Weird election. Polls got it right/wrong. 3 leaders gone (no word on the greens or anyone else) and 2 celebrating. SNP cleaned up in Scotland. 1 labor, 1 conservative, and 1 libdem seat out of 59. So much for the grand coalition of the Better Together team.
When Scots realized that it didn’t matter which of those three you voted for, it was the same old same old. SNP represented the only REAL choice in/for Scotland, the only real alternative to the consensus South of the Border. ConLabDem Party 3 vs SNP 56. No contest.
It’s just a pity that South of the Border, there was no real choice for English or Welsh voters: ConLabDem vs UKIP. UKIP was the Emperor’s really got no policies (beyond we hate anything foreign) in the end they didn’t garner enough focused voters to matter, despite finishing 2nd in many seats. Enough UKIP potential voters went back to Tory to prevent Labor getting in.
Most voters also realized that without electoral reform the Libdems are useless in government (as are UKIP). The sad thing is that the Tories got a majority of a few seats on polling less than 37% of the popular vote. How is that a legitimate representation of the voice of the British people? It’s already bad enough that the electoral register isn’t even complete, 16 ~ 18 years old can’t vote, and expats have typically no voting registration, … never mind the missing million or more. Then 65% of they vote, but 35% can’t even bother. So really it’s 37% of 65% of 73% of the legitimate uk population.
In other words, 17% of the population gets to decide stuff for the remaining 83%. Perhaps federation for the UK is the only real way to break up the current trigopoly of power and better represent local interests, rather than have such overcentralized power from London.
Oh, wait decentralization is unpopular we’re told. Not how Scotland or N. Ireland sees it. Federalized states won’t work in the UK (*ahem* Canada, US, Australia… seems to work pretty well), or are the voters just too stupid to understand progressive ideas like those?