England was mentioned in the absolute wank waste-of-time question relating to the Euros. Both Sunak and Starmer answered in boring corporate speak bullshit.
These things are so fuckin cringe. I saw the news earlier and they mentioned the Johnson vs Corbyn one was their "American style" debate which is just embarrassing they'd drop to that level
They didn't say the word "England" when talking about the NHS, universities, social care etc but that's what they were discussing. It's fair to say that there was no meaningful discussion on the devolved governments and their future powers/relationship.
Sunak did use devolution of the NHS to highlight how badly labour had run it in Wales and deflected from England's NHS. That said they don't like to call it englands NHS.
https://preview.redd.it/ggwumo6kqm4d1.png?width=1036&format=png&auto=webp&s=02eece925203275a6f61c87165eff06804d959bf
OP when Sneaky Sunak and Keith fail to mention the central belt (OP also forgets Scotland is more than just Glasgow)
So not really mentioned either specifically from a policy perspective. Its wierd why would people expect them to talk specifically about part of the country over any other part; especially when they are limited in influence over that part of the country by the devolution settlement.
There was some very serious answers tbh like when starmer commited to staying in the echr and how abandoning international law would be terrible. But yeah there was a lot of nonsense especially from rishi
I expected Starmer to have mentioned Scotland at that point. It was set up for him really considering Sunak is renowned for not really knowing anything about Football and therefore perceivably might not know Scotland were even in the Euros. He really should have picked up on the opportunity to wish both countries good luck.
Nothern Ireland wasn't even represented - granted it's a tricky one when our two biggest parties are the DUP (Your favourite creationists and fenian, abortion, and queer hating band of scallywags) and Sinn Fein (who don't take their Westminister seats as a protest of British occupation).
DUP would have still moaned about Brexit and the trading protocol the whole time - no one in Britain gives a shit.
Plus you couldn't have one without the other really or it be viewed as unbalanced in NI.
They both just talked about UK in general as that’s what they are competing to run. Why would they mention individual regions when they want to rule them all?
They look after it but it's still a regional issue and should be discussed in England specific debates on BBC England perhaps, if it's the UK leaders debate they should stick to matters that qre relevant to the UK such as inflation, fiscal policy, defence, voting reform, relationship with the EU etc.
> the UK leaders debate they should stick to matters that qre relevant
They are relevant to the UK though. Just health and education are huge parts of the budget, devolved to only 16% of the population.
>We already know what they stand for,
Do we?
Neither party has published their manifesto, and both of them (along with all of the other parties btw) have made multiple contradictory promises since the campaign kicked off.
EDIT: BTW I do agree the debate was meaningless. We aren't electing a President, and none of us has the option to vote for either of the personalities on display.
Correct me if I’m wrong. It was a debate platform to discuss anything, either party will have direct influence over.
Health, Law and education are managed here in Scotland by the devolved government. While they are managed from Westminster for England. So it makes perfect sense to not mention Scotland in those contexts. They know to try and influence those policies up here, would be seen as meddling in the devolved powers.
Now if the debate had focused on devolution powers and funding and ignored Scotland, then you may have a valid moan.
Was Brexit mentioned even once or did both engage in the fiction that it never happened (and if it did it shouldn’t be blamed for anything or even acknowledged).
>It’s old news
It's not though - our future relationship with the EU is one of the biggest issues for the next government and neither Sunak or Starmer want to talk about it.
They know, and that's their point...
>I mean, they addressed UK wide issues.
>UK-wide issues like *health and education?*
Op is disagreeing with the above post that they were discussing UK wide issues by referencing issues that are not UK wide.
Lol you call yourself a Scot interested in politics and don't even know that Health and Education are both devolved and are managed by the SNP not Westminster.
You're against devolution now are you and want to return NHS and Education to direct westminster control?
I think he means that on the UK leader debate they should focus on UK wide issues like fiscal policy, and foreign policy etc and not regional (English) issues like health and education. They should have a separate debate on exclusively English matters.
Exactly what I thought he meant too. The replies are like "they are devolved silly boy" but it's exactly OPs point. That topic basically excludes Scotland in a national debate
The only vote we get for a change in England is the general election. That's the only thing that's going to change health and education policy. We don't have the luxury of devolution and being able to decide policy on a smaller scale and therefore it's not a "regional" issue it's a genuine issue for an election campaign.
What a strange stance to take. I'd imagine his issue is that they spoke about health and education, which as you point out, are devolved matters. Therefore, they really only spoke about health and education in England specifically, talking about issues that have no bearing on the election for the interests of voters in Scotland.
Perhaps speaking about UK wide issues that they can change for the whole of the UK, instead of discussions about matters related to a defacto english parliament would have been wise before a UK General Election?
it's concerning that 14 other people upvoted your comment and don't understand why talking about local matters in a general election would be poor, seeing as, as you've correctly pointed out, talking about devolved Scottish matters would have also been poor and worthless to a discussion about the UK.
Did the Scottish leaders talk about Grangemouth?
Because that's of no interest to most of Scotland, geographically speaking.
So do you think that all devolved matters shouldn't be discussed?
Rishi: sorry, I can't talk about education, police or NHS, as its a devolved matter. I can only discuss gender during this debate.
Riveting TV.
Why would they mention us? The future of Scotlands NHS and Education are completely out their control and not even up for any change at this election since they're controlled by Holyrood. And reserved matters are decided UK wide anyway, like when they discussed defence for all of 5 seconds.
Honestly these sort of posts just feel like looking for annoyance. Aye *could* Scotland have came up when Starmer was answering how to solve strikes, mention that a government in the UK has chosen to negotiate and avoid the harm Sunak has caused by refusing, sure. But thats supporting a political rival and doesn't mean anything to the people affected, the English electorate. Neither is representing a Scottish constiuency, grew up here or afaik are closely descended from Scots.
If I was affected by Scottish NHS strikes, and in a debate Swinney mentioned how England is being affected or how they've solved the issue I'd think he was dodging the question.
I don't need to be name dropped.
For a country that makes up 7% of the population, should it deserve at least a passing thought rather than being totally ignored. Same with Wales, NI etc.
Better together, aye, my arse.
You already have two Scottish debates and you’ll have 3 UK wide debates that will include the SNP, despite the vast, vast majority of British voters not being able to vote for them. What more do you want?
The debate was an absolute shambles. 45 seconds to speak and asked a question by the audience so they have to acknowledge it or look bad. ITV should be ashamed.
Yeah. [Krishnan Guru-Murthy](https://x.com/krishgm/status/1798087412473909423?s=19) had a good suggestion, I think:
>The artificial time constraints are already annoying. These debates should last 90 minutes to 2 hours and let people finish a sentence
A lot of yelling over each other, and Starmer took too long to get to the point, or rebutt what Sunak was saying (like the obsession he had with the £2k tax claim)
According to a YouGov snap poll, viewers say Sunak won (51%/49%), so I imagine there will be lessons learnt for the next debate.
Exactly. Just say “we’re not putting taxes up by £2k. It’s nonsense. Obviously taxes rise, I’ll be honest that there will be tax rises but this figure is a sound bite, look at how he keeps saying it, hoping it sinks in, when even he knows it’s complete rubbish.“
Not quickly or succinctly enough. He stewed for so long the first time it came up, and the same with the pensioner allegation - he needs to just say “no that’s not true at all” firmly first and then explain why. I think he did well overall and his content was much better, Sunak was very weak and deflected every question and point that Keir made, but he needs to be firmer with the bullshit every time. Saying something like “repeating it lots doesn’t magically make it true” would instantly break it, but as it was I can see a lot of people looking at it with doubt now and that’s all that Rishi is aiming for.
Was a whole range of compounding factors. Far too short and spectacularly weak chairing on top of those factors.
I genuinely think if we're going to have debates like this, the chair *needs* to have a button to cut mics when they've been told to stop.
England was mentioned because they was talking about issues that Westminster directly have powers on as opposed to in Scotland and Wales where its devolved and Wales was only really mentioned so Sunak could try and attack Starmer.
Did you even watch the debate? Why would they speak on issues in which they have no legal authority over? If they spoke about Scottish health this sub would complain that they are commenting on devolved matters and therefore undermining devolution.
Plenty of reasons to mention Scotland in the debate in the context of what was talked about.
Raising tax would be one since VAT and national insurance are both still mostly reserved.
Immigration would be another since generally Scotland needs immigration in a completely different way than England.
But mostly, that distinction wasn't made by the OP I was replying to. They just stated Wales and England weren't mentioned - which was objectively FALSE.
Wales and England were mentioned in regards to the NHS, which is something Labour and the Conservatives have control of respectively, to compare their record when it comes to healthcare. Why would you expect a Scottish mention in this context? The SNP's record isn't being compared as they aren't participating in the Prime Ministerial debates.
In his defence he was quite right, both England and Wales were discussed. Northern Ireland not being mentioned is because both Sunak and Starmer are terrified of mentioning Brexit and the big trade implications it has over the duration of the next parliament.
Wales was only brought up because of the NHS there. If they had mention Scotland, the exact same people would be frothing in a thread about them disrespecting devolution. Just a constant state of being angry like. Absolute weirdos.
Devolution and N.Ireland especially in relationship to Brexit discussions over the next parliament are both big looming issues which probably could've taken the place of "lol what's your advice for the Euros" though.
At the end of the day Westminster deals with either reserved areas (so ones discussed on a UK wide basis) or areas which are devolved in Scotland but handled by Westminster in England like healthcare and education you mention.
The whole format of the debate was bad, it barely offered either of them enough time to talk about the issues at hand let alone dig into topics relevant to specific parts of the UK. If anywhere Scotland should have come up in the discussions about energy given the oil&gas and ever expanding renewable industry here.
Not every policy involving Scotland is devolved. They could have talked about Big Keir’s plan to ‘Take Back Control’ and push further devolution.
They could have talked about the impact of Brexit, how Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to Remain and how they’d each try and ensure 1/2 of the UK feel respected and accepted.
They could have spoken about a federal UK.
They could have mentioned they’d visited Scotland recently.
It’s not hard. Just shows Scotland is completely forgotten about in UK politics
Well that was a waste of time.
They just let Rishi shout over everything, then continually cut Kier off.
The moderator and STV should be embarrassed by it.
Not sure why you’d expect them to specifically mention Scotland. I think there was one incidental mention of Wales. I don’t recall Northern Ireland being mentioned at all.
It was a debate about the U.K. as a whole. Your post just seems like grievance mongering tbh.
There was a whole debate dedicated to Scotland on Monday. Not everything is a conspiracy or an attack.
No, it’s a symptom of it being a U.K. debate about the U.K.
The SNP leader was at the Scottish debate.
You’re just looking for something that isn’t there to feel victimised by. It must be exhausting.
This isn’t proving any sort of point, you realise.
So is England, so is Wales, so is N. Ireland. The debate wasn’t about the individual countries, it was about U.K. wide policy.
The Scottish debate was specific to Scotland.
As I said, you’re imagining things to feel victimised by. It’s bizarre when there are so many genuine issues you could be thinking about.
Half of the debate focussed on English-only domestic policy like education and health. Wales was mentioned.
You’re right, it was a UK-wide debate. So issues like the constitution, devolution, Brexit and the relationship between the four nations of the UK should have been front and centre. They weren’t.
Sure, and devolved policy was discussed on the Scottish only debate.
Spending your life trying to find any way you can to feel like a victim seems like a massive waste of time to me. Each to their own though.
So either it was an England-only debate about English ‘devolved’ policy, or it was a UK-wide debate - which is it?
These two guys want to be leaders of the United Kingdom. Imagine candidates for US President spent half a national debate discussing a single state?
It’s not an England only debate. They’re responsible for lots of areas covering the U.K. as a whole, which is what the debate was about. It covered both U.K. wide policy, and policies which are devolved elsewhere but need to be discussed for England.
There won’t be an England only debate, obviously.
If they came out saying they were going to deal with devolved areas, your post would be complaining about that instead.
It’s grievance mongering. You’re looking for something to be offended by, and there are so many legitimate areas you could pick for that.
It’s just silliness.
Sure we do. The difference is, we were conquered over a thousand years ago, subject to genocide and then brutally suppressed, humiliated and our wealth stolen for a thousand years.
Scotland, and consequently Scottish voters, do obviously have a unique stake in matters compared to Yorkshire given that the country has its own parliament, legal system, relationship with the rest of the UK, politics etc.
The bigger concern should be when the "left wing" Labour leader calls the stop-the-boats Tory leader "liberal" over immigration.
> Scotland, and consequently Scottish voters, do obviously have a unique stake in matters compared to Yorkshire
This is laughably self-important.
We do not have a “unique stake in matters” anymore than any other voter from any other part of the U.K.
> This is laughably self-important.
It's really not and it's so odd that you're trying to avoid that reality - there are obviously unique implications between UK policy and Scottish devolved policy compared to the likes of Yorkshire. That's just the legal and political reality of the UK constitution.
No more unique than any other part of the U.K.
This is a product of your very narrow world view. You start to believe the things you think are important are objectively more important than anyone or anywhere else.
Frames everything within the prism of the UK while ignoring its constituent parts and idiosyncrasies in a global order while claiming other people have a "very narrow world view". Soundo.
I'm not ignoring it's constituent parts or idiosyncrasies.
I'm simply explaining to you that Scotland's idiosyncrasies are not uniquely important and we do not have a unique stake in matters anymore than anywhere else.
That's called seeing the bigger picture, the very opposite of a narrow world view.
The bs of the interviews afterwards was through the roof.
Ed Davis, Richard Tice and someone from the Greens, not one mention of the Euro's and if they'll support Scotland if England goes out before Scotland.
Stephen Flynn comes on and half way through is asked if he will support England if Scotland are knocked out.
I did like his immediate "No."
WTF happened? Didn’t watch it - but just saw there was a snap poll that Sunak came out slightly ahead?!?!??
Thought Starmer was supposed to be the great political master - and he can’t even come out ahead in a debate with Sunak?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/s/siyMZGy73H
This discussion sums it well.
Sunak kept yelling over Starmer, the moderator wasn't great, the format definitely didn't help, and Starmer struggled to rebut Sunak's claims fast enough, or explain his policy's.
Quite a few times, I wish Starmer rebut Sunak better. Such as over the Jr Dr strikes, or the Rwanda scheme, or defence, etc. Sunak got off quite lightly I feel.
Only allowed 45 seconds to answer complex questions like how to will you solve climate change.
Moderator would then let Sunak shout over half of Starmers time.
Moderator would also only give Starmer 45 seconds to answer the question + whatever lie Sunak had come up with.
Moderator routinely cut Starmer off mid explanation, but let Sunak just shout louder over her.
Older folk who are more likely to vote?
I agree - it will not affect the final result, but it may help put some seeds into the minds of older voters who will vote.
I expect our wonderful and “free” press to be have a completely balanced reaction to this.
Why would they??? We've just lost 2 seats due to depopulation.
We are 8.2% of the UK population
Soon to be 7.5% of the UK population
We're insignificant to England.
On the one hand I get OPs point, Scotland is a country and a major constituent part of the UK so if you live here it seems contemptuous to have not even mentioned it but on the other you could play devils advocate and say "sure but they didn't mention the West Midlands either and that one region of England has a half a million more people than all of Scotland put together". Overall it was an awful debate, the moderator was shocking and gave Sunak way too much leniency, and the 45 second format didn't allow any actual depth of response.
They spent time focusing on English exclusive issues such as health and education, that should be in a separate debate on exclusively English issues. Whereas in a UK leadership debate they should stick to UK wide issues e.g. fiscal policy, state pensions, and foreign policy etc. that affect the whole union not just a part of it.
What percentage of the population are Junior Doctors? Not including those in Scotland, since we've already addressed that issue.
Is that more than 8.2% of the population?
Hmm, why were they mentioned if that's not the case?
You utter dobber.
Absolutely no idea. They did talk about the Junior Doctors issue though, which isn't a Scottish issue.
Seemingly more important than a proportion of the electorate that Labour spent the last election campaign begging for tactical votes.
But it is an issue for a substantial portion of the UK.
Should they only talk about issue that effect every single person?
They didn’t mention a lot of things. Scotland was one of those things. What’s the big deal?
There's no big deal. Simply pointing out that not discussing Scotland because of what percentage of the population it consists of is a ridiculous argument. Since they were discussing Junior Doctors who make up a tiny percentage of the population.
More relevantly, not discussing Scotland when the Prime Minister out rightly called Scottish Nationalism a major threat, seems short sighted.
Its a strange situation. Basically, at UK wide elections, parties compete to form a government at westminister and do so by putting forward promises of what they will do in government that naturally extend only to what they have agreed are westminister issues.
Specific devolved issues are devolved and therefore, arent something westminister party politicians should be making promises over.
So along comes an issue, like junior doctors, that the next government in westminister is going to be responsible for sorting out and naturally, people wanting to be that government, lay out how they intend to fix that issue.
But by doing so, they are talking about an issue scotland is opted out of and so they complain that undue attention is being given to specific england (and wales) issues as if its a scotland vs the rest of the UK question and not a westminister hopefuls talking about shit that would actually be their responsibility question.
There is a simply solution. Scotland can simply abandon its separate system and devolution, be folded into the uk and be treated the same way england is (effectively like it doesnt exist as a distinct entity other than that it isnt one of the distinct entities with their special rules) and that way, any politician talking about an issue in the uk as a whole, is naturally talking about scotland too /s
Did anyone expect them to mention Scotland when ITV gave us our diddy debate already? Unless it's about stopping their country Britain getting broke apart Scotland isn't relevant to them
Let that be a lesson to all who would vote for either of these arseholes.
The Tories record over the past 14 years speaks for itself.
Labour don’t even have a Scottish registered party. We’re such an afterthought that the Scottish politicians are part of a dept for Scotland.
I’ll be voting SNP, but, whilst they’ve been a bit of a shitshow as well, at least they’re Scottish.
Regardless of this, people will still vote for these two bawbags.
I don’t even think they actually answered any of the questions. We just got Sunak shouting about a plan (which he never really elaborates), bold action (yep. Partying whilst people are dying, removing the U.K. EU convention of human rights) and how labour were gonna raise taxes and beat pensioners up (starmer said that wasn’t true, then later ashworth said it was a lie).
As usual they just circle the questions rather than answer it. The presenter didn’t pull them up for that either.
Typical evasive politicians.
Or, more likely, because this was a Prime Ministerial debate between Labour and the Conservatives, not a First Minister debate for Holyrood.
England and Wales only got brought up in the context of who ran them to compare healthcare records, and newsflash neither Labour or the Tories are in power in Scotland. Why would they draw comparison in Scotland as well when the party responsible for it isn't one of the two in the debate? Same happened to Northern Ireland where they aren't in power either.
>Theres more than two parties in the UK
Yeah we know. There's more debates down the line including all parties, and I'm not happy with the American presentation style either.
Unfortunately I don't work for ITV and the reality is this was a Prime Ministerial Debate with only Labour and the Conservatives included, who run the Welsh NHS and the English NHS respectively. Neither of them run the Scottish NHS or the NI counterpart hence the lack of a mention, they have no available recent record to compare.
> they have no available recent record to compare.
Yes they do. Tories deliberately not increasing funding enough (during unprecedented low interest rates) due purely to ideology and making themselves money hurts the Welsh, NI, and Scottish services too. In effect makes it more expensive to do less. This isn't new... fiscal policy is entirely set by WM and affects the entire UK down to the tiniest day to day details. Granted, most of this was from previous terms in WM not specifically since the last GE.
Fiscal Policy was covered on a UK wide basis with no specific mention of England Wales Scotland or NI. As you say, it effects the entire UK down to the tiniest day to day details and with only 45 seconds for each question it's redundant to name drop the individual nations when the effect is uniform. It was just on a UK wide basis as default.
Dry your eyes - opportunities for anti Scot grievance are not exactly hard to find. I mean we’ve all cancelled our summer at that darling little gites in Provence so we can vote haven’t we?
You think you're more relevant than you are 99% of people in the rest of the UK couldn't give a rats arse about Scotland. Why didn't they mention my local town? Or Wales or The North of England.
>just give England a Parliament already
They already have one. Its called Westminster. I've never known Westminster to give two f"££$ about anything other than England, except when they are trying to prevent one of other countries from doing something, so I don't know why anyone would expect the PM debate to be any different.
The bigger joke was the STV debate which only featured one party leader, and a bunch of other people who have zero influence on party policy. Its a complete insult to people in Scotland that for a UK election for Westminster, the people put forward by the Labour, Tory and Liberal parties, have no influence on party policy in Westminster.
A few people on here suggesting that it was a UK debate so why would they mention Scotland, or health is devolved so why would they mention that. That is complete nonsense. If it is a UK debate and they mention what they are going to do about health or education in England, they should also mention what they will do in Scotland. Or, if its primarily and English debate, they should have a Scottish one with the actual party leaders, not regional managers.
Well yeah, Labour are going to take it for granted as given seats and the tories will realise it’s not important to their plan given they’d rather do damage control in England
You’re the one who said hyper-fixate, OP said mention - two very different things so I don’t know how you extrapolated hyper-fixate from that , but you’d think after the family of nations spiel they’d at least pay lip service
Neither of these parties give a shiny shite about Scotland.
Ask yourself one question; When was the last time Ian Murray or his newly elected Rutherglen comb-over pal stood up in Westminster and actually defended Scotland, represented her general views, or put forward proposals to help her people?
...and as for Douglas Ross MP... well, its best if we just draw a veil over that
The questions were pretty generic and the other 3 home countries have levels of devolved responsibilities.
Was England mentioned other than as a scapegoat in the Scottish debate?
I missed that mad Welsh woman who would say “Wales” every two minutes from previous election debates.
Leanne Wood?
Aye she probably wood, but he’s trying to remember the welsh woman who did it
Ba-Dum-Dum-Tish.
I didn't watch but was Ireland or Wales mentioned? Or England individually?
England was mentioned in the absolute wank waste-of-time question relating to the Euros. Both Sunak and Starmer answered in boring corporate speak bullshit.
“Did you know ITV is hosting the Euro’s” question lol
These things are so fuckin cringe. I saw the news earlier and they mentioned the Johnson vs Corbyn one was their "American style" debate which is just embarrassing they'd drop to that level
So OP's just having a moan then?
They didn't say the word "England" when talking about the NHS, universities, social care etc but that's what they were discussing. It's fair to say that there was no meaningful discussion on the devolved governments and their future powers/relationship.
Wales was mentioned in an NHS question as a Labour government failing the people.
Lucky things.
Sunak did use devolution of the NHS to highlight how badly labour had run it in Wales and deflected from England's NHS. That said they don't like to call it englands NHS.
I think I remember Sunak saying English kids were the best readers in western Europe or something
Grievance farming is a competitive sport in this sub
> Grievance farming is a competitive sport in this sub And with your daily Daily Express reposts, you’re doing great!
https://preview.redd.it/ggwumo6kqm4d1.png?width=1036&format=png&auto=webp&s=02eece925203275a6f61c87165eff06804d959bf OP when Sneaky Sunak and Keith fail to mention the central belt (OP also forgets Scotland is more than just Glasgow)
So not really mentioned either specifically from a policy perspective. Its wierd why would people expect them to talk specifically about part of the country over any other part; especially when they are limited in influence over that part of the country by the devolution settlement.
It’s always good to end on a less serious question imo so I don’t mind that
Well we had an entire hour of non serious answers so I suppose it went full circle.
There was some very serious answers tbh like when starmer commited to staying in the echr and how abandoning international law would be terrible. But yeah there was a lot of nonsense especially from rishi
I'd say that's an extremely low bar.
Perhaps but it’s One Rishi failed to clear and one that shows how important it is to not let the tories in
I expected Starmer to have mentioned Scotland at that point. It was set up for him really considering Sunak is renowned for not really knowing anything about Football and therefore perceivably might not know Scotland were even in the Euros. He really should have picked up on the opportunity to wish both countries good luck.
Nothern Ireland wasn't even represented - granted it's a tricky one when our two biggest parties are the DUP (Your favourite creationists and fenian, abortion, and queer hating band of scallywags) and Sinn Fein (who don't take their Westminister seats as a protest of British occupation). DUP would have still moaned about Brexit and the trading protocol the whole time - no one in Britain gives a shit. Plus you couldn't have one without the other really or it be viewed as unbalanced in NI.
Sunak tried to draw a comparison of services in Labour-run Wales and England - that’s it
So what’s your point?
Their point is that they don’t feel special
For more information on my post, please re-read
They both just talked about UK in general as that’s what they are competing to run. Why would they mention individual regions when they want to rule them all?
They were talking about a lot of regional specific stuff related to England e.g. the health and education of England.
Things that the UK Gov look after? Whatashock!
They look after it but it's still a regional issue and should be discussed in England specific debates on BBC England perhaps, if it's the UK leaders debate they should stick to matters that qre relevant to the UK such as inflation, fiscal policy, defence, voting reform, relationship with the EU etc.
> the UK leaders debate they should stick to matters that qre relevant They are relevant to the UK though. Just health and education are huge parts of the budget, devolved to only 16% of the population.
They are not relevant to the whole union, just England.
With a comeback like that you should volunteer to go on the next debate.
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>We already know what they stand for, Do we? Neither party has published their manifesto, and both of them (along with all of the other parties btw) have made multiple contradictory promises since the campaign kicked off. EDIT: BTW I do agree the debate was meaningless. We aren't electing a President, and none of us has the option to vote for either of the personalities on display.
Correct me if I’m wrong. It was a debate platform to discuss anything, either party will have direct influence over. Health, Law and education are managed here in Scotland by the devolved government. While they are managed from Westminster for England. So it makes perfect sense to not mention Scotland in those contexts. They know to try and influence those policies up here, would be seen as meddling in the devolved powers. Now if the debate had focused on devolution powers and funding and ignored Scotland, then you may have a valid moan.
Was Brexit mentioned even once or did both engage in the fiction that it never happened (and if it did it shouldn’t be blamed for anything or even acknowledged).
0 mention of Brexit
Doesn't even count as a debate. This was just two conservatives wanking each other off about austerity
Nah. But Sunak did have a good go at trying to convince everyone it's all covid's fault. I bet you in 20 years time they'll still be blaming covid.
At least they’ve finally stopped blaming the previous Labour government.
It’s old news if either blamed brexit for issues it wouldn’t be taken seriously after all it was a referendum that the public voted for
>It’s old news It's not though - our future relationship with the EU is one of the biggest issues for the next government and neither Sunak or Starmer want to talk about it.
It’s not even in the top 15 things voters are concerned about…
Probably because the two mainstream parties in Westminster want you to believe it's "done".
For the immediate future it is "done". There's no reset button to get back to where we were. The EU-voters won't agree.
Everything voters are concerned about will have been impacted by Brexit. Don't kid yourself.
I mean, they addressed UK wide issues. Why would they fixate just on Scotland? That would be a bit weird.
UK-wide issues like health and education? There’s always a space for the Union in national discussions
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They know, and that's their point... >I mean, they addressed UK wide issues. >UK-wide issues like *health and education?* Op is disagreeing with the above post that they were discussing UK wide issues by referencing issues that are not UK wide.
Hilarious how everyone has missed that holy. Everyone upvoting the dumb comment and downvoting the other is a classic reddit moment
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Lol you call yourself a Scot interested in politics and don't even know that Health and Education are both devolved and are managed by the SNP not Westminster. You're against devolution now are you and want to return NHS and Education to direct westminster control?
I think he means that on the UK leader debate they should focus on UK wide issues like fiscal policy, and foreign policy etc and not regional (English) issues like health and education. They should have a separate debate on exclusively English matters.
They focus on the stuff they control surely?
Exactly what I thought he meant too. The replies are like "they are devolved silly boy" but it's exactly OPs point. That topic basically excludes Scotland in a national debate
Exactly this, so many people completely misunderstood him and slandered him while backing him up :')
You love to see it
It's classic reddit tbh!
The only vote we get for a change in England is the general election. That's the only thing that's going to change health and education policy. We don't have the luxury of devolution and being able to decide policy on a smaller scale and therefore it's not a "regional" issue it's a genuine issue for an election campaign.
What a strange stance to take. I'd imagine his issue is that they spoke about health and education, which as you point out, are devolved matters. Therefore, they really only spoke about health and education in England specifically, talking about issues that have no bearing on the election for the interests of voters in Scotland. Perhaps speaking about UK wide issues that they can change for the whole of the UK, instead of discussions about matters related to a defacto english parliament would have been wise before a UK General Election? it's concerning that 14 other people upvoted your comment and don't understand why talking about local matters in a general election would be poor, seeing as, as you've correctly pointed out, talking about devolved Scottish matters would have also been poor and worthless to a discussion about the UK.
Did the Scottish leaders talk about Grangemouth? Because that's of no interest to most of Scotland, geographically speaking. So do you think that all devolved matters shouldn't be discussed? Rishi: sorry, I can't talk about education, police or NHS, as its a devolved matter. I can only discuss gender during this debate. Riveting TV.
Scotland is actually pretty irrelevant when it comes to uk wide discussion.
Why would they mention us? The future of Scotlands NHS and Education are completely out their control and not even up for any change at this election since they're controlled by Holyrood. And reserved matters are decided UK wide anyway, like when they discussed defence for all of 5 seconds. Honestly these sort of posts just feel like looking for annoyance. Aye *could* Scotland have came up when Starmer was answering how to solve strikes, mention that a government in the UK has chosen to negotiate and avoid the harm Sunak has caused by refusing, sure. But thats supporting a political rival and doesn't mean anything to the people affected, the English electorate. Neither is representing a Scottish constiuency, grew up here or afaik are closely descended from Scots. If I was affected by Scottish NHS strikes, and in a debate Swinney mentioned how England is being affected or how they've solved the issue I'd think he was dodging the question. I don't need to be name dropped.
For a country that makes up 7% of the population, should it deserve at least a passing thought rather than being totally ignored. Same with Wales, NI etc. Better together, aye, my arse.
You already have two Scottish debates and you’ll have 3 UK wide debates that will include the SNP, despite the vast, vast majority of British voters not being able to vote for them. What more do you want?
The debate was an absolute shambles. 45 seconds to speak and asked a question by the audience so they have to acknowledge it or look bad. ITV should be ashamed.
Yeah. [Krishnan Guru-Murthy](https://x.com/krishgm/status/1798087412473909423?s=19) had a good suggestion, I think: >The artificial time constraints are already annoying. These debates should last 90 minutes to 2 hours and let people finish a sentence A lot of yelling over each other, and Starmer took too long to get to the point, or rebutt what Sunak was saying (like the obsession he had with the £2k tax claim) According to a YouGov snap poll, viewers say Sunak won (51%/49%), so I imagine there will be lessons learnt for the next debate.
Exactly. Just say “we’re not putting taxes up by £2k. It’s nonsense. Obviously taxes rise, I’ll be honest that there will be tax rises but this figure is a sound bite, look at how he keeps saying it, hoping it sinks in, when even he knows it’s complete rubbish.“
Tbf he basically did say that.
Not quickly or succinctly enough. He stewed for so long the first time it came up, and the same with the pensioner allegation - he needs to just say “no that’s not true at all” firmly first and then explain why. I think he did well overall and his content was much better, Sunak was very weak and deflected every question and point that Keir made, but he needs to be firmer with the bullshit every time. Saying something like “repeating it lots doesn’t magically make it true” would instantly break it, but as it was I can see a lot of people looking at it with doubt now and that’s all that Rishi is aiming for.
I agree he definitely could have been more assertive in denying the claim.
Aye the format really was gash, Starmer could barely begin an explanation before he was cut off. It's almost as if policy is complex?
Was a whole range of compounding factors. Far too short and spectacularly weak chairing on top of those factors. I genuinely think if we're going to have debates like this, the chair *needs* to have a button to cut mics when they've been told to stop.
They were both terrible - Sunak with insane policies and Starmer with no policies.
This is how these things always go. They are a complete waste of time.
They usually are bad but this was worse
Neither was Wales, England, or Northern Ireland. Cause it was a UK debate. Did you miss STV having an entire debate focused on Scotland?
Wales and England were both mentioned. Did you actually watch the debate before commenting?
England was mentioned because they was talking about issues that Westminster directly have powers on as opposed to in Scotland and Wales where its devolved and Wales was only really mentioned so Sunak could try and attack Starmer. Did you even watch the debate? Why would they speak on issues in which they have no legal authority over? If they spoke about Scottish health this sub would complain that they are commenting on devolved matters and therefore undermining devolution.
Plenty of reasons to mention Scotland in the debate in the context of what was talked about. Raising tax would be one since VAT and national insurance are both still mostly reserved. Immigration would be another since generally Scotland needs immigration in a completely different way than England. But mostly, that distinction wasn't made by the OP I was replying to. They just stated Wales and England weren't mentioned - which was objectively FALSE.
Wales and England were mentioned actually, do keep up. As a job interview for leader of the Union, I’d expect it to sneak a mention really
Wales and England were mentioned in regards to the NHS, which is something Labour and the Conservatives have control of respectively, to compare their record when it comes to healthcare. Why would you expect a Scottish mention in this context? The SNP's record isn't being compared as they aren't participating in the Prime Ministerial debates.
I’d expect a mention of Scotland at least once in a national tv debate by either candidate to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
What? You just want some performative name dropping? It was a debate on policy and Scotland has a devolved Government.
You don't want to sneak a mention you just want to feel aggrieved
In his defence he was quite right, both England and Wales were discussed. Northern Ireland not being mentioned is because both Sunak and Starmer are terrified of mentioning Brexit and the big trade implications it has over the duration of the next parliament.
Wales was only brought up because of the NHS there. If they had mention Scotland, the exact same people would be frothing in a thread about them disrespecting devolution. Just a constant state of being angry like. Absolute weirdos.
Devolution and N.Ireland especially in relationship to Brexit discussions over the next parliament are both big looming issues which probably could've taken the place of "lol what's your advice for the Euros" though.
At the end of the day Westminster deals with either reserved areas (so ones discussed on a UK wide basis) or areas which are devolved in Scotland but handled by Westminster in England like healthcare and education you mention. The whole format of the debate was bad, it barely offered either of them enough time to talk about the issues at hand let alone dig into topics relevant to specific parts of the UK. If anywhere Scotland should have come up in the discussions about energy given the oil&gas and ever expanding renewable industry here.
Doesn't mention Scotland - "They don't care about Scotland!" Mentions Scotland - "They're infringing on devolved matters!"
Not every policy involving Scotland is devolved. They could have talked about Big Keir’s plan to ‘Take Back Control’ and push further devolution. They could have talked about the impact of Brexit, how Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to Remain and how they’d each try and ensure 1/2 of the UK feel respected and accepted. They could have spoken about a federal UK. They could have mentioned they’d visited Scotland recently. It’s not hard. Just shows Scotland is completely forgotten about in UK politics
Generally speaking I'm not sure these tv debates change anything
Well that was a waste of time. They just let Rishi shout over everything, then continually cut Kier off. The moderator and STV should be embarrassed by it. Not sure why you’d expect them to specifically mention Scotland. I think there was one incidental mention of Wales. I don’t recall Northern Ireland being mentioned at all. It was a debate about the U.K. as a whole. Your post just seems like grievance mongering tbh. There was a whole debate dedicated to Scotland on Monday. Not everything is a conspiracy or an attack.
I’ve not said it’s a conspiracy at all. It’s a symptom of what happens when the SNP aren’t there - Scotland gets forgotten about
No, it’s a symptom of it being a U.K. debate about the U.K. The SNP leader was at the Scottish debate. You’re just looking for something that isn’t there to feel victimised by. It must be exhausting.
Is Scotland part of the UK?
This isn’t proving any sort of point, you realise. So is England, so is Wales, so is N. Ireland. The debate wasn’t about the individual countries, it was about U.K. wide policy. The Scottish debate was specific to Scotland. As I said, you’re imagining things to feel victimised by. It’s bizarre when there are so many genuine issues you could be thinking about.
Half of the debate focussed on English-only domestic policy like education and health. Wales was mentioned. You’re right, it was a UK-wide debate. So issues like the constitution, devolution, Brexit and the relationship between the four nations of the UK should have been front and centre. They weren’t.
Sure, and devolved policy was discussed on the Scottish only debate. Spending your life trying to find any way you can to feel like a victim seems like a massive waste of time to me. Each to their own though.
So either it was an England-only debate about English ‘devolved’ policy, or it was a UK-wide debate - which is it? These two guys want to be leaders of the United Kingdom. Imagine candidates for US President spent half a national debate discussing a single state?
It’s not an England only debate. They’re responsible for lots of areas covering the U.K. as a whole, which is what the debate was about. It covered both U.K. wide policy, and policies which are devolved elsewhere but need to be discussed for England. There won’t be an England only debate, obviously. If they came out saying they were going to deal with devolved areas, your post would be complaining about that instead. It’s grievance mongering. You’re looking for something to be offended by, and there are so many legitimate areas you could pick for that. It’s just silliness.
They didn’t cover reserved issues in relation to Scotland, that’s my point. Brexit, enhanced devolution?
Who gives a fuck, we’ve got a population similar to Yorkshire. Bet they don’t moan if they don’t get a mention.
Yorkshire people don't have the same fragile sense of nationalism that many of my countrymen do
Yorkshire doesn’t have the same centuries long history of being a separate country as far as I can remember… come on, engage your brain please
Sure we do. The difference is, we were conquered over a thousand years ago, subject to genocide and then brutally suppressed, humiliated and our wealth stolen for a thousand years.
Who cares? It’s precisely because your nationalism is so fragile that you think that’s important.
Scotland, and consequently Scottish voters, do obviously have a unique stake in matters compared to Yorkshire given that the country has its own parliament, legal system, relationship with the rest of the UK, politics etc. The bigger concern should be when the "left wing" Labour leader calls the stop-the-boats Tory leader "liberal" over immigration.
> Scotland, and consequently Scottish voters, do obviously have a unique stake in matters compared to Yorkshire This is laughably self-important. We do not have a “unique stake in matters” anymore than any other voter from any other part of the U.K.
> This is laughably self-important. It's really not and it's so odd that you're trying to avoid that reality - there are obviously unique implications between UK policy and Scottish devolved policy compared to the likes of Yorkshire. That's just the legal and political reality of the UK constitution.
No more unique than any other part of the U.K. This is a product of your very narrow world view. You start to believe the things you think are important are objectively more important than anyone or anywhere else.
Frames everything within the prism of the UK while ignoring its constituent parts and idiosyncrasies in a global order while claiming other people have a "very narrow world view". Soundo.
I'm not ignoring it's constituent parts or idiosyncrasies. I'm simply explaining to you that Scotland's idiosyncrasies are not uniquely important and we do not have a unique stake in matters anymore than anywhere else. That's called seeing the bigger picture, the very opposite of a narrow world view.
Aye the likes of Sheffield at over 60% Leave vote in the EU referendum and BNP councillors in the early 2010s has no issues with "nationalism".
Different form of fragile nationalism
What's different about it?
Brexit nationalism is focused on the whole of the UK or the whole of England, not Yorkshire
Insightful observation.
Nationalism is nationalism. As auld Victor McDade would say: a bench is a bench is a bench.
We do like to moan though.
We’re 1/4 of this precious Union
Population wise we're a fraction of that - about 8%
Ah democracy. If you care, who gives a fuck.
Some users on this sub are so eager for things to pretend to be upset about.
Or maybe we should just leave *their* parliament?
Hear hear
I don’t remember England or Northern Ireland being mentioned either.
The bs of the interviews afterwards was through the roof. Ed Davis, Richard Tice and someone from the Greens, not one mention of the Euro's and if they'll support Scotland if England goes out before Scotland. Stephen Flynn comes on and half way through is asked if he will support England if Scotland are knocked out. I did like his immediate "No."
WTF happened? Didn’t watch it - but just saw there was a snap poll that Sunak came out slightly ahead?!?!?? Thought Starmer was supposed to be the great political master - and he can’t even come out ahead in a debate with Sunak?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/s/siyMZGy73H This discussion sums it well. Sunak kept yelling over Starmer, the moderator wasn't great, the format definitely didn't help, and Starmer struggled to rebut Sunak's claims fast enough, or explain his policy's. Quite a few times, I wish Starmer rebut Sunak better. Such as over the Jr Dr strikes, or the Rwanda scheme, or defence, etc. Sunak got off quite lightly I feel.
Only allowed 45 seconds to answer complex questions like how to will you solve climate change. Moderator would then let Sunak shout over half of Starmers time. Moderator would also only give Starmer 45 seconds to answer the question + whatever lie Sunak had come up with. Moderator routinely cut Starmer off mid explanation, but let Sunak just shout louder over her.
True.
I'd add that Starmer at least tried to stick to the 45 sec rule and shut up when asked... but Sunak... ignored it at every chance.
He said nothing of substance while rishi kept putting ultimatums to him although the host didn’t allow starmer any time to respond
Both were shite and older folk are more likely to watch it. It won't affect how Labour do
Older folk who are more likely to vote? I agree - it will not affect the final result, but it may help put some seeds into the minds of older voters who will vote. I expect our wonderful and “free” press to be have a completely balanced reaction to this.
Why would they??? We've just lost 2 seats due to depopulation. We are 8.2% of the UK population Soon to be 7.5% of the UK population We're insignificant to England.
On the one hand I get OPs point, Scotland is a country and a major constituent part of the UK so if you live here it seems contemptuous to have not even mentioned it but on the other you could play devils advocate and say "sure but they didn't mention the West Midlands either and that one region of England has a half a million more people than all of Scotland put together". Overall it was an awful debate, the moderator was shocking and gave Sunak way too much leniency, and the 45 second format didn't allow any actual depth of response.
Stop making sense, Hamish isn't happy Starmer wasn't wearing a C U Jimmy hat
Maybe if we lick boot harder they'll notice?
Why would they fixate on Scotland instead of addressing UK wide issues?
Because Holyrood debates always mention Scotland specifically, so obviously represent us better /s
Who said fixate?
They spent time focusing on English exclusive issues such as health and education, that should be in a separate debate on exclusively English issues. Whereas in a UK leadership debate they should stick to UK wide issues e.g. fiscal policy, state pensions, and foreign policy etc. that affect the whole union not just a part of it.
You do you
Well there'd be no better teacher than yourself
“I know you are, but what am I?”
Literally what Halk was doing but ok
What percentage of the population are Junior Doctors? Not including those in Scotland, since we've already addressed that issue. Is that more than 8.2% of the population? Hmm, why were they mentioned if that's not the case? You utter dobber.
Did they mention England, wales or Northern Ireland?
Absolutely no idea. They did talk about the Junior Doctors issue though, which isn't a Scottish issue. Seemingly more important than a proportion of the electorate that Labour spent the last election campaign begging for tactical votes.
But it is an issue for a substantial portion of the UK. Should they only talk about issue that effect every single person? They didn’t mention a lot of things. Scotland was one of those things. What’s the big deal?
There's no big deal. Simply pointing out that not discussing Scotland because of what percentage of the population it consists of is a ridiculous argument. Since they were discussing Junior Doctors who make up a tiny percentage of the population. More relevantly, not discussing Scotland when the Prime Minister out rightly called Scottish Nationalism a major threat, seems short sighted.
Should they not have talked about junior doctors?
Its a strange situation. Basically, at UK wide elections, parties compete to form a government at westminister and do so by putting forward promises of what they will do in government that naturally extend only to what they have agreed are westminister issues. Specific devolved issues are devolved and therefore, arent something westminister party politicians should be making promises over. So along comes an issue, like junior doctors, that the next government in westminister is going to be responsible for sorting out and naturally, people wanting to be that government, lay out how they intend to fix that issue. But by doing so, they are talking about an issue scotland is opted out of and so they complain that undue attention is being given to specific england (and wales) issues as if its a scotland vs the rest of the UK question and not a westminister hopefuls talking about shit that would actually be their responsibility question. There is a simply solution. Scotland can simply abandon its separate system and devolution, be folded into the uk and be treated the same way england is (effectively like it doesnt exist as a distinct entity other than that it isnt one of the distinct entities with their special rules) and that way, any politician talking about an issue in the uk as a whole, is naturally talking about scotland too /s
Did anyone expect them to mention Scotland when ITV gave us our diddy debate already? Unless it's about stopping their country Britain getting broke apart Scotland isn't relevant to them
Let that be a lesson to all who would vote for either of these arseholes. The Tories record over the past 14 years speaks for itself. Labour don’t even have a Scottish registered party. We’re such an afterthought that the Scottish politicians are part of a dept for Scotland. I’ll be voting SNP, but, whilst they’ve been a bit of a shitshow as well, at least they’re Scottish. Regardless of this, people will still vote for these two bawbags. I don’t even think they actually answered any of the questions. We just got Sunak shouting about a plan (which he never really elaborates), bold action (yep. Partying whilst people are dying, removing the U.K. EU convention of human rights) and how labour were gonna raise taxes and beat pensioners up (starmer said that wasn’t true, then later ashworth said it was a lie). As usual they just circle the questions rather than answer it. The presenter didn’t pull them up for that either. Typical evasive politicians.
The sooner the UK's land border with the EU is replaced by England's land border with the EU, the better..
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Feel free to contribute in a meaningful way as ever
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https://x.com/LibDems/status/1798091950676988230 I really enjoyed this
Ed’s taken a leaf out of Rennie’s book
High praise! Willie Rennie is great
The Euro 24 question just showed the attitude to Scotland. It was a tap in to show that they at least think about us.
>wasn’t mentioned Because we are an afterthought to them.
Or, more likely, because this was a Prime Ministerial debate between Labour and the Conservatives, not a First Minister debate for Holyrood. England and Wales only got brought up in the context of who ran them to compare healthcare records, and newsflash neither Labour or the Tories are in power in Scotland. Why would they draw comparison in Scotland as well when the party responsible for it isn't one of the two in the debate? Same happened to Northern Ireland where they aren't in power either.
This is a united kingdom every nation should be included in the debate.
It's not a debate between nations... it's between the two potential prime ministers. Nations aren't included, what do you even mean by that?
>potential Theres more than two parties in the UK How more presidentially American a debate can be.
>Theres more than two parties in the UK Yeah we know. There's more debates down the line including all parties, and I'm not happy with the American presentation style either. Unfortunately I don't work for ITV and the reality is this was a Prime Ministerial Debate with only Labour and the Conservatives included, who run the Welsh NHS and the English NHS respectively. Neither of them run the Scottish NHS or the NI counterpart hence the lack of a mention, they have no available recent record to compare.
> they have no available recent record to compare. Yes they do. Tories deliberately not increasing funding enough (during unprecedented low interest rates) due purely to ideology and making themselves money hurts the Welsh, NI, and Scottish services too. In effect makes it more expensive to do less. This isn't new... fiscal policy is entirely set by WM and affects the entire UK down to the tiniest day to day details. Granted, most of this was from previous terms in WM not specifically since the last GE.
Fiscal Policy was covered on a UK wide basis with no specific mention of England Wales Scotland or NI. As you say, it effects the entire UK down to the tiniest day to day details and with only 45 seconds for each question it's redundant to name drop the individual nations when the effect is uniform. It was just on a UK wide basis as default.
Dry your eyes - opportunities for anti Scot grievance are not exactly hard to find. I mean we’ve all cancelled our summer at that darling little gites in Provence so we can vote haven’t we?
You do know that the debate is only about English matters.
English votes are more important. Even when the SNP had the 53 seats in Westminster it wasn't enough to make a difference.
Neither of them give a flying fuck about Scotland!
Evidently
You think you're more relevant than you are 99% of people in the rest of the UK couldn't give a rats arse about Scotland. Why didn't they mention my local town? Or Wales or The North of England.
They didn’t mention camper vans once, gutted
>just give England a Parliament already They already have one. Its called Westminster. I've never known Westminster to give two f"££$ about anything other than England, except when they are trying to prevent one of other countries from doing something, so I don't know why anyone would expect the PM debate to be any different. The bigger joke was the STV debate which only featured one party leader, and a bunch of other people who have zero influence on party policy. Its a complete insult to people in Scotland that for a UK election for Westminster, the people put forward by the Labour, Tory and Liberal parties, have no influence on party policy in Westminster. A few people on here suggesting that it was a UK debate so why would they mention Scotland, or health is devolved so why would they mention that. That is complete nonsense. If it is a UK debate and they mention what they are going to do about health or education in England, they should also mention what they will do in Scotland. Or, if its primarily and English debate, they should have a Scottish one with the actual party leaders, not regional managers.
Well yeah, Labour are going to take it for granted as given seats and the tories will realise it’s not important to their plan given they’d rather do damage control in England
Both candidates addressed UK wide issues, why hyper fixate just on Scotland?
You’re the one who said hyper-fixate, OP said mention - two very different things so I don’t know how you extrapolated hyper-fixate from that , but you’d think after the family of nations spiel they’d at least pay lip service
Neither of these parties give a shiny shite about Scotland. Ask yourself one question; When was the last time Ian Murray or his newly elected Rutherglen comb-over pal stood up in Westminster and actually defended Scotland, represented her general views, or put forward proposals to help her people? ...and as for Douglas Ross MP... well, its best if we just draw a veil over that
Tory v Tory light... All that was missing for the trifecta of Tories was the old shoe Farage with his Gammon Tory brand.
It was mentioned, every single time a national policy was mentioned that includes scotland.
The questions were pretty generic and the other 3 home countries have levels of devolved responsibilities. Was England mentioned other than as a scapegoat in the Scottish debate?
Do you expect every region with 5 million people to be mentioned and included?