The headline screams unequivocally that according to a new Survation poll, fear of the SNP influencing a Labour government was the reason that English voters swung back to the Conservatives, defying polls that said the Tories would be the largest party but be short of an overall majority.
(Weirdly it says that their goal in doing so was to “keep Salmond out of power”, even though (a) Alex Salmond is a humble backbench MP who doesn’t even lead the SNP group at Westminster, let alone the party, and (b) he won his seat anyway.)
The article then produces a flurry of graphs and figures showing that various numbers of supporters of the four UK parties switched their votes to various other parties after being polled (as always happens).
But then there’s something quite important missing.
Because the media in Britain is now basically just a giant gossip circle repeating each other’s stories, pretty much every newspaper today repeats Michelle Mone’s tiresome publicity-seeking whinge about “cybernats” from the Mail On Sunday.
One of them is the Herald, whose piece contains a quote suggesting that Mone – who appeared to think that flitting from Scotland to England somehow got you away from the internet – does have at least some basic understanding of how Twitter works:
Now, we’re going to assume that by “the C word” she meant the four-letter insult, and by “the same party” we can deduce from context that she must mean the SNP.
So let’s just see if that claim stands up to scrutiny.
In its kneejerk “SNP BAD” reaction to the Alistair Carmichael affair, the Unionist establishment – politicians and media alike – has furiously tried to divert attention from Carmichael’s smear and attempted cover-up by harking back to an incident in 2012, when the press gave vast amounts of coverage to a claim that Alex Salmond had “lied” about legal advice regarding an independent Scotland’s EU membership.
Much of the commentariat and media has been in a froth for the last 24 hours about the supposed failure of the nation’s pollsters to predict the Conservative victory. This, for example, was Labour’s highly-paid election guru David Axelrod:
But the truth is that the polls – just like the heavily-maligned exit poll which turned out to be bang on the money – got nothing wrong. The people interpreting them did.
If you’re trying to give someone an example of a terrible group of people from history, I think the Nazis are pretty good for that purpose. They fulfil the criterion excellently, what with all the invading and occupying and repression and genocidal murder and everything, and there’s very little ambiguity or any shades of grey about their evil.
Now, alert readers may have spotted that while the headline of this article is a genuine quote from the paragraph above, and could be technically correctly described as my words by someone with malicious and dishonest intent (something which does in fact happen regularly), it gives a highly misleading impression of what was really said.
The bald-eagle-looking chap toting the cerise tie in this clip of this morning’s Victoria Derbyshire show on the BBC News channel is Lord (Andrew) Adonis, a former Labour government minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
He also wrote the book “Five Days In May” about the latter’s unsuccessful attempt to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, despite having won almost 50 fewer seats than the Conservatives in that election. So he understands the process.
Lord Adonis does, in fairness, make a brief and half-hearted attempt at punting Jim Murphy’s “1924” line, but in the end he’s forced to concede (nudged along by Peter Riddell of the Institute for Government) that in fact the second-placed party forming the government is perfectly possible.
After literally months of telling voters endlessly that the only way to stop the Tories forming the next government was for Labour to be the biggest party, Jim Murphy was finally pressed properly last night on the question by the First Minister on STV (from around 1h 40m). Here’s what happened:
That seems to be a pretty clear and unequivocal statement – Labour will vote against any Queen’s Speech from the Tories. We already know that the SNP have pledged categorically that they’d do the same.
What that means is that if the SNP and Labour between them – in ANY combination – have more than 323 MPs, the speech will be defeated and the Tories can’t form the government, whether they’re the biggest single party or not.
At that point, Ed Miliband will be invited to attempt to form one, which the SNP will vote for, and which on the numbers above will mean that Miliband becomes the next Prime Minister. Labour, though not the largest party, will form the government.
That’s from Jim Murphy’s own mouth. The lie is dead. Anyone still got any questions?
NOTE: This article was published earlier today on the CommonSpace website. Since that time, according to its webhosts, the site has come “under attack” and can no longer be accessed. We reproduce the article here at CommonSpace’s request.
A Yes campaigner reported as “defecting” to the Labour party by the Daily Record in a much-hyped front page splash has said he in fact remains a member of the SNP, a supporter of independence and favourable to a Labour-SNP deal at Westminster.
Hyping the story up, the tabloid title branded Shoaib an “SNP boss”, although it is unclear why. Shoaib is a former Labour councillor and organiser of Scots Asians for Independence. He joined the SNP in 2007.
However, Shoaib has told CommonSpace that while he does want to see a Labour government ahead of the Tories – he would like to see Labour and the SNP work together in a “loose” arrangement following May’s vote. “Basically, I’ve not joined Labour and I’m still officially a member of the SNP,” said Shoaib.
Like some sort of out-of-control, unstoppable lying machine, Scottish Labour keep telling the electorate that the party with the most seats in a hung parliament is the one that forms the government, and that the only way to prevent the Conservatives from returning to power is for Labour to be the biggest party.
Because we took a short break over the weekend, we sadly missed Labour’s solemn commemorations of the 1979 confidence vote, and as a result we don’t know whether anyone actually did don a black armband or lay a wreath to remember the miners that Labour didn’t support when they went on strike a few years later.
Alf Baird on The Wheels Of Industry: “The colonial-UK circus act re-opens with a new ringmaster: Scotland run by clowns at Westminster and its Holyrood department; colonized…” Jul 22, 11:13
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Clowns spread happiness and laughter to all postcodes. Perhaps hope as well.” Jul 22, 09:44
Captain Caveman on The Wheels Of Industry: “@Hatey I entirely agree with you. However, I’m not sure what this has to do with anything I said; our…” Jul 22, 09:40
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: ““longing for her to rise to the top” Havers, MH. Gingers are over-represented in Scotland and generally under-represented everywhere. I…” Jul 22, 09:04
Oneliner on The Wheels Of Industry: “It didn’t take Barnum long to send in the clowns.” Jul 22, 08:49
Minceheid on The Wheels Of Industry: “Hatey McHateface says: 22 July, 2026 at 8:09 am If nothing else, Mark, how can you NOT celebrate the return…” Jul 22, 08:22
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Nice try, CC. But if the immigrants have their way (for bloody obviously, it’s them who are behind the historical…” Jul 22, 08:16
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “If nothing else, Mark, how can you NOT celebrate the return of the Ginger Growler? Back to the Housing role…” Jul 22, 08:09
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Handy place, the House of Lords. If some wrecking cants were to abolish it, somebody else would have to reconstitute…” Jul 22, 08:03
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Aye, Alf, one person is enough! Like I’ve said before, if you’ve worked out your theoretical framework, then you now…” Jul 22, 07:54
Oneliner on The Wheels Of Industry: “Meanwhile Pinocchio Sarwar has been elevated to the House of Lords where he will be in charge of dental hygiene…” Jul 22, 07:48
Captain Caveman on The Wheels Of Industry: ““Blaming colonialism and white oppression that have nothing whatsoever to do with the present generations – even the older ones…” Jul 22, 07:30
Young Lochinvar on The Wheels Of Industry: “CD It seems depressingly so.. At Westminster they revelled in 3rd place to get airtime and arguably influence matters down…” Jul 22, 00:24
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Wheels Of Industry: “TRANS ACTIVISTS LAUNCH ‘HOW-TO’ INTIMIDATION GUIDE A group promoting violence against gender-critical campaigners has produced a guide to intimidation. Bash…” Jul 21, 23:38
Lorncal on The Wheels Of Industry: “Too many Scots, even those who profess themselves to be independence supporters, worry about other peoples to the detriment of…” Jul 21, 21:09
Colin Dawson on The Wheels Of Industry: ““Were they just waiting for all the momentum and impetus of Brexit, COVID, May, Truss and Starmer to die down…” Jul 21, 20:49
Alf Baird on The Wheels Of Industry: ““You can’t really imagine a spongebrain like Sturgeon, Swinney or Useless penning something of that calibre, can you?” Certainly no…” Jul 21, 20:46
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Wheels Of Industry: “PDF of Herman Dooyeweerd’s book: ‘ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE’ https://vcho.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Roots-of-Western-Culture-B-Vol-15.pdf” Jul 21, 20:38
Southernbystander on The Wheels Of Industry: “But you said they are accountable only to parliament. This is not true. If they break rules seriously enough then…” Jul 21, 20:15
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Wheels Of Industry: “« STOIC philosophy (influenced by semitic thought) had introduced into Greek thought the idea of the natural freedom and equality…” Jul 21, 19:57
Mark Beggan on The Wheels Of Industry: “And it never will. The Hope King? I thought Andy Burnham was the Oasis drummer.” Jul 21, 19:36
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Ach, Mark, you’re sore cos the hope hasn’t reached your postcode yet. Give it a day or two.” Jul 21, 18:10
TURABDIN on The Wheels Of Industry: “in the UK parliament is sovereign not the people. there is no concept of popular sovereignty within the Anglo-British (unwritten)…” Jul 21, 18:04
Mark Beggan on The Wheels Of Industry: “They can always be found around children. It’s clear now that Trans is a shield for abusing children. Fully supported…” Jul 21, 17:32
