Wings Over Scotland

The “Ruthie straddle” is spot on.

Well done Got it spot on.

Sad to see the SNP just two short of a majority. Thus the country is saddled with, arguably, the absolutely two most toxic numpties in Scottish politics, Wee Willie Rennie and Ruthie Tank Commander.

When the tank commander’s not talking bull, she’s thinking bull.

BBC RADIO Scotllan at it once again woke up to “…the SNP FAILED..” and “..Failed” and “Failed”

SNP expectations were too high……

Surely the truth is Curtice provides the stats some folk listen to the Sunday Herald and the other yoony papers that it was in the bag and we all could vote Green if we had a conscience. Even Lesley Riddoch said it would be ok.

Fact is there is enough division between the minority parties to get legislation through. What the Greens want to support probably the tories or labour wont.

The First Minister (tbc) will be in her element now the Tories in opposition..

Mr Corbyn will be tuning in FMQT’s to learn from her

Avatars not showing again… ‘cept for a few.

Apologies re above post I forgot about the lying liberals. I am old enough to remember when they were cuddlie.

FMQ Wullie disnae get twa questions. One every 3 months would be fine for twa us a.
preferarably during Ester breaks etc

The BBC unionists did their job for the union and split the indy vote – that was deliberate and disgraceful. Rise and TS got what they deserved – it is too soon for them and too self-serving. Thank heavens there are no UKIP in SP.

James Kelly was on radio yesterday lunchtime – I’m afraid labour will never learn blaming everyone and their granny but not labour – they too deserve what they got though to see RD in opposition is awful but might polarise the left/right thinking. The fact that RD did not even mention being a conservative during the whole campaign says it all.

RD will have to show her hand and it won’t be pretty but fab Nicola will have no trouble showing her up for what she is.

But most of all we must remember the BBC and MSM work for the union – do not ever trust them – the want something quite different from us.

Finally the Tories are in our sights. You’d think we lost by the pessimism around. This is a great result. Everybody on here wanted Labour gubbed. Result.

Everybody wanted the SNP to win. Result.

Now it’s us versus the Tories. Result.

C’moan everybody, cheer up. We cannae lose!

No hiding place for Tory’s now Mr Bloodnok. 😉

@MajorBloodnok,

Yip – agree with you there.

I welcome a straight SNP v Tory battle for the Union without labour acting as their proxies in Scotland.

Still need to push on to convince more Labour voters to switch and I reckon a few more years of the mad Tory government in Westminster should be enough to do that.

Onwards and upwards to an independent Republic of Scotland.

I can’t see every opposition MSP opposing a second referendum following a Brexit..

On topic slightly off.
LBC bigging up Ruth as a potential leader at Westminster. Her star is definitely in the ascendent from the London perspective.

At approx 0825 Lorna from Stirling called in on the “Mayor Khan” phone in. Lorna’s complaint was that he, Khan, wasn’t British and “we” should have someone British in high office. Of course Mr Khan is a London boy born and bred.

Nick Ferarri gave her a pitying tone.

But what is interesting and is the point that I’ll try to articulate is this;

Lorna (posh Scottish accent) is your typical Yoon. Yearning after a Britishness that doesn’t exist and hasn’t existed for 40 years. Her Enid Blyton Britain is no more, yet, as Nick Ferarri pointed out to Lorna “Khan is British!”

The irony, of course, is that Ruthie played a blinder in appealing to that sense of nostalgic Britishness beloved of the Yoons and it’s a complete fiction!

Ruthie’s electionering Britishness and Britain does not exist. It’s gone. It’s history! Not that this a bad thing but your average Yoon (and I know many) is voting for Enid Blyton as sold by conwoman Ruth but it’s existence is as flimsy and thin as the paper on which the Famous 5 is printed on.

Suck it up Yoonies and Lorna!

Hilarious. My favourite so far.

A very good summarisation of the Scottish Election. Through the trapdoor went Labour …and who knows how far that drop will be! Oblivion awaits!

And Ruth’s first cry as opposition is once again calling on Nicola to ‘rule out a second referendum’.

Seriously, is this all we’re going to get for the next 5 years from a party that promised to be the ‘strong opposition’. Kezia spouted this same nonsense week in, week out, and she and her party are nowhere now. In that, lies the warning to Ruth. A one-trick pony is only loved for so long. After a while, the act becomes boring.

Also, there is every chance that the UK will remain in the EU come a month’s time (thus pretty much negating the idea of a 2nd Referendum). Nicola will never answer the question, simply because she doesn’t have too. If a 2nd Referendum does come, it will come about through circumstance and not based on someone wishing it.

I really do hope that Ruth has a little more in the locker than looking to pacify the rather more extreme lot that her party has gathered over the election. If this is her game plan for the next 5 years, then apart from being a long 5 years, I wonder how long some of her own supporters will ask her to just drop it. By continually harping on about it, you’re not really putting it to bed. And in doing so, the Scottish Parliaments two main parties are now staring at each other not as opposites, but also over very different ideologies when it comes to the Scottish Constitution. Ruth’s tactics of ending the debate, just brought it front and centre and may have kept it there permanently.

In one sense, Ruth should be very careful for what she wishes for. By trying to end it, she has instead, implemented and ingrained the argument squarely in every persons head in Scotland.

Straight SNP-Tory battle from now on. Couldn’t be better.

More clearly than ever before: it’s us or them. Pro-indy or anti-indy. For Scotland or against it. The constitution will be centre-stage for the next five years, unless brexit brings indy2 quicker.

Now that looks more like it Chris!

Yesterday was tough in many ways, but it’s not for us to tell anyone how to vote any more than we’d allow them to tell us how to vote.

And in the end the difference between the result some of us wanted and what we got was slight in terms of the number of votes that the result hung on. And also a function of a system designed to stop us getting what we wanted.

We’re not in an ideal place now, but the place we are in is a good one for building on.

1. What we’ve been saying about “red tories” fell out in droves on BBC Shortbread as a fine number of ProudSLabbersBut outed themselves as having gone all proper blue tory. Listening to some of the justifying themselves was something. Oh how this will undermine so many residual SLabbers!

2. With all those Blue Tory MSPs, the principle foe is now prime of place to be attacked on all their grim ideas, no longer able to hide as a peripheral party of small import.

3. SLab looks usefully set to administer their own coup-de-grace in the coming months, with the UK head office intent on assisting by being no less clueless. Yesterday, the SNP didn’t beat SLab, they replaced them – and don’t underestimate the importance of that. It’s structural, won’t readily reverse and we’re the stronger for it, much so.

4. Pacific Quay is still overflowing with institutional SLabberism, what do they do now? Do they have the energy and broadcast time to as effectively hammer their trad enemy the the Blue Tories and do as much SNPBad? How can they prop up a poor 3rd place contender in chaos? And with Wee Willie’s brigade now in a derisory 5th, justifying air-time with the comedy light interlude they provided gets all the harder. I don’t know how they’ll handle any of this and won’t be with a pro-Indy bent, but it’s not what it was, things will change and the more confusion at PQ the better!

5. Democracy will out in the end and if there’s a good prospect of winning an IndyRef #2, I doubt the SNP and pro Indy Green contingent won’t force it. But if there isn’t a good prospect of winning, we’re better to carry on building strength and diminishing the opposition.

CRITICALLY

6. ca. 45% of Scottish voters didn’t vote at all on Thursday. In that context we’re gie daft getting all worked up about the way some some voted on the margins trying to jig a system that wasn’t having any of it. 45% didn’t vote …, if we can wake up a goodly number of them, there’s our overwhelming YES vote.

It’s not where we want to be this morning, but we are getting stronger and more of the elements we need to assist in reaching our goal are falling into place.

I did a quick mental calc across the total vote numbers, and it looks to me as though the absolute number of Yoon party votes is now only a smidgeon over the absolute number of those voting for pro-Indy parties. I know elections aren’t IndyRef votes and some will swap sides in an IndyRef vote, but it really looks like we’re sat very close to 50% YES and that’s from an election of millions, not the always-suspect polls.

It can’t come quick enough for any of us, but we are getting there. As above, circumstances are improving. This is not the time to be whacking each other over this or that, it’s time to get back up and carry on doing what we need to do in order to get us over the 50% and better. As high as we can get it, so that when circumstances can be forced there can be only one result.

Circumstance could be a Brexit vote, it might not be. We don’t know. But since it could be that soon, we need to be persuading our non-YES friends and neighbours. Not wasting time on the vagaries of the Holyrood election system and bashing each other. Our division is perhaps the last best hope of the Yoons – so don’t do it!

If Brexit doesn’t do it, we’ll need to be ousting the dregs from councils around the country this time next year – and we want to be getting that plan sorted now, whilst the yoons are inebriated on their delusion that they’ve just won something. We’ve stuff to do!

In the end, if we have the numbers, we will be listened to. We will make them listen. But we have got to get those numbers. There’s that 45% who didn’t vote last week to get stuck into for a start.

Let’s have ourselves a wee rest for a few days perhaps and then get at it!

Ruthie astride number 2 … shudder. Kezia will need to be careful she doesn’t hit Wullie on the way down, he thinks the Libdems are having a bounce and are on the way back up.

Nicola? She very nearly broke the D’hondt system for the 2nd time, there but for a few hundred well placed votes.

Ruthie said the first thing she is going for is the named person act, well screw her. Patrick Harvey got in on a 12 to 1 ratio of list v constituency vote. Our environmental minister needs to take him on and outgreen him.
The SNP constituency vote was greater than the combined Tory and Labour vote. We are the party of Scotland. Gloves off, round 2.Go get them Nicola.
Just some random thoughts after two days of sleep deprivation.

Pity the 2nd rate Pollster, getting it wrong again but laughing all the way to the bank, hadn’t explain to get more Greens, you get more Tories. Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Just heard Prof Curtice on radio shortbread saying that the reason that the SNP didn’t pick up the last seats on the list and get a majority was because the list vote dropped below 45% and the Greens rose above 6%

Luv a bloody duck.

He did however say that the Parliament is still pro-independence so the constitutional issue is still a defining part of Scottish politics.

Straight battle sounds good.

One thing that really is chewing me up is that though the Tories got the majority of their seats through that shambolic list system, over 500,000 of my fellow( Scots) actually voted for them. A party which oppressed the disabled, cut benefits to the children ,penalised people for having an extra room,gave hand outs to the well off, abandoned distressed parentless children to traffickers,bombed civilians in the Middle East,and now lauded in the media as the come back champions.

Truly,it makes me feel physically sick . No mercy Nicola .Ruthy and her minnions deserve none.

Ruth bull.
Scottish Tory leader calls on Nicola Sturgeon to rule out second referendum

As a 78 year old who has wanted an independent Scotland all my life what right has this tory bull to deny me that right.
Nicola you have the backing of over a million behind you so start putting that tory bull in her place from the very start.

Seconded Richardinho. (Thunbs up) 🙂

Nicola so far out in front no-one can catch her..love it Chris.

And do you see those steep sides, even the clambering one won’t be able to reach!

Can’t wait to see RD and her frantically waving A4 sheets at FMQ’s…

Great cartoon.The SNP threshed all comers on Thursday.Not as soundly as last year,but a drubbing just the same.We no longer have a majority and the dynamic of the new parliament will be different to the old one.Thats not all bad because it puts an awful lot more pressure on the opposition.No,no,no,bad,bad,bad will look more silly and pathetic in the new parliament.

Labour/libdem will have to fully embrace federalism or disappear into obscurity.It could be that their active membership base is composed almost entirely of a handful of chiefs who want no truck with federalism because they think Holyrood should be an executive,not a government.

@Scott 9:23am

Well said. I believe the more Davidson rants on about indy2 the more it will help the independence cause. She has one of those girning faces and chalk-on-a-blackboard voices, if you see what I mean.

Let’s get this in perspective. In 2007 we were 47 msps so we were 18 short of a majority. That’s why there was so much horse trading. Take out the presiding officer and we are 1 short. There will be no 2007 horse trading and it will involve very few msps. Labour rebels and the Greens for most things. We are a very, very big minority government.

@Dave McEwan Hill 8:50am

You are spot on. Its taken 9 years to get rid of SLab. Its now time to aim at the Conservative and UNIONIST party. Wee Ruthy won’t be able to stop herself from winding up and creating more support for indepedence. We need to start by reaching out to the bits of Slab that still have a conscience.

As an aside I would love someone in the media to ask Miss Davidson how she intends to heal the divisions and appeal to supporters of Independence?

We,ve had worse result’s (indy ref)& we coped with it. We’ll cope with this,as for our so called Indy allies they must be devestated TS/CF Rise,they should be on the Trapdoor wie Kezia.

A few well attended Indy Demonstrations DOES NOT their
Party Supporters MAKE when most of said supporters were Grassroot Indy supporters & Snp members. They,re Leaderships jumped the gun & will suffer the consequences ( obscurity ) never to be trusted again.

Idiots on F/Book pages advocating starting New Leftist Political Parties ( some people from the parties previously mentioned ) this would only have the effect of diluting any Indy votes in future elections as happened on Thurs 6th ( heres a collective name for any new parties MUPPETS ARE US ).

Cat amoungst the Pigeons here.

Should the SNP bring forward a bill to have FPTP in all future Scottish elections. Three/Four Unionist parties arguing against it, goes without saying Total Reform of the Scottish Electorial Commission.

Better heids on Wings than mine, what would the reaction be to a Public Petition on this subject ???.

Every week you suprise us Chris great toon.

@Breeks,

As a former Labour voter I can tell you this much. My own political ideal is not entirely the SNP manifesto,but there is a much bigger game in town right now.

The freedom of a nation is the stakes, and as far as I am
concerned that overrides all other considerations.The SNP are committed to that very thing,whilst no one is entirely sure of the position other parties will adopt.

Already we are hearing of possible trade offs to gain support. That is party politics above independence.

Which to you is the bigger game? There is time for positioning and putting options to the electorate after independence, but not making your policy a bargaining chip to achieve that aim,or even for supporting it.

A nice celebratory cartoon for a Saturday morning!

And a very positive view of the future ….

link to businessforscotland.co.uk

…. brought to our attention by Tackety Beets @ 8:18

The more I think about it, the more I think the new political line which is a clear cut Scotland versus the Tories will be good for the Indy cause.

Labour were an impediment to progress, the toxic Tories representing the Union will be an asset!

Ruthie want’s Nicola to rule out a second referendum. Message to Ruthie, don’t let that distant 2nd place go to your head, with 7 constituency seats you don’t set the agenda.

For those thinking that Ruthie is destined for great things doon sooth. Get a grip, even I can see she is a Tory pawn, a political lightweight. She will be used, abused and tossed aside by the Eton boys. At best she will end up in the House of Lards.
When we get our independence I wonder if they will throw all the Scottish lards out on their arses. Independence would be worth it just to see that.
My blue rinse neighbour was trying to wind me up yesterday. During the conversation she mentioned how nice it was to see Ruth Davidson turning up for the count with her sister. I’ll save giving her the vapours for another day.

Interesting times folks. Euro vote? Possible GE with possibility of Boris in charge of Tories. Cameron wont survive Brexit and UK won’t survive Brexit.

We may just be on the presipice of a new Scotland. Remember the indi vote went up on a low turnout. The unionist vote is the Tories and libs. The soft Brits who stuck with Labour will now desert Labour and that’s our target group. Half the Tories in Scotland are landowners or posh English. Forget these Yoons.

Other reasons to be cheerful:

Tories being what they are, they will be more prone to Sewellitis and simple good old financial irregularity over the next five years. This would obviously reduce/remove the minority.

Once the penny drops, I expect some BLiS______d MSPs to finally give up on London Rule and come out on the Right Side.

And then we have Ruthie in the spotlight, relentlessly whining, “I’ll scweam and I’ll scweam and make mythelf thick!” And that one-string banjo playing “Rule out Indyref2!” Not a good look.

That should further polarise things in our favour. The Tories just can’t help being toxic and the FM will target her relentlessly to defend Cameron’s indefensible policies.

So who voted Tory? The Lardy Lairds, The Settlers, the Bowler Hats and a sprinkling of the Unthinking Selfish. Circle the wagons for The Union’s last stand.

And so now it’s simply Independistas V The Nasty Party, a crystal-clear choice.

Tanktop being touted on Sky News as winner of the election. Eh?

Off Topic, but can anyone advise on how to get details of individual polling station results. Thanks.

Ronnie Anderson @ 9.51 Yes FPTP would help , However Labour & and the rest of the gang gifted us a voting system that can only be changed by Westminster , Yep better together feels great eh? .

The Daily Mail is touting Ruthie as the new Thatcher

@Brian McHugh

The Greens supported YES last time. If they need encouraged to support a YES next time, and I see no evidence they do, then encouragement, not vitriol seems to do the trick.

I totally agree that Rise were overblown by the media and ‘used’ as as a tool by the media to split the vote. But why the contempt for Rise when we all know it’s the media agitating for trouble? I seem to remember a certain Mr Grogan breaking away from Labour and trying to encourage Labour’s other Yes men to do likewise. He was a minority of one back then, but hasn’t he done enough to earn his seat on the YES bus?

What does the SNP expect those people who support independence but have issues with the SNP to do with themselves? Take up knitting and wait for the call for Indyref 2? Hold your nose while you vote SNP was the answer I got. I did. And you know what? I walked out the booth feeling like a cheap fraud. I had voted against my better judgement to return to office a dysfunctional arse hole and waste of space who turned his back on me when I needed help, but hey, the SNP x 2 brigade made me do it. What’s the point having principles if you can’t stand by them?

Gather together enough minorities, and hey presto, you have a majority. Stop pissing on them meantime all you SNP x 2 stripe corporals. Wise up and vent your frustrations on the media. It’s a target rich environment.

Don’t anyone forget that we have been here before and made a decent job of it. There will also have been lessons learned from the previous minority government spell. The SNP have some excellent strategists so will be able to exploit situations as they arise. For starters, go for some of the more difficult legislation in the first year and see how much they are prepared to block with the threat of the council elections hanging over them.
Heard Robin Harper (remember him – Greens for NO convener) on GMS this a.m. Smug as ever and expecting wee Nicky to come begging for there support, hopefully they’ll have a long wait for a knock on their door.

Breeks, I am not being Vitriolic. If the Greens and in particular Patrick Harvie have independence at the core of his/their ideals, then surely he/The Greens will have no issue with publically stating/reiterating the fact?

The optimism is spreading. James Kelly …

link to ibtimes.co.uk

“Whatever the private feelings of Patrick Harvie and other Green leaders, it seems inconceivable that the rank and file would allow any firm SNP proposal for a second referendum – in the event of Brexit, for example – to be thwarted.”

Papadox: “Well done SNP ESPECIALLY Stewart McMillan captured GREENOCK what a man!”

A timely reminder! Scotland did well despite anxieties of voter torpor and inertia.

D’Hondt really stinks. You can just picture Dewar and chums trying to pick a way of making sure Westminster stays in control of Scotland, no matter what we vote.

LibDem Lords on the BBC election thing with Glen Campbell, raging away at us and ref 2’s anti democratic were utterly repellent.

“We must keep control of our scrounger regions like Scotland Donald. Its for their own good you see.”

So what now for all those Labour voters, who have continued to believe that the SNP was about to implode any minute now, and Labour was about to rise again like a phoenix?

Surely now these people will see that the Labour Party in Scotland won’t protect them against the Tories and the only way to ensure the best interests of their own community or Scotland as a whole, is by looking to the SNP.

There is no doubt that the Labour Party was able to hold on to power for so long in Scotland, because they used the ‘We are the only party that can protect Scots from the Tories’ campaign strategy, and it worked!

Now it’s time for the SNP to use the same strategy to hoover up all those voters from the poorer communities who see it’s the SNP versus the Tories.

I haven’t had time yet to read the column so sorry if I repeat anything. Great cartoon Chris, shows Nicola where she should be, heid and shooders abin the ithers.

I didn’t comment yesterday, but I started to read wings and had to give up. I wasn’t sure how I felt when I got up and saw the results of the elections, but some of the wingers were in bad cut.

Having thought things through, I feel reasonably upbeat about it today. There’s no point in blaming others about voting green, rise or whatever. It’s their vote to do with as they wish. Sure I wish things had turned out differently, but, we are where we are, and now have to get on with it.

Okay, maybe the next indy ref is further down the road. But it was not us harping on about indyref 2, that was the big gun commander. She used it and turned the election into them and us. Fine, that’s where we are now front and centre. Tories versus Scotland, work to be done boys, but nobody said it was going to be easy.

As for SLAB, well they are finished, unless lurking somewhere amongst the debris there is some soul with some common sense. I see that they are blaming Corbyn and standing with the tories. Really what has killed them in Scotland is their sense of entitlement and their visceral hatred of the SNP. There was never much really between them when SLAB used to have policies. But they could never bring themselves to work with the SNP. If it was SLAB’s idea it was good, if the SNP had the very same idea it was bad. The badest bad you had ever seen. Willie Bain, step forward.
So until SLAB learn to take the blame and pick which side they are on, union or independence, they will never get anywhere.

@ RT

‘Mayor of London’

The bigots are coming out.

Victory Day in Red Square. 26Million Russians died protecting the West. 11WW.

That’s correct Ken. If the rest of us jumped ship at every Snp policy we disagreed with. There would be a collection of wee powerless parties getting thumped by unionists. Independence is more important that who sits where at Holyrood.

Look at Sillars and Sheridan. They just shout from the sidelines and try and rabble rouse. Pragmatism gets you what you desire even if it kills you sometimes.

Great cartoon as usual sums up the situation perfectly and with humour, Steve Bell eat your heart out.

A few thoughts;

We are 2 by-elections away from a majority – all SNP MSPs need to be whiter than white.

The Greens have been given a chance and they had better not blow it.

Annoyed at the Greens standing in tight constituencies which eg allowed Ruth to get in, a bit like Mundell in the borders.
Although is of course their right to do so.

Lastly RISE are a annoying bunch of noisy amateurs who will not be going quietly and are still getting too much air time IMO.

Completely different from Alan Grogan who was smart intelligent and knew how to make a left case for indy – has he not left RISE anyway?

The only thing that can save labour is Mhairi Black joining them and leading them out of the wilderness to the promised land of independence.
In other words they are royally screwed.

As for Ruthie as the next Thatcher. Pity the record didn’t come up with that idea last week, they should be encouraged. I mean a Scottish Thatcher, sure winner, go for it yah muppets!

Now it’s time for the SNP to use the same strategy to hoover up all those voters from the poorer communities who see it’s the SNP versus the Tories.

Already happened? Labour voters are now SNP, like me, last time for Blair and Brown in 97, things can only get better, better, better for you!

What a legacy for likes of Brown and Darling, sorry Baron Darling of Larouchee.

Clearly wealthy middle and upper middle class Scotland, with 400,000 English demographic that call Scotland home, voted Tory and NO again. What is interesting is how many Labour votes Ruth got.

Tactically, yoonsters like the tories and the Libem’s can target a few safe ish seats, win, then tory BBC tory media goes apeshit with the triumph of UKOK unionism.

Coupled with The Vow fraud, this could go on for ever.

Then there’s the Green wild card, again targeting soft SNP slots, pushing back independence, again.

SLab losing votes permanently to Ruth?

Can Sturgeon survive another 5 years of BBC led UKOK media SNP bad monstering?

I believe that we, the Scottish electorate, should demand that we are represented in the Scottish Parliament only by Scottish political parties, not a few folk from UK parties pretending they’re separate Scottish parties.

I have no problem with d’Hondt (although it woud be good to have the list candidates on the ballot).

The problem is the perception and the constant referring to the 2nd. vote as thoughit is a second preference. We really need to make the point from now until 2021 that it is the national vote. Even the first vote.

Two votes, one for national government and for local/constituency rep.

With the council elections coming up, the important message should be that you don;t have to rank all the candidates just the ones you like.

I feel sure that a lot of late round votes are from people who thought that they had to rank them all.

Man, this is messed up JLT…
“This is the problem at the moment with many Nationalists. They are wanting hardcore commitments from the likes of Nicola and Patrick, even with some of the more impatient and bordering fanatical, demanding one right now!”

I could start with the obvious question… what is your definition/description of ‘Nationalism’? …is it a dictionary definition? Or something else?

Secondly JLT… now that I have had a cheese sanny… lets simplify it a little.

Would the Greens vote against a second Referendum, should the opportunity present itself within the duration of the next parliament?

Ruth Davidson’s campaign was all about saying no to a second referendum. She lost. Big time.

Shouldn’t she respect the will of the Scottish people and now shut up?

The PR system is flawed. How are so many Tories getting minuscule votes (pro rata) getting seats in the list. Yet thousands of SNP list votes are being ignored. The NE is being represented by a bunch of Tories who got hardly any votes.

I actually think the result is excellent. The unionists will coalesce now round the Tories (who only got 20% of the vote), Labour will not provide cover whenever there is another referendum and the Lib Dems pushed into 5th place. A minority government will have to sharpen up its act and that’s all to the good.
My only disappointment is that more people did not vote SNP/Green. If I take my region, NE Scotland, 138,000 votes on the list for the SNP achieved a big fat zero other than letting 4 conservatives, 2 Labour and one Lib Dem ( the most annoying aspect) get into Holyrood with 130,000 votes between them. There is a bigger picture than the SNP and though I am a member we are not going to achieve 60% support in the polls for an independent Scotland by infighting.
It matters not one iota at the moment whether the SNP or the Greens support having a second referendum, it isn’t going to happen as long as polls show we are unlikely to win. A second referendum where we lose would be disastrous. I would hope that when Nicola sets up her group to work on increasing support for independence it’s not purely an SNP road show.

I am sorry, but I am pessimistic – it’s all really just a bit too depressing. can’t be arsed with this onwards and upwards business when the goalposts are forever moving. The axis of evil is just too big. We’re aw doomed!

Life used to be simple – get a majority of SNP westminster mps and there you go – independence. so we get 56 out of 59 and we still have no mandate? Over a million votes and we have no ‘majority’ ergo no mandate? WTF?

Logic has gone out the window. Doublespeak is de rigeur.

There. Just thought I’d get that out my system. Feeling better now.

Daily Heil front page, Ruth’s win is “The Roar of middle Scotland”

Daily Guardian “peak SNP looks as if it has passed.”

Actual facts and stats mean nothing much at all to teamGB politicos.

Prof Curtice in UK

CON 30%
LAB 31%
LD 15%
UKIP 12%
OTH 12%

With D’Hondt giving seats back to losers

SNP – 63

Con – 31

Lab – 15

Green – 6

Lib Dem – 5

Constituency election reuslt

SNP – 59

Con – 7

Lab – 3

Green – 0

Since 2014 referendum, SNP poll share’s risen

Why rancid The Graun thinks SNP has peaked, is my teamGB mystery of day.

This was a great result in my opinion. The SNP will have to work with the Greens, just like in the referendum, which will rally YES supporters together again. If SNP had won a majority, then they could have stopped listening to the grassroots, the greens and the yes movement, and become a bit smug and complacent. This result means they will now have to listen and co-operate.

The tories and ruth will be exposed every week and will have to defend their record at Westminster. FMQ will be entertaining! The referendum can still take place at the right time for a win and Labour will have to think long and hard about why they exist. It is all good.

The Independence movement is maturing and winning. Get out of the pessimism and back to a positive state of mind. This is the key for attracting more people to the yes cause and rallying people together again. Be the positive YES again.

Roland Smith says
I would hope that when Nicola sets up her group to work on increasing support for independence it’s not purely an SNP road show.

Ruby replies

Why not? What would be wrong with the other Independence supporting parties setting up their own roadshow?

@Ken500

You really don’t have a fucking clue how the voting system works do you?

Even if you add the list and constituency votes together the result would be a combined percentage for the SNP and Greens of less than 50%. If Scotland had been treated as a whole then the result would have been far closer to the proportional result. So close that any potential SNP/Green alliance would have less than half of the seats. So no pro indy majority.

Even if the had more than half combined the SNP would still not have a majority. As an additional bonus there would be more Lib Dems and probably at least on UKIPer. Fan daby dozi.

The current make up is about right for Scotland as a whole. It might even be far better for future independence having a second party reliant on public support should they go against it in order to prevent another referendum. Combined pro-indy support is arguably higher than at the referendum. And it really can’t be contested that the voters were fooled into giving that support as Davidson made sure they knew.

Great cartoon and it shows the result pretty accurately.

Just gone through the results for constituency and list for 3 regions with a calculator and what strikes me as a rank amateur is this:

1. SNP vote up percentage-wise in Yes areas compared to 2011.
2. SNP vote down in Tory/LibDem areas that voted No in Indyref.
3. A small number of Labour (typically a few hundred in each constituency) maybe switched to Tory, but we dont really know. It might be a combination of Labour not turning out, Labour who have joined Yes since 2011 and gone SNP this time round, plus Tories voting out who didnt previously vote at Scottish Parliament elections but have now realised whats at stake.
4. Clear tactical voting in constituency by Unionists. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didnt.
5. The disparity between SNP List vote and Constituency vote is likely to be partly Greens voting SNP at constituency, and partly vice versa. We dont know the proportion of the traffic either way, but an overwhelming majority of SNP voters did SNPx2.
6. Edinburgh Central is a cock up but thats democracy for you.
7. Just unfortunate we narrowly missed out on a couple of constituencies, thats democracy.
8. Large numbers of Yes and GE15 SNP voters couldnt be arsed turning out.
9. The way to completely break the d’Hondt system is for all voters of the biggest party to all use their list vote for a list-only second party who shares their aims. Politics being what it is, thats never going to happen.
10. Orkney totally does my head in.

1-5 look like a re-run of the Referendum. I welcome that, because now we have cleared the decks for the continuing struggle, and the SNP are in power for 5 years!

We need to work on 8.

I dont even know why Im posting this, Im sure other people are far more qualified.

O/T
i was talking to someone and he said to a crazy yooon loon, no won you need to shut the f up about independence, he replied, you have to win every day to keep your union, we only have to win once to destroy it. Well the yooon loon went berserk, I knew the SNP were all Terrorists, and he actually said, we will need to get guns to fight you with, Scotland once the most educated country on the face of the earth, reduced to having the most lied to population outside north Korea
Well done Scottish journalism you must be so proud but, creating such stupidity.

Great cartoon. Says it all very well.

Well done Chris!

Now that is a proper graph Chris! 🙂

Sleep does help, it’s the never ending never seeing who we voted for front and centre in our media that melts ma ice cream. I actually felt better after I watched Nana’s link of Nicola outside Bute House yesterday.

Think I overdosed on the BBC during the election coverage, it just seeps in: their constant diminishing of what was actually underway, the constant focus on the Tory/Labour fortunes…and the quiet fury built up throughout the night and morning into rage.

The BBC is really bad fur yer mental health. Exposure compromises composure.

The real players have come out of the shadows in Scotland. Let us focus our wrath where it deservedly belongs. Let us now set upon them on this last great battle for the soul of Scotland. We will not lie down, we will not retreat, we will not stand back and allow our people to be savaged by these toxic Blue Tories.

Do I think it’s astonishing that the Tories/Libdems achieved such a high number of votes in some constituencies whilst their vote share was almost non existent in others?

Does this indicate a ‘resurgent’ Tory/LIbdem element within our polity? Does it fuck.

They can promote the ‘narrative’ of a Tory resurgence in Scotland all they want, the numbers contradict this ruse.

The smaller players have been swept aside, Labour no more, RISE will factionalise, the Greens think they have some great ‘say’ because well, they’re the Greens and they think they’re aw that. The reality is it’s now all about the constitution, the sun has not set on Scotland’s Independence, we must make more hay while our sun shines.

Our time is coming, sooner rather than later. Huv a braw day everyone.

Won’t be long now before one of us SNP + SNP brigade will post that thank goodness the SNP didn’t get an overall majority and this is better. I can imagine their reasoning.

1). The SNP have been seen by many as far too arrogant for the boots for a long time now. They don’t listen, and they don’t even bother replying to their own members. Oh, check.

2). Scotland definitely isn’t a one-party state, it’s SNP and Tory basically. You’re either one, or the other. Hehehe. I admit that’s cheating.

3). If the SNP try to get support in Holyrood for a Refererndum Bill and don’t get it, it will be like 2007-2011 when the other parties denied democracy and were threfore labelled as anti-democratic. Roll on 2021.

4). If the SNP call for Indy Ref 2 and Westminster denies it, that will hack a lot of people off, and make 2021 a walkover for the SNP in the elections.

5). The SNP can now put Independence and Indy Ref 2 firmly back in their manifesto. They no longer have to play the balance between YES supporters and NO-voting SNP supporters. They can talk up Independence as much as they like.

6). Thinking about all that, I think it increases the chance of Indy Ref 2 being called for before 2021.

Thank goodness we didn’t get an overall majority SNP Government 🙂

@ liz at 11.15

I think Allan Grogan was never in RISE; he wanted the SSP to remain separate, and has now resigned from them, rather than from RISE.

@ Jet Jockey at 10.25

Off Topic, but can anyone advise on how to get details of individual polling station results. Thanks.

No. The ballot boxes are taken from the polling stations to the count and mixed together before they are counted, possibly expressly so that results from an individual polling place cannot be identified.

The best you will get is an estimate; polling agents from the parties watch the contents of the boxes being tipped out and try to see a few of them to get a (possibly not representative) sample of the votes.

That is the source of any assertions that such and such a town voted Yes/SNP (combined with canvass returns, perhaps, though that relies on people telling the truth and on enough people being canvassed in the first place).

For that reason, I’m a bit surprised by the report that a box of postal votes in Edinburgh Central were all Tory; I suppose the count there may not have been conducted in the same way as the ones I’m used to, where postal votes were mixed with on-the-day ballots prior to being counted and there would be no way of telling whether they were distributed differently.

This election has brought about some exposure.
There are more SNP MSP’s than the Tories, Labour and Liberals combined.

The Tories came second. This means that the Tories are exposed as they are the official opposition. Their views will therefore be much more public and visible. Ouch!

The Greens are also exposed as they are what prevents the majority government. In other words, what they decide on certain issues will be highly illuminated and in the public domain.
The little extra power that they have now becomes the trap door, because you have to be able to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

It will be interesting to see what happens now.
How the Tories and the Greens behave will be very open to public scrutiny and can be examined.

Labour have the choice to die or to re-invent. Reinvention might be akin to a miracle.
The Lieb Dims have slipped to an embarrassing, but well deserved and irrelevant 5th place, brought about by their own actions. It must be hard to be an irrelevance.

The SNP know how to govern and have governed well over the last two terms. I am sure that they will continue to govern as best as they can. They know how to walk the walk and are used to exposure and all kinds of fabrications and downright lies from the MSM and some other politicians. None of the others have been subjected to this torrent of undeserved abuse.

Wait a minute Chris, does that mean this was wrong?..

link to twitter.com

Ruby

‘It sounds to me as if you have been overdosing on the BBC.’

K1 says:

‘Think I overdosed on the BBC during the election coverage, it just seeps in:’

I don’t watch tv Ruby, I did however watch the coverage via BBC on election night. I’m well aware of the withdrawing of the licence fee as a legitimate protest and a psychological must for one’s sanity.

Can I just very gently ‘suggest’ Ruby that you don’t ‘assume’ and then kinda ‘lecture’ others when you know nothing about them…and also just ‘read’ what they actually typed first, before jumping in with both feet, thanks so much 🙂

Great cartoon Chris.

Thanks for the link @ Ruby, nearly missed it.

Ffsakes… I laughted my head off! WTF was RD thinking, or rather trying to prove jumpin on that bull? Silly arse! I would’ve been sayin, “no way it’s boggin” – wouldn’t have done it for love nor money. I realised then what some of the earlier comments regarding her was about.. 🙂

K1 says:
7 May, 2016 at 7:19 pm

Can I just very gently ‘suggest’ Ruby that you don’t ‘assume’ and then kinda ‘lecture’ others when you know nothing about them…and also just ‘read’ what they actually typed first, before jumping in with both feet, thanks so much 🙂

Ruby replies

What’s wrong with giving others a ‘lecture’?
You’ve just done it to me and I ain’t complaining.

I’m assuming everyone who watches live TV legally does buy a TV licence and that is fine as long as they don’t complain endlessly about the BBC. It gets boring!

If they do I will be giving them a ‘lecture’ and I might even suggest they ‘go to their room’ However in your incase I will be gentle! 🙂

K1 says:
8 May, 2016 at 12:49 pm

Ruby, I didn’t lecture you at all, you didn’t ‘read’ what I actually said,

Ruby replies

Guilty as charged.

You left me a very long post so I’m going to have to leave it until later to ‘read’ it properly.

I promise I will ‘read’ it’s just that most of the time I am multi-tasking.

I’m busy at the moment trying to ‘gently’ persuade all the BBC fans on the other thread to stop giving money to the BBC.

They are all going on about what’s happening on the Andrew Neil, Andrew Marr & Gordon Brewer shows and I haven’t a clue what they are on about!