Limited ambitions
Viewers watching the BBC and STV’s coverage of the Aberdeen Donside by-election last night will have noticed one particular pre-prepared script get repeated airings from Labour representatives. Kezia Dugdale on Newsnight Scotland, Anas Sarwar on Scotland Tonight and others at the count all spontaneously offered a list of SNP seats which would fall to Labour were the evening’s 9% swing to be repeated nationwide.
The interesting thing about the line, though, was how little it actually said. In the 2011 Holyrood election the SNP took 45% of the constituency vote to Labour’s 32%. Last night, despite the advantages of a by-election (traditionally used to register a protest vote), a 50% increase in the number of candidates contesting the seat and the loss of an MSP who was extremely personally popular in the constituency, the numbers were 42% and 33% respectively – a swing to Labour of just 2% in a little over two years.
On that schedule, Labour will surge back to power at Holyrood at the election of 2024.
Of course, in reality you can’t extrapolate general election results from by-elections, not least because by-elections are fought purely on First Past The Post votes with no list MSPs balancing overall representation. But it was telling that even Labour’s own propaganda wasn’t claiming that the vote signalled a threat to the SNP’s control of the Scottish Parliament, but merely that the SNP might have a smaller victory in 2016.
Including Donside, there have only been six by-elections to the Scottish Parliament.
Ayr (2000)
Taking place over 13 years ago, Ayr remains the only Holyrood by-election captured by one of the major parties. Labour lost the seat to the Conservatives (and actually finished third, well behind the SNP), with the Tories managing a 9% swing from Labour.
Tory MSP John Scott has held the seat ever since, but saw his majority shrink by almost 2,500 votes at the 2003 general election following the by-election victory.
Glasgow Anniesland (2000)
The death of Donald Dewar saw Labour shed almost 7000 votes in a 6% swing to the SNP. In the general election of 2003, however, Labour recaptured some of their support, adding around 900 to their majority.
Strathkelvin and Bearsden (2001)
An unusual campaign in which the other three main parties in the constituency were fairly evenly split, as at the preceding general election, but the main opponent was a single-issue independent under the “Save Stobhill Hospital” banner. Labour held the seat, but their vote share plunged from 51% to 37%.
In the Holyrood election two years later, the independent candidate Jean Turner actually captured the seat from Labour with a 10% swing. (Stobhill Hospital was nevertheless closed, to be replaced in 2009 by New Stobhill Hospital.)
Banff and Buchan (2001)
On the same day as the Strathkelvin and Bearsden by-election and the UK general election, Alex Salmond’s resignation as an MSP saw the SNP hold the seat despite a 4% swing to the Tories. At the 2003 Holyrood general election, the Tories cut the SNP’s majority by another 203 votes.
Glasgow Cathcart (2005)
Sitting Labour MP Mike Watson triggered the by-election by resigning after pleading guilty to setting fire to a hotel. A 4% swing to the SNP wasn’t enough to dislodge Labour’s replacement Charlie Gordon. The subsequent Holyrood election in 2007 saw the Nats reduce Labour’s majority by just 216 more votes.
Moray (2006)
With Labour in power at Holyrood, the by-election following the death of the SNP’s Margaret Ewing still saw a swing against the encumbent party of government, with an already comfortable SNP majority boosted by a 2% swing to the Nats. A year later, the general election added around 1600 votes to the SNP’s margin of victory.
With barely enough data to form useful comparisons, it’s still possible to note that every Scottish Parliament by-election has produced a swing against the party of government. No party has gone on from a by-election swing, even a large one, to capture the seat at the subsequent general election.
Despite Labour claiming to have “started the fightback” against the SNP as long ago as 2010, signs of significant progress are still thin on the ground, and last night the party’s MPs and MSPs appeared to be engaged in a very early bout of expectation management for the next Holyrood election, still almost three years away.
At the end of the day, then, last night was a lot of fuss about not very much. All parties could, depending on the perspective chosen, be said to have done both well and badly. (Even the Tories, down from 3rd to 4th, will be relieved to have held onto almost all of their vote share despite UKIP grabbing nearly 5%, having not fought the seat before.)
We suspect, though, that Labour supporters will ultimately be the most disappointed. Having thrown the kitchen sink at a mid-term by-election with major local issues to fight on, increasing their vote share by less than 5% is not the mark of a party preparing for government any time soon.
Talking about kitchen sinks being thrown, I wonder how Alex Ferguson is feeling this morning. Bruised and battered I would assume.
I have no idea what “encumbent” means.
If you look at last year’s council elections in the Donside constituency the %vote was:
SNP 40%
Labour 34%
Compare that to this by election which was mostly based on local issues;
SNP 42%
Labour 33%
This was in reality a 3% swing to the SNP, and if that were replicated across Scotland then more councils would fall to the SNP.
All in all a good night’s work by the SNP.
Labour did increase their vote in Aberdeen Donside: up by less than 200 votes from 2011. The SNP are six years in government and halfway through their second term of office. So, not too bad I would suggest.
As has been suggested elsewhere, Labour tried the tactic of announcing their defeat in earnest before polling day and it seems a considerable number of SNP voters (thinking it was already in the bag) didn`t bother to vote. Och well.
Willie Young, Anas Sarwar, Kezia Dugdale, Johann Lamont, Alex McLeish, Alex Ferguson, Better Together, the BBC, the unionist Scottish MSM – your boys took one helluva beating. Kinda.
Pretty decent result for the SNP whichever way you swing it. Half way through a second term, the target of the largest, most constant negative media barrage I’ve ever seen and they still pull out a winner. The opposition must be beating their heads off walls wondering just what they have to do to get a result of any kind against the SNP?
All in all a good night’s work by the SNP.
Not according to Severin Carrell, who is really beginning to piss me off. The SNP comfortably hold a seat targeted by Labour, so he has to revert to tell us what would have happened if people had voted differently. Pathetic and totally transparent.
Difficult to compare the statistics of the Donside by-election to the outcome of the 2014 Referendum. The low turnout will not be replicated on the 18th September 2014. This date and the resulting vote will have a huge impact on every individual who has the choice in Scotland. Looking at a 70% to 80% turnout on that day, hopefully with a big YES.
Has anyone mentioned that UKIP DID lose its deposit.
Add that to the fact that Nigel Farage has been outed as a lying tax avoider then it has been a good might for Scottish politics.
I wouldn’t worry about Severin Carrell he was another one who said that Labour would and should win Donside.
The post-election counts and the weird interpretations placed on them by over-paid politicians fair give me the boak. They just can’t face reality.
The figures do not measure intricate calculations by wunderkids and their bloated self-esteem.
They simply show the great publics appraisal of their past self-serving performances.
That’s it. No more – no less.
Now, please, give us a break. It’s the figures that count – not the politicians.
As someone said on Twitter last night (could it have been you, Stu?), Labour claiming victory today is like Tahiti claiming victory for only losing 10 – 0 to Spain last night instead of 20 – 0.
This is the thing I hate about by-elections, the bullshitometer always hits its peak as everyone tries to explain why they were the victorious party. To put Labour’s “triumph” in perspective, even the Lib Dem managed to get over 300 extra votes.
balgayboy says:
21 June, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Difficult to compare the statistics of the Donside by-election to the outcome of the 2014 Referendum. The low turnout will not be replicated on the 18th September 2014. This date and the resulting vote will have a huge impact on every individual who has the choice in Scotland. Looking at a 70% to 80% turnout on that day, hopefully with a big YES.
I do believe the SNP carried out a door step poll of around 19,000 Donside voters on Independence and the results were;
YES: 34% NO: 29% all the rest don’t knows.
Yesitis says: @ 12.40
Hope Sir Alex is not going to blame the ref again!
Edinburgh City Council Liberton/Gilmerton, 3 May 2012
1st preferences
Lab 40.9%
SNP 31.6%
Con 12.3%
LD 7.6%
Grn 5.2%
SSP 2.5%
Edinburgh City Council Liberton/Gilmerton by-election, 20 June 2013
1st preferences
Lab 39.47%
SNP 30.69%
Con 11.23%
LD 8.26%
Grn 5.62%
UKIP 3.21%
Ind 0.87%
Pirate Party 0.64%,
Pretty much no movement at all, there.
Something for Labour types to think about.
Edinburgh City Council Liberton/Gilmerton, 3 May 2007
1st preferences (13,047)
Lab – 4628 – 35.5%
SNP – 3471 – 26.6%
Con – 1912 – 14.7%
LD – 1902 – 14.6%
Grn – 464 – 3.6%
SSP – 208 – 1.6%
Sol – 132 – 1%
Ind – 207 – 1.6%
Ind – 123 – 0.9%
Edinburgh City Council Liberton/Gilmerton by-election, 9 Sep 2010
1st preferences (6,639)
Lab – 2,974 – 44.8% (+9.3)
SNP – 1,382 – 20.8% (-5.8)
Con – 1,020 – 15.4% (+0.7)
LD – 722 – 10.9% (-3.7)
Grn – 201 – 3.0% (-0.6%)
SSP – 169 – 2.5% (+0.9%)
Ind – 128 – 1.9%
Pirate Party – 43 – 0.6%
7.55% swing from SNP to Labour. SLAB way ahead in Holyrood polls at this point.
Scottish Parliament election: Edinburgh Southern, 5 May 2011
(includes part of the Liberton/Gilmerton ward)
SNP – 9,947- 29.4% (+12.3)
Lab – 9,254 – 27.4% (+3.3)
LD – 8,297 – 24.6% (-11.8)
Con – 6,298 – 18.6% (-3.7)
Scottish Parliament election: Edinburgh Eastern, 5 May 2011
(includes part of the Liberton/Gilmerton ward)
SNP – 14,552 – 47.4% (+12.9)
Lab – 12,319 – 40.1% (+3.8)
Con – 2,630 – 8.6% (-4.5)
LD – 1,227 – 4.0% (-12.2)
re, “UKIP 3.21%”
Again UKIP is rejected in Scotland.
SNP win = great result, not matter how MSM try to spin it. Interesting to read the general unionist/SLAB/UKIP trolling on some sites but pathetic they see this as anything other than a win.
Oddly enough, unionists seem to be a bit quiet about the 19,000 exit poll on indyref. Fair made my day, especially after suffering through another car crash FMQ. Three times AS explained how pensions are more affordable in a Scottish welfare system – I’m no convinced JL even got O grade maths if she’s unable to grasp simple arithmetic.
alexicon says:@12.22
Thanks, just wonder how the results of this poll would extrapolate to the 2014 referendum vote all things considered. Hopefully on the positive YES side.
Slightly o/t: here’s another consequence of a ‘No’ vote.
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/sex-for-tuition-fees-are-universities-just-refusing-to-face-up-to-the-facts-8667648.html
Anyone know how to access the breakdown of the postal votes?
Re the Edinburgh local by-election. Change days indeed, I remember that in the early 1980’s the SNP candidate in the Fairmilehead local by-election polled the dizzy heights of 2%.
I watched the Donside result on BBC last night and was struck at the pathetic cheering by Labour when their candidate walked in. If I remember correctly Labour got over 7,000 votes in the election in 2011 and last night they got over 7,000 votes. Therefore they were in fact cheering someone who, in effect had managed to STAND STILL in the number of votes won! Now to me THAT is weird!
Bill C
I don’t think there will be a breakdown of the postal vote. The votes are usually verified (signature and dates of birth checked) and and then mixed with the votes cast in the polling stations. The party representative should be present at the verification stage and tally up the votes as they appear providing the clerk at the table doesn’t put them face down.
In Liberton Gilmerton council by election campaign Labour played the anti Scottish independence card for all their worth.
Labour going around with blue Better Together clip boards, telling voters not to vote for a councillor who is only there to back Alex Salmond’s party and obsess with independence for two years rather than standing up for local area.
Labour cars had UKOK stickers displayed and yet again illegally fixed Labour posters on to council railings as no lamp post posters allowed in Edinburgh.
Interesting that Labour gained so few votes despite the fact that many Tories claimed to be voting for them tactically against the SNP. Seems like they didn’t gain many – if any – voters back from the SNP. That must worry them after the barrage of negativity, smears and attempts to pain both the SNP and Salmond as black and evil.
CameronB, Max is right, there’s no point being annoyed by Severin Carrell. He’s only doing his job as a “Scotland Correspondent” for a UK paper. Plus, he has had some big disappointments recently which have been hilarious to witness.
Remember all the articles he was doing about Rockall and who really owns it? Looks like he won’t be doing any more.
He was absolutely desperate for Nick Hancock to go out there and spend sixty days in his home-made life capsule (with a Union flag flying from it whenever the weather permitted) and kept tweeting about every little bit of progress made towards the intrepid fellow’s arrival on the rock. Hancock’s attempt wouldn’t have changed the ownership of Rockall, at all, but it would have got a Union flag on the Scottish news, show-cased some good old-fashioned British pluck, and might even have seen the rock reclassified as an “island capable of sustaining human life” – thus significantly extending it’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Carrell desired this outcome mightily.
Then his arse started making buttons when he discovered that the skipper who was to ferry Hancock to Rockall had turned up with a big YES sign on his boat… Then, when they arrived at the rock, Hancock and the skipper agreed it was too rough to go ashore, and Hancock reallised he’d already raised a fair bit of money for charity anyway, so he wasn’t going to bother, and he probably won’t try again.
The island it is silent now, but the ghosts still haunt the waves. Carrell’s all-too-explicable infatuation with Rockall has fallen into ruins. He hasn’t mentioned the place since.
Not sure how much consolation that’ll be to you for his continued churlishness, but it certainly put a smile on my face.
I reckon he wanted some kind of modern day analog to the story of “The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.” Instead he got the more traditional British comedy of errors.
The party representative should be present at the verification stage and tally up the votes as they appear providing the clerk at the table doesn’t put them face down.
You can still do it even if they’re face down, with practice.
Talking of political breakdowns; Ian Smart drifts off with yet more Twitterprickery.
Ian Smart knows he will get away with it, so he really is pushing hard for a reaction.
https://twitter.com/ianssmart/status/348042355917586433
I think that all the parties will now have strategies to maximise their postal vote at every election, following the Glenrothes carry on. In that sense, Labour no longer have the advantage of surprise.
@Morag
Its only worth doing if you are the Election Agent as to communicate any information as to a vote during the postal voting process prior to the actual count is illegal.
Morag said:
You can still do it even if they’re face down, with practice
Some of our activist in Dundee are experts in tallying even when they are face down.
BTW: Where is the SLAB leader’s comment on the result? maybe waiting on her London script writer’s word or preparing her resignation speech…total failure by any means.
O/T If you havent seen it, this lecture by Prof Tom Devine on The “Death” and Reinvention of Scotland from 11 Jun is well worth a watch.
While flicking between the STV report and the BBC report last night, I was appalled, yet not really surprised at the amount of pure anti SNP bile the Unionists, and yes including Ukip got away with.
It was a platform for anti SNP rants on both channels, with STV being slightly the lesser due to them having a more astute interviewer who did pick this up several times. Sanwar, stood at as the big mouth he is, the little rich boy ranted without missing one opportunity.
The BBC were by far the worse with Glen frequently letting the bile slide without counter comment, indeed his own bias plainly shone through.
We need some bright spark among us to create something like a Unionist Muppet show,or cartoon version, of where they can be utterly ridiculed in a comic fashion, making them a viral laughing stock would be particularly satisfying to me as I am sure it would be for others. If done well, it could be a frequent event that would ridicule all of the worst the unionists and the MSM throw at the SNP and Independence in general.
The regular panel could be, Sanwar,Moore, Ruthie, Lamont, Murphy, etc etc and with occassional guests inc Cameron,Osborne.
It could catch on, it could be a staple visit for those who are fed up of the Unionist rubbish we take daily.
Where does Labour go from here?
They should be winning in Donside, not simply because the SNP are 6 years into government but that this constituency seems to be natural Labour territory. The party have the media on their side in contesting the SNP, same goes for the unremitting negative campaign by the Labour led Better Together which we are constantly told has the SNP on the back foot.
So why did Labour lose and why does it now appear that they are now incapable of winning?
Based on last night’s result one thing is for sure the Scottish National party has become entrenched as the national party of Scotland.
As a participant on this site who is not a member of any political party (Voted both SNP & Labour on and off) my non political synopsis is fairly simple.
Low turnout 38%
Labour managed to motivate their entire electorate into voting (around 7000+ folk)
SNP didn’t manage to motivate their entire electorate (Likely out of “It’s a nice night, the Spain V Tahiti game is oan the telly and they’ll win it anyway” apathy) and polled 9000+ votes.
In short Labour made no headway whilst SNP comfortably held a seat despite apathy and a whistful melancoly.
Protecting an SNP majority is neither here nor there for me. The two MOST important things to have come out of last night for me was UKIP losing their deposit & the SNP indy polls showing a Yes ahead of No.
Just my tuppence worth 🙂
Doesn’t look good for Labour really. I suspect Ms Lamont’s sphyncter will be trembling like a half set jelly today!
Thanks Marcia
The 2% swing to labour is with respect to the 2007 election. With respect to the 2011 election it is 9%. Or have I missed something?
Re. Severin Carrell. I know you guys are right, so perhaps its his penchant for Taupe that pushes me over the edge. 🙂
To Robert Bryce.. I suspect Ms Lamont’s sphyncter will be trembling like a half set jelly today!
“and the winner of painting the most horrd mental picture of the week goes to……Robert Bryce!”
😉
Most heartening of all is that the SNP won despite the unremitting attacks by the BBC and MSM.
They won with a grassroots campaign in just the way we will win a YES vote with a grassroots campaign regardless of what the BBC and MSM care to chuck at us.
“The 2% swing to labour is with respect to the 2007 election. With respect to the 2011 election it is 9%. Or have I missed something?”
You’ve missed something.
Lets all laugh at Labour, lets all laugh at Labour ha ha haaa ha, ha ha haaaa ha,
Good result and the indy poll is fantastic news, all I can say is if Labour think this is a victory then I do hope we get a Labour victory next year, resulting a big YES vote.
Big smiley coupon thingy !
Ps anyone heard from Johann yet hehehehehehehehehe and hehe again.
What have I missed?
@Robert Bryce
That’s exactly how I saw it, Labour only nudged their vote slightly while large crowd of SNP voters stayed in expecting a win. The rest were irrelevant but glad to see UKIP lose their deposit. In all no advance from Labour despite throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the campaign with much MSM compliance. Labour should be worried if they can’t make headway at this stage of an SNP Government. SNP should do more to motivate their vote though, can’t have complacency at any time between now and the referendum.
“Its only worth doing if you are the Election Agent”
Not so. In my constituency we counted a sample of the ballots at the reconcialiation count – that is, when we knew which polling district the ballots were from. This allowed us to see where geographically we had best/worst suppport, and plan accordingly. We ran a local lottery and launched it in areas where we knew we had plenty of support, based on ballot box sampling and other information. Skilled activists doing a sample count will get within about 5% of the true result. It’s also useful as a check – on one occasion we detected attempted fraud by a counter (deliberately placing SNP votes in the Labour pile). The result was so divergent from the sample prediction that we knew we had to ask for a recount.
Maybe the SNP’s national database of supporters has rendered ballot box sampling redundant – I haven’t been so active for a while. Is it still done?
I have my reservations about believing completely an indy poll conducted by the SNP showing a YES lead in the same way I have an indy poll conducted by Labour/Tory/Better Together/whoever showing a No vote in the lead. They have a stake in that particular vote (SNP etc. YES, Labour etc. NO) and will use that as a form of propeganda.
That said, if other polls begin to echo this, then I’m all for it. Yes, I do notice that there is an increase nation-wide for a YES vote, but a poll conducted by someone who is counting on a particular vote is not a poll to be 100% believed in my view.
PS: If the ballots were being counted face down, we simply asked the counters to count them face up. I don’t recall ever being refused.
The fact that there even 7,000 people who would vote
for the Labour candidate or indeed Labour itself makes
a shiver run up my spine.
Labour seem to be able to get away with anything and people
will still vote for them (albeit less so these days).
You could put a Labour rosette on a dog shit in some
areas and people would still vote for them; living in the Kirkcaldy
constituency proves that.
“Nigel Farage has been outed as a lying tax avoider”
It is interesting to note that the story has only surface today, the day after the Donside by election.
Geoff Huijer
Amen to that, astonishing isn’t it. Amazing people still think of labour as a socialist party.
Vronsky
Yes, it is still being done. If you saw the election programmes on the TV last night, samples were being taken by the parties contesting the election.
Put in the simplest of terms, if Scotland does not vote Yes next year, it will be the biggest mistake in 300 years.
Labour did absolutely ziltch
There were 3,383 fewer votes cast
There were 7 as opposed to 4 other parties who took 1,919 extra votes than last time
That comes to 5,302 + Marks Maj 2,025 =7,327 less 7,175 =152 Votes gained by Lab
Mr Adam Maj 7,175
So for them to say they cut the Maj takes a bit of creative counting They took 152 out of the Maj left by Mr Adam not a lot to worry about I would say
has the magic roundabout realy finished or has the magic mushrooms kicked in
In order for Labour to claim anything their share of the vote needs to rise from a near frozen 33%. It didn’t therefore they can’t. They will not win Holyrood on 33%.
Sorry put one of the numbers down in the wrong place They actually gained 174 votes Still nothing to worry about so I cannot be bothered copying it all down again
@Marcia
Scrolling quickly through the comments, when you referred to “samples being taken by the parties”, I thought you were referring to Geoff Huijer’s dog shit, instead of Vronsky’s face down ballots.
Anyhoo… a good night for the SNP, and looks like Labour are still in denial. They were in denial in 2007; and again, in 2011. But of course, they’re right this time…
A line frequently used by at least three, possibly more, bullish Labour politicians last night was that “Johann Lamont is getting the better of Alex Salmond, week in week out, at FMQT”. Are they really that deluded? Were they just desperate to say something nice, or were they extracting the urine?
@ Luigi
Perhaps you could ask the Truth Team. 🙂
Luigi
Lamont spends every week at FMQ pushing the scare de jour from the No to Scotland campaign. She rarely if ever fulfils her role as leader of the opposition taking the Government to task over issues of the day. Ruth Davidson is a better opposition leader than Lamont. Ruth actually seems to be engaged with her constituents. Lamont is just a puppet for Darling. The wry smile on Salmond’s face each week as she wastes her questions on topics that he is under no obligation to address tells a tale (indeed many of her questions are rhetorical posturing and beg no answer). Rarely can a party leader have had such an easy ride. No wonder he looks so unstressed. Lamont on the other hand looks miserable.
However, the polls show a small but noticeable rise in Yes support. If she was being effective it should be going the other way.
@Rev Stuart Campbell,
ok – I get it. The figures for the 2007 Donside constituency vote were very similar to the total constituency vote for 2011. Viz. 45% SNP, 32% labour. Sorry for being a bit slow.
My head’s absolutely burst with this. I’m trying to say to people that I think Labour need to focus on the fact they gained so few hard votes and stop banging on about the vote share and swing quite so much if they want to make serious inroads but you just get utterly lambasted for it and accused of SNP spin despite not having remotely mentioned the SNP. At the end of the day it was a good opportunity for Labour and they worked hard but despite that they have seen nothing significant back for it. If they want to keep burying their head in the sand the way have done for the last 6 years then they can batter on in, but it’s certainly not going to win my vote.
Robert Bryce says:
Here is a thought.
The only way that the Labour vote held up was that it was bolstered by the postal vote.
Whether this was fraudulent vote or not, it is irrelevant.
Why so, because the dip in the SNP vote was probably people who thought it not worthwhile voting to keep Labour out as the SNP could not possibly lose.
Thus Labour maximised their vote, legally or not, and the SNP still walked with a large number of potential voters not bothering to turn up and vote.
Not a good place for Labour to be, I think.
Doesn’t look good for Labour really. I suspect Ms Lamont’s sphyncter will be trembling like a half set jelly today!
Rev,
Can you edit the above on my last post to read:
“Doesn’t look good for Labour really. I suspect Ms Lamont’s sphyncter will be trembling like a Labour back bench MSP’s spine!”?
The original quote is far too vile for public consumption.
Ta,
Robert
Cameron B, Hand andShrimp,
Aye, they were obviously given the same line to peddle last night (AS, KD and LM, if I remember correctly, possibly others). Not one of them had the wit to adjust it slightly without losing the message. Hilarious. H-E-R-E-I-S-W-H-A-T-Y-O-U-H-A-V-E-T-O-S-A-Y-O-N-T-H-E-S-C-R-E-E-N-T-O-N-I-G-H-T. Mindless Labour drones.
That post is even worse, Robert!
Lamonts sphyncter and consumption in the same sentence? Urrgh!
Can we please move on gents. (we smiley face going boak)
As someone else remarked, stick a red rosette in a sun-bleached white dog turd, and the Scots will get up and vote for it, religiously and blindly. It’s quite the most depressing thing about Scotland – its ridiculous, moribund, stuck-in-the-70s politics. Well, I say that, but even this is to flatter Labour; they don’t have any policies these days at all, not even ridiculous 1970s-style ones. The Tories, by contrast, are an utterly toxic brand and a total irrelevance.
Lots of talk online about “Labour swings” and “Labour holds”; I can’t bring myself to look into it though, as it’s just all too depressing. Gah. Are people really that stupid?
@CC.
A bit like stick a blue rosette on a pig down south, train it to shout FOREIGNERS!, and it will get elected.
@ Captain Caveman
You be the judge.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/donsidelab.jpg
If you could train a pig to shout ‘Foreigners’, you could probably earn a greater fortune doing that than being an MP……then again. maybe not!!
“Rev,
Can you edit the above on my last post to read:”
Nothing on the spelling of “sphincter”?
😉
Nothing on the spelling of “sphincter”?
Pot, etc 😉
@ Geoff Huijer ,
These days, if it came down to a choice between dog-shit with a red rosette on it, and a Labour councillor with a red rosette on it, I would be hard pressed to choose between them.
“In the 2011 Holyrood election the SNP took 45% of the constituency vote to Labour’s 32%”
Those figures are wrong so perhaps the article should be amended to the correct figures?
In the 2011 election in Aberdeen Donside the SNP got 55.4% and Labour got 28.5% – so in this by-election the SNP lost over 13% and Labour gained 5%.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/election2011/constituency/html/36066.stm
“Those figures are wrong so perhaps the article should be amended to the correct figures?”
They’re not wrong. They’re referring to the whole 2011 election, not just Donside.
My apologies. But surely you can’t compare the national vote with a constituency by-election vote, particularly when that constituency had a significantly different vote in 2011 from the national vote as a whole?
That goes for Sarwar too.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
“Rev,Can you edit the above on my last post to read:”
Nothing on the spelling of “sphincter”?
Ok Rev change it to:
“Doesn’t look good for Labour really. I suspect Ms Lamont’s sphincter will be trembling like a gun dog’s chops on a free fall parachute jump!”?
Apologies all, I couldn’t resist another edit. (greenboakinface)
“But surely you can’t compare the national vote with a constituency by-election vote”
Indeed. I say that in the next line.
Farege tax avoider? Not illegal and he ceased to be in 2011.
However as this started in 2003 there were plenty news stories of the SNP getting donations from Sir Sean from his offshore accounts at the same time. So if your gonna start flinging that one about be careful where you throw that rock. You might hit someone guilty close to home.
Morgan
News stories are not the truth. They are often written for a purpose other than the truth and may only contain some facts or none. Freddy Starr ate my hamster?
‘Saw the name “Farage” sprayed on a railway bridge as I sped homewards on the Heathrow Express this evening. Is there a prize for the dumbest graffiti artist on the planet?
“We need some bright spark among us to create something like a Unionist Muppet show,or cartoon version, of where they can be utterly ridiculed in a comic fashion, making them a viral laughing stock would be particularly satisfying to me as I am sure it would be for others. If done well, it could be a frequent event that would ridicule all of the worst the unionists and the MSM throw at the SNP and Independence in general. ”
A Scottish version of spitting image would bring them down to size:)
“Doesn’t look good for Labour really. I suspect Ms Lamont’s sphyncter will be trembling like a half set jelly today!”
Really! no need, ah wis eatin ma porrige
“You could put a Labour rosette on a dog shit in some
areas and people would still vote for them; living in the Kirkcaldyconstituency proves that.”
Unfortunately true, but I’m seeing signs of change when I read the letters in the central fife times recently I had to do a double take because of about 10 letters (not all about politics) three of them were from indie supporters ,I thought I had moved to Angus and noone told me, you couldnt take the grin of my face with a cheese grater
“As someone else remarked, stick a red rosette in a sun-bleached white dog turd, ”
As I recall it was Peter Bell who said that,
excellent commentator
““Doesn’t look good for Labour really. I suspect Ms Lamont’ssphincter will be trembling like a gun dog’s chops on a free fall parachute jump!”?”
Gonnie no dae that,
a jist woke the wife up pissin masel laughin, noo am in trouble
BBC Scotlandshire look out,
this site is fast becoming the funniest site of all,
bleedin hilarious :):):):)
“As I recall it was Peter Bell who said that,
excellent commentator”
/Cavey tips hat to Mr Bell 🙂