List Voting For Cretins
This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.
The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.
It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.
If we say for illustrative purposes that turnout is the same as in 2021, the SNP’s 30% share of the list vote will be 815,420 votes. The combined 31% for Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems would be 842,600, and Reform’s 21% would come to 570,793.
Here’s a chart of how those votes translate in the projection.
Because Sir John told us that the SNP’s 30% got them just ONE list seat in his projection – most likely in the Highlands, though he didn’t say. That means they’d have failed to win 15 constituencies, which we’ve given here to the three traditional Unionist parties, as they already hold 13 and it seems pretty unlikely that Reform or the Greens will take any.
(If Reform did snag a few Tory ones, which is a massively better bet than the Greens winning a constituency seat anywhere, it’d make no difference to the overall point.)
So we’ve deducted those 15 from the Lab/Con/LD total of 32 in the projection to leave them with 17 on the list. And what that means is that the price of each list seat for each party is as follows:
What that means is that by voting SNP on the list you’re ensuring that every Unionist list vote effectively counts as either 17 votes for Labour/the Tories/the Lib Dems, or a whopping 37 votes in the case of Reform.
(Because in terms of delivering list seats their votes already count for more than those of the other Unionist parties who have some constituency seats.)
If you care at all about getting “pro-independence” MSPs elected in May, that is a folly of monumental, galactic proportions. Anyone doing it is a demonstrable imbecile who shouldn’t be trusted not only with a vote, but with buttering a slice of bread, because they’d likely somehow contrive to set their own face on fire and stab any nearby small children in the eye with a garden fork.
Readers will be only too aware by now that in this site’s view, casting ANY votes for the SNP in this year’s Holyrood election is an act of sabotage against the independence movement. Voting for literally anyone else at all, whether on the constituency or list ballots, will ultimately do a greater service to the cause. (With the possible exception of the Greens, because dear sweet Jesus imagine trying to persuade any halfway-normal human to vote in a referendum for an independent Scotland led by Ross Greer.)
But it is at least possible to construct a coherent argument – not a convincing or a credible one, but one that at least holds up as an abstract theory if you imagine a completely different future SNP – for voting for them in constituencies.
Voting for them on the list, however, is a vote to actively and knowingly usher dozens of Reform, Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem MSPs into the chamber on a red carpet, flanked by fanfares of glistening trumpets. (And to do so for the third time in a row, having learned absolutely nothing in the intervening decade, like some sort of moron.)
Anyone telling you to do so, therefore (and offering no better argument than “Oh well, maybe the polls are all totally wrong and something weird will happen”), is a liar and a charlatan whose motives should be regarded with the greatest of suspicion.
How can we get this message across? The SNP keep saying vote SNP 1 & 2. Why has this strategy not been completely exposed as useless. All media are complicit in this deceit. No surprise there.
Ummm because the snp do not actually want independence and their rabbid supporters just want them to get more votes than anyone else because clearly, they are inbred and mentally challenged
Well, when you have Scotland’s foremost pishologist saying that SNP and Greens are on course for a “pro-independence” majority and doing a video to prove it, that is worth a lot of “pro Indy” votes
Despite your sterling efforts to communicate the bleedin obvious it seems to be futile in many cases, comments online continue to repeat the both votes SNP mantra, while the SNP themselves seem quite happy to see hundreds of thousands of votes completely wasted in order for them to retain control of a devolved Parliament, at the same time generating enough protest votes for the Westminster elections to keep them in the game there so that the cash keeps coming in. As you have said before, and the evidence of the last Holyrood poll confirms, you would have to be a moron or an imbecile to swallow this pile of steaming s**t, but that is apparently where we are.
Could some crackpot at SNP try to offer what on earth is going through their minds that they cannot comprehend this fairly simple explanation as to how the list votes work and how they are promoting list seats for the unionist parties.
Makes you wonder what else they simply don’t understand with the budget.
Of course they know, that’s the point. The SNP DOES NOT WANT INDEPENDENCE and it certainly doesn’t want a majority and if it look like the SNP would win a majority they sabotage it deliberately.
So stand up John Swinney your a moron.
So we have 815,420 votes wasted on a party who just isn’t interested in Scotland or Independence and certainly isn’t interested in woman rights, so why vote for them at all.
I’ve tried to make the point that voting for reform will bring Independence more closer than voting for John Swinneys who’s only interest is staying FM until 2031 and beyond.
Don’t be fooled by the SNP lets stop reform at all cost mantra, because if the NUSNP won the election and no other party other than reform was prepared to work with the SNP, trust me the SNP would work with reform to stay in power.
I only speaking for myself, but I believe the SNP needs stopping and we need to stop them from being able to govern again.
From these polling statistics Your party, Alba and liberate Scotland had joined forces they wouldn’t get a single seat.
The SNP is causing more damage to Scotland than any other party has done in the last 300+ years so for me to vote for reform is a no brainier.
There are others who will argue oh my god why would you vote for reform and STOP INDEPENDENCE these are the same people who are making a living out of Independence and want the status quo to continue so the monthly pay cheque continues as well, I don’t.
If the SNP are successful in may, god help our nation. When the SNP isn’t hiding its contempt for Scotland or our people and to go into another five years with the SNP in charge will put Scotland cause back decades and they know it.
Scottish elections – 1st vote first past the post, 2nd vote D’Hondt.
UK elections – FPTP
Scottish council elections – STV.
Three vastly different voting systems, with the Scottish elections being the most convoluted. No wonder folk are confused. It needs to be made easier to understand and more representative. It needs to be both of these.
According to Chat – ‘the choice of AMS with D’Hondt was part of political negotiations during the devolution process, involving mainly Labour and Liberal Democrat policy preferences — Labour accepted a mixed system to achieve devolution, and the Liberal Democrats strongly favoured proportional representation. Discussions and compromises between parties helped shape the final system.’
‘When devolution was being designed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a cross-party, cross-society group called the Scottish Constitutional Convention (SCC) played a crucial role in shaping what a modern Scottish Parliament would look like — including how it should be elected.’
‘The SCC included Labour, Liberal Democrats, trade unions, churches, local authorities and other civic organisations. It pushed for an electoral system that combined local representation with proportionality rather than simple first-past-the-post (FPTP).’
‘Its proposals influenced the eventual system in the Scotland Act 1998, even though not all parties (e.g., the Conservatives and SNP) participated in the Convention.’
Not exactly democratic.
Maybe having a Swiss style referendum system would help in actually having some degree of democracy. It appears that Swiss referendums are used mainly as a check on politicians. So rather than have useless tossers being voted in for five years because of a misunderstood voting system and then just ignoring what voters actually want, voters would have the ability to hold them to account within their period of office. Maybe a Swiss style system of referendums could also help determine what type of voting system should be used.
If Scotland is to ever become a successful independent nation it needs to sort out how it’s parliament operates. Enough flannel, it’s time to grow up.
The SNP stopped working for Scotland the day Salmond stood down.
John Swinney is holding a full deck of cards and no matter what card he puts on that table out of the 52 he’s a winner and he knows it.
This man is working for the British state and he’s not even bothered if you know about it, would he be he’s working in England’s interest.
Here is how the Union wins all the time and its all thanks to the SNP working for the British state.
If the SNP don’t win the British state does, if the SNP does win and forms a government the British states wins, if the SNP goes bust the British states wins no matter which way you look at this Scotland is the loser unless we all get behind reform. Because its only reform who is being opposed by all these other parties and for good reason, and its these reasons I believe will turn a massive majority to want Independence.
The only thing the SNP don’t want and cant allow to happen, is an SNP leader who will actively pursue and active independence.
A front page article in The Guardian this morning reads like Swiftian satire. An exercise in projection, and inversion.
“Populists ‘an existential threat to UK democracy”.
An opinion piece written by Sir Chris Powell, brother of Johnathan Powell, Starmer’s National Security Advisor. The entire Powell family are the epitome of the entitled, British elite. Johnathan has a very spooky background
We apparently have three years to stop the “new, and terrifying threat” of populism.
“We are at a very dangerous moment. We simply cannot afford to allow Reform UK to have a free run, and become established and entrenched as a credible potential government in the minds of disenchanted voters.”
The Spookocracy breaks cover.
Perhaps we should adopt the Romanian model (as endorsed by Ursula von der Leyen, and her dangerously unhinged High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas) where an anonymous bench of Judges in a High Court determine who can, and who cannot stand for election.
a good point : the weasel wording of “populism” is right out of the oxbridge school of sophistry.
While “democracy” is the gold standard of justice and freedom, it is reserved for “people we like”; the problem comes if the – fucking voters – vote the wrong way.
“the people have spoken – the bastards”.
So we get this invention “populism”. And elites get to paint themselves as the “benign elite of the wise” saving our rights and freedoms from “the mob”.
Pretty clever really being able to smear the democratic will of the people.
Maybe voting should be reserved for the right kind of people, with the right values. Guardian readers maybe.
Swinney wants to win this time and next time – he’s said as much. So there will still be a devolved administration for all that time and, perforce, no independence. The SNP’s clearly stated intention to thwart independence for Scotland is in plain sight, and not even hiding.
Yes. Swinney of course. But he is just the current stooge. We can assume that since 2014 the comprehensive re-emasculation of Scotland has been the English State’s most pressing priority. Nothing more existential. And they are global pros, dontcha know. Presumably we only got as far as we did because somebody fumbled…
We also have to remember that the UK devolved assemblies (unlike Westminster) are required to use ‘local government’ electoral franchises, not national franchises.
Which explains their ‘regional’ government status as far as the ‘mother country’ is concerned.
The critical importance of such an irregular franchise being used for national elections or referendums is ignored by WoS, by political parties and by British establishment figures such as ‘Sir John’.
On the matter of independence, the use of a ‘local government’ franchise will always fail a peoples ‘inalienable right’ to self-determination:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com