Alert readers will have noticed that for the last week or so we’ve been challenging some of the conventional wisdom about Labour’s election victories from 1997-2005. While the right wing of the party and commentariat regularly insists that Tony Blair was its most successful leader ever, we demonstrated that over the course of his leadership he lost Labour over two million votes, whereas Neil Kinnock’s reign had resulted in a GAIN of three million.
In short, New Labour’s victories were primarily the result of the Conservatives being in a catastrophic state during Blair’s rule, exhausted by almost 20 years of power and scandal and infighting about Europe. With William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard at the head of a shattered opposition, Labour could have won those elections with Piers Morgan or a Teletubby in charge.
What our research also found was that the most striking thing about the period since Blair became Labour leader in 1994 was a staggering and almost overnight increase in the number of British voters turned off politics altogether.
In 1992 just eight million people entitled to vote stayed at home. By 2001 that number had rocketed to EIGHTEEN million, a 125% increase in nine years, and in May it was still at almost 16 million.
Since Blair, eight million UK citizens who used to vote have simply walked away and washed their hands of the entire political process. That’s quite a legacy, but it’s also an opportunity, because it’s a lot of people waiting for a reason to vote for someone. (Most of them young and/or poor, two traditionally Labour-friendly demographics.)
Bizarrely, it’s an opportunity Labour and its allies seem utterly determined to shun.
Last night we ran a piece about a story in last week’s Daily Record in which a Scottish Labour official was given free rein to make an extended political attack on the SNP in the guise of a “business student” from the University of the West of Scotland, without his Labour identity being revealed, on the flimsy basis of a petition about college cuts with a few hundred signatures.
As it happens, another UWS student also has a petition doing the rounds at the moment. But it got treated rather differently by the Scottish press.
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, the document at the heart of this insanity has been leaked, so you can now see it for yourself. We’ll have more on it later.
So first of all there’s this (click pic for full story):
…in which the figures appear to show that Iceland’s policy of imposing justice and imprisoning the greedy bankers who caused the world financial crash – rather than just shovelling money at them and letting them carry on robbing everyone – actually saw its economy recover at least as well as anywhere else’s.
Many of you won’t have seen this quite extraordinary performance from the Guardian’s assistant editor Michael White on last night’s Scotland Tonight, and you really should.
This morning we noted the weird double standards of the media when it comes to reporting politics-related violence (and/or the absence thereof) in Scotland. We weren’t expecting such a good illustration of it to come along within two hours.
We’re sure we’re not the only people for whom the hours are dragging and we wish the election would just hurry up and get here, but all the same we’re pretty sure that if there were 11 days left to save the UK on Sunday morning, then by Tuesday morning there should be fewer than 10 still to go.
If you thought the right-wing press was having paroxysms at the weekend, readers, you’re going to love what they had lined up for the day of the SNP manifesto launch.
Let’s have a little tour of the London newsrooms, shall we?
Peter McAvoy on The ginger stepchild: “It looks like the SNP support for Independence is Not Proven and will soon disappear like the legal safeguard they…” Dec 12, 02:09
Steve a on Strike One: “Poor poor judge keep. I’m reminded of something I read recently. The more eggs you put in your one basket……” Dec 12, 00:34
KITTYBEE on Spoiler Alert: “Well this judge holds the Supreme Court in Contempt. He has to go!!” Dec 12, 00:00
Sarah Walker on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Brilliant work: thank you. Interesting that paragraph 879 implies Upton has a protected belief that he’s a woman. Gender critical…” Dec 11, 23:42
PC Foster on Strike One: “Twathater- you could not be more right. lets ensure that Sandie Peggie can take this all the way up to…” Dec 11, 23:16
robertkknight on The ginger stepchild: “Frankly my dear, not a shit will be given either way. The SNP are charlatans in tartan suits selling snake…” Dec 11, 22:19
BLMac on Strike One: “This sort of judgement is reminiscent of what happened in Queensland a few decades ago. As it turned out the…” Dec 11, 22:13
Tommo on Strike One: “This is truly an amazing piece of forensic dissection (by the Editor and a few others) of a piece of…” Dec 11, 22:05
willie on The ginger stepchild: “Sixth on the list is crime. But what is crime and what is the perception of what crime actually is.…” Dec 11, 22:04
Bilbo on Strike One: “It could be the bias built into the AI Chatbot used. I’ve played about with a few of these AI…” Dec 11, 21:58
Andy Wiltshire on Strike One: “Quite right – it used to be English hats off to the Scottish legal and educational systems. No more.” Dec 11, 21:54
Andy Wiltshire on Strike One: “Don’t let them buy you off though, Rev.” Dec 11, 21:52
Bilbo on The ginger stepchild: “Hardly surprising that the SNP voters are not interested in independence because the support the SNP for a wide variety…” Dec 11, 21:51
Ex President Xiden on Strike One: “Jackasses are going to jackass.” Dec 11, 21:43
Iain More on The ginger stepchild: “SNP are just another Yoon Party now.” Dec 11, 21:12
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “£400k spent on the KC by NHS Fife. https://x.com/_RebeccaMcCurdy/status/1999055522188943455?s=20” Dec 11, 21:07
Alf Baird on The ginger stepchild: “The only in-credible thing here is the vast GDP-per-capita gap between a much poorer yet resource-rich Scotland and near neighbour…” Dec 11, 20:48
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “https://x.com/newsandpics/status/1999194291365683484?s=20” Dec 11, 20:21
Emma Brooker on Strike One: “Was the judge actually three chimps in a wig and gown bashing away on a typewriter?” Dec 11, 20:16
robertkknight on The ginger stepchild: “The SNP is NOT the party of Independence any more… Any member who cared about Indy is long gone, leaving…” Dec 11, 19:52
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “Now we know why…… https://x.com/iwontwheesht/status/1999180012893929938?s=20” Dec 11, 19:41
Northcode on The ginger stepchild: “The problem, TH, is that if Liberate Scotland gets TOO much attention and – God forbid- gets the mass backing…” Dec 11, 19:39
Mark Beggan on Strike One: “Let’s play Judges and Lawyers. Unsuitable for under fives.” Dec 11, 19:28
Mark Beggan on The ginger stepchild: “We’ll cut aff oor noses to spite those English bastards faces. That’s them telt. Bastards. Soar Giro!” Dec 11, 19:27
David Holden on Strike One: “Sadly I am old enough to remember when Scottish law was given a level of respect even from South of…” Dec 11, 19:24
Lewis Moonie on Strike One: “Anyone ever seen a trans woman who didn’t stick out like a sore thumb? Me neither” Dec 11, 18:58
Hatey McHateface on The ginger stepchild: “Perhaps the pollsters were unaware women are allowed to vote. Perhaps when the pollsters asked people, the men refused to…” Dec 11, 18:48
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “I think this one needs a detailed explanation from the judge https://x.com/anyabike/status/1999121983481536635?s=20” Dec 11, 18:45
Lorncal on Strike One: “It seems to me to be far too accurate in its misinterpretations and unsound quotes to be purely AI or…” Dec 11, 18:41
Tommy on Strike One: “In the Soviet Union, judicial decisions used to be decided by telephone calls made to the judge. Is it likely…” Dec 11, 18:38
