Hang on a minute. We just got yet another begging email from Labour.
Those vacancies sound familiar. The amount, not so much. £87,500?
The argument that seat projections based on current opinion polling give the SNP (based on uniform swing) a wildly unrealistic number of seats seems at first glance to be compelling. More than two dozen current Labour seats have five-figure majorities, and several are higher than 20,000. Taken individually every single one represents a mammoth task, and capturing the bulk of them looks an absurd dream.
We’re deeply sceptical ourselves about the predictions giving the SNP 40 or more seats, partly for that reason and partly because the lesson of 2011 – when the Nats somehow pulled off a 30-point poll shift in around six weeks – shows how foolish it is to call a febrile-looking election that’s still the best part of five months away.
So we’re not going to be doing that. We’re not making any forecasts here. Rather, we were interested in taking a look at how it could happen, and how First Past The Post, for so long the SNP’s mortal enemy, could next year become a powerful ally.
BBC News, 12 September 2014:
The Guardian, 17 December 2014:
And with a mighty rush, rebellious Scots to crush, eh readers?
When Jim Murphy spoke on last night’s Scotland Tonight, he’d been the “leader” of Scottish Labour for approximately 60 hours. Here’s how he’s going to play it.
Let’s quickly examine those statements, shall we?
An intriguing extract from the weekend’s YouGov poll for The Sun:
It’s not the biggest vote of confidence, is it?
The Times, 14 December 2014:
“Scottish Labour has an ‘intellectual deficit’ because it is filled with ‘time-servers’ given seats to keep them quiet, according to Paul Sinclair, who served alongside Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader, and at the heart of the ‘no’ campaign against Scottish independence.
As someone who wrote Johann Lamont’s speeches for the last three years, on this occasion we’re going to defer to Mr Sinclair’s superior expertise.
We remain perplexed, readers, by the apparent total lack of interest in the mainstream Scottish media about how many members the Scottish Labour “party” has.
Membership levels are a topical subject in the light of the extraordinary explosion in SNP and Green membership after the referendum, and with a general election just months away in which the make-up of Westminster’s 59-strong Scottish contingent could be crucial to the shape of UK politics for the next five years.
The number of members the main Unionist party north of the border can call on to knock doors and deliver leaflets will therefore be a very significant factor in the outcome. Yet on this morning’s Sunday Politics, when presented with an ideal and pertinent opportunity to question new Scottish “leader” Jim Murphy on the subject, Gordon Brewer didn’t even try to ask. What’s with that?
We suppose we should offer a few thoughts on this, then.
And we don’t mean Kezia Dugdale’s freakishly gigantic hands.
In an alternative universe, Keir Hardie reacts to news of the election of Jim Murphy.
One of our ever-alert agents uncovered this for us today. Published quietly last week by the House Of Commons Library and completely unremarked-upon by the Scottish media, it’s a document whose introductory text makes the relevant point concisely and eloquently without any need for elaboration or explanation on our part.
The emphasis is ours. England gets what England’s MPs vote for more than 99% of the time. Scotland gets what Scotland’s MPs vote for less than a quarter of the time. We’ll leave it at that.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
