Labour have implemented social democratic ideas the best they can within the limited powers of the Welsh Assembly. As a result they were rewarded by the voters.

In Scotland the SNP were saved from their decade-long flirtation with the small state neolib model that caused such booms in Ireland and Estonia before their imploding. Thankfully the SNP never got to implement it and its social democratic wing has been ascendent once again. Scottish voters appear to be rewarding the SNP government's commitment to social spending, and you can understand why an unrepenting Scottish Labour Party has been drubbed.

I see this as a neutral result for Milliband. He has been rather ineffectual as leader and the Parliamentary Labour Party is suffering from an impoverished connection to Third Way ideology. The results are as much as he ought to have hoped for. The Scottish Parliament is not a council chamber and the Scots voted with a clear differentiation between Holyrood and Westminster, thus voting with Holyrood concerns in mind.

The Tories may celebrate SNP's drubbing of Labour but the Tories' celebration is surely Pyrrhic in nature. Scotland didn't vote for Tartan Tories in nats' clothing, but rather a broad social democratic position. In any case there is plenty of reason to believe that Labour will still do well in Scotland for general elections. The SNP don't tend to do well in Westminster elections which benefit Labour.

i.e. the transfer of ownership of the female from the patriarch of her household to a new husband.

Not to be confused however with other forms of coexisting partnership types, but the above became a dominant form before feminist agitation made institutional marriage somewhat more egalitarian.

Religion in this context either acts as a form of social control (historically justifying female subjugation) or placing the union in a spiritual context.

Lynton Crosby, the Australian political strategist used anti-abortion and anti-immigration standpoints successfully for ex-PM John Howard in Australia.

Crosby became ex-Tory leader Michael Howard's strategist for the 2005 election. They briefly tried to inject moral panic about abortion into the campaign with the Daily Hate headlining some typically misogynist stuff. The abortion strategy fell on its arse and it was quietly dropped. Britain is very pro-choice, with supporters of the main three party being so by significant margins. But even so, Crosby's strategy showed that politicos are willing to play some nasty games to see if they get traction.

One aspect of Crosby's strategy which did get traction was the anti-immigration one. The 2005 Tory campaign went down the subtle racism route, but it didn't gain electoral success as the economy was still growing and the memories of Tory government still seemed not that long ago.

The anti-immigration strategy was furthered as a way of overcoming Labour's post-2005 poll lead and has been much more central to political debate since. The economic depression allowed the anti-immigration proponents to disingenuously tie immigration to the exacerbation of unemployment, and as a result it enabled the far-right to benefit from 'mainstream' anti-immigration rhetoric.

On the other hand, political name-calling does occur here. The right-wing rags frequently and most bizarrely refer to New Labour as "Stalinists" and "Marxists." Another common anti-Labour epithet is ZANU Labour (a play on Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF), as if New Labour represents a mix of Maoist thought and black nationalism.

There are concerns about civil liberties. The present Labour government and the last Tory government both unsuccessfully tried to introduce a national ID database and card. Detention without trial for "suspected terrorists" remains very controversial, indeed it caused violence in Northern Ireland when it was used there 35 years ago. Anti-terrorist legislation has been used by police to harass journalists, political activists and police whistleblowers. We do have our problems here too.

Teabagging isn't talked about here, since it's a private matter up to consenting individuals

So instead of talking about referenda and separatism, the SNP are talking about a bigger Westminster grant for Scotland.

The reality being that the costs of splitting the Union are unwilling and unable to be met by a Scottish Government. This is for the following reasons:

* The SNP believed a Scottish state could be maintained by an emulation of the Celtic Tiger economy, and this economic model has now imploded
* With no prospect of emulating the de-regulated bubble economy of Ireland, finance capital is less willing to support independence (finance capital being actively courted by the SNP before the recession)
* Tax revenue is drying up due to the recession/depression
* The collapse in oil prices has in turn collapsed expectations about revenue that a Scottish state could earn from oil.

The pragmatism of the SNP reflect the actions of the Bloc Quebecois in the Canadian House of Commons, where the Bloc have propped-up minority Liberal and Tory governments on a case-by-case basis in return for specfic concessions.

The BNP kept a bit quiet about the Jooos for a few years as it was harming their image. Nick Griffin praised Israeli foreign policy on the doctrine of "the enemy of my enemy" as BNP found votes to be had in Islamophobia.

The BNP grassroots of anti-Semites were never happy with this, and there were always breaches from the Party line. The recent open anti-Semitism from the party leadership is no accident.

According to "Nothing British About the BNP" (http://www.nothingbritish.com/10/bnp-march... /), the BNP have now reverted to an anti-war stance now that middle England has lost appetite for the wars in the Middle East. BNP are now calling them wars for the "benefit of Zion."

I always wondered how long the BNP's tactical but uncomfortable pro-Israel position would last. I now have my answer.

A very short-sighted one of course. Davey had to appeal to the Tory bigots in the Shires to become Conservative leader and it appears as if it's coming back to hurt him.

Europe continues to remain a ticking time-bomb for the Tories. They can afford xenophobia in opposition but it doesn't lend itself well to a future government who needs to get things done with major European powers.

A difficult time is ahead for Cameron. Due to the implosion of the Anglo-Saxon economic consensus, British finance capital is increasingly hedging on the EU to provide a stable trading area and more Euro-integration will be the desired result. Of course this goes against the vast majority of Tory grassroots who oppose the EU for nationalist reasons rather than any question of democracy, but Cameron will have to walk a fine-line to keep both business and the Tory grass-roots on board.

I am guessing that he will put finance interests first (he has to) and will need a Blairesque flair for enforcing his will on a dissenting party. Whether he succeeds depends on whether the parliamentary party will follow, and so it remains to be seen if the Tory xenophobic rants are merely politicking or seriously-held views. Dave just needs to get the parliamentary party on board, as the grass-roots don't matter so much as they are treated with much amusing disdain by their leaders. Besides, the parliamentary party are hungry for power and individual Tories are hungry for government jobs and so they may well wish to put-up with it for so long.

She mentioned Glenn Beck, and I do wonder why he's got a regular tv show and radio broadcast? I know he's very RW and everything, but surely in any other country his employers would have given him leave to sort out whatever emotional issues he's having. Bursting into tears 5 times every hour just doesn't seem like the actions of a functioning adult.

Give me a heads-up whoever you are.

SNP strategists over the last 10 years had pinned their hopes on an emulation of the Irish economic model to bring stable economic growth to Scotland while making up for any economic loss resulting from the costs of separation and the replication of functions that were once pooled at the UK-level.

The collapse of the Celtic Tiger economic model has brought uncertainity about the costs involved in separation and SNP strategists haven't come up with any plan of how Scotland could maintain/raise its standard of living under independent statehood. It is absurd (disingenious?) for SNPers to talk about financial sovereignty returning to Scotland while speculating about a Scottish state joining the Euro.

SNP nationalism is separation for separation's sake.

The first recession of the Bush43 years was more to do with the 90s boom running its course and leading to an overproduction of goods and services with liquidity unable to keep pace.

The Bush tax-cuts were a political giveaway for his core-supporters but presented in the guise of 'restarting' the economy, although in truth it was a deeply inefficient way to do it. The upper rate tax cuts did not filter down into the pockets of the lower-90% of income earners. To make up for this, the US Fed aggressively cut rates in order to get liquidity into the main economy.

This led to an overextension of credit, and thus a bubble economy in housing and the stock market. This is what mainly caused the second Bush43 recession to happen when it did.

I do agree that progressive taxation leads to greater stability and mean wealth in the longer term. Higher personal taxes promotes investment in research & development in industry, higher spending on social services and education (which benefit society and the economy as a whole). Another side-effect is that talent doesn't get sucked into the financial services industry where their talents are utilised in developing tax loopholes and hiding untaxed income. This talent would benefit society more in other areas.

Ireland was the only colony that Britain seriously attempted to integrate into the metropolitan UK, but like Algeria was for France, this proved to be a huge failure.

The artificially-defined six county rump statelet was merely putting off the inevitable. The British people (English, Scots, and Welsh) see N.I. as a foreign land and have supported Irish unity against the policies of the British political class.

The religious hatred which was fostered by the local N.I. political élite with historical backing by London proved to be a huge contradiction for British policy. Religious apartheid helped tie the protestant majority to the 'benefits' of the union (socio-economic dominance over local catholics) thus preserving the territoriality of the British state, whilst making NI's social and civic integration into the UK impossible.

Westminster has realised the failure of this integration. Power-sharing in NI is seen as an inevitable route to Irish unity, and political unionism can only tactically delay but cannot reverse this course.

Most importantly of all, with the abandonment of institutionalised discrimination against Roman Catholics any supposed benefits of retaining the British union become more difficult to argue for.

The Major government's dealings with Europe were paralysed by its right-wing, and the right-Eurosceptic philosophy is reasserting itself once again for a Tory Party in power.

It makes me wonder how the City will react to this. The perceived business benefits of Eurointegration and the increasing neoliberalisation of EU institutions has made the European project more attractive to them. This brings to mind a potential rift between a Tory government and its natural City ally.

Cameron either must cave in to the Tory right like Hague, IDS and Howard had to, or he'd have to enforce his will (like a Thatcher or Blair) on the Party by putting the City's interests first. Either way, it's a bumpy ride for him.

but those well-meaning hard-working individuals within the police can't change the institutionalised right-wing bias (whether New Labour or Tory), nor change the sexism, racism, homophobia and anti-working class nature of the police.

The police forces' main focus is not to protect the public, but to protect the government and the political classes from the people.

I think the government learned the wrong lessons from Northern Ireland. What do the following have in common? Internment without trial, politicised police forces, police with their badges covered beating the crap out of people, civil liberties being trodded on. These are strategies which helped cause the start of the Troubles in the late 1960s and escalated them in the 1970s, and are now becoming increasingly implemented on the island of Great Britain.

There is no groundswell of support backing these groups like which supported the OIRA and PIRA.

Aaronivitch is correct to say that the purpose of the attacks was to bring the British Army back to Ireland. To do so would have seen the collapse of the Peace Process and the return to war. It's a relief that Sinn Fein, the wider republican movement and the British government saw the political nature of the attack as well as the human tragedy around it.

Had the British government caved in to the temptation of escalating a military presence, it would have been politically impossible for Sinn Fein to continue power-sharing and that is what CIRA/RIRA hoped to achieve.

designed to convince workers that imported foreign labour is the root cause of their poverty, rather than the inevitable outcome of unrestrained capitalism. If anything, off-shoring has been far more damaging to workers' wages than imported labour.

Unequal trade relations between the wealthy nations and the poorer nations mean that many undeveloped countries are willing to be paid a pittance for doing what unionised labour did the First World, without the wage and workplace protections.

There is a direct connection between the outcomes of First World imperialism and the out-sourcing of jobs to the Third World. Imperialism means surplus wealth is siphoned from the Third World and redistributed to the wealthiest in the rich countries, aided of course by foreign policies of rich nation states. While the poorest nations lose control over their own resources (and domestic policy choices - thanks to the IMF) they cannot build up their own industry to First World levels and thus will accept pittance pay from big corporations looking to produce goods and services on the cheap.

Xenophobic sentiment has a part to play since the dominant social and political class have no interest in establishing socialism even in its half-way form of social democracy. Xenophobic sentiment hopes to give workers an 'easy' explanation for their poverty so that they don't demand any structural changes that would redistribute money back away from the rich. This is intended to last until global demand picks up and the economy improves. Then there'll be a repeat in the next bust cycle.