According to my brief Googling about the 2010 general election I have noticed that there are 41 labour seats,seven SNP and just one Tory seats in Scotland.

So it seems very likely that if Scotland actually becomes independent that the rest of the UK will be likely to return Tory governments for quite some time to come. I heard an argument to the contrary the other day and I was wondering if anyone has some knowledge of this situation that I might have missed?

Also the betting odds on Scotland to vote for independence have hardened in from 4:1 to 2:1 so it seems someone knows something, just wondering what that is.

Any help from the forum would be appreciated.

Thanks

I agree that Scottish independence would be bad for Labour. The Conservatives would have had a majority without the Scottish seats in 2010, and with only one seat to defend in Scotland the Conservatives have little to gain from a “No” vote. Labour with 41 seats out of 59 must have more to lose. People who say the contrary are looking at historical post-war data up to 2010, which does support the contention that the Scots make little difference – only for the 1964 election would the result have been different (1974 would have given a Labour a very thin majority, but in any event they still formed a minority government ). The past imight be misleading. The first-past-the-post system discriminates against third parties and in Scotland the SNP and the Liberals seem to have replaced the Conservatives as the natural alternative to Labour. In the last four elections the Conservatives have won 2 seats in total, all the other parties being from the left politically. Political parties are very responsive to polling and focus groups, so I suppose that an English Labour party would adjust their policies to be more attractive to English marginal seats. Scottish independence would probably shift the axis of English politics to the right, with Labour still being a viable party of government.

Interesting situation indeed. The polls are currently stating it is a 51% chance of Scotland voting no to independence ( stay as they are now ) It is going to be an interesting week to see all the tactics which people employ to get their opinions heard and these tactics are very likely to change the polls. An example of this was when Neil Kinnock was way ahead in the polls and then the day before the election on the front page of the Sun newspaper it said \"If Labour win the election, would the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights\". The public then did a u-turn and opted to vote Tory, much to the disgust of the Labour party. England will lose about half of their Tornado planes and a lot of their army if Scotland vote yes and the Royal bank of Scotland have said they will move their head office to London if they vote yes.