It cannot be stressed enough just how important the May elections are for the future of Scotland.
If we are all truly committed to the ideal of an independent Scotland and a permanent escape from the appalling realities of Brexit Britain and the cruel, heartless and callous future that Johnson’s right wing English nationalist Conservative party has in store for us, then we must all strive to make the best of the political situation the independence movement is currently in and not to carp and complain about not having the set of political circumstances that each of us with our different political and social views might consider ideal. We must work to get the best possible outcome from the cards that have been dealt and which are actually on the table.
For all the current difficulties and divisions, the foundations of the independence movement remain strong. Even in the absence of a date for a referendum, which would serve to concentrate the minds of that huge part of the population which does not habitually engage with politics, for over a year opinion polling has demonstrated that a half or more of the population of Scotland favours independence. Among younger age groups, support for independence is overwhelming, meaning that we can expect to see support for independence grow over time among the population as a whole. We are not yet quite at the point where support for independence is the settled will of the people of Scotland, but that is what the demographic trend very clearly points to.
For Alex Salmond supporters, making the best of the current situation means accepting that the campaign to unseat Nicola Sturgeon has failed. She’s not going anywhere. Furthermore the constant attacks on her from supporters of Alex Salmond merely risk alienating undecided and swithering voters who are put off by the sight of a divided movement which seems more interested in arguing amongst itself than in attacking the anti-independence parties or in pointing out the dangers posed by the Conservatives or the lack of any convincing solution to the constitutional issue from the Labour party. That risks driving down the SNP vote in the coming election, which is counterproductive for Alex Salmond’s supporters as the success of his new party and its strategy of maximising the number of pro-independence MSPs crucially depends upon ensuring that the SNP sweeps the board in the constituency vote.
The key problem here is that the supermajority strategy of the Alba Party is fundamentally a strategy for maximising the number of pro-independence MSPs, it is essentially a proposal to carve up the pro-independence vote in what is hoped will be a more productive manner, it will not in itself increase the pro-independence vote in any significant way. The big danger is that if Salmond’s supporters do not cease their attacks on Nicola Sturgeon and her supporters they run a very real danger of damaging and decreasing the total pro-independence vote. This is all the more of an issue because the mere existence of Alex Salmond’s new party ensures that the narrative of a divided SNP and the fall out between the current and former leader of the SNP will remain dominant in this election campaign, particularly in a Scottish media which is overwhelmingly anti-independence and which seeks anything which it can use to minimise the pro-independence vote. Alex Salmond’s decision to associate himself and his new party with deeply divisive figures like Stuart Campbell only makes that easier for them.
Supporters of Alex Salmond need to accept that Nicola Sturgeon is still very firmly in place and must move on from their failed efforts to remove her from office, instead they must focus on doing what their leader called for, which is working to build a supermajority for independence in the coming elections. That means doing what they can to maximise the pro-independence vote, and critically for the success of the Alba party’s plan, to ensuring that the SNP sweeps the board in the constituency vote. That in turn requires that they stop their attacks on Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP and start to focus on attacking the British nationalist parties and highlighting that they have nothing to offer Scotland.
Equally supporters of Nicola Sturgeon need to accept that Alex Salmond isn’t going to just go away. They may have hoped that having failed to unseat Nicola Sturgeon he would quietly pack his bags and head off into retirement, but that isn’t going to happen any more than Nicola Sturgeon is going to resign as leader of the SNP. He has launched his new party now and just as his supporters need to cease their attacks on Nicola Sturgeon so as not to damage the total independence vote, so supporters of Nicola Sturgeon need to stop attacking Alex Salmond for the exact same reason. As far as the attacks on each other are concerned, everyone needs to wheesht for indy.
Both Salmond and Sturgeon are formidable politicians. Both of them have significant numbers of supporters. Neither of them is going to back down. This is a far from ideal situation that we are in but we have to make the best of it and work to ensure that the next Scottish elections deliver that all important pro-independence majority. Above all that means ceasing the vitriolic personal attacks on other independence supporters, making the positive arguments for independence, attacking the forces of British nationalism who are the only beneficiaries of our divisions, and finding common ground. In yesterday’s blog I made my own feelings about this new party clear, but the new party has happened now and the only priority for those of us in the grassroots is to ensure a strong pro-independence majority in May. That means finding a message around which we can all coalesce.
The message now for independence supporters should be to vote SNP in the constituency vote and in the list to give your vote to the pro independence party whose policies are most in tune with your own views and opinions. For me that means voting SNP 1 & 2, but I am not going to attack, criticise, or question the motives of those who have a different opinion, and I trust that those people will pay the same courtesy to me and others who retain our trust in Nicola Sturgeon to deliver a referendum. The toxic divisions and infighting need to end, because if they do not, we will all lose and this period in Scottish politics will go down in the history books as a prime example of this nation’s unfortunate habit of wresting defeat from the jaws of victory.
This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership ,or about some other issue not directly related to Scottish independence – there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.
You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.
Wee Ginger Dug 
Kenny MacAskill has jumped ship to ALBA (not fake news):
All the old men together.
didnt you read pauls article. focus your energy on the unionists.
and as far as insults go, making derogatory remarks about someones age just makes you sound like a spoon
Did salmond get elected to his new post by the members cat? Is just appointees only. MacCaskill, McEleny, sillars?
Doesn’t seem democratic to me. More autocratic.
I think Scotland can do better than this.
i have no idea how alba, the snp or any other party selects their candidates, it does not exclude me from supporting or voting for them?
So glad to See you back on a regular basis, Paul. You’re clear-sightenedness and ability to get to the heart of the matter were sorely missed
Hope you’re doing well.
Well said.
The old men in one party, the old women in the other. Is that really the depths you want to descend to? Both parties have generations of politicians who are nearer the end of their careers than the start. Fresh faces without all the baggage will make an enormous difference.
Ageism and Sexism in one pithy phrase. Bravo. Now go back and read the article.
Hear hear.
All that’s needed now is for Sillars to join them.
That’s the guy who’s name I forgot on the earlier post.
Alongside Farage, Galloway, and Salmond as the men who rode off into the sunset.
Paul, just to say I very much appreciated your words at our adoption meeting zoom meeting yesterday. Of all the good speakers I feel your example of No to Yes in your family circle best reinforced the belief in our activists that much progress is possible at the base among friends and family; especially how committed lifelong unionists feel their lifelong beliefs fading away and that change has to happen.
Personally I am very concerned especially in South of Scotland region about the Alba party splitting the pro independence vote. Both votes SNP is absolutely essential here; constituency wins for the SNP are not guaranteed everywhere in the region.
Thank you. Sorry I had to leave the Zoom meeting right after speaking. I was struggling badly with post-stroke fatigue yesterday and really needed to go and have a rest.
Clachangowk , i think you are right to say both votes SNP in south of Scotland
But there are areas of Scotland where SNP are certain to win the constituency vote so giving them the LIST vote too would be a waste in fact it will just ensure that a union party gets that LIST seat so in these areas giving the LIST vote to such as ALBA makes sense
The Tory vote in the S. of Scotland is very strong, as this is the area which would be most affected by Independence. Many people live on one side of the Border and work on the other for example. The Tories have milked the sizeable opposition to Independence down here since 2016, resulting in the election of 3 Tory Constituency MSP’s in that election. Also, Galloway and West Dumfries, my constituency, has been Tory-held since it was created in 1999 and it would be a major shock if the SNP candidate, Emma Harper, managed to oust the Tory incumbent, Finlay Carson. As happened to the Westminster Tory MP, the odious Alister Jack, in 2019, it is more likely that Emma will cut Carson’s majority but not be able to beat him. Currently, she is a List MSP and may retain her seat there. I don’t know much about Joan McAlpine’s chances of ousting Oliver Mundell in the seat next door (Dumfriesshire), as that seat was previously Labour, but the fact that the Tories played the Unionist card heavily in 2016 led to them taking that seat doesn’t make me hopeful to be honest. Joan is currently a List MSP, and may keep that seat. Alliance for Unity, the George Galloway outfit, is also trying to play the same game as Alba by promoting a Tory Constituency vote but an AfU List vote, in order to try and maximize the chances of getting more Unionist List MSP’s elected. It will be real fight down here but I fear that the Tories currently have the upper hand, and will throw everything at it.
Makes sense; the SNP won 3 of their four current list MSPs in the Borders, I think. Alba standing there would only be disruptive.
The Tory vote in the S. of Scotland is very strong, as this is the area which would be most affected by Independence. Many people live on one side of the Border and work on the other for example. The Tories have milked the sizeable opposition to Independence down here since 2016, resulting in the election of 3 Tory Constituency MSP’s in that election. Also, Galloway and West Dumfries, my constituency, has been Tory-held since it was created in 1999 and it would be a major shock if the SNP candidate, Emma Harper, managed to oust the Tory incumbent, Finlay Carson. As happened to the Westminster Tory MP, the odious Alister Jack, in 2019, it is more likely that Emma will cut Carson’s majority but not be able to beat him. Currently, she is a List MSP and may retain her seat there. I don’t know much about Joan McAlpine’s chances of ousting Oliver Mundell in the seat next door (Dumfriesshire), as that seat was previously Labour, but the fact that the Tories played the Unionist card heavily in 2016 led to them taking that seat doesn’t make me hopeful to be honest. Joan is currently a List MSP, and may keep that seat. Alliance for Unity, the George Galloway outfit, is also trying to play the same game as Alba by promoting a Tory Constituency vote but an AfU List vote, in order to try and maximize the chances of getting more Unionist List MSP’s elected. It will be real fight down here but I fear that the Tories currently have the upper hand, and will throw everything at it.
Spot on Paul.
I have my doubts however that some people will adhere to your sensible article. The media will use any small crack. Pity we could not cancel Twitter and a Bath based blog.
God knows, I know that your heart is in the right place, Paul, and I continue to admire your stolid equanimity when it comes to considering the views of others no matter upon which side of the Independence question they sit.
Today’s National is all about Salmond, MacAskill, Dross calling for a Better Together nexus, John Major feature…and nothing on the SNP and the FM.
I have no doubt that Salmond’s Appointment Book is filled with interviews with the Hack Pack and the Broadcasters from now ’til polling day.
Sturgeon and the SNP has been elbowed out of the equation, and I have no doubt that tomorrow’s Sunday’s will be wall to wall Salmond.
He’ll feature on Old Watsonian Martin Guissler’s show, and Marr will gave him a mention via a piece on camera from the Hon Sarah Smith, who is to ‘chair’ an impartial Leader’s Debate on BBC Jockland on Tuesday Night.
The Yoons must be laughing their heads off.
Salmond knows what he is doing.
He is out to destroy the SNP and NS, not necessarily in that order.
I cannot share you ‘we are where we are’,, summation.
He has engineered this stunt with the full backing of his old mates in the MSM..
Roll on May…
Did you not read the article? Keep your powder to oppose unionism.
So Jim and cat why are the unionists joyful over Salmond’s manoeuvring? He can attack the main Independence Party.
joyful? you mean the desperate calls from dross for a unionist alliance? the cheap name calling of alex by the entire unionist msm?
It was more the barely suppressed glee of Sarah Smith on the BBC that gave the game away SC. Unionists are loving this.
They don’t call me Silica Gel Jack for nothin’, Jim.
I know who are with us.
Salmond is for Salmond.
I’ll bet the house that he’s on Geissler tomorrow.
Why?
Proof (if anyone ever doubted it), that the media are only on the side of the media, and failing that, the unionists.
And ALBA are still saying give your first vote ( the constitutional vote ) to SNP
Yes I too came to that conclusion. Ruthless manouver wrapped up in laudible aims. Sigh.
Indeed.
People have a democratic right to vote for who we want, and people also have a democratic right to stand for election, either as individuals or as a party of like-minded people.
If demopcracy was supressed, it would weaken the Scottish Parliament, and therefore weaken the ability of the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum without a S30 or sepecific UK legislation.
It’s our Parliament – protect and uphold it.
Holyrood elections are no longer about internal Scottish politics. We can also see the gleeful coverage from the Unionist media what this is all about.
Neither Alex Salmond nor his followers intend to stop attacking the FM. It is the purpose of the Party.
i support alex and have never attacked nicola. the purpose of alba is to max the yes and get rid of a pile of unionist list msps
Well said. There are many supporters of indy that do not get in to the dirt throwing, name calling, cheap jibes that taint the democratic choices we make. Well done to the Alba Party. More list seats are the way forward.
You seem assured that more List seats will be forthcoming. Do you have a crystal ball? Have you seen into the future, past all the twist, turns and unforseen consequences of a chaotic electoral process to see the outcome? Or are you just accepting all the rhetoric and sales patter?
The rise of Salmond from the political grave is fraught with risk and unknowns, despite all the happy clappy stuff from his supporters. I hope we don’t all live to regret his act of hubris.
schrodingers cat , me too
schrodingers cat , im with you
As the founder of the Party is a friend of Craig Murray, he called the FM a liar and conspirator, and Wings, who hates the FM and SNP with a vengeance, endorses it, you shouldn’t hold your breathe on any intention on their part to come together.
They have different intentions and that’s the reality.
Strangely, Brian, we can no longer access MacAkill’s ‘articles’ on WoS.
I wonder why?
I had no problem accessing Kenny MacAskill’s articles on WOS a few moments ago. The site was very slow earlier today, though.
Rather the reverse is true, if you just glance at the media today and the panicked reactions. Alex is talking about what we all want to hear – how to gain independence, and what a realistic strategy is. The SNP should stick to the same, and we can have a proper debate about the way forward. That is badly needed. The assumption that we can leave it all to later has damaged the SNP in the last five years. An opposition which also wants independence is a very good, healthy, democratic development. We’ve badly lacked that.
“An opposition which also wants independence is a very good, healthy, democratic development. We’ve badly lacked that.”
I don’t believe that is correct. The Greens are far better allies for the SNP than Alba. There is too much bad blood between the SNP & newly formed Alba (one only has to take a walk through Twitterland to see the extent of the division) and we have no time to waste on any lengthy healing process. A potential SNP/Green coalition is, to my view, the best union to formulate that “super majority” that AS is now seemingly peddling. Vote SNP1&2 or SNP1&Greens2.
I agree, it’s SNP-Greens for me in the NE region, The Alex Salmond Show? not for me.
Drew morrison the greens could and have voted against SNP
Dont rely on their help
ALBA have one policy …scottish independence
The Greens are standing in 10-12 constituency contests, directly against the SNP, and folk don’t see a problem with that?
maceasy i agree
I will vote SNP in the constituency and Alba on the list. Since my vote is in NE Scotland, voting SNP on the list is a waste of my vote.
I support both NS and AS. Both are flawed. Both support independence. I have no interest in attacking either.
Exactly. We need a drive to educate everybody about the D’Hondt system works. There is a lot of deliberate misinformation and confusion.
“There is a lot of deliberate misinformation and confusion.”
Indeed there is. I see the BBC News website is now providing ‘information’: “Scottish Parliament election 2021: A really simple guide”
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-54825291
It includes the following – and nothing else – on how the regional list system works: “In the regional ballot, people vote for a party. The parties are then allocated a number of MSPs depending on how many votes they receive, to make the overall result more proportional.”
This is such a poor, incomplete and misleading explanation! It leaves out the absolutely crucial feature that the more seats a party wins in the ‘first past the post’ constituency competitions (even by very slim majorities), the less likely they are to collect seats in the regional list.
Actually it’s worse that misleading, the BBC’s explanation that “The parties are then allocated a number of MSPs depending on how many votes they receive, ..” is wrong. The allocation of MSPs from the regional list is based on TWO factors not one – yes (i) a region’s list votes for a party; but also, crucially (ii) the number of seats won under FPTP within the same region by that party.
Why no simple illustrative example? The BBC is supposed to provide a public service after all!
I think you will find with all the boats tied up there will be a lot more votes to be had in the NE (and else where in Scotland) and I somehow doubt they will go to the unionist parties.
I sincerely hope you’re right, but there’s no knowing until the votes are counted.
Hearts showed up in the NE for a gimme, the game was in the bag before the kickoff wasn’t it?
Far too many people are confidently predicting this and that based on certainties that are really maybes.
I think the game you refer to was in the North not the NE. Different regions, different Lists.
Dont assume, I warned many folk on here and WoS about the North East going to turn blue, was called everything from a yoon to a lot worse, but I called it right, and skippers and crews are still pro tory , its the wee boats that tend to be pro EU not the trawlers who are all still anti CFP ergo Anti EU
Well said Jim , me too
Bang on the money Jim, we all have our skeletons in the cupboard, or in the full glare of public scrutiny as the case may be. Both AS and NS have been determined articulate supporters of independence for a considerable period of time, they have brought the realisation of an independent Scotland mouth wateringly close. This is not the time for bickering among the clans, time to focus on converting the pro independence vote into the maximum seats in the forthcoming election. Previously, I have voted SNP/Green . I live in Glasgow where there are currently 1 green, 2 tory and 4 labour regional MSPs, I believe that if I vote SNP/Alba , the result could very well be a decrease in pro unionist regional MSPs. I am willing to take that chance if presented to me on election day.
Thankyou Wee Ginger Dug, I have appreciated your common sense perspective on many issues over the years
Thank you, a balanced view particularly for those of us who’s main focus is the pursuit of independence not personality. I am a little undecided as to exactly what way to vote in May though my first vote will as always be SNP. I am dismayed by the mud slinging rush to judgement on both sides and while it will not sway my vote, it will undoubtedly raise uncomfortable questions amongst those most recently added to the independence ranks. Enough is enough it’s time to fight the unionist parties not ourselves.
Well said lizr16
I posted on your previous article , Paul , but will repeat it here if I may .
Alex Salmond has the means to defuse much of the vitriol / bile that is flying around just now .
He could state quite unequivocally :
I am not intending to seek a seat as an MSP BUT will throw my full weight and influence for the Alba Party .
and , I would expect any Alba MSPs elected to fully support the SNP’s choice of FM .
If he is simply advocating the cause of Independence then he will remove his potentially toxic presence ( to some ) from the picture , showing the doubters that Independence is driving him and NOT ego .
Over to you Alex !
and crucially NO Alba candidate will stand on a regional List where the SNP is NOT likely to win the constituency seat ( e,g South of Scotland ).
I agree with your latter comment but not the former. If, as opinion polling has it, AS has a 14% rating, then he has plenty of reason to stand. His contribution to independence has been huge. He can keep a large section of independence supporters within the fold. No reason for the man not to stand.
He said yesterday that Alba would back the SNP choice for FM.
James Mills who cares , its about getting enough seats to move forward and have a scottish independence referendum
AS and NS will both be gone soon enough after that
James,
Imagine if someone wrote “Nicola Sturgeon has the means to defuse much of the vitriol / bile that is flying around just now”.
I would join with you in condemning such words as being partisan and divisive.
If Alex Salmond had stood as an independent, id have voted for him. I’m voting for Alba because of him. I’m not voting for him because I’m choosing him over Nicola Sturgeon. I’m voting for him, because I can’t wait to see BOTH of them getting tore into DRoss, Sarwar and Rennie.
It’s like having a team with Christian Ronaldo in it, and supporters saying that they don’t want Lionel Messi in the team!!
Your analogy falls apart when Renaldo and Messi are both well past their prime and can no longer kick straight. Yet somehow you blithely assume that Salmond is “good to go”. Whereas in fact politically speaking he’s damaged goods. You just aren’t willing to notice that yet. (He presumably hasn’t either. He’ll soon get the “David Owen Lesson” to correct him, I expect.)
Grizebeard,
My analogy is just fine thanks. I support Aberdeen, and both Ronaldo and Messi would be great, even in their present state of decrepitude.
If you can name a politician who is “better to go” than Alex Salmond, then have at it mate. I await your list with curiosity.
We will soon know who is right about Alex Salmond’s electability. If you like, we could have a wee side bet on him getting elected in NE Scotland?
I’m not going to do it, (because unlike some, I want to SUPPORT independence – not damage it), but I COULD say the exact same things about Nicola Sturgeon being damaged goods – if what the extreme Salmondistas like Stu Campbell is saying is true.
I want the nest of both worlds. I want Nicola Sturgeon to be FM, at the head of a majority SNP government, AND there to be less unionists in parliament, AND to watch DRoss, Sarwar, and Rennie being eviscerated in Holyrood by the TWO giants of the independence movement.
You guddle about in your partisan mud-puddle, throwing mud all you want. I want both Sturgeon and Salmond to succeed ……… because THAT will be FAR better for independence, than one or the other being torn apart by partisan eejits.
That was well said.
Cheers Sam
Oor Blaze fae Skye
@Blazespage
·
2h
I await the next few weeks with interest re the Alba party. If it’s going to split the independence voters, then Tories and Labour will be on the news encouraging the new party, surely….However, If they attack it instead, that will tell me the way the wind is blowing.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend ? if only it were that simple !
possibly, but then again, the bbc and msm is going radio rental over salmond, he is the anti christ apparently.
i wonder what they are afraid of?
The dark, stuck in a cupboard?
being in a dark box isnt so bad 🙂
Especially if it’s got a comfy couch, widescreen TV, PC and kick-arse sound system. Nobody said it had to be a small box 😊.
You can’t ‘split’ the independence vote by allowing the SNP a clear run in constituencies. You can, however, increase the independence movement’s representation in Holyrood by supplementing them with another indy party in the regional lists. That is the whole point. The more successful the SNP are, and they will be, the less chance they have of regional seats. The tories and greens have benefitted from that, now an actual other indy party can. That is how it works. We have had a cosy cartel of comfily ensconced politicians. It is a very good thing to give that a shake up. Now we might have some proper debate and discussion, instead of tribalism.
You will STILL have a cartel of unionists ”comfily ensconced ” regardless – they are guaranteed a number of List seats due to the D”Hondt system .
Unless their core List vote drops there will still be the Murdos and the Annie’s bringing down the average IQ of Holyrood .
What there IS a danger of is in trying to ‘game ‘ this PR system .
There are no guarantees that the outcome which YOU favour will happen . Perhaps it will but it is a big risk if you have the Indy votes being split between SNP ,Alba and Greens in some regions .
And you can’t tell all Indy voters to vote for only ONE of these – people have their own , often conflicting , views on each of these groups . Therein lies the danger.
It is of no relevance to simply quote that X number of SNP votes got 0 MSPs so therefore votes for Alba will rectify this , unless you can guarantee X number of votes .
And 15% popularity rating of Alex Salmond does not immediately transfer into 15% of the votes .
Nobody is saying that there are any guarantees. You can’t predict it easily at all. But the point is that the first step is towards getting a grasp of how D’Hondt works, and the crucial point is surely that if you do well in the constituency vote, as the SNP will, then the list votes tops up MSPs from the other parties. Therefore, of course we can end up with the same amount of Greens, Tories etc. But you have the choice, instead of wasting a list vote on the SNP, thanks to their dominance in the constituency, of another indy party should you wish, to add to the number of indy parties – instead of tories etc. Choice and diversity is a good thing. It is nothing to do with what I want, I am content to let things play out as unpredictably as they will, but it is do with people understanding the system and maximising their vote, should they wish to.
“Nobody is saying that there are any guarantees. You can’t predict it easily at all…”
“…if you do well in the constituency vote, as the SNP will…”
How long after the first did it take you, before you typed the second?
A minute; two minutes?
Exactly James. There is no way to safely or accurately game this system as the regional list is just that…a regional list. The “wasted” votes may be spread to thinly over all the regions. Its unlikely that they will be in large convenient, seat winning chunks, just asking to be scooped up. The more likely scenario is that you spread your vote between three parties on the list, letting the unionist parties to pick up the lions share of seats on offer. When you consider that the unionists are worried that Gorgeous George is going to do something similar and weaken their vote, why are some indy voters thinking that its a risk free gamble? Alba is simply not going to be able to get every SNP voter to switch to them on the list. The only way to get a pro indy majority is to start winning over those soft No voters and swithering yes voters who switched sides because of the vow. You can’t conjure up a majority by gaming a list. The best you can achieve is torearrange the deck chairs.
Alba don’t need everyone to switch, if about 10% of snp and greens were to switch then Alba would get one in per region, if 23% switch from snp and green then Scotland is likely to get 2 Albinos per list.
maceasy , spot on well said
Agree Maceasy.
In 2016 I voted SNP 1 & 2 and if you scroll down on the link to ‘additional members’ you can see the result.
Only 4 extra seats.
If I can stymie Tories and Labour gaining more list seats by voting Alba 2, that’s what I’ll do.
Nothing to lose.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Scottish_Parliament_election
It seems going by btl comments that the Alba Party are getting both cheered on and ridiculed by unionist posters.
Ah but Alex…the real telling on this is that Douglas Ross has written to Willie Rennie and Anas Sarwar to seek ‘talks’ about Alex Salmond’s new party…..now that is in the category of….Unionist Panic stations….a La Tory YES man DRoss.
Once again DRoss drops the political baton of displaying well considered political strategy…as he will, publicly berate Salmond, telling voters that Salmond is politically ‘yesterday’s man’ and the son of Satan…while by his own actions proving that there is, to him i.e. DRoss, some political significance to Salmond’s new party fighting to win list seats……DRoss obviously REALLY thinks nay fears it may be a winning strategy for Indy parties…why else does he seek ‘talks’ with other Unionist party leaders….”talks” being code word for an opposing Unionist tactical voting strategy….OK for them to do it but not others….twas ever thus etc etc
Politically Anas Sarwar would be unwise to form any coalition with the Tories…which would basically only be to try and save DRoss’s squeaky and losing a*s……however Willie Rennie has nowt to lose other than looking like a lying fool…. as in him going against the words in his own election leaflets….as in stating we voters in Scotland “NOT choosing Chaos with Boris Johnson via Brexit where Scotland faces losing over 9 billion over Brexit trade deals”………
In other words if Willie caves in to DRoss then we assume he once again has chosen to adopt CHAOS with a Tory coalition…..an action that will surprise no one who has the ability to form an intelligent thought….or indeed anyone who knows what the Lib Dems really really do represent as a political party and also who know that all they, as a party, have to offer to the voters is their own opportunism…in order for they themselves to gain undeserved seats at the expense of those who deserve the seats MORE.
Mind you Keir from New New Labour may want Anas to cave in to DRoss’s commands as that will mirror Keir’s regular caving in to Boris’s commands…..
As far as the the Union is considered…… there is NO distinction between any of the Unionist political parties…that is their weakness both singularly and collectively….hence why they all #FailInScotland…..and always will.
Remember Covid?
Scottish numbers: 26 March 2021
Summary
543 new cases of COVID-19 reported
24,886 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results – 2.4% of these were positive
6 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
26 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
296 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
2,322,832 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 279,814 have received their second dose
Not one of the Dead Tree Scrolls mentions Covid any more.
I wonder why?
England is about to ‘open up’, and plunge into a Third Wave like a Newquay surfer,
And for sure Jack, the multiple star-rated tourist facility timeshare properties in the heart of Perthshire are fully booked and opening 26th April…not good, with multiple families descending upon Scotland from mainly the south…
Uurrgghhh
Paul is the voice of reason, but the whole thing stinks.
And who, what, where is doing the funding?
Anyhoo, onwards and upwards 🤫
Paul as alway brilliant just the advice that everyone should follow… We are where we are Parties Politicians Bloggers and posters need to focus on attacking the Red Blue and Yellow Tories not anyone who supports Independance. I hope Mr Blackford reads your blog…Kenny Mcaskill is someone who has always fought for Independence and his handling of many of the incredibly difficult issues during his tenure should be suffice to secure respect what ever his choices now.
Did salmond not sack him?
Well said Paul….as we all argue among ourselves creating division with fellow independence supporters we do indeed risk losing undecided voters ….however one must remember if those who support Alex Salmond’s new party expect others to accept him and his new party…. then they need to desist their negative onslaughts towards the SNP…and vice versa…..thus helping to fight the Unionists battles for them…….though I suspect for some on either side it will be a bitter pill to HAVE to swallow…..we will wait and see…though time is NOT on our side.
Me …personally I will step back weigh out best option in my area for an independence party to win in both constituency and list seat….however so far I may just stick with SNP 1 & 2…I am in Edinburgh East constituency ( MP Tommy Sheppard’s seat / MSP Ash Denham’s seat).
How passionate us Scots are…especially when we know that what we WILL lose should we fail to get an independence majority at Holyrood…..and I mean actually LOSE…..will be far greater than many Scots are aware of what will be lost….courtesy of Tory Brexit UKnotOK Government…and their little other Unionist party helpers a La Labour party and Lib Dem party…..
Stay well Paul keep the faith and do not let the you know what’s get you down….know that you, as an individual, are respected and valued…..and your contribution to the cause of Independence is also valued , welcomed and respected……..honest opinions are always the best ones to give consideration to….IMHO
🙂
Thank you for this Paul! It puts into words the exact same thing that I was thinking and is clear concise and very, very sound advise, that we ALL need to pay heed to and remember over the next weeks. INDEPENDENCE must be at the forefront of all our thinking in all of this and not the petty politicking and infighting which is in danger of DERAILING all our dreams for a New Scotland a Free Scotland and a Fair and Progressive all encompassing Scotland!
Good post.
The frothers on both sides need to can it.
Action for Independence has stood down from the election. ISP are meeting this afternoon to discuss future.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19191879.action-independence-stand-candidates-holyrood-election-alba-launch/
i think isp have little choice but to stand down
indeed if only they knew it, the greens would be better off joining alba.
unfortunately, ross greer has already burned that bridge.
the cows are coming home to roost 🙂
The Greens have a distinct political platform of their own
true, they do have a distinct political platform of their own, however, it is the greens and the libdems who stand to lose the most seats to alba. hence ross greers tirade against alex on bbc news yesterday
schrodingers cat , very true so will the greens change their direction
One big problem, the Geens are pro GRA, I don’t think ALBA but I stand ready to be corrected, Ross Greer is worried about his seat and it shows with the attacks he has made on TV
The Greens are perfectly entitled to be in favour of the GRA. Despite all the online rhetoric a lot of people have no issues with gender recognition or with trans people. The Greens are appealing to a large number of people who favour socially progressive policies and stronger environmental protections. That’s a stance with a lot of support, particularly among younger people.
Not disagreeing with you Paul, but many who left the SNP find the GRA as it stands NOW is not legislation they can vote for, and the Greens are on a similar footing as the SNP, so that rules out Greens for me and others. I actually don’t mind folk that are transgender and agree that legislation needs updating BUT I don’t agree with no medical evaluation, but I don’t also agree that people should have to live as their chosen gender for two years, I find that two long, and have ever since I met my first transgender person 30is years ago where one of the first transgender women to have sex reassignment surgery used to use the female changing room in Portree swimming pool and used to chat to us young adults when we were spending our lunch money change on junk food after spending the rest on cigarettes.
As for other Green policies, I can understand how anyone staying north of Perth and west of Inverness can support their policy regarding no more road upgrades, Have any Green politicians actually been to places like Skye or the NC500 during the summer season, I know Andy Wightman has, his mother stays just outside Portree, but the road infrastructure is worse than useless, local journeys on Skye taking 3/4 an hour extra between Portree and Kyleakin, and if you are on the road behind the huge convoys of campervans etc heading towards Staffin, Portnalong or Glendale, where lack of knowledge means crawling along at 15mph and not being able to overtake on single-track roads.
Then you have their hatred of cars, hell we don’t have a bus or train service, we have school busses, one in the morning and one in the afternoon heading to and from Portree.
Funny that all of a sudden we’re deluged by scores of missionaries we’ve never seen before, or from those from whom we haven’t heard for yonks, all over us like a rash. These visitors may be talking “kumbaya”, but elsewhere, has the fury and anger against the SNP changed? Are we, for example, going to see “let’s make up” overtures to Nicola from the SoB…?
The “supermajority” notion has a superficial attraction, but in essence it’s all about Alex Salmond seeking social rehabilitation and even (if he can) getting a controlling card in the game. Let the SNP do all the heavy lifting, but be back in charge again anyway. Personality politics with nothing behind it. (Now where have we seen that before?)
I spoke with my daughters about this over the last few hours to see what they thought, and they wouldn’t touch him or his party with a bargepole. So this may not be the electoral master stroke among the general public that he and his band of fervent believers fondly assume it is. Plenty of distraction for Unionism, though, that’s undeniable.
(Sorry, that was meant to be a general comment, not a response to anyone in particular.)
You might be right or wrong, where young women vote might be because they hear what we as parents talk about, my two oldest daughters weren’t going to vote SNP because of the GRA, but are happy to vote ALBA, are now going to vote for both parties, something I agree with.
My middle daughter has joined the Alba party, so who really knows how people will vote on May 6th but if the pro-independence side take more and more seats from the Westminster controlled Scottish sub units even better
grizebard – I often find myself agreeing with much of what you say and, on this occasion, I find my own daughter agreeing with much of what yours say! Sounds like young women, and possibly young men too, will stay away in droves.
Unlike most commenters on here, I have no party political affiliation. My constituency vote will be SNP. I do think, however, that the attacks and infighting should stop – it only benefits the Yoons.
From the point of view of list voting, the effects or otherwise of Salmond and his actions regarding previous behaviour are divisive and, to me, problematic. He’s also made what seem to be quite controversial choices both of supporters and list candidates.
The thing I haven’t seen mentioned, though, which, to me, is at least as important is how are people managing to square the contribution of David Davis to the affair? He’s a tory & unionist, arguably one of the chief wreckers of Scotland via Brexit and he used the privilege of a parliament whose control we’re trying to escape to attempt to bring down the duly elected leader of the SNP and our Government. I don’t know if AS requested or authorised it, but he didn’t denounce it either.
That really isn’t meant as an attack on anybody. I just don’t see how to reconcile someone being so closely connected to that which he claims to be against.
I’d be genuinely open to persuasion that there’s an explanation for it which leaves AS’s integrity in the matter intact.
Inaction for Independence more like.
Just what’s needed another credible list Indy Party.
It is not about personality. It’s about Independence. To improve the economy and people’s lives. Leaders come and go. Independence is the most importance. Democracy,
All I’ve seen since the announcement is Nicola’s supporters attacking Salmond and Alba supporters. We Alba supporters are too busy celebrating to attack anyone. Let’s do what you suggested efter the “Not in breach” result and kiss and make up xxx
Celebrating acquiring MacAskill ?
Where did you all come from? All these new visitors to WGD. Still welcome Alba supporters. Show me the link to your election for office bearers. Asking for a friend having a Bath?
you dont need to be a party member to support a party?? seems an obvious point hamish
That’s like saying “you don’t need to financially support a child to be a good dad”. If you are not a member of a party, and paying your dues, then you’re not supporting that party.
I support independence and I am a member of the SNP, which is the party that is going to obtain independence by political means. I will also be joining Alba (I don’t care about party rules), because I believe it will also be instrumental in obtaining independence politically.
I’ll be voting Alba in the region, not because I support Alex Salmond against Nicola Sturgeon, but because I am fairly certain that Salmond will win a seat in NE Scotland, where I live, I want to see (at least) one less unionist MSP from the North East, AND I want to watch TWO political giants in Holyrood, getting tore into DRoss, Sarwar and Rennie, as they get a referendum organised…..
”All I’ve seen since the announcement is Nicola’s supporters attacking Salmond and Alba supporters.”
Yesterday, whilst we’ve had to put up with two years of, day in and day out, AS supporters attacking NS to the point of wanting her to resign, Alex himself setting up Nicola Sturgeon to lose her post, but heh ho now that they haven’t managed to achieve their aim and need her big time, let’s just kiss and make up.
Making up would be the most sensible thing to do. Kissing? Not so much …
I’ll shave…
[…] Wee Ginger Dug Finding common ground It cannot be stressed enough just how important the May elections are for the future […]
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
To a large extent I agree with what you have said in your article Paul but quite honestly I have had enough of the so called Independence movement. I will continue to read and support your blog, post here sometimes and send financial donations from time to time as your blog is now the only one I trust. I will continue to support the Snp as I have done for many years. However I do not want anything more to do with the so called Independence movement, have never really felt part of it anyway and I am still not sure what is supposed to be other than there seems to be quite a lot of charlatans and misogynists involved. I will keep my National subscription going for the moment but that may not be the case longterm. The advent of AS ego trip of the Alba party has in my opinion seriously damaged the chances of an Indy party majority in the election and the possibility of another referendum and winning Independence itself. The thought of him back as an Msp makes me want to vomit I see McAskill has jumped ship already. Good riddance to bad rubbish. He is another one who is in thrall to the Bathistan seer. I wouldn’t trust Alex Salmond or McAskill to change a light bulb. If McAskill has any honour he will resign his seat but he won’t as neither him nor Alex have any honour.AS is out to ruin the Snp and Nicola in particular that as blatantly obvious It is clear that those who think gaming the list vote will get Indy parties more votes are on a hiding to nothing That really is a mugs game
To a large extent I agree with what you have said in your article Paul ………….. just not the part about trying to finding common ground and treating opponents with respect?
Maybe you should trot back to Bathistan and broadcast your message stream of tolerance and understanding there. They are in need of your preaching a whole lot more than we do. (If you’re not blocked there like most everyone else who’s asked for the same thing.)
Maybe you should trot back to Bathistan……….. how very kind of you but i like your blog site so much i’d prefer to stay
Funny that your pressing need to be here has been so diligently observed in the absence until now. Especially when the need for mutual respect is so very obviously wanting elsewhere.
i dont know, i sense a calming on wings as well, at least from some commentators. wgd’s calls for mutual repect for folk you disagree was well made and will be heard across all social media platfornms.
i have posted regularly on this platform for years and was promoting the idea of tactical voting when you still thought the spice girls and digital watches were a pretty neat idea 🙂
Why do some other blogs need to hear a ”call for mutual respect” from others before they think that it might be a good idea ?
Why are you so uncomfortable with fresh voices, Grizebeard? Are we upsetting you, by invading your private club?
I read WGD every day. I’ve bought all his books, and I support him financially as and when I can out of my pension. I hardly ever disagree with anything he says. Without doubt, his voice is my voice, in almost every aspect upon which he comments.
I normally don’t comment, because there’s nothing more to add really. The only reason I’m invading your private club now, is because, at present, in at a looses end, since I’m in facebook jail for thirty days ….. again. Don’t worry, my ban will soon be up, and I’ll leave you in peace in your private club……
I didn’t know I needed your permission to express my opinion here cat. My opinions about certain people and political parties are mine alone. They will not change. Your type of post is exactly why I stopping reading Wings
You are always welcome here Eilidh. You are always unfailingly polite and respectful when you give your views. I only wish everyone else was too.
i didn’t know I needed your permission to express my opinion here cat……….. i never said you did, i merely pointed out that todays article is about finding common ground.
See my comment above, Eilidh. Take a deep breath, you’re not seeing a balanced view of how things stand from what has appeared BTL here so far today. Like you, I share an inherent distrust in what seems to me to be a shallow Farage-style appeal to a Great Leader whose personal behaviour and political judgement are both highly dubious. (Paul got him dead right yesterday when he said he’s a gambler. He gambled before and lost, now he’s trying to double down for the sake of his reputation, and with all our futures at stake as well as his own political one.)
I think we will find that your personal reaction may well be shared by many ordinary members of the SNP and the vast majority of ordinary voters, if not exactly some volatile characters on the extreme fringe of an independence movement that is far wider and deeper than them.
Find myself very much in agreement with you, Eilidh.
Eilidh- you are not along. Recognise the hype from the Tory press. As previously mentioned my wife daughters and son won’t vote for a mysoginist or a trumped up party.
I beg anyone thinking of going SNP 1&2 to make an effort to understand how the d’Hondt system eviscerates the SNP vote in the list when the SNP are successful in the constituencies.
Watch this all the way through. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=V0OQCfMM4-o&feature=youtu.be
Make an informed decision so you won’t be as angry as I was in 2016 when I discovered my SNP 1&2 had let Tories in. I should have voted Green then. This time it will be Alba.
My vote is for independence, not personalities.
This is politics, real life, not some nerdy spreadsheet theory, some computer game. Both SoB and JK have argued cogently in the past against this attempt to play an inherently unplayable system, and the only thing that has changed since is that they now believe the Messiah has arrived. Are you say this has nothing to do with personality politics? When the only people on here lauding the Second Coming are self-evidently in thrall to that very thing? Pull the other one.
Mind you, the joke could be on all of us come May if we don’t get a grip.
OK I listened to it all the way through and then read the comments. As expected, the projections at the time – 2016 – were for a massive SNP win of 73 seats. That didn’t happen. Why? Because the polling at the time of the election was way down on the polls a few weeks before.
Read the comments btl.
Believe it or not, some of us have listened to many lectures, videos and talks about the d’Hondt system. It always boils down to the same problem – you can’t predict what the SNP vote will be on the day.
If the SNP win ALL the constituency seats and some of the regional seats, the Tories will say it’s not the seats that count it’s the votes. They will need over 50% of the vote.
It makes sense to vote SNP x 2 because if they win all the constituency seats they will automatically have a majority and it won’t matter if they don’t win a lot of Regional seats. If they don’t win all the constituency seats then they will win some regional seats and may still get a majority. More importantly, they may get 50% of the overall vote.
even if we do win 50% + of the constituency vote the unionists will argue thats not half of the entire electorate. its how they work
You only need half of the people who vote. 50% plus 1. That’s legitimate in any circumstance apart for changes in a constitution when two thirds are often needed. A constitution that has been agreed and adopted by majority.
Of course the Tories will be devious. That’s why we need independence.
… and you will let the tories in.
Hi Epicyclo…..I will make an informed decision….will make a point of reading ALL facts and evidence…as Independence is THE most important thing.
My instinct is SNP 1 & 2…..will always be SNP 1…..will however look and decide who will get my second vote in my area Edinburgh East as in best option for Indy in my second list vote…..
Can I be fairer than that ?
Ultimately it’s up to the individual….but the distinction between Indy supporters and Unionists are that we, Indy supporters, do actually try to do some research ……thus we learn that in order to support/choose the best option ……the way to achieve that is by being as well informed as possible….. and looking carefully at your own respective area/candidates.
Where as Unionists promote misinformed lies and always only choose the tribal option of voting for a party that is , policy wise, to the detriment of them and theirs….and to detriment of the country, i.e. Scotland, that they live in.
By that evidence I think we all know who is in a cult and who is not….Lol… 😉
Have Faith………..the Unionist political parties are helping us….inadvertently.
I’m afraid I’m not made of the stuff that says we must do and say nothing in the face of this
for evil to triumph and stand aside and do nothing while Salmond and Wings spread their vile lying intent across the Internet so I’ll say cheerio and allow the Wingsys to have their way
I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve made my views clear about this new party and what I feel is the real intention behind it. I will certainly never be a cheerleader for it. However right now this is where we are and we have to rescue what we can from a less than ideal set of circumstances and do what we can to minimise the risk to winning a pro-indy majority in a few weeks time.
This too will pass 🙂
Dr Jim please don’t go. I don’t think Paul is saying say nothing. I know you are one if the long term posters here and I have been here a good while too. I always enjoy your posts Don’t abandon this blog to the Whingers who only have their own self interest at heart. I have had a nice long walk saw a neighbour has a Snp poster in their window and feel slightly calmer although still feel slightly sick re what has happened in past couple days. As they say in mock Latin Illegitimi non carborundum.
I really don’t think that this new party will attract the support its proponents believe it will.
Like I said, I personally will continue to advocate both votes SNP because that is what I believe in.
On Twitter Mark McGeoghegan did a good analysis of where their votes might come from, and it was from a pretty small pool of SNP people who looked favourably on AS and unfavourably on NS.
So that’s what motivates people to vote SNP, is it ? whether they like/dislike AS or NS ? (Prior to this revelation I naively thought it was the future wellbeing of their country of residence..)
Paul,
As I’ve said above, in almost every blog you post, you are speaking for me. However in this ONE area, I think you’re wrong. If I thought for a second that Alba won’t win at least one seat in NE Scotland (where I live), then I would continue to argue vehemently for voting SNP/SNP, as I have been doing since before the 2016 election.
I live in Salmond’s former constituency, and I honestly believe that he is a ” shoo-in” for at least one seat in NE Scotland. I wouldn’t PRESUME to pontificate about the prospects for Alba in other regions, because I don’t have personal knowledge of other regions,
I will NOT be voting Alba because I agree with ANYTHING that the “wee mannie frae Bath” says. His poison is damaging our cause. I’m voting Alba, because I’m fairly certain they will win one or more seats on the coat tails of Salmond, AND because I want to see (at least) one less unionist sitting in a NE Scotland seat, AND because I’m relishing the prospect of DRoss, Sarwar and Rennie getting their arses kicked by the TWO giants of the independence movement, Sturgeon and Salmond. Won’t THAT be a sight to behold! Sturgeon can continue to be statesman-like, and Salmond can do the “dirty fighting” …… in which he has no peers. I can’t wait!
WGD don’t let your blog be taken over by wingers by another name.
Sorry response to cyclo.
This blog will continue to advocate SNP 1 & 2
Good.
SNP 1 & 2 or Greens
Good SNP 1 & 2 or greens or ISP or ALBA or or or any pro indy party
One of my sons dismayed me last weekend when he told me that he wasn’t going to vote SNP as he couldn’t support all that had happened with both the NEC and with as he put it ‘fitting up Alex Salmond”. His bro agreed and said he didn’t know what to do he probably wouldn’t vote at all, for the first time ever. Today both saying how great they feel they can vote SNP 1 and Alba 2.
I’m conflicted as like Paul I’m in South of Scotland but in any other constituency I’d be maximising my vote by voting Alba In list.
I’ve never ever voted anything other than SNP but have lately become really disillusioned with the way my party has been hijacked. I believe in consensus not in a presidential style government. My party seems to have turned into the Nicola Sturgeon Party rather than the broad church I joined.
Absolutely agree Paul. We must stop trying to knock each other out and pull together. The future of our country is at stake and we cannot go on like this.
As an outsider I have been horrified to discover that the rhetoric of division etc. not only actually existed (naively I thought it was just one or two activists) but was so toxic.
SNP1 and whatever2 according to your pro-indy conscience.
That’s it.
We can sort ourselves out as WE want when we’ve got independence. We must not lose sight of that goal.
I have to say, Paul, that while your advice of today is well-reasoned, it really sticks in the craw to be preached at here by a bunch of arrogant Bathistanis and others of opaque motive who offer no such reciprocity back on their own home turf. When SoB – just for one example – takes your advice and starts behaving supportively with respect to Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP I might be willing to reconsider.
What we’re seeing arise here looks suspiciously like a nascent local variety of Farageism, another hollow personality cult with a leader of dubious character, and frankly it’s everything I find distasteful in politics. I don’t think I’m alone in that feeling either, and I don’t think much good will ever come of it.
it is strange that you label everyone who disagrees with you as a bathistanis or wingysys or some other moronic handle. people have different opinions from, get over it. it doesnt make them bad people and the title of this piece is common ground, try reading it. btw I am no fan of stu campbell
That’s rather a grandiose assumption on your part about my attitude in general, but in that gratuitous personal attack you are furiously smokescreening away from the prime issue: that you and people like you who haven’t heretofore been that much bothered to get involved in debate here, are now suddenly all over us in a rash, exhorting “unity” – jeez, even arrogantly advocating that the Greens should give up and follow your dubious advice – whilst elsewhere the most rabid voices don’t feel the least corresponding motivation to reciprocate at all. Yet you in particular are devoting all your devout attention to us, where it’s manifestly least needed. And we’ve a perfect right to wonder why.
I tend to agree with you – but it takes two to compromise and someone has to be mature enough to make the first move.
i thought i was making the 1st move paul? i have insulted no one. i care little if they read wings or not. i care even less about the spat between alex and nicola.
i have been consistently advocating tactical voting on the list since 2015, there are plenty posters on here who know me and will verify this.
my motivation has never been personnel or political. simply arithmetic for the benefit of the indy movement
I was speaking in general terms not specifically about the difference of opinions between you and griz my reply was to his first comment although it appeared below his reply to you. Sorry for the confusion.
my bad soz
Grizebeard,
I think you are completely missing Paul’s point. If you are in the middle (which Paul DEFINITELY is), you can’t have “reciprocity” with extremists. The Bathistas COULD have reciprocity with those who are fiercely attacking Alex Salmond, but I’m not holding my breath for THAT to happen.
There are those for whom the cult of personality is all-important. For these people, you can’t be in both sides. For a “Bathista”, if you don’t condemn Sturgeon, then you are the enemy and (usually) a traitor to independence. For those who worship at the feet of Sturgeon, if you don’t condemn Salmond, then you’re an enemy and (usually) a traitor to independence.
I THINK Paul is saying that all Independence supporters need to – at the very least – bury the hatchet, for the good of the cause which we all (supposedly) support.
I’m Sorry Paul, but you are working from the assumption that this is about the Nicolaites against the Alexis. It isn’t. At last we are having an election where we have Constituency independistas and List independistas. We can vote for both and the dreaded V/(S+1) will not negate the list vote. This means that not only are there going to be a good chance of a lot of Independence supporting NSPs but that the Unionists parties will be greatly diminished.
Perhaps this would not have happened had it not been for the unpleasantness, but it has and we should enjoy it.
I must admit that I was going to find it difficult to vote SNP in the Constituency, but that was a reaction to the Hate Crime Bill, and some of the statements of the Justice Secretary, little to do with Nicola being part of the World Neoliberal fan club. I did leave the SNP but that is because it has become a Home Rule Party and I thought it better to invest my limited funds in Common Weal.
I happen to reject the idea that anyone in Scottish Politics is the Messiah it is the people of Scotland who will gain independence not Nicola nor Alex.
I was never convinced of the utility of both votes SNP. While I was a member of the party I fell in. Not I’m not, I’m liberated. I will hold my nose and vote SNP for the Constituency and Alba on the list.
Edward, we are voting for Independence. Desist with your ‘hold your nose’ riff.
The inference is that you consider that the SNP ‘stinks’.
You can write reams over on Campbell’s offering, and bask in a dozen replies agreeing with you.
A vote for Alba is a vote for a man who is clearly out for himself and nobody else.
Otherwise, where has he been for the past 7 years?
I an a socialist and I also believe in Land Reform. My local MSP appeared on TV dissing those of us who would stop Grouse Moors. Yje Growth Commission put the SNP firmly into the Neoliberal camp. There is more to who you vote for than the Constitution. It go that way is the Ulsterisation of Scottish Politics. Vote for us or the Border is in danger / Independence (or perhaps Devolution) is in danger. No responsible party should go that way. If it hadn’t been for Alba was seriously considering spoiling my vote in the Constituency.
Why do you say that Salmond is out for himself? I rather think that the effect is that we will get more people who are pushing Independence. I don’t do personality politics.
For the past 7 years I think that Salmond has been carving a media career for himself.
And for your information I don’t think that you will find me having contributed to the Wings site, at least not lately
Edward, you are pushing at an open door on Land Reform. They are burning gorse right now over 18% of Scotland’s turf stolen by Robber Barons 300 years ago, so that Filthy Rich mainly English chinless wonders, and the Windsor Lot can come Up Here and kill animals for sick perverted fun.
The First Act of our Parliament should ban blood sports, render the Lairds’ lands worthless, and buy back our territory at £1 an acre.
I have my strong views on Salmond and his Born Again Motives.
While Sturgeon, Swinney, Russell, and the like have ben governing Scotland, and fighting the good fight, Salmond took himself off to ‘carve a career’.
The 7 weeks before the most important election in Scottish History, he gets his pet hacks together and announces the Second Coming?
Can I have a million SNP votes please?
Aye richt.
I am beyond reasoning where this man is concerned.
There is one sure way to oppose the Growth Commission Report, on the floor of the Scottish Parliament in an independent Scotland.
I’m holding my nose but the reek of hypocrisy from the Alba group is still permeating my surroundings. After almost two years of SNP trashing we are now all to be ‘comrades’.
Exactly. You said it so succinctly too. {grin}
jfngw , yrs we are now all to be comrades of Scottish independence
If Ruth Davidson arrived tomorrow to declare Scottish tories now support Scottish independence would you reject them or take them on board to get help get Scottish independence
Exactly jfngw.
Would you take the Tories at face value if they did?
I THINK that’s what Paul is asking everyone to do……..
There appears to be a lot of ”nose holding” going in this election .
Some enterprising soul might want to get the franchise for selling clothes pegs at the Polling Stations – they will make a fortune !
The Red Tories?
Sarwar now supports the return of PFI, the Right To Buy Council Houses, Tuition Fees, toll booths on our bridges and roads, prescription charges,Johnson’s Brexit, privatisation of our Health Service, cutting police and nurses jobs, giving a tax rise to the rich, the 10 year Programme of Cuts to Welfare pensions and sickness payments to be implemented by Sunak, concentration camps for refugees guarded by Patel’s Border Guards, Government Contracts to cronies, more Lairds in the House of Lards, Trident expansion, Scotland paying for HS2, London Crossrail,and so many more of the Blue Tory corrupt elitist policies already in play down in their beloved Homeland England?
Better Together under the Butcher’s Apron forced on us by the Iron Heel Oligarchy in London.
Willie Rennie may not survive to be part of this Supermajority Coalition ‘Administration’ running Scotland the Golden Goose Colony.
WE are facing at least ten years of being trodden underfoot by a Blue Tory Government for which, for 60 years now, we didn’t vote.
What does it take for people to come to their senses?
Thank you Jack…..
Someone getting back to the business of what the election in May is really all about….
Promoting various reasons why we should NOT vote for Unionist parties in Scotland….but vote to maximise the independence vote……to get Indy Ref 2….via an Indy majority in May’s elections.
If we all cannot publicly agree to unite behind one Indy party or agree on our preferred indy party….let’s at least all agree on getting on with OUR day job in exposing the many lies and broken promises made via BT and subsequently the continuation of the same old same lies and empty promises…..all to allow them to keep us under the control of WM……No Thanks.
Nice one Jack….
🙂
Not my real name @4.11pm.
Thank goodness someone has remembered what this general election for Holyrood is about – the people of Scotland and not just independence but their welfare and wellbeing over the coming years.
A people who are worried about jobs, keeping a roof over their heads, their children’s education and their future in this pandemic are unlikely to be minded to support independence when all they see are two parties knocking lumps out of each other to the apparent exclusion of all else.
People have to live their lives between now and any referendum, and during the transition to independence. Therefore any party wishing to hold a referendum and take the people with them on that journey must have policies that will allow the people to do that. As well as a proven track record of delivering on their policies. There is no sign that Alba have such policies and no sign either that if voted in on their one-plank platform they would support the SNP in delivering their manifesto plans.
People will not vote for independence when all they see is division within the ranks of those proposing independence. They will stick with the devil they know and all the work Ms Sturgeon, her ministers and the SNP have done to get a majority of the people of Scotland to support independence will be for nought.
Exactly Jack… We all need to focus on the unending attacks and crap foisted on Scotland and vote to get rid of every Blue Red and Yellow Tory. Agree with many of your comments.
To Edward Andrew above… Agree whole heartedly with your view on Moor burning surely in this day in age of global warming and carbon footprints someone ought to put an end to it… Just past the Carrbridge turn off on the A9 there.is a stunning view of the Cairngorms… could barely see through the smoke haze from burns not so long ago… The local estate had burning moors blowing smoke all over the village I live in this week. Im no scientist but from the volume of smoke going skyward it would probably be the same emissions as every fire in the village burning for 1 yr… All so some rich individuals can shoot some wee birds more easily says everything about our countries priorities… When we have so many families having to rely on food banks to exist.
Well said johnathan marshall
Actually Jack, until 1965 it was the “Unionist” party who stood in Scotland. They, along with the smaller, “Conservative & Liberal Unionist” party took the Conservative whip at Westminster & even provided a couple of PM’s: Bonar Law & Home.
However intertwined they were, they technically weren’t Conservatives. Now, I know I’m splitting hairs here big time, but as any fan of Futurama can tell you,: “technically correct is the best kind of correct”. The Conservative party pre 1965 & the Conservative & Unionist party since have never carried a UKGE in Scotland.
You have to head all the way back to eighteen oatcake, 1831 to be precise, to find a Tory majority in Scotland. It was Tory back then, not Conservative. So it is absolutely correct to say that the Conservatives have never, ever carried Scotland.
No Conservative mandate, ever.
Drew, your absolutely correct. I recall Teddy Taylor (google him, Dugger Puppies) who boasted that the change to ‘Conservative and Unionist got them the red white and blue Loyalist vote Up Here.
Je suis desole.
On Tuesday night, the Hon Sarah Smith will have all her middle class audience ducks in a row, prompted to ask ‘parish council’ questions…to portray Holyrood and the devolved powers as a colonial backwater.
The deaths of children at QEUH, the Attainment Gap, Hospital A&E, Waiting lists, EU, what currency would we use, the £15 billion deficit, and so on.
Well, this time, we retaliate first.
The pro Independence guests are there to discuss Scotland and its future, not the parochial points that is the strait jacket devolved administration now, but the big grown up Politics of running a country. Defence, fiscal autonomy, our future in Europe, and so much more.
When Sarwar brings up the NHS and the SNP’s record, quote England’s and Wales’ performances.
Nurses in England get 1%, pay rise, yet the BoE predicts inflation at 2% this year. Scots nurses 4%.
Get Brexit up front ..the annihilation of our our agriculture and fish industries, and so on. The Big Picture stuff..compare and contrast with England’s failure under Dross’ boss.
Johnson promised 50,000 new nurses, 40 new hospital, and 20,000 new police in England in December ’19.
You get my drift.
Go into this Brit Nat Leaders Set Up with the Hon Smith armed to the teeth with Alister Jack’s failures.
Rip their black hearts out..
Absolutely correct, Drew. The Tories possess (and have always possessed in abundance) what we in the independence movement seem to lack – an ability to subsume differences, in order to further a common cause. That is ONE lesson that we should (and must) learn from the Unionists and the Conservative and Liberal Unionists…..
Salmond has no interest in a supermajority he wants balance of power to remove Sturgeon. I’m sick fed up of so called Independence movement, some of the abuse from Salmond supporters on Twitter is disgusting, including towards yourself Paul. I wish I had stayed in NewZealand, thought was Scotland better than this.
You got it in one. “Supermajority” is the fig leaf, “take control” is the real purpose.
A wee tail to wag the big dog.
Potter , its all coming out at once , the pain and frustration of having everything in your country controlled by another country is hard to deal with, the media all of the media aid the confusion and frustration by setting group against group and our Scottish parliament is stuffed full of MPs whos sole aim is to undermine and disrupt progress in Scotland they want to keep Scotland disabled.
I’m a Salmond supporter, and I have never abused Paul. I’m also a Sturgeon supporter, and in that capacity, I have never abused Paul. I THINK that Paul is extending olive branches to all and sundry in the independence movement, hoping that they will pass them on to each other……
Paul I’ve followed and appreciated your blog for a very long time but this ‘Salmond supporters attacking Nicola Sturgeon’ stuff is too much, is there any evidence to support this statement ? I’d suggest that anybody purporting to be an independence supporter who’s attacking Salmond or Sturgeon is a unionist plant !
i agree, the vitriol from the snp towards alba is counter productive and serves no purpose. better aiming criticism at the unionists.
thve alba party also needs to stop the in fighting
Macnero- are you a regular on here?
Salmond should hang his head in shame over his behaviours.
He now is with a party which will stand against the SNP on the list. The only people cheering are the Tory papers. I wonder why?
I’m a regular reader but never felt the need to comment, until now. I wouldn’t know if they’re cheering or not as I’d never soil my hands on a ‘Tory paper’ but I have been fascinated by the incredible effort that’s been poured into and largely failed in discrediting Salmond, the prosecution of those who’ve reported honestly on it and the non-prosecution of those who haven’t so I’ll be very interested to see who cops most flak from the British state sponsored press over the next few weeks.
Hamish100 , are you a regular on here ?
Come on whats that all about
Are you top of the league been a regular for a long long time if you are so what do you think that makes your point of view superior ?
It doesnt
A blog is improved if new opinions arrive regularly
Being asked if you are a regular on here is uncalled for
Too bad. The comment was to the suggestion that I’df you disagree with salmond you are a unionist plant. Many wingers have appeared on hear since yesterday so my comment is rekebent to me. If not to you that’s fine
‘Salmond or Sturgeon’.
Hamish 100,
Nobody is more committed to independence than I am. I yield to no one in my criticism of those who have advocated voting other than SNP/SNP if you are a SNP supporter, or SNP/Green, if you are a Green supporter.
HOWEVER, in NE Scotland (I don’t know about other regions), the arrival of Alba on the electoral scene changes everything. Salmond’s Alba Party will almost certainly win a seat (if not 2 seats) in May. I will be voting SNP/Alba …… and cheering …… and I am definitely NOT a Tory paper.
”Paul I’ve followed and appreciated your blog for a very long time but this ‘Salmond supporters attacking Nicola Sturgeon’ stuff is too much, is there any evidence to support this statement ?”
Where have you been macnero? If you are looking for evidence scroll through any one of thousands of articles / comments on the WoS site then you can traipse off and check out any number of other sites which I won’t bother to advertise on here.
WoS ! ? is that an accredited site for Alex Salmond supporters ? I think not. More likely a magnet for British state-sponsored trolls. As for the ‘any number of other sites’ – clearly I’ve led a very sheltered life.
Stu Campbell who runs WOS was a big part of Alba/Alex Salmond media launch yesterday and don’t pretend you didn’t know that
F*** right off ! I don’t need to ‘pretend’ anything ! I haven’t visited WoS since God-knows-when and whether he supports Alba or whatever they’re called is absolutely irrelevant to my thinking. I really don’t know what people like you are playing at but I can guess, in fact I should have added to my comment above that as well as Wings being a magnet for British agitators, that also goes for the comments section of any other independence-supporting site or blog, like this one.
…and another thing – I’ve been a member of The SNP since long before it became fashionable but can’t see the logic in giving both votes to them, if they are already sure to win the constituency vote, that will only let the unionists in.
Vote green then? They have been around longer and are democratic.
Hamish 100,
Be honest. Who would you rather see rising to their feet in Holyrood to speak about their lifelong commitment to independence, ….. Patrick Harvie or Alex Salmond? I know EXACTLY what I’ll be getting for my Alba vote in NE Scotland. I would have been much less sure, if I’d voted Green.
I don’t CARE about political differences between Greens and SNP or Greens and Alba. All I care about is Boris pigging Johnson NOT being my prime minister! Once THAT item of business has been settled, I’ll be listening to Patrick Harvie, probably with the intention of joining the Greens.
Until then, voting Alba will (IMO) bring independence closer, and that’s ALL that matters to me……
Have you visited Bathistan any time in the last months? Get real. This kind of gaslighting (or plumb ignorance) won’t win any converts.
See my comment to ‘Petra’ above.
“gaslighting (or plumb ignorance)”
Does punnery come naturally or did someone lead you to it?
Oh dear, I hadn’t noticed until you pointed it out just now. I fear it may be a natural affliction.
Now the very thought weighs heavily upon me.
Check Wos…
Well said paul at last a patriot recognising where we now are at. As an early founder member of Alba I will certainly from now on be heavily pushing for the SNP 1 vote to everyone i know, something i wouldnt have considered a few days ago. I live in Humza constituency and left the party due to a personal animal welfare problem which he and nicola chose to ignore not because of the harrasment case, hate crime bill or GRA which as a gay man i find offensive in the extreme.
I tell you this because i do not hate nicola or humza nor will i let my my personal differences with them stop me from striving to max the yes both in this election and in indyref2.
I would also like to offer and profer the hand of comeradly friendship and offer my sincere apologies to any of nicolas supporters here and on social media i may have offended.
your for Scotland.
Nice Rob Grant
In other words, I’ve tried to destroy Sturgeon, but I’ll be nice now cause I want yer votes, bolt.
There you go, Rob Grant….. your offer of the hand of friendship has been rejected …. by a fellow Indy supporter…
I applaud your effort mate. I certainly don’t applaud the cgurlishbrefusal……
churlish refusal
The Alba Party registered on the 8th February?
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-03/2021%20Party%20registration%20decisions-english%20version.pdf
http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP12700
Arranged by Laurie Flynn and Audrey Mumford
What’s their connections with salmond MacCaskill and backers?
Links with Craig Murray?
Telling people who to vote for is a sure fire way of rubbing some folks up the wrong way. Trumping at them because they support one form of independence over another, one candidate or another, one system or another will just as surely antagonise people who are in any other circumstance friends.
People will (and should) vote their conscience, their life experience and for the candidate they feel will represent their best interest.
Anything else just ain’t their vote and no amount of brow beating, trumping or advanced mathematical equations will change their minds.
Never hurts to be nice to each other. Worth a thought.
Absolutely agree Macart.
It’s not the telling those how to vote, it is the purity and the declarations of purity when the SNP degraders wrote they didn’t want independence if it was as corrupt Westminster. And here are the same people demanding we should be gaming system to produce the same warped distribution of parliamentary seats that FPTP does. Little point claiming we must be better than Westminster then try and fiddle what is supposed to be a PR system. If we can’t persuade the majority to support independence parties the fault is with us not them.
I do understand your feelings and POV jfngw. It only stops with the first person, from any perspective, willing to not rise to any ‘ah buts’ or ‘whataboutery’.
Purists of any description would be in for a rude shock anyhoo. It’s not how people work and it’s not how populations work. Pushing and pulling folk from unreachable pillar to illusory post is the very thing that got our population into this current sorry pass. It’s the establishment practise of politics (shrugs)
As I said above, most reasonable (and non anoraky) folk will vote their conscience, their life experience and their best interests. They’ll work out the rest for themselves. Trust them 😉
jfngw , really ?
But its not a PR system it distorts PR no country in the world uses the form of dhondt that Scotland is hampered with , other than Wales and Northern Ireland .
All foisted on us for the same reason by England.
The form of dhondt we have is designed to encourage coalitions and prevent one party having a majority.
It normally works well for england
They are very happy when labour tory and lib dem are a coalition to keep us under the thumb
They are very happy when SNP barely scrape through any changes to the constricted life of most in Scotland.
Now they are not so happy
SNP might shun ALBA
But ALBA will tell its supporters to vote SNP in the constituency nevertheless
so you can bet your life that the britnats are not happy that SNP have ALBA and Greens who can team up with them in future to defeat the three unionist party,s in the Scottish parliament.
New Zealand uses the AMS de Hont system same as Scotland. The NZ Labour Party led by PM Jacinta Ardern at the last NZ GE broke the system and received an outright majority of seats. It shows that a popular female leader can indeed win a majority without the need for a coalition.
IMHO is that if there is a second party pushing the same policy in the list then it is essential that they form a coalition and not run as seperate parties with potentially varying policies at the micro level. Now that the Alba party has emerged behoves both the SNP and Alba to start talking and unify as a formal coalition or the potential for a disaster is high.
The AMS system is not designed to hobble it is designed to create a house that cooperates to produce outcomes that benefit all of the people. It is designed to stimulate debate and bring a voice to the parliament a range of diverse views that are worth finding common ground on.
Alba now has a duty to endeavour to hold an olive branch to the SNP and work together for a common goal.
Audrey Mumford, Accountant, Motherwell, United Kingdom?
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/audrey-mumford-a789826b
Well said, I hope your vision wins a few over from the tribalism which has been injected to disrupt
Independence.
This is a time for cool heads and logic rather than allowing our chains to be yanked by the likes of Johnson & Gove, HMS Sarah Smith, Jackatory HQ or the 77th.
‘Statement from Alba Party founder, Laurie Flynn.’
http://www.barrheadboy.com/statement-from-alba-party-founder-laurie-flynn/
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Laurie_Flynn
Seems to have some connections with the SSP.
Seems like a front to hide true intentions.
Open democracy it ain’t. I await the next episode of join the dots or who comes out of the woodwork next?
Yes, we have already seen hints of that here; it’s yet another evident attempt by the radical left to get back in the indy action, now with a helpful leg-up (no pun intended) from Alex Salmond. (Not sure who’s using who here.) Be the “deciding vote” in the new parliament over who-knows-what. All they need now is an endorsement from (say) Robin McAlpine. {grin}
Stu Campbell who runs WOS was a big part of Alba/Alex Salmond media launch yesterday and don’t pretend you didn’t know that
Sorry, Eilidh, but was your response really intended for me? I’m very well aware of that unfortunate nexus and don’t pretend otherwise. (Visitor macnero possibly, at a quick guess?)
Oops sorry that wasn’t a reply to you Grizebard don’t know how that happened it has already posted upthread
Looks like I got the guess right, heh, heh. (I’ve just looked back up again.) You were not wrong there anyway. {grin} I suppose we can surmise from the language whence he came…
..from a council estate in The Highlands, surmise no more. Have I taken somebody else’s chair ?
Tactical voting only really works in a closed system. That is a system where there is a very, very limited number of people or issues on the voting paper. All the people who can vote are known and all the people who will vote demonstrate a high degree of co-operation and co-ordination when they vote as a bloc to deliver their pre-determined and agreed outcome.
In other words – Office Politics.
The closest approximation to this in Real Politics, and it is very, very much an approximation, is a mid-term by-election conducted under the FPTP system and with a low turnout. The Protest Vote approach.
The system for Holyrood election does not lend itself to this approach in any shape or form. It is not a closed system. You do not know beforehand who will vote on the day therefore co-operation and co-ordination is well nigh impossible.
You do not know beforehand how many will vote on the day. This is especially so this year where the pandemic, and postal voting, is likely to affect the turnout.
While the constituency is one distinct entity the region is made up of several constituencies each with its own particular political hue.
There is a multiplicity of parties taking part. The other parties may indulge in their own particular tactical voting thus negating that of the other parties.
The people may be totally scunnered by the lot of you and so vote in an atypical manner.
Now write an algorithm to take all those variables, known unknowns and unknown unknowns into account.
You can’t. Vote for what you truly believe in. That vote is never wasted.
SNP 1&2
A good resumé there of what’s been long well-known, and sound advice to conclude.
Thank you
Well said Legerwood. I will be voting SNP 1 & 2 too 🙂
Indeed Legerwood and well said……..then you can say “je ne regrette rien”….unlike the uber tactical voting Unionists on steroids in EVERY election…..shame that so often they have to vote tactically to keep the SNP out and end up never getting the party/individual some of them really want to represent them as their party/ MSP or MP…….thus they end up having an individual and political party that gives not two hoots for their wants and needs but instead invests more effort and time into what WM wants and needs especially on behalf of the citizens of the more dominant country within the UKnotOK…..looking at YOU Tory party.
Legerwood , not true …
you cant predict the number of votes SNP will get but you can predict the seats they will win in the constituency vote if anything they are likely to increase what they won last time .
Really? And how do you do that? Algorithm? Magic mushrooms?
An opinion poll might predict the total number of constituency seats, but not which constituency seats. And opinion polls have been known to be spectacularly wrong.
The situation pertaining to this election is too febrile, the electorate too distracted for any definitive predictions to be made with any degree of certainty.
Please tell us how you can predict the outcome of constituency seats.
Playwright DAVID GREIG : ‘Independence isn’t even that radical an idea. Look round Europe, independence is a leap into normality.’
********************************************
Correct David…..
Yet here in Scotland Unionists portray it as if it were a crisis while also persistently making it into such a huge drama where they assume (incorrectly) that they also get to write the ending ……..Unionists acting as if they are the heroic protagonists when clearly they are the cowardly antagonists.
If I wrote a play , where a character argued that another character was draining them financially as they always had to financially subsidise them….while simultaneously saying that they STILL wanted them to stay so that this could continue…..I would assume the subject matter would be one that dealt with an individual with low self awareness and esteem and who needs more from the other character than he is honestly willing to admit…low self awareness as in never willing to admit to their mistakes and that unwillingness to admit mistakes is often seen as a sign of deep insecurity. Another indicator re low self awareness/esteem is forever criticizing others thus projecting one’s own weaknesses onto others……
The parallel between the above characterisation and Unionist politicians at WM is uncanny and accurate…..unfortunately for them the penultimate episode to this drama that they have created is about to show them that this, for them, is the beginning of the end of their (Non) Union…..and like all parables tis fitting that they, the Unionists, who state that we in Scotland are the weak ones, should find that we, who they say are weak, will inevitably inherit a country that will be stronger when independent of them and their (Non) Union……the real strength is in the normality of being an independent country NOT in a empty slogan that states ‘Stronger Together’ especially when it is evident that in reality it is the exact opposite….
Playwright Arthur Miller said “the structure of a play is how the birds came home to roost “…..
I think in relation to the political Unionists both here and at WM is that the time has come for all of THEIR chickens to come home to roost……cluck cluck… 😉
This bit im not sure is correct
“ Both Salmond and Sturgeon are formidable politicians. Both of them have significant numbers of supporters. Neither of them is going to back down. This is a far from ideal situation that we are in but we have to make the best of it “
Why is it not ideal ?
I think it is ideal.
Correct me if im wrong but im sure i read in an electoral commission report that if a member of the SNP decided to start a political party that only contested LIST seats they would be in breach of electoral rules i think this report was responding to complaints about the unfairness of the allocation of LIST votes in the dhondt voting calculation after the 2014 scottish independence referendum.
Now what we have is exactly that with one exception , AS in not a member of the SNP but his new party is only going after LIST votes.
Scotland’s future in the hands of a singular gambling man.
”Are you certain this party will do good to the pro-independence cause rather than harm?
No, I’m not 100% sure of that, it’s a calculated risk – but it’s not the first time in his career that Alex Salmond has taken one of those.”..
”Are there any potential downsides that could occur even if the Alba Party succeeds?
Yes, one theoretical possibility is that it could increase the overall number of pro-indy seats while denying the SNP a single-party majority. That does worry me, but sometimes it’s not possible to get absolutely everything you want, and you have to decide what is most important. If I had total faith that the SNP would deliver an independence referendum over the next couple of years, the calculation might be different.”..
https://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2021/03/alba-party-faqs.html
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party have decided not to field any candidates and are instead joining the Alba Party, as it has the same motto as they do.
This is not fake newshttps://www.loonyparty.com/3309/7480/loony-candidates-for-thurs-6th-may-2021/
Perhaps you might benefit from rereading the WGD article.
It allowance prevailed enjoyment in it. Calling observe for who pressed raising his. Can connection instrument astonished unaffected his motionless preference. Announcing say boy precaution unaffected difficulty alteration him. Above be would at so going heard. Engaged at village at am equally proceed.
Taking Covid into account one wonders when we’ll actually hold Indyref2.
Prof. Devi Sridhar: – ”Huge risk: Watching a slow-moving car crash as U.K. govt stays open to France and other European countries, which have a S. African variant our main vaccine (AZ) doesn’t work against. Red list approach doesn’t work. We need blanket int’l quarantine to avoid future lockdowns.” https://mobile.twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1375396616669134849
……………………………………..
Christina Pagel:- ”THREAD on concerning variants in England: Some signs that they are spreading – slowly and from very low numbers – but spreading nonetheless. Why I think this and what it means – let’s dive in: 1/13.” https://mobile.twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1375527020113887232
I live in Central Region where zero SNP list MSP’s were returned last time and we suffer the indignity of 4 Labour and 3 Tories. Am I wrong to be flirting with the idea of voting SNP1 and ALBA2 or should I stick with SNP 1&2 as in previous elections?
You have to work out what is best for you. You can always vote for the Greens as well if you want to give your 2nd vote elsewhere. However there is no guarantee Snp will win as many constituency seats as polling projects so giving both votes to Snp might be the most beneficial
Clive Scott give SNP constituency and ALBA or other pro independence party the LIST vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Scottish_Parliament_election#Central_Scotland
In 2016, the SNP won 9 out of 9 Constituency seats in Central, so on the Regional vote their divisor was 9 + 1 = 10 for the vote they got.
Party – seats -%
SNP – 0 – 47.7%
Labour – 4 – 24.8%
Conservative – 3 – 16.1%
Scottish Green – 0 – 4.7%
That was 47.7% so they got the equivalent of 4.77%, ahead of Green with 4.7%, but behind Labour with 6.2% after 3 and Conservatives with 5.37% after 2, so Labour got the 6th regional seat, and Conservatives the 7th. SNP got no regional seats. for a total of 9 + 0 = 9 MSPs.
But had they lost just 1 constituency seat to Labour, they would have had a divisor of 8+1 = 9, so with 47.7% they would have had 5.3%, whereas after 3 Labour would have had 4.96% and Conservatives 5.37% after 2, so Conservatives would have had the 6th seat, and SNP the 7th. SNP would have got 1 regional seat for a total of 8 + 1 = 9MSPs. But not if a substantial percentage had gone to Alba. Labour would have got the last seat. A net LOSS of 1 pro-indy seat.
Had they lost 1 constituency seat to the Conservatives, they would have had a divisor of 8+1 = 9, so with 47.7% they would have had 5.3%, whereas Labour would have had 4.96% after 4 and Conservatives with 5.37% after 1, so Conservatives would have had the 6th seat and SNP the 7th. But not if a substantial percentage had gone to Alba. Labour would have got the last seat. A net LOSS of 1 pro-indy seat.
THAT’s the danger of presuming the SNP win all constituency seats because they did in 2016. You won’t get that on any promotional video for some other pro-indy party.
Joe Biden knows them so well 😀.
James Doleman:- ”Joe Biden in his first press conference on his great grandfather from Ireland: “He had to leave because of what the Brits were doing.” Good luck with that trade deal Mr Johnson.” https://mobile.twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1375217011786153990
……………………………………….
Check out Ann’s latest links on the Indyref2 site.
https://indyref2.space/forum/topic/links-saturday-27-march-2021/
The thing that doesn’t sit right with me is the lack of contrition or even an apology from the disgraced ex FM Alex Salmond for his inappropriate behaviour, nothing nada..
Another thing is why now ? why this election ? the most important and crucial election we have ever faced and in he comes to split the vote… of all the gin joints etc….
SNP 1 & 2
PS Paul, bad hoose fire in Maybole today hope it wasn’t anywhere near you…
They were probably asking for it, teasing people with their curly hair, how can a alpha male resist?
Jfngy,
Asking for what? He was found not guilty of touching her “curly hair”…. Are you disagreeing with the mostly female jury?
Why now? Because for the first time in hunners of years we have a consistent majority for independence. Nicola Sturgeon has produced that majority. But the Bathistanis wish to deny it because they hate her with a vengeance so are promoting the return of the Great Helmsman to take over and lead us into the …
Oh I can’t be bothered. Sorry Paul forgive my lapse into satire. I will ignore twitter for a while as some people are pushing a less than conciliatory message.
By their tweets shall ye know them.
Let’s wait a week or so till they all sober up and then we will see what the general voting public feel about it. Perhaps James Kelly will publish a poll of some kind (though probably not comparing leader popularity ratings).
Twitter is always best ignored
I did a terrible thing and looked in on wings. Nothing conciliatory there either. Nicola still the bad girl, probably throw her constituency election so she get can out.
Has anyone got any experience with a hard copy subscription for The National. Not really sure how it works but it appears they send out vouchers. Finding a copy might be a challenge. I suppose I could make it like a treasure hunt
Thinking that subscription might work better for me as just read some comments on The National website that the Snp should not be challenging Alba on the List😒
Bob Agassi,
Let’s examine what you have said about lack of contrition.
Alex Salmond fiercely denied all but one of the charges made against him, and was found not guilty of those charges, so for those, he has nothing to apologise for, or show contrition about.
One charge against him was found “not proven”. This charge involved completely inappropriate behaviour by Salmond, involving a drunken grope, late at night, after both had been drinking wine. Salmond admitted to this misbehaviour in the days immediately following the incident, and gave a formal apology to the woman, who accepted his apology, and continued to work in the same job for a period of many months afterwards. Only after being approached by another colleague and spoken to, did the woman agree to join the litany of complaints against Salmond.
As an aside, the evidence of the woman who accused Salmond of attempted rape, was completely trashed by several witnesses, and it was proven beyond reasonable doubt, that she was lying.
To summarise:- Salmond was found not guilty of eleven charges, one charge was dropped by the prosecution, and the thirteenth charge (as outlined above) was found not proven. Salmond had already apologised for that incident.
So, as far as contrition and apologies goes you’re damned right when you say “nada”!!! And it SHOULD be “nada”, because he was guilty of “nada”!!
Unless you want to assert that the mainly female jury were wrong? Because THAT opens up a whole NEW can of worms!
@LesleyRiddoch
·
7m
Sorry to see @theSNP & @scotgp throwing pelters at @AlbaParty
. I’m no big fan of the Alex vehicle but I wonder if ‘traditional’ Yes parties realise how entitled they look with MPs’ comments today. Alba support is growing thanks to this air of complacency.
That’s very conciliatory of her considering that the Ghana Tourism Authority (Stu Campbell) blocked her on twitter. Yes – Lesley Riddoch.
Oops apos – thought it wouldn’t embed.
Lesley Riddoch was the guest at only political meeting I have ever been at. She is a very good speaker. It is a pity she has never been persuaded to stand as an Msp
i think she was referring to snp tweets to alba members, mcaskill etc. she is not the only journalist pointing this out on twitter. maybe ian blackford should read this artcle by paul about finding common ground
ruth wishart
@ruth_wishart
I would advise any politician intent on badmouthing another to ensure brain is fully engaged before parting lips. The Scottish voter needs reassurance right now, not recriminations.
A question. What is the position, parliamentary rules/regulations if an MSP is suing a senior Civil Servant? Can they do so?
I would not have thought so. The consequences if any MSP could mount such an action, or someone is elected who has already initiated such an action, could lead to chaos and potentially a block on the Government’s programme.
So what is the answer?
I don’t know Legerwood but I would expect that the case would have to be against the Scottish Government and not an identified individual. It sounds like another wheeze to get Nicola Sturgeon.
AFAIK Leslie Evans’ line manager is the Cabin Secretary in Westminster. If anyone is to be disciplining it would be him. MI5 is probably involved too as the previous CS was ex MI5 possibly they all are.
You are correct it is against the SG but is about the decisions taken by a Civil Servant.
Not a precedent one would want on the books. A minefield.
Cabin Secretary = Cabinet Secretary!
Cabin fever in these trying times, eh? {laugh}
Patently obvious that the Brits are piling in here. Fortunately they invariably over egg it so it’s easy for everyone to see.
The only good side to this new party setting up is the extra publicity it will bring. The Brits won’t be able to resist giving it – and coincidentally the SNP – airtime. And the public won’t fail to see their purpose. On top of that the public will view it as Nicola being attacked unfairly – again – and they won’t like it.
As an SNP member I have no time for people who make a song and dance out of leaving the party. Just leave for goodness sake and do your own thing. Do I want the SNP to enter into some kind of special relationship with them? If Nicola thinks it is a good idea i will be supportive, otherwise no.
If I thought the numerous nut jobs who have descended on here were in any way representative of the wider Yes movement I would be seriously concerned but I am quite sure they are not. Just motor mouths who support British values. I will resist speculating as to their motives – a waste of time.
So glad to See you back on a regular basis, Paul. You’re clear-sightenedness and ability to get to the heart of the matter were sorely missed
Hope you’re doing well.
Here we go.
cid:91A3A7C8-88AA-4FB1-AE5D-C5CF167207FB
So some people recommend we vote SNP 1&2 right across Scotland
Look at the above
This is what you will get four LIST MPs
But if you vote for ALBA or another pro indy party you could get three times as many LIST MPs
Its not rocket science
Its not about predicting the unpredictable
Yes Terence, you’re quite right Terence, the only thing that counts is how many list votes per SNP seat in one, just one, election matters.
It is not anywhere near as simple as you make out Terence.
It’s spreadsheet mania. Assumes that everything is calculable, and in the midst of a disruptive crisis to boot. What the spreadsheet doesn’t show, for example, is the revulsion that at least some pro-indy women voters feel for the Messiah.
Indeed grizebard, it’s their fervent conviction that absolutely no downsides exist.
Grizebeard and Drew,
I think you should follow the advice of Macart above, and stop telling others how to vote. Even more importantly, you should stop trying to divine what other people are thinking.
wrt spreadsheets, I have used them since before the last election to prove to myself and others, the dangers involved in not voting SNP/SNP, but you’re right – spreadsheets aren’t the whole story.
The spreadsheets don’t show the revulsion you talk about, because that is just opinion on your part, just as they can’t show that my opinion is right, because my opinion, like yours, isn’t quantifiable.
My opinion (shared by James Kelly of “Scot Goes Pop!”), is that Alba is a game changer, because Alex Salmond IS the only person I can think of, who can make voting in the regional ballot for a party other than the SNP, worth thinking about.
I have no idea how successful Alba is going to be in other regions, but I’m fairly sure that, in NE Scotland the Alex Salmond name will win Alba at least one seat. For that reason, I will be voting Alba in NE Scotland. Others in NE Scotland and elsewhere in Scotland can make their own judgements and vote accordingly.
You might have noticed that I managed to make my point WITHOUT denigrating Nicola Sturgeon, who I now regard as of (almost) equal status to Salmond in the pantheon of Scottish political greats.
I had a look at wings a wee while ago and ,in a moment of madness ,posted a couple of times in support of NS and the SNP.
The hatred many of them have for the SNP and NS in particular is depressing. I assume at least some of them are independence supporters.
That said, it’s important that the SNP desist from attacking ALBA and always remember who the enemy is. The MSM are bound to make a big deal about splits but they mustn’t rise to the bait.
Assuming an SNP majority, there can be no beating about the bush. This is the last chance saloon re independence in my lifetime.
So no sign (yet) of the desired conciliation there then. It’s just we here who have to do that, apparently. (Yet they presumably want us to vote for their Great Leader regardless? Oddly presumptive that.)
If knowledge of that kind of nastiness gets out among the general population, it will tarnish us all regardless, and the BitterTogetherists will feel they have just found their lost lottery ticket.
Last chance saloon, right enough.
Grizebeard,
Well done! At last, Paul’s message is getting through! Of COURSE you won’t see any signs of reconciliation on Wings. Campbell will never go for reconciliation, and he won’t allow it in his comments.
I’m voting Alba in SPITE of Wings……….
I could be mischievous and say “if knowledge of your nastiness and unwillingness to heed Paul’s request to bury the hatchet gets out among the general population….”, but I won’t…..
Hey Calum , there was a time when such hatred ( as you describe ) would be explained as ” infiltration ” I haven’t yet looked on Wings today, or more to the point engaged!
Nevertheless , I’d like to point out here that no one said this thing would be easy or pleasant and we all pretty much agreed that between the 2014 reffrendum and actual Indy nasty would be the order of the day..
Please stop being surprised , and, please please , please stop being hurt…expect the worst and aim for the best is where we are at.
I’ve been convinced of ” max the vote ” for some time now and have no real issue with those who arent….we are all doing our best as we see it are we no ?
I will of course say the same thing BTL on Wings and all the other blogs I engage with.. and hope to reach some, which this far in is getting harder and harder.
But I live in hope..
And as a Stroke Survivor myself will Brooke NO nonsense over it ( non negotiable , I live with that legacy too )
Anyhoo
I , ( the ultimate floating voter ) like that those who “bugged out” from the SNP now have a choice, they want to support the best for Indy , and I’ll not judge them for it either.
This is a good thing.
Everyone must vote as they will.. Is that no exactly what we campaign for?
And as I said, I am very much convinced that the list vote is the answer to our way forwards.
So I will indeed run with it , but will also keep watching to ensue it’s my best choice.
The only real point I’d make is ..
We should be , and could be , all so busy doing **exactly that watching *** we have nae bloody time tae hurt each other.
A proposal from an SNP 1 and Alba 2 voter in support of Paul’s article … AYE ?
SNP1ALBA2 is the way to go, as you can see by my profile pic, I am an Alba party member, BUT I want to give the SNP one last chance (It helps when my MSP is Kate Forbes) and will give the SNP my constituency vote, let’s get as many indy supporting MSPs into power at Holyrood,
I feel the SNP left me, as do many others but we are ready to come together where it matters regarding independence, I was an SNP member for 30 years, always supported independence yet I have been called traitor, quisling, Yoon, MI5/6 plant, 77th brigade all because I no longer follow Nicola Sturgeon’s party.
The movement needs to come together again, and the name-calling has to end, the shit between the blogs has to end, remember the saying Opinion are like arseholes, everyone has one and they are all different, well it’s the same here in Scotland but that seems to have been forgotten.
At the end of the day, what is more important, Party or Country, if you think party, give both votes to the SNP, if you think country then its got to be SNP1 Indy List Party2,(AlbaParty)
What I can’t get my head around is the Scottish Green Party standing candidates in 10 or is it 12 constituencies, now that is splitting the vote and very counterproductive, at least the other Indy List Parties are just as I have called them….list parties something that won’t affect the SNPs seat count, as they won’t benefit from the SNPBothvotes unless in the Borders where Joan McAlpine will really need the help to beat the tories in her area
The ball is in play, neither group can just pick the ball up and bugger off home in a huff
Kate Forbes is my MSP as well – couldn’t get better. I put country before party every time as well. However we have a list MSP in the Highlands so for me it’s SNP 1&2.
Too risky as things stand to vote ALBA here , in my opinion.
What she said…..
I agree with you and time is running out for me as well.
SNP in the constituency and list if you live in southern Scotland.
I can’t comment on Wings in support of Sturgeon or the SNP, because I’ve been banned for months……
‘Alex Salmond and his new Alba Party could deny the SNP a majority.’
https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/alex-salmond-alba-party-could-deny-snp-majority-scottish-elections-931898?ito=social_itw_theipaper
Good article what worries me most of all is that we could end with a Unionist government coalition because of this new party. There is no certainty Snp will win the predicted amount of constuencies
Petra , if SNP do not get a majority but pro independence partys get a majority a bigger majority than the SNP alone or even with the greens could have even hoped for , it has to be good , surely ?
If that happens I would expect the 4 Horseman to be right behind me. Incidentally how many small Indy parties are left. Has Isp chucked it as well now
You started with an ‘ if ‘ if the SNP do not get a majority, if they can’t form a government, if we don’t get a referendum, who will you blame Terence.
The issue with 2nd vote is the assumption that all votes go to salmond rather than the Greens and utopia is achieved. They won’t due to marmite Salmond, but
both The Greens and the other “ Independence “ parties get a few % each but no seats.
No majority say cheerio to Scotland
A picture speaks a thousand words… The graphics are perfect Terence. In a system deliberately set up to stymie Independence you get what you vote for. Maybe it’s time to not play nice and use the system against all the Blue Red and Yellow Tories who stand in our way.
Have always viewed the Libs as Yellow…in case thereis any misunderstanding.
I think the Libs are actually orange. But let’s not get all sectarian about it!
I apologise to schrodingers cat.
Vote SNP 1/ ALBA 2 if it reduces unionist seats rather than SNP seats.
Will Joanna Cherry leave SNP to join ALBA?
Then what will posters think of what I said?
But still sorry to schrodingers cat.
You are looking too deep in to this GG.. my answers..
1 – Why ?
2 – No one can know that, the system cannot be gamed
3 – Who cares ?
4 – Why are you worrying what others think of your opinions ?
5 – Why ?
Because Paul advised me.
I was wrong to call schrodingers cat a traitor.
Paul wants us to find common ground.
tempers run high on all sides, but you are big enough to apologise and for my part I accept the apology, lets move on. no hard feelings
This is the most important election of our life time …..Keeping calm and focused on Indy is crucial …all the froth has to be ignored with us just moving forward. My envelope stuffing began and finished today. SNP election agent delighted with the level of support throughout constituency. All envelopes stuffed and delivered by volunteers.
Someone on the other thread asked about Central Scotland based on 2016, and I missed out one little sentence to make ti cimplete, so here it is again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Scottish_Parliament_election#Central_Scotland
In 2016, the SNP won 9 out of 9 Constituency seats in Central, so on the Regional vote their divisor was 9 + 1 = 10 for the vote they got.
Party – seats -%
SNP – 0 – 47.7%
Labour – 4 – 24.8%
Conservative – 3 – 16.1%
Scottish Green – 0 – 4.7%
That was 47.7% so they got the equivalent of 4.77%, ahead of Green with 4.7%, but behind Labour with 6.2% after 3 and Conservatives with 5.37% after 2, so Labour got the 6th regional seat, and Conservatives the 7th. SNP got no regional seats. for a total of 9 + 0 = 9 MSPs.
But had they lost just 1 constituency seat to Labour, they would have had a divisor of 8+1 = 9, so with 47.7% they would have had 5.3%, whereas after 3 Labour would have had 4.96% and Conservatives 5.37% after 2, so Conservatives would have had the 6th seat, and SNP the 7th. SNP would have got 1 regional seat for a total of 8 + 1 = 9 MSPs. But not if a substantial percentage had gone to Alba. Labour would have got the last seat. A net LOSS of 1 pro-indy seat.
Had they lost 1 constituency seat to the Conservatives, they would have had a divisor of 8+1 = 9, so with 47.7% they would have had 5.3%, whereas Labour would have had 4.96% after 4 and Conservatives with 5.37% after 1, so Conservatives would have had the 6th seat and SNP the 7th. SNP would have got 1 regional seat for a total of 8 + 1 = 9 MSPs. But not if a substantial percentage had gone to Alba. Labour would have got the last seat. A net LOSS of 1 pro-indy seat.
THAT’s the danger of presuming the SNP win all constituency seats because they did in 2016. You won’t get that on any promotional video for some other pro-indy party.
When the percentage votes are close like that, a loss for the SNP for a constituency is mostly compensated by a win on the list, so the SNP win the same number of seats in total for a region. But if people make dangerous presumptions, then the SNP lost a seat, and the other indy party doesn;t neccessarily win it – it could be a net gain for the Unionists.
Don’t be fooled.
Yesindyref2 ,
oh boy , took you all afternoon to find that eh ? But that scenario will not be represented across the rest of Scotland.
There are constituencies where an SNP win is certain
Dont be fooled by unlikely possibilities
Im sure we will see all the possibilities being calculated now that ALBA are on the scene
No, just a quarter-hour, but thanks for your praise.
Nice of you to be so dismissive of some real critical analysis looking at genuine potential scenarios.
What have you offered as an alternative? Wild optimism based on deeply flawed assumptions, that the 2016 constituency outcome will be matched or bettered.
There’s actually as near proof of this as you can get looking at 2011.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Scottish_Parliament_election#Central_Scotland
Where the SNP got 6 constituency seats, Labour got 3.
On the regional vote the SNP got 3 list seats – 3 seats – with 46.4% of the vote. That’s actually LESS than they got in 2016 (47.7%), but they start with a divisor of 6+1 = 7 rather than 10, so the percentages go
6+1+0 = 7 divided into 47,7% = 6.63% wins 1 seat
6+1+1 = 8 divided into 47,7% = 5.98% wins 1 seat
6+1+2 = 9 divided into 47,7% = 5.3% wins 1 seat
6+1+3 = 10 divided into 47,7% = 4.773% gets nothing
Total seats for Central Scotland in 2011 = 6 + 3 = 9
Total seats for Central Scotland in 2016 = 9 + 0 = 9
Make no presumptions. The SNP need the regional vote as a safety net, and in fact in 2016 if they had got just 53.8%, they would have got a regional seat and the Conservatives one less, for a total of 10 seats.
Sadly the usual blogs having gone Alba, won’t tell you this.
Yesindyref2 , but when you say SNP really need the LIST votes you mean they need them in this region to get the majority in holyrood but a bigger majority in holyrood is possible if other pro independence partys get the LIST seats that SNP cannot get , those LIST seats that SNP cannot get usually go to Labour or the tories
ALBA intend to end that farce
You want it to continue
I understand why , no mushrooms required , a small majority is all that is ever ever possible with your recommendation
Giving the regional votes to ALBA would increase the pro indy seats way beyond anything possible with your recommendation of SNP 1&2
Many of us are tired of accepting the hamstrung methods you recommend and which to be fair were the only sheriff in town until now
But the arrival of ALBA gives us another choice
A choice i and others believe is better
All we need now is the media effort to spread the word of where ALBA LIST votes are most likely to be profitable
Im sure we will get that in the coming weeks
Possibly a traffic light diagram
With a measly 4 LIST seats for SNP last time it wont be difficult to explain
Terence if you and any others want to give your vote to Alba go ahead but don’t expect others here to give a vote to a party just because you tell them to. I am a naturally risk adverse person so I will be sticking to Snp1 and 2. Even if I did change my mind my second vote would go to the Greens rather than Alba
Eilidh , sure i understand what you say everyone makes their own decision quite right too.
I only give my personal opinion i dont try and tell people what to do.
I will tackle comments if i think they are wrong and expect the same back otherwise whats the point of a blog.
No point just saying things for the sake of it if you do not believe them.
Finding common ground if nothing other than a will to secure Scottish independence is good.
If Independence was so important why wouldn’t The Greens get the lending of your 2nd vote?
“With a measly 4 LIST seats for SNP last time it wont be difficult to explain”
2016 result in total: SNP 63 seats, Greens 6 seats, total pro-indy 69 seats, a majority of the 129 seats, with the PO being Labour, that’s 69 : 59.
Without those 4 measly list seats for the SNP last time, SNP 59, Greens 6, total pro-indy, 65, with the PO being Labour that’s 65:63. Still a majority.
In 2021 it’s likely to be an SNP PO, makikng that 64:64 with the ex-SNP PO suppsoed to support the status quo – the Union.
Oh dear, the figures don’t support your rhetoric.
And it gets even worse if the Greens lose their 6 measly 6 LIST seats.
Next.
Yesindyref2 you are making exactly the point i and others who intend to give SNP 1 but not 2
are making.
We can play safe and possibly scrape a majority with the help of the greens who are pro indy at present
But what if the greens decide they will not support indy , do you wait another five years ?
And if the greens do support indy but get fewer seats what then ?
You are relying on a party that does not have Scottish independence as its top priority
I think ALBA a safer option their top priority is Scottish independence and we can exceed the seats you quote with SNP and ALBA
Prior to ALBA i was intending to give SNP both votes because the greens can change their tune whenever they want as they have shown on other matters in parliament
Great having the greens on our side but they are not always on our side they have other things of higher priority that scottish independence and that for me shows that their voters dont see things the same as i.
If greens voters were really committed to scottish independence they would just vote for SNP but theyre not , they have worked out that SNP are prepared to give them some of the things they want in exchange for supporting independence, for now.
Good work yesindyref2, nice to see some real numbers to illustrate, instead of the magical arithmetic coming from elsewhere.
I think some people are on the mushrooms 🙂
I might some time do it for the other 7 regions. I’ve put that in a text file as a template.
They’re tripping on something right enough.
They’d better watch out for the the unicorn shite on their path to no downside nirvana.
Yes, and that doesn’t take into account the BitterTogetherists co-operating to field dummy no-hoper candidates in the constituencies to offset the usual SNP advantage over their divided challenges. They’ve done this before.
These promoters are operating on an entirely unproven belief in popular support for Wandering Hans and making theoretical calculations based on best-possible assumptions, while blissfully ignoring the “gang agley” effect. It’s scary.
” Wandering Hans”?? Is that you ascribing a pejorative nickname to a man who was found not guilty by a majority female jury of his peers? What do YOU know that the jury didn’t?
What’s the difference between Stu Campbell and Grizebeard?
I give up. What IS the difference between a man who relentlessly attacks Sturgeon and a man who relentlessly attacks Salmond? – because I can’t put a fag paper between the two……
“Wandering Hans” is a German itinerant…
This is day one of finding common ground
I think its gone well
Ive never been for AS and against NS
OR
For NS and against AS
I feel lucky maybe some think naive to feel that AS and NS are heroes to me
I am convinced that westminster set up the whole thing firstly trying to get AS imprisoned
Then trying to get NS out of the Scottish Government
I feel sad that there are AS supporters bad naming NS
I feel sad that there are NS supporters bad naming AS
Everyone forms their opinions rightly on how they perceive matters
Time heals , i hope that day by day people especially the really smart ones find ways of bringing all Scottish independence supporters together for the one thing that will help us all.
Scottish Independence
Im still a member of SNP they do a marvellous job in extremely difficult circumstances and no doubt the circumstances are much more difficult than i know.
Reality, Opinium poll Nicola 58% popularity, Alex 14% popularity.
Gambling with the future of our country on the system we use in Scotland, created by unionists, is stupid and dangerous.
I posted this up thread as a reply to Terrence Calachan who said that Scotland alone uses a form of AMS de’Hondt. I thought it worth a general comment here.
New Zealand uses the AMS de Hont system same as Scotland. The NZ Labour Party led by PM Jacinta Ardern at the last NZ GE broke the system and received an outright majority of seats. It shows that a popular female leader can indeed win a majority without the need for a coalition.
IMHO is that if there is a second party pushing the same policy in the list then it is essential that they form a coalition and not run as seperate parties with potentially varying policies at the micro level. Now that the Alba party has emerged behoves both the SNP and Alba to start talking and unify as a formal coalition or the potential for a disaster is high.
The AMS system is not designed to hobble it is designed to create a house that cooperates to produce outcomes that benefit all of the people. It is designed to stimulate debate and bring a voice to the parliament a range of diverse views that are worth finding common ground on.
Alba now has a duty to endeavour to hold an olive branch to the SNP and work together for a common goal.
Not true malkymcblain ,
new zealand dont use dhondt for just top up seats the way Scotland does
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_New_Zealand
MMP or AMS looks the same to me. The point is proportional representation and the incentive to cooperate between parties of the same or similar political mind.
Malkymcblain holyrood is not designed to create cooperation because there are three britnat partys labour tory lib dem who are a coalition only amongst themselves with the sole purpose of preventing scottish independence there is nothing diverse about top up dhondt and no other countries use this dhondt method apart from wales and NI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method
Latest.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/215556435841901/permalink/854854078578797/
For those not on FB, latest from Elect calculus
SNP 71 seats ( +8 )
Holyrood poll? Got a link?
There are many variations of dhondt theyre not all the same
No joke – the current situation is making me embarrassed to be an indy supporter, and if someone had told me this would be the case at any other point in my life I would have to them to go **** themselves.
It’s very … I don’t know if “disturbing” is the word, but whatever … it’s disturbing to think that if AS hadn’t been accused of sexual harassment then this Alba party thing wouldn’t even be happening. Just zoom out for a few moments and consider that.
“Disturbing”, yes, seems right enough. A curiously disturbing thought, now you mention it. I’m still trying to get my head around it, actually.
We’ve no sooner disposed of Salmond Diversion #1 to find ourselves right amidst Salmond Diversion #2. It’s almost as if it was all choreographed.
Now here’s a thing, and luckily I can do this without insult. This from another blog:
“To get two seats there the SNP would need 167,700 votes – a relatively modest, but still colossally improbable, 30% increase on their 2016 vote, up to a 62% total share.”
This is correct, the figures are right, and luckily again it’s for Central Scotland 2016 – the very result I analysed above. It means we can give different opinions, from the same actual basic data, which is what it should be all about after all.
But look carefully “30% increase” which is a big scary figure. It is actually a 30% increase on top of 47.7% , as in 130 / 100 * 47.7%. But in terms of percentage points, which is a common way of referring to percentages, it comes down to 14.3% points.
So in terms of scariness you’re now comparing 30% with “just” 14.3% – in absolute numerical terms, half the value. See what can be done with figures to support an argument?
Note also that’s for “two seats” on the list, to get “one seat” on the list would have needed the SNP to get 53.8% on the list, just 6.1% points.
It’s the way we tell them, and everyone involved in any way with figures can a) report them straight as possible which is sadly rare, b) twist then one way, c) twist them the other way, and d) not have a single solitary sausage of a clue about what they’re doing.
There’s going to be a lot of smoke and mirrors the next 6 weeks.
True that, but hopefully only among anoraks like us, thanks to the revived chancers. Groundhog Day with a little extra sauce added.
Thankfully the answer is simple, avoid the spreadsheet mania, folks, and take Legerwood’s sensible advice upthread like ordinary voters will do.
As activists it helps if we know, or can at least challenge those trying to push an agenda with duff analysis – or a complete absence of analysis.
But for the normal voter, our advice is simple and is at its most basic:
“Vote for the party you trust and prefer. And the party leader.”.
The simple fact is that the SNP and Alba need to talk. If you are gaming a system you all need to be working to the same plan and cooperate on the how to vote instructions for each and every list seat. If there is no mutually agreed game plan then it will unravel and the consequences could be dire for my beloved homeland. Please all come together. Alba was not necessary to win a majority in my view but now that Alba is a reality then the SNP need to work with them. As Davy McGuinness says in the video below Mr Salmond will not appeal to women voters so some nose holding may unfortunately be required from the ladies. If you ostensibly have the same goal and you want to succeed then the only way is to cooperate and be very pragmatic and in full agreement about the strategy or it’s curtains.
Personally I’m a bit cynical about this whole experiment. What I see from afar is a narcissist out for revenge. The fact that Mr Salmond seems very close to the most divisive character in the movement, the narcissistic Bampot from Bath and his friendship with high Tories like Davis makes me very nervous about his goal in all of this. That’s just my personal view but the facts are as Paul says you have to play with the cards you are dealt. The problem now is that you had a straight flush before Alba now you have three of a kind and are looking for one more or another pair.
Yesindyref 2, yes i agree but 14.3% increase is still not going to happen
The point is that the other blog is option “b”, I gave an option “c”, to give a different result. Even you just gave a “c” option by quoting the 14.3% figure (for 2 seats) NOT the 6.1% figure (for 1 seat).
And yet there are people who will call that other blog’s article “forensic analysis” which is of course totally wrong – “forensic” does not seek to manipulate data to a preset conclusion, it analsyses data to see what it represents.
actually the point is that without tory voters switching to the snp on the list, they have virtually no chance of winning list seats.
QED
Time for some levity me thinks…lighten up everyone you have independence to look forward to…together stand united in this one goal your children and grandchildren are depending on you.
😀😀😀 best laugh I have had for days
breaking, Neale Hanvey becomes second Westminster MP to defect from SNP to Alex Salmond’s Alba Party.
24hrs and alba have already twice as many mps as scottish labour
I think he was actually dropped by the SNP a couple of weeks before the election so on the ballot sheet he was still SNP as it was too late to change them, but actually an Independent. From memory, too lazy to check.
true, but i merely posted this fyi
SNP do have him listed as an MP, so maybe when he won his election they let him back in. Which of course might leavev him being a bit naturally hacked off …
I remember he had his own crowdfunder and was denied SNP resources apparently.
A yes, he was recently sacked as a front bench spokesperson, and left as one of only three without a role in the infamous day of the long knoves.
The SNP are not neccessariy their own bestest fiends..
Don’t blame him. He was thrown to the wolves by the SNP , like others before him. Sadly the SNP are weak when it comes to loyalty.
You are now being disingenuous, two MP’s that have jumped ship to a party that received 0% in the election. I bet they won’t put themselves up for re-election if they don’t get a Holyrood seat, more comfy that Pete Wishart it looks like to me, will it be conviction with no integrity?
disingenuous by simply posting a headline about an event?? really
I feel as if I am on a blog post on Wings in 2016 as it is polluted by a poster called schrodingers cat advising not to vote SNP on the list. This poster was all over threads in 2016 telling us to vote Green, at the time he/she was greener than a seasick Jimmy Johnstone. And now miraculously turns up here again sowing division.
We all know how this splitting turned out in 2016, the SNP lost its majority.
SNP 1 & 2
Cat is a long time poster in various fora, and has opinions, as do the rest of us.
dads that in no way answers what i have posted, the ‘cat’ has recently turned up here with the same modus operandi it employed before the last Holyrood election on wings. Those of us who have been ‘at this’ for a while can see this. SNP 1 & 2
i have always supported tactical voting, even when wings didnt. in 2016, the greens were the best vehicule, recently AFI was. that changed yesterday when Alba launched. personnally, i would argue for a tactical list vote if a party stood cardboard cut outs. so not so green as your childish comment makes out.
as for folk voting green losing the snp its majority, this is simply incorrect.
must try harder bob
no coconut
changed yesterday LOL, close but no cigar
in 2016, i was in a minority of one, me on my loansome.
today, even alex salmond, james kelly and every other blogger now supports the idea, believe me, i’m the one smoking the cheroots tonight.
hows your campaign going bob?
Except for the blog you’re now polluting threads on, go smoke your cheroots where they’re welcome, sadly pussy they are not welcome here, and if Paul says they are I will bow out gracefully and wake up on May 7th with fingers crossed…
The simple fact is that the SNP and Alba need to talk. If you are gaming a system you all need to be working to the same plan and cooperate on the how to vote instructions for each and every list seat. If there is no mutually agreed game plan then it will unravel and the consequences could be dire for my beloved homeland. Please all come together. Alba was not necessary to win a majority in my view but now that Alba is a reality then the SNP need to work with them. As Davy McGuinness says in the video below Mr Salmond will not appeal to women voters so some nose holding may unfortunately be required from the ladies. If you ostensibly have the same goal and you want to succeed then the only way is to cooperate and be very pragmatic and in full agreement about the strategy or it’s curtains.
Personally I’m a bit cynical about this whole experiment. What I see from afar is a narcissist out for revenge. The fact that Mr Salmond seems very close to the most divisive character in the movement, the narcissistic Bampot from Bath and his friendship with high Tories like Davis makes me very nervous about his goal in all of this. That’s just my personal view but the facts are as Paul says you have to play with the cards you are dealt. The problem now is that you had a straight flush before Alba now you have three of a kind and are looking for one more or another pair.
Nicola Sturgeon has spent the last six years building female support for the SNP, it’s now higher than it’s ever been in SNP history, the first sniff of Salmond’s National Socialist party and the SNP would lose that vote overnight, so no Nicola Sturgeon will certainly not have any kind of contact with this bunch, at this moment they are tarnished nobodies and nothing, why would she legitimise them by acknowledging them in any favourable way and lose her support
The line will be whenever asked is that Salmond is not fit for public office, and she’ll stick to it so that women everywhere in Scotland are clear how she regards him
Pragmatism is sometimes ugly and there is no alternative. As much as it pains me to say Alba have created this situation and it has to be dealt with in a pragmatic completely unemotional way. The safest way is to hold your nose and engage. I’m on your side and I hate the fact that Scotland now has to deal with it. But it is what it is…unfortunately the cards have fallen and you have to make the best of it or the movement will divide and all will be lost. Don’t let that happen Scotland you need to box clever and work with the situation.
Aye right ye are
Pragmatically, 18% of currently intending SNP voters view Salmond favourably, but 91% view Sturgeon favourably, with only 7% unfavourably,
https://www.opinium.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Opinium-Scottish-Parliament-Polling-11-16-March-2021-v1.2.xlsx (tables Scot9 and Scot9(2)).
So even if all that 7% voted Alba on the list, that would be about 3.5% on the list max. It would need 5% – around 13,000 votes in any region – to get even 1 single Alba MSP, so the chances are they won’t get one single MSP in any region.
Also if Sturgeon did cuddle up to Salmond in a moment of unaccountable madness, the chances are she’d lose a lot of support amongst SNP voters – 75% view him unfavourably. She could lose a quarter, even a half of the SNP voters. Losing many constituency seats in voters’ disgust. And for a gain of – what? Not even 1 Alba MSP on the list?
13,000 in one single region is the equivalent of 100,000 votes all over Scotland. Does anyone really think 100,000 people are going to vote for Alex Salmond’s party? I think he’ll be lucky to get 13,000 in total. RISE got just 10,911.
It wouldn’t be pragmatism, it would be insanity.
Thanks for the stats I’m always open to learning and appreciate your info and I take on board what you say. It’s good to have a constructive discussion without condescension.
If Alba can raise a head of steam then the pragmatic approach may be necessary. That was what I was trying to say. At this time I agree with you but things could change…I hope not.
All the best
Thanks YIFef2
..and yet on another channel in one regional vote area one ALBA/WoS states that”… limey says:
27 March, 2021 at 12:45 pm
17,000 votes for Alba in the West of Scotland is all it takes to rid us of the scourge of Ross Greer. Vote wisely, folks.”
So the proposition is to remove a regional Green MSP ( I know it is Greer) and replace with an ALBA list MSP ? Cllr McEleny?
It is not about removing Labour, Lib Dem’s or tories it’s about undermining the likely SNP majority.
Such a tactic will give labour an additional seat.
For a super Independence parliament we have to take seats of the unionists.
This is not what ALBA are targeting or appear to wish for.
There’s a limit to pragmatism. Alex Salmond, for me, knowing what I know now, is beyond the pale. He won’t be getting my vote. The best way to secure a majority is both votes SNP.
I take your point Capella. If I was a woman living in Scotland I wouldn’t vote for his party either. He and his type give men a bad name.
Malky cards can fall in any direction but you can choose not to pick up certain ones.
Maybe the SNP in certain constituencies should tell their voters to vote Green.
Maybe the Greens should drop out of certain constituencies and support the SNP candidate. It won’t happen of course- officially.
Sorry but Salmond, MacCaskill, McEleny Campbell (PR) will not get the family vote.
SNP 1 & 2
No need to apologise to me Hamish. Let’s hope Alba dies a quick death and any potential need to be pragmatic disappears.
Totally agree Dr Jim. Good to see you back. I am guessing that Nicola has been struggling to walk upright in the past 24 hours with the amount of knives in her back from at least 2 disingenuous Mps 1 Councillor et all
That “Councillor” is the lasiest git going. He’s been a thorn for the party for years
Whose side is he really on?
No idea – but he totally misrepresents the SNP rejection of his Plan B proposal. I was a delegate at the conference in Aberdeen when he put this plan to conference. Everyone listened respectfully then overwhelmingly defeated the proposal. It was the huge number of delegates, representing the branches, who opposed it, not the leadership as he tries to imply.
Talking of Plan B – has Angus B McNeil jumped ship yet?
I don’t think that would go down well with the women (or their menfolk) of the Western Isles, Capella.
You are right to be cynical for all sorts of reasons. Who for example is bank-rolling this pop-up? And any man who thinks “the ladies” are going to “hold their noses” and vote for Salmond obviously knows zit all about female experience and psychology.
As to your notion of co-operation, I don’t see what’s to be gained by that at all. The two parties shouldn’t be enemies, true (though that depends more on the Salmondistas, whose attitude so far has been demanding and obnoxious, not engaging), but the parties are obviously not pals either, so why should they be associated in any way? They only need to each promote their own view of the case for independence, and turn their energies and attentions on the enemies of independence rather than on each other. Whether the Alba zealots like SoB are actually capable of that kind of laissez faire we’ll see.
This is a democracy and everyone has a right to put their case to the public, then we all cast our votes and wait so see how the cards fall. Frankly the last thing I would like to see though is Alex Salmond having any hold over Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP in the coming parliament. (Creepy.) I’m not sure though that’s actually going to happen, but Alba could well damage the SNP’s position without having anything to show for all their trouble themselves.
Again, I find myself agreeing with you grizebard.
I’m the ultimate floating voter. I’ve never been affiliated to any political party and have never met either NS or AS. Being SNP members, many of the posters here are, naturally, concerned about strengthening the SNP. One even mentioned that the Greens don’t vote with the SNP on every matter and don’t focus solely in independence. But the SNP can’t focus solely on it either, if they’re to form a Government? Legerwood summed it up nicely for me way up-thread.
Looking in as dispassionately as possible, I’m struck by the similarities between Salmond and Johnson, (No, not the trouser thing! Although, as you say, I think he’s probably lost a lot of the female vote, and the younger the woman, the more likely the loss.)
– Both have been described as clever men (BJ’s Boris persona hid a rapier mind ISTR)
– BJ is acknowledged as a good campaigner and I suspect AS is the same. The SNP certainly has a great deal to be grateful for, historically. Get Brexit Done v Get Independence Done
If elected to Parliament, what’s the plan? My son’s met him a couple of times and attempted to engage him in a discussion on SNP policies pre-Indyref1 (when that’s what he was there to do – he didn’t just collar and harangue AS!) He rarely speaks in such un-glowing terms about anybody. The polite version was that AS didn’t seem to have any he was willing to share with a member of the Plebs. Allowing for this unusual level of antipathy, I couldn’t discern any reassuring answers myself.
– BJ is often described as vengeful. He will punish any who opposed him. Even if not actually the case, AS seems prepared to take *somebody* down for what happened, no matter what harm it does to anybody or anything else. Doesn’t have to be true, it’s the “optics”.
– BJ raises tory funds from Russian friends, AS, employed by a Russian radio station.
– both seem very friendly with prominent members of the tory party… 🙂
So, basic questions from a prepared to listen to both sides voter:
1) What are Alba’s other policies if elected to the next Scottish Parliament?
2) Who’s funding them?
3) How strong are the connections to the conservative and unionist party – and why did archbrexiteer ‘help out his mate’?
4) What about all the pro-Indy people who vote for the policies of other parties? Where do they go?
(Salmond’s party will only mop up predominantly ex-SNP and similar, I’d think.) I saw a programme around the time of the last GE where young members of various parties – EVEN TORIES! – were saying that many of them were looking at independence and the electorate certainly was. They had to consider at least a referendum.
The SNP are not gaming the system, SNP 1&2 is as straight as it gets.
Point taken.
From the smartest guy in the room…as usual IMHO
Salmond would do well to listen to him.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19192643.michael-russell-alex-salmonds-approach-unite-independence-voters/
Thx for this. Indy Truck Davy talking a lot of sense and expressing the same scepticism about the Alex Salmond Party as I feel. Spot on.
That was meant for Malkymcblain’s video of Indy Truck Davy – don’t know why it turned up here.
👍
Malkymcblain
The SNP are not ‘gaming the system’.
They are a party with a proven track record in Government and a proven track record of leadership in a time of continuing crisis. They are a party with policies that form a programme for Government to benefit the people of Scotland if elected.
They are being open about their policies, their aims and objectives and thus their wish for endorsement of their record and policies by the electorate when they ask them to vote SNP 1&2.
There is no gaming of the system in that stance.
Alba on the other hand…
Chalk and cheese.
Agree
Don’t let that happen Scotland you need to box clever and work with the situation.
SNP 1 & 2
I really hope you’re right if I had a vote it would be SNP 1 and 2 as well but this new dynamic can’t be ignored. Careful and pragmatic thinking is required. I wish it all never happened and I curse AS for putting the country in this position. If this jeopardises the goal of independence then he will go down in history as the Donald Trump of Scotland. Why couldn’t he just piss off to Moscow (wee hamlet near Eaglesham) and gies aw peace. But he’s still here and unfortunately can’t be ignored. Alba gu Brath!
Aye ma hert’s in the heilands but ma feet are in Bombay!
Mumbai, not Bombay.
It hasn’t been Bombay, the British Raj name, since 1995.
It was a quote from an anonymous person in history.
I may not have done well in grammar (I forgot the quotation marks) at school but I ended up becoming a geography teacher. Thanks for the, can I say, pedantic correction. 😉
Salmond no longer has a place in public life. I’m appalled that anyone would accept him as a serious candidate.
I would hope that other parties, and the media, will refuse to share a platform with him and refuse to engage with him in any way except to relentlessly confront him with his inappropriate behaviour until he gives up and goes away. I hope he can learn to be a better man but he must do that in private.
Please don’t be taken in. He’s making extravagant promises about super majorities which he’s in no position to deliver. A pound-shop Trump we can do without. You need to wake up to the harm he’s about to do to the independence movement before it’s too late.
From the smartest guy in the room…as usual IMHO
Salmond would do well to listen to him.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19192643.michael-russell-alex-salmonds-approach-unite-independence-voters/
As a member of the SNP I am worried we are not going to get the majority that everyone seems to be saying that we need to get before we can even think about a Referendum. This situation has arisen since the new Alba party has arrived on the scene. The Unionist party’s are going to rely on the List votes so we must beat them at their own game.
I think the SNP must change the goalposts and start announcing that we only need a majority of Independence MPs in Holyrood to go ahead with a Referendum.
I have always thought that after Independence the SNP would split into centre right / centre left groups. I’m not sure its a good idea to split before Independence.
I think many people can see the coming split. Is it necessarily a bad thing? I can see possible positives to be drawn from this.
There were 2 major, conflicting schools of thought. If those of 1 opinion move to Alba, could that not make the rest stronger, which is good at this time? Those people have decided they need to go along a different path. Within the party the arguments become acrimonious, people were no longer pulling in the same direction.
Now you’ve parted company, they’re a different party. No need for anybody to bad mouth anybody. You can wish each other well and approach independence from a different mindset. There’s no need to waste energy trying to turn others to your point of view.
Yoons – especially WM – win by divide and rule, yes? The timing sucks and, even as a non-member, I do wonder why. BUT, doesn’t the split remove the “infighting” argument, closing a weak point? The SNP IS NO LONGER DIVIDED. The rifts exploited to defeat Labour in the GE need not be there unless you let them be. “The SNP are fighting amongst themselves!” can now be answered with “No we’re not. They’ve got a different approach and have started a new party. They’re still fighting for independence, so good luck with that.”
It seems likely to me that you’re not necessarily competing (note – competing not fighting) for the same pool of potential voters. Maybe more younger voters will be attracted to what’s left. Seriously, I’d aim for them. They’re probably more likely to vote SNP/Green on the List, from what I’ve heard.
I think, despite talking about union, conflict is WM’s major tool. As many have said more eloquently than I could, DON’T LET IT WORK!
Eloquently enough iusedtobeenglish. Thanks for your thoughts. I’m still unsure of AS motives.
They are all feart. Out of their comfort zone. What a shenanigans. Stirring things up. They do not want Independence.
Unite for Independence. It’s the best thing that has happened. Winners take all. Get the band back together. Destiny.
Ken
Alex should have taken Janey Godley’s advice and tried to join Abba. If you think everyone is going to get together and sing Kumbaya you are sadly deluded. I will be voting Snp 1 and 2. Hell will freeze over before I vote for the Alba party because of various reasons I have already mentioned
An interesting article in Newsnet. Worth a read
https://newsnet.scot/news-analysis/how-many-of-you-remember-alba-pools/
Good article : The Head ruling the heart !
I still contend that IF ALBA is serious about ”helping” Scotland win Independence then the most constructive path is to stand candidates in those areas where the SNP is strongest in constituencies BUT not in areas where the unionist hold is strong – allowing the SNP a clearer path to picking up List seats .
But , all of this is predicated on Alex Salmon withdrawing from the contest as a candidate .
All the recent polls show that HE is potentially the major factor in turning voters away from voting for ALBA . Yes , he has support in some quarters , but John Curtice has explained this morning that this is unlikely to gain ANY seats on the list .
Without Alex Salmond , but with him campaigning for Independence ( which is his stated aim !!! ) perhaps ALBA can make a difference in some regions – but the Newsnet analysis ( quoted above by Legerwood ) is does not paint a good picture for them .
So much of the heat from the last few days since Mr Salmond ‘ launched’ ALBA could be dissipated if HE steps down .
Howls of expected criticism – but HE is the blue touch paper to this firework . IF ALBA is NOT about HIM let him do his best to prove this .
Ken,
Oh give us a break.
Your orgasmic pleasure does you no favours in fact it is rather sad.
We now have 2 MP’s- keeps them in a pay and if they lose the sit at Westminster for another couple of years, a councillor or two who will be paid up to next year council elections.
Anything in common? Yip they have been passed over by the SNP who based on their behaviours ( ALBA formed in early Feb but planned before) probably knew they were not loyal to the party they belonged too. Now they have left and are keeping their paid salaries.
Ken, the majority of the snp members and the majority of the part want Independence. It is insulting to suggest that the we do not.
We believe in a particular route(s) that will persuade the 10-15% who voted no last time to come into the camp.
We tasted defeat in 2014 with Salmond at the helm and we know how bad it felt.
Some believe we would have won a referendum in the years after that? This is fantasy land if only they looked at the figures and the actual history taking place at the time. In U.K. terms 3 Prime ministers ago.
The main blogger on the Alba site has castigated and undermined Independence for the past number of years and continues to do so. The I want tell you who to vote for but not “Nikola nor Patrick” shout out the followers. The blogger has helped the unionists to plead victim hood with the court cases and that is before the ex FM debacle began.
So who or what is Alba? Is it a Democratic Party in that members select and vote for its leaders, No.
is it pre EU or EFTA? Pro Brexit? £ or € or $?
Please don’t wait until the xth of April to find out.
Your blind loyalty is kind of cute but is quite sad. Ask the Brexit lemmings how they feel when they woke up.
How will you feel when the Greens have less seats, SNP less and Alba zero as the vote divides and Lib Dem’s and labour pick up the rest. Maybe 1 Alba seat to you is a success even if we have no Independence majority.
If so, Independence will be at least another 10 years away. Fact not fiction
Our young people deserve better than this, so do our older people.
Best comment so far Hamish.
SNP got 4 List seats last time
Alba can get much more than 4 List seats because they are not going to go for constituency seats if they did so they would like SNP have their votes divided and watered down by the voting system
The more constituency seats you get the less List seats you get that is how the dhondt system punishes success
If Alba tell their voters to vote for SNP in the constituency seats
If SNP tell their voters to vote for Alba in the List seats
Scottish independence maximises the number of seats it wins overall way more than SNP 1&2
Cooperation between independence supporting party,s is surely not too much to ask for is it ?
To give us the best possible chance of getting Scottish independence.
If labour tory and lib dem can create bettertogether with their history of dissension
Surely SNP and ALBA and others can create an agreeable plan to work together for whats best for Scotland
Where was the cooperation when WoS was attempting to punch holes in the Independence Lifeboat – and NOW are a major factor in this new ‘Party’ aiming to win Alex Salmond a seat in the Parliament he walked away from in our Darkest Hour?
Terence how does that impact on the Green vote? Some voters will not vote for Salmond’s party. Simple fact. Will Alba ask the greens to vote for them but also offer support to the Greens? Are the Greens -pro Indy to be a casualty?
No way in hell will Snp tell people to vote Alba on the list. They would not do that with the Greens so why would they do it with the Alba party
D’Hondt does not “punish” success. It’s a fair system which does a decent job of allocating seats in proportion to the number of votes for each party.
Attempting to game a fair system can only make it less fair. That is not democracy.
A single political group (indy supporters) spreading their votes between two different parties in order to beat the rules and grab extra seats is an abuse of the system. You wouldn’t like it the other way round.
It’s not even necessary. D’Hondt is already set up to produce a fair result. It ALWAYS produces a fair result. You don’t need to try to “fix” it.
In southern Scotland it has to be SNP in both constituency and list votes.
the unionists are going to work together. . . . Dross has written to Rennie and Sarwar. . . . . . Labour and Libdems say they will work together. . . Labour cant be seen to join into electoral pact with Tories. . . .B U T they will do something together .
So it’s no longer possible to “game the system” I think it was Scot goes Pop who said . . . It is only safe to vote for list party (green, alba etc) if you can be sure that every constituency seat in your region is won by the SNP.
Has to be SNP 1 & 2
Scotgoespop said that before the arrival of Alba
Since the arrival of Alba scotgoespop says that because Alba are only contesting List seats it can be done
In southern parts of Scotland i agree that Alba should not contest seats where its likely SNP would do better
We need Alba and SNP to put Scottish independence top of the priority list
If the greens wish to join the plan thats even better
They all have the statistical information to work this out to everyones benefit
Alex Salmond claims his motives are all good and for the cause of Independence towards a new and brighter tomorrow yet the first thing Alex Salmond does is to approach as many representatives of the SNP as he can asking them to defect to his party in a blatant attempt to weaken the SNP
Now he tells the public and the media that Nicola Sturgeon is the best person to lead Scotland forward while at the same time using banned from Twitter for hate speech Stuart Campbell to attack the FM on a daily basis which he’s been doing for the last two years on instructions from the self aggrieved Salmond
Kenny MacCaskill on TV this morning says it’s about maximising support for Independence bragging about the number of SNP MPs joining this party and the SNP is a broad church blah de blah blah while he is writing articles on the same anti Nicola Sturgeon website decrying her leadership
McIleney has and is doing exactly the same script, all that’s missing is their wee red book
They’re practicing slimy politics but thankfully their bragging big mouths give them away
Salmond is on record – a month ago – saying that Scotland is not fit to be an independent country under the current leadership. Hard to reconcile that with today’s message of sweetness and light.
https://archive.fo/NQPiG
Now their are the usual whispers on WoS over the FM. I can’t say say but……hint, nod, wink….
Sorry Paul but there is no and cannot be common ground with ALBA based on the comments elsewhere even 2 days in.
Actually, he didn’t say that at all. You are quoting from the Express, lol.
I watched the live feed
And Salmond did say that!
Dr Jim.
Spot on. Ps don’t leave here -we need you Nicola!!! Lol
Yesterday was the tactic to flood this site. Maybe reality will settle some down.
In year or two the WGD’s can meet up and Paul can buy us all a victorious Independence drink!!
Once I’d calmed myself down I thought I can’t leave these planted trolls dispatched from their headquarters in Bath to roam unfettered with their hands full of pretendy olive branches and their overuse of their new buzzword word *pragmatic* and how we should all accept their help as the attempt to destroy my party that I pay for and that I vote for (even though you’re the only one who knows my real identity shh don’t tell)
👍
Indeed , maximising support for Scottish independence , what a great idea
Vote SNP on the list and see a tory or labour get the seat
OR
Vote for Alba or greens on the list and see a pro independence party get the list seat
If Alba tell their voters to vote SNP in constituency
If SNP tell their voters to vote for Alba in List
We maximise pro independence seats its the winning formula
If the SNP do that, the unionists will do likewise on a constituency basis too, and then we see 2017 issues. Salmond probably remembers 2017.
Where the Lib Dems flocked to the Tory MP. If the unionists do that at a coordinated national level, kiss goodbye the constituency majority, and then SNP 1 & 2 becomes vital.
The Unionists definitely will collude to “max the vote” although that is illegal under the electoral rules. it won’t be open of course but with schoolboy candidates who don’t get any literature out in time etc.
Yes, I’ve made the very same point myself. “Gaming the system” isn’t a one-way street. The stakes are so high this could get rough.
”We max pro Independence seats ”
We already had the formula for that SNP 1 and Green 2 ( if you want to give your second vote to any party ) .
Why choose a party that has no history , no policies par one , no list of candidates , no clear funding strategy , no Leader who the majority of Independence supporters can trust , etc
Not in the south of Scotland though.
Will ALBA tell their supporters to vote Green?
Or SNP even better
Anyway…..I see yon American Jennifer Arcuri has now spilled the beans and has went public about her FOUR year affair with Boris Johnson…which reminds me of when in 2019 Johnson denied any conflict of interest , when as London Mayor , he awarded grants to her company and when she went on ‘trade missions’ nudge nudge wink wink with him……where trade missions is now clearly a euphemism ……for something else…nudge nudge wink wink….allegedly…
He denied claims at the time when this initially came out and he denied that he failed to declare potential conflicts of interest….he awarded a grant of £100,000 to one of her businesses…..but when the story first broke he alleged he acted with “full propriety”…..he obvs alleged this then but now that, via a story published today, she has admitted their affair……well two and two make four…not five…unless your a Tory…allegedly.
The technology entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri was allowed to join him on overseas ‘trade missions’ (nudge nudge wink wink) in 2014 and 2015…one of her businesses had received £11,500 in sponsorship money from a mayoral organisation when Mr Johnson was mayor and a £15,000 government grant for foreign entrepreneurs in Britain.
Boris Johnson was accused of not declaring a personal interest despite the pair having a friendship.
However, he denied any wrongdoing at the time this story broke. The prime minister said there was “no interest to declare” and everything was done “entirely in the proper way”.
She said , when the story first broke that….they had never discussed sponsorship or grants and Mr Johnson.
A further £100,000 grant was awarded to Ms Arcuri’s company, Hacker House, by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in January. A subsequent government review said the funding was “appropriate”. On 31 October 2019, Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan said there was “no impropriety in the awarding of the grant”.
I think this is a job for the self imposed moral crusaders to pursue FULLY…DRoss and the Baroness….right up their street….like Batman and Batgirl(ish) they want to clean up the streets and ensure justice and morality is upheld in politics …no not literally clean the streets BTW….though there ARE pictures of DRoss standing next to rubbish bins…though allegedly that may just be a hobby of his….or somewhere he likes to gather his thoughts…which are rubbish…hence him appropriately standing next to rubbish bins.
Meanwhile in Scotchland…..many of us are preoccupied with ‘local’ matters while the baddies are currently getting ignored while still having the audacity to think that they can be seen to stand on the high moral ground…….as they , the REAL baddies deflect attention away from their many many many wrongdoings with the uber chief wrong doer Bojo with messed up mop (deliberate) getting away with…everything wrong that he has done and is doing…..and will still do in the future…it’s in his DNA…have you seen and heard his dad ?
NB….I hope if any new investigation that may be instigated (no laughing at the back)…now that Jennifer has come clean on her long affair with Bojo …..thus her being awarded ‘grants’ looks dubious allegedly….. but hope that it is NOT passed to DAME Cressida Dick’s police force….as they NEVER seem to come out on the side of justice…allegedly…..and rumour has it that too many needles in haystacks they never found or looked for nudge nudge wink wink….a hard task I know….but they, the Met, also can never see the Elephants in the room either….. so needle…elephants…..Boris…Tories (including alleged sex pests)….they all seem to be given a clean Met bill of Health time and time again….colour me surprised
Meanwhile Margaret Ferrier SNP was charged with breaking Covid rules as in charged as having committed culpable and reckless conduct …..though everyone else who broke Covid rules remain free and unchallenged….like special advisers to Bojo for instance etc etc….Margaret, in Scotland, should have worn a Rangers top and had a Union Jackass draped over her body while setting off flares in the street to then state she did so to test her eyesight….if she had done so she would not be in the position she is currently in…..aye right….
See this is what being a part of UKnotOK is like…..rules allowed to be broken for Tories and their fans….while rigid rules must be adhered to…… for those of us who support independence and those politicians from the SNP…..hence why tis bleedin obvious why we MUST get indy majority in May…or this UKnotOK farce will continue and we will all be powerless and maybe parliament-less to stop it.
Keep fighting and exposing their lies and corruption……as there is so much of it……
Vote for Indy in May
@ Me @ 12.14pm
Just watched a video of Andrew Marr show today with him going through the paper’s headlines…the paper, the Sunday Mirror, that EXPOSED the Jennifer Arcuri story was at the bottom of the pile….Marr went through each of the paper’s headlines but stopped at the headline of the paper that was just above the Mirror….thus did not show the front page of the Sunday Mirror or even acknowledge it’s existence in his pile of papers…..#MarrTheBBCTory
See how they do it…time and time again….protect Boris and attack Nicola……BBC Unionist Tory propaganda.
👍
Yep it appears we are too pre-occupied arguing with each other because we don’t like someone or their opinion… The really enemy of Scotland and its aspirations is Westminister and its propaganda unit the BBC as well as 99.9% of newspapers.. Definitely time to find common ground and achieve our aspirations.
Paul made a comment above that I agree with ‘It takes 2 to compromise and someone has to be mature enough to start’ Given his contribution to the Independence cause I expected nothing less of the man. Maybe we could all learn from him. To succeed in May we all need to tone down our criticism of others who have a different view on our side and focus on those who really undermine our aspirations.
Although I don’t post regularly on any particular site I read all the articles produced so I’m going to go and post similar on Wings and a few others maybe if more voices of reason were to be heard we might make a difference and live up to Pauls advice.
Hi Jonathan , re “I’m going to go and post similar on Wings”…..I will pray for you….a few of them on there are still at the ……’wanting a particular person’s head put on a stake’ stage….hopefully once everything calms down….I live in hope as needs must….that things will calm down….and common sense will prevail….or rather sanity will be restored….once we all realise what is at stake this May…..it’s ours for the taking or sadly ours to lose…..
If everyone continues, up to the May election, to act as they are doing now i.e. to be in anti SNP attack mode and vice versa re attack mode on Alba party……the Unionists will be consolidating and taking full undeserved advantage of the moment……… meanwhile voters ready to be won over….well they too are for the taking or ours to lose….as some do not share our passion…or knowledge as to how bad the Unionists parties really really are………and unfortunately the Unionist parties also know this only too well ……..hence their collective brass necks and the varied glass houses they campaign from…..
Anyway….good luck ….if you do add a conciliatory comment onto WOS please don’t view it as personal any slight/s that you may get thrown in your direction….as some others on that site who do not respond to you may actually think you are right……and could be swayed by your comment.
BTW liked your above comment….yes WM is the REAL enemy….always.
Stu knows who I am through my work email…. Have only posted a few times have never had any hate… occasionally disagreement… No problem with that.
I commend your sentiment to find common ground and I’m sure it might appeal to some folks; however, I have just had a quick visit to the bathman’s site, which was my “go-to” blog for some years before it changed direction and in my opinion, your sentiments have not yet reached the ears of his followers.
I recognise very few familiar names there now but note that the vast majority of comments are by no means conciliatory toward the SNP and are downright derogatory to the current government team. They are on a mission but different to that espoused on this site and I cannot see any hope of convergence at this time. Call me cynical but I remain of the opinion that Mr Salmond has ulterior motives and, given his recent history, his current timing for his new party and the company he keeps, I cannot envisage giving him the time of day, let alone my vote for my country’s future and that of my children and grandchildren.
We need to get it right this time and not be distracted.
It would be better to judge the two parties on their merits, rather than the futile obsession that some SNP supporters seem to have with Wings, as if he is a spokesman for something. He is a man with an opinion. That’s all. Some seem to spend more time obsessing about him than considering the potential changes in the Scottish political scene. Perhaps it is easier to construct a fall guy for the many calamitous mistakes that have been made than look to the future.
WoS provides a platform for Alba party opinion pieces from Kenny McAskill and Chris McEleny. Most of WoS editorial is anti SNP, anti Nicola Sturgeon, sometimes virulently so. To invite Stuart Campbell and a few other like minded bloggers to address his Alba party launch tells us exactly where Alex Salmond stands.
Which is why keeping an eye on these blogs and their output is important.
You can tell the merit of a man by the people he associates with and the sites he leaks his documents to.
The supermajority is nothing more than pie in the sky, they will probably at best take a few seats, these will initially be from the SNP and Green’s, the unionist parties will be relatively untouched unless people believe they are going to take huge swathes of the SNP list votes.
Unless there’s a massive rise in voter turnout the only place the new parties can get votes is from the SNP or Greens. Obviously they are targeting SNP voters with their “supermajority” carrot.
See Statgeek’s graph above for voter turnout 70 – 73% lately.
That would be a high turnout for a Holyrood election, it was under 56% last time.
The more constituency seats the SNP take the harder it is for Alba to take unionist list seats, I expect more defections at strategic intervals to try and harm the SNP vote, they only have any leverage if they can stop a SNP majority. They will probably want a big defection on a main SNP day or a telly debate day, not Angus McNeil, he’s virtually unknown outside the twitter bubble.
Statgeek’s graph above suggests turnout in the 70s but that is just for the Gordon constituency – my mistake.
Wikipedia puts it overall at 55.85 in 2016. But it is probably going to be higher this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Scottish_Parliament_election#Result
Well said.
Best comment so far Hamish.
Maceasy – maybe the first stage of conciliation is that all the people Campbells banned – I was in 2019 for suggesting we should support the snp and told to F off, are allowed to comment without verbal, abuse or threats from some on that site. Some are probably ukipper unionists. Some live in France and out with Scotland. Weird don’t you think.
Back to last week.
WoS was given first question by the ex MSP so don’t suggest he is not involved with ALBA. He announced there was to be an announcement on his blog.
If I can quote and paraphrase a bit from the Godfather “ don’t insult our intelligence”.
Still have a nice day. More debates to come no doubt.
”Some live in France and outwith Scotland ”
True ! I don’t know why an Indy site like Wings over Scotland allows those who do NOT live in Scotland allows them a mention or to express a view . This is OUR country – good or bad – it is for US to comment . So , only comments from those who LIVE here , Stu !
OOPS !!!
Personally, I feel quite special that every time we have a major political decision, half the world has to give its opinion.
/sarky
Well I suppose I should expect Paul to ban me soon on that basis.
I am the antipodean correspondent and post comments here infrequently I am a passionate SNP and Nicola Sturgeon supporter. But judging from the comments I got up thread perhaps a tad overly pragmatic. Yes she’s quite a hit here in Australia with the political anoraks believe it or not. The Aussie media no doubt will be reporting on the Scottish election because of the gravity as well as interest in Nicola as a quote “female world leader”.
I escaped the Thatcher years in 82 heading for Oz in search of work. I have two grown up children and a grandchild on the way. I’m stuck here for now but as I said up thread “ma herts in the heilands but ma feet ur in Bombay” anon.
I have to say that I take exception to your saying that absent Scots should be banned from commenting on blogs. You cannot presume to take away my birthright by preventing me from engaging with my countrymen and women. I live for independence and I have to trust the people that live there to help me die a happy man by making Scotland a proud and respected independent member of the United Nations.
Same here. I no longer live in Scotland due to lots of reasons, but I am and always will be Scottish. I have family and friends still in Scotland.
I am an SNP member and a huge fan of Nicola Sturgeon. She has done so much for Scotland over the years and has put the idea of an independent Scotland as a natural thing the world over.
Which other bloggers live outwith Scotland apart from the Bathistan seer that is?
There is a little circle of bloggers who knew this info about three weeks ago, one seemed to need an extra box of kleenex as he was so excited. The three I know of don’t even live in Scotland so independent or not it makes not one iota of difference to them in their cosy abodes across Europe what actually happens in Scotland (except the funding obviously).
Their conciliatory manners, one called a SNP politician a collaborator, the other wanted to cut the head of the snake (referring to NS), the third compared Margaret Thatcher in favourable terms to NS (NS has damaged Scotland more was his infantile outburst).
These are the Alba team of bloggers.
Yes, the desired conciliation is apparently to be all one way. When you wantonly burn bridges, it gets hard to cross back over afterwards when you have a change of plan. (Assuming you actually have a change of plan, of course, instead of just barging onwards regardless while spouting from Gaslighters 101.)
[“You” generically, that is, not the actual you. {grin}]
The Second Summer Of Love by Danny Wilson. When I hear that songI think of the amazing atmosphere on the run up to Indy Ref 1 and how everyone pulled together and bonded, it was quite amazing. How do we get that back Paul? Trying not to come across as naive but we really have to stop this pish. Boris, Reese Mogg, and Gove must be doing the Conga down there
As usual Paul, your views are almost exactly aligned with mine. I have only one comment to make……. just as the “Better Together” folk used to talk about the silent majority of the Scottish electorate as a whole (and of course claim to speak for them), I’d like to speak on behalf of what (I believe) is the silent majority of yes voters.
It is my belief that there is a tiny minority of yes voters who think that being a Sturgeon supporter means they have to attack Alex Salmond. Similarly, a tiny majority of yes voters thinks that being a Salmond supporter means they have to attack Nicola Sturgeon. I also believe that there is a silent majority of yes voters, who would like these two fringe groups to shut up and concentrate on obtaining independence.
On the issue of voting SNP/SNP, I have been a fierce advocate of voting SNP/SNP since before the last election. The one weakness in the SNP/SNP argument was the ACTUAL numbers of SNP votes that yielded zero seats in the regional ballot. In my region (NE Scotland), 137,086 folk voted SNP, but no regional seats were won. In the upcoming election, it is pretty likely that a similar result will yield 9 or 10 constituency seats for the SNP, and zero regional seats. I couldn’t advocate voting ISP or any of the other wee parties, because history and common sense told me that I would get zero return for a vote for the ISP, while removing the “insurance” that a regional vote for the SNP afforded. I have been toying with the idea of voting Green in the regional ballot, but for various reasons, political and tactical, I have been hesitant to do so.
Alba changes the scenario completely. I’m confident that (in NE Scotland) Alex Salmond’s Alba Party will win a regional seat, perhaps even two, and for that reason, I’m going to “sacrifice” my ” insurance” (which is unlikely to be needed, IMO), and vote Alba in the regional ballot.
I’ve spoken to a number of SNP-voting friends and neighbours, and have found unanimity among them in agreement with my thinking. A tiny sample of people, I know, (and I would dream of commenting on other regions), but I’m fairly confident that Alex Salmond’s voice will be heard in Holyrood after May.
I also believe that the folk who will be fearful of that prospect are NOT any of the folk sitting on the SNP government benches, but DRoss, Sarwar and Rennie will be kicking themselves at the prospect of debating publically with Sturgeon AND Salmond!!
The issue isn’t a small number of people on either side of the NS/AS divide merely “hating” each other, it’s far more substantive a matter than that. On the one hand we have had an actual FM battling 24/7 for a whole crisis year on behalf of all of us, winning new converts by good example, while on the other hand we have had a former FM defending a tattered personal reputation while doing zit all for the rest of us while giving the opposition a field day to tarnish the whole cause of independence. Not much of a comparison there to waste time on, I would suggest.
As to your very sure reckoning that “yesterday’s man” can just pop-up and win actual seats anywhere merely by magical force of personality, in a system that – if you cared to go beyond the facile sunny “it stands to reason, innit” arguments – is by no means a foregone conclusion, you might find after the dust has settled that you have cause to rue your current optimism. This is real politics, not theoretical spreadsheetery.
Personally, I prefer to reward electorally the people who have actually delivered tangible real progress towards our goal, not a latter day snake oil salesman with nothing concrete to offer, only “him”.
I rest my case about the silent majority….. you are asserting that the “fringes” aren’t tiny. I am. Only time will tell who’s right….
I’m glad you see list votes as insurance and not waste, but what are you basing your optimism on? Have you crunched the numbers that throw up a “perhaps even two”?
I think we need to see some proper polling before we go much further, because I personally don’t see Alba getting more than one seat per region, if that, probably at the expense of the Greens as much as anyone.
All it takes is a handful of SNP losses (from a spectacular high in 2016) & bang goes the pro Indy majority if the insurance has been cashed in.
The Union are likely to throw a lot of resources at this election; they’ll use every dirty, underhanded trick they can think of; they’ll promise the moon & the stars & basically do anything they can to prevent a pro Indy majority.
If all our side has to counter that is wishful thinking & blind optimism we could be in a sorry state.
SNP + SNP (insurance) for me.
No number crunching involved, because there are no numbers to crunch. This is a completely new situation. I’m probably biased, because of my admiration (still) of Alex Salmond. I am from Alex Salmond’s former constituency, and I’m basing my OPINION on conversations I’ve had over the past few years (and in the last couple of days) with fellow yes supporters in my area.
I agree with you about the seat probabilities for Alba being in the area of one per region, but I won’t be surprised if Alex Salmond’s popularity among NE Scotland’s yes supporters wins a second seat in our region. It is pure speculation on my part, perhaps with a sprinkling of optimistic thinking added.
This isn’t set in stone as far as my intentions go. If polling indicates that I’ve over-estimated the “Salmond” effect, the I might reconsider. The ONLY consideration for me, is getting a majority for pro-Indy parties in Holyrood. If there was a reasonable chance of the Tories winning a second seat in the North East, for example, then I’d reconsider.
I admire both Alex Salmond AND Nicola Sturgeon, and I’m reasonably sure that I’m not in a minority of yes voters in that regard.
I believe you’re allowing your evident admiration for Salmond to distort your reality field. I’m not at all sure that others – especially our womenfolk – share your view as much as you imagine. Have you not seen the poll result that puts his popularity somewhere near BoJo? (Wonder why? {grin})
Well said granda16.
I really should self-edit BEFORE posting. I meant to say a tiny minority of Salmond supporters, i also WOULDN’T dream,and further down, DRoss, Sarwar and Rennie will be kacking, not kicking…..
I am assuming the snp personage also knew but we’re waiting to see if Hamilton’s enquiry came down hard on the FM which he quite clearly did not.
So they continued their pretence of being snp while at the same time plotting against it.
It looked like their plan to me was hope NS was taken out and then they could try and move in and take over. Why else would they have not set up the party sooner and the MP’s which have moved defected then. Plenty of manoeuvring by Mr MacAskill, but it all went wrong with the clearing of NS and the disaster of the inquiry committee.
It was telegraphed weeks ago by his groupies what the Salmond plan was, I’m no Einstein but spotted it weeks ago, (a twitter account with the inappropriate handle, considering the circumstances, ‘SalmondIsComing’ pretty much spelled it out, I initially thought it was a warning to staff).
I bought a new beauty face mask today…if anyone is interested…..suspect not….it claims to calm and detoxify…..though small print stated at the bottom of the jar…”Unless live in Scotland”….. 😉
Another thought has occurred…… it is quite possible that Alba could have 5 or six msp’s at Holyrood. At FM questions, instead of having to listen to unionist questions from DRoss/Sarwar, followed by unionist questions from DRoss/Sarwar, followed by Green questions, followed by more unionist questions from Rennie, and then individual member questions, we will have an extra couple of Indy-loaded questions from Alba, inserted (probably) after DRoss/Sarwar and DRoss/Sarwar have asked their unionist questions. The whole tenor of the parliament will be different……..
Unfortunately they may also be along the lines of Why has the FM not resigned over the Alex Samond affair ! Though NOT put by Alex , but one of his stooges !
The origins of the ruthless top-down party discipline in the SNP pre-dated Sturgeon. Alex Salmond is nothing if not a disciplinarian. If Alex Salmond doesn’t want “Sturgeon resign” comments from any Alba MSP’s, then there won’t be any comments……
…but if they continue by proxy in the Twitter+blogosphere, could that just be rather convenient, then…?
Dreams do not reality make. You’re living a fantasy that will ultimately betray you. We’ve been here before, FGS. You would think by now we would all be wiser.
Grizebeard,
If that comment was aimed at me, then you and I will have to disagree. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, so we should perhaps dispense with trying to determine each other’s thought processes? For example, I have absolutely no idea whether you are an idealistic dreamer, or a hard headed, experienced oseohologist, and the same goes for your knowledge of me.
Let’s just give our opinions without trying to psychoanalyse each other, eh?
Mixed up my “p”s and “o”s……psephologist…..
It’s not in the least about “analysing” any individual’s inner workings, rather it’s about communal judgements as to likely outcomes. In their wish for desirable outcomes, people can too easily get drawn into confusing their wishes for reality. We saw this back in 2014 and the absolutely stunned reaction from some people afterwards. At the moment there’s an evident belief among some enthusiasts that Alex Salmond can sprinkle magic fairy dust onto an already-complex electoral tussle, and given all that’s happened of late, to many more of us it’s frankly implausible.
I’m proud to say I was also banned from WoS, for upholding the principle of “innocent till proven guilty” re Nicola Sturgeon. I was advised by the proprietor that I was “monumentally stupid” and banned.
I’ll believe he is adopting a conciliatory tone when I get a public apology.
Alex Salmond should have chosen more conciliatory envoys.
@capella, we were both long term posters on wings, the last of the old guard, as it were, ploughing lonely furrows in increasingly infertile ground until it was really no longer worth the bother, being eventually blocked, like everyone else, ended that particular goat rodeo for me.
but last week, campbell was talking about abandoning support for independence completely while nicola was still in power. indeed, many commentators on wings had moved along a trajectory of not voting snp on the list, to not voting for them on the constituency vote to outright proposing voting for anas sarwar to get rid of nicola. in a few cases some on wings are still arguing for this. but not all. having now backed Alba, a few are now reversing this course since Alba propose voting SNP 1. So there has been some movement on wings and i await to see what happens when campbell instructs his acolytes to vote SNP 1, if he doesnt then he wont be following Alba party policy and Alex will get pull up about that! I know i will be asking alex.
What has surprised me is how deeply entrenched both sides are. The SNP’s response to those who support Alba have been less than gracious. Lesley riddoch and Ruth Wishart, both fellow journalists of Paul at the national have been critical of this response, it certainly isnt the search for common ground Paul is proposing.
Case in point, I argued relentlessly with James Kelly about tactical voting, based on the arithmetic, he being a psephologist, arithmetic is the basis of all his discussions. James is even less interested in the “he said.. she said” snp infighting than I am. However, he struggled to argue against the arithmetic of tactical voting and eventually he was reduced to ” dont vote for small indy parties cos they wont win cos nobody is going to vote for them” I always thought this a circular argument, ie they cant win if you dont vote for them etc,
That was until something @yesindyref2 said to me on a wings thread a few years back. “the voters in scotland simply wont vote for the greens in any significant numbers” I dont always agree with dads, but that doesnt mean i dont listen to him. Something very true struck me about this comment even though its effectively the same thing that James Kelly said.
While enough voters voted for the greens on the list in mid scot & fife to elect one green list msp out of a possible 7, It wasnt really a huge success. Although had these green list voters voted snp in this region, all 7 list seats would have been won by unionists, 1 out of 7 is hardly something to write home about. Bear in mind the greens had just voted against the OBAF act which meant even few voters would lend them their list vote in this region. This was a worry as the hollyrood parliament its indy majority is reliant on green list msps.
Thats why when Alba launched James kelly changed his negative stance on tactical voting. his last line of defence was removed. he had no logical argument left to oppose the idea. People WILL vote for Alex, no question. Since then, as the battle lines have been drawn, all those not Snp 1 & 2, including James and myself, have been accused of hypocrisy, lying, being wife beating misogynists, of being closet wingers, bathistanis, traitors, under cover unionist trolls, you name it. Some of these comments by folk on this blog Capella.
@capella, we were both long term posters on wings, the last of the old guard, as it were, ploughing lonely furrows in increasingly infertile ground until it was really no longer worth the bother, being eventually blocked, like everyone else, ended that particular goat rodeo for me.
but last week, campbell was talking about abandoning support for independence completely while nicola was still in power. indeed, many commentators on wings had moved along a trajectory of not voting snp on the list, to not voting for them on the constituency vote to outright proposing voting for anas sarwar to get rid of nicola. in a few cases some on wings are still arguing for this. but not all. having now backed Alba, a few are now reversing this course since Alba propose voting SNP 1. So there has been some movement on wings and i await to see what happens when campbell instructs his acolytes to vote SNP 1, if he doesnt then he wont be following Alba party policy and Alex will get pulled up about that! I know i will be asking alex.
What has surprised me is how deeply entrenched both sides are. The SNP’s response to those who support Alba have been less than gracious. Lesley riddoch and Ruth Wishart, both fellow journalists of Paul at the national have been critical of this response, it certainly isnt the search for common ground Paul is proposing.
Case in point, I argued relentlessly with James Kelly about tactical voting, based on the arithmetic, he being a psephologist, arithmetic is the basis of all his discussions. James is even less interested in the “he said.. she said” snp infighting than I am. However, he struggled to argue against the arithmetic of tactical voting and eventually he was reduced to ” dont vote for small indy parties cos they wont win cos nobody is going to vote for them” I always thought this a circular argument, ie they cant win if you dont vote for them etc,
That was until something @yesindyref2 said to me on a wings thread a few years back. “the voters in scotland simply wont vote for the greens in any significant numbers” I dont always agree with dads, but that doesnt mean i dont listen to him. Something very true struck me about this comment even though its effectively the same thing that James Kelly said.
While enough voters voted for the greens on the list in mid scot & fife to elect one green list msp out of a possible 7, It wasnt really a huge success. Although had these green list voters voted snp in this region, all 7 list seats would have been won by unionists, 1 out of 7 is hardly something to write home about. Bear in mind the greens had just voted against the OBAF act which meant even few voters would lend them their list vote in this region. This was a worry as the hollyrood parliament its indy majority is reliant on green list msps.
Thats why when Alba launched James kelly changed his negative stance on tactical voting. his last line of defence was removed. he had no logical argument left to oppose the idea. People WILL vote for Alex, no question. Since then, as the battle lines have been drawn, all those not Snp 1 & 2, including James and myself, have been accused of hypocrisy, lying, being wife beating misogynists, of being closet wingers, bathistanis, traitors, under cover unionist trolls, you name it. Some of these comments by folk on this blog Capella.
It really is time to dial back on this rhetoric from both sides, what ever else cambell is, james kelly and others dont deserve this. if not, the voters will see both sides as being as bad as each other and reject both.
argh, dont know what happened there, could you delete this paul?
“People WILL vote for Alex, no question.” And there at the heart of your resurgent relentless naive vote-twiddling activism is the worm. You can’t prove that, it’s mere assertion, and more than likely merely a fantasy of your fevered imaginings. A fantasy with potentially significant negative outcomes at that.
Now you’re back here all of a sudden big-selling your electoral snake oil and wondering why we’re unamused? For such people as you, it’s suddenly become all about personality, a panacea to solve all inconvenient ballot-box ills. As if we haven’t seen enough elsewhere of where that can lead.
i am no more of a “snake oil salesman” than janmes kelly, who also believes Alba will gather votes, the is not based upon personality but on arithmetics. the opinion polls will now include Alba as a choice, so while nothing about the future can be proven 100%, we will see how many votes Alba will probably get.
inconvenient ballot-box ills. As if we haven’t seen enough elsewhere of where that can lead…………. i have no idea what this means
James Kelly changed his tune simply and exclusively because – as he had clearly advocated of late – the “big personality” of Alex Salmond for him made all the difference. And to hell with all his careful reasoning that preceded it.
If that isn’t personality politics personified, then I’m a Martian. It isn’t that hard for anyone with eyes wide open to see, however much gaslighting is going on.
(Oh, and who’s bankrolling this Second Coming anyway…?)
James Kelly changed his tune simply and exclusively because – as he had clearly advocated of late – the “big personality” of Alex Salmond for him made all the difference. And to hell with all his careful reasoning that preceded it.
it was precisely because of his careful reasoning that he now backs tactical voting regardless of how he feels about the alex and nicola spat.
as a psephologist, its his job to predict outcomes based on what other folk think and how they are likely to vote.
his own personnal feelings dont come into it
I take your point about the depth of antagonism between the two camps. It isn’t so strange though when you consider the vile rhetoric that has poured out of a handful of blogs in the past two years. I don’t read them now but my twitter stream includes tweets from people I used to engage with on WoS, people I’ve met on some of the AUOB marches – the organiser of the AUOB marches too. (I certainly won’t be going on any more marches).
There is no moral equivalence here. People with public platforms are responsible for the drivel they enable. They have caused enormous damage to the YES movement. We don’t have to put up with that. Alex Salmond has cast in his lot with them. He has his own motives. But I won’t be party to that.
Yes, swithering voters don’t like division. I totally agree with Paul that we need to promote a positive message. For me, that means supporting the SNP and their candidates until an outright majority in May. Then we can deal with all the divisions.
You may be right about gaming the system. I don’t think it is feasible because we don’t know whether the SNP will win a majority of constituency seats. You have some explaining to do about the arithmetic 🙂
So if the new party gains enough votes for a seat in Holyrood we can cross that bridge when we come to it.
explain the arithmetic? the polls show the snp will probably win a majority from constituencies alone. not really that complicated.
not being a party to alex and wings and alba is fine, but not insulting them either is what finding common ground that paul and others are asking folk to do.
I agree about AUOB, but i simply blocked and moved on.
And yes, people with public platforms are responsible for the comments they enable, but do you think james kelly enables drivel? has he ever insulted you? and is paul also resonsable for the comments here?
you have seen them capella, you say their are no moral equivalence here, but then no one called you a traitor or a git or a bathestani?
Because the arithmetic is important, to achieve the hailed supermajority it requires 87 seats. That would require Alba to take around 20 seats, we can’t include the Green’s because if they had this level of support most of the SNP and Green list seats would likely be lost. So how many 100k votes do Alba need to take 20 seats (I suspect around 400-500k, they are not likely to achieve that, I might try and work it out from the 2016 results if I can find the time).
dead easy, in 2016, with 46.5% of the constituency vote, in 7 of the 8 regions, 850,000 snp list votes elected 1 snp list msp. 400,000 is way less than 50% of just the snp votes on the list. about 20% of the list vote supporting alba in the polls will do it.
current polls show snp support at 53-56%
I think it is unlikely Alba will take 50% of the SNP list vote, there are 4 SNP voters in my household (none are going to vote Alba). My daughter, in her thirties, opinion of AS is ‘he’s a bit sleazy isn’t he’, if she is any reflection of the younger women voters then you are not going to reach you figure. My guess would be 100-200k votes at most, it will be interesting, to me anyway, to see if I’m anywhere near the mark in May.
personal anecdotal evidence isnt really a valid measure.
if james kelly really thought that alba would fall flat on his face, then as a professional psephologist, he would simply say so.
How many polls have Alba in them yet?
Let’s wait and see, shall we? Everyone seems to be in keen, but blind activist mode, rather than site back and see what the voters think mode.
Yes, the polls look good NOW. But they looked good a few weeks before the 2016 election and predicted the SNP would win 70 + seats. But come election day the polls dropped and they only won 59 seats. Fortunately they had 4 Regional seats but that still isn’t a majority. They needed the Greens for a majority.
How do we know that that won’t happen this time? The polls aren’t reliable this far out from an election. Sometimes they aren’t reliable even on election eve.
Those Alba supporting bloggers are doing their best to undermine the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon regardless of calls for conciliation. They may well succeed in reducing the SNP vote share.
the polls may very well narrow and like 2016 we may need the greens for an indy majority, however, im concerned the greens wont attract as large a vote as before and with the holyrood numbers so tight, a grand unionist coalition is (or was) a serious outcome
thats why i welcome the Alba party, it will relegate the unionists to the cheap seats at the back and ensure an indy majority.
if the polls dont narrow we will have the same out come except the snp will have an outright majority.
Those Alba supporting bloggers are doing their best to undermine the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon………….. stop lumping all Alba supporters with anti nicola wingers. i support alba and have taken as much flak as you have from campbell.
Exactly 2007 and 2011 the predictions from the polls were accurate either
“I take your point about the depth of antagonism between the two camps.”
Or should that be tribes or cults? There is a marked descent into that territory, with all that entails, in recent weeks. How will that work out?
TBH – none of it will matter soon anyway. Just as there are other distractions elsewhere in Britain – all consuming attention – our attention to the risks and danger of the large dog in the fight has been averted – and we will suffer the tragic consequences as an island – not as separate nation states. That noble notion will remain a pipe dream of times past.
If there is an election in May, the result, whatever way it may go – will change nothing. Sovereignty isn’t the issue anymore.
It is survival – nothing else.
Click to access 2021.03.27.21254453v1.full.pdf
Sorry don’t believe in Campbell one iota. This is not based on 1 incident and being banned from WoS! Capella maybe I should wear it as a badge of honour but it is more than that.
The behaviours over Mundell, Dugdale, ( totally unnecessary and tagged the independence movement as homophobic) the frankly mysoginist bloggers against the FM and their bile towards the SNP. I am critical of many issues but raise them through branch meetings and suchlike. People who are not snp members can bleat but actually if you ain’t a member too bad.
Sadly although I met Alex Salmond a few times when helping with canvassing in Aberdeenshire I can no longer trust him either.
It is more than ironic that the bloggers and people crying out about conspiracies in the media, in the blogs, in the courts and enquiries were in fact they themselves plotting and conspiring.
I am sure there is an impolite title for that sort of behaviour.
So, even if mr Campbell danced amongst the daisies in his favourite park in Bath in the scud but socially distanced pleading forgiveness to us all I would have to say no.
SNP 1 & 2
and sorry folk for the image I may have lodged in your mind!!
All this politically-naive what-iffery strikes me as being akin to gold fever. The possible wonderful outcomes have seduced some into believing that it’s all somehow inevitable, when it’s nothing more than fools’ gold. An unhappy reminder of how it was all going to happen back in 2014, just, well, because…
My take is very simple, really. The SNP under Nicola Sturgeon (whom all these Alba bloggers – we haven’t forgotten – did their hateful best to bring down in collusion with BitterTogether) has done an enormous amount of good for me and my family this last long while, and have thereby earned our full support in the coming election, whereas Alex Salmond and this unknown party have done f*** all.
I rest my case.
Couldn’t have said it better myself, though I might have had a few more sweary words.
The SNP under Nicola Sturgeon (whom all these Alba bloggers – we haven’t forgotten – did their hateful best to bring down in collusion with BitterTogether…………….
all these alba bloggers? you mean scot goes pop also blogged hate speech about nicola? really?
Splitting hairs now about someone’s English, ‘All these’ doesn’t necessarily equate to ‘every’. I would say JK is a bit of an AS fanboy now, his recent tweets have been pretty critical of the SNP. But there is a fairly large list of bloggers attacking NS, all men, many over 50.
not splitting hairs @fjwgn im pointing out that it is possible to back tactical voting without been a fan of wings. lumping everyone together who doesnt support snp 1 and 2 as anti snp is as incorrect as it is divisive. i no more support wings than james kelly does but it hasnt stopped me of being accused as such.
if there is no moral equivalent here as capella suggests, why are you trying to paint JK in the same light as campbell??
thats my point, you will not find common ground by simply digging you trench even deeper
You really need to stop accusing people of writing things they haven’t, I did not accuse JK as being the same as SC, their blogs are of a totally different type. I referenced his twitter feed which factually has been critical of the SNP recently, he does not drop to the level of SC, I don’t think anybody does.
Splitting the vote won’t achieve anything if the support for indy parties still sits below 50%, if you believe in the policies of a party then split your vote. I won’t be splitting mine just to get AS a job, he doesn’t seem to have any policy except ‘get AS elected’. In fact trying to manipulate the voting system may not achieve what you believe it will internationally.
how can it split the vote? alba are not standing in constituencies
There you go again, I referred to individuals splitting their vote in the constituency and list and the fact producing a massive majority but indy support still on less than 50% in both the list or constituency hasn’t achieved anything, except the same twisted result FPTP does at Westminster.
I don’t believe in any party as such (I am a SNP member, but that is for independence alone), I believe in democracy and a country should always get the parliament it voted for, manipulating what is supposed to be a PR system is not democracy.
Nobody is manipulating anything. Unless you accuse every party of working to their own advantage. Asking voters to maximise the impact of their two votes is merely tactical voting, which has a long history in polls. If you want indy, then you are not splitting anything by voting SNP 1/Alba 2, you are just increasing the chances of more indy MSP’s. Voting SNP twice increases the chances of Tories and Labour in the regional lists. That isn’t conspiracy or manipulation, it is just a reflection of the D’Hondt system. i would rather people understand it and vote according to their priorities, not some kind of tribal identity.
Yes you are, you are producing a majority and from a minority vote, the same as Westminster. No point claiming you want a fairer country and then trying to make sure those you don’t agree with have their representatives excluded. I want independence but it has to be the choice of the majority of the people, not some grubby manipulation.
If the majority want independence and vote for the two parties offering it, then that seems perfectly fair to me. There is no ‘minority’ vote dictating to the majority. If you mean holding the balance of power, the Greens do exactly that and nobody thinks it is wrong.The D’Hondt system was designed to spread representation across smaller parties in order to give a voice to more voters than FPTP. There aren’t two independences on offer, just one. No-one is being excluded. You’re bending the whole thing out of shape.
When you are losing an argument, you always resort to sophistry and dodge the salient issues. It’s predictable but sad.
There was a poll recently sounding the popularity of various political figures. Maybe you would like to check out the relative results for Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond and BoJo, then come back here, respect us for once instead of the incessant lecturing, and retract your unsubstantiated assertion regarding the popularity basis for your latest electoral infatuation…?
we will see what the 1st opinion polls say about alba on the list and we will see who is infatuated.
by the way, back in 2016 when i argued for tactically voting on the list, i was in a minority of one.
now every blogger bar one and even alex agrees with tactical voting. i wouldnt call that losing an argument. quite the reverse.
have a cigar grize
You and your wee bunch of ultra-enthusiasts isn’t exactly “we-the-people”, so save your conjuring tricks and your toxic tobacco products until a time when the vote is in. I fully expect you won’t be needing anything but a lie-down then anyway.
We’re being asked to be nice to people who started a fight, to join together in the cause of Independence, to forgive and forget so that the people who started the fight can get the chance to get up from the canvass and hit us again, while their manager is rubbing pepper on their gloves in their corner, be nice while every move they have made so far is cloaked in subterfuge and deception, be nice to the man who lost the 2014 referendum through incompetence or possibly worse (yet to be determined), and after two years of bad mouthing the current FM using his social media vehicle Wings over Scotland when we’re on the verge of Independence decides to come roaring back and claim all is now fine I’m here to help honest I am and Nicola Sturgeon’s great
Well really? really? so we’ll just all move out of the way and allow these people free reign, I don’t want Alex Salmond anywhere near my parliament or my election or my referendum, and given his record on referendums and other decisions to date neither should anyone else, just ask Labour’s Alistair Campbell or read his book
MP MSP FM MP, Press and Journal columnist, Russian TV, court case for sexual assault and *Not Guilty* is not exoneration when your own lawyer is forced to apologise in court for you in hope of mitigation and leniency, and a judge who admonishes you for inappropriate behaviour towards women, something he refuses to personally apologise for to those he asks for their votes
Sure I’ll stand aside for this man and allow him to pass through the electoral system unchallenged on his record because he is after all eh, well who exactly is he, in actual fact he’s a failed Johnny come lately who wants to get in on the act maybe to suck up some of the success of Nicola Sturgeon that he can’t stand not being part of, or get in on the act of something altogether different
And that’s the problem with Alex Salmond, trust, and in him I have the same trust as his mouthpiece Stuart Campbell, none zero, nada
Nicola Sturgeon has worked for Scotland her whole life never seeking anything other than remaining in Scotland to do Scotland’s work and never once tempted by England or Russia, Alex Salmond it appears is prepared to go anywhere and be anything if it benefits Alex Salmond
SNP 1&2
So true Dr Jim
SNP 1 & 2
This how I view the latest developments. Every yes voter should look at the situation that exists in their constituency and region, balance up the various options, including the risks, and then make a decision.
I live in NE Scotland. Coming up to the election, I was examining the risks and rewards of voting SNP/SNP. The likelihood of the SNP winning less than 9 constituency seats here in NE Scotland is very small, so the temptation to “gamble” with my regional vote is greater than it would be if I lived in Highlands and Islands or South of Scotland. Having said that, the likelihood of my vote winning a seat for the AFI or the ISP is almost zero, in my opinion (aside from the fact that I consider those parties (the ISP in particular) to be led by liars and self-interested scoundrels). I toyed with idea of giving my vote to the Greens, but the balance of risks (SNP losing constituency seats versus the chance of the Greens picking up a regional seat) led me to decide to vote SNP/SNP.
The emergence of Alex Salmond as leader of the Alba party changed that calculation completely. The chances of the SNP losing constituency seats remains unchanged (IMO), but the chance of Alex Salmond winning a list seat is (IMO), a probability, rather than a possibility. In the event that the small chance of the SNP losing another constituency seats DOES come to pass, then my vote will STILL elect a pro-Indy MP.
I wouldn’t dare advise other people in other areas about voting Alba, because I know little about how Alex Salmond is viewed in those areas. Here in NE Scotland, he is STILL hugely popular, and for that reason, I intend to vote Alba. If the polls indicate I’m wrong, then I’ll revert to SNP/SNP, but right now, it’s SNP/Alba for me.
Aye, agreed, granda16.
I’m a fit liker ma’sel’ fae the NE.
I like Alex. i like Nicola, and i’m an environmentalist.
I’d like (love) to see an independent Scotland,
I have no time for the Tory party. (from Thatcher to Johnson.)
No time for Blair and Brown. (Blair should have been jailed for war crimes).
DRoss in Moray is dross.
The “UK” is finished. Down the drain, kaput.
So, find the common ground, and work for independence.
Alex and Nicola both want an independent Scotland.
(Sae dae me, Sandy Thomson, Suds, and the Lawrence loons, fae Aberlour.
Far the shortbreid comes fae).
My point is, an independent Scotland is bigger than any one person.
Aberdeen fitba’ team wis bigger than Joey Harper, Willie Miller, or Alex Ferguson.
Stop bickering, and work together.
(Though ignore the big mooth in Bath, right enough…)
Ha. We’re all human.
I’ll be back (fae Canada) later in the year to lend a hand.
Yours truly, Asty
(Aberlour Loons for Independence) /Alfi
Since 2016 the Tories have picked up seats in the North. So the SNP may very well need to pick up list seats in that region.
Unionists are forming official and unofficial pacts, SNP constituancy seats are under threat.
Must have backup option of list seats for tge party.
SNP 1 & 2
Can I ask an Idiot Question Please?
The question about who to cast the second vote for has already been asked and answered, hasn’t it? Surely the SNP have planned/researched/strategized/Table Topped/War gamed/computed/ calculated/modelled/mapped/analysed and any other word you can think of to determine the optimum outcome for a majority in favour of Independence?.
Whoops, I think that’s two questions! The advice is both votes SNP. So, until I hear differently from the only vehicle we have towards independence, for me it’s SNP 1&2.
I don’t want to just take part in a referendum, I want to be on the winning side.
why not go read scot goes pop, he is the go to guy psephologist for the entire yes movement, has been for the last 6 years, including the snp.
alternatively, figure it out for yourself. it aint rocket science
That will be the guy who until very recently told us gaming the list was a mugs game but now his hero is back he has changed his view. Very weird.
I’m pretty sure the SNP has done the war gaming too. Been amazingly successful with 13 years in office and still polling 50% and on course to win an outright majority.
I feel the same, if Nicola announces that we should vote Alba on the list I’ll consider it – once I’ve picked myself up off the floor. 🙂
mmmm not sure how wise it would for the snp to call snp 1 alba 2, wouldnt they fall foul of the EC?
both yellow and blue tories said vote fer me in 2019. it didnt stop half the blue tories in ne fife switching and tactically voting for the lib dems and ousting stephen gethins.
indy supporters also dont need coaching, they know on which side their bread’s buttered
”Alex Salmond ..in the N. E. is still hugely popular ” based on what ? He lost his Westminster seat to DRoss , he hasn’t stood in any election since , he has had a very visible court case ( which he won ) but has been tainted with some of the accusations , some of which he admitted .
The latest polls show him as ”popular” with about 14/15% of voters .
How does this transform into ”the probability ” that he will win a List seat ?
probability james, probability. but the 1st opinion polls will be out next week and will no doubt confirm what most polster believe, ie alba will win seats. and once the only reason you can think off for not voting alba on the list is removed, i’ll look forward to you agreeing on snp1 and alba2
Oh jeez, you’re a crystal gazer now. Why don’t you wait to see what polls may actully show, instead of this incessant premature whipping up of vacuous froth from NOTHING but your overworked imagination?
If you’re trying to convince people, you’re going about it the wrong way. But then you’re obviously not an actual politician. (More like a double-glazing salesman.)
a crystal gazing double-glazing salesman, novel insult but no coconut
A degree and other higher qualifications.
Ah, the blind faith of the zealot.
What if the numbers suggest Alba will, at best, nick a seat or two from the Greens?
That’ll be Alex and Kenny shooed in then
@James Mill.
Quit with the “fake news” there. DRoss took the Moray MP seat from Angus Robertson.
And, while i’m here, @grizebard, please quit with insulting schrodinger’s kitty, and be considerate of double-glazing salesmen, and woman; they have feelings too.
In all probability, Alba will take list seats. Do the arithmetic, of the silly D’Hondt system.
And imagine Andrew Neil and his hostility towards an independent Scotland. We need seasoned politicians who can stand up to that sort of thing. (alex salmond, for example).
I wish Jimmy Reid, in his prime, was still around. Though Mhairi Black is a rising star.
Anyway, i’m off to the ski hill to let my ego vanish, to lose myself.
All the very best, everyone, and love to Paul for this blog. Keep on keepin’ on.
“he not busy being born is busy dying” Bob Dylan.
Here’s to the rebirth/renaissance of Scotland.
“it’s coming yet for a’ that” Robert Burns
Astytaylor : Not Fake News but a simple fault of memory . I stand corrected with the loss to Dross – he lost to another Tory non-entity , but the rest of my point remains .
Hurry back from Canada – and I promise I ”won’t bicker with anyone ” as long as you have your jag before arriving !
Colin Clarke – the farmers’ friend – and nonentity.
Salmond lost his seat in GORDON to Tory nonentity C Clark with an incredible vote swing of more than 20% and since then equally incredible resources have been expended in trying to discredit him, including what one former senior police detective described to me as a ‘massive fishing operation’ by Police Scotland, I wonder how many MP’s or MSP’s could stand up to that type of scrutiny ? I suspect that, despite all the trolling to the contrary, he’ll pull in the voters and create the ‘super-majority’ that will, in his own words, hold not only Westminster but The Scottish Governments feet to the fire and put rocket-boosters under the quest for independence.
Davidson would not let Clark stand again. Too full of himself. Arrogant and ignorant. Trouble causer. Too arrogant even for the Tories.
Salmond lost because BitterTogether organised themselves to put up dummy no-hoper candidates except one, the nonentity Tory. A conspiracy, if you like, but it goes to prove two things that are rather inconvenient for you: that The Messiah doesn’t have the infallible magic fairy dust people like you appear to ascribe to him (beaten by a nobody, FFS!), and furthermore that the same tactic can be deployed by the BritNats – who haven’t gone away – in near every constituency this time round, and thereby rob the SNP of the unnatural advantage (from a split opposition) they have in many of their existing seats.
The list attempts to rectify the situation where currently the FPTP vote artificially inflates SNP success, but if that success diminishes through opposition electoral tactics, the SNP will, as previously, have to get their numbers from the list instead. In which case, sufficient votes lost to Salmond’s little band might possibly even scupper them both. Or more likely, the tiddler will get the shove and it’s “goodbye Alex”.
If you haven’t realised that possibility yet you haven’t done near enough thinking.
I concede your point on unionist voting tactics and will be watching with interest. Although I can’t comprehend why anybody in Scotland would vote for a unionist party but that’s another story.
‘He’s not The Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy’.
People voted for him for over 30 years,
AWPR, McCrone Report, Sports Development, Turbines, International Airports, Queensferry Crossing. Renewables. Fishing, farming and Oil industry support.
One of the best Statesmen Scotland has ever had. Cleared in Court by females, credible, named witnesses. After claimants lied.
Ken – do not repeat the claim that the complainers lied. They were not on trial. All that you I or anyone else who was not in the jury room know is that the jury found that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Alex Salmond was guilty and so correctly cleared him.
As a matter of record, the complainant in the most serious charge, did lie, because it was found she could not be, and was not, in the place where the incident was claimed to happen.
And where did the jury or the judge say that? Nowhere is my guess.
It is a court room saying that if you are 80% certain the accused did it then you should acquit as 20% is a reasonable doubt
The SNP talk about having a ref after the pandemic is over or in the first half of the next Parliament (two and a half years).
This is too long in my view as Covid could /will be here for many years. Indyref has to come at the very latest by next year, preferably earlier.
Any views on this?
Well, I’ve always believed that we need the impetus of a campaign to move us forward enough to win, so I’ve never believed in waiting for the fabled 60%, but OTOH if the polls show consistent support under 50%, would you rush…?
This is politics, not running the trains. You have to have a sense that people are ready to move, and they will only do that if they are not beset by more-pressing problems. Yes, Covid will likely be with us ongoing in the sense that those of us who get a ‘flu shot may well be getting an annual Covid shot along with it, but that’s not the same thing. Before too long though people will be emerging from under a Covid cloud psychologically, and that should be the time to launch. When exactly that will be can’t be predicted now, hence the deliberately careful wording. It’s plain good sense.
covid is already denying us our biggest advantage over the unionists, ie boots on the ground. while the postie delivers a daily willy rennie newsletter to all his constituents we, the snp cant even deliver leaflets. willy has about 4 activists in the whole of ne fife.
indyref2 must be once covid is gone and we can mobilise fully the yes movement
Leaflets are being delivered
The SNP are deliverring leaflets. .
schrodinger’s cat
I have already received a leaflet from the SNP candidate in my constituency.
yes, and all candidates are allowed 1 constituency leaflet drop by the postie and here in ne fife we can afford a few others, but willy rennie has had the posty deliver 10 in the last 2 weeks, unlimited funds for him.
Me too via the postie. I have also had leaflets from Labour, Tories and the LibDums in the same manner
“while the postie delivers a daily willy rennie newsletter to all his constituents”
Yeah – and they’re great!
We use them to line the floor of the rabbit’s cage…
where i am in ne fife, public opinion is set against people putting anything through other peoples letter box. as such it is deemed counter productive in most areas. however, willy rennie has unlimited funds and stuff delivered by the postie is acceptable to the people.
the point i was making is indyref2 should only happen when such constraints are removed and we can bring to bear all of our strengths
Say the SNP just fall short of a majority in May’s election, and the Alba party have 6/7 seats, do you think Alex Salmond would demand Nicola Sturgeon stand down before entering into a Confidence and Supply agreement?
No, I don’t. That would be self-defeating. He’s not that daft. Anyway, Sturgeon would never offer it.
Do you think that in that lopsided scenario he would have that right? (As opposed to having the arrogance.)
It’s a totally hypothetical scenario, so not worth pursuing (angels on pinheads!), but I can imagine that for a whole bunch of pro-indy women voters, even the prospect would fill them with unmitigated horror.
no, he accepts the results of 2 coute cases and 3 inquiries, nicola and alex were found innocent.
he will move on
He will try, but he’s not “innocent”. Another of your fantasies. If you listen to Janey Godley, you might get an inkling of what my daughters also think, and they are not atypical. In your little theoretical ivory castle there, you have obviously not a clue.
aye, we will see who is fantising when the polls show up next week.
i dare say you will have to burn that bridge when you come to it grize 🙂
You continue to quote polls supposedly in your favour that haven’t happened yet and whose results are only in your imagination, yet you assiduously avoid an actual recent poll that puts Salmond’s popularity in Scotland below that of BoJo, never mind Nicola! It’s disrespectful of the readership here. How on earth do you expect us to take you seriously when spinning straw like this?
whether you take me seriously or not is not my concern.
i merely promote snp1 alba2
we will see who is correct
it isnt rocket surgery 🙂
We will – my longstanding point actually, not your plastic poll surgery. So how about that actual inconvenient poll you manage to keep avoiding, Sherlock?
Oh, and while we’re at it, who’s bankrolling your Messiah…?
Just askin’ for a friend…
you mean these type of polls ? https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-cat-and-all-the-pigeons/
Cat, the question there was “Do you think you might vote for the new party with your lost vote?”
That’s “might”, not “would”.
But the person who can’t even understand his own composed question then translates that into gibberish “The headline figures – that 26% of Scottish voters would either definitely or probably give their list vote to a Salmond-led list party ”
That’s not what it meant, it meant 26% “might” give their list vote to Salmond, i.e., they would consider it, not that they would. I got blocked for politely pointing out that lack of understanding of English.
“might” is clearly, in that context “would consider”.
If I was asked “if offered a free trip into space, do you think you might accept?” My answer would be “Yes, definitely”. But it doesn’t mean if it actually happened I’d say yes, I might chicken out or be doing something else 🙂
Or of course it might turn out to be a 1-way 10 year trip in which case I’d soon be bored out of my skull, and looking for my toothbrush and towel.
So you believe anything goes in the workplace as long as it just falls short of criminality, good to know. Were you a teenager in the seventies by any chance?
what i believe is irrelevant, i have little or no info to base my judgement upon. we have courts to decide such issues
whether i was a teenager in the 70’s may sound to you like a humorous question to ask, but to everyone else you just sound foolish
Courts don’t decide workplace issues, if they are considered criminal they are reported to the police. You can break the rules in a workplace and it still not be criminal. All I can say is where I worked my feet wouldn’t have touched the ground if I admitted what AS did, I would have been out on my ear.
I see you are reduced to name calling now, you think I’m foolish, I doubt if anyone else cares.
He does that, I’m afraid. But I know who’s looking foolish to a lot of young female voters, and it ain’t you, my friend.
name calling now, you think I’m foolish………. wee scone 🙂
I was a teenage girl in the 70s, so I definitely don’t think anything goes in the workplace. You learned defensive techniques fairly early on.
When I told my daughter this recently (whilst discussing the harassment inquiry) she quite rightly said “You shouldn’t have had to”. And she’s right.
I’m struck by the fact that posters often seem to be speaking from the point of view of how the SNP vote will fall vis a vis Alba. Do the predictions take into account how anybody outside the party may vote?
I ask because there are at least 4 Universities in the NE region, full of young women (and, indeed young men) with views very like yours (I think) grizebard’s and mine. There’s also been the whole Extinction Rebellion thing etc
How will they vote? Or don’t you think they’ll count?
“Do the predictions take into account how anybody outside the party may vote?” An excellent question, if I may say so. While the SNP likely will capture non-partisan support because of their record in government, judging by the various protestations of “innocence” and wishful thinking flying around here, I suspect Alba won’t. (Do they even care?) It will perhaps get some siphonage from a particular (naturally diminishing) {ahem} contingent of the SNP, plus presumably all the radical lefties who never liked the SNP anyway and (lessons not learned) are fondly hoping they might do better this time than RISE.
All in all, a bit of a shoogly peg, that, for the pretenders.
I don’t comment on how other people will vote who are outside the party, I don’t have the knowledge or information to make any such claims, it would need them to come here and make the points themselves.
Everything I write is merely my opinion and reading your post you seem to believe I was advocating anything goes when in fact I was making the exact opposite point, I’ll apologise in advance just in case I’m misreading your post.
“Everything I write is merely my opinion and reading your post you seem to believe I was advocating anything goes when in fact I was making the exact opposite point,”
I did get the sense that you didn’t think it was OK and was agreeing with you. My meaning was that, in the 70s, the actions took place but it wasn’t OK. Cat says there are courts to decide such things – but there weren’t then. Your best defence against Sahara Man (wandering palms…) or, shall we say, invasion of personal space was often an accidental elbow in the midriff or similar. As my daughter said, girls shouldn’t have to defend themselves that way.
I’m sad that sort of behaviour’s still around and women are still trying to get proper defence in law.
“I don’t comment on how other people will vote who are outside the party, I don’t have the knowledge or information to make any such claims, it would need them to come here and make the points themselves.”
That’s what I understood from what you wrote. Most of the predictions (which you don’t seem to be making anyway, so forgive me) were obviously talking about the choice of list vote made by members. I’m not an SNP member and, in fact, have never voted SNP – but I definitely will this time. As you say, you don’t have knowledge or information about my list vote. Which is fair enough, because I’m not sure myself!
It seemed as if the calculations of seats Alba might gain are being made (by some) solely on the basis of who’ll vote for them within the party. I was really wondering if votes from (what shall I call it?) the electorate at large had been considered/factored into expectations.
Hence the example of students. They’re often worried about climate change (so may vote Green?); want independence and will go for the established party (SNP?) which has coped throughout a pandemic; are young women especially, who possibly don’t remember Mr Salmond’s previous contributions and, frankly, would be unlikely to support a party with him leading it for reasons many have stated.
As I am trying to put my list vote to best use, this would be influenced by the overall voting picture. Suppose I’ll have to wait for the polls.
No one on earth can make any “calculations” on how many votes the Alba party may get on the list until there are some pools that show support for them in real numbers. All there are right now is simply someone’s guess and is therefore totally worthless.
Get some real data then we can have some calculations seems to make sense.
ok, actually some one has PNR
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-cat-and-all-the-pigeons/
The headline figures – that 26% of Scottish voters would either definitely or probably give their list vote to a Salmond-led list party
and before you jump, this poll was taken after he was aquited on all charges
That’s not what the poll question asked – see above. The guy doesn’t understand English.
A familiar-sounding 45% of 2014 Yes voters said they’d either definitely or probably vote for Salmond’s party, with another 33% not prepared to rule it out. And in fact 11% of No voters agreed. Those are absolutely huge numbers for a new party, but there’s a limit to what they tell us because they’re not data translatable to a Holyrood election. For that we need a breakdown by party, and luckily we have one.
A thumping 40% of SNP voters – not the mere 28% of the fake poll – say they’d definitely or probably vote for a Salmond party, but even more extraordinary is the 31% of 2019 Labour voters who would too (along with 9% of Tories and 7% of Lib Dems).
And yet it’s logical. A very large minority of Scottish Labour voters – polls consistently suggest anywhere between 30% and 40% – want independence, but their party is an irrelevant joke with no hope of any kind of power and it keeps doubling and tripling down on its total intransigence on the constitution. Any Yes supporters still voting for it at this point must be pretty implacably hostile to the SNP, but they might well view a party fronted by Salmond as a welcome thorn in its side as well as a positive force for indy. (And they’d likely be right.)
No they didn’t, they said they might vote for it. Might is “would consider”.
And why would the SNP fall short ? Might it be that a certain Johnny-come-lately Party took votes from the SNP and the Greens to deny a simple majority . Hypothetically , of course !
Alex,
Perhaps you should watch this and see how he answered a question along those lines.
https://www.channel4.com/news/alex-salmond-says-alba-party-will-fill-void-in-the-independence-cause
Lege,
I watched and he didn’t give a straight answer to the question, will you back Nicola Sturgeon? he gave a bit of politic type waffle, sounds dodgy to me.
I know. I was watching Ch4 news that night and that non-reply was one of several things that jumped out of that interview. I thought it would go some way to answer the question you were asking. No doubt he will be asked it again and again. Perhaps he will have rehearsed a better answer by the 3rd or 4th time of asking but then again perhaps not.
He didn’t apologise either. He obviously thinks he has nothing to apologise for. I wonder how long he will keep that up. It will cast a shadow over his whole campaign.
Politics is about public perception and the word innocent isn’t used when women speak about Alex Salmond, they have other adjectives, none of them good
Well, 2 days later, the Scottish Greens have 59,700 followers on twitter, Alba not as many – 7,806. And the only news in the last 20 hours or so after the equalities convenor joining Alba seems to be that 2 councillors in Aberdeenshire who left the SNP last summer have joined Alba.
So the question this week will be – has Alba nearly stalled already, or are people reviewing their options and there’ll be a flood?
Meanwhile, based on that, Alba might get 10,000 votes, and even with more of an increase, a large one, it seems to me that Alba will be very lucky at this rate to get a total of 40,000 votes in Scotland as opposed to the grandiose “million votes”, and with a normal statistical distribution taking account of Salmond’s home region, with an average of 5,000 votes per region Alba might get 8,000 in the North-East – 3% – whereas it really needs 5% or more. To have any chance, Alba needs 100,000 all over.
So on that basis it would be 0 seats in NE Scotland, and 0 seats in all other 7 regions.
And the only question then would be, would those 40,000 votes cost the SNP 1 or 2 list seats in the South of Scotland and Highlands, and the Greens a couple of list seats for a nett pro-indy LOSS of 4 seats, or seeing the low level of support would Alba fold completely and have as little effect on the regions as RISE?
This is an early projection, but I get the picture of Salmond thinking he was going to be the salvation, the Alba website would crash (remember the SNP one crashing with new membership applications), with people fighting each other to join, mass online demonstrations of support. Whereas some might call this so far, a bit of a whimper, frankly.
But perhaps with 6 weeks to go to the election, it’s early days and the next projection would be very different.
maybe they have only just scratched the tip of the iceberg dads 🙂
Maybe cat. It is early days.
Herald announcing Tommy Sheridan has joined Alba and a female councillor who is an officeholders in the SNP.
Well, there goes another character {ahem} “with a past”. Birds of a feather, eh…?
Yes, Sheridan was on Friday evening. McAllister was earlier today, but one of the leaked names from the Alba website the Herald reported earlier than that.
Women witnesses supported him. They Defended him. Named, credible witness. Others lied. They lied to vetting committees.
Woman judge, predominant woman jury. Thousands of women friends. Alex Salmond supported gender lists, women candidates, supported and campaigned for them. Nicola was his deputy for years. They were always hugging.
Michael Corleone hugged Fredo before he killed him, that was a different movie to the one you’re talking about though
They haven’t killed each other (yet).
There might be a murrrder
They might kiss and make up. Leave some people no where to go. Haters have to hate.
Drivel. Do you have a response for Ken ? ~~Also he missed the ‘forgetfulness’ of those who testified to the Holyrood committee and later had to return to ‘clarify’ their evidence.
More BritNatspeak, this, yet. Have you ever listened to yourself? And you think you can pop-up here out of nowhere like this and convince anybody?
‘Britnatspeak’ eh ? You are doing the the job for them. Anybody can make up their own minds. Meanwhile I’ll be examining the likelihood or not of a vote for this Alba party keeping the unionist sycophants and lackeys out of The Scottish Parliament before deciding how I’ll vote. Unlike you.
ken, avoid calling people liars, the blog owner can get into trouble for such comments, god knows the brit establishment dont need a 2nd excuse at the moment
fwiw, i think a lot of the alphabet women were stitched up by this same brit establishment, many comments made by them were done in private, confidential informal HR meetings of the civil service. they were handed over to the COPS without their consent and in many cases were called to give evidence in a criminal case against their wishes. they were as much victims here as alex was. probably why alex has shown no animosity towards them.
Alex Salmond vote’s 20,000+
In the NE
There’s been a lot said over the last two days and some things are starting to become clearer about what impact Alex Salmond’s Alba party will have on the election in just a few week’s time and consequently how that might affect the chances of a 2nd Independence referendum during the next parliamentary term.
My impression now is that it will not have as big an impact as I first thought on hearing him announce the Alba party on Friday. The biggest thing the Alba party has going for them and at the same time against them is Alex Salmond.
he is a well known figure and is sure to bring all the publicity it could want for a new party in Scottish politics, in other words by the time of the election most voters will know of it and mat have formed opinions, the iSP and AFI on the other hand just wouldn’t have had the reach to make much of an impression.
The downside is of course that he is less popular than Boris Johnson in Scotland according to the most recent polls. That is a huge negative of course and severely limits any impact that the Alba party may make in terms of gaining seats as the pool they are fishing in is a very small pool to begin with. With a base of just 14% of SNP voters having a favourable view of the former FM they will need to win broader support to really make any impact I would have thought.
We are also now getting further details of who the new candidates are that will be standing in the various regions on the list seats, I’m not impressed. Alex Salmond and the Alba party will be relying solely on SNP voters giving them their list vote in preference to the SNP or the Greens, they are not going to get list votes from any Unionist voters.
Getting SNP votes might prove to be a bit of a challenge when so many of the candidates revealed in recent days have a history of having been highly critical of the SNP leadership over various policies such as GRA, the Hate Crime Bill, and the Independence strategy that the FM has employed.
At one time a few years ago I also supported the idea of a pro Independence list party that could win seats from Unionists as a good idea, I never believed though that such a party could ever succeed if they weren’t trusted by the majority of Independence supporters. The Alba party may struggle here and that will limit any potential support.
It is what it is and for each of us to find our own way through, one thing we can be sure of though is that the UK government will try to use this to their advantage, I’ve no idea yet how they might do that but they will be waiting to see how this is panning out with the general public. Then they will try to use their advantage in media exposure to exploit any weaknesses they can use against Independence.
We all know that of course, so for the best that we don’t give them any ideas or ammunition.
A lot of grounded good sense (as usual), Alex. The fatal flaw in the list-bender strategy always was – as others have long observed – that there needed to be a very good – if unspoken and unofficial – understanding between SNP voters on the one hand and an alt-indy grouping on the other hand that these voters could find palatable. However, that implicit understanding has been only notable by its complete absence. After all the burnt bridges – especially the vituperation from the likes of the SoB – that understanding is hardly likely to be found at this late stage. Hence the visitation from all the frantic “double-glazing salesmen” we’ve been having to endure these last couple of days. Having Salmond at their head, while superficially attractive to some SNP voters, is now fundamentally toxic to far more others, both SNP voters and non-aligned, the latter if anything even more so.
It won’t end well. Then no doubt we’ll be deluged by conspiracy theorists “explainerising” how the dastardly deed was done, when the reality is already obvious to anyone not caught up in the current gold fever.
Alba could truthfully be called a parasite !
As Alex Salmond stated in various interviews , he is relying solely on the SNP ”sweeping the board ” in the constituency vote and hoping that some of their voters will turn to his party in the Regional List, hence a parasite .
The definition of which is : an organism that has sustained contact with another organism to the detriment of the host .
“… highly critical of the SNP leadership over various policies such as … the Independence strategy that the FM has employed.”
But was this not resolved? This was written as recently as 8 December, 2020:
‘Kenny MacAskill MP: Forget the legal niceties – the SNP’s push for independence is now unstoppable – By Kenny MacAskill MP’
‘The Scottish National Party’s internal elections saw a defeat for the slow-and-steady leadership faction, writes SNP MP Kenny MacAskill.’
Source: https://leftfootforward.org/2020/12/kenny-macaskill-mp-forget-the-legal-niceties-the-snps-push-for-independence-is-now-unstoppable/
Confusing isn’t it!
Well, the day before Alex Salmond’s announcement of the Alba party MacAskill had an article in the Scotsman saying something quite different. Headline:
“Scottish election 2021: SNP-Green coalition might not be fully focused on independence – Kenny MacAskill MP”
https://archive.ph/GCIZV
I’ll guess he thinks that it will be better then to vote for the Alba party on the list, something that he omitted to say in the article which is a bit unfortunate considering subsequent events.
MacAskill, the phrase chocolate fireguard comes to mind.
The SNP don’t need the Alba party to achieve a majority or form a government and they have already indicated a willingness to consider a coalition with the Greens. That’s why this site is inundated with commentary from anxious hard sell merchants because the SNP won’t play, after all it’s their ball. The parasite party needs to feed off the SNP and when that doesn’t materialise, the concilliatory mask will slip and Nicola will once again be the target of their bile.
Our job is not to argue or try to convince them that there way is wrong, that they risk everything that’s been worked for over the last six years, the box’s ticked, the friends made abroad, the respect for the competent and caring governance we have enjoyed, seen and acknowledge even by many of the electorate in England.
Getting rid of Murdo and his like is not a priority, it’s an event we can look forward too once we get the SNP over the line, that’s the priority, get the SNP over the line. No other single party has the power to end this union,
which is why so much time and money is spent in trying to bring them down.
SNP 1 & 2.
👍
What they have voted already? Sounds suspicious to me.
Oh it just Ken … he’s a Salmond’s boy in a Salmond’s world…. hum along🎵🎶
One of Salmond’s acolytes brotherhood from ?Saltcoats way I believe, suggest Glasgow will produce 17000 ALBA votes. Someone called Limey thinks there will be 17000 in the west of Scotland.
Still think of a number and then add to it -that’s Alba’s salmond votes
Fantasy votes.
Last election lost.
Before even more 27,000
Wells 2000. Murdo 10,000
I see Willie Rennie has unleashed another double whammy for the SNP:
‘Thousands of people have died. Thousands more have lost their lives.’
You only live twice under the SNP!
Well, as well as your “You Only Live Twice”, we have “Blunderball”, “Sir No”, with “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” down in Westminster, and now the new entrant: “From RT With Love”. I don’t think they’re any competition for “Independence is Forever” and “Greenfinger”.
I was shaken but not stirred when I heard him.
Can someone explain why voting SNP 1 and Alba 2 is in someway wrong.
Based upon current polling the SNP is set to gain 66 Constituency seats out of 73 and absolutely NO regional seats,
Giving your second vote however to the Alba party would deliver around 30 regional seats. Together that is over 90 seats out of a 129 seat parliament.
What on earth is wrong with that I ask. It makes so much sense.
Alba can’t lose. A few thousand second votes in any region will guarantee seats.
The big problem for the SNP is turnout, not Alba. Sturgeon is damaged goods. And her strategy for achieving indyref2 doesn’t exactly fill voters with excitement.
Moreover, most people are sick of hearing about how well she handled the pandemic. 6 months of the last year have been spent in lockdown and thousands have died. That’s not exactly the sort of stuff you make banners from.
The best chance the SNP has of avoiding a disaster in this election is offered by avoiding arguments with Alba and reigniting the push for indyref2 using words that inspire people. If the SNP is serious about independence, that should be an easy task and one you’d expect them to relish.
Moaning and sniping at Alba just makes matters worse and potentially terrible.
I’m in complete agreement with Golfnut above, 65 seats is all that matters provided that they are all Independence supporting MSP’s. I think that no one would disagree that a majority of MSP’s in support of Independence was a certainty with both SNP and Green members combined.
That would be enough to ensure that the draft Referendum Bill would have been passed in Holyrood and then would undoubtedly have been challenged as outwith the competence of the Scottish parliament and the UK government would have had to take Scotland to the Supreme Court.
A “supermajority” sounds great and I too would like to have seen Unionist deadwood evicted from their seats, but it would make no difference to the total number of people who voted for Independence supporting parties. That number will remain exactly the same but just spread out among different parties so is not as impressive as it might sound.
The best outcome in this election is a straight majority for the SNP for Independence as that is what the wider world pay attention to and the result Westminister fear most, we need to do our best to achieve that result and I will welcome all other MSP’s that will stand with the SNP but the very worst result of all for the Union is an outright majority for the SNP. Their worst nightmare.
We should all take that into account when casting our votes. I really don’t want to know of or hear of any buyer’s remorse if it all goes wrong on a gamble. It’s your vote, your choice.
This is an enjoyable wee rant,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/215556435841901/permalink/855276438536561/
Remember to vote. If you wish a postal vote The deadline to apply for a postal vote for the election is 5pm on Tuesday 6 April.
Don’t waste it vote snp 1 & 2
Young ones need to tell their grandparents and parents to vote SNP/Alba. The young ones already will.
More elderly vote unionist. They are more likely to vote and there are more of them. (Pro rata).
Do you have a source for your claim, beyond wishful thinking?
I very much doubt that Alba hav e widespread support amongst younger voters.
Nothing solid, just going by opinions from my own kids & the Indications from other posters.
O/T Just a background comment, but as far as hospital patients with Covid are concerned, there’s an excellent fit since the very beginning of February of an exponential decline with a decay half-life of just under 17 days. If that good progress continues unabated by any changes in regime and behaviour in the meantime, we would be seeing less than 50 people in hospital by election day. Quite a marked improvement. Which situation might hopefully encourage people to turn out to vote as per usual, even if campaigning itself is inevitably hindered.
Whatever else pertains, it is essential that as many people as possible venture forth and vote for independence in May. Turnout – especially among younger folks – is absolutely crucial.
Yep, nothing more important than turnout and especially get the younger voters out. get on the phone to your nieces and nephews, sons and daughters. I’m not joking either, get them out ot vote and we win.
We need to win this election if Scotland is to become Independent so let’s not blow our chances now. This IS the last chance saloon for a very very long time. Get in there with the head down and we will get the job done with one voter at a time.
Some light(ish) relief….or not…..
Re the Boris Johnson / Jennifer Arcuri scandal exposed today via limited media exposure ( as in may have only been highlighted by ONE newspaper and ignored by TV News) apparently she stated that making love to Boris was :
” Like watching a deranged beluga slap it’s genit*ls (insert letter a*) on the aquarium wall”
That reminds me of the time Nicholas Soames ex wife stated that “making love to Nicholas was like having a very large wardrobe with a very small key fall on top of You”….
If Mr Soames wife had said that to me about him….I would have been tempted to have said …..”what just a very large wardrobe “?….as to me it would surely have felt more like a whole bedroom suite piled up on top of me…..and the very small key she mentioned would have been insignificant….though I think the key being insignificant was the point she was making……Lol
I’ll get my coat…..or get banned form this site…..
🤣🤣🤣
SNP 1 & 2. Couldn’t agree more, Paul.
Here is the bare naked truth of SNP 1&2
This is what happened last time
Me ? Im north east ….Dundee…. we gave 137,000 LIST votes to SNP
yes a hundred and thirty seven thousand LIST votes to SNP last time and got ZERO list seats
They went to tories 4 and labour 2 who had 124,000 votes between them !!
And you want us to do this again ?
These 137,000 LIST votes were not given to the greens last time because the advice was SNP 1&2
This time we have ALBA only going for LIST seats and saying give your other vote to SNP
Its madness not giving your LIST vote to ALBA
Do not waste a million votes once again
Tory List:
Central: 43,602 votes. 3 seats
Glasgow: 29,533 votes. 2 seats
Highlands & Islands: 44,693 votes. 3 seats
Lothians: 74,972 votes. 3 seats
Mid Scot & Fife: 73,293 votes. 4 seats
North East: 85,848 votes. 4 seats.
South: 100,753 votes. 2 seats
West: 71,528 votes. 3 seats
Labour List 2016:
Central: 67,103 votes. 4 seats
Glasgow: .59,151 votes. 4 seats
Highlands & Islands: 22,894 votes. 2 seats
Lothians: 67,991 votes. 2 seats
Mid Scot & Fife: 51,373. 2 seats
North East: 38,791 votes. 2 seats
South: 56,072 votes. 2 seats
West: 72,544 votes. 3 seats
Snp
Central: 129,082 votes. 0 seats.
Glasgow: 111,101 votes. 0 seats.
Highlands & Islands: 81,600 votes. 1 seat.
Lothians: 118,546 votes. 0 seats.
Mid Scot & Fife: 120,128 votes. 0 seats.
North East: 137,086 votes. 0 seats.
South: 120,217 votes. 3 seats.
West: 135,827 votes. 0 seats.
The SNP gained 80% of the constituency seats with just 46.5% of the vote, it’s swings and roundabouts in a proportional based system. If you want the Westminster voting system just say so. They received roughly the number of seats proportional to their support.
The remedy is to increase the proportion of support for independence parties, just spreading it around amongst other parties doesn’t increase it. If I was an independence fence sitter seeing the election being manipulated wouldn’t persuade me we heading to a fairer country.
If we go down this route there is no point complaining when the Britnats use the same tactics, they have limitless means to push this if they choose to.
Will facts and figures penetrate the closed minds commenting here, I wonder ? or do they have their own agenda ?
Some of us are able to remember 2011 figures – SNP 53 constituency seats, and 16 on the list.
That’s 16 seats on the list, without which there would have been no 69 seat total, no overall majority SNP Government, no Indy Ref 1, and support for Indy would still be around about 25%.
Objectively speaking, if you had to plan a way to upset the Unionist applecart, you would have fantasised Nicola leading one party in constituencies and Alex leading another on the list.
BUT if you had tried to organise this it would be ruled out of order and the two would have been deemed one and the same for electoral purposes.
Could it be that this was a brilliant plan that spun out of control and turned unexpectedly serious?
Anyway, doing anything else except SNP in constituencies and Alba on the list looks silly.
So long as Alba do not run list candidates in the boarder areas
And if people listen to Paul and concentrate on fighting the tricolore Unionists instead of each other this could go very well . . . . getting extra popcorn for election night
“Anyway, doing anything else except SNP in constituencies and Alba on the list looks silly.”
A wee correction there cadogan,
Anything else except SNP in constituencies, SNP, Green or Alba on the list looks silly.
fair point
Alex Salmond in his eagerness and ego driven desire for revenge on Nicola Sturgeon may have actually had the opposite affect and boosted her party’s chances of even greater success
Salmond’s popularity or lack of it amongst women could see Nicola Sturgeon’s vote share actually increase by drawing out more women voters to the SNP FMs cause casting their votes for the SNP in retaliation to the threat of the Salmond led party, conversely had Salmond decided not to lead his newly formed party he may have had more chance of success, so in the final analysis his ego and intent could once again lead to yet another ignominious defeat by his own hand
The moral of the story *if you must gamble make sure you haven’t loaded the dice against yourself*
Tosh. These assertions that independence supporters are swayed in their voting intentions by whether they ‘don’t like’ Nickla Sturgeon or ‘don’t like’ Alex Sammind, that said Salmond is in it for ‘revenge’ (ffs) or that Salmond supporters take to the comments section of WoS in their droves to slag-off Nicola Sturgeon are puerile, at best.
Drive the unionists out of The Scottish Parliament by using your list vote wisely, depending on the particular circumstances in your area.
”Drive the unionists out of The Scottish Parliament by using your list vote wisely, depending on the particular circumstances in your area.”
Thanks for the advice, macnero. That’ll be SNP x 2 for me.
Puerile at best is a fairly apt description of the comments section on wos regarding Nicola Sturgeon, a quick scan by a visitor looking back over the last 12 months would testify as to accuracy of DR Jim’s comment.
Aye that may well be but who made the comments ? Independence supporters ? not likely. agitators attempting to divide the independence movement ? highly likely.
Has the Rev removed the comments ?
Campbell for he ain’t no Rev, commented in The National to bloggers that he would not recommend votes for the snp.
Nice of the Lib-dem britnat living in England for his words of wisdom. When this was written he was probably aware of Salmond’s intentions or am I being conspiracist ?
I wouldn’t know as I’ve never seen them but whether he has or not the fact remains that we don’t know who wrote them. Where do the millions The UK Gov. spend on defending their precious ‘union’ go ?
ut, Golfnut, thee Born Again Albas are going to vote SNP 1 & Alba 2, and urge us to vote SNP 1 & Alba 2, despite 18 months of SNP Sturgeon bile on Campbell Grouse Beater and others..
They’ll vote Red Tory 1 & Alba 2 of course.
Tommy Sheridan?
Whit.
Not since Captain Bluebeard’s gang of cut throats, pillagers and looters washed up on the Barbary coast, has such a rag tag of freebooters been assembled to rob honest folk.
I wonder what the poor fools who voted Macaskill.SNP are thinking right now?
SNP 1 & SNP 2.
Candidates/ Political parties require to demonstrate track record of service to the public, oh, and a manifesto.
Planting a saltire on a hillside and ‘take to the streets’ doesn’t do it for me, and over 2 million AUOB pro Self Determination Scots.
None of WoS BTL will vote SNP, and would laugh like drains if we voted Alba while they vote Anything But SNP/ Sturgeon.
Yeah the Alex Salmond party is as pure as the driven snow in its motives, that’s why every day they brag about more defections to come from the SNP to their right and just party, this is a subversive campaign to destroy the SNP and FM by Salmond and his wee subversive website mouthpiece
oh yeah. I see where the subversion lies – in playing the double-game of claiming to be an ‘Alex Salmond Party’ supporter on WoS while slagging off Nicola Sturgeon, then coming on here under another pseudonym to berate those imaginary partisans for it. Classic tactics. I won’t work, of course, as most people, like me, just want their country wrested from the criminally corrupt grasp of Westminster and will vote for the best way to achieve it, regardless of the personalities involved.
MacNero
Who voted for Salmond to lead Alba.
He has been self anointed
Is this not undemocratic?
The members of Alba ? did you get a vote on who leads the ‘Scottish’ LibDems, Labour or Conservatives ?
then that would be ‘Green 2’, macnero.
The btl on Get Nikla sites will not vote SNP, 1 or 2.
They declare long and loud that they hate the SNP and Sturgeon.
It’s a Big Fat Con, and we are having none of it.
I hope that you have all enjoyed your brief visit to WGD..now back to the dung heap of Bath.
Salmond and his Last Gasp Party are a laughing stock.
Meanwhile, back in the Real World, where Salmond Phishing in the Yeah Men pales into pointless frippery:-
Covid Up date
Scottish numbers: 28 March 2021
Summary
422 new cases of COVID-19 reported
17,627 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results – 2.6% of these were positive
0 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
22 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
264 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
2,385,709 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 312,320 have received their second dose
We are coming out the other ends, magnificently led by our medics, support staff, emergency services, Local Authority teams, and the Scottish Government, led by the most outstanding politician of the 21st Century…
Aye, great to see light at the end of the tunnel, Jack,
We’ll have that Guinness yet! (And it’s my round, old fellow. I’ll get some of the gorse out of my deep Aberdonian frugal pockets and find a bawbee or twa).
Mind and record the event!
Salmond’s “super majority” is just a smokescreen for his “get Sturgeon” plan, if Alba hold the balance at Holyrood after the election, Nic’s toast.
I wonder what Alba has to offer the Scots and has AS got his answer ready, this time around, to what currency we’ll use in an independent Scotland?
http://www.snp.org/in-this-election-were-setting-out-our-positive-upbeat-and-optimistic-case-for-scotlands-future/
…………………………….
Richard Murphy doesn’t seem to be too impressed.
Richard Murphy:- ”Alba.’
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/03/27/alba/
Did Richard Murphy communicate his not being ‘too impressed’ to you in a secret message ? as I can’t work it out from viewing the link you posted.
”what currency will ye use” – straight out of the unionist deflection handbook but this time directed solely at Alex Salmond ! 😂😂
No big secret macnero. He communicated his not being too impressed in the btl section.
It’s no big secret either that AS botched up Indyref1 with his extremely poor response to the currency question. One that we’ve, more so Nicola Sturgeon, been left to deal with constantly since 2014. I was just wondering if over the last 7 years or so he’s taken the time to figure out what to say about it now. And by the way, the Unionists won’t be ”deflecting” on that one when they get the chance to question him on his policies, etc.
What currency did all the other countries that have gained their independence from the ‘UK” use ? we’ll use one of them or anything we fancy. 🙄 I vote we call it ‘the Boris’ as he’s done a lot to boost support for independence.
FMQ’s doesn’t bear thinking about now, Alex.
I’m sure many remember this advert using Dougie McLeans ‘ Caledonia ‘. It was forced off air after just 3 weeks. A wee lump in my throat just watching it.
Sorry folks, I’m not sure why if it’s part of a post on FB it can’t be shown here.
It depends on whether it was posted on a closed Facebook group (you have to be a member of the group)and the sharing option that OP has picked
Golfnut,
Have you seen/heard KT Tunstall and Alan Cummings video version of Caledonia?
It was released about two months ago, worth a look.
Yes I have thanks, really surprised at how good Cummings was.
Another great version from Paolo Nutini.
👍
Good analysis from What Scotland Thinks of the likely support for the Alba Party based on the popularity of Alex Salmond. Mostly socially conservative Brexiteers apprently. https://twitter.com/WhatScotsThink/status/1376419618579955714?s=20
Interesting Capella. Over and above the currency question will AS tell us if he IS anti-EU or will he just wait for reports like this before he lays out his position?
..”Significantly, however, the figure is even higher, amongst those independence supporters who voted for Brexit. Among this group, 28 per cent hold positive views about Mr Salmond and 15 per cent at least do not have negative feelings – a significant 43 per cent in total (compared to only 25 per cent amongst independence supporting ‘Remain’ voters). In their initial TV interviews Alba representatives have been careful not to adopt an anti-EU position. Yet at the same time they have been very careful not to present an explicitly pro-EU message either.”…
………………………….
He, AS, also claims to be supportive of the SNP. If that’s the case maybe he could have a wee word with his symbiotic mate in Somerset and ask him if he could start using his site to attack the BritNats again, rather then the SNP, and get some influential facts online for a change. Following years of doing nothing for the independence cause, rather undermining it, it’s the very least that they can do with 7 weeks to the election.
WoS acolytes are still circulating anti SNP / Nicola Sturgeon smears and sneers at a steady rate. No sign of conciliation there.
Does anyone else think that the women of the Western Isles would be loath to see Angus MacNeil join Alba?
‘SNP insider says party is braced for more defections to Alba.’
http://www.thenational.scot/news/19193737.snp-insider-says-party-braced-defections-alba-party/
……………………………………………….
‘SNP membership grows and Alba responds to ‘black arts’ website hack.’
http://www.thenational.scot/news/19193738.snp-membership-grows-alba-party-responds-black-arts-website-hack/
Can anyone tell me if Kenny MacAskill has resigned as an SNP MP from the Commons or can he keep his seat AND stand for Alba?
………………………………….
‘Alex Salmond NOT in line-up for BBC leader’s debate tomorrow.’
http://www.thenational.scot/news/19193740.salmond-not-line-up-bbc-leaders-debate/
…………………………………
Well that’s a great start, right enough 🙄.
‘Scots may have to take to streets to achieve independence, says Alex Salmond.’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/alex-salmond-scottish-independence-protests-b1823543.html
MacAskill will have to resign a an SNP member but can still keep his Commons seat as an Alba MP. That’s why they are bosting that they have more MPs than Labour. His constituents are not impressed.
I expect Angus McNeil will follow suit. Apparently the Alba party are OK about a dual mandate.
bosting = boasting 🙂
They’ve got some brass neck on them, Capella. If they are so taken with Alba they should have the guts to break away altogether and make a fresh start. Forget about the constituents. It looks as though money is ONE of the key factors here. I’ll refrain from outlining the others. I don’t know about Angus MacNeil. I’ve got lots of friends and relatives living in the Western Isles and the women in particular have not been amused with AS’s antics. In saying that did Kenny MacAskill suss out how his East Lothian constituents felt about AS before he defected?
The London manipulators hit gold when they concocted this anti-indy campaign, playing as much on good old Presbyterian Scots morality as on suspicion from years of backstabbery from the halls of Westminster.
The AS trial made no sense to me other than to sully his reputation, the NS+PM conspiracy made no sense other than to inflame division, the possibility of the tribal divide closing on List votes will have caused panic.
The List vote was a democratic rebalance of Holyrood to ensure more even representation, but let’s not kid ourselves that all 3 principal anti-indy parties have colluded for years to abuse it, so the Alba initiative if it can be made to work will throw a very large spanner in the works.
As @stewartb noted upthread, PQ immediately posted a completely misleading article on AMS, DRoss went all theatrical on inviting other parties (presumably to imply they don’t already) into a coalition/conspiracy, so even the spineless are suffering up and down shivers.
Forget the individuals involved, forget the manifold conspiracies and rumours in circulation, just look at the reaction from the Unionists and their media pals, that tells you much more…
SNP to give free laptop to every P1 to S6 if re-elected. Rumour has it BJ has suggested to DR to counter this they offer a free lapdance to every red blooded male.
What personally?
You get a choice, do you have any inkling for a Baroness?
…I’d sooner have a lapdance with The Alien.
That for that mental image Tam.
I may have to delay luncheon as a consequence.
🤣
if Alba wants to be taken seriously then filling its ranks with misfits, a few of the downright mischievous and a smattering of closet misogynists is not the way to go.
As a Scot with some pride still left despite taking a battering for many years from all sides, I want to see politicial Parties operating in Scotland that we can be proud of, even if we don’t always agree with all their policies. We need to know they are truly working for our country, not embarking on massive ego-trips or bent on revenge. This new grouping doesn’t, for the moment at least, fill me with confidence. It’s reason for being is all wrong. The timing is wrong. it feels like something that has been stitched together by a group of angry men behind closed doors.
Totally agree JoMax. You shall know them by the company they keep. Let them show us that misogny and revenge are not a driving motivation here.
I feel exactly as you do, JoMax, and that’s what fills me with dread in looking beyond this election. The very thought of the, let’s call them bullish, individuals that we know of already sitting in Holyrood putting questions to Nicola Sturgeon just turns my stomach. This isn’t what I dreamt of as I worked my backside off for independence. The whole set up stinks to high heaven and when I hear that Murray is joining the cabal that’ll be the last straw for me.
We should have known that this would come to pass. A tarnished Alex Salmond wasn’t going to sit at home stagnating as he attempted to write his memoirs into old age. He wasn’t going to be offered a position in his local bank or at the UN. Doing the rounds of ”talks”, to make some dough, wasn’t going to happen for him either. He had basically become a persona non grata. So what was left open to him? Sue the Government and make his way back to a known safe house, i.e. Holyrood. As I see it we’re lumbered with him whether we like it or not. I’ll be watching and waiting, as no doubt many others will do, to see how he and his crew treat Nicola Sturgeon. We won’t of course ever know of what goes on behind the scenes. TBH, I don’t see Nicola Sturgeon hanging around for much longer. She’ll hopefully get us our independence and get the cudos for doing so and then will probably move on to pastures new. The World for someone like her, decent, honest, compassionate and highly intelligent, is her oyster. Great for her. Too bad for us.
Exactly Petra.
JoMax
Totally agree.
Totally agree. Something definitely seems wrong with the Alba party
My thoughts exactly.
‘IndyPosterBoy Independence posters, flyers, cards and banners.’
https://indyposterboy.scot/
…………………………………
Check out Ann’s latest links on the Indyref2 site.
https://indyref2.space/forum/topic/links-monday-29-march-2021/
Some days when starting up the PC, I just search ‘news’. One random story made me pause. A story about a Welsh Tory that quit to run as Independent. Not so big a story, but I wonder if the Beeb are on it or not.
Notice the Torygood story is older than the Tory-bad story, but is ahead in the pack, so it’s not politics being shoved away to the end, and especially with the political news stories in Scotland this week being front and centre.
The Beeb is sooo at it. Anyway, one to share with Welsh Indy folk if it disappears off the front page too soon.
While Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP make new policy announcements of their intentions over the next few years to help improve Scotland’s ongoing daily life while we’re imprisoned within this Union up to and including an Independence referendum to get us out of it, the policy announcements of the Alex Salmond party are to clear out the judiciary the civil service and a full clear out of Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP themselves, yet to do this Salmond must attempt to recruit as many SNP representatives as he can while at the same time claiming he’s *here to help*
Does any of this sound vaguely familiar?, that was Donald Trump’s plan, Boris Johnson is doing it, and a guy in Germany did it a number of years ago, and what was their main policy announcement on how to achieve success? to get rid of people they didn’t like, in other words insist that everyone else is bad bar them and only they can fix *things* by having no policy other than *A clear out*
Supporters of the Salmond party can call this whatever they want but actions and behaviour indicate otherwise, and remember even when Scotland decides to vote YES to Independence we’ll still be negotiating the settlements of it for a few years, so what are the future policies for Scotland in the meantime while the wrangling goes on Mr Salmond party?
And a gentle breeze wafts by in silence
The notion that westminster is running scared of Alex Salmond the new Alba party is laughable. It will all come out in the wash no doubt.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1081934212006008/permalink/1565284033671021/
Meantime defections from the SNP are going to be headlined big time in the media.
Stay strong.If you feel yourself weakening, a good dose of did commentary and articles is recommended to purge the system.
SNP 1 & 2
Should read ‘ a good dose of wos commentary ‘
Front page story in the Herald today: Alex Salmond wants to help write the independence White Paper. That went so well the last time…not
i think Alex is always let down by his overwhelming modesty
The 650 page suicide note, gave the Britnats enough ammo for the whole campaign. We needed something short, what the opportunities are, not the detail. There is no point throwing hypothetical financial scenarios up in detail, there will always be opposite stats which can be produced.
In the end it’s a simple question, do we want to be governed by the politician’s we elect or by those another country elects. If the people of Scotland decide they want to be one of England’s last colonies then there is nothing left but despair for many of us.
In the same way woodworm helps your furniture
Excellent speech from the FM on her Twitter account followed by trolling from WOS and the Salmond party who are proud to have their logos displayed so we’ll all know who they are
I’ve never seen anybody from the Green party Trolling the FM, they seem to co operate rather well on trying to get the job done
They’ve checked the figures, Dr Jim.
Salmond’s Ego Trip has bombed.
From my 1042 am post:-
“Not since Captain Bluebeard’s gang of cut throats, pillagers and looters washed up on the Barbary coast, has such a rag tag of freebooters been assembled to rob honest folk.
I wonder what the poor fools who voted MacAskill/SNP are thinking right now?”
The much quoted Groucho truisms:-
These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.’
and
“You need sincerity to succeed in politics. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.’
Baroness Rape Clause, ‘Mental Health’ Rennie, and now Salmond flying his saltire on a hillside.
By the looks of his generous girth, they’d need to install a funicular railway for the Great(er) Man to reach the summit.
It is a joke party, and the Brits must be creasing themselves at this pointless side show.
SNP 1 & 2.
Now, would all our visitors please go back to your spiritual home…
Terrence Callachan above was spot on with his statistics on the list vote. A matter of record. I was amazed that a few bloggers were having a go and insinuating this is some sort of diversion. That Terrence was some sort of Unionist or Alba infiltrator.
Terrence is correct. If you vote SNP 1 & 2 in every seat you ARE wasting votes if your list region that is anywhere other than the borders, Highland region or the Islands. This is factually correct.
My constituency near Perth has been SNP for donkeys for the constituency vote but had never had an SNP list seat. Last time it was 1 Green, 3 Tory and 3 Labour. Using this factual information I had planned to give my list vote to the Greens. I may go Alba, but will wait to read a few opinion polls. Maximise Yes st Holyrood is the game for me.
A general policy nationwide of SNP 1 & 2 is idiotic you need you look at where you live.
There is a huge caveat and therefore a huge problem with your conclusion. Your list vote is only “devalued” IF the, spectacular, result from 2016 is matched or bettered.
The problem with Terence’s analysis is that it presupposes that the constituencies are in the bag; which can never be guaranteed.
My list vote is still going to the SNP, it won’t be “wasted”; it’s there to insure against a poorer than hoped for constituencies outcome.
Until we actually see some credible polling figures, I’m going to remain cautious. You, Terence & others could do with a more measured approach; you could start by dropping the assumption that 2016’s constituency results are the sole determining factor.
“A general policy nationwide of SNP 1 & 2 is idiotic you need you look at where you live” and judge how the wind blows for the List region as a whole.
This will be a Holyrood election as no other with all that has transpired, the Tories are trying to promote their favoured strategy of low turnout with all sorts of tricks, polling may be the only helpful guide, and even if they are not infallible…
The unionist parties are going to “game the system” there are no safe constituency seats .
Has to be SNP 1 & 2
The main error here is the use of 2016 as the benchmark, 2011 best illustrates the benefits of SNP 1&2. A shortfall in constituency MS P ‘s can be made up through the list vote, which in 2011 gave the SNP a clear majority in Parliament. 14 SNP MSP’s are standing down this year, replaced by newbies, we have no idea how that will pan out. Make no mistake the tory’s will spend big to topple some of the big hitters like Swinney and Forbes. Assuming that the SNP are going to sweep the board for the constituecy’s is a massive mistake.
Westminster must be laughing there heads off at the lack of coherent thought on display by some on here.
Some thoughts and a question.
I did a wee straw poll at the weekend between friends and family. 6 people 2 male 4 female including me. All recent Snp voters. Only I have a major interest in politics. Not one of us is interested in voting for Alba. None of us have ever been a member of a political party. That is a very small sample but could be representative across the electorate which would not really bode well for Alba and it may be majority of those who vote Alba are disaffected Snp/Indy supporters
It is obvious to me that the Snp have suffered reputantional or brand damage in recent days due to those jumping ship to Alba. Anyone else who is going to go should go now as far as I am concerned.
There should be a sort of consumer protection for voters. Jumping to another party should mean triggering an automatic by-election
These defections may affect the Snp constituency vote
Another factor that may affect the constituency vote is that 14 Snp Msps have retired so 14 new candidates including one in my own constituency. That may affect Snp constituency votes too.Some people albeit a minority vote for the person not party
Here’s a question.
Electoral Commission information I read yesterday on Internet indicates candidate nominations for Scottish Parliament election need to be in by late afternoon on Wednesday 31 March Can an Snp candidate jumps ship to another party after that and if so would that deprive the Snp of having a candidate standing in that constituency at all?
Eilidh,
Your last question is a very good one albeit a very disturbing one given what we know of the collusion and planning that has gone into the launch of this party beforehand.
Time will tell. But it makes it even more important to be SNP1 (if possible) and SNP 2.
Pretty sure tgat if a cabpndidate dies jump ships after Wednesday then that does deprive tge SNP of a candidate. . . . . Iam sure I’ve heard of a candidate dying after nominations were in . . .so it goes to the polls with a dead person on the voting slip. . . . . And that persons party can’t stand another candidate because the paperwork won’t have the new persons name on it.
Spelling so bad I’ve submitted it again
Pretty sure that if a candidate does jump ships after Wednesday then that does deprive the SNP of a candidate. . . . . I Am sure I’ve heard of a candidate dying after nominations were in . . .so it goes to the polls with a dead person on the voting slip. . . . . And that person’s party can’t stand another candidate because the paperwork won’t have the new person’s name on it.
Tyere tats belter
🤣
hahaha 🙂
Love your spelling.🤣
Generally speaking candidates don’t choose to die during an election campaign. We know Neil Hanvey one of those who has spat the dummy and bolted
to the new party actually was elected as an Independent even though it said Snp on the ballot paper but he was only suspended from Snp at time of the GE due to ahem problems. Independents are on their own not part of a party. If people put their papers in to represent Snp and then bolt elsewhere morally that is electoral fraud particularly if it then stops Snp fielding a candidate. Whether it is against electoral rules may be another matter
“Missen Lister…..are you under the affluence of incahol?”
”Defections from the SNP to Alba ” – is this how Alex Salmond envisages ”helping” the SNP win a ”super-majority” ?
Integrity appears to a trait that is significantly missing from these defectors .
Yes , you are free to join another party if you wish .However none of these elected politicians were elected for the Alex Salmond Party – they got their votes by hanging on to the coattails of the SNP .
Integrity would be immediately renouncing their positions ( salary ? ) and stating that they will at the earliest opportunity put themselves up for re-election .
I may have missed these recantations but I am sure that those who are ‘honourable members ‘ will do so soon.
I seriously doubt that those who defected from the Snp understand the meaning of integrity but we’ll see
Eilidh :
I think the ” reputational damage ” is NOT to the SNP but to those who have betrayed their party and , more importantly , those who voted them into their positions .
I agree that there should a requirement for ALL electoral candidates to resign their position should they decide , for whatever reason , to defect from the banner under which they were elected .
I understand what you mean James but perception is everything and the fact that it has been all over the MSM that several Snp politicians have defected to Alba in past few days may make some switherin voters not want to risk the Snp this time in case their Msp bolts to Ecks new party. The fact that there are so many new Snp Msp candidates doesn’t help either. I am hopeful our new candidate will be fine but Gil Paterson current Msp for here is well known and respected and people know what he stands for
Salmond, a gambler, has turned a near certain majority for the SNP into a gamble as to how many pro independence MSP’s we get.
He (an unelected member of the public) has taken a gamble with the future of Scotland.
Surely the vast majority of Yessers in Scotland are wanting a government they can choose themselves, they want an honest leader, a leader they can trust, they want someone who is respected not only in Scotland, but the rest of the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world.? Nicola Sturgeon IS that Leader. She has worked hard for years to get Scotland where it is today. Recognised the world over as an aspiring country. It Mr Salmond most certainly is NOT honest or trustworthy and has done nothing at all to get Scotland recognised the world over. Stick with Nicola and SNP. Vote SNP 1&2.
👍
”They want an honest leader, a leader they can trust, they want someone who is respected not only in Scotland, but the rest of the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world.”..
Well that isn’t AS, Tatu. Things weren’t looking good for him on the International stage beforehand, but this latest carry-on will no doubt have seen him leap to well beyond the pale in the eyes of many leaders: People of substance.
agree with you Petra, he may have won his court case, but other countries will know he is not a good person.
I’m starting to sense a bit of a backlash against the Alba party among the mainstream Independence supporters. Alex Salmond has clearly stated that he would fight a positive campaign and that he wanted to move on from the events of the last couple of years and put all that behind him.
I don’t see much sign of that from Alba supporters on social media who continue to attack the SNP and leader, they remind me of UKippers and Brexiteers, permanently angry people who are upset that the rest of the world doesn’t share their opinion. It is an unpleasant look and not one that will be likely to attract many switherers that will vote SNP in the constituencies to give them their list vote.
The Alba party look like they will have their work cut out to make the kind of impact they had hoped they would with just a few weeks before the election. Just a few days in and already I hear more negativity than positivity surrounding them.
”I don’t see much sign of that from Alba supporters on social media who continue to attack the SNP and leader.”..
I don’t see much sign from AS’s lackey either. If Alex Salmond wants individuals to vote for his party he’ll have to do something about this kind of fiasco. Vote for Sarwar? I thought that he was the Slab leader or did I miss something, such as he’s just defected to the SNP now?
”Rev. Stuart Campbell says: 29 March, 2021 at 1:21 pm
“Vote Sarwar’..a hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha’.”
If you believe Sturgeon is a block on independence it’s a very rational position.”
I suppose the self cleansing of the snp with the miscreants running off to ALBA is actually helpful. Look who they are and their history.
It wouldn’t surprise me if another carpetbagger Galloway changed sides. With that lot together I can see a reality tv show starting up. Kezia Dugdale should be warned.
Aye saucers of milk all round for the next edition of big brother because politically where can they go when and if they fail
Long thread – What have the SNP Scottish Government Ever Done for Us? Useful reminder. https://twitter.com/rosscolquhoun/status/1373009974557863937?s=20
My wee birdy tells me that there are a couple more defections to come but they’re waiting until the last minute to do it so the SNP can’t replace them in the time and one name that’s just come up is Joan McAlpine
Salmond’s here to help alright
I just looked at her Facebook page. 2 hours ago she posted an article re Scottish child payment proposed increase that Nicola mentioned in her speech article contains the twitter hashtag Both votes Snp. If she bails to that other party now she will look ridiculous. Although the rest of the defectors already look like that
They should be asked publicly what their intentions are. If they have any respect to their constituents they should own up.
So they hope to be elected under the snp banner. I wonder if that is actually legal under the rules governing elections? Is it not personation? Fraudulent even?
SNP check with electoral registration.
The SNP is experiencing its Ratner moment.
It’s really disappointing, but inevitable because the SNP has been pissing on independence supporters who are of the ‘wrong type’ for the last few years, now it’s surprised and angry when they decamp.
What’s gone wrong is that the SNP was a ‘broad church’ open to lots of opinions, often expressed noisily in a democratic structure. It is now a closed group operated by an undemocratic cabal.
That only works for a short time unless you can use the weapons of state, eg the law, to keep the dissidents down, and even then that fails after a while.
The SNP should stop disparaging Alba supporters right now because it won’t take much more abuse for them to abstain instead of voting SNP 1, albeit holding their noses while doing so.
Then you won’t be holding your noses – you’ll be cutting them off to spite your face. The success of the Alba party strategy crucially depends on its supporters backing the SNP in the constituency vote. If you don’t vote SNP1, it’s you and the Alba party who lose
I agree, but nonetheless there are people who now find it very difficult to support the SNP.
There are even some who are going to cast their vote for Sarwar in the hope he unseats Sturgeon. I think that’s unwise, but it’s their vote not mine, and that’s the whole point of democracy.
It’s also why any organisation that relies on external support, be it customers or a political party, should take a lesson from Ratner. The Labour Party in Scotland didn’t, and look at them now.
The vote for Sarwar group are labour in Alba / wings clothing/
They support a millionaire who’s old man was MP and ripped his British Passport up so he could be elected in Pakistan. Another stalwart labourite.
Sarwar no Independence, no to a referendum. Aye let’s vote for him say the patriots. Cobblers.
They’ve chosen to attack the independence movement not support it. So be it. We don’t need them. We’ll do it without them. A couple of years from now no-one will even remember them.
Hate to tell you this but you absolutely do need the SNP. You won’t do it without them. You’ll just consign Scotland to decades of Tory rule and they’ll ensure that we will never get another chance at independence. Then the Alba party will be remembered – they’ll be remembered as the party that destroyed Scotland’s hopes of independence. The Tories absolutely LOVE people like you
Agreed. My fault if I didn’t make myself clear but I was referring to Alba. IMO they won’t help. Quite the reverse.
Ah sorry, my mistake
Kettle black.
It only works if people stick together and stop dissing one another.
It is not about personalities. It is about Independence to make the world a better place. More cohesive and equal. If everyone would stop dissing each other and work together. The point of Independence.
Leaders come and leaders go. Independence is more important.
Salmond doesnt agree otherwise he would say vote snp 1 & 2 or Greens.
I had my chance in 2014 but no he has chosen another me me me route.