Only a few diehards in the press are still clinging this morning to the Labour fiction we exposed yesterday, namely the flat-out empirical falsehood that “the biggest party gets to form a government” in the event of a hung Parliament.
As that’s where Scottish Labour is led from, of course. The Ashcroft polls leaked late last night have, it’s fair to say, caused a certain degree of furore among politics types.
Contrary to some expectations, the figures could scarcely have been worse. Of 16 seats polled – 14 held by Labour and two Lib Dem – 15 would go to the SNP on staggering swings of over 20%. Labour’s Glasgow heartlands would be all but wiped out, with only Willie Bain in Glasgow North East barely clinging on.
The SNP will undoubtedly be cock-a-hoop, but will almost certainly also be feverishly warning activists that polls don’t win seats and reminding them of the party’s own spectacular recovery in the 2011 Holyrood election from what looked like disaster just a couple of months out from the vote.
Lord Ashcroft himself points out (as we did ourselves on Twitter last night) that the seats he polled were mainly in areas that voted Yes last year, and so may be unduly flattering the SNP. But it’s worth seeing them in context.
By now we imagine most readers have already seen the alleged leak of the Ashcroft polling results which aren’t due to be officially released until 11am today [EDIT 00.47am: out now], and which suggest some jaw-dropping SNP gains.
We’re not going to go off half-cocked until those have been confirmed, so instead here’s something sent in by an alert reader. It’s an extract from the autobiography of former Radio 1 DJ Liz Kershaw, and describes events around the funeral of Princess Diana. We think you’ll find it enlightening.
Remarkably, 26% of people planning to vote Labour in May, and an astounding 54% of likely Tory voters, say the SNP are the best guarantors of more powers, while 21% of Labour voters and 37% of Tories also answer “SNP” to the second question.
We wouldn’t want to be in Scottish Labour’s shoes if they were made of diamonds.
We pondered long and hard over how best to analyse Scottish Labour’s bewildering, oh-my-God-they’re-really-calling-it-that “Vow Plus” fiasco from yesterday, readers.
We contemplated noting the absurdity of Gordon Brown being its frontman when he’s not standing in May and won’t be in Parliament to deliver it. We considered a forensic deconstruction showing how it’s just the same old reheated, uncosted rubbish they’ve been waffling around for the past years.
(“Give Holyrood control of housing benefit, separating it out from the rest of the UK’s Universal Credit by mumble mumble! Increase pensions using the extra cash freed up by mumble mumble! Devolve workfare, which somehow magically ‘creates jobs’ by mumble mumble! Pretend we just said ‘1000 nurses’ all along, not the demented ‘1000 more than anything the SNP say’!”)
We thought about pointing out all the comical flapping the party’s done around its devolution proposals, presenting the weary and confused Scottish people with feeble, grudging, underwhelming plan after feeble, grudging, underwhelming plan – at least five different ones since 2009 – and resentfully upping the offer by the bare minimum they think they can get away with every time.
And we wondered if it was worth drawing attention to the fact that the latest effort is actually basically the Strathclyde Commission blueprint from the Conservatives with a red sticker hastily slapped on it.
But in the end, the truth is a lot simpler than that.
Ostensibly it’s gathering signatures representing opposition to the bedroom tax, but in fact its only purpose is to harvest email addresses so that Labour can then bombard unwitting recipients with dodgy, untruthful solicitations for cash. (What would actually be the point of a petition about the bedroom tax at this stage?)
We haven’t done a monthly stats post for a few months, partly because naturally traffic’s been down after the insane spike of last September, partly because we had two weeks off in October (and a semi-break over Christmas and New Year), and partly because we’ve moved to new, more accurate and more detailed figures direct from our webhost and January was the first full month of them.
So here, for those of you who like to keep track, are the headlines:
We’re pretty blown away by that, to be honest. A tiny fraction shy of 300,000 unique readers (in what’s traditionally a very slow month for politics, and one we didn’t really start until the second week) is 157% up on a year ago, and nearly 50,000 higher than last May, which was the all-time high until the mad last few weeks of the referendum campaign. (It’s the 3rd-highest ever, after September and August 2014.)
If you’d told us we’d be anywhere near those sorts of numbers four months after a No vote (or indeed if we’d even still be going four months after a No vote), we’d have said you were missing a few marbles. But as long as you’re still here, we will be too*.
twathater on According As We Need Them: “TBQH Sarah I would disregard ANYTHING that Bastard Tax MOAN and his wee Scotland Hating sidekicks like Aydun Corporal Batshit…” Jul 16, 01:58
sarah on According As We Need Them: “@ Northcode: “mirkie watter”. I like it, Northcode. Your knowledge of poetic forms puts me to shame.” Jul 15, 22:58
sam on According As We Need Them: “https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52524-europeans-would-welcome-an-independent-scotland-into-the-eu “That Scotland may vote in a second independence referendum to leave the UK cannot be discounted, and Scottish nationalists…” Jul 15, 21:43
sam on According As We Need Them: “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a United Nations treaty that the UK has ratified (meaning…” Jul 15, 21:38
Northcode on According As We Need Them: “Thanks, James. Here’s another: mirkie watter Rever stanes smuithed roond; shaped by watter no thair ain; drouned in silence, worn…” Jul 15, 19:17
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Thanks for the info, Aidan. On the face of it then, it sounds like just another ruse by which the…” Jul 15, 19:11
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Fair enough, sarah, I stand corrected. How about a link so we can all see what it’s about?” Jul 15, 18:58
Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “@TwatByName You know what they say, “there’s no fool like an old fool”. Silly old sod. Take up bowls or…” Jul 15, 18:56
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Sure, TH. I have little doubt that the humous boys will be hunted down to the ends of the earth…” Jul 15, 18:54
Aidan on According As We Need Them: “I’ll save you the trouble, it’s another cunning plan which says that if the Scottish Government implemented the ICCPR, because…” Jul 15, 18:34
sarah on According As We Need Them: ““clearly a good thing because Angus R…oppose it.” This is an example of humour.” Jul 15, 18:32
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Guid Gowd, sarah, but you’re a dunderheid. Things are intrinsically good or intrinsically bad. Their goodness or otherwise is not…” Jul 15, 18:17
twathater on According As We Need Them: “Ewen used to be a regular contributor BTL on Yours For Scotland and was asked by Iain Lawson to do…” Jul 15, 18:16
twathater on According As We Need Them: “There’s Chas focusing his inner franchise fanny and CLAIMING that he knows what the MAJORITY of visitors to WOS are…” Jul 15, 18:10
twathater on According As We Need Them: “The problem wi that is the humous boys have probably witnessed what is currently being done to innocent women and…” Jul 15, 18:03
twathater on According As We Need Them: “And as if any proof were required about the relationship of yoons and lunacy, immediately up pops Bastard Tax MOAN…” Jul 15, 17:50
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Ah come oan noo, sarah. We need to all focus on supporting the good news you report above to a…” Jul 15, 17:50
sarah on According As We Need Them: “O/T Ewen Kennedy [retired lawyer and an independence supporter] has made a submission to Holyrood’s petitions committee in support of…” Jul 15, 17:45
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “There is much truth in what you write here, James. A phrase I read a little while back sticks with…” Jul 15, 17:38
James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “Sven. Indeed it appears that Labour are finishing and finalising what the Tories Started, with considerable help from the greens…” Jul 15, 17:27
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Seriously, Alf? You’re now getting info from the scatological ravings of Confused? ‘as the saying goes : “a drunk arse…” Jul 15, 17:26
sarah on According As We Need Them: “Rev, have you a proposal for the campaign over the next 9 months? It would be useful to hear which…” Jul 15, 17:22
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “That is good news, sarah. I expect they’ll agree a stern resolution calling for the humous boys to come out…” Jul 15, 17:14
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “@DaveL says: 15 July, 2025 at 2:20 am “Can you explain why or how?” I think you’re new here, Dave.…” Jul 15, 17:09
Chas on According As We Need Them: “Congratulations Sven. You must be one of the very few people who actually read any of the repetive gibberish produced…” Jul 15, 16:30
Sven on According As We Need Them: “James Cheyne @15.29. Dear Lord, “James”, how I wish I wasn’t in complete agreement with so many of those points.” Jul 15, 15:55
James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “The social engineering experiments on the populations is an ideology effecting all governances from enforced migrations across borders being encouraged…” Jul 15, 15:29
Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “‘… hence also that “the moon is made of cheese” (Cesaire)’ I’m sorry, but you just have to laugh, right?…” Jul 15, 15:21
sarah on According As We Need Them: “O/T Good news today – Republic of Ireland, Spain, China, Brazil, South Africa and 15 other countries are meeting today…” Jul 15, 15:19