The figure below is my own, but it’s also remarkably typical:
Click the pic to get yours.
(It actually feels like a lot more than that – quite possibly because I have, in fact, not for one minute of my entire life been represented by a government at Westminster – or anywhere else, come to that – that I voted for, unless you count the token presence of the Lib Dems in the 2010-15 coalition. Which I don’t, because they immediately betrayed every policy and principle for which I’d voted for them in the first place.)
For Scotland, democracy in the UK simply doesn’t work.
There’s a new hot buzz-phrase in the Yoonstream: “GERS deniers”.
It’s actually been around for quite a few months – coincidentally since this site started exposing the true nature of the figures – but has become a constant mantra recently, in particular since the intervention of an actual proper expert who doesn’t sell cat litter for a living, Professor Richard Murphy.
Ever since he set tongues and tails wagging by writing a series of hard-hitting articles for his widely-renowned Tax Research UK blog last week, rubbishing the quality of the data, Unionists have been in an increasingly shrill flap about it.
We saw this exchange on Twitter this morning, involving left-wing Labour activist Eoin Clarke, a reader, and Scottish Labour list MSP Elaine Smith.
Smith professed to find it “unbelievable” and “scary” that the reader thought he’d had Tory governments for most of his lifetime. (We asked him how old he was and he said 34, which means he’s had Tory governments for 62% of his life, so that checks out.)
But it’s a standard Scottish Labour line that there’s no real difference between Scottish and English voters in terms of favouring left-wing politics, so we thought we’d just quickly check the arithmetic on that. The results are unlikely to shock you.
It’s important to note, firstly, that the version of Sadiq Khan’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference he tweeted on Saturday morning simply flat-out said that Scottish nationalists were the same as racists and sectarian bigots. Its meaning was as clear as crystal to the Daily Record, a newspaper which is hardly hostile to Khan’s party.
“No difference” is a stark and unambiguous phrase. The speech did not contain the hastily-added qualifiers about “in this respect” and “of course I’m not saying the SNP are racist” which suddenly appeared when he read it out onstage that afternoon.
The reliably-wise Stephen Bush of The New Statesman said something perceptive yesterday on the subject of an EU referendum, although it applies much more widely.
It’s a view we’ve held for many years, most often in relation to UK governments ruling with huge majorities won on pretty tiddly pluralities of the vote (often in the mid-30%s), where the bulk of the electorate has no defence against a party it didn’t vote for.
Despite an electoral system that makes such events far rarer, the phenomenon crops up a lot in Scotland too, and both sides are guilty, often on the same subject. Scottish employment figures, for example, alternate with almost metronomic regularity between being higher/lower than those in the rest of the UK, and whichever it is in any given month one side or the other will trumpet it as conclusive and permanent proof that Scotland’s governance is better/worse than that of London.
(Even though Holyrood in fact has almost no power over the economy, so deserves little of either the blame or credit, whichever applies that month.)
Below is part of a segment from Monday’s edition of Good Morning Scotland (from 2h 35m at the link beneath the clip), which featured an interview with Professor Allyson Pollock, an extremely experienced academic in the field of healthcare on both sides of the border who so far as we know has no dog in the Scottish constitutional fight.
Young Lochinvar on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Shit fer brains Ye protest too loudly.. The other week you whinged oan about culture, historical stuff too. That’s ok;…” Jun 24, 23:02
Ex President Xiden on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “If those broken promises involve the appropriation of money based on those promises then the problem is criminal embezzlement for…” Jun 24, 20:58
Hatey McHateface on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: ““how much money did the mullahs spend giving the yanks a spank?” Somebody less sociopathic might ask how many body…” Jun 24, 20:14
Hatey McHateface on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Just imagine this story as a newspaper headline: “Politicians Tell Lies And Break Promises – Police Investigating” Do you see…” Jun 24, 20:01
Emma Telford on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “From this Guardian article: The suspicions began when a pro-independence blogger, Wings Over Scotland, said this money had disappeared from…” Jun 24, 18:12
Spartan 117 on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “A pretty good analysis. Westminster is broken. As far as Guyliner is concerned, its Same Old Shite, yet again, just…” Jun 24, 17:59
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “SCOT GOVT FORCED TO IMPOSE BLANKET BAN ON HOUSING MEN IN WOMEN’S PRISON All men who identify as women are…” Jun 24, 17:56
Spartan 117 on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Pished Rambling @2:05pm Swiping at air hysterically and missing. First time in my life I’ve ever been labelled “posh” or…” Jun 24, 17:55
Mark Beggan on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “The word has been rebranded. Under new management. It’s not the other lot It’s that lot!” Jun 24, 17:47
Confused on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “on the news this morning – what is andy burnham going to do? – fuckall is what he is going…” Jun 24, 17:47
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twathater on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Connor Gillies and the rest of the blind and dumb presstitutes are missing a trick they should have had multitudinous…” Jun 24, 17:30
Mark Beggan on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Darlington NHS Trust told the nurses that they needed to be educated and to shut up and go away.” Jun 24, 16:31
Dan on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Willie says: at 8:45 am “What tools do you think we should be developing Dan.” We should have been developing…” Jun 24, 16:25
Mark Beggan on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Columbo! Mercurius have also done ‘TV Blurps’ on Sturgeons BBC interview. Hilarious.” Jun 24, 16:05
Spartan 117 on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Yep, yet another limp lame duck PM wedded to Socialist Authoritarianism, benefits confetti, Net Zero, The Big State, warmongering, Big…” Jun 24, 16:05
Mark Beggan on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Words and their meanings, Number 12; Yoon! meaning; Someone who gets taken for a ride and enjoys it so much…” Jun 24, 15:09
Young Lochinvar on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Maybe on the next tv interview she’ll just resort to form and turn the chair round to face the wall…” Jun 24, 15:04
Young Lochinvar on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “HMcH For the sake of cordiality I could accept that you’d discounted the last paragraph, but won’t. Only this week…” Jun 24, 14:54
Hatey McHateface on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Grassroots Scots, no dodgy hinterland, no history of sexist and racist tweets, middle-aged (fifties) with solid real life experience and…” Jun 24, 14:43
Hatey McHateface on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “I discounted your final para as I can’t believe you have as much as a single glass still intact in…” Jun 24, 14:29
Young Lochinvar on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “When will they learn? The news is reporting Andy “King ‘t oop Norf” Burnhams advisers are pushing the future former…” Jun 24, 14:24
Janet on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Much as I detest Ms Sturgeon’s lack of focus on indy, the rev has missed a point, surely? It is…” Jun 24, 14:16
Young Lochinvar on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “HMcH Hmmm.. Your post makes no sense. Try waking up fully before posting next time. And while you’re at it,…” Jun 24, 14:12
Mark Beggan on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “The Messiah. The chosen one. The train journey south followed every inch by the media with helicopters in the sky.…” Jun 24, 14:09
Young Lochinvar on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “Shit fer brains @ 8.25 “Keech”.. Is that how you posh self professed culture vultures like to spell keich? Anyways,…” Jun 24, 14:05
Ian Smith on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “If Sturgeon really knew nothing about the campervan, why would Murrell, who was covering his tracks from any pesky kids…” Jun 24, 13:42
Hatey McHateface on Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions: “@ Spartan 117 says: 24 June, 2026 at 8:24 am “He does have a good point, though.” And so do…” Jun 24, 13:42
