Isn’t it bloody typical. It seems like every time I decide to take a few days off for the good of my mental and emotional well being, some big political story breaks. And here we go again. After a day of increasingly fevered speculation, Rishi Sunak has announced that there will be a Westminster general election on Thursday the fourth of July, which entirely coincidentally is the day before the Euros cup final, when the British media expects to be jizzing itself in anticipation of the England team playing in and winning the cup. Those of us in Scotland can fully expect both Labour and the Tories to spend much of the election campaign competing to outdo themselves in ostentatious displays of Engurland Engurland patriotism.
There was a live feed on the BBC and Sky News of Downing Street broadcasting a rainy lectern. We all waited in anticipation for a rain drenched Sunak to announce the loss of his own job, not even the Tories expect him to win this election. Not so much Things Can Only Get Better as Things Can Only Get Wetter. As he stood in the pouring rain, Sunak was soaked by just about the only water in England not contaminated by human excrement.
As he made the announcement Sunak seemed to be speaking from some parallel universe in which everything in Britain was just wonderful and that this is not an island literally surrounded by a sea of shit thanks to the Conservatives privatising the water companies in England and Wales and where public services are crumbling and underfunded, record numbers of children live in grinding poverty and the gap between rich and poor has become a yawning chasm.
Given that Labour is so far ahead in UK wide opinion polls, it is more likely than not that Keir Starmer will become the next British prime minister. It would be easier to take pleasure in the political demise of the odious Conservative party if it wasn’t Keir Starmer who was Sunak’s likely replacement. Starmer has broken every promise he’s ever made and is willing to say or do anything in order to get into power. He has taken the Labour party so far to the right that hard right Conservative MPs are happy to defect to it. Even as he made his election announcement Starmer lied again, saying that he’d changed Labour to make it respond to the needs of ordinary people. The only voices he pays heed to are those in City of London boardrooms.
Most of us want a general election, millions are desperate to see the back of this hideous Tory government, a bunch of English nationalist Brexit loving, lying corrupt, chaotic authoritarian flag wavers who have created misery and spread despair. We want to see the Tories not merely kicked out of office but utterly and comprehensively destroyed at the ballot box. Sadly it only means that a new set of English nationalist Brexit loving, lying corrupt, chaotic authoritarian flag wavers will come in and create misery and despair of their own.
Making predictions in politics is a mug’s game, but I’m prepared to put my neck out here and say that Keir Starmer will indeed become the next British prime minister but that he will very rapidly become very unpopular indeed as it becomes apparent that the change he claims to represent is no change at all. The Labour leader cannot hide from his many lies and U turns when he is in office the way in which he can as an Opposition leader.
In Scotland it’s a contest between Labour and the SNP, despite what Labour will claim, the party absolutely does not need to win in Scotland in order to get the hated Tories out. Replacing an SNP MP with a Labour MP does absolutely nothing to reduce the number of Conservative seats in the Commons. The SNP is markedly further to the left than Labour, which admittedly is not difficult. Starmer will not even commit to abolishing the utterly loathsome two child cap on benefits. The only ‘change’ that Keir Starmer really stands for is replacing himself for Rishi Sunak, he will not undo Brexit, he will not alter the deeply undemocratic Westminster Parliament which is based on an unfair and unrepresentative electoral system, and he will not give up the immense power of patronage a prime minister possesses. Nothing of substance will change.
If you are an independence supporter in Scotland the only realistic vote at this election is a vote for the SNP. Thanks to the Westminster first past the post electoral system, neither Alba nor the Scottish Greens have enough popular support to see their candidates returned as MPs. A vote for them will only split the pro-independence vote and allow a British nationalist party to win. You might not like the SNP for not being forceful enough in the pursuit of independence. What exactly do you think a Labour or Tory MP is going to do to help bring about independence or another independence referendum? Labour will seize on every victory in Scotland as ‘proof that Scotland has rejected ‘nationalism’ even as Starmer wraps himself in the red white and blue and panders to the basest instincts of xenophobic Anglo-British nationalism.
This is going to be a difficult election for the SNP, the party has been buffeted by crises in recent months and there is no clear pathway to independence even though support for independence remains undiminished by the SNP’s troubles.
We stand close to the end of a fourteen year nightmare, but on 5 July we are not going to wake up to a better and brighter country, Keir Starmer’s promise of change is another of his many lies. He offers more of the same Pentagon pleasing pro privatisation right wing corporatism, all wrapped up in an authoritarianism English nationalism. There’s only one way to attain real change, but there will be no meaningful change unless the SNP and the wider Independence movement can defy the pessimistic prognostications of the opinion polls and use the fourth of July to assert Scotland’s independence day.
Remember that thanks to the Tories’ voter suppression laws you need photo ID in order vote, a driving licence or passport or another accepted form of ID. If you don’t have any you can apply for a voter authority certificate instead.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
4th July is a Thursday
So it is, general elections are always on a Thursday, I must have had a brain fart, fixed now.
Independence supporters have to get out and vote SNP. A higher turnout. Vote the unionists out.
Both me and my wife will be marking our ballots ‘not my parliament’ We’ll probably get Lib Dem again, had them for about 70 years now, without a break.
Had I not looked at my emails I would be none the wiser. Perhaps his hope for this is that all the ‘working-class’ labour voters will be at the fitba and unable to vote, ‘cause they don’t know how to do a postal vote, being ‘working-class’ fitba supporters, y’ken…🙄
Somebody’s kicked his arse into gear anyway.
Get back to your time off Paul, but thanks for that.
Independence Day it is. He had to cut and run and TBH I expected him to do it in May along with the English Local elections. But I can’t say I’m overjoyed. Just a grim determination to live long enough to get rid of ALL of them.
Hope the SNP are quick out of the traps with a positive message.
Both the Plaid Cymru and the SNP Leader have already sent me emails:
Dear Sion,
It’s official – there will be a Westminster General Election on 4 July 2024.
Only a vote for Plaid Cymru will put Wales’ best interests first in this election.
We are ready to take this fight to the London parties to demand the fairness that Wales both needs and deserves.
The Tories have crashed the economy and hard-working people are still paying the price of high bills. Labour, on the other hand, just take Wales for granted. None of the London parties will put Wales first.
Only Plaid Cymru will demand fairness for Wales, with strong local champions who’ll be Wales’s voice in Westminster – not Westminster’s voice in Wales.
Dros Gymru / For Wales
Rhun ap Iorwerth
Plaid Cymru Leader
___________
Dear Sion,
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has disrespectfully announced that a Westminster election will be held on the 4th of July 2024 during the Scottish school holidays.
The Conservatives could not have made it clearer that they do not value the collective voices of voters in Scotland.
If there is one thing you do today, make sure you are both registered to vote and registered for a postal vote. And invite 5 SNP supporting friends to do the same by forwarding this email or clicking and sharing the graphic on the link below.
Share on X (Twitter), Facebook and Threads
Westminster isn’t working for Scotland and the case for independence is more compelling than ever.
Whilst Labour simply can’t be trusted to stand up for Scotland.
Scotland’s future is best served with the powers of independence where decisions are made in Scotland, for Scotland.
A vote for the SNP is a vote to put Scotland first – and for Scotland to become an independent country.
Now, more than ever, we need to put Scotland first by electing as many SNP MPs as possible.
You can do your bit by contacting your local branch to find out how you can get involved.
Together, we can deliver a better future for Scotland.
John Swinney
SNP Leader
Good to hear – thx for posting. 🙂
Got mine too ☺️
Make the 4th of July Scotland’s Independence Day. Quite a snappy slogan, I thought…
It’s so weird watching pundits talking about Labour having a 20 pt lead when the reality is this:
I think Starmer can be confident enough that he can hold the 21% odd of the electorate that are currently backing him (IPSOS polls, like all polls, tend to find CTV levels higher than actual turnouts, as voters are more likely to engage with pollsters than non-voters). After all, Labour managed that even in 2019 and have sat at the same level since basically. It’s basically their base since the demise under Blair.
But can he rely on voters stay at home en masse? That’s what he needs for his 20 point lead; a historic low turnout. As low as 50% at least, possibly lower as that is current CTV, which, as noted, tends to overestimate turnout a little. If that sort of turnout happened in Iran, the BBC would call it a ‘protest against the illegitimate regime’.
He needs a people so devoid of hope that they believe nothing can be changed. He needs despair, apathy, the belief that there is just no point in voting as nothing ever changes. That is what he needs for power he craves so much. It’s why he’s walking on glass. He doesn’t really want the election as that might get people moving, however reluctantly, and against him. He’d rather they just sat silently while he got the keys based on opinion polls.
Because believe me, he’s not finding people on the doorsteps desperate for a new Labour government and full of hope for one. That is just not happening, as all polls show the same as Ipsos above. Nope, he’ll be seeing a similar response as 2019 to his party. The only difference is that Tory 2019 opening their doors have been saying they may well not go out and vote. He’s praying they do exactly that, as he’s not prepared to offer anything that might inspire more centre to left voters to turn out for his party.
Polls could not be more favourable right now for Labour due to Tory despondency, jet man, things only get worse for Starmer. Even with variance giving him a wee improvement on the last poll, it’s still dire. Blair was miles into positive territory by comparison.
This is UK wide. In Scotland the picture is even more dire for him. Heaven knows why Sarwar is so keen on an election.
53% CTV in the latest polls. So aye, that would correspond to maybe a 50% turnout if we were on the eve of an election.
49% Survation
52% R&W
58% Savanta
52% YouGov
47% Techne
62% Ipsos
This is what to watch. If the polls start changing, it will mainly be because this is starting to go back up. It won’t be incredible swing like the press insists. It will be voter reengagement.
just had to check SNP policy on the election, 50% of Scottish seats to begin negotiations on independence, as agreed at AGM in Aberdeen last year. Curious to see how front and centre that is over the next 6 weeks.
Looks like he’s Feart!
The 4th of July is the day before the Euros quarter final ties, so Engerland can’t have won it by then, which makes the timing even more bizarre.
Or gone out on penalties in the QF’s yet you mean?
Scotland have already won the Euros in the eyes of Scots. They just need to get there is all we ask. 🙂
Noticed the SNP site, twitter etc banner has changed.
I like this too.
It’s basically the opposite of what Labour need people to feel if the former are going to win seats according to polls.
Dear Wee Ginger Dug
I am not able to access Facebook from a computer and replicate your amazing articles on the Scotland Scottish page. Can you therefore join the Scotland Scottish Group and post the link there in order that I can use my mobile phone to continue to share them at the Scotland Scottish page that has 16451 followers. NB Facebook are fickle but not as fickle as Glasgow Live as they were the ones who got me banned for a post congratulating Nicola Sturgeon on her driving and suggesting that she gets lessons from my client at Partick Driving School Gordon Ross.
Kind regards
We are watching the Conservative Party self destruct before our eyes
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1793380451752800445
Lol – this election is turning into a clown show already.
For panic stricken MPs to oust Sunak and revoke an election would be unprecedented. It would also look totally deranged….so I suppose pretty much standard Tory politics of the last 8 years.
Labour may end up doing the same if the certain to vote numbers start ticking up as they normally do once a date is set, but not to them!
Ha ha ha – Sunak’s election pitch “our economy is outpacing Germany, France and the United States”. Sure it is – by 0.3%. Crack open the champagne – oh wait, that’s French.
I posted elsewhere that the SNP could get anywhere from 5 to 57 seats.
And it’s up to them, with Swinney and Forbes able to make it the latter.
Would making it a de facto referendum give them 57 seats? Perhaps. But I’d say they only really need to give less than a week’s notice of that.
OK. Holyrood election 6th May 2011 – and the SNP got an overall majority. But on the 1st May it was in a leaders’ debate that Salmond pledged he would hold an independence referendum in the second half of the parliament if he won the election on Thursday. Just 5 days before the election, after weeks of refusing to name a date. Some (like me) would say it was what made all the difference.
https://archive.is/Leanu (Daily Record)
So by that yardstick, Swinney could do similar on the 29th June. Which gives him 5 weeks to get his ducks in a row for that.
The 2011 win was right there in polls up to 2009. Then they were wrong for 2 years. People don’t go off the SNP then back to them like some nodding donkey. Nor do they do votes of other parties do that. However, they do disengage from politics and pollsters at times.
There was a desperate SNP -> Lab / Lib tactical vote in 2010 which was a dead cat bounce for them as Scots tried to stop the Tories and failed. This failure caused SNP despondency and disengagement. SNP support did not fall at all though. It was a mirage due to sampling problems.
The reality was that SNP support was accelerating as yellow flag lib voters moved away from the right wing Tory orange English libs to the actual yellow flag Scottish libs – the SNP.
But these were not engaged with pollsters. They were making their minds up quietly. Certain to vote numbers fell sharply and Labour shot up to majority territory, but it was all heavy Labour oversampling. Labour were stuck on the 30% odd they’d been polling in right up to 2010, as you can see. That whole rise to peak early 2011 is just an artefact of unrepresentative sampling. The dashed line is what the real SNP trajectory looked like.
Then the campaign began, and with it reengagement. The rest is history.
Isn’t it bloody typical. It seems like every time I decide to take a few days off for the good of my mental and emotional well being, some big political story breaks. And here we go again.
It looks like “they’re doing it deliberately”
65% of Scots identify as Scottish only, but we have three political parties demanding we vote for them so they can deny that 65% of people the right to be Scottish
Vote union get British
Hey, don’t exclude me. I am Scottish + other (non-British)! My daughter too. We take the total to 67.5% 🙂
There are quite a lot of us. 110.5k in 2022.
Just 22.2% of people in Scotland are British in whole or in part, so the more union jacks Starmer can get behind him on camera, the better.
Tory flag + red = red Tories.
I hope Ian Murray lends him that suit.
Hi SS – you’re the numbers person so…
Do you have any idea of the figures for those who answered the Ethic question British, but the Identification question as Scottish? (And, for that matter, the number of non-British Others doing so)
Might be interesting – and show how many ‘immigrants’ actually feel more at home in Scottish society than the one they left.
Ethnicity vs natiID may be cross-tabbed. I shall have a look at some point.
Thanks, SS
Not cross tabbed for now. May happen in due course.
This talks about the subject. From a good while ago now, but I not much will have changed apart from Scotland is more Scottish / less British as per the census.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UxmxuTaQ0qc3u7y4EW0lwpcYMIwKDVL7/view?usp=drive_link
English participants tended to think of themselves as indistinguishably English or British, while both Scottish and Welsh participants identified themselves much more readily as Scottish or Welsh than as British. Some were happy to combine both identities (they felt Scottish or Welsh, but held a British passport and were therefore British); others saw themselves as exclusively Scottish or Welsh and felt quite divorced from the British, whom they saw as the English…
…At the most basic level, all British passport holders know they are British citizens. However, not everyone attaches any value significance to being British. In Scotland and Wales – and this was true among both white and ethnic minority participants – there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain…
…Thus, across all Scottish and Welsh groups, regardless of participants’ ethnic backgrounds, national identification was much stronger than identification with Britain, although those identities were not seen as incompatible or mutually exclusive.
The situation was different in England, where there was a sharp difference in the ways in which white English and ethnic minority participants thought of themselves. Most white English participants saw themselves as English, first and foremost, but also as British.
By contrast, most ethnic minority participants (except for black Africans, as discussed below) saw themselves as British, to the exclusion of any identification with England, since they strongly associated England with white English people.
Interesting.
Thanks for digging it out. I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for this kind of stuff.
Inevitably the ugly truth of this GE will leak through the jingo, it’s all about which of the UK’s two main political parties retain or gain power with the gullible public footing the bill and serving the sentence, absolutely nothing else – Broken Britain’s last political ‘change’ of benefit to the populace was in 1946, and neither party have the slightest intention of making that mistake again.
Despite the relentless media negativity over the SNP and a predicted Labour “landslide” in Scotland, if ever there was a time to show up the manipulators for what they are, it is at this next GE – With low turnout fully expected in England, the spectacle of high turnout in Scotland would be impossible to ignore – Likewise erasing Tory and Labour MPs from Scotland’s political landscape with a stonking majority for SNP would be impossible to explain other than “Scots don’t appreciate being lied to…”.
Let’s make it happen…
It’s gonnae be one mother of a right wing English / British policy and flag fest. They will try to keep outdoing each other here.
The problem is they are appealing to a very very small audience…
The British Establishment will continue undeterred by whoever wins this GE .
After all , as the saying goes , ”If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal !”
…and with Starmer likely to ”triumph” it’s a safe bet that nothing will change to affect those in power . Clearly Starmer meets all the criteria to be the next PM of England as they will be voting for the candidate they dislike least .
Starmer’s steady march towards right wing union Brexiter union jackery / St George’s cross waving has not gone unnoticed. It’s why his rating are tanking in Scotland.
“We want to see the Tories not merely kicked out of office but utterly and comprehensively destroyed at the ballot box.”
Perhaps it would be in our best interest that they keep enough so that Labour can only form a minority government. That should give the SNP the balance of power, and therefore enough influence to get a referendum agreed. Or better, get the principle of choosing to hold a referendum established in law.
Starmer’s Labour party still need a 10% swing from the Tories to secure a majority in the UK of greater England and its territories, and that means us in Scotland and Wales are about to be bombarded by screeching Labour entreaties to vote for their British Labour party
This general election is probably going to be the closest election in around 60 years and one of the very few in history elections that Scotland and Wales could possibly make a difference in, again unlike every other general election where British parties in the past couldn’t care less for what Scotland voted, this time both of the big British parties are deeply concerned
They both think they need Scotland so they will be pounding our brains in to convince us all to vote for them, what we all have to remember is that if we do vote for them either of the Big British parties will declare that any desire for independence in Scotland is over and done because we voted for them
That’s the very reason why Scotland, rather than disengage with this election because we don’t want either of them, must turn out to vote SNP so we don’t give our country away to the very people who caused the damage in the first place, both Labour and Tory
There can be no change without actual change, and the Labour party has only changed to become another Tory party
FMQs today, both DRoss and Sarwar’s script was identical in tone and words, clearly a collaboration of the one union party with one agenda, bring down the Scottish parliament, not the SNP, our parliament
One union one country one regime, no Scotland
the rossarwar peas in a pod have done themselves no favours today with their combative approach on Matheson – couple of bully boys very well dealt with by John Swinney. Yes Matheson was wrong and has dealt with it, yes in any business he would be removed for embezzlement but then it’s a pittance to the millions taken from our pensions by the Labour Party and the outrageously overpaid millions paid out by Westminster during the pandemic for sub standard PPE. The whole of the UK has been fleeced to line party donors pockets – seems to be a fact of politics – me me me. Don’t for one minute believe Starmer and Sarwar putting the country before party – aye right
I know two wrongs don’t make a right but let’s get some perspective
I remember well DRoss’s memory failing him in declaring all of his incomes just two years ago, he forgot he was a football referee, or how about Sarwar who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to pay his employees the minimum wage
No committee sanctioned them, nor did the SNP demand resignations
We have seen since the SNP took office the amounts of times both Labour and Tory have demanded resignations of every health secretary that’s ever been in post, and that was including the most successful health secretary since the parliament’s inception Nicola Sturgeon
There is practically no post within the SNP that Labour Tory and Lib Dem have NOT demanded a resignation
In my experience businesses are pretty good at fanagling expenses dodgy claims. Only the minions in a company get sanctioned for it.
Should that not be “the Starwars Dross”.
“he would be removed for embezzlement“
Last time I looked, Michael Mathieson had no idea how the roaming charges had been incurred and the tech support didn’t know either. Once his sons admitted they had used his ipad as a hot spot to watch football then he owned up and paid the cost. That isn’t embezzlement. He is clearly not tech savvy and had no idea what had happened.
Unless something new has emerged then there is no sense in which this is an illegitimate use of public funds.
I thought that Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar outed themselves as self-serving bullies and I agree that John Swinney handled them very well.
😂
5 weeks now since Pete M was charged with unspecified crimes ahead of a general election, and still no report sent to prosecutors, meaning the public have no idea what he’s supposed to have actually done wrong.
Skier they won’t release any details of the case until at least a pre trial hearing and if it goes to court there will be a plea hearing first. Anything further is many weeks away.
I thought John Swinney handled Lorna Slater’s question very well too. She was demanding that no more oil or gas should be extracted from the North Sea because “climate change”.
She clearly has no idea that oil and gas can be used for other things besides burning it. In fact almost everything in our culture is made from oil and gas. The entire German chemical industry was based on gas and now that they can no longer import cheap Russian gas BASF (the world’s largest chemical company) is decamping to China.
https://archive.ph/VSiTE
She uses oil and gas in the chamber (e.g. the plastics in her electronic devices), even wears it too I imagine (synthetic materials). Could well be eating it for lunch in the form of fertiliser.
The microphone amplifying her demands is made of plastics
Though probably doesn’t carry her messages home from Waitrose in a plastic bag. Unbleached recycled cotton I’m guessing.
The only way the Scottish government could make a firm promise on the future of the oil and gas industry is if Scotland were independent and in charge of it
The Westminster parliament could stick a bunch of big bombs in the north sea and blow holes all over the place if they felt like it, and Scotland as part of England’s enforced union would have no say
England’s parliament can do what it likes when it likes to Scotland and Wales, they always have done
Why Scots need a Scottish government, Wales a Welsh. I mean FFS.
He should have been asking ; ”Does anyone have a spare umbrella – we don’t do those in No.10 !”
Was that the meeting today where two Tory Councillors in HiViz vest pretending to be workmen lobbed soft questions to the PM?
Nope – that was earlier today in Derbyshire, Ingerlund.
John Crace’s view:
Rish!’s warehouse visit takes the biscuit for talking down to voters | John Crace | The Guardian
More on this story …
Watch: Rishi Sunak scores own goal with football gaffe on campaign tour (nation.cymru)
Well said but it’s the opposite of the English governments’ intention…it’s designed as a two big fat greedy BritNat fingers stuck up at Scotland, but mostly directed at the SNP. Hopefully the BritNat state, the English government will be laughing on the other side of their faces on July 5th. Fingers crossed!
From Believe in Scotland
Important deadlines for the Westminster Election on 4th July:
Register to vote: 18 June at 11:59PM.
Apply for a postal vote: 19 June at 5PM.
Voter Authority Certificate applications (Voter ID – Free option): 26 June at 5PM.
Polls open: 4th July from 7AM until 10PM.
A comparison, and a reminder of why I keep saying projected turnout looks super low unless those certain to vote (CTV) numbers go back up.
UK wide polls where I can get CTV numbers just prior to 2019 and now.
2019 final polls CTV
80% Ipsos
74% Survation
73% Savanta
68% YouGov
Average = 73.8%
Turnout = 67.3%
Current polls CTV
62% Ipsos
49% Survation
58% Savanta
52% YouGov
Average = 55.3%
Current turnout projection = 50.4%
This is how labour can stand still yet go ahead by 20 points. The same number who voted for them last time, and were saying that to pollsters just ahead of the vote, are still doing that right now. By contrast, Tory voters are silent (like SNP voters) or saying they might not vote. Low 20’s Lab on a 50% TO becomes low to mid 40’s VI.
I note that pollsters don’t measure CTV to estimate turnout, they do it to try and getting a more accurate VI. Ideally their polls would comprise of only those actually planning to vote.
If you are a Labour supporter, don’t kid yourself they are riding a popular wave. You only delude yourself and will only bring you trouble down the road. That said, maybe if CTV goes up, it will go up equally across the parties, and everyone will stay where they are relatively right now. I can’t tell the future. However, history says that rarely if ever happens, and normally when CTV levels rise, it does so disproportionally, causing the pre-election ‘swings’ the papers love.
As I keep saying, the 14 year old rule in Scotland now is CTV going up means SNP going up. In England, its two cheeks of the same erse tennis. If Labour are riding high, Tory will go up with CTV. If it’s Tory riding high, it will be Labour that benefits. So the election is Starmer’s to lose, either due to some sort of Tory turnout to stop him, or a dismally low turnout which gives him seats but no mandate.
Now we wait and watch those CTV numbers.
And right on time – breaking news from The National:
There’s an election. Time to submit report. I wonder what will happen next.
The SNP vote will go up, that’s what will happen.
Not coincidental at all!
As the (Deep South) alligator in a Looney Toons cartoon said “Well, skin me alive and call me luggage…”
😂
I posted this one on May 13th:
Yeah I saw the report on The National website. How convenient for PS to send the report to Crown Office day after GE announced. I guess the one fingered typist finally finished their work What a pity we can’t do what many in USA do vote to elect a chief of police.My money is on a court appearance before election day.
You can be absolutely sure that if there was a poll on the key factors in people’s decision making about how they’d vote in an election and or iref, the only people who’d rate Branchform highly, would be those that would never, under any circumstances, ever vote SNP or Yes anyway. And they’d also be lying when they answered, as it would not be influencing their vote, they’d just be desperately hoping it was influencing that of others.
Which is why this case has no potential to set independence back, but it may well push it forward.
Can’t help but wonder if the UK Crown Office will decide there’s no case for prosecution in just over six weeks time.
The ‘UK Crown Office’?? Is there a UK Crown Office? Surely it is the Scottish Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
Is there a Scottish ‘Crown?’ I understood the Crown was the British one at present. Charles just gave his permission for a UKGE.
HM’s Crown OPFS in Scotland is a ministerial department of the UK government. Specifically, one currently answerable to UK government’s devolved Scottish Executive, now Government. Previously, the Scottish Office had this role.
Like the Scottish Government (aka UK civil service in Scotland), the COPFS is staffed by British civil servants, whose salaries are paid by Whitehall.
It also employs solicitors and advocates ‘who represent the [English / British] Crown’ in court.
The only Scottish thing truly Scottish about any of our governance structures while we are in the UK, is the Yes politicians we have elected. As things stand, that makes the Scottish Parliament in effect Scottish as these are in majority in it.
Yes there is a Scottish Crown and it is that Crown that adorns lecterns etc and is also the one the Monarch accepts.
😂
Swinney is on his game.
https://x.com/themikeyhannon/status/1793638693561082181
Well I just rejoined. I guess they could do with some cash now that there’s an election afoot. John Swinney is saying all the right things.
Well that gives me a lift, I hope others will follow you 👍
Time to get with the project 😂
Excellent Capella!
This comment from the regime’s state broadcaster caught my eye, that second highlighted line in particular.
Can’t seem to get an archive of the current page, oddly. Saved as pdf for future reference.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn00rlnd2ygo
This just makes me all the more determined to work harder for Independence and for the SNP to defeat the Labour and Tory parties in every seat in Scotland.
There’s a great many just like me that will feel exactly the same.
Absolutely. And when I read those lines in blue, the thought that popped into my head was ‘Why say that unless you know what the charges are?’. Because we can be sure they know. No conspiracy theories needed for that. These are ‘journalists’ (ahem), and establishment ones to boot. Of course they f’n know.
I have thought to say those same words in blue myself, but held back because well, I don’t know, and I must be careful not to prejudice a live case…
‘Not theft’, but ‘exceeding authority’? If that were the case, it could be so very like the case brought against the pro-Catalan politicians by the right-wing Spanish government.
Skier the article says “This time he was charged with embezzlement”.
That covers a massive range of things, including cases where nothing is missing at all, was my point.
Sometimes it’s just ‘exceeding authority’ in some way as the BBC notes.
So we remain none the wiser as to what it is he’s actually accused of. By contrast, they will know via their sources.
This is worth a two minute read.
https://crime.scot/embezzlement/
What a great site! Loved this video on politicians not answering questions in Cross Examination for Journalists.
So if, say, my family earmarked money for a family holiday, but I’m on unpaid sick leave and we need food. It’s well before the date, so I borrow from the holiday fund, with a view to replacing it later. Which I do.
Technically speaking, the rest of the family could accuse me of embezzlement. Is that correct?
They’d reaching a bit, yes?
They’d also be out of my will! 😀
It’s correct if the rule was that you were entrusted not to use the holiday fund for any other purpose, even if you knew you’d a bonus coming month end so could put it straight back once you got that.
Embezzlement could even apply if more money ended up in the holiday account than before, because you paid back in more than you took out as you made amends.
Which is why prosecutors take into account public interest in pursuing such cases. Motive is everything here.
https://archive.ph/fBCEN
Thought you might be interested to know that I’ve been working on a translation of a survey commissioned by the BBC on its trustworthiness and portrayal of the nations and regions. Below, a sample of the questions.
Who knows if any of us will receive this survey some time soon …
____________
1 How well the BBC reflects and represents your nation or region of the UK?
(Extremely dissatisfied to Extremely satisfied)
2a The BBC has programmes/content that feature my part of the UK
2b The BBC has programmes/content that reflect and represent lives like mine
(Strongly disagree to Strongly agree)
3 To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
I have noticed the BBC is doing more to reflect and represent different nations and regions of the UK across BBC programmes and content
(Strongly disagree to Strongly agree)
4 To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
I have noticed the BBC is doing more to reflect and represent the nation or region of the UK I live in across BBC programmes and content
(Strongly disagree to Strongly agree)
5 To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements about the BBC
5.1 The BBC pursues truth in its news reporting
[…]
(Strongly disagree to Strongly agree)
6 To what extent, if any, do you think the BBC is biased in favour of or against the Government of the day, regardless of which party is in power? Where 1 means you think the BBC is very biased in favour of the Government and 9 means you think it is very biased against the Government of the day.
(1-9)
7 In terms of the BBC as a whole, including its coverage and reporting of the news and current affairs, to what extent, if any, do you think the BBC is biased in favour of or against the Labour party? Where 1 means it is very biased in favour of the Labour party and 9 means very biased against the Labour party.
(1-9)
8 To what extent, if any, do you think that the BBC is biased in favour of or against the Conservative party? Where 1 means you think the BBC is very biased in favour of the Conservative party and 9 means you think it is very biased against the Conservatives.
(1-9)
9 And how left or right wing do you think the BBC is? Where 1 means you see it as very left wing and 9 as very right wing
(1-9)
When it says “Government of the day” is that devolved or UK?
I’ve left that bit to the very end as I await ‘clarification’ from the client. (KANTAR).
Well if I get a copy it will be Extremely Dissatisfied and Strongly Disagree to every question. So I don’t expect to get asked.
I thought much the same. The only answer that’d change would depend which government I thought the BBC was biassed for/against.
STOP PRESS
They are going for ‘UK Government of the day’.
I bet they’re muttering in their beards that ‘it was obvious’ and the likes of me must be some sort of ‘troublemaker’ (or according to Sunak, ‘an extremist’).
Does that mean I radicalised you by asking?
Or did you, as the OP, radicalise us?! 😀
Does that mean I radicalised you by asking?
_________________
You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment. 🙂
Me? Think??
I live in Scotland…
… and I live in England.
Does that make you more likely to have a brain or less? 🙂
When I left Wales for England, the IQ of both countries went up …
ROFL
Given that sadly we’ll soon lose David Attenborough, that’s about it over for the BBC
as an independent country we would still have access to any bbc shows our broadcaster wanted to buy in.
Much like how broadcasters like bbc buy in Disney, HBO or even RTE content.
what we will avoid is the news content, which is toxic and biased.
Anybody else find it a little strange that this survey was commissioned (and sent to me to translate) on the same day the drowned rat announced the General Election from outside Number 10?
Shurely shome coinshedensh … or am I just an in-built cynic (in both languages)?
“Conspiracy theorist” as Dick Cheney once said, about everyone who doesn’t buy the official narrative i.e. everyone.
Swinney has a few jobs to do for Independence Day.
1) he has to unite his party (in progress)
2). he has to motivate the existing activists (in progress)
3). he has to motivate more members to become activists (unknown)
4). he has to impress the general public in general (started)
5). he has to make the SNP credible about Independence. Ppossibly a false start as he’s used a negative threat – if you don’t vote SNP bye bye Indy – it needs a plan which doesn’t involve writing another 436 papers. (not started)
6). he has to motivate the general YES movement (that can wait 3 or 4 weeks)
People who support Independence need to get out and vote SNP. A higher turnout. Give SNP some funding for electoral costs. Not leave it for others. To get rid of the unionists.
Starmer heading to the northern Scotch colony I understand. Hope he brings plenty of union jackery.
On BBCR4…
Confirms that he’s keeping the Tory policy of no welfare support for a child if the poor thing happens to come into the world 3rd, through no fault of their own of course. That’s the right-wing English Britain he wants Scots children to know and love.
Unelected house of lords to stay. ‘Not a priority’. English bishops and Tory lairds to continue making laws for Scotland which are forced upon us (no iref2).
Does not agrees with education free at the point of delivery, aka no university tuition fees using the European model (zero to nominal). Young people should pay the Tory way.
It’s not just Scots that find Starmer dislikeable, untrustworthy, indecisive, weak, and borderline incompetent. The feeling is shared across the whole UK. It’s just stronger in Scotland.
The only party in England which is looked on favourably NET is the Greens. But English / British FPTP is designed to make sure voters get a government they don’t want in an attempt to stop one they want even less.
If the election was PR, Starmer would not be measuring up the curtains for No. 10. But he doesn’t give a crap about democracy. Otherwise a change to PR would be in Labour’s manifesto, and to be done within the first year, followed by a new PR election. He wants power and riches for himself, which is why he’s seen increasingly as so untrustworthy and dislikeable.
Corbyn has been expelled from Labour. I’d put money on him taking the seat as an independent.
If, heaven forbid, I found myself living in London with no option to move to Scotland, I’d vote for him if I could.
I wish him the best in his campaign.
Anyone had a gander at SGP? The Alba supporters are either deranged and filled with hate or he 77th are working overtime to sow seeds of division…or a little from column A and a little from column B?
There is a general election at a pivotal moment and it is full on attack the SNP. The Tories and Labour barely get a mention.
By their fruits ye shall know them?
PS I haven’t looked at WoS in ages but I’m guessing it is very similar. The crossover BTL on both despite the antipathy of the authors for each other is remarkable.
I looked yesterday and it was difficult to tell if there were more Albists than Unionists on recent BTL comments particularly as most people seem to call themselves Anonymous. I would rather go paddling in Shieldhall Sewage Works than have a look at WOS .
BBC’s News website reporting this morning that Starmer who is in Glasgow, of course, says the only way to bring energy prices down is for a long term solution – Great British Energy which, naturally, will be based ‘up there’ in Great British Scotland, that poor wee backwater heavily subsidised by the English taxpayer, but which has its uses sometimes. What Scotland needs is ‘change, change, change’. Lots of small change – forget the big bucks, that’s for the big boys at the Whitehall Treasury to fret over.
Labour needs Scotland, he says, to get into WM! Yeah, I’ll bet it does. We have our uses sometimes.
And according to Captain Cook of the BBC just a short while ago, there’s a real buzz as a crowd of supporters await him. Labour peer, Lord Haughey, Baron Haughey of Hutchestontown is hovering about too. Isn’t it exciting? Nah.
James Cook fluffing for Starmer…who would have thought 🤔
Starmer to hand the natives some shiny, sparkly beads today in Glasgow. We’re to get the new Great British Energy HQ here.
Hoorah! Wonderful! Smashing!
Just like Labour gave us the British National Oil Corporation HQ (150 St. Vincent Street) in 1975.
And which the Tories privatised 7 years later and it disappeared from the city.
They really do think we’re thick, don’t they.
Another reminder of why this all feels kinda 2014 to me, not just polling-wise.
Back then we were offered ‘real change’ to ‘build Britain’s future’ by a centre-right, union jack waving bland Labour bot too.
He was also a pro-uni fees, HoL reform not a priority, austerity budgeter etc.
The manifesto was largely identical to Starmer’s:
https://tinyurl.com/muapxku3
Polling wise Labour were well out in front for most of the term, only for this to slowly vanish ahead of the election. In Scotland, they were predicted to win a landslide in the 2015 GE.
I feel a VOW coming on!
Interestingly, they’ve totally dispensed with the vow approach. English party manifestos contain absolutely nothing for Scotland nor Wales nor Northern Ireland. All plastered with union jacks and St. George’s crosses.
It’s now ‘we won’t let you leave even if you want to, and we’ll arrest your leaders if we can’.
Real hearts and minds stuff.
‘2024: 2014 without the vow‘.
Yeh Labour have done the energy company thing to us before. And the Tories sold it of to their pals.
BNOC anyone.
47% Certain to vote in the first Techne poll since the announcement, so not change there, but a bit too soon!
In a couple of weeks we might see some small uptick. The pattern is normally exponential, accelerating as voting day approaches. Assuming that is, a normal turnout happened rather than a historic low one which would invalidate a Labour win.
Some direct comparisons with Ed Miliband.
Yougov
1st May 2015
Do you think Ed Miliband is doing well or badly as leader of the Labour party?
31% Well
62% Badly
29th June 2023
Do you think Keir Starmer is doing well or badly as leader of the Labour party?
31% Well
46% Badly
IPSOS
27th April 2015
Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Ed Miliband is doing his job as leader of the Labour Party?
30% Satisfied
61% Dissatisfied
26th November 2023
Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Keir Starmer is doing his job as leader of the Labour Party?
32% Satisfied
52% Dissatisfied
Now the recent data for Starmer is old, but we know it’s all been downhill for him in Scotland ratings wise over the past year, so we can assume the above are overly positive for him. In other similar questions, he’s struggling to get above 30% positive, and that’s with everything possible in his favour sampling-wise.
Just over 30% with a favourable view of him was what Miliband had just before Labour got all but wiped out completely in May 2015. And Ed was on the up! Starmer’s heading downwards.
Hence the 2014 feel to these numbers.
Links to Starmer ratings trends here in England’s northern colony to mark his visit. Need to update the non-Yougov data here and there, but the trends remain as seen, i.e. not good at all.
https://imgur.com/1r0NR6l
https://imgur.com/x0y9ww4
Every time they open their mouths and say the words “our country” when referring to the whole of the UK they’re employing lying propaganda, and it’s blatant British nationalism
Starmer Sunak the whole damn lot of the British nationalist English politicians and their media together in a collective campaign of insisting that Scotland and Wales don’t exist as countries but regions or territories of greater England, they pump this shit out daily like water torture on the populations of our countries, so much so that people have just gotten used to hearing it now and don’t notice or have become brain dead to the language they use
The only time these British nationalists use the term union is when they pretend they want to preserve the integrity of the thing they constantly dismiss as existing the rest of the time
It’s positively North Korean, 1930s Germany, China, Russia but without the weapons trained upon us, well they don’t need those they have their Royal family smiling and waving at us, while like ventriloquists uttering the word *MUGS* as they do it
We live in what the British nationalists call their democracy, which means when they lie we’re not allowed to say so, if we dissent they’ll shut us up by inventing criminal charges against us, unless we’re a rogue Royal of course, then don’t be driving through any tunnels
The main weapon in the British nationalist arsenal has changed over time, it used to be jingoism and fear of the dreaded foreigner, but that really doesn’t work anymore, so now they’ve introduced their latest weapon “APATHY” create a situation where the voters are so unhappy with all of us they won’t bother voting at all, and they’ll get so used to that at least one or the other of the same two British nationalist parties in England will win anyway and the other one will have a wee rest until next time and we’ll do it all again to the *MUGS* in the regions and territories of greater England where the Jocks and the Taffs live
This is Scotland, time we bloody well told them where to go and where to shove it
We have one party in Scotland who can do that with people power and it’s the SNP the rest are part time amateur activist protesters like the Greens or the ridiculous Alex Salmond and his comeback revenge of the ego movie flop, hell bent on a Labour victory by pretending to his acolytes that giving him your vote will actually mean something, yeah it will, it’ll remove votes from the only party with a chance in hell of protecting Scotland from the aforementioned British nationalists
Vote SNP to keep what we already have and then improving upon it by moving our country forward towards the independence we need
Do it not, and Scotland will return to the dark days that I remember of my entire life growing up under a Labour government of British nationalists no different to the Tory bunch of British nationalists
Starmer is just another Blair, but with a charisma bypass
To English Starmer, Scotland is a part of his country. It is English lebensraum. Hence ‘our (English / British) country‘ rather than ‘your (Scottish) country‘.
’We live in what the British nationalists call their democracy, which means when they lie we’re not allowed to say so, if we dissent they’ll shut us up by inventing criminal charges against us, unless we’re a rogue Royal of course, then don’t be driving through any tunnels’
Tunnels…without a doubt Dr Jim
as well as Epstein’s demise…
With the tuition fees and two child cap at least the Labtories are easy to distinguish from a party that actually does something for its people.
ICJ has ruled that Israel must immediately cease its operations in Rafah.
Have they also said hamas must cease firing daily bombardments on Israel too?
Latest Lab 2019 to yes. Did a PoP average to smooth out the noise that you can’t avoid with subsamples. It was kinda flat to mid 2023, then it started to really take off.
It’s this unionist movement to Yes has driven it up even with the apparent heavy oversampling of unionist party voters that has cause SNP to drop.
And this isn’t Labour intenders, it is their loyal 2019 base.
Reports coming in that Kier Starmer has “demanded” the SNP be cut from televised debates, apparently he want’s all smaller parties cut as well
Now we know on what grounds Starmer is trying to use here but the main one is he’s feart, but maybe this could be the moment the SNP and the other “smaller parties” might suggest that if Labour in Scotland claim to be an autonomous separate party then as one of the smallest parties in the UK with only two MPs they should also be cut
There appears no depths to which Starmer will not stoop to fake his big English win over us yokels from the territories is there?
Reports coming in that Guardian have already cut Plaid Cymru from televised debates,
Subtitle from story DrJim refers to above in today’s paper (and no mention in article itself):
Lib Dems, Greens and SNP could lose out as broadcasters focus on head-to-heads between Sunak and Starmer
Starmer agrees to have a small Saltire visible on leaflets for Scotland as it’s “the local flag”
he can fuck right off 🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴
Sunak boasts about inflation being “back to normal” but the TUC say that’s rubbish.
Imagine if SNP MPs in WM hold the balance of power, become the king makers.
The price of that SNP support will, obviously, be 2nd IndyRef. That can happen.
However, it absolutely WON’T happen if we stupidly vote Labour in Scotland. It just WON’T.
ONLY with an SNP GE victory in Scotland can we make this a possibility.
(No disrespect to the other indy parties intended).
So while even extreme right wing Tory Suella Braverman has come out and said the two child benefit cap should be be scrapped, today in Scotland Starmer has told STV that he won’t be scrapping it.
This is despite the fact that scrapping of the benefit is supposed to be “Scottish” Labour policy if they win the election.
https://archive.ph/wip/2FNGh
The UK “union”,as far as the London establishment is concerned,is and always has been about the eradication of Scotland as an entity.
This allows England to masquerade and conduct itself as the state known as the UK.They have to pretend during Westminster elections that we Scots really matter and have a say within the union.However,once that farce is behind them it is back to business as usual.
Are Scots going to be dumb enough to fall for this again?
We shall find out shortly
Yes indeedy Kier Starmer is going to eradicate child poverty by making work pay
That’ll be while simultaneously depressing inward investment into Scotland by continuing with the Brexit that Scotland voted against but England enforced upon Scotland. but strangely not Northern Ireland, who with a little less conviction didn’t vote for the thing either
Have you guessed why yet? coz it’s got sod all to do with peace agreements or borders or good fridays thanks very much
Union? aye right!
Eradicate child poverty by denying any 3rd child the same right to basic welfare as others.
now they’re pushing out compulsory conscription 😳 or did I hear that wrong?
Let’s have a bit of nonsense from Libby:
Why the Scottish vote matters to Starmer and Sunak | Scottish politics | The Guardian
AnalysisWhy the Scottish vote matters to Starmer and Sunak
Libby BrooksScotland correspondent
Given the state of the SNP and the economy, the question of independence will be less important than that of party credibility
[…]
Time for a really big big independence assembly and march in Glasgow or Edinburgh or both cities flying the Saltires that Starmer and Sarwar hate the sight of
starmer’s the 21st century butcher
Ironic really – BBC UK headline ” Vennells told she is in ‘la-la land’, as Post Office convictions to be overturned “, whilst Pacific Quay goes with ” Scotland central to Labour mission for government – Starmer ” without a single mention of la-la land…
Gove not standing at the GE. Standing down as an MP
Ditto for Andrea Leadsom.
There’ll be disco dancing on the streets o Aberdeen the nicht as sales of Gove’s favoured product go up in expectation
Headline
“End of Parliamentary career: Gove draws a line”
LOL !!
😂
The BBC (one of its better moments) did a programme last week about MPs and how they are increasingly being affected by threats and abuse mostly via social media, but in some cases the threats were extremely serious and of course two MPs have been killed in recent years. A point was made by one contributor that the Whips offices put enormous pressure on them to ‘tow the party line’ on a vote or else there will be consequences, for example, reduced funding to their constituencies, so they often have no alternative regardless of conscience or anything else.
One ex-minister (Tory) who remained anonymous, voiced by an actor, explained that being a Minister is such a huge responsibility, and yet very often they found themselves leading a Dept with no real expert knowledge of their subject and the pressures are enormous. He suffered severe mental health problems before standing down and one MP admitted he had tried to take his own life at one point because of threats. Aside from all that, another senior Tory admitted that the whole Parliamentary system is so archaic it should be scrapped and reinvented.
It pretty much sums up the mess the UK is in from the top down. If your Parliament isn’t functioning well, how can the country? And as a summing up at the end of the programme, the worry was expressed that eventually it will be impossible to attract talented and well-meaning people of all persuasions into political life. Looking at some of the people in the UK Parliament now, we may have already reached that point!
They’ve aye got Penny Mordaunt wae her sword tae stand up and fight fight fight afore ye go tae bed
It’s only just now I’ve learnt of John Redwood’s departure too.
Sit back, remember and savour this from 1993:
John Redwood ‘sings’ (1993) (youtube.com)
Can’t help but feel we are maybe watching the union stand down ahead of this election.
Sum total of jack shit in manifestos for anyone outside of England says something profound to me.
https://archive.is/hZDkJ
Overall, the SNP is arguably in its weakest position since Scotland voted against independence by 55 per cent to 45 per cent in a 2014 referendum.
Aye BBC, polling wise, that’s true. Also blows wise as you say.
In the autumn of 2014, the SNP had suffered a massive blow (loss of the referendum) and were actually in a far worse polling position post-iref1 than they are now. Back then (Q1-3 2014), polls showed Labour set for a landslide in the 2015 GE here.
But life comes at you fast sometimes. Who knows what’s just around the corner as we move forward.
More in favour of Independence now.
Scotland raises £87Billion. Spends £54Billion. + pensions/benefits? Westminster spends the rest.
Owen Jones understands why it looks impossible for the union to win this election in any meaningful sense.
https://archive.is/7VJJu
Owen Jones: It’s the end of the Tories – why aren’t voters excited?
Keir Starmer is set to become next prime minister – with a colossal majority – for one reason alone: The Tories have destroyed themselves.
As pollsters note, he will become the most unpopular Leader of the Opposition to become prime minister.
The planets are aligning. Scotland is barrelling towards a hated English right-wing Labour government Scots didn’t vote for. The final piece of the independence puzzle.
Not only that, but a hated English Labour government with a big majority potentially in power forever and a day given the collapse of the Tories. There is no way the UK could survive such a massive democratic deficit. Every nation in it would have a government it neither wanted nor vote for. Even England. Folks there don’t want Starmer in No. 10. Far from it; he commands the backing of barely over 20% of voters. But they don’t want the Tories either. The parties they might want they can’t elect due to the FPTP system. A system that may ultimately lead to a one party state, which is the natural follow on from a two party one.
I find it weird Labour cannot seem to see this coming. Surely the decent folks in Labour whose hearts are in the right place see the folly of a win that comes not from riding a popular wave, but is the product of despair, despondency and the failure of British democracy?
But then is it a bad thing? I personally think it’s time to bring down the anti-democratic British system and from this, England has the chance to get democracy back too.
As England, it could even re-join the E.U. Britain won’t be allowed back in, but an England reduced to another modestly sized, democratic post imperial European state would be.
What’s not to like?
Just wondering what the critical level of turnout will be which signals the potential end of the union due to disengagement? If turnout is less than 50%?
At the moment, polls in Scotland predict at best a 36% turnout for pro-UK parties, to properly compare with 50% or so in England. That’s no better than 2019, and could be worse given polling is currently seeming to methodologically favour unionism.
You of course can’t count people turning out to vote SNP / Greens / Alba as and indication of desire for Westminster governance as these are turning out to end the union.
I’d like to see the long term decline in those turning out as a share of the total electorate for unionist parties to continue, so less than 36% here. 33.3% is, IMO a critical threshold of sorts, and unionists dropped below that (29%) in Holyrood 2021. For me, that was the Rubicon being crossed, particularly with the associated historic high turnout.
The lowest turnout UK-wide we’ve seen in the past century was 59.4% in 2001 under Labour. Lower than this would look very bad given the Tories look set to fall. In 2001, Labour were starting to become unpopular, but appeared unassailable, so voters figured the election could only go one way, ergo did not turn out in large numbers.
I think turnout will rise, and it won’t be 50% UK wide as polls currently suggest. But less than 2001 and the headline is ‘lowest turnout in modern history / a century’. Below 57.2% and it’s ‘lowest turnout ever’ (since universal suffrage). Both would act to greatly undermine a Starmer government, particularly the latter.
The problem he faces is that if turnout does go up, probability is that Labour’s share will do down with it, as I have noted often enough. So Labour struggle for a majority, but the outcome is more legitimate in terms of mandate, or rather lack of!
Labour are underwhelming and timid and will inherit debt and a country on the rocks. Yet they will likely get a massive majority because the Tories seem hell bent in walking away from it all (which in itself should be a worry for Labour)
This is going to be one of those pivotal moments in election history. It may not go well for the SNP* simply because everyone gets swept along in these high tide moments. However, unless Labour can pull rabbits out of the hat by 2026 and with a hostile media the Holyrood election may have a very different vista with the tide a long way out.
*A lot can happen in six weeks and the SNP vote may galvanise as the lack of substance from both Labour and the Tories tarnishes the gloss.
As we start the campaign, Yes remains at 51.4% on average, generously giving equal weight to gold standard Scottish telephone polling and cheap ‘n’ nasty English panel polling of the Scotch from London. 49.3% if you lump the former in with the rest.
Clearly someone at Labour HQ does actually have at least one working brain cell – not a single Union Flag , either flying or on placards , during Kid Starver’s ”Scottish” visit yesterday . Yet every appearance from him in the last two years has seemed like a throwback to a National Front rally with the amount of red , white and blue on display .
Kudos to STV’s Coli Mackay who persisted in asking him about the Two-Child Cap and the Bedroom Tax . This is not the kind of questioning he likes – asking about issues that he wants to avoid . Kid Starver insists that he will not make promises on uncosted policies . The Two-Child cap is regularly costed at £1.4 billion – which in a budget of £1200 billion is a trifle – especially considering that Kid Starver claims that Child Poverty is a priority !!!
Aye , right !
Starmer says it’s OK to show a smaller Saltire because it is “the local flag”
Labour defaced our national flag by covering it in red, like it was covered in blood or something. It’s rather creepy.
If they are happy to show the union flag as it is in their paraphernalia, why not the saltire in pantone 300 as it should be?
Is that the entire gathering of the faithful?
“O, come all ye faithful!”
On the other hand … don’t bother!
Yougov found an apparent uptick in CTV levels UK wide. Hence Labour down a bit.
Mainly in younger voters, who are SNP / Green here in Scotland as they are massively pro-Yes and not British in identity.
In England, 18-24 some of the most pro-‘other’, i.e. not Lab/Con/Lib too. So they won’t be of particularly help to Starmer’s New Conservatives.
After all, he supports restricting welfare for young people, putting them into huge debts to be educated etc.
I hope you enjoyed the video I posted above which answered the question “Why do politicians never answer the question?”
Here’s Anas Sarwar putting it into practice.
Any question put to Sarwar about the election has to be checked and checked again by Party HQ by the people who actually pull his strings , hence his obfuscation , distraction or lying , depending on whether someone ‘down south ‘ has been arsed to brief him !
Another vow guaranteed never to get off the ground. It’s just PFI for energy and will end up costing the consumer for years to come.
Surely SCOTTISH Labour should be advocating for “Scottish Energy” based in Scotland?
Here’s the Tories plan for winning the election. Every 18 year old will have to sign up for military service or give up one weekend every month for “community service”.
I’m hoping Starmer raises that to two weekends a month hahaha
You couldn’t make it up LOL
https://archive.ph/wip/nl27U
It makes me wonder who next will be forced to “volunteer” to help build flood defences or maybe work in care homes or clean our hospitals, serve meals to prisoners maybe or deliver meals to the elderly?
Who knows, it might even be YOU!
i had to check today wasnt april 1st with that one. Though report has date 2023 for introduction ???
with that and recent gaffes, i think sunak wants to lose big time
“Life changing opportunities” ?
I remember seeing spoof adverts, many years ago, saying :_
Join the British Forces, travel the world, meet new people – learn to kill them.
Yes, Ritchman, every young person needs up-skilling!! Surely a vote winner.
There was also Leverhulme’s lure of land for the Lewis men and their families in the 19th century that never transpired.
Heard a brief bit earlier on the radio about this…doubt if the younger generation will be keen to ‘man up, fight for your country’; it might, however, encourage all the veterans to applaud loudly and ‘get out there to vote…’
Wonder how the post Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, out on the street, homeless, ptsd and many other facets of mental and physical debilities will react to such a colonial take on how young people should be treated…
Un-bloody-believeable
What kind of idiot English government would forcibly train young Scottish / Welsh nationalists and Irish republicans in how to resist it militarily if required?
It was England that trained the Irish army of independence, and even then they were not stupid enough to go actually forcibly conscript for the trenches in Ireland.
Did someone in Tory HQ really say ‘Lets get young Scots to totally f**king hate us while training them up to be a SRA’?
Anyway, Starmer needs to support this English forced conscription in the colonies or clearly he’s not a patriot.
Both will then need to explain to young folks in GB while those in N. Ireland are exempt.
12-19 years old (10-17 in 2022).
76% Scottish not British
Good luck with that!
I’m going with the Uniparty theory. The oligarchs are tired of the Blue Uniparty and think it’s time for the Red Uniparty now that it’s been cleansed of any lefty ideas. In a few years it will be time for the Blue Uniparty again. Gives the impression of choice to the plebs.
If they delay the swap any longer then real lefty parties might get organised, such as the SNP which has been considerably destabilised lately, and George Galloway’s Workers Party and the vast army of Independents building up e.g. Jeremy Corbyn, maybe Diane Abbott. The far right will also get their act together such as Reform.
No, it has to be now and it has to be Starmer.
Sunak to bring in National Service! What a masterstroke. Wish I’d thought of that one.
But I do wish S would keep me in the loop with more S00’s deployed. It’s so humiliating 😦
Miss Scotspenny, I’m expected. Join me for afters?
180,000 military personnel. 10,000 based in Scotland. Scotland pays £1Billion too much for the military. Trident and redundant weaponry.
Westminster caused the war in Ukraine. Agreements were made and dishonoured by the interference of the UK Gov. Johnstone.
Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. £Billions wasted.
And so it looks like the band have entered a non-stop playing marathon.
You know the one that goes, ‘and the band played believe it if you like’.
Apparently Kid Starver on a “is this Darlington, are we in Scotchland yet?” tour claimed that he fell off the fence age’s ago possibly at the beginning of the ‘genocide protests’ with the quote
“And that’s why we’ve long called for a ceasefire now. We passed a resolution, in fact, in the House about this, quite some time ago”.
Hmm! ceasefire as opposed, to pause, or self defence, or I am waiting to see how the wind blows.
It will be okay Mr Kid Starver, none of us have more than a 30 second memory, and the internet doesn’t last for EVER. We all understand how Israel’s self defence depends on the ending of Palestinian life, irrespective of age, sex, or condition.
Flags – as I no longer have my upcycled from telescopic hoover tubes for my flag pole, I thought it was time to get another, so I did an internet search and was hit with flagpoles alright, and hunners o’ bloody butchers aprons flying like no tomorrow. Some companies even offering the butcher and the St George flags as bonuses 😳😂
I use fishing rod blanks, cheap as chips and any length you need
Thanks Dr Jim.
Not being a fishing person an alternative such as this didn’t cross my mind.
Will have a wee search.
Can you recommend a suitable seller?
So its falling apart in less than 12 hours. There will only be 30,000 places in the armed forces (National Service) per year – so even if you believe that Military service is a good idea this policy does not work for you because only about 4% of 18 years olds will enter Military National Service. The other 96% will have to volunteer and many in the voluntary sector are saying whilst they would encourage anybody to volunteer if they wish to forcing people to volunteer is an oxymoron that will not work and money that the scheme generates will be a drop in the ocean to the amount that the voluntary sector has lost either directly or indirectly through funding cuts over the last 14 years
Starmer does need to up the ante here or clearly he’s not patriotic. Maybe 60,000 military places and double the conscription period?
Surely he’s not going to oppose the idea? That would be very unpatriotic if so.
Och lol, I see Labour are responding by saying it’s not affordable, rather than it’s crackpot, parochial inward looking English union jackery.
Surely Labour’s better management of the economy and make it affordable? Or will they not manage things better at all?
Good answer – the Conservatives want to drag the conversation way from things like the economy because they are week in that area, Labour are quiet rightly not falling for that trap. They cant use Rwanda anymore to do this so this is their next attempt.
I see that The Conservatives are planning to use money that was earmarked for leveling up to pay for the scheme – good luck trying to justify that when they are campaigning!
As for the economy Labour will just say that they will improve the economy to help pay for things like the NHS, Schools, leveling up etc etc rather than hair brained schemes!
Completely fallen part – if there is no sanction then you cant force people to do it (they will simply say no and that will be that). Total clown show – I mean May in 2017 had a terrible campaign but at least that lasted a couple of weeks before falling apart- this one has not even lasted a week:
Aye, as per my comments further up on the article, compulsory would be completely unworkable for a whole host of reasons.
For example, how stupid would it be to force young Scottish / Welsh nationalists and Irish republicans into British / English compulsory service while not letting them freely vote to escape this?
London wasn’t even that stupid in WW1 with Ireland. They never enforced conscription there for fear Ireland would go independent. Not that this helped in the end!
Tommy Sheppard in The National points out that there is virtually no difference between Tory and Labour. The only way to live in a social democracy now is to be independent.
Tommy Sheppard: Labour government will only enhance the case for indy
https://archive.ph/Ja6sk
Who do these British think they are:? How can a British nationalist offer to change? They’re trying to sell and enforce a country that doesn’t exist on folk who already have countries
There’s another name for these people
Starmer has made a rod for his own back over his courtship of Scotland
“Scotland is vital in this election” he said
What if Scotland rejects Starmer after being so vital to his cause? will we return to not being vital anymore if he wins? will Scotland’s importance disappear again? you bet your boots we will, and that’s why we mustn’t vote for the guy
Because if Scotland votes for this cartoon squint of a man he’ll immediately declare that we love him and his Labour to bits and we all hate being Scottish, and he’ll do it with immediate effect
Anybody who belongs to the faction in the British isles that invents a country then a flag to represent it and worship, and then imposes that regime on everyone else is the wrong kind of nationalist you want to get hooked up with, and no different to North Korea, Russia, 1930s Germany or any other Roman Empire group of headbangers
“Our country” is not an invented one that doesn’t exist on a map, our country is Scotland, like England and Wales, separate countries with identities and cultures, the Starmers and the Sunaks have no country, they have a non existent empire in a wee land mass in the middle of the sea that they flatly refuse to acknowledge is a collection of countries physically joined together in exactly the same way as the EU block in Europe, but there isn’t anybody over there waving their invented EU flag and demanding that Europe is a country, those folk know who they are and which countries they call home
How dare these British politicians demand our votes then claim that as a right to tell us we don’t live in the county we say we do because the British nationalists don’t recognise it or us
Starmer and Sunak’s pitch to Scotland is “you don’t count and never will but give us your vote so we can enforce that even more once you’ve done it”
No Scottish nationalist wants to go to England and Wales and enforce our country dancing haggis or flag upon those folk, it’s never been up for question, we don’t care what folk do with their own countries as long as they’re nice, it’s the British that are the problem, the people with the invented country that nobody can point to on a map
We have this moment in time to join the rest of the world in throwing the British nationalist invented Roman empire out of Scotland and back to their base in England let’s hope the Welsh vote Plaid Cymru to do the same
Now that the campaigns have kicked off, it’s worth keeping in mind that if Sinn Fein win a majority of seats in the North of Ireland, that will mean the province’s withdrawal from Westminster rule.
Pro-reunification parties won 9 seats (7 SF + 2 SDLP) to the unionist’s 8 last time, with the neutral alliance taking 1. A historic election that saw unionism become a minority for the first time at Westminster level.
The DUP have subsequently fallen from grace quite drastically (down 11% on 2019 in the latest poll), with the unionist vote heavily split as a result.
Even 50% seats to SF would be very problematic for the UK as that would still mean there was not a majority of MPs from the north choosing to sit in the HoC, which is what’s needed to legitimise its rule there.
One to watch.
Even if NO MPs from N.Ireland sat in the HoC , neither Labour nor the Tories would give a f*ck ! Same with withdrawing SNP MPs . The British Unionist media would hardly mention it and the English Parliament wouldn’t care !
Interesting cameo of Sumita Kumar, an Edinburgh councillor who is standing for the SNP in Edinburgh South.
Simita Kumar: The rising star councillor now standing for Westminster
https://archive.ph/r4Jku
Some discussion on the census national identity data. Concludes much as I did.
https://archive.is/iVA4J
What does the Scottish census tell us about national identity?
Except I disagree with polling / SSAS ‘scaling’ type questions being more representative.
The census is the most neutral, free choice approach. People are not forced into either picking one identity over another, nor seeming to openly reject identities. They just ‘tick those that apply’. British is offered up as much as Scottish is.
If you use e.g. Moreno questioning:
Scottish not British, More Scottish than British, Equally… etc
You are forcing people to reject Britishness to be able to say they are Scottish, as if they have to be negative towards British people to be Scottish. That’s ridiculous. It’s like putting ‘French not German’ as the only way for French people to say they are French. So you force people towards saying they are more British than they feel by implying they are anti-English/British if they don’t.
It’s the same for sliding scales of 0 British to 10 Scottish. The census tells us only 8.2 seem to be on such a sliding scale. I’m certainly not. I’m on a scale with Irish, and I see myself as more Scottish due where I’ve lived my life. So asking me to put myself on a scale involving Britishness means me having to make stuff up as I’m not on such a scale. Not only that, but I now need to completely reject Britishness to say I am just Scottish, so we are back to forcing me to be negative about Britishness as per Moreno questioning. Ergo, this ends up with people saying they are a bit British they suppose (passport etc) when this isn’t the reality.
The census question is totally neutral by contrast. There is no rejection of any other identity, just a selection of those that apply. No positives, negatives… no one over the other, just what applies.
In the case of Scotland, 2/3 just don’t see a British national identity as applying to them, up notably on 2011. Like me, they’ve not specifically rejected it, but it just doesn’t apply in the same way my wife is just French, and isn’t ‘French not British’ or similar stupidities.
I am not ‘Scottish not Chinese’ nor ‘Scottish not British’. I’m not on a sliding scale with Australian nor with British. I’m Scottish and part Irish.
Maybe those confused by this and thinking British and Scottish are intimately related should stop seeing things through their British prism.
I wonder how many people in England think they live in a country called Britain?
Probably substantial numbers, given that England/UK/Britain are used interchangeably.
“In the case of Scotland, 2/3 just don’t see a British national identity as applying to them, up notably on 2011. Like me, they’ve not specifically rejected it, but it just doesn’t apply in the same way my wife is just French, and isn’t ‘French not British’ or similar stupidities.”
Hi SS
As you know(!) I sometimes have trouble recognising where your comments about ‘the British’ are coming from. This clarifies things a lot. It often isn’t a difference in what we’re thinking so much as the place we’re starting from.
To me, Britain isn’t a nation at all. It’s the British Isles – a geographical area that I think of in the same way as Europe. That is a collection of different countries with different cultures/outlooks/politics/languages etc occupying areas of the same landmass.
So, applying your example of your French wife to my situation, ‘Scottish not British’ would be the equivalent her saying either French not European or maybe Breton (eg) not French. Which, as you point out, would be similar stupidities.
I reckon (if they think about it at all) the figures might also reflect the fact that quite a lot of immigrants from across the border are starting to come to a similar conclusion. Certainly for many years I’ve worked with people who moaned about being ‘exiled’ to Scotland – until they had to move back after they’d lived with the differences and liked them. And haven’t there been cases of UK officials removed for ‘going native’?
It’s complex. Quite how that could be captured in any census/survey I don’t know.
Is it me, or is the BBC coverage like there are only 2 parties standing in the election, both English?
Ok, Reform gets a mention too, even though it doesn’t even have any elected MPs(?).
No no nooo! they come from the mystical mythical country of Britain
Interesting. In that first campaign Yougov poll which showed a small jump in certain to vote levels, notably for the 18-24 group, SNP got 5% for that age range UK-wide. That would be ~60% SNP for 18-24 year olds nationally.
It seems that those of us who have ‘opinions’ are being influenced by the Chinese and Russians, according to a wee banner on a news channel.
The Great British public it seems cannot manage to form their own opinions and so rely on what them dastardly Chinese and Russians tell them to opine about.
‘Public opinion is being influenced by the Chinese and Russians.’ Now that sounds as if Tory and Labour are lining up their excuses for why they either failed big time (likely the Tories) or won (likely Labour) but not by a landslide. As for us ‘up there’, well beware the Chinese and Russians mind-controlling you. But, hey, we already have our own mind-controllers – the Great (Anglo-)British MSM and all its own little opinionators.
The English / British media would never attempt to influence public opinion in another country. Such as Scotland for example.
So, am I right in understanding that the only thing Labour are offering Scotland is ‘Great British Energy’, which would be an English government owned company set up to asset strip Scotland’s resources with the goal subsidising English energy bills?
And there’s no way on earth of this scheme ever got off the ground would they base it in the northern colony. Not with over half the residents of said colony supporting indy, with polls saying their support for this will increase if Labour wins the election*.
Nope, you can be 100% sure if Labour win, that promise will go the same way as all the policies Starmer used to win him the Labour leadership contest.
—
*https://tinyurl.com/3mmhje27
ISTR reading that Great British Energy, a ‘publicly owned’ organisation will require 75% private funding. Is that right?
Early doors, but post GE announcement poll sums of changes on pre-announcement polls as of 26-05-24:
+2 Rfm
+1 SNP
0 Con
0 Lib
-1 Lab
-4 Grn
Labour’s Angela Rayner says Westminster has “held back” devolution in Wales
Thanks for that, Scotland agrees with you wholeheartedly
Westminster’s in England btw where she and her British Labour party joined with the Tories to insist that Scotland be held back to , in case anybody didn’t know
Have Rayner and Stevens consulted each other? C’mon – do you honestly think they’re singing from the same hymn sheet.
Labour blasted for ‘lack of commitment’ to Wales in election manifesto (nation.cymru)
Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader Liz Saville Roberts MP has hit out the Labour Party for a “lack of commitment to Wales,” following comments made by Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens.
Speaking on BBC Radio Wales’s Sunday Supplement programme, the shadow minister was challenged about whether Welsh Government calls for the devolution of policing and justice, and receiving the close to £4 billion it has missed out on for HS2 consequentials, would feature in the UK Labour general election manifesto.
Priorities
Ms Stevens failed to give any such commitment, saying: […]
So the federal UK advocating National is pushing some federal UK kidnapping book in the National hoping we all zip up at the back and pack up the idea of Independence, buy this stupid colonial book and happily stay with the UK being ruled by the 85% UK population which lives in England. Same for Wales and Northern Ireland.
But hey, not to worry, if 50% of the whole electorate including the sick the not interested the tourists the dead and those who don’t have valid ID vote to actually leave the UK he will kindly let us do so. One step DOWN from that plonker Cunningham who brought in the 40% rule for devolution back in 1979 and laughed laughed laughed at all us morons.
https://archive.is/QYOTd
So I have a counter proposal [1]. Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland will impose a federal UK on England whereby the four of us get equal votes. We will then use our 3 to 1 votes to control the UK to cut the grid, cut the water, repay Scotland for all the oil and gas stolen from us, drain the reservoirs in Wales and restore the drowned valleys, and repay Wales for all the copper, silver, gold, lead, tin, coal plundered over the centuries to fuel England’s petty royal wars in the “continent” – similar for Northern Ireland.
But hey – if more than 50% of the electorate of England vote to remove itself from our colonial plundering, patronising media, greedy and domineering control, then we might think about it. But hey, only if a majority of the 4 nations of the Feral UK approve. And yes, I did say “FERAL UK“.
[1] unlike the plonker in the National, I am a nice person and not serious about treating ANY of the so-called 4 nations of the UK so unfairly.
Now feck off.
% of electorate saying they may change their minds and vote differently by current party support
11% Lab
9% Con
7% Grn
5% Lib
4% Rfm
0% SNP
So for example, if all that 11% opted for another party, Labour would drop to 30% of the vote on a 50% turnout (the VI is based on the low CTV levels currently being shown). By contrast, basically nobody answering SNP in this poll said they would change their mind.
Overall levels like this. Last number was 15th May 24. The last time we had this level of ‘may change mind’ was Feb/Mar 2015 when Labour were being oversampled ahead of 2015, previously ridiculously so in Scotland up until late 2014.
Hopefully IPSOS give us a few polls over the next 5+ weeks so we can judge what’s happening here.