Who won the debate?

[jamesbrown]

Perfect (the variation between polls is revealing though)!

[Gumbo Robot]

Five more weeks of wanting to remove my face with a cheesegrater. Bloody Fixed Term Parliament Act. If this multi-month election campaign is going to become the norm, I'll be looking for a contract overseas in late 2019/early 2020

Exactly.

Meanwhile, in Kenya...

[NotAllThere]

I wonder what the figures would be if all the people who simply said their favourite politician won the debate were excluded?

[Batcher]

Sturgeon did well. Mainly because she got a free ride.

Allowed to make snarky comments about (the English politicians) Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and Farage and because the Scotland isn't the main election battleground no one bothered to have a go back.

Farage did throw in scrapping the Barnett formula which hopefully one day soon will wipe the smile off her scrounging face.

The only way they can scrap it is if they give us full fiscal autonomy including oil revenues, VAT, CT, etc

[mudskipper]

Perhaps when SNP are in Westminster in 6-weeks time we can give people in England a voice to.

A voice to what? We need to know!

[Batcher]

Agreed, had they more time or wherewithal to respond to her, she wouldn't have had such a good showing. I find her and that PC woman obnoxious and patronising. Mostly spouting off feel good platitudes rather than engaging in a frank discussion.


Again it was frustrating that the NHS took up so much of the time when all the parties acknowledge it has issues and are committed to keeping it funded.

I feel you haven't seen enough of Nicola down south. She's a solicitor so can argue very well and Ed 'n Dave know that. She also answers the questions instead of doing the thing the boys do of answering anything but the question.

During indyref she had a debate with Alistair Carmichael the LibDem Scottish Office secretary and tore him to bits. He was appealing at one time to the presenter to get her to stop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAwA_jtpxiI

[Zero Liability]

All five of them can argue well - very well, in fact. I'll grant you that she - and Salmond - are very shrewd operators. By disarming fears of how they would work with a Labour government, it is all the likelier that they can form some sort of arrangement with Labour and also avoid their voting base up north from eroding, provided these debates have much of an impact. It doesn't alter the fact that the SNP independence campaign was not premised on an honest presentation of the facts of how Scotland might fare outside the Union. I think that, more than anything, is what led to their downfall, as the "Better Together" campaign was, to put it plainly, pathetic, incuding the Brown sobbing away crocodile tears.

I also don't care for her party's policies, and they're not hugely different to Labour's. How they present arguments to me is less material than what their proposed policies are and, more appositely, whether they actually intend to follow through with them or have the power to do so. The SNP's ultimate goal is independence for Scotland, nothing more and nothing less. It is through those lens which her words need to be seen. I'd rather that has as little impact as possible on the trajectory that England has to take in the future once that does happen, e.g. by propping up the same idiots who left this country in tatters.

[LancelotBarre]

All five of them can argue well - very well, in fact. I'll grant you that she - and Salmond - are very shrewd operators. By disarming fears of how they would work with a Labour government, it is all the likelier that they can form some sort of arrangement with Labour and also avoid their voting base up north from eroding, provided these debates have much of an impact. It doesn't alter the fact that the SNP independence campaign was not premised on an honest presentation of the facts of how Scotland might fare outside the Union. I think that, more than anything, is what led to their downfall, as the "Better Together" campaign was, to put it plainly, pathetic, incuding the Brown sobbing away crocodile tears.

I also don't care for her party's policies, and they're not hugely different to Labour's. How they present arguments to me is less material than what their proposed policies are and, more appositely, whether they actually intend to follow through with them or have the power to do so. The SNP's ultimate goal is independence for Scotland, nothing more and nothing less. It is through those lens which her words need to be seen. I'd rather that has as little impact as possible on the trajectory that England has to take in the future once that does happen, e.g. by propping up the same idiots who left this country in tatters.

With the greatest of respect, that is completely untrue.

If you have a look at the time the SNP spent as a minority government, their spending plans were voted through by the support of the Conservatives, under opposition from Labour.

[TykeMerc]

I'm seriously wondering if a coalition government of 3 or more parties may end up as the result, although the chances of one of those surviving for any time are slim.
How much damage is done to their reputation by taking part in a coalition is another matter, I wonder how the LibDems actually feel about the last 5 years.

[Batcher]

With the greatest of respect, that is completely untrue.

If you have a look at the time the SNP spent as a minority government, their spending plans were voted through by the support of the Conservatives, under opposition from Labour.

The reason the Tories voted for the SNP budget was because they negotiated 1,000 extra police as part of the deal. It's what happens when a minority government needs to co-operate to get votes and it worked very well.

The only reason Labour voted against was because they hate the SNP to the point they can't bring themselves to agree even if it's something they do actually want. For example, the SNP wanted something in the budget. Labour said no and raised an amendment to the bill. SNP agreed and changed the bill to have the amendment and when it came to the vote Labour abstained.