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LA Times wrote:
British elections: Triumph for Scottish Nationalist Party; defeat for Liberal Democrats

The independence-minded Scottish Nationalist Party wins a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the first time any group has done so. The Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in Britain's governing coalition, suffer humiliating defeats in local races.

Reporting from London—

A party advocating independence for Scotland has won a surprising mandate in the regional assembly there, according to election returns Friday that also showed the junior partner in Britain's governing coalition, the Liberal Democrats, getting thrashed in local races across the country.

A referendum on changing the way voters choose members of Parliament was heading toward a resounding defeat as well, matching the fortunes of the "Lib Dems," the party that most ardently championed it.

Britain's ruling Conservatives, who had braced themselves for heavy losses because of their radical plan to cut public spending, held up surprisingly well in the local elections, one year after winning power on the national level. Both the Conservatives and, even more so, the opposition Labor Party made gains in city and town halls at the expense of the Liberal Democrats.

But the stunner of Thursday's elections was the success of the Scottish Nationalist Party, or SNP, which won a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the first time any grouping has done so since the assembly was established in Edinburgh in 1999.

The head of the SNP, Alex Salmond, who will serve another term as Scotland's first minister, lost no time in declaring his intention to introduce a plebiscite on Scottish independence within the next five years.

"The SNP can finally claim that we have lived up to that accolade as the national party of Scotland," Salmond told cheering supporters in Aberdeen. "That is why, in this term of the Parliament, we shall bring forward a referendum and trust the people with Scotland's own constitutional future."

It's unclear how a referendum on secession, a longtime dream of nationalists such as actor Sean Connery, would fare at the polls. Although plenty of Scots favor unyoking themselves from England and Wales in theory, breaking up the union that has existed officially since 1707 would be incredibly complicated.

The SNP's victory was all the more remarkable because the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament was designed by the Labor government of former Prime Minister Tony Blair in such a way as to make it extremely difficult for a single party to capture a majority of seats.

Only a few weeks ago, the SNP trailed Labor in the polls. But as the election neared, the SNP capitalized on anger with the nationwide deficit-reduction plan approved by lawmakers in London and on disenchantment with Labor's campaign strategy in Scotland.

"Clearly we've seen a very substantial movement to the SNP in the last week," Salmond told reporters. "I think we can trace that almost entirely to Labor's extraordinary decision to relaunch the campaign as an all-out assault on Scottish independence."

Elsewhere in Britain, the Liberal Democrats, who played kingmaker after last year's general election, were humiliated at the polls in a reflection of their precipitous drop in public opinion over the last several months.

Many of the Lib Dems' core left-leaning supporters have never forgiven the party's leader, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, for joining the Conservatives in government and enabling a right-wing agenda they find horrifying.

Embarrassingly for Clegg, Labor won control of the city council of Sheffield, the area he represents in Parliament.

"We have taken a real knock," said a grim-faced Clegg, who only a year ago was hailed as the most exciting force in British politics. "Especially in those parts of the country — Scotland, Wales, the great cities of the north — where there are real anxieties about the deficit-reduction plan that we're having to put in place; we're clearly getting the brunt of the blame."

His party's most cherished cause, reforming the way members of the House of Commons are elected, was going down in flames in the vote tabulation Friday.

Partial results showed that Britons were soundly rejecting a proposal to introduce a system of preferential voting, which would weaken the duopoly of the Conservatives and Labor and give smaller parties such as the Lib Dems a better shot at more seats in Parliament.

The campaign over the proposal was marked by bitter recriminations between the coalition partners, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, with Clegg a frequent target.

scspkr99 wrote:The Anglo-Irish situation is very different and religion in Anglo-Irish relations is somewhat overstated.

There's some parallels to be drawn due to history I guess and I'd guess there are some religious connotations given the sectarianism that exists in certain parts of Scottish life but the SNP generally draws from a leftist demographic and the failure of the last Labour government and the Liberal coalition is too fresh for there to have been any other result.

mks wrote:Would Great Britain have to change its name. What about the United Kingdom?

southstar wrote:

mks wrote:Would Great Britain have to change its name. What about the United Kingdom?

United Kingdom is the full name for GB and northern Ireland

mks wrote:Speaking of Kings and Kingdoms,

I come from a long line of English kings and an Empress (hint). Is there a stipend or fund for ex royalty? I should be gettin' paid for for this shit.