Personally I’ll be voting SNP, despite the fact that I’m an unashamed right winger who hates their economic policies. The reason being that I think an independent Scotland could be the next Hong Kong if it were run properly. I could never vote labour or liberal democrats (since they merged with the SDP), and the scottish tory party is crap.
Who are you voting for?
Anyone but the SNP. Their economic policies are farcical. The Scotsman has a good article by Professor Arthur Midwinter pointing out some of the bigger holes in their accounts, and it tallies with every other review I’ve seen.
"Variations in Revenues
In the July version, the SNP varies revenue assumptions in four main ways. Firstly, they include an estimate of Scotland’s share of oil revenues as 95% of UK totals. GERS excludes it from its table of revenues, as it uses the regional accounts conventions, and illustrates the impact on the Scottish fiscal position using a range of assumptions over percentage share. In practice, the percentage varies with the price of oil, so assuming 95% is a dubious practice.
Secondly, the SNP assumes a much higher share for Scotland of UK income tax revenues at 8% in its July report, compared with 7.3% in GERS. They argue that the sample used by the Revenue in assessing income tax payments is too narrow, and base their estimate Scotland’s share of income tax payers, and median incomes. They calculate a sum of £11.52 billions, by multiplying the total revenues by Scotland’s percentage of UK taxpayers, and Scotland’s percentage of UK earnings (92.7%). This is £1.1 billion more than the GERS estimate of 7.3%.
There are two fundamental weaknesses with this approach. Firstly, the calculation assumes that the proportion of earnings paid in tax will be the same for both earnings levels (£400 and £431 per week respectively). Clearly, this is not the case in practice, as tax allowances are deducted from gross income, and the proportion of tax paid will differ between them.
Secondly, this approach takes no account of the differing distribution of incomes. Scotland has proportionately fewer people in the higher income groups with 13.7% earning above £30k per annum, compared with 16.3% for the UK. These two factors mean that Scotland’s tax yield will be lower than the SNP’s estimate."
I’ve only quoted a snippet as I don’t want to fall foul of fair usage terms, but seriously the SNP’s books are screwed.
So that leaves me with Labour (no fecking chance after the various fiascos of the last 5 years), the Conservatives or the Lib Dems. I’m torn between two parties who I swore I’d never vote for, and it’s causing me quite a degree of headache trying to pick the lesser of two evils.
I’m in a bit of a hard place with this election. My constituency is a very close Labour/SNP marginal - the other parties are effectively irrelevant - and I’m unsure what to do. I can’t vote again for the Labour Party under Tony Blair, for Iraq reasons, and the Nationalists are, as Gary notes, economically illiterate and otherwise .
My over-riding (and longer term) view though is that independence is folly of the highest order, so I’ll likely have to vote Labour, rationalising it to myself that it is only a Scottish election and it was Westminster that took us to war. Not ideal, really.
You’re stronger as part of the British union. Don’t succumb to the same fallacy that almost separated Quebec from Canada.
So you want Scotland to be an economic powerhouse, and therefore plan to vote for a party whose economic policies will ensure that will never happen.
Ooookay.
You just might be leaving it a day too late to vote at all, Cryptoderk. 
The SNP are (effectively) a single issue party. Their economic policies are neither here nor there.
I’m curious. Just how can you discount their economic policies as being “neither here nor there”, when those policies will affect every aspect of our daily lives. You do realise that one of those key policies will be implementing a local income tax, right? Personally, I view an extra 3% on income tax as being a fairly major issue.
I’ll just domicile in England if it really becomes a problem, but the difference in the quality of life up here makes it worth it for a few years, and 3% is not that much difference given the extortionate rates we have to pay anyway. As someone who advocates a 15% flat tax I’m happy enough to suffer a little bit more if it will bring us closer to a grand little experiment in self determination.
I admit I’m not really all that familiar with the SNP’s economic policies, as I’d already realised the entire party was full of lefties.
Ooops :smack:
You know, this alarms me. You want to vote a party in, with the possibility that they will then split the union and form an independent Scotland - but you’ve not familiarised yourself with their economic parties.
Now I’m not really that bothered. If they do get in and start to bugger things up, I can always move - hell, I’ve been dithering over a move to Calgary or Perth for ages, so this will be the sort of incentive I need to actually do something. For a lot of people that’s not such a simple thing to do, so that change could affect them for years to come. We’re talking about their economic policy, which - with apologies for stating the bloody obvious - will fundamentally affect every other aspect of life in Scotland. If they get their sums wrongs (as the link I gave above argues strongly they have) it will see funding cuts for education, health, policing, etc, etc, etc.
So really, do you not think it’s worth at least having a decent read through on their economic policy before you give them your vote?
I’m a Liberal Democrat lapsed party member. Still broadly support their policies.
I will be voting SNP on 3rd May because:
1/ I live in a close (99 votes) Conservative/SNP marginal
2/ I don’t vote conservative
3/ A Lib Dem vote would be wasted for the constituency and I can still vote LibDem in the top-ups
4/ I don’t vote for New Labour with Tony Blair and their Draconian security and anti-civil liberties stance.
5/ SNP will not form a majority administration- it will be with partner/s.
6/ It is a move towards greater autonomy
7/ It will not lead to independence until an SNP led government has proved its mettle.
8/ They deserve a chance.
9/ If it starts to go tits up then the SNP will lose support for its policies from its partners.
10/ All the SNP can screw up on affects litle more financially than local givernment policies plus an extra 3 % on income tax, whicxh I would gladly pay now for the advantages we have in Scotland over England in local services, schools, NHS etc.
SNP in the Constituency vote and Lib Dem in the top up.
Surely you’d be better off voting Conservative then, to better ensure a coalition government? I mean, how do you know that the SNP won’t get an absolute majority?
We’ve got local council elections here in Luton, and I’ve yet to receive any campaign literature, but the Lib Dems stick a leaflet through the door every month or so, and the coalition they’ve formed with the Tories seems to have done a lot better than the previous Labour lot, so my vote will go to either the Lib Dems (most likely) or the Tories (least likely) depending on what I make of the actual candidates.
I don’t see much chance at all of the Tories being a coalition partner, Quartz. I just wandered into the thread and have not got figures to back up that view for you right now, but I’d probably bet my computer on it, or whatever I find valuable. 
Some coffee input, then perhaps I get some numbers.
edited for lousy coding.
Oho, the laziness of me! Here’s a nifty link courtesy of nice Mr. Google, showing opinion polls this year.
http://www.alba.org.uk/polls/2006polls.html
Now for the coffee. A necessary thing in case I feel moved to come back and mutter about a referendum, war in Iraq, and weapons of mass destruction at Faslane.
(Sod it, right now, I think I would vote for a party of computer repairers. Grrrrr)
Not really. They don’t have the power to deviate that far from English policy.
Interesting that you say “English policy” rather than “U.K. policy”.
I think that English (or “England and Wales”) is probably a more accurate way of looking it than British.
So you’ll vote on a whim and run away if that vote contributes to a disaster? Nice!
I don’t see the problem in that.
Edited to add: I’m willing to take a punt