2015 general election: results in
Some SNP supporters have – rightly, in this site’s view – called for calm and caution over this week’s opinion polls, showing the Nats at stratospheric support levels and, supposedly, on course to win either 54 or 47 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats next May. Given the huge gaps that the SNP would have to close in order to take each individual seat, those numbers seem extremely optimistic to anyone familiar with First Past The Post, even given Scottish Labour’s ongoing implosion.
So rather than rely on dodgy uniform-swing predictors, we thought we’d try something a bit simpler but also more scientific and likely to come up with a believable result.
It couldn’t be much more basic. We took the figures from this week’s YouGov poll – the less dramatic of the two – and fed the table of declared 2015 voting intentions (by 2010 party) into the actual votes from the last Westminster election in 2010.
The results came out like this:
2010 UK GENERAL ELECTION IN SCOTLAND (actual)
1st: Labour 1,035,528 votes
2nd: SNP 491,386
3rd: Lib Dem 465,471
4th: Conservative 412,855
5th: UKIP 17,223
6th: Green 16,827
2015 UK GENERAL ELECTION IN SCOTLAND (predicted)
1st: SNP 966,960
2nd: Labour 701,873
3rd: Conservative 390,188
4th: UKIP 138,067
5th: Lib Dem 120,490
6th: Green 92,045
(Others 23,011)
So it’s a spectacular win for the SNP, almost doubling its 2010 vote, but still falling around 70,000 short of Labour’s 2010 total which brought Gordon Brown 41 seats. Labour loses almost a third of its support, the Tories barely move, and the other big story is the Lib Dem collapse from 3rd into 5th place, leapfrogged by the Tories and a huge increase in the UKIP vote, and barely staying ahead of the Greens.
We’ve obviously assumed the same turnout, though it seems plausible that there may in fact be a boost to all parties (but particularly those on the Yes side of the independence debate) from the increased political engagement brought about by the referendum. We’ve also used the figures from the 2010 top six only for the total number of votes. As it stands, though, vote shares come out to:
SNP 40% (up 20 points)
Labour 29% (down 13 points)
Conservative 16% (down 1 point)
UKIP 6% (up 5 points)
Lib Dem 5% (down 14 points)
Green 4% (up 3 points)
And if we completely renege on our earlier solemn vow to avoid electoral calculators and feed those into the Westminster predictor at ScotlandVotes.com (which rather sloppily only allows for the four “main” parties to be entered, not UKIP or the Greens), we get the following seat distribution:
SNP 36 seats
Labour 19
Conservatives 2
Lib Dems 2
That result looks pretty sound to us (on the basis of the YouGov poll). The SNP pick up slightly fewer seats with slightly fewer votes than Labour did in 2010, while Labour hold onto lots of their big-majority strongholds in the west of the central belt.
Even though the calculator excludes them, we can’t imagine any one seat that UKIP or the Greens could plausibly win despite their improved vote shares, so that’s fine. And the Tories managing to nick Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk from Michael Moore thanks to the Lib-Dem-ageddon, with only Alistair Carmichael and Charles Kennedy clinging on in their remote northern outposts, also all rings pretty true.
We’re not entirely sure how the pollsters managed to arrive at different figures from more or less the same data, but the above looks to us like a rather more plausible outcome than theirs. SNP supporters looking to damp down expectations a little might want to have a wee pore over the numbers, and still come out feeling pretty cheery.
Perhaps the objective of the polls is to persuade the SNP not to go for an Alliance in the 2015 GE. Lull them into a false sense of security, bearing in mind the pull of, vote Labour or get a tory government.
I think you can be calm and cautious, enthusiastic and optimistic, and still realise that there’s no way anyone can just sit back and enjoy the ride.
There is a valid point though to showing higher numbers of SNP seats, and that’s to convince all voters in all constituencies, that a vote for the SNP is not wasted, and that there’s no point in voting Labour to keep the Tories out any more.
The 54 seat projection shows Scotland that there is no seat can’t be won by the SNP, and strangely enough, the more cautious yougov one has the LibDems on 4% not 6%, which means even Carmichael isn’t safe either.
That looks a lot more plausible to me. The vagaries might even mean that the haul is less than this but still a win for the SNP and a further identity crisis for Labour.
With the latest polls for the UK suggesting a hung parliament and possibly a scrabble to see who can attract support to form either a minority or coalition Government a good number of SNP seats would fight Scotland’s corner far better than Labour.
I’d be thrilled if the pro indy parties managed to win a majority of Scottish seats. A block of 30 (probably SNP) MPs holding the balance of power at Westminster and we would be living in very interesting times.
Oy, less of the assumptions that Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk will fall to the Tories! I’ll have you know that we are going to be pulling out all the stops down here. Got to keep aiming high, even if we’ve got the equivalent of Mount Everest to climb . . . 🙂
Murphy will be delighted with any Labour wins. So will Labour
I just wish all those cringers up in Orkney, Shetland isles, Western Isles would go and vote Tory and be done with it. They don’t want Scotland to run Scotland but they want their own devo in some weird shangri la Thatcherite proud Scot but world. Carmicheal is awful and Kennedy has done nothing for Scotland or his own fiefdom, like all Libdems in Scotland. The ones that reigned over the North East for 40 years have left nothing but chaos behind.
Mmm, a post over on NNS which is going a bit strange but that’s another story, shows that 8,000 ballot papers were sent out for the last MEP selection. That would have been the beginning of this year I guess, even before the ref Labour were bleeding members, and the number leaving has, by all accounts shot up afterwards.
For the sale of argument, it’s down to 4,000. Presuming all councillors (394), MPs (41), MEPs (2) and MSPs (38) that leaves 3,525 ordinary members. Even if all do the election campaigning which seems unlikely, that’s 60 per constituency. The SNP have up to 1,400 per constituency. Plus, who knows, parts of the larger YES movement.
Just a thought.
Of direct relevance to the analysis is the fortunes of the Labour Party. Signs are that the big hitters are favouring Spud Murphy for the leadership and assuming this becomes the case it would be opportune to get to know a bit more about, “oor Jim”. I have substantially added to the information about Jim and what drives him. 36 titbits for perusal.
link to caltonjock.com
Jim Murphy is a founder member of this right wing anti socialist think tank.I think we should all do a little more research on this.
link to en.wikipedia.org
The interesting dynamic with this is the assumption that Labour would hold onto their;”big-majority strongholds in the west of the central belt.”
This is where the Referendum could completely turn things on its head?
Looking at the map, does make me think; Orkney/Shetland, always wanting to distance themselves from the rest of Scotland and identify with England, vote for a LibDem MP.
An MP and Party which supports a Gov imposing £9,000+ student fees and the dismantling of the NHS, in England.
Still a long time to go yet,time for Mr Murphy to scare and depress some more voters into returning to the fold,still time for more vows 🙂 🙂 still time for Mr Cameron to pay the bills the country signed up to etc.
Lib-Dem-ageddon. Classic. 🙂
We know how the pollsters got those figures Rev; by applying the swing universally. That’s a bit like saying that because you beat Alloa four nil you’ll beat Aberdeen four nil too. I think the aim for the SNP should simply be to take more seats than they have now, the Scottish Parliament election is where Labour will really suffer. Some Yes voters will go back to voting Labour because no matter how angry they are with them, they don’t want the Tories in. Eyes on the prize folks.
Westminster elections have never failed to disappoint this SNP supporter so i wont be getting my hopes up.
Thanks for the breakdown Stu, a slightly more cautious approach to these polls is very welcome!
What’s lurking at the back of my mind is this:
SNP showing huge support in the polls might mean the unionist parties campaign on a ‘vote labour/lib-dem/tory to keep the SNP out – because a vote for the SNP is a vote for UDI and the break-up of Britain’.
Thankfully the SNP haven’t, so far as I’m aware anyway, suggested a Unilateral Declaration of Independence yet. I also think it’s important that we do NOT do that. Support for Independence is growing steadily and I strongly feel we shouldn’t pull the rug out from under our own feet, by dragging the NO voters into Independence whether they are ready or not.
We’re getting there. Just give it a wee bit more time and let’s get stuff like the currency properly sorted out.
(A pal works for a firm of conveyancing solicitors in Glasgow. They arrange mortgages for the trickier candidates via a lender in the north of England. The lender stated categorically that, in the event of a YES vote, lending would cease until after Indy had concluded negotiations and the currency/markets had settled down. Turning the conveyancing firm into an unviable business for the duration. My pal was the sole YES voter in the entire firm. How do we account for this sort of thing? Seems reasonable that if a YES vote destroys your business for 18 months or more, that you would vote NO. We need MUCH more robust economic and financial planning in place if we’re going to counter this sort of thing and still convince people to vote YES.)
As far as Westminster goes, I don’t really care. None of the Unionist parties give a damn about what’s best for Scotland so far as I can tell. They’re London first, the whole lot of them. So the ONLY way to safeguard Scotland’s interests is to vote SNP in the hope that if we garner enough seats, we can hold the balance of power in what’s likely to be a hung Parliament. And use that lever to Scotland’s advantage.
In tterms of policy there’s very little to choose between Conservatives and Labour so my response to a ‘vote labour to keep the tories out’ is ‘you’re just as bad – vote SNP to keep them all out!’
Naive perhaps, but am wearing an evil grin anyway!
Re the party numbers,we will know they are low when the general election really gets under way. With so many seats in danger,they may have to bus in UK voters from elsewhere.
Sound familiar? Of course,if they really need ground troops,they could always ask the Tories,UKIP,or the Liberal Democrats for a loan of some…oh wait.
36 seats, that’ll do nicely. Though I’d still approach these polls with a healthy dose of scepticism.
Adding to my post about Orkney/Shetland there was thing I noticed looking at migration figures.
On outward migration, in Sheltland there is a huge peak at the 18-22 age range. I was assuming going to university didn’t count as migration.
It might mean there is a remaining much older population and a lot of non Scottish incomers voting.
Of course it might simply be that they really don’t like to be associated with the rest of Scotland.
“I just wish all those cringers up in Orkney, Shetland isles, Western Isles would go and vote Tory and be done with it. ”
The Western Isles have voted a solid SNP MP and MSP and have done for years.
I can see it now –
“Crisis for Sturgeon as Nats Fall Short of 40-Seat Target.”
Prrrr
Well, when you run the figures through the Scottish (but British) Labour branch sub office it comes out with the answer “SNP still bad”.
I’m sure the BBC will do everything in their power to ensure all the Scottish headlines are about the Labour angle – winning back supporters, impact of new leader, another egging, keeping the Tories out, is Jim Murphy a direct descendant of Jesus, …. Everyday stuff.
and if Murphy is using MacDougall as his dirty tricks magician we can expect an extension of all the lies and tricks used in the Referendum and Murph’s own douche bag ones.
Caution is absolutely essential, but trust me, Charles Kennedy hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell getting back in.
@Murray
I think BBC Scotland will do the Murphy / Labour revival thinf but, ironically, this being a General Election not a far-flung Scottish incident, the BBC as a whole down south will have to be a lot more careful and perhaps honest! 4 million viewers in Scotland aren’t important, but the 50 million down there may get a bit hacked off.
Which means that those who don’t just tune on to BBC Scotland news about Celtic or Rangers and there’s been a murder in Paisley but tune into the 6 O’Clock news or news at 10, might just find out the real story.
I’ve seen signs of that already, with some very brutally frank news during the night.
It is utterly humiliating to know that despite being a workshy trumpet the folks up here would vote for Charles Kennedy without question . he could run down Dingwall High Street rat-arsed flinging shite at pensioners and bairns and they’d just chuckle at ‘our Charlie’. Pathetic!
I’d be well satisfied with our campaign if we finished up with a result close to what your predictor map shows here. Better than that would be better though, so… onward and upward we go 🙂
It’s a tricky line to tread. Of course everybody wants to have fun with these stratospheric polls, and it’s only human to speculate on the basis of the results. But at the same time as someone else said, “general elections never fail to disappoint for the SNP”. The last 30-odd years are a litany of the final result failing to reach the pre-election opinion poll ratings, often by a considerable margin.
I think some people are being a bit naive, and quietly cringe when I see people calling for a concentration on the “remaining four seats” to turn the map entirely yellow, as if the wildest predictions based on Ipsos-Mori are a done deal.
If we do succeed in getting over 30 seats I for one will be giddy with delight. I mean, that’s over half! And yet it’s not an unattainable goal. With judicious targeting and the right candidates, it’s potentially doable. Getting SNP representatives on the TV debates, and getting the party mentioned as potentially returning more members than either the LibDems or UKIP, are key.
The trick remains, as Lallands Peat Worrier points out, to get the SNP vote above the tipping point where seats start to fall in substantial numbers. That remains a difficult goal, notwithstanding these polls. There is a serious danger that a very good SNP performance could again be rubbished by commentators comparing it to a wholly unrealistic prior prediction.
[…] 2015 general election: results in […]
On the islands, Orkney and Shetland have been Liberal forever. Scotland, as was Wales, before Labour was a Liberal stronghold. It isn’t anything to do with distancing from Scotland it is simply tradition. We face the same much younger tradition in Labour heartlands. We need to focus on that because if we tilt at windmills that aren’t there we won’t make any connection with the islands or the highlands. These places are not distant from Scotland, they are Scotland.
Also, it’s important not to conflate the Northern and Western Isles, which are very different propositions. The Western Isles hasn’t ever returned a Lib or LibDem that I know of in modern times, and seems to oscillate between Labour and the SNP. SNP at the moment.
Holding the balance would be so very, very, very wonderful. Agree to support English Votes for English Laws etc in exchange for Devo Max (everything except Defence and Foreign Policy) and a Veto on leaving the EU.
Re finance and currency that was the reason given by the majority of the No voters as their biggest concern.
I was canvassing in East Ren as I’ve said before and that was also the biggest concern from those living in the Newton Mearns area.
Had one guy ask who our LOLR was going to be – I didn’t know so I told him to look up BfS and ask them.
I also asked BfS for some advice on that – and they said they would include it in future discussions.
I want to ask if it would be possible for the SG to buy over Clydesdale currently up for sale – on maybe a share option for folk residing in Scotland.
If it was possible, then get back our billions currently in the BoE, and our share of the gold reserves and start about setting up this as our LOLR.
In the ToU we were supposed to be able to keep our own mint – get that back, negotiate with the BoE as part of the UK, that the Scottish £ be made legal tender at 1:1 and take it from there.
I am not an economist so I’ve no idea if I’m talking mince
From now till eternity, the SNP should create the
strongest possible retirement pension policy, with rock solid guarantees and with a national publicity campaign to make sure that every pensioner in the land is 100% secure in their pension.
I would throw in a guaranteed winter fuel payment of £1000 for ten years for over 60’s.
Had Alex done that before the Referendum, we would be free today.
I would be happy with 20 seats.
I live in Caithness. There has always been a huge “feudal” vote in parts of Scotland: Caithness and Sutherland, Orkney and Shetland, Perthshire and the Borders, which will vote for whatever party most closely represents their feudal overlords.
It is currently the Lib Dems, and they will still take a bit of shifting. We need to be targeting these seats, to ensure a majority of pro-independence seats in Westminster next May.
I may be wrong here but despite pretty much every news outlet reporting on how many seats the SNP will gain or labour will lose keeps referring to Scotlands current 59 seats, I believe due to boundary changes we will only actually have 52 after next years election. overall going from 650 to 600 MPs
“I believe due to boundary changes we will only actually have 52 after next years election. overall going from 650 to 600 MPs”
Those changes are on hold, I think, after the Lib Dems didn’t get their Lords reform.
Oh the shame of living in Scotland’s only mainland LibDem seat in 2015. Do I move to Dornoch, or simply try extra specially hard to turn Kennedy out?
Totally agree with Heedtracker, he doesn’t do anything for us, doesn’t turn up to vote against when he can’t bring himself to vote for vile government bills. Don’t know how he was when he was party leader – he was deposed shortly after I moved here -but he is a waste of space now.
Though I’m delighted to see the odious Danny has gone.
It will be fun to look back at this next May, at least it will if all goes according to plan!
I don’t know how the SNP or Yes Scotland could have reassured the pensioners in practical terms. I remember pensions being covered quite well in one of the early newspapers I delivered, but how many people read it, back in the spring, and how many of these remembered what they’d read when Project Fear came calling in the autumn?
The problem with grandiose promises of £1000 winter fuel payments or guaranteed pensions would have been the attack from the unionists rubbishing these promises as unaffordable bare-faced bribes. Also attacks that the SNP was going to throw £1000 at “rich” pensioners as well as poor. And also of course the attack that this was only the SNP talking and how arrogant of them to assume that they would win the 2016 election – nothing’s guaranteed.
It was a hard campaign to choreograph. I don’t think it was as well done as it might have been or should have been, by a long way. But I don’t think there was a single bribe that could have been credibly offered that would have succeeded against Project Fear and its iron grip on the Scottish media.
I agree with Stu’s calculations, in fact I will be very happy with 29 seats going to SNP and hardly dare to hope for over 35. There are so many factors which come into play in a FPTP system, tactical voting, personality, etc…
Loved Eck on Marr’s show winding Marr up with talk of an SNP – Labour coalition at Westminster post May 2015.
In the meantime the two biggest Unions in Scotland are saying ‘Anyone but Jim’.
Anyone else think Murphy’s enemies in the Westminster Labour Party have squeezed Jim into making this move?
They may be banking on ‘old scores being settled’ within the Scotch Region’s fighting ferret sack, leaving Murphy with more knives in his back than he can dole out, weakened and humiliated in his failure to get ‘elected’ or at least severely weakened and damaged if he does.
Senior Labour figures in Scotland are already briefing (off the record) against Murphy; according to one, “Jim has no politics …. part of the New Labour project building up his own career … it is all about him …. We’re Fucked (if Jim becomes leader).
Watching Brewer interview the three candidates for deputy leader of the SNP today, I was disappointed that not one of the three challenged the label of a “YES Alliance” for the GE.
An GE alliance for more powers is a great idea, but calling it “YES” will lose many potential votes. We need to attract people who voted NO, not exclude them.
BBC Labour will do everything it can to label any agreement a “YES Alliance”, it’s important to nip this in the bud right away.
STOP CALLING IT A YES ALLIANCE
@ Morag, you were hard at work canvassing in your neck of the woods but how could the campaign have been improved? I found that I’d be talking to No thanks proud Scots buts who happily engage but come the day had no intention whatsoever of voting Yes. Twas all just hot air, especially the well off ones that had moved here because they really weally wuved Scotland. It is a great country if you’re loaded.
@Morag
Brown came in at the 11th hour and rocked the elderly.
There was no riposte from the yes campaign.
Brown bribed the elderly with promises of more powers and devo-max and threats about their pensions- if they voted No.
We did nothing against that.
Pension guarantees and a generous winter fuel allowance
would have given all those over 60’s something to think about. Something real.
Instead they bought a lie.
As to what the Unionists might have thought, frankly I don’t give a toss.
For Independence it was worth a try.
I wouldn’t get too excited about Labour Party membership falling.
As they proved in the referendum campaign, the mainstream media will more than make up for their lack of troops on the ground by pumping out propaganda on their behalf.
I would be happy with anything more than 12 pro-indy MPs, if we can cut the majorities of the unionist job-for-life MPs. If they start worrying about their futures, they might start to work for Devo-Max, and unionists could easily get more concessions for Scotland than we could.
Basically, I just don’t want Labour to be able to present “only” losing a dozen MPs as a great victory for Smug Murphy and the Labour Machine, who would be delighted to pose as underdogs during the campaign.
Liugi at 5.12
Disagree entirely.
We have to entice No voters in by promoting YES as strongly as we can. That ‘s how it works
Your suggestion is completely daft
Which political cause ever won by hiding its aim and pretending it wasn’t what it was
I will be calling it a YES alliance as loudly as I can as will every body I know
Being a Drummond, I’m naturally wary of these polls. They were predicting 20+ SNP MPs in 2010 and SNP taking Glasgow Council 2012. Think we’re being set up for a great SNP result of say 25-30 MPs into failure to get 35-40
Manandboy, there were a lot of things the Yes campaign didn’t react to in the final stages of the campaign. We could talk about it for a month.
I just don’t see how offering unrealistic bribes would necessarily have helped, in the face of media spin that would have presented these things as panicked bribes, unaffordable, and requiring massive tax hikes.
There was a lot that the Yes campaign might have done differently, and better. I just don’t think there’s one simple thing that could have been done to guarantee victory. Not like the “Vow” was an obvious last-ditch ploy for No.
I don’t go with the theory that this is all deliberately orchestrated, because I don’t believe these established polling companies are dishonest to that extent or produce any old figures to order.
I do agree very much with the basic concern that too-high expectations may very well turn a great result in 2015 into something that’s spun as a disappointment. 25 to 30 MPs would be absolutely splendid and anything more than that akin to winning the Euro-millions.
@ Morag @ 17.02
Re pensions – surely the argument has to be that the UK’s pension pot is already failing. That it has the 3rd lowest pension scheme in Europe?
What you’ve got is secure, regardless of where you live, or who your pension is from. DWP confirmed this already and you have a contract with whichever private company you’ve been making payments to. Indy changes none of that.
What Indy could do though is to improve your pension fund by radically better management, not to mention starting out our economy with much less debt than the UK, and the ability to create that oil fund thingy which could feed itself forever, thus enriching everyone not just pensioners.
I don’t foresee any possibility of bribes exactly. Just the opportunity to point out that we could be better off just by walking away from the vast majority of the UK’s toxic debt. Scotland has been running a budget surplus for years and we can not only make payments to cover our fair share of said debt, but also manage our overall finances to significantly better effect. Independence brings the tools – which no matter what anyone tries to tell us about how ‘powerful’ our devolved Parliament is, are tools we do not have.
Job creation, the ability to stimulate the economy instead of starving it.
I’d also argue that every good policy in Scotland in recent years has been the brainchild of the SNP. All our Labour/Con/Lib-Dem MPs vote against stuff that benefits Scotland because it usually conflicts with what WM wants. Austerity is NOT working. The debt and the deficit are both rising.
Am absolutely positive Scotland could manage its affairs, and its pension fund, better than that.
On an earlier thread AuldA made reference to a riot in Toulouse, where I should have been this week-end.
I missed it and here is what I missed.
The French know how to do a decent riot.
link to tinyurl.com
The answer to the question of ‘Vote Labour to keep the Tories out’is Vote Labour-get Red Tories.
Simples
I’m only talking about one thing.
The elderly No vote proved decisive.
Increased Winter fuel allowance is perfectly realistic and affordable and without any need for tax hikes. Savings on Trident would have covered it.
I repeat. Had a pension guarantee and WFA been offered, the over 60’s would have said Yes.
Indy.
heedtracker – i live on a western isles island with an SNP councillor, MSP and MP and amongst approx 74% of adults who voted Yes. Beter to put fact before a rant.
Can someone confirm these top 4 party figures for me.
link to archive.today
Looking at those figures i would have thought that the very best we could hope for in this seat would be: LibDems losing a substantial percentage to the SNP, Labour being wiped out with almost all their support going to the SNP, leaving the SNP to fight it out with the Tories. Then…..who knows?
As i said, at the very best, with a massive dose of wishful thinking.
There are people on here who know this seat a lot better than i ever will – what are your thoughts on it, what do you believe the likely outcome in this seat to be?
I note some of the comments about Orkney and Shetland but I tend to think that the differences are down to the relative strengths of the fishing and big fermer votes – as in big chunks of the N and E of the country. Shetland (which is first choice to be talked up as a possible mini-statelet whenever independence comes round) actually seems more inclined to vote for Indie / self govt. than places like Orkney and Dumfries & Galloway – as witness both the 1997 and 2014 results.
And if people give you stuff about the Northern Isles not being Scottish then ask them why they are among the foremost to identify with one of the major markers of Scottish identity?
link to scotslanguage.com
Jenni, I tried all that, but old people are easier to scare than to reassure.
I spent yesterday afternoon in the HQ of Standard Life, listening to a presentation on retirement planning. A friend who voted No asked me to do with her. It was slick, and for anyone who knew the real score, depressing.
It’s very very difficult to persuade people who are just about managing OK as things are, or who are a bit scared that even as things are they might not manage as well as they had hoped, that a radical change they see as risky is the best solution. It’s far easier to scare them away from the change by telling them that even the modest nest-egg that they have would be “at risk”.
I don’t know the way to tackle it, but I do know that in effect offering a free pony with every Yes vote wouldn’t have done it.
Dave McEwan Hill says:
2 November, 2014 at 5:34 pm
Liugi at 5.12
Disagree entirely.
We have to entice No voters in by promoting YES as strongly as we can. That ‘s how it works
Your suggestion is completely daft
Which political cause ever won by hiding its aim and pretending it wasn’t what it was
I will be calling it a YES alliance as loudly as I can as will every body I know
You won’t win over many NO voters then. The SNP could even lose some of their supporters (remember 20% of them voted NO). What was agreed by the three candidates was that independence is not on the agenda in 2015. This is all about additional powers. And with 60-70% in favour of DevoMax, then what is the point in excluding people who are not yet convinced about independence if the issue in 2015 is not about independence?
The only beneficiaries of a “YES Alliance” label will be BBC Labour, who will be happy to use this term – wait and see if you don’t believe me.
As previously posted by many contributers, I will not be relying on any of the polls.
If it looks like an SNP landslide the Bitter parties will go into overdrive with whatever lies, deceit and garbage they can muster.
It will of course be complete and utter drivel and after the event will just disappear into the ether again.
The only way to win the election is to make sure the electorate know what they are voting for.
As in the referendum all the zombies who followed the “if you don’t know vote no”, we should make a point of canvasing them with ” Not sure well here are the facts”. Its the only way.
Gary
It’s a pretty good indicator, however, that big glaring red Inverclyde prompts me to point out the 2011 by-election:
2010
SNP 6577 (17.5%)
Lab 20993 (56%)
LD 5007 (13.3%)
Con 4502 (12%)
to
2011
SNP 9280 (33%)
Lab 15118 (53.8%)
LD 627 (2.2%)
Con 2784 (9.9%)
That’s an 8.9% swing from Labour to SNP within a single year, New Labour losing 59% of its lead, a doubling of SNP vote percentage, while the Conservative & Lib Dems haemorraged votes. I don’t see that trend changing significantly over the following 3 years.
The Yes campaign did guarantee pensions. They labelled it “Triple Lock” and unfortunately it seemed to be a case of unnecessarily complicating something that could have been straightforward.
No doubt the importance of the elderly vote. This will not go away as a new cohort of elderly people concerned about pensions is naturally replenished. People who were previously longer term thinkers suddenly become more cautious and require very clear and simple guarantees.
This can be won over though.
“Some dream of success, others stay awake and make it happen”
Jenni Adams
Interested in your conveyancing story. I was told the exact opposite by the big lenders. Scotland is a low risk market for them. We borrow less. Our ad debt experience was better than I the south during the bank crisis.
They have so much scottish mortgaged property on their balance sheet they’d have no option but to lend in Scotland.
Some lenders reps even admitted that if the Scottish mortgage market was separate their admin costs would be less and result in more favourable fee charges than at present.
Guys, be fair on the SNP on pensions here! They were offering triple lock guarantee! It was more than bloody good!
I can only think I’m in central belt, and some didn’t get the literature, or they didn’t understand?
Quote :- And we can protect pensioners incomes with a triple lock so that pensions increase every year by either inflation, earnings, or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest.
How the +??##! could it be better?
The thing is manandboy we didn’t have the luxury of the Media re-inforcing any of the Yes campaigns good points or rebuttals to the No crowds guff and until we do they will wield significant power over the non-social media types who are pummelled with the BT Doctrine.
Morag had a point about our lack of media firepower and I think she was totally correct.
Hindsight is a great thing.
mananboy at 5.49
What are you talking about? A pension guarantee was offered, backed by full details from the UK Ministry of Work and Pensions.
Whether it got appropriate coverage in a biased media is another matter.
How do you know the elderly NO vote was decisive? It may well have been but we have no evidence whatsover to back that.
I get very irritated by the wise after the event who suggest the YES campaign didn’t do things well. It wasn’t perfect but it was on a different planet from the NO campaign. It was run by thousands of volunteers facing the whole media and establishment might of the UK and it won all the arguments, all the meetings and all the momentum.
That is why the SNP is approaching 85,000 members and why the Labour Party is in meltdown (and I suspect what is left of the LibDems and the Tories to a large extent as well).
It provided a vision which has survived the carnage of a savage and dishonest election.
And let me say it again. I don’t believe that result
Wanna win in Scotland?
Take care of the over 60’s. There’s simply far too many
of them to not target them – which we did not do.
The Henry Jackson Society that Jim Murphy is a member of, or as The Guardian puts it: “Labour should cut its ties with the illiberal Henry Jackson Society”
Why is a “Glaswegian” “Labour” politician involved with a neocon think tank? Will the Scottish media ask that?
link to theguardian.com
What does the projection look like if the Green voted is added to the SNP total? I understand that with FP1TP it is the extra few percent at the top that make all the difference!
Luigi at 6.08
Where did you get the figure that 20% of the SNP support voted NO? Can you back that up?
Of course you can’t.
All three candidates support independence. Full stop.
Any suggestion that you win an argument by abandoning it is nonsense.
That’s the stuff of trolls
Labour politicians – merchants of doom and gloom.
War Mongerers with blood on their hands.
Gordon Brown.
Alistair Darling.
George Foulkes.
Anne McGuire.
Jim Murphy.
YOU, and many more of your Tory colleagues are responsible for
the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
And lets not even get started on the death and destruction your
decisions brought on our troops.
Read the Tory Roll of Shame – is your MP on here.
link to archive.today
Btw, I am also treating the polls with caution, because a lot can happen in politicsbetwee now an then. You will also notice SNP are not shouting about it, as they don’t want to peak too early.
” It’s far easier to scare them away from the change by telling them that even the modest nest-egg that they have would be “at risk”.
I don’t know the way to tackle it, but I do know that in effect offering a free pony with every Yes vote wouldn’t have done it”
@ Morag, devo max, which is why we won’t get anything near it.
@Dave McEwan Hill, not the stuff of trolls by Luigi, I heard it at my local SNP branch meeting from the local councillor and the MSP. Faithful party members voted No to independence, but they are in the bag for a WM election.
Strange but true
If pensions were a big factor, why wasn’t the Yes campaign pointing out that UK pensions are about the lowest in Europe? It should have been a major part of the campaign, that an Indy Scotland would be looking to vastly increase the state pension.
Definitely, I imagine many Scots who voted YES for their first time (be it through legal age or choice) will once again show their collective voice and take part in the next stage, in our steps towards eventual independence.
It is understood this requires every voter to choose a pro-independence party next year (and including 2016), but ideally the Scottish National Party, as this gains more seats for Scotlands present party majority seats held in Westminster. Anything less dilutes Scotlands leading presence and influence in Scotland/Westminster/UK/Europe/World.
Since the media and co. have tried to make/brand the ‘SNP’ a dirty word, maybe we could refer to the SNP as.. the ‘National Party of Scotland’ for discussions sake ye know? When ye think about it, trying to talk down or insult a National Party of Scotland seems just plain wrong don’t you think, maybe even punishable by Paula Rose? 🙂
So there’s my Sunday evening contribution, cheers,
NPS
@JayR
Murphy is a Blairite and Tony Blair’s first real neo-con triumph was the intervention of British Forces in the Sierra Leone civil war. This is mentioned in the Henry Jackson Society website. Blair stepped over the line then and getting away with it emboldened him to go for Iraq!
link to en.wikipedia.org
The term “Humanitarian Intervention” was coined for this sort of deployment.
Orwell would be proud of this double-speak.
“Pensions increase every year by either inflation, earnings, or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest.”
Therefore no need for a slogan which virtually every media pundit introduced as the “so-called Triple Lock” and then did not explain what it was.
Just call it what it is then they have less chance to misrepresent.
I would personally simplify even further, e.g. the Scottish universal State Pension will never be lower than that of England.
It won’t be long before there is a coup against Ed Miliband. I would imagine that some in Labour’s cabinet would want Yvette Cooper to replace Dead Ed.
@Luigi says:
“An GE alliance for more powers is a great idea, but calling it “YES” will lose many potential votes. We need to attract people who voted NO, not exclude them.
BBC Labour will do everything it can to label any agreement a “YES Alliance”, it’s important to nip this in the bud right away.
STOP CALLING IT A YES ALLIANCE”
I disagree. The Yes campaign was forged in positivity, and many of the issues we campaigned on, will still be relevant in the run up to the general election, and we have to get that message across to No voters, as well as those that didn’t vote. I still believe that we should have a Yes alliance of sorts, but if the question arises as why the Yes brand has been kept, we say that we are campaigning for all of the residents of Scotland, irrespective of how they voted in the referendum – for you, for everyone, for Scotland – and use that as a strapline. In case anyone hasn’t realised, the initials spell out YES.
for You
for Everyone
for Scotland
or simply
You
Everyone
Scotland
If the Pro Indie parties were to take 15-20 seats that would be a spectacular result. I would prefer the 36 you speculate on however would say Kennedy’s coat is on a shuggly peg …better be on the floor come May 15
manandboy at 6.30
We did indeed target the over 60s and produced a lot of material for that group. We did not phone them up however and tell them lies as Better Together did and we did not have honest access to the media which most of them rely on for information and opinion.
There are far too many of our supporters happy to swallow our enemies assessment of where we went wrong in the campaign. That is exactly what they want us to do. Very many of our old folk voted YES and were devastated by the result. I am one of them
If I remember correctly our pensions are the second lowest in the developed world. Only Mexico pensions are worse than ours.
Six SNP MP’s in westminster give them grief i can only imagine if there is a crowd of them. popcorn 🙂
Well that’s Darling not standing at the next election.
I suspect it’s so Labour can attempt to disown the vow and lack of devolution that’s brewing.
Latest betting on who should replace Ed Miliband if he fell under a bus tomorrow.
Yvette Cooper 5/2
Chuka Umunna 6/1
Andy Burnham 6/1
Ed Balls 8/1
Jim Murphy 10/1
We lost the vote because of the MSM nothing else.
We lost the vote because of the MSM nothing else.
Re the Yes Alliance -it would be good to hear from the SSP and RIC members on here. There is a campaign on twitter to have an official #YESAlliance.
Some people who helped organise Hope over Fear, the BBC demos and some of the events are getting quite annoyed about it not being an official tag.
I don’t really care one way or the other – how important is it?
So, Darling is leaving his MP seat in 2015.
No doubt so he can take up his ermine robes he was likely promised for selling out Scotland.
Another red tory ‘socialist’ off to the Lords.
Interesting seat for the SNP to go after.
Marco, Dave,
I take your points. I just think it is a big, unnecessary risk. Imagine soft NO voters, still afraid of independence/ YES, but really interested in more powers. We need these people. 2015 is not about getting people to vote YES or support independence. It is going to be about more powers (or punishing the unionist parties for not delivering). What’s wrong therefore for calling it “Scotland Alliance” or “More powers Alliance”, “Devo Max Alliance” etc etc? I am convinced these would attract more support (and have more chance of unseating Labour MPs) than a potentially divisive “YES” label. There will be plenty of opportunities for YES in the future, but not 2015 IMO.
Valerie at 6.47
20%? No way. I met a couple over a couple of years of a campaign
Labour pretending to change, same crap different face won’t cut it
interestingly the Irish Labour party which is in a Coalition government with Fine Gael is on the skids in the republic. Guess which party is rising in the polls and has 50% in Northern ireland?
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
Even though Sinn fein runs on abstentionist ticket as far as westminster is concerned, a pan- nationalist alliance (SDLP, Plaid, SNP and Sinn fein)+ the Greens wherever they are, might be an interesting proposition!!
I think the Revs assessment of the potential seats that could be won are far more realistic that 54 from 59 talked about by the polling companies.
I also believe that the real diehard No voters be they red, yellow or blue will also be wise to this and many will vote tactically ganging up against the SNP hopeful in many seats.
The SNP’s real strength now is in their membership numbers, they are unprecedented in the UK in terms of number of members per constituency. This may prove to be a powerful force.
Next, according to these polls approximately 40% of previous Labour supporters would vote Yes next time and this is where the huge surge in support for the SNP in the GE has come from. They are switching from Labour directly to SNP as has been happening for many years now.
What about the other 60% though? There are many traditional Labour supporters just about ready to swing behind a Yes Alliance of some sort in a General Election. However, a great many of them would never dream of voting SNP in normal circumstances but it’s possible that they would if they were to be looking at the bigger picture.
This is where the Greens/SSP/Solidaity come in, for a lot of traditional Labour voters it may be far easier to persuade them to support either of the above and to convince them that these parties have more in common with their own beliefs than do the Labour party.
I couldn’t care what any alliance may be called but do feel that for maximum effect in the 2015 General Election, it is important that all parties find some common ground in the fight to win as many seats as possible.
I wonder if Gordon will step down at the same time as Alistair? He did hint at one point that he was considering it.
The SNP in the White paper offered pensions linked to inflation and a reversal of the raising of the pensions age.
Had it offered pensions higher than England’s it would have been met by howls of derision (even though Scotland could possibly provide such) and would have been tied up in a fruitless bidding war.
Better Together,with all its across the board media support based its whole campaign on the premise that Scotland was in continuous receipt of subsidy. Every angle it promoted relied on the fact that decades of distortion had left many uninformed Scots believing this.
That is our task. Confirm in the minds of all our people that we are comfortably self supporting. More of them now understand this than did so a year ago and many of them now understand we have been lied to for years.
That is part of the reason for the Labour collapse. Voters can understand English politicians misinforming us to hold onto Scotland and its resources. They cannot however forgive Scottish Tory, Labour and LibDem MPs and MSPs supporting the lies for years. We have a couple of years to make sure everybody in Scotland knows how we have been lied to (by commission and omission) by those we elected to represent us and how rich we actually are.
heedtracker at 3:35
Western Isles have a SNP MP + a SNP MSP! We do unfortunately have a council run by a few labourites with the assistance of a good few ‘independants’ who only support their labour pals. The result of the ref was, I think, quite a surprise to many here but don’t automatically blame the oldsters. We’re not all only out for ourselves.
I can’t see Gordon Broon stepping down. He has his probably rent free ‘Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown’ at Westminster. He can organise all his high profile lucrative jaunts from there, gets a very nice salary as a an MP and exPM, expensive security and doesn’t even need to appear in the chamber. Why give up all that?
The oil rich state of Alaska pays out an “oil dividend” to almost everyone each year – there are residence requirements – I’m not sure about age rules. This year it is about US900 each – in years past it has been up to twice that – depending on their oil fund (which of oilands only Iran and sister state UK have none)investment income.
This is very democratic – everyone gets a share and can spend it as they think fit while the bulk of the fund goes for the common good.Pensioner or pauper,male or female,sage or fool -they get to choose.
Why not give back to Scots some of their own money – then if they really really want to spend it on bombing the current Mideast target of choice or splurge on a highspeed whatever to wherever they could. But pensioners could certainly use this kind of top-up, and what family with kids couldn’t use a bit extra from time to time or or or
This is not bribing people with their own money it is merely giving everyone in Scotland a share of something that belongs to them.
After the disappointment of the referendum the words “I’ll believe it when I see it” are ringing around my head.
Watched the Andrew Marr interview with AS, he asked him about the dark side of nationalism, Jim Murphy egging, JK Rowling, internet abuse and why he didn’t stop it.
I didn’t watch the interview with Murphy but I bet he didn’t ask him about Unionist thugs running rampage in Glasgow or the several real physical attacks on Yes campaigners, or the abuse the Weirs received or the fact that a racist appeared in a No campaign broadcast.
Dave McEwan Hill says:
2 November, 2014 at 7:33 pm
20%? No way. I met a couple over a couple of years of a campaign
I agree 20% seems a lot, and I have not seen that figure anywhere official, but am only saying what was said in my first SNP branch meeting, and I was open mouthed, as were others. Apparently, the Councillor knew them very well, and repeated to him going in to vote, they were voting No.
I can only think they like the SNP party, talent, local politicians or something, and are afraid, or are loyal to the Union for whatever reason.
I’m in North Lan. which was an overall Yes.
Darling standing down according to Radio 4.
I also like the idea of some sort of “alliance”. The Greens could draw Lib Dems and the SSP could draw Labour voters especially if they are the types who “cannae stand the SNP”…. By giving a more prominent role to the Greens and SSP, the SNP will be helping the two other pro-indy parties to better establish themselves to increase their share of the vote (from unionist parties) come 2016. And I think there should be recognition for all those, like Tommy Sheridan and the RIC, who are urging everyone to vote SNP in 2015. Imagine what heaven Scotland would be if the RIC could grow and take over the former Labour vote!
Darling backs the Eggman. What a surprise! 😀
Just to make absolutely certain even the most blinkered in SLAB know for a fact that Murphy is westminster’s placeman for the London Labour branch office.
BBC Labour pouring out gushing tributes to Darling in another ‘shock’ move. 😉
In my experience, the elderly vote CAN be reached. The fact that the Lord Ashcroft poll puts over a quarter of over-65s in the Yes camp supports this.
The problem wasn’t that we couldn’t convince the elderly, it’s that we didn’t REACH the elderly. Most elderly folk stay in their homes, only associate with their age group, have a greater degree of trust in the UK government, BBC and press. The ONLY source of information most of them get would be the mainstream media – and they were overwhelmingly no.
Yes neutralised the mainstream media for the younger demographic by dominating social media, but that isn’t going to work for the older generation. What we have to do is figure out how to neutralise the mainstream media for the hundreds of thousands of folk who are extremely unlikely to leave their homes and local haunts. To me, that means empowering the current over-50/65 Yes voters, giving them the means to bring the message in a format that works for their generation.
My take? They’re not going to come to us – so we have to go to them. Get into the old folk’s homes, the bingo halls, the church fetes, the bastions of community spirit. Show them it’s not that scary. Normalise it. Independence is already normalised in the public at large – according to the Ashcroft poll, just about every demographic *except* the over-50s voted Yes – but the only way we’re going to normalise it for that generation is by going to them.
They will resist, of course, but we’re not going there to “take over”: we’re evangelists, spreading the word of Yes. We can’t make them change their mind – we can only show them why we think it’s a good idea, and empower them by supporting THEM in their lives. I have no doubt the majority of over-65s voted because they believed the lies, and felt powerless against the pressure of the government. Empower them.
Besides, I think blaming the elderly on the basis of the Lord Ashcroft poll is a bit wide of the mark – I think the women let the side down too, which is why Women for Indy is so important.
O/T Something for the conspiracy theorists. The interesting series of indy conversations continues with “Conversation With Blair Jenkins” on Thursday, November 6th, 2014 at 3:00 PM EST (probably around 8 pm our time) on IndependenceLive.
Regarding how many SNP voters voted No, the only poll I know of was Ashcrofts of 2000 people conducted immediately after the referendum. His results stated:
“Meanwhile one in seven SNP voters opted to remain in the UK.
That equates to just over 14% so if correct, it is not inconceivable that in some areas of Scotland up to 20% of SNP supporters may have voted No and in others possibly 10% or less.
Another very interesting result from this poll is that it reports 73% of those aged 65 or over voted No.
link to archive.today
@Taranaich
You beat me to it with regards to Ashcrofts poll. I totally agree though with all you say on winning over the elderly vote with one addition. Most elderly have children and grandchildren, we as individuals could all have done more to give them reassurance.
I know the work I had to do to get just one elderly in-law to vote Yes, though in the end she did.
O/T @BtP:
Geez, I didn’t see these images.
Glad you didn’t go to Toulouse and stay safe at home.
This is not just about a death and a dam. There is strain, queasiness with our current political and economical slant. It’s increasingly seething, like the rioters. At this point, the slightest spark can light a full blaze.
James: Watched the Andrew Marr interview with AS, he asked him about the dark side of nationalism, Jim Murphy egging, JK Rowling, internet abuse, why he didn’t stop it.
Did Marr actually refer to Murphy’s egging as ‘the dark side of nationalism’? Preposterous.
Did he really omit to mention the torrent of scabrous attacks on Salmond the social democrat by unionists, and the brutality of attacks by the MSN on Scotland’s democratic rights?
Did Marr ask if Salmond has stopped beating his wife?
Is Marr ailing mentally, or just plain stupid?
Dave: Darling standing down according to Radio 4.
He is under investigation by the Faculty of Advocates for having his fingers in the till, flipping his house four times, sticking personal expenses onto public expenses.
Had he not stood down he might certainly have been barred from practising law. By standing down the investigation will be halted.
Slimy bastard.
I hope with every fibre of my being that these results come to pass next
May, but I too am wary.
As I mentioned in a previous post, my father is a diehard Labour man and he is welcoming these polls as he believes “it will bring folk to their senses, for an SNP vote is a vote for the Tories” It beggars belief but many still hold to this way of thinking.
As I have pointed out to him since 1992, Scotland could vote Labour, SNP, Lib Dem or Monster Raving Loony and it wouldn’t matter a jot if England voted Tory.
A good point made above about the MSM pumpong out Labour propaganda, this will remain a huge hurdle for the SNP. A terrific ressult would be 15 to 20 SNP MPs under the FPTP system.
Just a footnote, I live in Dumfries and Galloway, spare a thought for us (few) believers here.
O/T but why are there still so many English on newsthreads like the Huff, spreading really nasty and malicious stuff?
EVERY time the Huff runs a post on the SNP or Salmond like today, they come out in bloody hordes and are REALLY nasty. Just been fighting with my old ‘friend’ Wayne Everitt. This guy never stops during the referendum on various Yes pages, and the newsthreads, and still at it.
I worry others will believe his shit.
Anything north of twenty seats will be an exceptional result and ensure that WM will be forced to do some bargaining.
Thirty six would be phenomenal and would certainly keep the indy pot boiling nicely. 🙂
Vote Green 😉 I for one want independence as much as anyone else but for me they are my only option. This vote SNP in 2015 and any pro Indy party 2016 isn’t cutting it for me. It’s like a dirty tactic to snuff Green and SSP out completely to get what they want and nothing to do with Yes. Whilst the SNP don’t support a complete ban on fracking I’ll stick with a Green Yes.
In General Elections the turnout is 50-60% of the electorate. Could be higher the next time. .
In Holyrood Elections the turnout is 40-50% of electorate. Could be higher the next ime.
The Indy Ref was much higher. 85?
Unionist free by 2016
Independence by 2020.
Vote SNP/Alliance
Anent the Liberal constituencies in the Heilans, this is an anti-laird hang-over, the laird tending to be a Tory, a bit peculiar nowadays as lairdling non-entities like Tavish Scott & Thurso get themselves into Westminster on a Lib-dem ticket.
If monkeys with red rosettes are getting the boot at long last then surely monkeys with Lib-dem rosettes can’t be far behind them.
The former Liberal hang-over in working class Greenock can be put down to Highland & Irish influence.
@Taranaich.
That age group is also the group most likely to read the local newspapers.
Write to the local papers, try using:-
link to snp.org
lots of issues that can be raised locally. The Vow fraud exposed. The pathetic Labour submission to the Smith Commission (even the Tories propose more than Labour do) Labour and Tories standing side by side during the referendum. PFI,ATOS and the bedroom tax, all started by labour.
Red tory blue tory no difference.
Vote Labour to keep the Tories out – did it work the last time then? Labour in Scotland is really just a branch office – they can’t even say how many members they have, neither can the Tories or any other Unionist party.
Lots of issues that can be raised in these local newspapers.
De Valera: My dad says, an SNP vote is a vote for the Tories
Sad. My commisserations. Holding onto ragged loyalties is easier than learning anew when elderly, curiousity lost.
What? 2015 GE? Dammit, you’ve just messed with my hibernation cycle.
Murphy and Dugdale begin their Labour Scotland leadership and deputy leadership campaigns:
link to fc00.deviantart.net
The SNP should also contest Berwick-upon-Tweed to force the BBC to include them in the TV Debates. They might also win it and it is historically a Scottish town, so come independence it would be well worth a haggle in the divyy up!
Maybe one more seat at Westminster – they could be our rUK Secretary.
link to weegiewarbler.blogspot.co.uk
Be aware folks S.LAB are about to regroup around Jim Murphy thanks to the B.B.C. and the Westminster Labour Political Machine. How do they plan to do it? Easy they plan to promote “POLICIES” that will bi-pass our Hollyrood Parliament, thereby making it a Glorified “Toon Cooncil”. They have already indicated they will insist “Further Devolution” of resources to the 32 Scottish Local authorities!! Listen to their Words so far??
Just watched “Antiques Roadshow” tonight, coming from the Somme battlefields, the BBC have no shame politicizing the dead of WW1 for their own jingoistic agenda. The BBC are no beyond the point of saving. The bright point on tv today was a 90 year old veteran saying he was not buying a poppy this year because of the politicizing MSM/BBC the remembrance day.
Alex Clark at 8.14
“Meanwhile one in seven SNP voters opted to remain in the UK.”
The key in that sentence is the word “voters”. In 2011 a lot of people who were not SNP supporters voted SNP and that will have been the question.
I suspect all SNP actual “supporters” voted SNP then and I am sure the overwhelming majority of them voted YES in September.
How much is known about Lord Ashcroft’s polls and methodology?
I’m afraid it is very easy to get a very wrong impression of things standing talking to an arbitrary or completely unrepresentative collection of people going through the polling station doors.
There is a lot of unsupported conjecture going on here.
A deeper look a the figures is interesting. Though Argyll and Bute registered as NO the historic county actually voted YES, resoundingly in the Cowal and Lorn areas in particular, but the recent inclusion of the heavily populated Helensburgh and Lomond (Faslane and Coulport) tipped it to NO. I am assured that the industrial parts of Inverclyde (Port Glasgow and Greenock) did YES but the leafy suburbs and plush communities behind tipped the balance to No. Similar divisions can be found across the country and it looks to me that Scotland was actually facing mainly a residual Tory vote on the 18th September with probably less than half traditional Labour vote voting No.
Grousebeater
He resigned in 2010 Maybe he’s making room for Jim
link to telegraph.co.uk
OLD: Maybe he’s making room for Jim
Good point, Order of the Quisling Lodge, and all that. 🙂
A spokesman for City of London Police confirmed it had received the letter from de Vink and added: “We are now speaking to the relevant individuals and organizations.” The Treasury claimed the person who sent the email was a, “junior civil servant”, despite his position as head of Scottish Referendum Communications.
In a previous role he was press officer to former financial secretary to the Treasury, Greg Clark. The Treasury also refused to give any details of who approved the email being sent out. Last night, a spokesman for the Treasury said: “As is a matter of public record, the Cabinet Secretary has written to the former [sic] First Minister on this matter, and rejected any suggestion of improper actions by civil servants.”
Jim McKay commented. Heywood stated the Treasury email had been issued following a newspaper report, which quoted an RBS source. He must have reference for that report? Newspaper, date and edition. And what RBS source? He needs to produce the evidence. Smoke and mirrors. He’s lying.
link to caltonjock.com
O/T
Was at the hustings for the SNP deputy in Montrose tonight.
I was previously going to vote
1 Hosie
2 Constance
3 Brown
Now I have no idea who to vote for, Keith Brown came across very well, had good ideas and seemed pragmatic, Stewart Hosie was charismatic, but I felt he was a little high and mighty, Angela Constance also did well.
@Stoker 5.58pm
I believe the figures you have found for Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk are accurate; I also agree that Labour will probably be pretty much wiped out and a proportion of the LibDem vote will move to the SNP, as some people will have voted LibDem in the last election to keep the Tories out. However, Michael Moore is personally quite popular, so many may vote for him regardless of his party.
On the other hand, 28,000 people voted Yes in the Borders, so if we can only get the vote out then we stand a fighting chance. Our local branch membership has jumped from about 30 to over 200, so we do have a large pool of canvassers and campaigners to draw on. And there are 4 branches in the constituency.
I have every intention of working as hard as I can for an SNP victory in this constituency, but if it doesn’t happen then I would be pleased if we made a sizeable dent in the majority of whichever Con-Dem candidate were elected.
@Dave McEwan Hill
I wouldn’t disagree at all with what you have said. It would seem obvious that many people would vote SNP as the lesser of two evils if it meant denying a Tory or labour politician a seat.
A “true” SNP supporter of course is much more likely to have Independence as their number one priority. These have been growing in number since 2007 in particular and the massive recent surge in membership is likely to increase that number.
Where do all these new supporters come from? Other partise of course, mainly Labour and Lib Dem so SNP strategy should be to continue to appeal to those that may be disaffected.
I would continue to target labour which is exactly what the SNP done in their last conference in Aberdeen before the referendum. There are those that for whatever reason could never bring themselves to being described as a supporter of the SNP. That’s where the other pro-Indy parties come in.
There are a lot of tactical votes to be won if we can all get our act together. I really don’t care much now for any party politics, party policies can be changed by their members and will fluctuate constantly.
I prefer to focus on the bigger picture and that is a proper democracy first of all, decency and a fairer bite at the cherry for all of society.
On a side note: link to bbc.co.uk
Angela Merkel is not going to support Cameron’s plans to get a special deal for the UK over EU citizens’ right to live and work anywhere in the EU. She’d rather see the UK leave the EU than compromise on this issue. Good woman, stand firm, Angela! And please start drawing up the plans for swiftly admitting an independent Scotland after the in/out referendum.
Sunny Jim didn’t convince my 88 year old mother-in-law and a Labour voter all her life who’s comment on seeing and hearing Jim Murphy for the first time on Andrew Marr show today was “I will never vote for him because I didn’t like the way he spoke and he didn’t sound sincere”.
Gaining half the seats available in the general election would be an incredible success but I can see it being positioned as a major defeat. Such is the bizarre state of affairs.
O/T Was considering firing off a complaint to the BBC on their pushing Murphy (and to a far lesser extent Ke$ia ) but then I remembered that they have a strange approach to complaints.
Almost nothing is upheld – a quick look at their site and it seems to be only trivial technical issues that are conceded like an episode of pointless that was not repeated and functionality on the red button national lottery results failing or whatever.
Big issues due to failures of judgement, anti Argentine acts, institutional bias and insensitive and inappropriate coverage – these areas the BBC is never wrong. Someone with more time could wade through the backlog to see if they ever are editorially wrong.
link to bbc.co.uk
I had looked through their summary of complaints by the month and there was no mention of our referendum and the avalanche of complaints up until July. Just the same line again and again:
…these (complaints) ranged from a small number of complaints about alleged breaches of editorial guidelines through to a much larger collection of views about programme content and services.”
Exactly the same. Every month.
August finally features the referendum after (I’m guessing thousands and thousands of complaints from Yes campaigners…. the first issue they felt it necessary to mention in 2014 was (drum roll):
“Some people complained that the second Scottish Independence debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling was poorly moderated and/or the audience was biased in favour of independence.”
Needless to say, the complaint was not upheld. You could not make this shit up.
September’s summary finally acknowledges a Yes campaign complaint on Nick Robinson and the worst example of bias in the whole campaign. What was the dear old beeb’s response?
“…the overall report balanced and impartial, in line with our editorial guidelines.”
How low they have fallen, and from such a depth!
Putting on my anorak again and looking at the ‘middling’ opinion poll which had the SNP at 42%, Lab at 25% and Con at 16% — if Con remain steady while 33% of Lab and 40% of Lib go to SNP then what you get in Berwickshire, Rox. & S is:
SNP 30.7%, Con 33.8%, Lib 27.2%, Lab 6.7%
Not really sure I believe that. Maybe reduce swing from a sitting Lib member in a rural area by quarter [?] so SNP 26.1, Con 33.8, Lib 31.8, Lab 6.7.
RT playing a documentary on FRACKING
Gee whizz much worse than I thought !
Anyone able to record ?
Sorry if this has already been mentioned but Flipper is to stand down at the General Election in May next year. I guess this news means we have one less Westminster Labourite dinosaur to remove from their seat then. 😉
@PictatRandom 10.32pm
Either of those results would be a good result for us (the first one would be amazing). I’m still aiming for a win, though!
Lotsa people with zany predictions, quirky ideas, questions as to what the SNP are going to do next, and then other people trying to answer them instead of; and here’s a thought; Like me, and the rest of the almost 85.000 now, instead of making it up or plucking stuff out of the sky, “Join The Party” you get information and everything, dead modern emails, help if you need it, and it’s just like shopping in Aldi’s, inexpensive, you can even pay monthly direct debit
I dont mean to sound sarky, but lots of us have been explaining lots of this stuff for years The Rev has great information and grafts like a madman for all our benefit, look for the “Ask Wings” section, or if you pose a specific question this site has quite a few clever people who can answer most things pretty well, it might save you time and Anx
Try not to worry now!
That was me being cheery not sarcastic
I Joined the SNP in 2011 the day after the landslide, I had been dithering for several years but after staying up all night enjoying the SNP achievements I was totally digusted by Davd Dimwit’s/BBC comments about AS as in canned salmon, smoked salmon, poached salmon, tinned etc enough was enough.
I joined the next day, I believe 4000 joined in the weeks after, possibly some like myself disgusted with the BBC. Since then its got worse they are now beyond the pale with their wastemonster cant.
It’s really difficult to figure out how any individual seat will go in a FPTP election with the sort of swings the opinion polls are forecasting. For example, I can’t see how the SNP can take Mundell’s seat unless UKIP steals a load of Tory votes there, and yet UKIP isn’t polling particularly well.
Some of the Labour seats have such humungous majorities it’s also hard to see how these could be overturned, but then again with the scale of the Labour independence vote these might actually be the easier prospects.
Some people have suggested a possible anti-Yes alliance and that might happen too. Union supporters might vote tactically to keep the SNP out.
If we got the seats detailed above it would be a stunning victory for sure. I just hope a lot of people are out shopping for comfy new leafleting boots.
And what Dr Jim said too.
Just heard that our branch in the Borders is now up to 340 members, when we were under 100 before the referendum I think. But neighbouring branches in Midlothian are boasting over 1000 so I still wish we could steal some people!
Good piece on the Labour Gala dinner by Patrick Ferry, with his own photos. (Includes snap – exclusive?! – of Miliband’s foodbank donation!) –
link to vice.com
Really good article. Thanks Iain.
@Morag 10.46pm
Great news about your branch. The more the better.
We need a Wee Blue Book Two with the lies and the truth about our economy laid out in such a way that no person reading it would have any doubt about Scotand’s viability
Just to let you all know that the fight goes on in Orkney. SNP membership up by 400%. Please don’t think we are all unionist Lib Dems!
And remember that the Convenor of OIC publicly came out for Yes.
Thanks for that response @ 9.48pm, Natasha.
Yes, although it looks almost impossible on paper, i honestly believe it is achievable, with the right shifts in support and as long as “Yessers” are careful in how they promote the case.
I have no doubt that you, and others, will be giving it your all.
The realist in me says it will be a very tall order and probably unlikely but not impossible. The optimist in me, which is normally sat on by a 2 ton pessimist, is up running around screaming lets go for it, the momentum is with us and if we can’t capitalise on what we have now then we never will.
And similar to you, if we don’t achieve it, i would settle for a large dent in the ConDem vote, Labour being wiped out and any sort of increase in SNP support.
It’s all to play for.
_____________________
Tam @ 10.15pm.
Great minds think alike, Tam.
I was looking at that exact same info last night, just to see if there was any signs of progress, maybe just a wee hint, but i drew the same conclusions as you.
The BBC are masters are deception, they’ve been covering things up for decades, they’re not in the habit of letting on they’ve been hurt.
Did you see the complaint from Argentina about the ignorant and provocative “Falklands” numberplate on the Top Gear filming?
So bloody obvious it was a ‘Get It Up Yous’ stunt against the Argentinian people and government, a completely unprovoked stunt yet the BBC refused the complaint. Absolutely disgraceful.
We all need to keep up the complaints, in huge numbers.
@Ian Brotherhood
Thanks for the link, glad to see at least one is paying attention.
As for the pictures, the real exclusive of Miliband’s donation is below and was live 🙂 The first video.
link to new.livestream.com
Great article.
Aside from the reality of the figures here, there still exists the unusual situation with the number of people joining the yes parties.
People = persuaders
The persuaders could be asked to volunteer to doorstep in any area where they were needed and I’m pretty sure most would oblige.
This means that the yes parties have something that Labour, LibDem et al don’t have… an army of volunteers/activists.
Judging by my own local SNP branch meeting recently, those activists are well up for it.
I can see a lot of surprises in GE2015. And I think Darling’s announcement today is a sign of this… they know they are losing… and they are losing BIG!
Valkyrie says:
2 November, 2014 at 11:23 pm
“And remember that the Convenor of OIC publicly came out for Yes.”
And am i correct in saying that your local paper also came out in
support of Yes? I’m sure i read that somewhere.
@Valkyrie
“Just to let you all know that the fight goes on in Orkney. SNP membership up by 400%.”
Well done to you and all your fellow Orcadians that want to continue the fight for democracy.
I would prefer a YES alliance, but I suspect that the vast majority of green and socialists will vote SNP tactically in 2015. Especially all the new members.
Unfortunately Green will simply be a wasted vote under FPTP.
There is no getting away from that.
It would actually be worse than a wasted vote, as it will split the pro-Scotland vote.
Better to work together towards a stronger Scottish parliament that Greens actually have real influence in through proportional representation.
@Tam Jardine
I am still pushing my complaint about why the BBC released the 130 No complaint numbers after the Darling v Salmond debate as I have a previous FOI stating they would not release such figures for the Yes side complaints as it would affect their “impartiality” and because they have an FOI get out clause which enables them to do this. So obviously there is no problem with impartiality as far as the No side is concerned as they were not regarded as a “pressure group” because the BBC were an integral part of the better together campaign.
Current state of play…
Complaint 1 – wiped from the BBC system – mysteriously “lost” much to the confusion of Capita employees.
Complaint 2 – delaying letter then letter with no attempt to answer but referring back to original lost complaint.
Complimt 3 – delaying letter then letter with no attempt to answer but referring back to original FOI.
Complaint 4 – delaying letter and waiting for… next response…
I am not usually as persistent in my BBC complaints but I think this is a good one to follow up on.
These 130 complaints were, after all, the excuse for the BBC to go into “full propaganda mode”.
Stoker, that was the Shetland News, an online publication. The Shetland Times came out for the union, and the Orcadian was silent, but did give both sides a monthly column. Unfortunately they give the Lib Dem MP and MSP alternate weekly ones. Can anybody tell me if a weekly column in a local newspaper is something every MP/MSP expects or gets?
I think it’s pretty obvious there is a deliberate tactic to wear down complainants until they give up. I choose not to engage with them any more no matter how provoked, because it’s just not worth the grief.
That of course is exactly the response they want. Kudos to anyone with the determination to keep at it.
@Lesley-Anne
I wonder if the Faculty of Advocates will drop their investigation of his financial affairs now?
Or is Alistair Darling just wanting a quiet life after Gordon Brown’s referendum success?
Stoker
Did you see the complaint from Argentina about the ignorant and provocative “Falklands” numberplate on the Top Gear filming?
Unbelievable response to the complaint.
“We consulted the programme makers who would like to assure viewers that this was an unfortunate coincidence and the cars were neither chosen for their registration plates, nor were new registration plates substituted for the originals.”
H982 FKL! I wonder if their response would have been the same if the plate had been B316 RN0. Almost certainly.
But of course, they make vast sums selling the programme worldwide so anything goes. As for offending the families of dead Argentinian soldiers or British troops, that doesn’t merit a mention. They have the same disease as labour – institutional dishonesty.
@Morag
I do not normally bother chasing up the BBC on complaints as it a waste of time and I have even given up raising new ones – I think the Nick Robinson one was the last one.
However, the thing that intrigued me about this one was the reaction from the Capita staff to the fact that may original complaint had been wiped from the system. Something unusual going on here I thought – They genuinely appeared to be quite shocked!
Probably I will get nowhere with it may be worth a shot?
So No more BBC complaints after this one for me – I hardly watch any BBC anymore – even on iPlayer. It is no great loss.
Supporting the Dateline Scotland guys and girls is my way ahead – Become the Media!
Well keep us posted. I agree it sounds extremely suspicious. But then I’d believe anything of these guys, these days.
I’m counting the days until the Foster/Devoy double-act comes up with something tangible. If they can really get us our Scottish Six in some on-air form, it will be a miracle!
Valkyrie says:
2 November, 2014 at 11:36 pm
“Stoker, that was the Shetland News, an online publication. The Shetland Times came out for the union, and the Orcadian was silent, but did give both sides a monthly column. Unfortunately they give the Lib Dem MP and MSP alternate weekly ones. Can anybody tell me if a weekly column in a local newspaper is something every MP/MSP expects or gets?”
Thank’s for that explanation and apologies for my ignorance.
As far as i’m aware, most, if not all, local papers will have some sort of regular column or article in them from the local politician.
___________________________
Tam,
Took me a bit of concentration to get that ‘B316 RNO’ but i got there, its getting late.
🙂
@ronald alexander mcdonald says:
2 November, 2014 at 3:05 pm
Perhaps the objective of the polls is to persuade the SNP not to go for an Alliance in the 2015 GE. Lull them into a false sense of security, bearing in mind the pull of, vote Labour or get a tory government.
AGREED – The Green projected vote would push the number of seats up
Dave MacEwan Hill at 5:34
“Which political cause ever won by hiding its aim and pretending it wasn’t what it was”
Uh, uhhh… er… ALL OF THEM?
Sorry if I sound jaded, but after 40 years of my life voting, I see that even if your candidate or initiative wins, the politicians never do what they said they’d do during the run up to the election. Just saying.
I still want to see an Independent Scotland and fervently hope that it happens. You just really have to watch out for what those Westminster bastarts have up their sleeves.
No mention, I presume, of the “dark side of unionism” – George Square on the 19th, the actual physical assaults on Yes supporters, the regular intimidation & demonisation in the press?
Agreed, Onwards. With the best will in the world to SGP and SSP folks, voting for either party in Westminster at this point is more likely to do actual harm to Scotland – and thus, your own party – than to vote in the SNP.
The last EU election, we saw what happened when the SNP & Greens split the vote – we got a UKIP MEP. When the SSP ran in the early 2000s, we got saddled with New Labour yet again. The last thing I want is for the pro-indy parties to split the vote, resulting in far more New Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs than they deserve. Again.
With the best will in the world to Greens & SSP: use your nut. Voting SNP in Westminster will be infinitely better for your party than letting your vote split the pro-independence/devolution vote and allow one of the anti-independence/devolution parties in. Vote SNP, or don’t bother voting at all. The ONLY exception would be if a Green/SSP/independent candidate showed a significantly better chance at ousting one of the unionist parties than the SNP, and even then, we cannot guarantee that they would vote in favour of more devolution if that power could be argued against their policies.
Very good point – although it would mean patronising local papers like the Greenock Telegraph, which I hold personally responsible for a great amount of harm done to the local Yes activists.
YES did not win a majority (did win a majority of the total electorate 47% NO) because the Unionists told a pack of lies and election rules were not followed. They were blatantly broken time and time again. Once the electorate realised they were lied to, even more voters will vote YES tbe next time. Giving a clear, total majority.
The majority of the elderly and the English folk will not vote YES (they can be outvoted) but they will vote SNP.
The Greenas are targeting Edinburgh East. SNP haven’t put forward a candidate there yet.
[…] thought you might be interested to see some of the working of this post from yesterday. Of the 2.4m votes cast in Scotland in the 2010 UK general election, not far short of a million – […]
@liz says:2 November, 2014 at 4:53 pm:
“In the ToU we were supposed to be able to keep our own mint – get that back, negotiate with the BoE as part of the UK, that the Scottish £ be made legal tender at 1:1 and take it from there.”
I too am no economist, Liz, but as far as I know it wasn’t the BofE that bailed out the failed financial institutions it was the Treasury. Not only that but it was mainly the treasuries of the countries the financial services did business in. Another point is that the pound isn’t legal tender in the UK. Legal tender = Currency explicitly determined by a government to be acceptable in the discharge of debts. It really doesn’t mean what most folks imagine it means. If I remember correctly that means all currency notes and coins but not cheques postal orders and such like. In point of legal fact it should not include any bank notes as these are legally not currency but, “Promissory Notes”, which really are legally IOUs. The all state, “***** Promises to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £**.** pounds Sterling here at,(head Office), and a signature. It is actually quite legal for anyone to write a Promissory note, (IOU).
It strikes me that the need for a LOLR was just another Bitter Together scare story. Far as I know none of the countries that got into trouble in the crisis were bailed out by anything other that the government treasuries in the countries where they did business.
The word Sterling came from the old Royal Mint in Stirling and it was part of the Treaty of Onion to keep a Royal mint in Scotland. There used to be a mint factory in Cowcaddens, Glasgow that made “foreign” coins. Don’t know what happened to it after the war. I used to remember relatives bring foreign coins from the factory, I think Hill St, and brass horses and aeroplanes.
@Pam McMahon says: 2 November, 2014 at 4:54 pm:
“I live in Caithness. There has always been a huge “feudal” vote in parts of Scotland:”
By, “Feudal Vote”, I imagine you refer to what we used to call, “Folla the Maister”, in farming communities. In the days when farming, (and running big estates and their mansions), was very labour intensive, the tradition was for the Farmer, or land owner, to load the unmarried male residents in, “The Bothy, the unmarried female, “Kitchies”, in the Farm House and the married couples in their, “Pluckie’s Raw”, hovels, (Ploughman’s Row Cottages), into carts and take them to the poll where they voted as, “The Maister”, commanded them to vote.
Such was small former market towns like Kinross & Milnathort in Perth & Kinross Shire. Not these days, though. Ms Roseanna Cunningham SNP MSP, is the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Perthshire South & Kinross-shire,
@manandboy says: 2 November, 2014 at 5:49 pm:
“I’m only talking about one thing.
The elderly No vote proved decisive.”
Yeah! We old folks noticed you were very ageist inclined quite some time ago. However, the fact is you need to stop talking rubbish – We actually did have a guaruntee for our pensions, – We got it from the Westminster UK head of The DWP.
That wasn’t the problem for tha damage was from the Bitter Together liars who were knocking doors and threatening the old folks that if they dared to vote YES their would be a government Civil Servant along right away to take their pension from them.
Liugi at 5.12
You won’t win over many NO voters then. The SNP could even lose some of their supporters (remember 20% of them voted NO). What was agreed by the three candidates was that independence is not on the agenda in 2015. This is all about additional powers. And with 60-70% in favour of DevoMax, then what is the point in excluding people who are not yet convinced about independence if the issue in 2015 is not about independence?
The point is surely this, Luigi: Devo-Max is never going to be supported by the Smith Commission, let alone offered by Westminster, unless you actually believe what Jackie Bird tells you.
Therefore many of the 60-70% you quote as being in favour of Devo Max will be seriously hacked off when they realise this, and the fact they have been conned, and may change allegiance to a Yes persuasion.
Then there’s the other elephant in the room: EVEL, plus the fact that many of the pensioners who believed the garbage Gordon Brown told them will also understand they have been lied to and may change sides… if we work harder to inform them of the reality of their lot.
Just stand back and ask yourself why SNP membership has tripled since the referendum and think about what you are suggesting…. Maybe some of of the 60-70% have switched sides already, and maybe all of the 60-70% have been excluded by Westminster, not by the SNP?
[…] Some SNP supporters have – rightly, in this site’s view – called for calm and caution over this week’s opinion polls, showing the Nats at stratospheric support levels and, supposedly, on course to win either 54 or 47 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats next May. Given the huge gaps that the SNP would have to close in order to take each individual seat, those numbers seem extremely optimistic to anyone familiar with First Past The Post, even given Scottish Labour’s ongoing implosion. […]
After the debacle of the Scottish Referendum where democratic principles were ruthlessly thwarted Scotland must re-examine how to conduct election behaviour with or without Westminster intervention.
It is now clear that the national Scottish media, particularly print, dismissed all pretension of impartiality and we can no tolerate the position that it is their absolute freedom to do so, such is their effect on voter perception and decision. Yes, we must always defend free speech but there must be some degree of a balanced reporting and opinion casting during elections, since there is none to date and certainly there are fair and just ways to do this. Fortunately and with due irony, newsprint is in rapid decline while having made enemies of 66% of the Scottish citizenry, who now use the fast growing propensity for communicating via social media, this being hyper-democratic and well out of the reach of press barons.
While control of print media expression is neither desirable nor possible, we can control electronic media I.E. television. The airwaves are a publicly owed commodity and we therefore can and should impose defined responsibilities of impartial exposure to political platforms during election periods, on all purchasers and users of the airwaves.
Additionally we must recognized that both covert and open institutional bias is well established and deeply entrenched now, as part of the ‘electoral game’. Think tanks, ‘business’ associations’, ‘policy’ organizations, political action groups often funded at arms length by political parties or worse. Paid for comments and opinions by individuals described as ‘experts’, at universities and other respected institutions thus giving a false image of institutional backing. Corporate and institutional donations and influence particularly from outside Scotland should be ended.
We also must consider that given that independence is the most important decision for Scotland since 300 years, it should follow that only Scots should vote to determine their future. A simple legal definition of a Scot would be that he or she should be born in Scotland, be 16+ and have lived in Scotland at least 12 months prior to the referendum. There are approximately 400,00O English born persons and 80.000 migrant workers resident in the country who constitute roughly 11% of the current voting population of 4.2 million and their predisposition to remain attached to the UK is both predicable, understandable and by no means unreasonable. We wish to offend no one and welcome qualified immigrants into our country but it is and must remain our country and only Scots should determine this.
The fact was that the ‘NO’ vote had approximately an 11% lead before the first ballot dropped meaning that all they finally needed was 40% of the 3,792,000 remainder, while the ‘YES’ vote had to win at least 61%of the remainder. Was this Fair! After the debacle of the Scottish referendum whereby almost all the principles of democratic election were thwarted and thus a true verdict rendered impossible, we must begin to re-establish with absolute resolution what is and is not permitted. With or without Westminster intervention or approval. Only qualified political parties competing exclusively in Scotland for power should be eligible.
Still the problem that Conservative voters may vote tactically for Labour to reduce the number of seats the SNP gets (Scottish tory alan Cochrane already suggesting doing that in The Telegraph), but i still reckon the SNP will take some seats off Labour.
[…] 36 seats to Labour 19, Conservative 2 (taking one from Michael Moore) and 2 for the LibDems (see: link to wingsoverscotland.com […]
[…] people thought Inverclyde was going to be one of the few seats that the SNP might not attain in the 2015 General Election. Even those who thought it might go gold predicted a modest, middle-of-the-road win – not the […]