Saturday 9 May 2015

Final Reflections On The Election Result

My final reflection on the election, we have the Conservatives for the next five years and nothing anyone can do about it, but it is small comfort that the Conservatives are in a for a bumpy ride.
Talking to Labour supporters they feel that the Conservatives created a monster in lavishing such love on Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party in the election campaign.
Their plan was obviously to play up the SNP and strip away votes from Labour in Scotland, a ploy that worked a bit too well because they decimated Labour in Scotland as planned but they didn't expect all but one of the seats landing in the lap of the SNP, a party whose stated mission was to get rid of the Tories so now they have a block of 56 Scottish ministers baying for their blood sat on the opposite benches ready to join with Labour and what's left of a Liberal Democrat Party that got hung out to dry by their coalition partners to torpedo any plans they may have.
With a majority of only 12, the Conservatives will find it difficult to push any legislation through especially and then there is the big debate on Europe to come.
Although David Cameron may be pro-European, his party are split and the in-fighting has already began with the Euro-sceptics making the case on why we should be out of the European Union. As the referendum is two years away he may suffer the same fate as the last Conservative Prime Minister, John Mayor, who spent his time in power fending off attacks from his own party over his acceptance of the EU and famously raged at the 'bastards' on his own side who were attempting to bring him and his Government down.
Back to the SNP who are already manoeuvring for another independence referendum and this time they will probably get it, such was the outrage of the way the British Government dropped them and their promises like a hot brick the second the referendum was won. The English only votes on English laws played particularly badly across the border who felt that they were sold Scotland being an important part of the Union and hours after voting to stay, then being told they were not able to have a say in how the largest part of it was run. 
Nicola Sturgeon is a much more feisty and exceptional talent than Alex Salmond and it is almost assured that if she does put her energy to seeking a referendum, David Cameron will be forever known as the leader who split the Union.
There is also the £20 billion of spending pledges the Chancellor has to find to meet all the tax and spending pledges the Tories sprayed around during the campaign, not an easy task when they are already scratching their heads over the £12 billion of savings they announced but admitted on the eve of the election that they don't actually know where the cuts will be made. 
Throw in the human time-bomb that is Boris Johnson who has made no secret of his ambitions to take over from Cameron and it may be the honeymoon period for David Cameron is amazingly short, especially as when he left Downing Street this evening for his celebratory dinner, his car had to skirt the demonstrations at the gates of Downing Street.
The next five years to 2020 should be interesting.

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