It’s the local elections tomorrow, and as with every election in Scotland over the past few years, it will be used as a proxy referendum on support for independence. However the anti-independence media and parties will as always ignore votes cast for pro-independence parties other than the SNP when they try to spin the results afterwards. We saw this very clearly after last year’s Holyrood election when the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems tried to build a narrative, with the support of Scotland’s overwhelmingly anti-independence media that the current Scottish Parliament does not in fact have a mandate for a second independence referendum because the SNP narrowly failed to win an outright majority in their own right in a Parliament which uses a voting system deliberately designed by Labour and the Lib Dems to produce minority governments which must govern in coalition with, or with the support of, other parties.
The Conservatives have been assiduous in promoting this false narrative, and ignore the fact that the SNP is not the only pro-independence party represented in Holyrood and elected on a manifesto commitment to a second independence referendum, and the SNP was not the only party on the ballot paper which promised another independence referendum if it was elected. The current Scottish Parliament holds the greatest pro-independence majority in the history of the devolved parliament, a majority made up of SNP and Green MSPs, both parties which figured an explicit and unequivocal commitment to a second independence referendum prominently in their Holyrood manifestos. However the Greens’ support for another independence referendum is discounted in the anti-independence narrative of the Conservatives, while the votes cast for those pro-independence parties, such as Alba or the SSP, which failed to get any of their candidates elected might as well not exist as far as the anti-independence media spin of the Tories and their Labour and Lib Dem fellow travellers is concerned.
Note the double standard at play here, opponents of independence would never say that votes cast or candidates elected for just the Conservatives alone is an effective proxy for gauging support for opposition to independence. They naturally want to count the votes of all MSPs from parties opposing another referendum when it comes to justifying their opposition to it, and democracy demands that they are right to do so. However democracy equally demands that the votes of all MSPs from parties supporting another referendum count too, but the false story that we are told is that it’s only the SNP’s representation which matters.
If the SNP does poorly in tomorrow’s election, the media and anti-independence narrative will be that Scotland has turned its back on independence. This will still be the story that they try to spin us even if the Greens, Alba, or any of the other pro-independence parties do spectacularly well. A catastrophe for the Conservatives however, will be explained away as due to temporary and transitory factors such as the lying and law breaking leadership of Boris Johnson, factors which the Conservatives will claim that they will remedy by electing another entitled lying charlatan as their leader.
What the Conservatives most certainly will never acknowledge is that a drop in support for them could due to a widespread loss of faith in the Westminster system, this is of course because they are the party which has single-handedly done the most – by quite some considerable margin – to undermine any residual trust in the institutions of the British state, and they will never admit that the reason the UK is broken is because they were the ones who broke it.
However if the SNP does well, then the spin will be that people are voting according to other issues and that the electoral dominance of a pro-independence party has nothing at all to do with support for independence.
Nevertheless it is vital for independence and for hopes of a second independence referendum that pro-independence parties in general, and the SNP in particular, do well in tomorrow’s vote. The British state and the parties of British nationalism, whether or not they admit to their British nationalism (and they generally don’t) know that their positive case for the UK is very poor and gets even poorer with every new Westminster scandal so they have a difficult time in making new converts to their cause. Instead they are engaged in a campaign of attrition, hoping to exhaust, demoralise and divide support for Scottish independence and by doing so weaken and hollow out support for independence from within.
As I remarked in a previous blog post, it is clear from the results of recent elections in Scotland that the opinions of political bloggers, myself included, have very little impact on the outcome of the vote, we generally write for readerships who are already politically engaged and who as such have already made up their own minds about which parties they are inclined to vote for. Bloggers such as myself do not influence the electoral choices that will be made but rather help to validate the electoral choices that have already been made.
I already have my own opinions about which are my preferred parties in tomorrow’s vote, and I have no doubt that you do too. There is only one pro-independence candidate, the SNP candidate, standing in my ward and he will be getting my first preference vote. I will give my second preference to a local independent candidate who I understand is neutral on the subject of Scottish independence, or at least is not rabidly opposed to it. The Conservative will be ranked last.
For everyone else. all I will say is to repeat my previous advice that as an independence supporter the best way to get the best outcome for Scottish independence is to rank pro-independence candidates first, in your own chosen order of preference, and to ensure that you rank them above candidates who oppose independence, then to rank the Conservatives and other rabid British nationalists last of all. Local circumstances will of course make a difference here. You may have a local Labour candidate who is sympathetic to the idea of another independence referendum, or the Labour candidate may be as much of a British nationalist frother as the Conservatives. You will have to make your own decisions based on local knowledge and local candidates.
However the ideal result will be to give the Tories an electoral drubbing and to wrest councils out of their clutches. We will find out after tomorrow. Our biggest enemy is apathy, so it is vital to get out the vote.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
Going to really stick my neck out here: the SNP will get the most first preferences and most seats, but less than half the popular vote. You heard it here first.
I assume this is jest! 🙂
Multi-party PR elections such as STV or AMS never deliver >50% for a single party. Jeez, it’s very unusual even under 2-3 party FPTP. Here, under STV, Green voters are free to rank Green first in a way they cannot for Holyrood for the constituency. So in fact something more like the list outcome would be expected, taking into account the effects of independents.
I’m just hoping the total pro-indy party total share is up on last time, and they take more seats. But I expect a sizeable ‘independent’ candidate share which will ultimately reduce the totals of all mainstream parties compared to Holyrood. After all, this is a council election and ultimately naff all to do with indy. The Tories getting a gubbing would be really nice too.
What I’m really watching for a Sinn Fein FM and potential whupping of the British parties in N. Ireland. That will mean half the UK now starting to make a beeline for the exit. 100 years of unionist rule in NI would end and the knock-on effects for our own status cannot be ignored. Both the domestic – and potential international ramifications – would be huge.
Any party that can achieve over 35% of the vote in council elections is huge, more is massive because the voting system is so rigged as to disallow very much more, plus the footfall in these elections is always lower, again because folk have little faith in electoral systems in Scotland that are almost impossible to lead to a majority so confidence in them always tends to be less
Our systems in Scotland for voting were deliberately designed to have no outright winners unlike England’s first past the post winner takes all as happens in general elections, so the only way a party can *win* is to encourage as many voters as possible to turn out and make their mark then hope that more of their supporters turned out than others
Today the push is on for the anti election bloggers and trolls to flood the internet and newspaper comments sections with their misinformation and not a small amount of deliberate badness in the hope of discouraging voters from shifting from their sofas and doing what is necessary to achieve what they want, they’ll spin all sorts of yarns and stories in efforts to convince voters to either not vote because it’ll make no difference or vote for a party or person who cannot make one iota of difference to anything but will insist they can
If it’s Independence you want then the choice is easy, if not then that choice is easy too, but remember one thing in all Scottish elections, Tories never sleep when it comes to getting their vote out, they never have to drag their voters kicking and screaming to the polling stations, because their mission in life is to stop Scotland having any power over itself, pure and simple, voting for English parties stops Scotland from doing anything
In these elections there are more independent candidates than ever before, now you could say on the one hand that might be a good thing not being politically affiliated to any party, or you could say if you vote for those folk they do not have to keep their word on a single thing they’ve ever said because there’s no political party to keep them to their word and they’ll sit on your council earning wages till the next election before you can be rid of them (buyer beware)
As my Daddy used to say if you want to hammer in a big nail get a big hammer, the moral of the story being lots of little hammers with everybody getting a shot means somebody will eventually bend and ruin the nail and you’ll never get it hammered in
The SNP have the biggest hammer, let them bang the nail in
“(buyer beware)”
I’m with you on this Dr Jim.
Yes Paul, I hope the right choice is made by people tomorrow.
Great points made by you in this article….as per.
My Ward has only one SNP candidate and no Green or Alba or Independent who supports Indy. So no matter what happens there will be 2 Unionists. 😡
I only ranked the SNP candidate. I couldn’t bring myself to rank any of the others. Also, I’m not entirely certain how not voting for someone can possibly assist them. They’re all as bad as each other IMO.
I have a postal vote BTW, the polls weren’t opened up early in these high pastures.
Some folk feel the vote till you boak idea is valid, I don’t, so I agree with you that not voting for someone is just that, no preference for a particular party or parties, why should anyone be encouraged to say they have to *prefer* someone last when they don’t prefer them at all
Democracy’s great innit
My tory visitor after asking him if he supported the buffoon in westmonster and failing to answer departed with ‘I’ll be happy if you vote for me number six.
They consider a vote of any kind is a vote for.
They can’t transfer a vote to a liblabtory unless you’ve put a number against liblabtory party’s.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
My ward has:
1 SNP
2 A total nut case (have had the misfortune of meeting him) of a ‘Liberal Democrat’
3 An eedjit Tory
4 A ‘Freedom Alliance’ twat
5 An ‘Independent’ (aye right)
6 A ‘Labour’
7 A ‘Family First’ German ex homosexual porn star, who now appears to be against LGBT(etc) and
further right than the Reichstag.
Any ideas?
I think I have to just go with 1.
Independent
Don’t have tea with strangers my mither would always say.
That list Independant spells WARD 1.
Sad that no Green was available. We here wonder why.
Ot
Is there an accountant out there?
The 2 ferries at Ferguson are now to cost £206million =£206,000,000-00
The additional monies paid for London’s cross rail – supposed to be ready in 2018 was £4 billion over the original £14.4 billion. For the £4,000,000,000-00 Cal Mac could have 19 new ferries in total.
For the other £14.4 billion carry out your own calculation.
HS2 costs are “ The current estimated cost of HS2 is between £72bn and £98bn (at 2019 prices), compared with an original budget of £55.7bn in 2015 (at 2015 prices).
The research for the pretend bridge over the sea to Ireland was nearly £1million
Johnson’s failed garden bridge proposal a mere £24 million
COVID PPE fraud over £4.3 billion
Which would build how many ferries or for that matter how many nurses, physios, OT’s, Doctors.
Some other reasons we need independence but we have a mandate already from last years Scottish Elections
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61095510
Is a pound spent in England worth so much less than a pound spent in Scotland? Is that the reason why opponents of the Scottish Government – media and politicians – adopt such different standards of scrutiny, have such different thresholds for being ‘outraged’ or ‘scandalised’, over public spending in Scotland and England? Of course, it’s really not about money, its about attempted denigration of government in Holyrood in the cause of British/English nationalism and Unionism!
To the spending examples given by Hamish100, I’ll add two more. I describe them at some length because I think the details are interesting and important.
From the specialist magazine ‘New Civil Engineer’ on 2 October, 2020: ‘The £4bn restoration programme of the Palace of Westminster has been criticised for “unacceptably slow” progress after a new report revealed delays to repair works were costing £2M a week.’ So keep in mind £4 billion!
Source: https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/palace-of-westminster-restoration-delays-cost-taxpayer-2m-a-week-02-10-2020/
By 19 January, 2021 the specialist magazine ‘Building’ was reporting: ‘The true cost of the Palace of Westminster refurb programme is likely to be at least £12bn – three times higher than previously thought estimates of £4bn, according to sources close to the programme.
‘….. Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, told Building the cost could be “at least” £12bn.’ So a threefold increase in estimated costs over a 12 month period – and presumably as the clock ticks on there is still the wracking up of an additional £2 million per week!
Source: https://www.building.co.uk/news/parliament-refurbishment-will-cost-at-least-12bn-chair-of-spending-watchdog-says/5109926.article
But then there are these revelations which I posted here on 11 March, 2022:
The House of Commons Library has just (10 March, 2022) issued a briefing on the latest cost estimates for renovating the Palace of Westminster. It’s entitled ’Restoration and Renewal – developments since October 2019’. Here are some of its key points (with my emphasis):
1) an early-stage assessment of the overall potential cost and schedule of the ESSENTIAL SCHEME of the Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Programme” estimates the costs at between £7 billion to £13 billion, and would take between 19 and 28 years. The Palace would need to be vacated for 12 to 20 years. The ‘Essential Scheme’ concentrates on “critical improvements of the palace, such as removing asbestos, reducing fire risk and replacing essential building services.
2) the briefing also reports on two scenarios being considered which would involve a ‘continued presence’ of the Parliament within the Palace of Westminster:
Scenario 1: chamber business would initially continue in the Commons Chamber, moving to the Lords Chamber. This would cost from £9 BILLION TO £18.5 BILLION AND TAKE BETWEEN 26 AND 43 YEARS.
Scenario 2: chamber business would continue in the Commons Chamber throughout the works. This would cost from £11 BILLION TO £22 BILLION AND TAKE BETWEEN 46 AND 76 YEARS.
The notion of estimating project/programme costs under these scenarios with any accuracy for activities to be conducted over periods of between 26 and 76 years seems rather fanciful – to say the least!
For perspective, the Holyrood parliament was built in c.5 years for c.£431 million. I well recall the media induced scandal at this scale of expenditure. And this was paid for from within the Scottish Government’s assigned budget without additional UK government financial support.
Source: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN03357/SN03357.pdf
The second example is on the ‘problems” with the MoD’s AJAX programme to procure armoured vehicles. It’s worth £5.5 billion.
In a recent report, the National Audit Office noted (again with my emphasis):
1) ‘In 2014, the Department extended its expected in-service date by three years when it set an initial operating capability (IOC) of July 2020. The programme subsequently missed a revised target date of June 2021. ………….. These ISSUES REMAIN UNRESOLVED, and the Department has NOT YET SET a new target date for IOC.’
2) ‘The Department DOES NOT KNOW WHEN Ajax will be operational and has already extended its expected in-service date by more than four years.’
3) ‘The Department will not set a new target date for IOC until it has agreed with GDLS-UK (it’s contractor) on how to resolve the noise and vibration issues. It has not yet changed the target for full operating capability (FOC) – April 2025 – even though IT HAS NO CONFIDENCE that this is achievable …’
4) ‘The Department and GDLS-UK DID NOT UNDERSTAND the scale of work or technical challenge, resulting in insufficient contingency in the programme schedule.
5) ‘‘The Department has NOT MANAGED THE PROGRAMME EFFECTIVELY.’
Can you imagine the outcry if Audit Scotland had reported on a public procurement programme in Scotland in such terms? And yet despite this being a £5.5 billion programme, the mainstream media and the BBC are SILENT!
Recall that in both these examples – the Palace of Westminster and the MoD’s AJAX programme – Scotland will be assigned a share of the public expenditure made ‘on our behalf’ as these are reserved matters, matters over which voters in Scotland have no effective agency!
Stewartb
….and the poor will get poorer.
This on HS2 on the Marr (Jail the Nats) show, October 2013.
“Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has said he is “very confident” that the HS2 high-speed rail project will be delivered under budget.
Mr Alexander stressed that the Government would stick to the £42.6 billion budget for the rail project which will link London to the north as senior Labour figures appeared to cool on the plans.
His comments came ahead of a crucial week for HS2 when Labour support may be needed for the Government’s proposals to continue their passage through the House of Commons as a number of Tory MPs are preparing to rebel and vote against a Bill which paves the way for the project.
Mr Alexander told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “The real cost is the budget that we set out in June this year – £42.6 billion. It hasn’t changed at all.
“That number includes within it a significant amount of contingency.
“I’m very confident that, as we work through the project and deliver it, we will not just deliver it within that budget but, like the Olympic Stadium project, under budget too.
“That is something I’m working very, very hard to make sure happens.
“We are applying the same techniques we used to deliver the Olympic Park to the HS2 project.”
Asked if he could guarantee that the final bill for HS2 would not be a penny more than the £42.6 billion budget, Mr Alexander said: “We have set that budget and we will stick to it.”
What an idiot.
Now any sane individual knew that this was arrant nonsense at the time, but Marr’s job then was to interject the occasional assuring nod,to con England into believing that HS2 would be as cheap as chips.
Of course, Alexander’s the man who sacked 500,000 public servants, his part in the savage cuts which killed 120,000 UK citizens prematurely.
9 years on and the estimates have doubled, while Scotland, which will never benefit from England’s Rail Folly will have to stump up roughly ten billion, so that trains from Birmingham will zoom to London in 70 minutes.
Alexander was rewarded with a post politics Job For The Boy in a Chinese Bank?
When we leave England behind we won’t be paying 10% of the bill for any of England’s public works, which will save a lot more than the farcical 15 billion GERS ‘deficit’ Project Fear kept harping on about.
Scotland will be free of all this English nonsense very soon now.
OT, for info. A headline from Herald’s front page, and picture title:
“Union warns strikes over ministers’ ‘illegal pay inducement’ to Scotland’s Navy’ now inevitable”
with the usual comments BTL about Scotland having no navy.
MPV Minna, length: 42 meters, top speed: 14 knots, 718 g.r.t.
MPV Jura, length: 84 meters, top speed: 18 knots, 2,181 g.r.t.
MPV Hirta, length: 84 meters, top speed: 18 knots, 2,181 g.r.t.
(MPV for Marine Protection Vessel used to be FPV for Fisheries). For comparison, the smaller Minna which is used inshore (mostly in the Clyde!) – the RN Archer Class wasis around 54 tonnes. And the RN Batch 1 River Class Offshore Patrol Vessels, used for UK fishery protection, are around 2,000 tonnes.
In theory at least, and arguably, upgunning the Jura and Hirta would give us a couple of basic OPVs. Jura herself of course was built at Fergusons, and is currently at Stornoway.
You’ve got to love the ignorant blind put downs of the Unionists.
(and the Hirta at Aberdeen).
Here’s a key reply on the Herald:
“Perhaps you failed to notice the Herald troll , who knows nothing about marine Scotland, their ships or why the “nickname”, go off topic to rubbish Scotland. Was I wrong to educate this no mark given I too , for now , support the union ?“
There are 7 candidates for 3 places in my ward, the two SNP will be first and second on my ballot paper followed by the Green candidate. There are no Independents standing only Unionist party candidates but as we currently have a Tory run administration I will rank the Labour and Lib Dem in 4th and 5th and stop there. I don’t think either Tory is any better than the other so no point ranking them.
My reasoning for ranking Lib Dem and Labour is that there is at least the possibility of the two non Tory candidates voting with the SNP and against the Tories on at least some motions and I’d rather have one of them on the council than a Tory who would always vote with their own party against the SNP.
Plus Nicola Sturgeon has said SNP councilors would work with any party other than the Tories and that councilors elected in their own areas would know best and it would be left up to them to decide who, if anybody, they might be prepared to work with.
That for me puts every other candidate ahead of the Tories and the extreme Tory parties like UKIP, Brexit Party, ect, so would be considered by me as possibly worthy of being ranked in the hope that it keeps a Tory out.
UK-wide result, but not looking good for Dougie.
Just got an email encouraging me to vote Alba. Wee problem with that is Alba are not standing in my ward. Thankfully 3 indy candidates are, so I’m sorted!
Normally get 2/3 pro-indy, and I’m gonnae vote till I boak in the hope of avoiding No 3 being a blue Tory again.
SSkier
Are you sure “independista Alba “ isn’t standing? I’m sure he would vote for you!!!
I’ve seen some of these Alba statements encouraging folk not to vote SNP at all or at least rank them last, I mean they are entitled to ask people to do that but they also should remember the Goose and Gander principle, and the SNP voters are most of the Geese and most of the Ganders
Plus why do Alba keep saying they support Independence but want the only party who have any possible hope in the universe of actually delivering that to fail, on present predictions if Alba continue to exist at all after these elections it would take them decades to get to where the SNP are now
STV and BBC are fairly screeching their heads off at us and stamping their feet over the idea that folk will vote on whatever issues they want to vote on, constitutional or otherwise in this election as they hammer away insisting we must only vote on bins and potholes, all very Anas Sarwar of them
I’ve never in my life seen the media in Scotland so agitatedly insistent about which issues voters should decide to cast their ballots about, could they be panicking about something that might happen that they don’t like? is the English gold coin not able to buy what it used to?
Keep repeating it’s the ferries..life is just a bawl of ferries. Monaco resident billionaire McColl branded Sturgeon a liar, doncha know?
The sad little amateurs Up Here can’t even run a smear campaign now.
Vote eraly, and vote often, Duggers.
Comres net favourability:
+13% Sturgeon
-4% Sarwar
-11% Slater
-12% Starmer
-14% Harvie
-17% Cole-Hamilton
-25% Ross
-48% Sunak
-58% Johnson
-63% Salmond
+6% The Scottish government
-46% The UK government
Further to Stewartb
Hinckley point a sink hole for public money not only on build time but spiralling costs. However it’s the eyewatering cost to the consumer and the dividends which will be paid to shareholders that the English need to wake up to.
Long read on wiki butt worth it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station#Economics
Tories in Scotland now distancing themselves from DRoss while DRoss is distancing himself from himself by replacing himself with the Baroness of cash Ruth Davidson who’s distancing herself from Boris Johnson who’s distancing himself from reality
Only people with no morals are going to vote for this shower
And yet no matter how busy James “We’ve seen the emails FM” Cook has been with his ferry stories, he finds a few moments to squeeze off a few, words of wisdom that is with his “Scottish council elections: Local issues and national questions”…
He appear oblivious to the fact his opinion is marginally less trusted than Dross and Sarwar and ACH-the tailor’s dummy combined…
From the Caribbean to Africa, to the Celtic colonies, it really is all coming to a head.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61320475
Kenya’s Talai clan petitions Prince William over land eviction
A group of more than 100,000 Kenyans from the Talai clan has written to Prince William to seek an apology, and his support for reparations for human rights abuses they say they suffered during the British colonial settlement.
[…] Source […]
Interesting debate on bbc NI-on iplayer.
Discussion over the border poll was surprising in that Sinn Féin would not give a proposed date for a referendum. I think ALBA better open up a branch office. The leadership of Sinn Féin are obviously in the pockets of the unionists and British government. Nicola Sturgeon should apologise forthwith. Lol.
It seems Sinn Féin view isn’t to hold a border poll when you can win. Who would have thought it.
From the news this morning, the DUP’s Donaldson got roasted on the leader’s debate about trying to shut down Stormont over the protocol if he lost the election. Got it from all sides.
I can’t help but wonder if Alliance might yet take second place. That would really be something.
… is to hold a border poll when you can win..
Sinn Féin knows that having a referendum means nothing at all. Only winning one does.
The latest poll on a United Ireland was held on 5/4/22, under the auspices of the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool/Irish News. The latter is the main nationalist newspaper in N.I.. It found that 31.9% would vote for a U.I. if a poll were held now. If it meant most people paying higher taxes, that fell to 24.9%. When people were asked if they would vote for a UI even if it meant having to pay a fee for NHS style healthcare services, the figure fell just below 24%. I believe people currently have to pay 50 Euros to see a GP in the ROI and 100 Euros to be seen at A&E. Sinn Fein have to ritually call for a border poll, they feel it motivates their base, but they know full well that only a British Sec. of State can call one, currently a border poll would result in a humiliating defeat
I think it likely Sinn Fein will end up as the largest single party following today’s poll, largely as a result of a decline in support for the other main Nationalist party, the SDLP. This won’t mean an end to Unionist rule in NI, Unionist rule ended 50 years ago with the prorogueing of the old Stormont parliament in 1972. Under our mandatory coalition system no party, or tradition, rules over any other. The socially conservative, anti-abortion Republican Party, Aontu, may take some votes from SF, some Catholic priests have put their heads above the parapet in recent days to denounce SF’s pro-abortion stance. Galvanized by anti-Protocol sentiment more Unionist voters are likely to turn out, but their votes will be split between three parties. At a polling station this morning there seemed to be a lot more people than usual, which may eat into the roughly 38% of our voters who habitually stay at home.
Mmm, from another universe. Herald headline:
““8 of the most exciting motoring events to check out this summer”
Sounds good, as does this: “By Herald Magazine
The best of our weekly guide to everything happening in Scotland”
Yes indeedy, I wonder what they pick as number 1 in Scotland? Here it is:
“1. Rule Britannia Sunday Goodwood, June 5”
eh? How’s about number 2, is that Knockhill?
“2. Brooklands Festival of Motorsport Brooklands, Surrey, June 18-19”
To cut to the chase, there is not one single one in wait for it, Jockland.
And they want to rob me of £96 a year to post there?
Ha ha. Hahahaha. You gotta be kidding. The Spectator is more Scottish!
You just cannot get the staff these days. I blame the internet.
There was a time the Herald said this:
“This newspaper has been a passionate advocate of Home Rule for Scotland and continues to be so.”
https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13180138.heralds-view-back-staying-within-uk-far-reaching-devolution/
Perhaps they meant “Home Counties”, though being less geographically challenged than them I do know that’s not accurate for Silverstone for instance. They certainly ain’t in Scotland though, they’re all a fairly short drive from London.
I will never let the Herald forget that “Herald View”, which they have betrayed practically every week ever since the 16th September 2014.
For those who can’t see the page, it’s here:
https://archive.ph/NUsVY
The Herald once a mighty and respected paper now toilet paper.
Now, it is hopeless at spreading news and informing its readership; but
as you say, Hamish, great for spreading sh1t.
I took this ‘paper for nigh on 50 years; then it was worth reading; not now.
If you’re ‘spreading’ it Jack,I respectfully suggest you’re doing it wrong.
Too much information … 🙂
Not enough roughage.
My voting options:
Indy:
SNP x2
Green
Unionist:
Con
Lab x2
Lib Dem
Neutral (so they say – not convinced)
Sco Family
So 5x potential unionist parties as far as I know. I can’t imagine a party started by ex-UKIPers (Sco Fam) to be pro-Indy more than pro-Union, nor can they be as pro-EU as they might be pro-Brexit imho.
So 3 Indy parties and 4 councillors to elect. So:
SNP
SNP
Green
and the last one…we shall see. I’ll spend the day swotting up on any or all of them, to see if I can find any skeletons from Indyref or Brexit or if they’re chancers (usually 😀 ). To be honest, as long as my three Indy preferences get in, any of them can have it, other than the Tories.
Correction:
So 3 Indy *candidates* and 4 councillors to elect.
Just returned from my VTYB outing, and feel better for it, at 8am there were only two of us voters there!
But it’s always a bit of a drawback when you know you are stuck in the Tory enclave that is Dumfries&Galloway – but I must remain optimistic this time – surely most former Tories will be too embarrassed to show their faces – then again……….!
Unfortunately tories vote in private.
We only have 3 councillors. At last council election we ended with up 1 Independent 2Tory 3Libdem sadly Snp councillor lost his seat. The Tory jumped ship to be an Independent a few months ago and is not standing again in this ward. We have 6 candidates this time so I will be voting
1 Snp
2 Green
3 Independent
4 Labour
5 Libdem
6 Tory
Independent guy gives no view on the constitution question but sometimes votes with Snp councillors. He won in last 2 elections last time on 1st choice votes alone
2. While I support the Green agenda I was somewhat reluctant to vote Green due to their obsession with building cycle lanes here and in Glasgow and their promoting imaginary bus services that are never going to exist. I wish I could have ranked all the Unionist parties joint 6 as I detest them all. I struggled to rank Labour 4th particularly as even Newsnight covered the ferry story the other night and I had to endure 2 scenes with Dumbartons answer to the Goodyear Blimp aka Jackie Baillie mouthing off about it but as Lib Dems are joint leaders of the council here they got placed at number 5 and the Tories will be where they should be Last!!!
Eilidh, we have four places; A choice of eight.
3 SNP, 1 Green, two Labour, one of whom is a tired old Blairite, the other a younger female, then 1 Lib Dem, then the solitary Blue Tory, who to his credit, actually sent his promo leaflet to us via the Post Office, in the certain knowledge that he has no chance in this neck of the woods.
SNP 1,2,3, then Green, merely because of the Coalition, then, Lib Dem (no leaflet) then the female Red Tory, then the Old dinosaur, then, and I’ll just have to wait and see if I can, the Blue Tory in 8th place.
For the first time since lock down, we will reume our electoral ritual of voting, then a curry at the best curry house outside India.
WE still wear masks outdoors, though, but, mind.
Good luck everyone.
Good luck everybody – especially to the candidates of the two political parties I belong to.
I’ll try to keep you updated of results from Cymru as and when they arrive.
Great news – Prof Robertson has another blog post up. Hope he keeps on posting:
The National takes a look at the voting patterns in key areas.
Scottish council elections: The key areas to watch as Scotland votes
https://archive.ph/Gdwjg
And advises on when we can expect a result in each local area:
Declaration times of Scottish council areas
Aberdeen: Friday daytime, 15:00
Aberdeenshire: Friday daytime, 15:00
Angus: Friday daytime, 15:00
Argyll & Bute: Friday daytime, 14:30
Clackmannanshire: Friday daytime, 14:30
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar: Friday daytime, 13:00
Dumfries & Galloway: Friday daytime, 14:00
Dundee: Friday daytime, 14:00
East Ayrshire: Friday daytime, 15:00
East Dunbartonshire: Friday daytime, 15:30
East Lothian: Friday daytime, 14:30
East Renfrewshire: Friday daytime, 14:00
Edinburgh: Friday daytime, 15:30
Falkirk: Friday daytime, 15:30
Fife: Friday daytime, 14:30
Glasgow: Friday daytime, 16:00
Highland: Friday daytime, 15:45
Inverclyde: Friday daytime, 14:00
Midlothian: Friday daytime, 16:00
Moray: Friday daytime, 12:30
North Ayrshire: Friday daytime, 15:00
North Lanarkshire: Friday daytime, 15:30
Orkney Islands: Friday daytime
Perth & Kinross: Friday daytime, 13:00
Renfrewshire: Friday daytime, 17:30
Scottish Borders: Friday daytime, 14:30
Shetland Islands: Friday daytime, 13:00
South Ayrshire: Friday daytime, 15:00
South Lanarkshire: Friday daytime, 16:00
Stirling: Friday daytime, 15:00
West Dunbartonshire: Friday daytime, 15:00
West Lothian: Friday daytime, 15:00
https://archive.ph/tFOHQ
All those who currently are saying local elections in Scotland not connected to what is happening with powers controlled by UK government thus how you vote today should not reflect your opposition to Boris Johnson and all Tory UK government are doing at WM …..
Perhaps I’m wrong on this but it was my understanding the UK Govt is planning to bypass Scottish government and pay money directly to local councils in Scotland….thus surely better to vote for a council that will be supportive of Scotland and it’s government at Holyrood and not one that will support and designate money in accordance with what UK government wants them to focus their spending on.
Thus by voting in dominant SNP and Green councillors in Councils in Scotland you will not get councils who will be complicit with promoting the priorities, in relation to both spending and the reducing of spending, in areas as dictated by the UK government. (I may be stating the obvious here but some people conveniently outwith here are going to great pains to emphasise the distinction between local and national Government as if there is no connection…..plus Tory/Labour/Lib Dem councils promote the lie that the Scottish government restrict/withhold funding to them which the Scottish Govt. say is NOT the case ).
Plus the UK government not replacing money Scotland had via EU membership in local council areas within Scotland……indeed less money than we had when members of EU…..to the detriment of local councils….i.e. areas where YOU are.
Also , in relation to ‘local’ Tory councillors keen to distance both themselves as ‘local’ politicians and the scandalous and corrupt practices connected to Boris Johnson, Tory MP’s, UK government ministers, Tory MP’s and indeed the many UK government’s detrimental policies and bills…well a lot of Tory MP’s start their political careers as COUNCILLORS….and as councillors you will find them, as councillors, attending the Tory party conferences in Scotland, Wales & England….all supportive of and promoting everything done by the UK government.
Douglas Ross was a councillor initially…then a MSP…then an MP …then while still an MP sneaked in on the list as an MSP as the uncontested leader of Tories in Scotland.
‘All those who currently are saying local elections in Scotland not connected to what is happening with powers controlled by UK government thus how you vote today should not reflect your opposition to Boris Johnson and all Tory UK government are doing at WM …..’
Yes, it’s nonsense to compartmentalise in this way, and for more than just Tory bypassing of Holyrood.
This is from the National Audit Office (November, 2021). It reveals what has been happening to local government finance in England under the Tories.
Source: https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-local-government-finance-system-in-England-overview-and-challenges.pdf
First for background: ‘The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (the Department) measures the income it makes available for local authorities through ‘spending power’.’ And ‘This indicator captures the MAIN STREAMS OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES, in addition to council tax. Accordingly it does not include various other forms of local income, such as sales, fees and charges, or commercial income.’ (my emphasis)
And the Tory achievement: ‘If council tax is removed, spending power funded by government FELL IN REAL TERMS BY MORE THAN 50% ON A LIKE-FOR-LIKE BASIS BETWEEN 2010-11 AND 2020-21. After an initial fall, council tax has grown substantially in real terms since 2016-17.’
In short, according to the NAO, the Westminster government has slashed its direct funding to local government in England since 2010-11. Presumably this has had a negative knock-on effect on the funding delivered to Scotland through the Barnett Formula as local government is a devolved matter. Voters in Scotland have had effectively no influence over these Westminster decisions!
This is a recurring pattern! And ‘I can’t understand why we let someone else rule our land!’
If the English parliament can get away with funding Scottish councils direct then they don’t need Holyrood as the Scotland office under whichever Viceroy Mayor of Scotland can administrate the other stuff and Scotland becomes like Nottingham county council or some other regional council of Londons empire
The English never think these things up for our benefit
@ stewartb @ 1.54pm
Indeed stewartb….
Thanks for providing the informative and additional information…..
Have a nice evening
Just been to the polling station. My intention was to vote SNP, Independent, Green in that order. (The Independent is a particularly hard working sitting SNP councillor who has fallen out with the party through sticking to her guns on a local issue). Actually would have put the Independent first but I don’t wan’t the opposition to boast about SNP vote slipping.
Anyway: got to the booth, pencil in hand and I had the strangest urge to vote Tory number 6. So I had to vote Lib/Lab 4 and 5. Voted and boaked!
Well, I’m in Glasgow and did my civic duty this morn, but boaked before I got to the (new) Labour pair. Elsewhere I might have persevered a little further, but here the last thing we need is a return of the old Labour mini-statelet, its hermetic internal politicking and its {ahem} inexplicable practices. Besides the inevitable ensuing mismanagement, like England’s ’66 World Cup win, with a Labour regain we would never hear the end of their crowing about it on the BBC.
Anyway, if you haven’t yet gone in and put your numbers down, do it. At the other end of Europe right now, people are fighting desperately to retain the chance to do what you can typically do with just a wee stroll and a few minutes of your time. And as they old saying goes, “you may not always take an interest in politics, but it never fails to take an interest in you”.
Nice to see you posting again grizebard, welcome back.
The Tories continually tell us the is no magic money tree but apparently they have found a magic oil well in Scotland’s waters. It was exhausted in 2014 but has magically started to just gush an endless amount of the stuff, is it a miracle or was it a lie?
Beware though it is liable to dry up in an instant once a referendum is announced. The trials of living in Scotland and being told our resources are worthless unless they are managed by Westminster.
Just been and voted after attending the dentist and now have a numb face and a swollen lip but would’ve hopped there on one leg with my face hanging off if I had to, there was a steady stream of voters in and out, I’m in Bishopbriggs East Dunbartonshire where results can vary between SNP Lib Dem and Tory, let’s hope the two English parties supporters don’t turn out today handing their fate away to Englands voters to decide again
Every vote’s a referendum
Voted this morning, 1 & 2 SNP, 3 Greens, 4 Alba (have huge reservations about them but the alternatives are no better), 5 & 6 Lab, 7 LibDem, 8 Tory. Voting station was pretty quite, Cambuslang East.
Coincedence that today of all days I get a market research form (duly translated by a colleague into Welsh) from the Electoral Commission to edit, asking about the voter’s preferences, how they organised their vote, how easy was it to vote, did they think the system was unfair/corrupt, did they think that it was easy/difficult to understand the voting system etc etc.
And after all that – I myself am not voting here in England nor by proxy/post or otherwise in Cymru.
Have a good day all – see you on the other side!
You have a good day (evening even) as well WS
Hope results good for you in Wales……
🙂
Turns out the Market Research questionnaire is actually meant for YouGov – you know, that polling company which lumps “Wales with the [English] Midlands” as one region …
But … but …
“Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales doesn’t receive Barnett consequentials directly from spending on HS2 because national rail infrastructure in England and Wales is reserved to the UK Government and for this reason HM Treasury has assessed HS2 as a ‘national project’ which benefits both countries.”
So it seems Birmingham really is the hub for Welsh people to take an HS2 train to London, until HS2 reaches Manchester and those in North Wales can travel to Crewe to catch it!
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2021-0168/
Welcome to Welsh errr, Birmingham!
And by the way, Wales will continue to get screwed over by the UK Government even worse than Scotland, until levels of support for Independence, and not just “Indy-curious”, reach 50%. Good luck.
(Twisted smile emoticon)
You got it.
I have a question. In my constituency there are 4 seats up for grabs. All the parties have only put up one candidate each. Why is this? Is it illegal to put up more than one? I was hoping for a clean sweep of SNP but, not only is that not going to happen there are no other pro independence parties to vote for.
I have the same problem – three seats in my ward and only one SNP candidate, no Green, Alba or independence supporting independent. So no matter what happens there will be two unionist candidates elected. The SNP can put up more candidates AFAIK. They have in other wards. So I don’t know what the problem is. Perhaps there weren’t more people willing to stand.
I think that this is something that should be addressed in future as, like you I do not like the idea that unionists can get elected by default.
No, it’s perfectly legal to put up as many candidates as there are seats. Or even more, that’s the beauty of STV/PR. A “clean sweep” for the SNP under such circumstances would require over 87.5% of the local vote, though!
I was in a similar boat. 4 candidates for a 3-seat ward. Due to boundary changes, last time we were a 4-seat ward with 9 or 10 candidates. Last time both the SNP and Labour put up two candidates each. This time they chose to put up one each and the other “excess” candidates went to the other ward which got bumped up to four seats.
Sometimes it’s just down to a realistic calculation that they’re just not going to get a second candidate elected. You basically need 25 or 33% of the vote for one candidate, but 50% for two. If you wanted to be uncharitable, the primary candidate of a party in a ward has a somewhat vested interest in ensuring there isn’t a paper candidate who could accidentally displace them, or as the Glasgow council leader has apparently just experienced, led to them being elected not as the first councillor of the ward, but as the second, third or fourth. People used to proportional representation don’t mind this, but those used to FPTP sometimes pay undue attention to such things.
Sometimes they can’t find anyone willing or suitable to be that paper candidate, such as the three islands wards where there are unfilled vacancies. Even paper candidates have to be vetted, lest they generate an unfortunate headline – which seems to happen anyway with all the parties who contest virtually all the wards.
Apparently Gretna polling station was festooned with Union flags today until a complaint was lodged and the offending items were covered up
The complaint was lodged on the premise that political bias was on display which the organisers claim was an accident due to the hall not being solely for the single use of polling
They can claim what they like but are they really trying to say that nobody noticed Union flags as being political when that is exactly what the Union flag was designed for, a political symbol, as it is not and never has been the flag of any individual country in the British isles, it’s function is the same as the EU flag to represent a political union and definitely not that of any country
I wonder if their eyes went exaggeratedly innocently wide as they shrugged their shoulders up to their ears like footballers wot hav dun no rong ref honest
TBH, that would probably have the same effect as putting up Russian flags in a Kyiv polling station, so I wouldnae worry too much about it.
Mrs SS and been along and voted till we boaked. Only the British vanguard party didn’t get numbered as they were our absolute last preference.
Polling officers are supposed to inspect all polling stations to make sure that does not happen. Maybe they turned a blind eye to it. They should not be allowed near another polling place.
Correct I worked as a Presiding Officer at quite a few elections here in East Dunbartonshire and Glasgow any political signage is not allowed within the confines of the Polling Place that includes its grounds and fencing round it and the Union flag would definitely be seen as political. Polling Place I went to today has only 1 Polling Station in it I was only one in the Place when I voted but others were just arriving when I left. Before voting I went to my local Asda in Bearsden and Snp had big flat bed truck in the car park with billboard and big photo of Nicola on it and it’s speakers blasting out recorded message from her. That probably pissed off one or two Tories who live on Milngavie Rd Meanwhile on Misreporting Scotland tonight practically nothing about the election because of the rules but loads about Rangers playing a fitba game tonight. Did I mention I hate fitba😡
Scottish flags are not political, just British ones.
After all, in e.g. France, the French flag isn’t political, but European Union ones definitely would be.
In Scotland, the Scottish flag is the flag of the country, and is the national flag of both unionist and nationalist. Hence unionists have made a point of saying this many times, i.e. that the nationalists don’t own the saltire.
It’s just the union flag that is not the national flag, and is equivalent to the EU flag.
In elections, I see no issue with the saltire; jeez, these are national elections held in buildings owned by the Scottish people / their country.
While I am pro-EU, I would oppose the EU union being prominent just as I would the UK union flag. These are political choices. Scotland is not a political choice; it’s simply where we live. We can’t vote to leave or join Scotland.
https://www.scotlandinunion.co.uk/post/our-saltire-doesn-t-belong-to-nationalists-andrew-skinner
Our Saltire doesn’t belong to Nationalists – Andrew Skinner
From Scotland in Union, highlighting my point that the saltire is apolitical.
THAT is what I like to see – and why I like to quote the UK Gov, the BBC, the Scottish Office, SIU, Commons Library, anyone from the other side. If they say something and it’s in our favour, no unionist can contradict their own side.
“But … but … but …”
“Are you a goat?”
“Campaigning on polling day
Campaigning is allowed on polling day, so you might see campaign material on social media or receive a leaflet through your door on polling day itself. But campaign material is not allowed within the perimeters of a polling station. This means there shouldn’t be any campaign posters, banners or other advertising literature:
in the polling station itself
on the polling station building
on the land of the polling station, such a car park
However, there’s nothing to stop the house next door to the polling station from displaying campaign material in the window or putting a banner up in the garden. There may be some local planning restrictions that prevent placards or banners being put up nearby, but this would not be covered by electoral law.”
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/campaign-material-and-campaigning-polling-day
I just read the National story, and in fairness the place in Gretna Green looks like it’s always decked with the UJ:
http://www.spanglefish.com/gretnagreenandspringfieldstormonthall/
Possibly due to Gretna’s cross-border main functions!
Our polling station (a school) had SNP and Lib Dem placards on the outside of the school gate. Guessing it’s outside the polling station. Have seen other parties in the past. Wondered why the others had not done this.
Interesting wording on this Apr 29th-May 3rd Scottish poll from Survation:
SNP: 41% (+9)
Lab: 23% (+3)
Con: 17% (-8)
Lib: 8% (+1)
Grn: 5% (+1)
Alb: 1% (new)
Ind: 4% (-6)
Oth: 0% (-1)
” 2) Labour are in a strong second with 23%, the Conservatives 5 pts behind on 17%. ”
While I agree 23% is a stronger poll result than 17%, not sure how 23% is seen as a ‘strong second’ place to 41%.
Regardless, if the SNP are way up on previous, it’s all good.
Source:
I’ll take 41% of the vote all day, it would be massive in these types of elections, just a pity the Tories just swap their votes over to Labour to keep the British alive
SNP 123 and Greens 4 for Anniesland ward from me.
No other Scottish parties on list so not worth the time, lead or the boaking in that order.
Apart from London, Labour has not done as well as they should do with 10% interest rates by end of year. More Tory government to come.
Ayesha Hazarika said to win GE Labour needs to win back Scotland……on last night’s BBC Election programme.
Do they need to win back England to win a GE ?
I would have thought so.
She also noted Labour’s potential ‘revival’ in Scotland as predicted tomorrow (today)…….’revival’ meaning possibly coming second above Tories which in Unionist speak makes them be seen, by Unionists and Unionist media, as winners…….only in Scotland are losers noted as winners in Politics.
The SNP as actual winners are NOT given the attention, as in significance that they deserve, as the media so desperate for a Unionist champion , in SECOND place , to fly the flag for the Union….as now tis the adopted custom of second place in Scotchland politically as being noted/highlighted as you winning…..it makes us unique….in the world ?
Reminds me of that song ‘Every Loser Wins’…..everyone knows winning is so passé in Scotchland…tis second place that is the NEW winning in Scotchland……..of course, let’s not mention who they will have to beat to get to second place….Ha Ha….so NOT an actual WINNING position all things considered…..second place but not expected to be ‘just below’ SNP percentage wise…as predicted via polls …..so , tis anticipated that they may be still well below the actual WINNERS…..aka the SNP.
Perhaps Ruth Davidson can then take her proper place as in NO longer being presented as a WINNER in Scotchland by the media… if polls are true……I mean she has had a prominent role in these council elections and has fronted Tory election leaflets and been seen as campaigning here in Scotchland for the Tories…so Tories possibly coming third in Scotchland makes her a loser surely …..will her Unionist crown now go to Anas Sarwar via the media….I mean it’s all so predictable…..and frankly surreal……as winner (in second place potentially) Anas Sarwar’s first duty will be to push the SNP aka Scottish government to impose a windfall tax on Energy companies….I mean that’s what he campaigned for was it not..in COUNCIL elections….Ha Ha
Yes the usual labour nonesense. If labour won all seats in Scotland we would still have a Tory government courtesy of England.
Christine Jardine MP Lib on Nicky Campbell radio programme just now cock a hoop saying how well the libs are doing- in England. This from a party that introduced misery and austerity hand in hand with the tories. Two faced? Of course.
Yes Hamish….Lib Dems the scavenger party….hoover up disenchanted tory voters votes….
Lib Dems aka Tory lite gains seats when Tory peeps in England cannot bring themselves to vote for the so called ‘official opposition party’ aka Labour so , via a protest vote against current Tory mob , they choose the next best thing for them as Tory voters….the Lib Dems.
TBH, Labour are not doing that well so far in England. Seems the Libs are doing better and, notably, the Greens look to be having a good day.
Sir Keir, knight of the realm, is not exactly a working class hero.
SS, it’s been noted that outside London Labour under Starmer “hasn’t done quite as well as Jeremy Corbyn did in 2018.” ….and certainly have not done , in England, as well as they should have ( as was predicted they were going to) considering everything that has gone down with this Tory Govt under Boris Johnson…..recently Rachel Reeves said “we should judge Starmer on the local election results”…..I feel a spin coming on from Rachel.
If i was in England I would vote for the Greens…my brother lives in Cambridge and he votes for the Greens in GE’s.
Amusing to note the differences –
London borough elections form a third of Council elections in England which are 4,360 seats in 146 Councils, all of which are FPTP.
Scotland has 1,200 seats on 32 Councils, all elected on the STV system.
It is whole easier to punish the Tories in England than Scotland, but the power of England’s media will ensure it is not a rout.
No matter what happens today or how many Tories are ousted, nothing will fundamentally change London’s perspective on England OR Scotland, business as usual (brown envelopes).
What is utterly predictable is that the BBC news in Scotland will feature runner-up Labour as the REAL winner, much as they did with the Tories before.
Scottish media will continue to portray it’s alternate universe of only featuring the SNP if it is negative, giving air to every ridiculous propaganda campaign dreamt up by opposition strategists with a tranche of supporters to occupy Comments sections on cue.
They long ago made the mistake of presuming the propaganda strategy in England’s media would work in Scotland, they had a monopoly, what could possibly go wrong?
Media credibility in Scotland was been shot to pieces not through political allegiance but sheer arrogance.
With IndyRef2 fast coming down the tracks despite their best efforts at derailment, the next Council elections will be very, very different.
The National has an election tracker. Once results start trickling in it will update so I have not archived it.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20117974.live-scottish-local-council-elections-tracker-maps-charts-show-results-far/?ref=ebln
Here’s a novel idea – economies should serve the needs of people.
How can Scotland can transform its economy so its fit for the future
https://archive.ph/m7Dx7
I think the Tories are going to be trounced in Scotland and I expect the SNP to make a number of gains and so too Labour. I do think it will be even worse than many think for the Tories up here.
This morning one Tory was blaming Boris Johnson but Adam Tompkin lays the blame for any poor performance at the feet of DRoss for changing his mind about getting rid of Johnson.
https://twitter.com/ProfTomkins/status/1522470125307322368
So, based on early results… Tory vote down, going to Labour and the Libs.
Alba on 1.5% so far.
SNP lost a seat but early days.
Can’t understand that there a constituencies where they are 3 candidates and 3 council positions. In others 2 candidates, 3 positions. If I known I would have stood !!!!
Greens seem to be gaining. Latest I saw was SNP down 2, Greens up 4.
As far as I’m concerned, any pro-indy councilor is a good thing!
Why doesn’t the BBC ticker show the Green seats? They are a bigger party than the Libs.
Prof Poultice
In Scotland, the first preference vote has now been declared for 15% of the wards in Scotland.
It looks as though the Conservatives are going to suffer perhaps an even bigger reverse north of the border than they have experienced in England.
Their share of the vote is currently down by six points, while Labour are up by two points. If this pattern continues then Labour will displace the Conservatives from second place for the first time in a Scottish election since 2016.
Among the pro-independence parties, the SNP are up by 1.5 points and the Greens are up by 2.5 points.
Sounds ok so far.
Oh and Alba are up 1.5% or something, so pro-indy up ~5.5% so far.
The £ (GBP) is tanking:
£1.234 against the US Dollar
£1.16 against the Euro.
ALBA- in Inverclyde out of the game. 1.5% where they were standing. Best I have seen so far nearly 3.9%. No breakthrough and they have lost Cllr McEleny.
Full result in Chris McEleny’s ward.
To an extent that shows that personal loyalty to candidates has reduced a lot over the years, but on the other hand, many people wouldn’t vote for a Salmond party, the sleepy cuddles party, including me.
Dignity from McEleny in defeat all the same:
““The reason I got into Scottish politics was to restore my country’s independence, and that is a job that is not yet complete. So tremble, false Whigs, in the midst o’ yer glee – you’ve not seen the last of my bonnet – and me!”“
He should have stepped down at the time and stood in a by-election. He might still be a councillor if he’d done that.
Looking like the big winners in Scotland will be the Greens who look to be benefitting from their partnership with the SNP in Holyrood.
I think the Greens are going to do well, and the latest news is that councils are going to ban the motor car, so if you want to get from Auchtershoogle to Altnaharra, it’s 20 days by Shanks pony, with Patrick passing you on his push bike doing it in 5.
He’s ok – he’s in Glasgow and can use the subway, bus , train, shanks pony. Bike.
Easy to promote something when you don’t have to suffer.
The SNP have picked up more than half a dozen seats from the Tories in the past 20 mins according to the results reported on https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot
The BBC (National/English) news channel is showing at bottom of screen a tally of seats won by councillors in England for various parties i.e. Labour Tory, Lib Dems and are including tally of seats won by councillors for both independents and the Greens .
However when their results come up for Scotland they are showing tally of seats won by SNP, Tories, Labour & Lib Dems councillors INCLUDING tally won by INDEPENDENTS ….but they are NOT showing tally of councillor seats won by the Greens….Hmm
When it comes to denying democracy to Scotland Greens don’t count with the BBC, but if the Greens cause the SNP to lose a seat or two then they suddenly become important in showing that SNP support is waning wherever that might be
The BBC and other media rabbit on about the individual political parties spinning results when the BBC are actually the biggest manipulators of the statistics making them look the way the media want them to look for the desired effect on the unwitting public, who no matter what they thought they were voting for or against are informed in the nicest possible BBC language that they don’t understand anything and whatever they want they’re not going to get anyway, because as much as they’re told they live in a democracy, they don’t, because Englands voters and parliament will ultimately decide everything for them whether they like it or not
Nobody’s bin is going to be emptied any quicker and nobody’s pothole repaired in record time, everything will remain the same until Scotland becomes the country it should be, free from Englands financial control, until then we’re shuffling the same deckchairs round on the Titanic, just in a different order
Indeed Dr Jim
BTW noticed that supposed ‘Scottish’ (INO) channel on BBC as in Channel 9 that was supposed to be the dedicated SCOTTISH (INO) channel for Scotchland news is not up and running today to show Scottish council election results…..
Are the Scottish results “too wee” to give ‘Live’ coverage on results…..must those viewers who choose propaganda over truth wait for Misreporting Scotland’s ‘slant’ on the results on BBC 1 at 6pm tonight…..I mean you would think they, BBC Scotchland would want to compete with SKY News (over)coverage of English council elections results……mind you the BBC National (English) news channel is doing it’s best to compete with SKY News in reporting/analysing English results…..
Is Scotland too parochial for them all to even consider giving major coverage on or indeed to ever be considered given top slot in their headlines/reporting……would be if a Unionist party were to win an election in Scotland …would be the TOP story then……or of course any contrived #SNPBAD story.
Some Scots who voted for Unionist parties yesterday are fine with that as they know their place….they are happy to be considered at the bottom of the Union’s pecking order for priority on news and many other matters that IMPACT them…many of which are to their detriment…but Hey Ho for them , it seems, Life is for suffering …….or so it appears to those of us who live in ‘eyes wide open’ land when we see any Unionist party in Scotland winning a seat in ANY election…….as in those of us who would prefer less suffering and more pleasure hence why we never vote for a Unionist party but instead always vote for an Indy party.
We do not have a media in Scotland….we have , as a media, an extension of Unionist political parties and THEIR message which equates to #SNPBAD & Scotland is Sh*te …a message that is rinsed and repeated ….ad nauseam.
I see Independista in SGP. Voted ALBA and Labour as, and I quote “ I do not consider the SNP or Greens as independence supporting parties”
Yes that what I thought, Labour must be an Independence supporting party in their eyes.
Delusional or just a labour person in ALBA garb? Nah just a unionist.
It looks like the so called Alba party are heading for rejection by the Scottish electorate for all the rehearsed reasons, so you’d think if it was really a political party the leader of that *party* would be offering his resignation to the members on the basis that he is an electoral liability and for the sake of the party will now step aside, so let’s see
Well, no change in my ward
Elected – Jenny Linehan CON (Stage 2),
David Parker IND (Stage 1)
John Paton Day SNP (Stage 6)
David Parker pro-indy so 2/3 isn’t bad! Especially in the borders.
Aye, wee Davie Parker was SNP originally but got fed up with the local nut job SNP’s at the time. As did I.
So far in Scotland.
SNP +12
Lab +11
Grn +9
Lib +8
Tory -28
Ind -13
Plaid Cymru doing very well in Wales +10
Looks like the SNP are on for a majority in the Yes city of Dundee.
I, unfortunately , caught a bit of yon Coburn woman on BBC interviewing Ian Blackford, just before lunchtime today.
It is now clear as day what the BBC agenda is, don’t talk about the election from yesterday, as results were coming in, get straight at the SNP about not having time for Indyref 2023, and what about “currency EU, borders, etc etc” – ad nauseum.
Ian handled it all quite well and I’m grateful he didn’t lose his cool, although I was ready to throw things at her – she will be BBC’s leading anti-Indy BBC ‘host’, from here on, I reckon.
At least we know Indyref starts now, in earnest, and BBC are already ‘out of the traps’, not even time to let the Tory ‘bodies’ get buried!
I thought Labour were supposed to “win” this election in Scotland according to the media. So far they are on +14 compared with the Lib Dems on +16 and the SNP at +21. The greens with +10 are doing very well in comparison with their current number of seats.
Aye but you’re forgetting about the SPIN….cue BBC et al MSM
Aye, HMS James Cook have shifted emphasis away from Labour in the last wee while to sharing SNP and Labour gains, no mention (naturally) of the Greens adding +10 to the SNP’s +21 Councillors in favour of Independence dwarfing those opposed at Lab +15, Con -50, and ACH-you think this pose better +17…. Independents appear to taken a tanking at -15, but in the polarised political landscape be are now in, hardly surprising…
The Con count only at -50 has to be down to the Roothtervention, I’d have expected a rout – Either way DRoss’s days are clearly numbered, Jackson will be having a quiet chuckle over a G&T whilst admiring his secret art collection.
Dundee won by SNP
BBC Scotland and Scottish Televison sic. You are complete jokes.
Lab and SNP both have won control of a council.
Odds on which party they say is making great strides forward? 😉
SNP largest party in North Ayrshire. I expect the unionist labour and Tory will be having a meeting to stop them governing.
I think for a time it was a minority SNP council, supported adhoc by Conservatives, until a by-election lose one SNP councillor.
I like to think in “Honest men and bonny lasses” Ayrshire we make our own rules 🙂
Mmm, Ayrshire of course was sich a danger to the stability of the UK and indeed, the whole universe, that they had to split us into three parts back in 1996. But for that Scotland would of course have been Independent somewhere around 2007.
North Ayrhsire (2017 in brackets)
SNP 12 (11)
Con 10 (7)
Lab 9 (11)
Ind 2 (4) – one is pro-Indy and a great councillor, no idea about the other
It might become SNP minority control, no idea if the national anti-Tory line could affect that. My 1,2,3,4 all got elected in my ward 🙂 The local Tory is a good guy, yes, he was my number 3.
Mmm, it would be an interesting project, if there was a definitive way of establishing “deprivation”, to see if there was any inverse correlation between level of deprivation, and turnout.
Plaid Cymru GAIN Ynys Môn / Anglesey.
No CONS (yet the Westminster MP is a strident Johnson supporter …)
SNP largest party in Glasgow.
Mmm, I just hope the Greens allow the SNP to keep the M74, the Monklands Motorway and the M80 open.
Well, that’s a relief, despite some evident SNP slippage. Never let a good deed – in this case giving the women workers equal pay – go unpunished. (I even had a last-minute Labour canvasser trying to persuade me that the SNP were equally complicit in resisting equal pay.)
Though we still have to see if there will be a revival of Bitter Together to keep the SNP out, I suppose.
My ward had a marked Labour surge in first-pref votes, but it seems to have come mainly from a significant sag in both Tory and LibDem support, both of which were dominant here in different eras in the past.
There may be a Labour majority in Monmouthshire. That would be disastrous for the Conservatives who previously ran the council and probably one of the big stories of the night across the UK (OK, let’s face it, it’ll never get as much attention as London’s councils).
To put this in context, the Conservatives currently run Monmouthshire with 25 seats to Labour’s 10. That’s a big mountain to climb for Labour and I don’t know how much expectation management / adrenaline is involved in these predictions.
The Conservatives hold the seat of Monmouth quite comfortably at Senedd and Westminster level. It’s also the only council they hold (or held) with overall control in all of Wales.
Three of my four preferences elected. One of which was my ‘probably the best of the worst’ option. No Tories elected in my ward.
Just to let everyone know that we have visitors this weekend, so it will be Monday before I can get a piece online about the election results. I am sure you will have plenty to discuss until then!
Sure do Paul. Have a good weekend and come back FRESH next week 👍
This is quite a shocker from Gordon Brown’s old haunt and an area of the seat that is currently held by Alba’s Neale Hanvey. I thought Labour were supposed to “win” this election in Scotland.
Enjoy.
And if you have time look at BBC NI at their full election news programme. It can be done.
I know it can Hamish…just switch on the telly. 🙂
This is what I have for you –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2022/scotland/results
Cymru is still counting.
Looking at Fife (+1 councillor since 2017),
SNP 34 (+5)
Lab 20 (-4)
Lib 13 (+6)
Con 8 (-7)
Requires a Lab/Lib/Con alliance to keep the SNP out of control. Will Lab AND Lib prefer to ally themselves to the Tories despite the government’s toxic reputation? Or will they prefer SNP minority? Or will one of them join with SNP to control the council? Hmm.
Ignore the +1 councillor. Typo on my spreadsheet had 2017 as 74. No changes.
Yes, as elsewhere, it will be passingly interesting to see if Labour is still willing to drink from the poisoned chalice of BT for the sake of running the show, no matter what.
Excellent result for the pro-indy parties.
SNP win with +23 seats – the biggest gain for any party – while the Greens have nice day gaining +15.
Tories get whupped, losing 62 councillors.
All eyes on N. Ireland to see if the very ground will shake beneath the cracking foundations of the UK union.
Well, this weekend will be all talk as minority councils work out who will work together with whom, or is it whom with who? Ho Hum! So, I didn’t want to rock the boat before, but I really really don’t care about Westminster politics and haven’t for a long time, Let my people go. I vote SNP for Westminster to get us out of that eventually and meanwhile represent Scotland’s interests on reserved matters.
So this “Send a message to the Tories” was all blah blah blah to me, a waste of time and NOT what I’m interested in, that would be Independence, not pathetic Westminster party politics.
And Independence is about us in Scotland running affairs in Scotland for our own interests, whether SNP, Labour, LibDem, Green – or Conservative. And last time I looked, somewhere approaching 10% of Conservative voters in Scotland were already supporting Independence.
My vote for the Council, which I generally think is well run, was this:
1. A – Ind
2. B – SNP
3. C – Con
4. D – SNP
and none of the other 8 candidates.
That’s by name and policies and what they do for my council area, not party. And the Independent probably had by far the best election pamphlet in the Whole of Scotland let alone my council area, and since I know the guy, I know it’s all true. Was I going to put him below SNP, and other pro-indy parties? Was I feck. I also worked with the Con years ago independenty, on an important local issue. His heart is in the right place.
Scottish Conservatives are not like BoJo and his dirty crew of the filthy Black Roger, they’re like us, and we can and will work with them for a better Scotland – and a better council area.
Alas poor Alba, we knew it well !
I’m just amazed that in this day and age there are still folk who think they were voting for individual people and or whether they believe one candidate is nicer than the other or that any election in Scotland since 2014 is about bins when none of this is true
All elections are referendums on the political parties opinions, *local issues* matter not a jot because when all’s said and done and the counting’s over England and its media will decide to interpret every result and every vote in Scotland as a reflection on the situation regarding Scotlands decision on whether or not we’re entitled or allowed to enact our own legislation by the government we elected
The situation now appears to be that the SNP will be once again the largest party with the most votes so the media will have a duty to England to enlarge the contribution made by the nearest losers and reflect that as a victory for what they lovingly call the union, and if that’s not sufficient they will add together the votes of all the losers to create the false scenario that Scotland does not desire any of its own democracy
The Greens of course could stand atop the Empire state building screaming through megaphones that their number one priority is Independence for Scotland in order to achieve their dreams of more greeny stuff but the media will ignore their existence as a fringe protest group not worth a mention
So for those hoping for the media to acknowledge the success of the SNP winners forget it, the story will be about anything else but, loser DRoss winner Sarwar magnificent Cole Scuttle and very little else will be on the media agenda, oh except for pointedly making sure the slightest glitch or chink in the armour of the SNP as failure markedly making absolutely certain any thoughts of Indyref are in dire jeopardy
Hurrah I now have an Snp councillor again up here in Bearsden North. Unfortunately I bet we still get Tory/Libdem coalition running things . Glad Snp are still biggest party in Glasgow and Edinburgh but time they and the Greens came up with better policies against Global Warming and not just cycle lanes
Believe in Scotland is fair scunnered by the lack of analysis of Scotland’s local election results. Many features here are quite unique and seem beyond the wit of a London centric media to discuss. Too complicated. They behave as though we’re a foreign country. Well we soon will be.
https://www.believeinscotland.org/bbc-election-show-finishes-when-scotlands-results-start/
Glad to see it’s not just me! I searched around the BBC’s various outputs this afternoon and, candidly, was amazed to find no coverage of Scottish results as they came in. I ended up tracking results in a flow of tweets from Ballot Box Scotland. Well done to those who delivered this service.
Just listened to C4 News, to an interview with the leader of the Alliance. In a discussion about the future of the Assembly after the current elections, the C4 interviewer astonishingly said (in terms) – ‘so not much is changing’. There are times when C4 News is just as anglocentric as the BBC.
So some but by no means all of Labour’s curtain twitchers, who went full Tory Max in the Rooth the Mooth era, have switched back to Tory Light. That is the real story behind Labour’s mini revival. I am genuinely surprised that the SNP vote has held up, plus some. I am pleased too that the Greens have moved forward. When I take into account the constant barrage of lies put out every day by the media, the SNP performance is really amazing.
The laugh of the day is that in englandland a drubbing of the party that’s been in power for 12 years is the expectation.
The increase in vote by the party in power in Scotland for 15 years is nothing to shout about.
It’s the Slab coming second that’s the big deal.
Surprised at the Sky analysis that in a GE the SNP would win 50 seats, Slab and liedems to pick up more..
Isn’t it also telling of the England owned media that for them Sinn Fein winning in Northern Ireland calls into serious question the break up of the Union yet the same circumstances in Scotland? Nah not so much because England says NO we’re not *allowing* that
Rumours coming out of Westminster that Boris Johnson is almost certain to call another snap general election in the Autumn to save his skin for the next five years and is quite prepared to accept the almost certain loss of Northern Ireland to the UK and *possibly* even Scotland
One wonders what *possibly* means, is he going to go full Putin propaganda on our ass?
Maybe he and others in his party are finally coming to the conclusion that being unmitigated b*****ds will not help their long-term electoral chances, and that they have to secure majorities in England, and failing that, remove Scotland and NI from the equation.
They won. They can deal with it.
First preference vote share changes:
+1.8% SNP
+1.8% Grn
+1.7% Lib
+1.6% Lab
-2.0% Ind
-5.6% Con
Not sure of Alba.
Plaid now run 4 out of 22 Councils in Cymru.
Tories hammered everywhere.
Labour and some Liberal Democrat gains
Increase representation for Green Party of England and Wales [sic.]
Quite a useful day’s work – and if Scots and Northern Irish start getting a shove on, we won’t be that far behind!
This could at least be the end of the beginning ….
It is 👍
Softlee, softlee, catchee monkee, WS.
Dross actually observed that ‘his’ voters didn’t come out to vite yesterday.
The man’s deranged.
Yet another Brit Nat ‘leadership’ contest in the offing?
The naty welsh separists are steadily gaining ground.
There will be food riots in the summer, especially if there is a sustained period of hot weather, and 23 million esimated inflation. Brexit poor can’t even buy an ice cream while the middle amd upper citizens are jetting off to Costa del Bevvy on their hols.
No great surprise https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/northern-ireland-election-2022-follow-all-the-results-as-sinn-fein-tops-first-preference-votes-41620570.html
Tom Gordon, po;itics editor at the Herald gives us his expert analysis of the Fall of Dross, arguing that everybody in the know knew that the Blue Tories would crash and burn.
Such insight, such political nous.
His closing paragraph reverts to form, a Brit Self Determination denier which demonstrates that Gordon is as bone headed and stupid as the man he criticies for lack of foresight in his tedious post election ‘analysis’.
“As Mr Ross rues his choices this weekend, Anas Sarwar and Alex Cole-Hamilton will be looking at how to build on their progress to make a Labour-LibDem coalition a serious prospect on the far side of the 2026 Holyrood election.”
In what world do these Brit hacks live?
Hot news, Scoop Tom.
There shall be an Independence Referendum in 2023.
There is a very strong chance that we shall be discussing our terms for winding up the Treaty with England long before 2026, no matter how tightly you close your eyes and hope that we will all have gone away when you open the.
30% of Red Tory supporters also back independence…
Tom Gordon, whit ur ye like?
There won’t be a 2026 Holyrood election.
How did Alba get on?
So in order it’s the Party which may not be mentioned positively by HMS James Cook, then the three parties who are regularly, the invisibles, the even more invisibles unless there’s a Don Quixote twist about windmills, the WTAF’s and Others who can’t possibly exist as they’re not on the BBC speed dial… But George Foulkes is, outside bar opening hours…
Sound about right ?
Long term trends in NI.
Oh dear, even HMS James Cook has had finally to mention SNP, “Scottish council elections 2022: SNP finishes as biggest party”, ostensibly 3 hours old, the earliest of the 2901 Comments just a tad under 10 hours old.
It does make you wonder what would happen if every propaganda outlift in Scotland had access to a Tardis ?
Would Tom Gordon refuse to return and still be wearing flares ?
Well it’s going to be tough: I can’t guarantee that I won’t be very jealous and regret my vote on Thursday!
I’m referring to when in the coming weeks or months Labour’s success in winning control of West Dunbartonshire Council delivers the residents of that area hundreds – or was it thousands – of pounds of savings due to the introduction of a windfall tax.
Delivering locally on the promises prominent in Mr Sarwar’s election manifesto will make the whole of Scotland envious of the ‘sensible’ West Dunbartonshire’s residents who voted for Labour!
Yes stewartb…. indeed Sarwar’s FIRST job is to ensure the delivery of the windfall tax…..
Or was it HOT AIR tax he was promoting ? …..or a WIND UP tax ?
If the future priority of Unionist politicians, Unionist media, Unionist political pundits and commentators both in and outwith Scotland is to CONTINUE to CRITICISE and DECLARE via their OPINION/S that the SNP as a Scottish government
a) Fail to govern Scotland properly
b) Miss targets and fail to manage/co-ordinate public services efficiently in Scotland
c) Mismanage finances as a government
Then the logical conclusion that they, as Unionists, must come to now….is that the voters in Scotland must be……THICK …..as tis the voters in Scotland who are the ones ,who continue to vote for the SNP in successive elections that see the SNP WIN these elections in Scotland..
Alternatively the other more logical conclusion is that they as Unionists are….LYING.
If the SNP keep winning in Scotland…..then these successive wins for the SNP in various elections is surely testimony that these various Unionist allegations re the supposed failure/s of the SNP as a Scottish government in Scotland is NOT something that either resonates with or is recognised by voters here as failures they see that can be associated with the SNP aka the Scottish government ……if it WAS true…..then unlike some Unionists we would not continually choose to vote for the SNP as our preferred political party like ‘Turkeys voting for Xmas’ to our own detriment…..like some I could mention…but will NOT.
So no real mystery then ………simples really…..SNP win elections because we, in Scotland, contrary to various Unionists opinion/s, actually trust in and believe that the SNP are doing a good job as our government, councillors and MP’s ……plus many of us support independence and they as a party are recognised as ones who stand for independence ….. perhaps there is a fair amount of the ‘Kettle calling the Pot black’ too with these Unionists (considering the various Unionist parties political track records)….. ….more so when one considers also who the political pundits, media and political commentators are that are making the constant attacks against the SNP and who and what they themselves support politically and constitutionally….as in NOT the SNP or independence.
“Irish reunification possible in the next five years” (Mary Lou McDonald)
She’s right y’now
I get:
42.6% Irish parties (SF, SDLP, Aontu, PBP, Green)
40.1% British parties (DUP, UUP, TUV)
13.5% NI Neutral parties (APN)
3.7% Other / unknown (probably split either way).
TBH, that looks more 50/50 if it came to a border poll; which some pollsters have found.
Hence unionism in deep doo-doo there too.
It would certainly be befitting that the centenary of Ireland’s partitioning by the brutal British/English Empire is marked by an end to unionist control and the people of NI electing their first Irish, pro-reunification FM.
Ultimately, the world looks at the partition of Ireland as it did the partition of Germany. The Belfast wall is like the Berlin wall. An end to it will be a cause for celebration as it will finally put an end to the division and violence it caused. Partitioning can only divide and can never unite. Hence the untied nations’ GFA, brokered by the USA, was ultimately designed to pave the way for reunification.
It is an abomination that part of a modern European state is still ruled by another in this way due to relic imperialism. It is no different to Russia’s annexing of the Donbas. Hence the international community not taking any crap when it comes to the GFA. It’s like Germany still holding onto a large chuck of Poland that it grabbed during WW2 or something. That peace deal was the only, barely acceptable compromise, and as part of it, the UK gave up any territorial claim to NI, rightly, putting the future in the hands of the people there. It is appalling that England was talking about trashing the protocol against the will of the NI people.
It is only the UK media that tries to convince people that NI being part of the UK is ok. No other country thinks that. Hence England is being told on no uncertain terms not to mess with it.
But we are where we are, and the GFA was agreed by all on the island. If the British unionists can’t accept the will of the people, then they can just stay out of the parliament, but no way can they be allowed to shut it down. I think, if necessary, the GFA should be updated to end the power-sharing part, and instead, parties should be free to make their own alliances, with the largest party getting the first shot at this. However, such a change should be agreed by the people of NI. I suspect they would. After all, why should voters of parties such as Alliance be excluded in the way they are?
Anyway, looks like history will be made today by the NI people. It seems they have chosen to look forward, and not back.
The National – tomorrow’s front page – very cheering:
Here’s the young lady she’s hugging.
From joy and hope to —— see for yourself https://www.albaparty.org/campaign_continues%5D
Less than 2% 2 years running is not a breakthrough
Looking at GLA Southside Central, mentioned there, you get, when it comes to the Alba candidate excluded:
Stage 6 Exclusion of Kamran BUTT 664.00000
Candidate Name Affiliation Votes Transferred Votes Status
Alexander BELIC Scottish National Party (SNP) 124.00000 1,615.00000 Elected
Kamran BUTT Alba Party for independence -664.00000 0.00000
Paul Robert DONNELLY Scottish Socialist Party – End Fuel Poverty 0.00000 0.00000
Jamie DYER 0.00000 0.00000
Elaine GALLAGHER Elect a Scottish Green Councillor 22.00000 1,544.00000 Elected
Sam GLASGOW-JACKSON Scottish Liberal Democrats 0.00000 0.00000
Mhairi HUNTER Scottish National Party (SNP) 33.00000 1,237.00000
Tariq PARVEZ Scottish Conservative and Unionist 0.00000 0.00000
James SCANLON Glasgow Labour 40.00000 1,338.00000
Soryia SIDDIQUE Glasgow Labour 172.00000 1,513.00000
Non-transferable votes 273.00000 470.00000
Non-transferable votes due to rounding 0.00000 0.00000
41 of those Alba votes had come from previous exclusions, so some of the transfers might be them – or not them.
But in general, Alba voters gave 124 to Belic (SNP). 22 to Gallagher (Green), 33 to Hunter for a total of 179 pro-Indy. Then 40 to Parvex (Lab) and 172 to Siddique (Lab) for a total of 212 anti-Indy. And 273 no further selection.
Total of the 664 (or 623) Alba voters to go pro-indy – 179 or 29%.
But it was enough to elect Belic (SNP) and Gallagher (Green)
Mmm, I think that’s fair enough really, even SNP voters don’t always have SNP 1 and SNP 2 to get the excess transferred (I looked at 2012 results back in 2016 or so). So Belic and Gallagher really ought to thank Alba voters for helping to get them elected, as both got elected at Stage 6 – from Alba transfers..
https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=57047&p=0
Fair enough in a way, since enough Alba supporters did come through for indy when the chips went down, But how any supposed indy supporter can vote for intransigent unionists somewhere like Glasgow at this critical juncture beats me. This from the people who entered politics claiming to be “electoral support” for the SNP. How times – all too predictably! – have changed.
I appreciate that (as you have said) the personal can sometimes (and even ought to) trump the constitutional, but I can’t believe that in this case it was anything but sour grapes from unionist-fooled useful idiots. But what goes around comes around. I put Alba on my list this time (not that in the local circumstances it would likely have saved them much from a predictable rapid exit!), but never again. (If there ever will be another time, that is.)
Should we thank them for voting for unionist parties too?
If you want look at the transfer of all the votes from all the electorate. Who gave what number to whom for a fairer reflection. Did labour get votes from the tories? Did they give votes to Lib Dem’s or Greens?
Fact is, ALBA even if it continues will not deliver councillors until the next council election in 4 years.
They will not deliver MSP’s until Thursday, 7 May 2026 when it is the next Scottish Parliament election 2026 . MP’s will go sooner if Johnson calls an early General election. So ones that jumped the SNP ship but get their pay checks will be gone.
For ALBA fantasists to say they will copy the advance of the SNP in the 20th Century means they may be able to offer a referendum by 2090!! As if then SNP or The Greens will sit back and let that happen.
Political reality needs to kick in.
This also apples to the SNP. Non delivery of referendum or date of one in the next year will cause folk like me to say enough.
In this, it suits ALBA and the unionists for the SNP to fail.
I won’t share my vote again.
Stage 7 Hamish, surplus of Belic (SNP), you’d think being SNP voters they#d all go to Mhairi Hunter (SNP)?:
“Stage 7
Surplus of Alexander BELIC 71.00000
Alexander BELIC Scottish National Party (SNP) -71.00000 1,544.00000
Mhairi HUNTER Scottish National Party (SNP) 51.52112 1,288.52112
James SCANLON Glasgow Labour 4.48392 1,342.48392
Soryia SIDDIQUE Glasgow Labour 4.74768 1,517.74768
Non-transferable votes 10.24268 480.24268”
There’s still people who think their vote is their own, to do what they want with it and vote for who they want. How gauche! How democratic!
At no point did I say your vote is not your own. Just challenging youre we should be grateful to ALBA – They have given succour to the unionists. Rejected by the electorate. If some wish to give to the SNP then that is the voters own decision.
By the same logic though, the SNP voters who voted for Mhairi Hunter (SNP) gave succour to the unionists:
“Stage 8 Exclusion of Mhairi HUNTER 1,288.52112
James SCANLON Glasgow Labour 251.30880 1,593.79272 Elected
Soryia SIDDIQUE Glasgow Labour 224.80272 1,742.55040 Elected
Non-transferable votes 812.40960 1,292.65688”
From what I’ve seen of the opinions of the Alba supporters, they wouldn’t have voted SNP if it wasn’t for Alba and the likes of James Kelly telling Alba members they should vote till they boak. And from that stage 8, there were SNP voters also voted till they boaked. I’d guess it was to put the Tory (Parvez) last.
As it happens, I think the SNP and Green would have been elected anyway, even without Alba votes, at the final stages. Alba votes put them over the line BEFORE the two Labour candidates, and before Hunter was eliminated..
But yes, Alba were rejected by the Electorate. Not one single candidate elected, or even close. According to that article you linked to, that was the best result, and against a quota of 1,544, Alba managed just 623 at the first stage, and 664 with transfers before being eliminated. Some of her 812 non-transferable votes would have gone SNP or Green.
Anyways, that’s it from me, contentious as always.
“Some of her (Hunter SNP) 812 non-transferable votes “
Dear Paul,
Please see is my STAGE LEFT blog post in praise of WGD. This one’s for you. Best, Paul Bassett
Amazing results for SNP and good to see the Scottish Greens also doing well.
After 15 years in national government and with an entirely hostile foreign media running a relentless disinformation war against them, SNP gov must really be making a positive difference to the lives of people in Scotland. Otherwise voters would have drifted by now.
The new young recruits such as Roza Salih will I hope improve this good governance further at local level.
The National has the final totals for every council.
Scottish council election results: The winners and losers of every vote in Scotland
https://archive.ph/X0f1r
Sinn Fein will be the biggest party in Ireland. Change is inevitable.
Sinn Fein say Irish reunification referendums ‘possible in next five years’
https://archive.ph/ukLmW
Aye, the same underlying forces that have been eating away at British unionism in Scotland have been doing the same in N. Ireland for decades. Unionists used to get 3/4 of the vote; now they’re down to about 40%. NI’s ‘membership’ of the UK, like Scotland’s, is a relic of imperialism that no longer has meaning in the modern, democratic nation state world.
Young people in NI are N. Irish / Irish and European, just as young Scots are Scottish and European. They are not British in identity, for what is that these days anyway but another word for Brexit English? The empire is long gone. We are the last remnants of it, with brexit it’s flailing death throes.
England
Scotland
In Scotland looks like the Herald will sook up to Labour, Record no information on the election but concentrating on a football team, the Mail and express -I wouldn’t wipe my bum on them if I had rampant diarrhoea.- sorry for that picture 😡
It seems the BBC has decided Wales and Scotland are to be treated just as regions (as really have always been considered by the BBC) and to no longer to mount their own election result programmes. I don’t know if this is the first time but they always did in the recent past. We must be one of the few countries which have to watch another countries election result for hours with just the odd input from your own country and the analyse carried out by people in London with next to no knowledge of what they are talking about.
I pay the same licence fee as those in England but receive a much poorer service for this fee. It’s more extortion money as I need to pay even if I don’t watch them but want to watch other live channels.
Muriel Gray needs the money to pay for her 6 part series ‘Bagging the Monros’, or some such. Like Liz Smith, she’s into all that outdoor pursuits stuff.
They must present Scotland as a colony of their Motherland, England, at all times. It is a deliberate attempt to humiliate Scotland, by Muriel Gray and the Scotia Nostra.
Of course they knew that the elections would be a disaster for the Blue Tories, so, we were never going to be entertained by Glenn Campbell and Co scowling for three or four hours, were we?
Just think, we are within months of witnessing the BBC shutting up shop in the Scottish stockade,, and selling their lap tops on E Bay.
I can’t resist this one. Good to see our capital city rejecting the Tories decisively.
Scottish local elections 2022: Tories suffer big losses in Edinburgh
https://archive.ph/cOWQd
Breakthrough in Cambuslang East for Alba Party, they polled more first preference votes than the spoilt ballot papers party, but it was a close run thing – 1.8% to 1.6%.
Just before and just after elections in Scotland folk who hate the SNP always find it incredibly difficult to disguise their boiled piss, before elections take place they hopefully look forward to the SNP losing even though they’ll insist they are avid Independence supporters, and it’s so they can crow over the declarations of the results afterword, but their disappointment becomes obvious as they do their utmost to downplay every result as though it’s what they expected in the first place but are now just terribly disappointed by the *narrow* victory at what should have been much more conclusive success and oh dear how sad yet another missed opportunity by the SNP to do or achieve what they should have on all expectations and polls suggesting they could have, so they carry on despising patiently trying to fit in with actual Independence supporters but hope and pray looking forward to that one day when the SNP might fail before they will be able to expose their true feelings with unabated glee
Until then no matter how successful the SNP were or are they always become a tragic disappointment not living up to their potential in the propaganda efforts of the hiding but gutless SNP hate squad, who usually attempt to sound as reasonable as they possibly can to remain undetected amongst the faithful, but they do always give themselves away and the internet only hides their faces but temper temper always sneaks out in their scribblings, once discovered though they should know that no society on the planet ever appreciates folk like that
We remember a guy who built a website on it once but Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are still here
Alba’s mistake is being an anti-Yes party party. If it had focussed all its efforts on attacking Westminster while promoting its own distinct policies, I think it could have found a wee niche. It’s perfectly possible to argue for a more radical approach without constantly berating the Scottish government to the glee of unionists.
Salmond as a leader was a mistake too. He ruined his reputation when he joined with unionists in falsely accusing the FM of breaching the ministerial code. Yes voters saw that as a huge betrayal, and an unforgivable one, for if his opportunism had been successful, it might have prevented a Yes majority, taking iref2 firmly off the table until the next election.
I cannot understand how Alba don’t understand this.
I read that Alba consider they ran a great campaign and *deserved* better from the Scottish voters
Firstly that’s the same arrogant talk that Labour use to insult voters, and secondly how can it possibly be considered a great campaign when they lost every fraudulent ship jumper they already had and ended up with nothing
Alba just keep pumping out *who* they’re against in constant negative terms, and it’s never the British, folk notice these things
Having a campaign on the internet and talking to themselves is no substitute for door knocking. I am sure some of their candidates did. In my ward in Dundee I didn’t receive anything from the Alba candidate who I assume was a “paper” candidate. A couple of shops had an Alba leaflet in their window but the candidate in that leaflet was fighting in a different ward. I think she was related to the shop owners. You have to engage with the voters and not your own members.
The SNP members in East Lothian, presumably 1 or more branches, dug deep into their pockets in 2019 after so many other elections. They paid their membership and made donations, belonged to some version of a 100 club, bought raffle tickets, perhaps made cakes and went to coffee mornings and bought their own cakes. After a selection ballot, they paid £10 or £20 to “meet the candidate” at his adoption or whatever, when they knew fine who he was already. Then more fund-raising.
Trudged round streets both broad and narrow having done the same for countless other elections in a never-ending stream of elections, and maybe even newsletters and calendarrs. Manned street stalls in wind, rain and sun – and maybe snow. Trudged round chapping doors, engaged on social media, wore the insignia, took questions and abuse on behalf of their candidate.
And lo and behold, he was duly elected to serve the constituency of East Lothian as the SNP representative, and as is customary, to give 10% of his MP wage to the SNP funds.
Then McAskill said “Thanks suckers” and defected to a party which is hostile to the SNP. “I’ll keep all my salary, whistle thorough your arse for it”.
And Alba want to be respected as having “integrity” …
What Yesindyref2 says..
With an election on I’ve had to bite my tongue.
From a week ago in the Herald: “Ex-justice secretary demands full judge-led ferry fiasco public inquiry”
THAT is not what the SNP members spent their money and time on, he’s a scumbag, and I despise him. I wouldn’t give him the dog pooh off my shoe.
He’s been after Sturgeon since she sacked him back in 2014, whinging and moaning and groaning in a column in the Herald for years after. What a pathetic specimen of a weed.
About as succinct and accurate a summary as one could wish for.
The Albanistas were of course preyed upon from the very start by faux-friendly unionists, and their evident frustrations have (so far anyway) prevented them from seeing that they are just being played.
Very well said Dr JIm…..and ultimately if the SNP SHOULD fall any prospect of having an Indy Ref in the foreseeable future would also fall by the wayside thus independence in OUR lifetime would be a non starter.
Like many others I have campaigned for, marched for and given a lot of my time and energy to try and get independence and I am not now willing , at this crucial stage, to see it thrown all away to then be subjected to UK rule for the rest of my lifetime…..
I do appreciate and understand the frustration of ‘some’ people but not to the extent where you are willing to to cut off your nose to spite your face …..
It’s bad enough we have to contend with uber Unionists and their warped logic in their allegiance to the (non) Union but to also have to listen to those who say they want independence but who constantly carp by the sidelines and in doing so expose themselves as more aligned with the Uber Unionists than with the independence they say they support……support as in only on THEIR terms….the rest of us must comply with THEM while THEY presently are OPPOSED to US and THOSE who WE support politically.
Sick of the constant negativity , and in some cases, offensive language and behaviour which, let’s be honest, does so much more to help uber Unionists and their political parties and THEIR (non) Union being maintained than it will EVER do to help Scotland gain independence any time soon……which after all is what THEY say THEY want.
We and THEM are politically active, engaged thus are more well informed …..but perhaps they forget many people in Scotland are not ……thus you cannot FORCE independence upon people, you have to make the case , as not everyone currently is as convinced or as committed to getting independence as us……current circumstances with Boris J, Brexit, Tory cost of living crisis, Tory scandals etc are advantageous to us thus will all help to make the case more for us becoming independent…… and that in itself will do much of the heavy lifting for OUR side and will have swayed a lot more people towards choosing independence than a economically weak UK which as a country (NOT) is clearly going down the tubes……
However constantly dissing THE party that is THE party that is currently recognised, by the public, to be THE one party that THEY identify as being a party that supports independence….and are currently the MOST politically successful party in Scotland…is an act that will benefit the UK and their politicians far more, both now and in the future , thus ensuring Scotland will never be free.
Independence…..seems for some it’s ours to lose.
I truly do despair at all of this (in)fighting within the YES movement…..which does absolutely nothing to convert the maybe’s (undecided) that live among us…..but does indeed do so much more in keeping us chained to a UK……fact.
My reply was to Dr JIm’s comment @ 10.46am
Clearly something wrong with the UK if 2/4 nations have FMs that support independence from it.
The international community will be going ‘It must be England/Britain that’s the problem, not the Scots / N. Irish’.
And Wales have no tory run councils now. So it looks like it’s only England that’s left supporting them…
Doesn’t seem very democratic that 3 out of the 4 nations reject the tories but they’re still the ruling party of the uk.
Time that all four nations were independent
It’s Saturday and the election is over. So I thought you would enjoy the latest advert from the Australien government PR ladies. Remarkable how world wide the world beating sleaze and corruption spreads. Wonder why?
That was so much choke on your sandwich realistic fun
They’re clever and funny – great combination 😂
I’m looking forward to Johnson congratulating Michelle O’Neill on SF’s historic win, and her becoming NI’s first Irish republican FM. Truly a historic day for the UK.
Results still coming in, but there’s no doubt it’s an epic endorsement of the GFA and protocol from the people of Northern Ireland.
I think Westminster SNP should be pushing for the same EU agreement as Northern Ireland who are given economic advantage over us.Maybe the DUP would support this as it would reinforce the Ulster Scots connection. Maybe not.
Noises out of Westminster are that they really don’t mind *losing* Northern Ireland as it’s all too much of a headache for them anyway, Scotland however is an entirely different cash machine, and the idea of Scots having power over where the English can set their feet planes boats and trains is too unpalatable for them to swallow
The fight is Scotlands assets and territory and how England can keep their hands on it
Correct.
Oliver Dowden (Tory party chairman) replies when asked about a NI Border Poll states:
” We are constitutionally bound to offer a referendum if there is a democratic majority in favour.”
NOT YOU SCOTLAND !……BACK IN YER BOX!
As I’ve been noting in recent posts, the NI outcome is actually very good for Scotland. It means we are ‘not the odd one out / the problem child’. Are the N. Irish ‘just anti-English too’ now? Or is there a serious problem in the UK, where the mistreatment of the people of 2 nations by England is pushing these towards independence?
It says, very strongly, both at a domestic and international level, that it is Brexit England which is the problem in the UK.
This is a humiliating outcome for Brexit Britain. It’s like half the states of the USA voting for succession parties. It shows the world that the UK is a failing state.
It also makes it increasingly difficult for England to oppose indyrefs / border polls. They are internationally obliged in the case of NI, yet look like Putin if they try to stop one in Scotland at the same time, particularly as the Council of Europe recognises the Scots/Scotland as a distinct people/country, ergo have/has the right to self-determination.
Sturgeon pointing out the same.
https://archive.ph/IGLWR
Nicola Sturgeon: Sinn Fein success shows ‘big questions’ being asked about UK future
Link didn’t seem to work. Trying again
https://archive.ph/2022.05.07-131650/https://www.thenational.scot/news/20122269.nicola-sturgeon-sinn-fein-success-shows-big-questions-asked-uk-future/
Tory MP Kit Malthouse is the Minister of State for Crime and Policing at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice was interviewed on SKY News yesterday and was asked about the success of the SNP in Thursday’s council elections.
Kit’s response was that it was ‘inexplicable’ what with the Ferries scandal hounding them.
Yes a Tory actually stated that a ‘SCANDAL’ was , according to him, a reason that he thought should have made their success NOT happen….
Do Tories own mirrors ?….perhaps cracked ones….
Do they ever reflect on their own position (rhetorical Q obvs) before stepping on their moral high horse and accusing others of bad behaviour via a …………(supposed but very much contrived) scandal ???…..behaviour that they themselves, via their many actions, is identified by many as scandalous and bad behaviour…….
Very much a case of “accuse the other side of that which you are guilty” aka political projection Tory style……he perhaps forgets that it all ( as in all of the , as yet, unpublicised scandals) will come out eventually….as well as all of the many scandals currently associated with Tories that are being publicised via media (some of) and t’internet…..and no amount of ‘Look over there’ will be enough to save them politically eventually once the penny drops for MORE of the public….as in once their, some of the public, rose tinted glasses come off ,or perhaps fall off , in relation to the Tories und their failed Tory project Brexit.
Just wait until the scandal/corruption with Brexit comes out……and currently the Michelle Mone/Michael Gove ‘SCANDAL’ is still to emerge from the shadows it currently is enjoying being hidden in….. courtesy of some of our ….’imposed upon us’… inglorious MSM…..aka Tory enablers. (will that particular scandal come out NOW that election is over ??? or does Gove’s involvement in it make it a case of too hot to expose for their media enablers and the Tories themselves).
A Tory talking about scandals in relation to others……finally there is no longer a functioning Irony meter as it has exploded…another one…..Tories the party constantly destroying everything including every meter that measures irony…..with obvs hypocrisy off the scale yet again a La Tory style.
I think the main difference between the SNP and the Tories in government when there’s a mistake made Nicola Sturgeon holds her hands up and says sorry we’ll fix it, the English government says lie after lie after lie to cover it up until time passes when they hope folk will have forgotten before they admit to somebody else doing wrong but they’ve gone now so everything’s fine and dandy and what’s all the fuss about anyway
The media approach in Scotland towards the SNP is to make sure the public never forget as they hound the airwaves day and night to keep reminding folk of the humungous crime Nicola Sturgeon and *her* SNP has committed whereas in England the media virtually and arrogantly accept the mildest of apologies on behalf of the voters in that country then it’s washed hands and we’re done for today
Or of course if they can create a scandal elsewhere to cover up for the wrongdoings of one party by levelling attacks on another then that’s always a good way to assist their bosses
I have noticed some of the reporting by the English media of events in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland and they do like to point to the fact in each case that our voting systems are different to *normal* and what they mean by *normal* is only Englands voting system which is actually the system that is abnormal, yet another signal that England believes themselves to be correct and right in all things it’s just everybody else who’s wrong
Malthouse’s comments on the “Ferries Scandal” inadvertently reveals Tory HQ’s hand in it’s creation, it has absolutely nothing to do with his brief and is hardly the talk of the town in Andover or any part of Hampshire, or England for that matter. “What do they need ferries for ?”
The irony is that as with the QEUH and a hundred other “Scandal”s developed since, the impact on most Scots has been Nil despite it occupying the minds of such luminaries as the Moray Milkman and the minimum wage Dentist – Scots grew used to recognising the propaganda for what it is, and this leaves HMS James Cook with a HUGE problem of credibility.
What has worked in England does not work in Scotland no matter how hard they try, it is the “boy who cried wolf” effect writ large, but in many cases the “Scandal” is a smokescreen to the real scandal emerging down south, QEUH a prize case in point.
As Alex Clark’s comparative of the Daily Express front pages upthread demonstrates, the Express honestly believes it’s Scottish readers are so thick they cannot access the English version ?
You can apply the exact same comparative to BBC Scotland and any other BBC outlet… Once you see it, HMS James Cook can only be seen as a propaganda outfit where Glenn Campbell’s “In my opinion” pieces only address an increasingly emptier room….
“As Alex Clark’s comparative of the Daily Express front pages upthread demonstrates, the Express honestly believes it’s Scottish readers are so thick they cannot access the English version”
That’s a constant with the Express………
Also another constant with them where they do NOT differ is that each separate edition has blatant allegiance to the Tories and blatant antagonism towards the SNP.
They contradict themselves via the Pro English edition in England and the Anti Scottish edition in Scotland all the time…….unfortunately for the Anti Scottish edition the Paper reviews on BBC/SKY and t’other channels review the Pro English editions of their paper……perhaps if they, the various TV channels , showed both versions of every newspaper i.e. Scottish and English editions then the penny would drop for more people in BOTH countries…..that of course would NEVER happen
As these various supposed ‘National’ TV channels news programmes view the pro English editions as THE ONLY ones THEIR audience want reviewed…..usually reviewed nine times out of ten by an English or ‘Bwitish Scots’ who are either a Tory or Labour supporting journalist, pro Union pundit , political activist (and member) of Unionist party or other individuals sympathetic to or supportive of a Unionist political party and very much against the SNP and independence for Scotland.
It also has to be said they are dismissive of Plaid Cymru to the extent that they ignore them as a party altogether by failing to even mention them as a political force in Wales and indeed usually ignore Wales completely as part of THEIR UK …… they also fail to mention any notion that Wales would also be considering seeking independence from THEIR UK……but we , in Scotland and Wales, are expected to just suck it up.
Proves really that all TV news channels promoted as ‘NATIONAL’ are just English News channels with occasional news where YOU are via them…..if bad news that is …or rather THEIR interpretation of it as being BAD…….based on info passed on to them via Unionist politicians and the uber anti SNP press who work so hard to maintain the UK and stop independence for Scotland…and I am sure for Wales too.
Also as another nod to Welsh Sion…..they only usually mention ANYTHING about Wales as a country during an election …though only mention fleetingly ……….and they did also mention them during the pandemic….but other than that….NOTHING is normally mentioned about them.
This is why many of us outwith England see the UK is but only a fantasy the English National parties like Labour, Tory ,Lib Dems and indeed very much the DUP promote to keep Scotland ,Wales and NI onboard to fill the coffers of their English treasury and for some also the title they treasure…that is for their country being called and known as GREAT Britain ( excluding NI in this Bwitish version of their country obvs) ……I mean Northern Ireland and the protocol is currently , for them, a stopping block to achieving their version of Brexit as being a done deal.
Unionist parties versions of Brexit
Tories …getting it done
Labour…making it work
Lib Dems….moving on and accepting it and making the best of a bad situation
DUP…..getting it done while ensuring NI still remains under ‘British’ rule preferably Tory rule.
Bwitish papers…..irrespective of which edition you buy and wherever you buy them in THEIR UK.
OT since it’s still Saturday, the royal wedding from Bad Lip Reading just to kick off platinum jubilee celebrations:
🤣
Triffic laff
Lol
LOVE Bad lip reading videos….especially the Trump inauguration one.
Yes we do need a laugh….
Thanks Capella
Have a nice evening
🙂
Thanks so much Capella ….I do like a good laugh and Bad Lip Reading has loads.
Are there planned independence marches now the elections are over?
With Ireland up in the air this is the time to move.
Final results breakdown from Ballot Box Scotland, which is really an excellent site now.
Not for the smaller parties, if they didn’t stand in every ward, then that reduces their national share. For example, Alba only stood in 1/3 of constituencies. If they had stood Scotland-wide, then they might have been expected to have at least got something similar to May last year.
Thanks for posting this SS
Is this the one that shows Labour won the Council elections on Thursday…. in a Unionist kind of perspective on what winning politically in Scotland takes…..i.e. coming second is coming first. (I’m looking at it via Unionist Rose tinted glasses so seems to me Labour kinda won ..in a round about kind of way…with a wee sprinkling of spin to give it some credence…Lol ).
Get onto Olivia Utley….she once maintained on a BBC Papers Review that Ruth Davidson had WON the election in Scotland…when She, Davidson , was Tory leader at Holyrood and her party gained more Scottish (INO) Tory MP’s ( when got a total of 13 Tory MP’s) than in previous elections….she then added the proviso …well sort of won if you know what I mean……nope as not factual…..now she can say the same for Sarwar ( though she is pro Tory so might steer clear of mentioning….though perhaps she knows Labour are just a Tory lite version of her Tories….so might be worth mentioning to give her skewed perception of reality once again…and to get one over on the SNP)……..
Have a nice evening
🙂
Looked for a summary like this of vote share on BBC sources – failed to find anything so basic and so obviously useful.
I agree that Ballot Box Scotland has been excellent – providing a ‘public service’ both with these charts and giving real time (twitter) updates as results came in on Friday.
Contrast this with the shamefully deficient BBC Scotland coverage, especially when comparing relative resources and the licence fee paid to finance the BBC by so many voters in Scotland.
Ballot Box Scotland has great resources, but I’d be wary about analysis articles. As SGP points out, the guy is a Green and yes, the Greens did very well as did the LibDems, but so did the SNP, specially considering the continual assault on them – and that indeed, they are in their 15th year of continuous government. They won the most seats, 22.
He says this: “the SNP are putting a brave face on frustration“, but the SNP seem happy to me, including Sturgeon, having won the most seats of all parties. And here are the number of seats the SNP got in the elections:
2007: 263 (up 182)
2012: 425 (up 62)
2017: 431 (down 7 but ACTUALLY up 6 on the 2012 election)
2022: 453 (up 23 but actually 22 on the actual election)
Yeah, right, “frustration”, while the Tories lost 62. Good resource, but like others lets personal political beliefs colour opinions which should be as objective as possible.
As for his analysis of Alba, it’s somewhat spoiled by putting down “0.7”, without pointing out that Alba apparently only stood in 1/3rd of the wards. He should have taken longer with his analysis and done it thoroughly. I say that having done stats …
SGP is pro-Alba. I suspect John Curtice has a preferred party too (he’s clearly a unionist), as will the Britain Elects blogger! 🙂
I obviously cautioned on the small parties share for the reasons mentioned, noting the case of Alba. However, the figure isn’t incorrect, and there’s no other possible way of showing a national share than how it was done for all.
I think all figures (?) must be treated with caution because to be like e.g. the Holyrood list, you’d have to have candidates from every party standing in every ward. For smaller parties, that’s unusual. Did the SNP even stand in every single ward? If so, they are probably the only party to?
The fact that Alba could only field candidates for 1/3 of wards is a reflection of their lack of support, although if they had been able to then it does look like they’d have maybe got a couple of % like May 2021.
Yes, even before the Vow, Curtice was clearly for Devo-Max and I think was a LibDem. He did the SSAS and that showed 2/3 including Indy folk, in favour of more powers.
Apparently if ALBA had stood in all constituencies they would have got more votes!!
Who would have thought!!
The question is why didnt they?
Answers on a ……..
You read my mind. See above. Yes, they probably would have got similar to May 2021. It is not possible to say anything more than that though, i.e. such as whether they have made some gains or lost some support.
The problem they face is that they really needed to hold what they had and ideally take a few seats. Instead, they’ve lost all their councillors, failed to get an MSP, and if a UK election was held tomorrow, would be expected have no MPs after it either.
It’s the problem of echo chambers; they seem very out of touch with the electorate. We might not like the fact that Scots are only slowly moving to indy in a cautious manner, but we can’t change that by ‘putting their feet to the fire’. We can only gently encourage them; something that has got us to, it seems, >50% baseline yes now. The march of a nation can be frustratingly slow, but then when Scotland votes Yes, we want it to be for life. No regrets. Not a snap, rash decision, but the settled will of the people.
Maybe Boris didn’t give them enough money
Sinn Fein has officially won the NI election.
Time for Boris Johnson to give a call to Michelle O’Neill to congratulate her on this historic win. After all, SF may soon be the government of Ireland.
On you go Johnson…
Curiously, unlike the nats in Scotland, Sinn Fein in NI didn’t increase its support much at all. It was the DUP’s drain of support to the Alliance that has made the crucial difference. Unionist Brexit chickens coming home to roost. Because over there the issue is still very much live, not least – how deliciously ironic! – due to the DUP’s ongoing futile attempts to rewrite the Brexit agreement.
I even caught a snatch today of some Unionist spouting “Boris promised”. How naive and thickheaded are these people? “Boris promised”? Har, har.
The insidious ongoing effects of Brexit are affecting all of us here too. It’s just a pity that no-one seems to be paying much attention now.
“It was the DUP’s drain of support to the Alliance that has made the crucial difference” was my take on it also – Naomi Long said candidly in interviews that Stormont would reconvene with or without the DUP, that the binary politics of NI’s past was dying, and the electorate wanted to move on.
Meanwhile Sammy Wilson and Poots were still banging on about the protocol, with Sammy committing the ultimate political sin of suggesting the DUP’s fall on support was due to electoral myopia.
Surely Gordon Brown will sort it all out with a convention or vow?
Gordon Brown is to have his own one man *show* at the Embra festival where I reckon there’ll be very little doubt that the special guest topics will be Vows followed by Federalism
You’re great for the inside info!!!🏴
SNP’s vote share is greater than Sinn Fein
Just been reading some old tweets and found this one very interesting. “Wedge policy” eh, I’ll need to remember that.
“Harnessing controversy to divide an opponent’s base” Well I never.
Well this isn’t a surprise.
https://archive.ph/bvrRx
Channel crossings increase despite Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda
Just under 2,000 asylum seekers have made the perilous crossing from France to the Kent coast since the Home Secretary announced the Rwandan deal three weeks ago
TBH, the solution would be to just tell these poor souls what life is really like in the UK. They’ve no idea that the ferries passing them for France are packed full of EU citizen refugees heading for Europe, while two whole nations to the north are now heading for the UK exit gates.
Mass net emigration of skilled workers with 2 whole nations seeking to escape England/Britain does not exactly suggest life in the UK is the sunlit uplands. Quite the opposite in fact.
Craig Murray doing a hatchet job on the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon. If you can be bothered have a look. He’s fed up with Alba, too, it seems. What a surprise.
What I find so difficult to understand about Alba is that many of the devotees have had a lot of experience of the British establishment at work, some at high levels. They must surely know what a huge battle it is dealing with these people and the whole Union edifice and its various players, most importantly its compliant media …….. We’re mostly ‘wee’ people on here and yet we are well aware of the dangers of getting the timing wrong and bashing ahead without the wholehearted support of the people and the guarantee of backing from international players should the Anglo-Brits fight dirty which they will. Alex Salmond of all people and who lost the last time round should surely realise that and certainly Craig Murray. Something bothers me about this.
To be fair to the man, I do read and frequently agree with a lot of his posts on non-Scottish matters and some of his commenters seem genned up on a lot of subjects which can be interesting.
Much of the animosity aimed at the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon in particular by their loudest critics is personal rather than political for one reason or another.
I expect, in due course, to be told that Michelle O’Neill is a secret unionist like Sturgeon. 🙂
Anyways, from the National:
“SENIOR figures in the Scottish Tories are pushing for the party to “move on” from its hardline anti-indyref2 stance, according to reports.”
and Tomkins has been talking some interesting stuff.
What we had was typified by Darling being given a standing ovation at that Tory Conference, Labour being surreptitiously kicked in the goolies. And in 2015 sure enough they were reduced to just 1 MP, as the People of Scotland in particular, Labour voters, really didn’t like the idea of Labour cavorting with Tories. It’s not Britain’s got Talent you know. They haven’t learnt of course – they now want to hop into bed with an ultraunionist ex-Better Together something or other in North Lanarkshire. Oh well, they did have one MP left and a few MSPs.
Well, now the Scottish electorate seem to want the Scottish Tories to be Scottish Conservatives, and come out with, you know, Conservative policies. And what do they get? “Say no to Indy Ref 2 on your toe”. But, if you’re actually a Conservative, who cares? You keep telling us that nobody wants Indy Ref 2 and nobody wants Independence, so why carp on about it? Something fishy going on here.
And don’t forget 10% of Conservative voters actaully support a YES vote …
Jim Sillars- yeh him, has apparently made a complaint to Police Scotland regarding the ferries issue according to the Herald.
Is it just me but it is time he is kicked out of the snp- I believe he is still a member and I hope the police take action about wasting police time.
Has he complained about dame mone? what about the scandal over mask procurement?
Next he will challenge the FM to talk about transgender issues,. Oops a MP is already doing that.
Good news over the elections trying to be undermined by certain individuals. Personally if you don’t like a political party then leave.
Jim Sillars should have did the honest thing and rejoined Labour.
I don’t think these folks are doing themselves any favours if Alba’s recent electoral successes are any indication.
Why doesn’t Cherry challenge medical experts to a debate on this? The SNP/Greens/Lab/Libs are, after all, just deferring to the latter as they are not armchair experts. Sturgeon, like Cherry, is a lawyer, not a medical specialist.
https://archive.ph/95tFi
There are very sound logical and medical reasons for experts in the field recommending the proposed approach. There are related societal implications that need careful consideration / management to ensure everyone’s rights are respected, but these must be dealt with separately as they are separate issues, and exist whatever the legal recognition process.
Be very suspicious of anyone who doesn’t talk about the issue in this way, i.e. logically and pragmatically, deferring to the experts. Tories are of course case in point here.
I’ve just noticed this. How ironic.
Right-winger from England highlights why the condition of ‘living as the opposite sex for 2 years’ needs to be removed as a precondition for a GRC. Because it’s impossible.
https://tinyurl.com/bdf5rsba
Countries all over the place have referendums on all sorts of stuff regularly and nobody bats an eye, yet here in the Democratic Union of Englands pretendy Monarchial state of the equivalent of the former USSR the very notion of any other country of the Union other than England having a democratic referendum strikes terror into the very hearts of the Downing street Kremlin Polit bureau
Just because England isn’t bombing Scotland doesn’t make them any different to Vladimir Putin in their approach to peoples rights to freedom of choice, the England regime can’t brag to the world about one country’s right to freedom while they themselves deny those rights to the sovereign country of Scotland next door
Having said that despite UN orders to remove themselves, England is still occupying the Chagos islands and if those people decided to fight to take their country back England would name them the terrorists just like they’ve done with every country they’ve raped and denied rights to
For anyone wanting a quick break from politics:
“Teacher’s night sky dream has been realised after her death”
https://archive.ph/wip/v5JxZ
BBC tv this morning part from a 5 second view of the Herald that sums up the Anglo centric news media coverage of Scotland. Their coverage of the elections was also biased with basically Wales and Scotland shoved to the periphery while they spent time on bottle gate – promoted by the tories and of course England’s council elections. Come Friday an inclination of what was happening in Scotland and Wales was put forward within a programme about England. Northern Ireland had an exclusive home based programming right through to Sunday.
The state broadcaster is England’s and unionism state broadcaster.Scottish Television does not escape. Dreadful coverage over Scotland’s elections.
I suspect a union waving crowd in Spain will get more coverage. No doubt correspondents are already packing their bags to wander around Seville asking Senga and Billy what they think of the game. No surrender, says Billy from Antrim.
Did ye no see me oan the pitch at Barcelona?
The results service from the BBC for Cymru was appalling. I didn’t fully time it, but I think that it was only after about two hours of results coming in that the ‘scoreboard’ moved from a deck of zeroes to actually recording the number of councillors.
Coincedence that the first two councils to declare – Gwynedd* and Wrecsam – showed a PC HOLD and a change from Independents to NOC with PC gaining seats? 😉
* My Council
In terms of claims from Raab etc that ‘unionists still got the most votes’… from what I can see, Irish parties did get a greater share of the vote than British in N. Ireland.
The issue is the Irish Greens. They are classed as ‘non-sectarian’ as they don’t have a position on the union other than it’s a matter for the people of N. Ireland. However, they are an Irish party as they are a regional group of the Irish Greens. That contrasts e.g. Alliance who are not Irish, but Northern Irish ‘non-sectarian’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_Northern_Ireland
Since 2006, the party has operated as a region of the Green Party of Ireland
In that sense, I’d be pretty surprised if any unionists voted for the Greens. Instead, I would say its voters would be more republican leaning to neutral.
Anyway, the Irish party vote share would be 42.6% including the Irish Greens, or 40.7% without, vs 41.7% for British parties.
Either way, that’s very tight.
Also, that’s the lowest share of the vote (41.7%) and the lowest proportion of seats (41.1%) for unionists in an N. Irish election since partitioning. The brits will play it down, but two of the four pillars of the UK are now crumbling. This will send shockwaves all the way to Washington DC and ‘Irish’ Biden.
And results highlight why the border cannot be hardened; it separates Irish from Irish, not British from Irish. If you wanted to harden it, you’d need to move it to exclude all the border counties and a large part of Belfast. And why not? If Ireland can be partitioned, so can NI right? If partitioning is acceptable, then this should be fine?
Thanks to mr angry independista for dates of marches.Got the dates in Sunday National. It does seem to me that some are not entirely on Independence but are linked with other campaigns however laudable such as save our NHS.
Influence of the socialist worker type clan?
The Independence for Scotland blog? is that the one that used to be James Kelly’s Scot goes Pop?
So what has happened in Northern Ireland is the EU fault.
The DUP and brexiters have messed up-ignored the Electorate who do not wish to leave the eu and now have a half way house with the Republic.
Just as Scotland’s 62% was ignored. Jim Sillars was pleased I believe.
This is glorious.
‘Political damage’ = There’s just been a referendum on the protocol, and 58.3% of N. Irish voters backed it. It’s the settled will of the people.
There is no democratic mandate to alter the protocol. Unionists openly sought one and they got their erse’s handed to them on a plate by voters.
https://archive.ph/MC8PK
Foreign secretary warns Brussels to fix Northern Ireland protocol after Sinn Féin win
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has issued a warning to Brussels saying the Northern Ireland peace process is in jeopardy after Sinn Féin´s historic election win.
Foreign secretary Liz Truss is said to be “deeply concerned” that the EU would “never” change its negotiating mandate for the Good Friday agreement, The Sunday Times reported on May 8.
Maros Sefcovic, vice-president of the European Commission, reportedly made clear in a phonecall to Liz Truss that the EU would never have a mandate to renegotiate the protocol or to go beyond existing proposals.
A Foreign Office source told the newspaper: “It’s incredibly disheartening that despite the political and economic damage the protocol is causing in Northern Ireland, the commission continue to adopt such a rigid and hardline negotiating position.
And what is the nationality of those terrorists threatening violence now they’re not getting their way in elections? What flag do they proudly wave? Which party was their political wing recently in coalition with?
The peace process is not threatened by the protocol; the latter is what the people of NI want. No, the peace process is threatened by pro-English rule British terrorists who don’t accept democracy.
The union is in really deep doo-doo here. If London is to have any hope of saving the UK, it needs to stop the British terrorists setting off real, live brexit British bombs under the crumbling foundations of the UK.
“58.3% of N. Irish voters backed it” is perhaps stretching the point in terms of “It’s the settled will of the people”, but you can bet every single anti-NIP vote they could muster was there on the day without fail, so in reality the 58%ish is a dramatic under-assessment of NI sentiment.
What polling I’ve seen puts support for the NIP in the upper 80s so the UQ’s projection of the DUP etc stance as example of NI thinking is as far removed from reality as is possible, but look who they are preaching to – The same population who swallowed the Brexit farce whole then blamed the burp on the EU.
So let’s be very clear here, it is not the Union which is in jeopardy but England’s role in that Union, and a London elite used to “arranging things” in their favour under the guise of representing England.
Are we now at that (familiar) point where the MEDIA are telling us who , in their opinion, actually won the council elections In Scotland as opposed to the actual results ?
Asking for friends who still watch (rely on) the news on Telly and read the newspapers.
Willie Rennie went home to prepare for government
… he hasn’t been seen since.
He couldna prepare a meal.
Rumour has it that he and Prudence Pig are no longer an item.
Off topic.
RESULT
You may recall my letter to the Observer the other day complaining that an article mentioning the ‘snag’ [sic.] that had hit the promotion of Platinum Jubilee books in Scottish and Welsh schools referred to us – on more than occasion – as ‘regions’.
Whilst not holding my breath as to publication, this appears in today’s paper:
For the record
This week’s corrections
Sun 8 May 2022 06.00 BST
An article reporting concerns from the Scottish and Welsh governments that a book commemorating the Queen’s 70-year reign was too Anglocentric (Jubilee children’s book hits a snag in Wales and Scotland, 1 May, p17), wrongly referred to those countries [constituent countries of the UK] as “regions”.
Next best thing to being published, I guess.
😀
Brilliant WS @ 1.59PM
Glad you are a diligent OBSERVER of these far too frequent deliberate inaccurate references …..
Have a nice evening
🙂
Good job Sion… weel done.
Well done, too.
If only the “we’re perfect” BBC were to follow The Observer‘s good example… but then, elephants might turn pink and fly…
Panelbase (changes on Nov):
https://archive.ph/ZjkeN
49(-)% Yes
51(-)% No
Solid result.
Lies from England:
Truth:
Never trust a liar.
Meant to add… Latest polls compared to all (DK’s excluded):
So who actually won the elections in Northern Ireland? well according to Arlene Foster the British won the whole thing when you count up every individual vote cast, so in the light of that she demands the electoral system be changed to reflect that win for her British parties, in other words Arlene Foster who like all British are opposed to all referendums on anything unless they decide to have them wants FPTP style referendum style elections in Northern Ireland where the British can do what they do now, have a veto on anyone else forming any kind of governing body without them basically being in charge of the whole damn thing
In short British Nationalist dictatorship for all time making sure the element of religious zealotry Monarchy and Britishness is kept front and centre of all debate , and no matter who votes for what only the British can be allowed to win then do whatever they like which is the correct and British democratic solution
That’s the only way forward peacefully says Arlene Putin of the DUP
Here in Scotland yet another poll has emerged that 55% of Scots want a referendum on Independence for our country, but of course the Times who commissioned the poll claims the poll also suggests that nobody actually wants a referendum on Independence because now is not the time until the British Nationalists media tell us it is, which could be in bumpty nonk years time
SNP MP Kirsten Oswald again makes a statement on behalf of the SNP that the 2023 referendum already promised will go ahead as promised by the FM and that the UK parliament will have no say in the matter because the people of Scotland voted for one and that is what they shall have
Following Ms Oswalds statement the Internet becomes alive with Alba supporters claiming thIs statement is ambiguous, and many other abusive adjectives for which they have become infamous, really? ambiguous? if there were such a word, this statement couldn’t be more *biguous* if Ms Oswald wore a big yellow SNP branded hat draped in Saltires carrying the torch of freedom and shouted through microphones from the roof of our parliament building
This so called Alba party now need to be given the elbow by right thinking decent folk, they are patently and obviously not in the business of seeking Independence on any level whatsoever and are a disruption party, but for those who thought they were seekers of Independence it’s time to remove themselves from this forum of hate and bitterness because the electorate of Scotland have just pointed out once again they will not support this behaviour, they don’t like it and they don’t want it and they will not vote for it, folk can have disagreement or grievance with the SNP, that’s democracy, but Alba has no link to the solution, they’re on a downward spiral of just plain wrong
The power-sharing part of the GFA was designed for a Northern Ireland where unionists dominated. This domination had resulted in the historic persecution of the Irish (mainly catholic) minority population in their own homeland by the British. It gave rise to the Irish civil rights movement, which was violently put down by the British, ultimately creating sympathy for armed retaliation that arose in the form of the (essentially reborn) IRA.
Power-sharing protected the Irish population from British persecution. However, it seems that’s no longer needed in an NI that’s only 41.7% unionist. Certainly, it was never intended as a means by which to shut down Stormont by boycotting. That’s an affront to democracy and cannot be allowed legally. The protocol is a reserved matter if the people of NI don’t like it (which they do at 58.3% support), they can simply leave the UK.
Maybe time to revise the power-sharing part of the GFA so it only kicks in if unionists dominate again (which seems unlikely). Could be put to the people by referendum. Support for the protocol could be asked at the same time. I imagine both of these would be endorsed. If you are e.g. an Alliance voter you are currently a second class citizen as your party is not free to join the government if it wanted, and you can’t have your leader as DFM even if the population want that.
I was wondering if the power-sharing part couldn’t be altered to say that, to ensure the smooth functioning of the Executive, if the 2nd largest party declines to form a government the 3rd largest party should be asked to do so.
Would that work though?
Well done. Their ignorance / arrogance is so predictable.
Response to Welsh Sion
I think it was a decent enough description of some Irish unionists too!
It is clear ALBA can’t deliver anything on anything for at least 50 years.
SNP MP Kirsten Oswald again makes a statement on behalf of the SNP that the 2023 referendum already promised will go ahead as promised by the FM and that the UK parliament will have no say in the matter because the people of Scotland voted for one and that is what they shall have
Following Ms Oswalds statement the Internet becomes alive with Alba supporters claiming thIs statement is ambiguous, and many other abusive adjectives for which they have become infamous, really? ambiguous? if there were such a word, this statement couldn’t be more *biguous* if Ms Oswald wore a big yellow SNP branded hat draped in Saltires carrying the torch of freedom and shouted through microphones from the roof of our parliament building
It might be worth quoting the actual exchange.
Kirsten Oswald was asked “Will we be in the polling booths voting in indyref2 by the end of next year?”
To which she replied “I think that we absolutely are on the move towards a referendum.”
Readers can judge if that really was the most unambiguous way in which that question could be answered.
Readers can also judge where you’re coming from. It’s been obvious for quite some time.
It’s wise to be wary of concern trolls. I ask only that you extend that scepticism to a party whose representatives, when given the opportunity to state unequivocally that their core policy will actually be implemented, for some reason seem reluctant to do so.
Firstly Ms Oswarlds statement was reported in the National, Albas statements however flood the internet in the vilest possible terms trolling members, the FM and representatives of the SNP, and the population of Scotland who read this stuff inform others and so on, it’s only one of the reasons why ordinary voters will not vote for people who behave in this way
Second: As for Alba unequivocally stating anything, they’re not believed by the voters who actually do want Independence or they would have voted for them
I ask only that you extend that scepticism to a party whose representatives, when given the opportunity to state unequivocally that their core policy will actually be implemented, for some reason seem reluctant to do so.
I think we can be sure Michelle O’Neill wants a united Ireland. It would be totally stupid to try to argue otherwise. However, I can understand her caution about a border poll. SF want to win such a poll and for that to be the ‘no regrets settled will of the people’ for anything else is a total mess. Another brexit England.
A horse can be led to water, but it can’t be forced to drink. So better to lead it those last few steps when it is ready to. Independence is for life, not just until the next election. The 2021 election could have seen a Yes to indy in the previous term democratically overturned. After all, Yes parties only just won a majority share of the vote by fractions of a %. May 2021 confirms that the SNP, on balance, made the right call.
It is fantasy to think the population can be pushed into indy by ‘holding their feet to the fire’ as Alba propose. Nor can a short campaign secure indy. The march of nation does not step in time to the demands of politicians. Sturgeon seems to understand that where Salmond did not. But then what choice did he have when Cameron bounced him into a referendum that he was ultimately going to lose.
But time is not on the union’s side. The future seems inevitable. What just happened in NI is the product of decades of change, as is our own situation. We cannot rush it, only events can.
A horse can be led to water, but it can’t be forced to drink. So better to lead it those last few steps when it is ready to. Independence is for life, not just until the next election. The 2021 election could have seen a Yes to indy in the previous term democratically overturned. After all, Yes parties only just won a majority share of the vote by fractions of a %. May 2021 confirms that the SNP, on balance, made the right call.
It is fantasy to think the population can be pushed into indy by ‘holding their feet to the fire’ as Alba propose. Nor can a short campaign secure indy. The march of nation does not step in time to the demands of politicians.
If all of this is to say that you think the SNP are hedging their bets as they’re not confident that a referendum next year would be won, then I suspect you’re right (though given the abject state of the union, it’s hard to see how circumstances are going to move much further in our favour. Is it really just about waiting for, ahem, “demographics”?).
However, the SNP *have* previously committed to holding a referendum in this parliament, and the current Scottish Government was elected on that specific platform. Of late they appear to be retreating from that position. Perhaps, as you imply, they’re right to do so. But why then make the promise in the first place? Many, like Dr Jim above, have taken them at their word. Other posters on here have said in recent days that the party will lose their support if the referendum doesn’t happen when they said. If the position is just a general commitment to the principle of a referendum (as in 2016), why not say that?
Sturgeon seems to understand that where Salmond did not. But then what choice did he have when Cameron bounced him into a referendum that he was ultimately going to lose.
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a joke or what. The suggestion that the referendum happened because the *Tories* wanted it, against the wishes of the SNP, is so absurd that I’m not actually sure how to tackle it.
My guess is that Salmond genuinely expected to win. A lack of faith in his own abilities is not among his faults. You yourself were rather bullish about the prospects of victory at the time, despite your hindsight certainty that it was always doomed.
My guess is that Salmond was smart enough to realise that the opportunity had come too early, but that he was committed to taking advantage of it anyway. He could hardly do other. Being the inveterate gambler that he is, he made a go of it, though in retrospect making some significant and arguably avoidable missteps along the way. In the bitter blast, let us not forget, of many egregious and unashamed unionist infractions whose depth and extent none of us foresaw. But confident of winning? He certainly projected that, as he had to do, but like any gambler he probably had his own personal odds on it (whatever they were). But hardly “certainty”.
I am certain though that you are comittedly against independence. Your own ever-predictable negativity and doubt-sowing can leave no doubt there.
Salmond did not expect to win he didn’t even expect to have a referendum at all but Cameron wasn’t for trading more powers to Scotland on a bluff so Salmond was forced into taking the chance, ask Labours Alistair Campbell all about that
David Cameron called Salmonds bluff and won
Alex Salmond was a very good showman and talker and most folk liked him but even back then women voters were shy of him according to all the polls, subsequent events have done Alex Salmond no good as a politician and will dog him mercilessly, the public are the voters and they have decided they will not vote for him and he knows it so why?, it just seems particularly odd that people saying they wish to support a different Independence supporting party would want to have someone who can’t possibly win the necessary elections as their leader
Of course the SNP has not and cannot 150% commit to a referendum in 2023. Events may prevent that (court case delay?) or expediate (unexpected polling set-backs…political events in the wider UK) a delay to e.g. 2024. Anyone with any sense understands this, including the bulk of the population, who the SNP are very much in touch with. They are listening to the horse, and to each other in echo chambers.
The SNP can only state what they’d like to do and promise to make every effort here. But to make a commitment carved in granite just hands the advantage to unionists; hence so many pretend indy supporters demand this.
I don’t want a referendum, I want independence as the settled will of the people. That makes a referendum just a formality. This is what any real independence supporter should want.
My guess is that Salmond was smart enough to realise that the opportunity had come too early, but that he was committed to taking advantage of it anyway. He could hardly do other
I’d agree. 2014 was unwinnable and ended Salmond’s career (see my graphs on here). It’s why Cameron so readily agreed. Didn’t put up any fight whatsoever, while Salmond was thinking about how to at least extract something from the predicament.
https://archive.ph/CnqCz
Salmond: Scots have a right to second question on devo max
There’s a good reason he left the vote as late as realistically possible, i.e. 3 years after the 2011 win; in the hope of building up sufficient support, and, crucially, giving a couple of years for that to settle in, hopefully ensuring Yes parties got 50%+ in all following elections. That second goal is so important, for unionists can attempt to overturn a referendum by an election in the same way Yes parties could use an election to attain an indy mandate. Of course Yes parties didn’t get >50% in 2016, suggesting that this could have fairly / democratically overturned a narrow 2014 Yes.
If it’s not the settled will of the Scottish people, then they may undo it and nobody can stop them. The DUP have just got shafted for trying to go against the people of NI on the protocol.
As for me, I didn’t have access to all the extensive polling data that respective governments had, and I kept hoping throughout, particularly as Yes started to make gains from the depths of 2012 when things looked pretty hopeless. Certainly, I was not going to spend every day telling people there was no chance, even if felt it was a long shot. What good would that have done? In hindsight, a decade of data shows Yes squeezed out pretty much every vote it could, and that gave us all hope (or panic if you were a unionist) in the end.
I think Sturgeon hopes the horse will be ready to drink by next year, but has given herself some wiggle room for delays (e.g. due to court cases) as 2024 would also be ok. 2 years to the next election is a good margin for Yes to settle in an accepted. The fact that Scots did vote >50% for Yes parties in May 2021 – albeit narrowly – gives confidence. Again the data suggest that Yes is the more likely winner based on decadal trends, but what a mess if was a narrow No.
It would be mad to firmly commit / carve in stone plans until you know 100% that you can deliver. Does the SNP want a referendum in 2023? No question about it. They’d have loved one last term if they knew they could win it. They’d have jumped at the chance of one in the 1970’s if they thought it could be won. However, it’s taken them a century of campaigning for indy to get here because it is not campaigning that wins you independence, it is events outwith your control. Yes is not in 50% because of the SNP, it is on 50% because of the long term decline of the UK, end of the post war consensus, devolution…brexit…dying British identity…
It’s the same for Michelle O’Neill; she’d love a Yes in a border poll tomorrow and will make ambiguous promises because she knows NI is nearly there, but she needs it to be the settled will of the people. Like Scotland, it’s taken a century too. It is not campaigning by SF and the SDLP that has reduced the unionist support from 3/4 to just over 40%. It is the same uk and world events that have seen Scotland slowly drifting away. These factors have also led to England’s own democratic/existential crisis which has manifested itself in brexit.
It is absolutely no coincidence that unionists in NI have lost power at almost exactly the same moment as they’ve lost power in Scotland while England has voted for its own ‘independence’ as it tries to make itself great again. Our histories, and futures, are intertwined.
Incidentally, if the SNP really do come across as not bothered about independence rather than simply allowing the horse to lead them to water as much as the reverse, I doubt Alba will be the beneficiaries. More likely you’d see a split in the SNP and the votes go to the more determined wing of these. That or the leadership toppled/replaced.
I think Alba’s appeal is far too narrow, with too much of a fixation on niche domestic legislation rather than indy (e.g. GRA).
I coin the neologism ‘monoguous’ which is I submit more appropriate description of Kirsten Oswald’s response to Guissler this morning.
‘Ambiguous’ is driving in both ways, ergo, ‘monoguous’, driving one way, towards independence.
Why would we give the enemies of Independence any information which they demand?
Her answer was succinct, and to the point.
But that’s not good enough for the Alba trolls is it?
Salmond wants to climb Calton Hill and plant a saltire on the summit and boom ‘Freedom!’ now; thus ensuring that Indyref2 would fail.
And there’s the rub.
Alba is Salmond’s wee train set, dreamed up by him and a bunch of sad portly old men, to destroy the SNP and ‘the Murrels’.
They don’t give fook about Scotland, its people, or self Determination.
Geissler is one of the Scotia Nostra, an Old Watsdsonian, BB(C) Boy.
We tell them nothing.
It may frustrate the 793 Dog Whistlers and Alba fringe tuning i, but, do we care?
keaton, we are fighting for our lives here; why the hell would we let the enemy know what our next move was?
I’m sure that they’re missing you over on GB, WoS, or wherever.
Close the door behind you on the way out.
keaton, we are fighting for our lives here; why the hell would we let the enemy know what our next move was?
So was the answer ambiguous or not? You don’t seem too sure.
I’m sure that they’re missing you over on GB, WoS, or wherever.
Dunno what GB is. I think I was banned from Wings years ago for saying something vaguely complimentary about Sturgeon or something. I’m glad the moderators here (if not all the regulars) are more open to mild dissent.
Her quotes were reasonable to me. I think being banned from WoS is not unusual. I can vouch for that and its on record.
One thing no other party will get us a referendum and certainly not the 2 percenters.
Keaton, why misquote what Oswald said? That’s a unionist trick. You quoted her as saying:
“I think that we absolutely are on the move towards a referendum.”
but this is what she did say:
““I think we are absolutely on the move towards a referendum and the First Minister has been very clear on our position in terms of timing and what we’d like to see and we have a mandate for that as well, don’t forget.”
No full stop after the word “referendum”, but instead the phrase “and the First Minister has been very clear on our position in terms of timing … etc.”
I don’t expect to have to do this to a fellow Independence supporter.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20123000.scottish-independence-indyref2-wont-decided-tories-says-snps-kirsten-oswald/
“That’s a unionist trick.” Indeed. (Thanks for the full chapter-and-verse. Thus revealed, another carefully-honed misrepresentation for nefarious purposes.)
If it quacks like a duck…
Another wormtongue.
Anything taken out of context can be twisted to different meanings, they should always be quoted in context so people can make our own mind up. We can all have different opinions about what it means.
Another blog is trying to make a point and the difference between “to” and “towards” independence but at least it quoted Sturgeon in full and correctly. Taht allwos sensible agreement or disagreement (I disagreed). A poster beneath the line though argued about “Independence Referendum”, as though it’s the same as “Independence” itself. Poor reading skills or deliberate obfuscation, who knows?
Next time someone says or writes ANYWHERE about the supposed divisive ,aggressive and toxic ‘Nationalists’ in the context of any people in Scotland wanting independence to separate their country from the increasingly right wing , divisive, aggressive and toxic political pro Brexit UK uber nationalistic culture that currently exists courtesy of the Boris Johnson led Tory Govt who are supported by other extreme Bwitish nationalist zealots in Bwitish politics … then highlight this that I poached from Phantom Power’s Twitter account which represents the current difference between a Scottish Independence supporting SNP led Scotland in comparison to a Pro Brexit right wing Uber Bwitish Nationalist Tory led UK :
(I deferred from stating English nationalist/nationalistic as that does NOT represent all of the people in England…..some are actually in accordance with us…..so tis just a Tory UK government in WM, pro Unionist media and t’other right wing political (non) parties/individuals that the below quote refers to……other Bwitish Unionist parties, as in the Labour & Lib Dems, seem to be themselves deliberately deferring from exposing the reality of what Scotland being tied to their UK actually means for Scotland now and in the future……to Scotland’s detriment but for them ,they hope, it will ultimately be to their undeserved political benefit in future elections).
Phantom Power tweeted this :
“England sends refugees to Rwanda. Scotland elects them to public office”.
************************************
Phantom power were referring to Roza Salih , the Kurdish-born, Scottish human rights activist becoming the FIRST former refugee to be elected in Scotland as an SNP councillor by the people of Glasgow in the Scottish council elections on 5th May 2022.
Hope over Hate………Independence for Scotland over Bwitish Nationalism.
Dunfermline raised Scottish Rwandan actor Ncuti Gatwa becomes new Doctor Who.
I feel a poll coming on courtesy of GB News und t’other similar ‘Hate over Hope’ media outlets ……
Headlines that state ‘Broken Britain’ in relation to Sinn Fein and SNP wins on Thursday is being touted, by many pundits on Twitter who are anti Brexit, as caused solely by Brexit.
Tim Walker ( a prominent Remainer on Brexit) tweeted a picture of ‘The Herald’ with the headlines ‘Broken Britain’ showing Nicola Sturgeon, Mark Drakeford, Michelle O’Neill and Boris Johnson on front cover……
His tweet then stated ‘We’ve Brexit to thank for this”…….
Speaking for Scotland I would politely advise him and all Remainers like him that the need and desire for Scottish independence is not solely attributed as a result of Brexit alone …..Brexit is just but one of the latest arguments in our favour in wanting independence, but not THE defining argument …..we have sought and wanted independence for many other reasons prior to and post Brexit….which if some Remainers really sought honesty in this then they would gracefully concede all of our arguments for seeking independence were very much justified arguments….with or without Brexit.
Dear Remainers ….Stop using Scottish independence post Brexit to further YOUR anti Brexit arguments please……
They never ever consider it just might be that Scotland Northern Ireland and Wales might be OK, it’s England that’s the broken part of the Britain UK thing
This came out real quick.
https://archive.ph/DrzK0
Northern Ireland Assembly Elections Results
PRESS STATEMENT
NED PRICE, DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON
MAY 7, 2022
On May 5, the people of Northern Ireland voted in the seventh election for their devolved legislature since the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. The political and economic progress enjoyed over this period is a testament to the benefits of a locally accountable power-sharing government that reflects Northern Ireland’s diverse traditions.
We call on Northern Ireland’s political leaders to take the necessary steps to re-establish a power-sharing executive, which is one of the core institutions established by the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Critical and immediate challenges concerning the economy, health, and education are best addressed through the collective efforts of a devolved government chosen by, and accountable to, its people.
The United States enjoys a deep and long-standing relationship with Northern Ireland, grounded in ties of kinship, culture, commerce, and shared values. We remain deeply committed to preserving the peace dividend of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and will always strive to protect these gains for all communities. We look forward to continuing our work with democratic partners in Northern Ireland, and with the Governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland, to support peace, prosperity, and stability across the region.
Nae messin aroond fae Irish Biden.
Brandon Lewis SoS for NI blames the Eu rather than the DUP.
On politics NI he was suggesting that despite the election their is no mandate for a Border poll.
Tories and unionists, same script as Scotland, prevarication and lies.
England never comprehend anyone else’s understanding of the meaning of the word *mandate* until England claims only they understand it
I think SGP are getting really uptight by those writing in The National criticising his analysis of the election results.
Kelly has decided that .7% multiplied across constituencies where ALBA did not sit equates to 2% Nationally. Let’s assume ALBA was getting close to 2%, the fact is this means, zero seats in councils, Scots Parliament and Westminster. A pressure group has more influence. Time for reality should kick in.
SGP getting really uptight? Nothing new there, alas. But no doubt it’s additionally stressful these days having to be Canute-in-reverse, desperately trying to prevent the tide going out…
Tories Labour Lib Dems and now Alba basically blaming voters for not voting right, or counters for not counting right, or statements for not, well you see where it’s all going, folk blaming others for not winning
Please don’t upset SGP’s resident comic, Independence for Scotland (sic).
This is somewhat lengthy, but the thread is getting on now, and anyway it’s well on topic. But illustrative and worth studying, as many others will equally be. Just taking Glasgow Langside as a quasi-arbitrary choice, albeit the ward where the city SNP leader was standing. Here’s how the voting transfers went down, additionally comparing at each stage the relative standings of the main contenders for 3rd and 4th places, namely the 2nd SNP candidate with each of the two Labour challengers (-ve advantage Lab, + advantage SNP):
quota: 2272
1: Holly Bruce & Susan Aitken already over quota, and thus directly elected
Leinster-Docherty: −1095
Leinster-McKenzie: -388
net: -1483
Bruce (Green) surplus: 901
Leinster (SNP) 437.0 (48.5%) /
Osuchukwu (Alba) 10.5 ( 1.2%) /
(49.7%)
McKenzie (Lab) 117.8 (13.1%) /
Docherty (Lab) 108.0 (12.0%) /
(25.1%)
Stevenson (TUSC) 70.7 ( 7.8%)
Shields (LD) 46.9 ( 5.2%)
Whyte (Con) 4.0 ( 0.4%)
nobody 106.2 (11.8%)
Leinster-Docherty: −765.9
Leinster-McKenzie: -68.8
net: -834.7
Aitken (SNP) surplus: 627
Leinster (SNP) 507.4 (80.9%) /
Osuchukwu (Alba) 9.5 ( 1.5%) /
(82.4%)
Docherty (Lab) 43.9 ( 7.0%) /
McKenzie (Lab) 15.8 ( 2.5%) /
( 9.5%)
Shields (LD) 6.3 ( 1.0%)
Stevenson (TUSC) 5.6 ( 0.9%)
Whyte (Con) 2.6 ( 0.4%)
nobody 35.9 ( 5.7%)
Leinster-Docherty: −302.4
Leinster-McKenzie: +422.8
net: +120.4
2: Chigozie Anne Osuchukwu eliminated
Osuchukwu (Alba) transfers: 145.0 (125 1st prefs, ~20 SNP+Green transfers)
Leinster (SNP) 47.6 (32.8%)
McKenzie (Lab) 12.9 ( 8.9%) /
Docherty (Lab) 7.9 ( 5.5%) /
(14.4%)
Stevenson (TUSC) 31.7 (21.9%)
Shields (LD) 7.9 ( 5.4%)
Whyte (Con) 6.0 ( 4.1%)
nobody 31.0 (21.4%) {24.8% of 1st prefs}
Leinster-Docherty: −262.7
Leinster-McKenzie: +457.4
net: +194.7
3: Ronnie Stevenson eliminated
Stevenson (TUSC) transfers: 261.0 (153 1st prefs, ~108 SNP+Alba+Green transfers)
Leinster (SNP) 80.3 (30.8%) {74.3% of transfers alone}
McKenzie (Lab) 49.8 (19.1%) /
Docherty (Lab) 28.7 (11.0%) /
(30.1%)
Shields (LD) 17.3 ( 6.6%)
Whyte (Con) 8.3 ( 3.2%)
nobody 76.6 (29.3%) {50.1% of 1st prefs}
Leinster-Docherty: −211.2
Leinster-McKenzie: +487.9
net: +276.7
4: Michael Edward Shields eliminated
Shields (LD) transfers: 303.2 (225 1st. prefs, ~78 SNP+Alba+Green+TUSC transfers)
Leinster (SNP) 24.2 ( 8.0%)
McKenzie (Lab) 97.6 (32.2%) /
Docherty (Lab) 54.2 (17.9%) /
(50.1%)
Whyte (Con) 39.9 (13.2%) {17.7% of 1st prefs}
nobody 87.3 (28.8%) {more than all transfers}
Leinster-Docherty: −241.1
Leinster-McKenzie: +414.5
net: +173.4
5: Bruce Whyte eliminated
Whyte (Con) transfers: 1035.8 (975 1st prefs, ~61 transfers)
Leinster (SNP) 12.6 ( 1.2%)
McKenzie (Lab) 311.5 (30.1%) /
Docherty (Lab) 232.9 (22.5%) /
(52.6%)
nobody 478.8 (46.2%) {more than all transfers}
Leinster-Docherty: -461.3
Leinster-McKenzie: +115.6
net: -345.7
6: Steven Ignatius Docherty elected
Docherty (Lab) transfers: 73.5
Leinster (SNP) 3.3 ( 4.5%)
McKenzie (Lab) 59.7 (81.3%)
nobody 10.4 (14.2%)
Leinster-McKenzie: +59.2
7: Aileen Mary McKenzie eliminated
McKenzie (Lab) transfers: 1828.2 (1163 1st prefs, ~665 transfers)
Leinster (SNP) 353.3 (19.3%)
nobody 1475.0 (80.7%)
8: Paul Leinster elected (~31 short of the quota)
(All values rounded for brevity, but all calculations on the published values. And apologies, the use of a proportional font here ruins the careful formatting. Copying it elsewhere should restore it though.)
Some consequent observations:
When the Green won, just under half of her surplus 2nd/3rd prefs. went to Leinster together with a (not untypical) 1.2% to Alba, so half pro-indy. Merely half, but welcome all the same. A significant quarter of 2nd prefs to Labour. Plus just under 8% of 2nd prefs to TUSC. What does this signify? Ex-Labour voters now converted to Green but still willing to pay due to their origins? So if climate change is a wedge issue, it’s affecting Labour as well. Just under 12% had no 2nd prefs, and I can’t imagine these are ignoramuses who just put an “x marks the spot”, so presumably these are the ultra-Greens for whom no other party or candidate is worthy.
Slightly less surplus votes were available from Aitken’s direct win, of which a substantial ~81% 2nd prefs went to her co-candidate. The remainder perhaps hinting at the extent of a personal vote for Aitken. (Or voters who still think they can only choose one from each party?) Of which ~10% to Labour. Again a token nod of ~1.5% to Alba. But a worrying ~6% who had no 2nd pref. at all, and quit the game at this premature stage. Daft.)
The ensuing transfers from these two put Leinster ahead of McKenzie, and Labour overall, so no permutation of voting could have endangered him at this stage.
At stage 2, the inevitable happened, and Alba, as weakest, departed the contest first. Only about a third of the thus-freed votes went to the SNP. This is disappointing, given that these can only be Alba 2nd prefs plus a few SNP/Green 2nd/3rd prefs. Over a fifth went to TUSC instead, thus perhaps revealing the left-leaning inclinations of this cohort. (Or perhaps some personal preference for Stevenson?) But a dastardly similar proportion for nobody else at all. And since the SNP and Green voters may well have remained in play, that would amount to a substantial quarter of Alba voters thus effectively neutralised. Thankfully it wasn’t many from an already thin bunch.
At stage 3, not surprisingly next to go was TUSC. Even-stevens transfers to SNP, Labour and nobody else. That latter third, again assuming that the earlier transfers are still in the game, would amount to a whopping half of new 2nd prefs. (And likewise, much of the SNP’s third may be due to passed-down transfers.) Nevertheless, the net result was to strengthen Leinster’s net position, if not to challenge Docherty’s lead. (And which ultimately never happened.)
The subsequent elimination of LibDem Shields at stage 4 tilted the advantage back towards Labour, as expected, but despite half of transfers going to Labour, it wasn’t enough on its own to endanger Leinster, who even got 8% of these transfers.
Especially revealing was what happened with the elimination of the Tory at stage 5. Just over half went to Labour, and only slightly less went nowhere at all, any other preferences these latter voters may have had already having been lost. An odd ~13 votes went to SNP, though! Whether transfers in from elsewhere or a couple of handfuls of yes-supporting Tories isn’t clear.
This substantial transfer to Labour both gave Docherty enough votes to be elected and also put Leinster back into net deficit, though by not enough to put McKenzie ahead of him, even after most of Docherty’s relatively small surplus transfers went her way. (In fact ~14% went nowhere and a notional ~3 votes/4.5% even went to the SNP! Go figure!) Leinster therefore became the final winner.
What is particularly interesting though is to look back to stage 5 when Whyte was eliminated, and observe that if as little as some 60-odd transfers had gone to McKenzie instead of Docherty, or if they had come instead from the “nobody else” Tories, not only would Docherty have won anyway, but McKenzie would have as well. If only all those Tory voters could have known in advance! (As if!)
Just one solitary example, but something to ponder upon, surely…?
Oh, and also passingly worth noting from the crucial stage 5 when Whyte was eliminated, that of the measly ~61 transfers he had received that were duly passed on, ~40 of them came from Shields in the previous stage, thus leaving ~21 – one third of them – that must have come from SNP / Alba / Green in previous stages. So who among the supposedly pro-indy grouping thought the Tory merited putting before the 2nd SNP candidate? A few Tories who secretly rather admired the council leader, perhaps? {grin}
Interesting to note this morning HMS James Cook has re-engaged with the usual adventures now purdah is over – “Scotland ‘cranking up’ towards second referendum – SNP” in prime promotion spot. Kirsten Oswald’s comments quickly make way to remind readers DRoss and Sarwar still exist and remain relevant.
Back in the frame is the usual casting doubt on the “legality” of a referendum, and the equally annoying ‘Analysis by Glenn Campbell’ which title should be changed to “In my opinion…by Glenn Campbell” to match his laboured OBs and reflect reality.
Also in the “bringing back to life” category, the failed QEUH campaign is dragged out of the crypt yet again for “Scottish Hospitals Inquiry to focus on ventilation”.
Despite this being the technical phase of the public inquiry, and the article acknowledging that “Families affected gave evidence to the public inquiry last year”, they nevertheless insist on adding the personal touch with a ‘Where things went wrong’ section.
At least we should be grateful they are finally leaving pics of the unfortunate Millie Mae out on this recycle…
From the National yesterday:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20122931.support-independence-referendum-rises-55-per-cent-says-poll/
“A NEW poll has suggested support for a Scottish independence referendum has risen to 55% as Nicola Sturgeon looks set to make a fresh push to leave the UK.”
Why do journalists for the Independence supporting National, use the propaganda language of Scotland in Union, when the correct way to write that would be:
“A NEW poll has suggested support for a Scottish independence referendum has risen to 55% as Nicola Sturgeon looks set to make a fresh push for Independence.”
The question was and should be again:
“Should Scotland be an Independent Country”
NOT
“Should Scotland leave the UK”.
Spot on, a remain/leave question is exactly what the Unionists want in an attempt to muddy the waters. The question will be the same as last time, there is no legitimate reason for it to be changed and no one, especially a journalist for the National, should fall into the trap of using such language as “a fresh push to leave the UK” when they could use instead “a fresh push to become an Independent country”.
on BBC Radio Desperado . . . . call Kaye . . . Andy MacIver (ex Tory advisor) . . . . What politicians of all parties are talking about. . . ls that Scottish Education is failing badly , comparing it to other countries it’s definitely in decline.
Sounds like an orchestrated attack starting up
Now that Indyref2 shows signs of taking off again, it will be of little surprise that ConLabLib will be orchestrating their attacks on Scotland – it’s their sole aim in politics. They are each London-based units, foreign led by Boris and his ilk.
I suspect there will be much worse coming down the line, but fortunately many more of us are now far more aware of the ‘agenda’ they try to spew!
In my entire lifetime of 73 years no political party ever secured the levels of youth employment that the SNP have done, I grew up in the 50s and 60s when life was supposed to be *swingin* and easy to find employment but this was not so if kids didn’t move immediately into apprentice factory jobs on leaving school that was basically it they were on the dole till they got a job in a shop and there was much unemployment but at that time of course scrutiny of government of these things was virtually non existent so they got away with all sorts of stuff that nobody knew about except they knew they didn’t have any money or future, it’s one of the reasons Scotland became the most emigrated part of the UK, people just left and went elsewhere
Around 95% give or take today leave school with somewhere to go in Scotland, the government call it a positive destination and it’s right, they have employment college or University, choices they did not have when I was growing up, many of my own peers ended up as hard grafting flat capped men just like their dads before them queuing for the bus or walking to work every morning because it saved money as in my own fathers case who walked around 9 miles per day to work and back just to keep a job and us his kids, by the time he made it home he was exhausted and done till like many men of his wartime generation his body packed in and he died at 57 years old which in those days was not even an eyebrow raiser, 57 years old, think of that today, it doesn’t happen unless there’s an unnatural or unforeseen tragedy
The English political system and the rape of Scotland by that country made that happen, how dare they criticise the SNP for bringing Scotland forward when they not only allowed these things to happen they positively worked towards making sure they did in order to remove Scotlands wealth and use it to bolster England where their votes came from to elect them into government
There’s still stuff I don’t like today but there’s a damn site less of that stuff than when the English political parties ran our country and removed our stuff before we had the internet to keep an eye on them removing our stuff
The SNP are failing us they say, Bollox to that I say, they’ve been saying this shit for fifteen years, but the English politicians failed us our entire lives before the SNP ever came along and Tory Labour Lib Dem failed us into poverty and premature death, and here they go again with another maniac Thatcherite nut job doing it all over again for the benefit of themselves and the country they represent, England
If Scotland had had the SNP post war era we’d have been Independent and loaded as a country right now, instead we’re on the way back to a very similar situation to when I was a kid and it was not good, it was hellish, except you knew no better and you were a kid so resilient and bashed on uninformed that things could be any different, if our kids don’t grab this opportunity of Independence from England with both hands right now they’ll regret it for the rest of their shorter than our lives as they watch England screw Scotland to death once again just like I watched when I was their age
I still have my fathers flat cap
Aye Dr Jim
Similar thoughts, I have memories of my father when I was about 12 years old, I can still see an old man, he was 45.
Worn out, he then was severely injured in an accident and could never work.
It took 5 years for the case to get to court as the insurance company delayed.
In the Scandinavian countries they have ‘No Fault’ resolutions, the help is set very quickly and the court case can sort out the actual resolution. The victim can get on with their lives as best they can without being in real austerity.
We should have the same system, I think that ex service persons should NOT be dependent on charities like Erskine Hospital when they were damaged in work for the government.
Prof Robertson is back. Several posts over the past few days breaking down MSM attacks on Scotland.
BBC fail to notice Scotland’s businesses growing faster than UK
Prof Robertson on the attack on the Scottish NHS.
Herald and doctors’ trade union leader too close for comfort
Lots more over on the Talking Up Scotland site.
And an article by stewartb – a resident of this parish – an answer to the question “Why is the British Press so vile?”
UK press freedom lower than in most of Europe
Remember when Nicola Sturgeon was regularly visiting Brussels pre pandemic and the Brits were doing their collective nuts over what she was talking about with the nasty furriners, well now she’s off to Washington DC, I can’t wait to hear the same Brits and their media bitterly complaining about these future conversations and how she shouldn’t be going there but staying here to oversee there are sufficient pencils in schools
First comment on an article in the Herald, very common:
“When will the cult members realise that Sturgeon has no intention of pushing for a referendum now or later. She knows she will lose, and with it her very well paid job of being important and achieving nothing. Meantime the face painters seem content to march up to the top of the hill then down again!!”
Comments like these should be collected and put on banners (anonymously though), with something like this:
“Support for Independence is about 50%.
The comments above are typical of what active campaingers for the Union think of people in your area, your neighbours, your friends, your family – or even you. They think 50% of Scotland belong to a cult and are ‘face painters’.
All the Union has to offer is abuse and contempt.
Vote YES for Scotland to become an independent country.”