ever, ever be Tony Blair.

Erm, yes. While this is almost certainly an accurate reading, what is peculiar about it is that Tony Blair adores the EU. Ideally Tony Blair would like to see the EU expanded to Indonesia and, with him as leader of New New New New Labour, Indonesia would be a part of the EU. In contrast, 87% of Labour voters feel that we should declare war on the EU tomorrow. Is this a dilemma? No it is not. Labour voters have no issues whatsoever with the EU given the right conditions. The most right condition is that the New New New New New Labour party is led by Tony Blair. Not Tony Blair today. Tony Blair before he invaded Iraq. By next year they will be willing to tell themselves this can be done. That the Iraq invasion never happened. Tony Blair will be 63 but also 42 as he was in 1997. And he will be an 18 year old rock God in Ugly Rumours. And all will be right again. It means that Tony God is immortal.

One major blessing of a Labour disaster is that the Harman-Dromeys are likely to have had their day. Sir Harman-Dromey was all set to be the Minister for Police. Not a bad promotion for someone who many might describe as having looked like a football yob when on aggressive picket lines in the 1970s. Or a rock star who was lost to the 1980s and the 1990s for reasons that are not entirely clear to the rock star so they could hardly ever be clear to the humble general public. Baron Harman-Dromey says that he did his absolute utmost to challenge the promotion of sex between adults and people who live in prams when he was in a senior position at NCCL. Given that it took him nearly a decade to do it, there must have been a lot of strange obstacles. Certainly when Tony Blair was Labour leader, Lord Harman-Dromey was never given a seat, so maybe those obstacles were considered insurmountable.

But then as soon as Blair went The Grand Archbishop Harman-Dromey's star suddenly rose with an implausible election to Parliament at age 62. That his lady wife had become Deputy Leader - and was former Legal Adviser to NCCL - was purely a coincidence. She is simply the World's Spokesperson for All Womens Who Are Victimised Because They Need To Be Represented By A World's Spokesperson for All Womens Rather Than Being Able To Have A Voice Of Their Own. Actually, she herself had an odd relationship with Blair who only sometimes gave her positions and seemed to doubt her ability. I understand from sources they felt she could be lazy and "just not very good at her job". Anyhow, following an autumn of natural rebirthing and hope over substance, the Harman-Dromeys are merely a Grandmother. And we wish him as a United Married Coupling best wishes in her fraternal retirement.

You've gotta smile at the irony. The SNP win virtually all of Scotland yet still have to do what the hated Tory English tell them, who are a far stronger government now. Do they actually realise that? They were gloriously victorous at the wrong election!

And all the SNP did was steal Old Labour's policies and stick a sporran on them. They are a very simplistic leftist ideology party of the 70s. Creating jobs and wealth will be beyond them even if they are devolved max. And they can't kick out Trident or the military or the royals or the many wealthy English land owners. All that supposed power and they aren't allowed to use it.

Why don't they just make every constituency have the same average number of constituents - say 100,000 people - so that you wouldn't get the ridiculous situation where Scotland has 29 MPs?

Quote: Chappers @ 8th May 2015, 9:15 PM BST

Why don't they just make every constituency have the same average number of constituents - say 100,000 people - so that you wouldn't get the ridiculous situation where Scotland has 29 MPs?

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Scotland has 59 seats - and a population of 5.2 million. Wouldn't your change just see a reduction from 59 to 52? I think the problem is spread. UKIP now have the old Liberal problem. Masses of votes but spread out across the country. The Lib Dems have that problem again now. So do the Greens.

Incidentally, we delivered three votes from here or hereabouts. One Green. One UKIP. One spoilt ballot paper. We feel proud of that achievement. And it represents no change from our positions in 2010.

I think I have the solution to Labour's problems in Scotland. Well, to the problems of Tories and LibDems in Scotland too, actually.

Look whom the Scots are prepared to back. Nicola Sturgeon Alex Salmond.

The solution is clear.
They need to find themselves some politicians with fish-based names.

Problem solved.