The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


The scores on the doors

Posted on April 06, 2012 by

Attentive viewers will recall this blog’s investigative journalism of last month, when we went searching for Scotland’s most prominent missing person – Scottish Labour’s alleged leader Johann Lamont. We were so concerned about her sudden dramatic disappearance from the nation’s airwaves shortly after her election that we were prompted to start an ongoing daily log of all political appearances on the Scottish media, which a couple of you have even very kindly been helping us to maintain.

With the Scottish Parliament in recess for Easter and the first quarter of 2012 just over, it seemed a good time to take a look at the old scoreboard, and as for the results… well, you’ll have had bigger surprises, let’s put it like that.

8 APPEARANCES

Anas Sarwar (LAB)
John Swinney (SNP)

7 APPEARANCES

Ruth Davidson (CON)

6 APPEARANCES

Nicola Sturgeon (SNP)

5 APPEARANCES

Ken Macintosh (LAB)
Michael Moore (LIB)
Alex Salmond (SNP)

4 APPEARANCES

Margaret Curran (LAB)
Patrick Harvie (GRN)
David Mundell (CON)
Wille Rennie (LIB)
Humza Yousaf (SNP)

3 APPEARANCES

Douglas Alexander (LAB)
Christine Grahame (SNP)
Hugh Henry (LAB)
Cathy Jamieson (LAB)
Johann Lamont (LAB)
Shona Robison (SNP)
Jim Wallace (LIB)

2 APPEARANCES

Danny Alexander (LIB)
Willie Bain (LAB)
Jackson Carlaw (CON)
Nick Clegg (LIB)
Angela Constance (SNP)
Alistair Darling (LAB)
Kezia Dugdale (LAB)
Linda Fabiani (SNP)
Stewart Hosie (SNP)
Richard Lochhead (SNP)
Lewis Macdonald (LAB)
Derek Mackay (SNP)
Angus MacNeill (SNP)
Stewart Maxwell (SNP)
Jack McConnell (LAB)
Jeremy Purvis (LIB)
Richard Simpson (LAB)
Jo Swinson (LIB)

*We haven’t listed anyone who made only one appearance. It’s a bank holiday.

A pretty pitiful showing from the Scottish Labour leader, then, in a period which has seen many dramatic developments in Scottish politics you’d have thought she might want to comment on. Her last appearance was over a month ago (March 4th), and two of them came within two days of each other, with her only other showing being on BBC Scotland’s Newsnight debate way back in January.

Her deputy Anas Sarwar, on the other hand, has been far and away Labour’s most prominent face and voice, with 60% more appearances than the party’s next-most-frequent visitor to the broadcast studios, finance spokesman and unsuccessful leadership candidate Ken Macintosh.

Total appearances per party, incidentally, stack up like this for the listed figures above:

SNP 39 (+15 one-off appearances, total 54)
LAB 37 (+15, total 52)
LIB 16 (+6, total 22)
CON 9 (+16, total 25)
GRN 4 (+2, total 6)

Or put another way, that’s 60 TV and radio slots for pro-independence parties and 99 for anti-independence parties. Or 38% of airtime for the parties occupying 55% of Holyrood seats, and 62% for the parties holding the other 45%. The biggest beneficiaries of the pro-Union imbalance are the Lib Dems (who got almost four times as much representation as the Greens despite having only two-and-a-half times as many seats, and only fractionally less than the Tories despite the latter having three times as many MSPs) but all of the pro-Union parties get more coverage than they numerically merit, as do the Greens. Of all Scotland’s elected parties in the Parliament, only the SNP are under-represented by national broadcast media.

Representation by proportion of Holyrood seats, then, comes out as:

SNP: 34% of appearances (53% of seats) net result -19%
LAB: 33% appearances (29% seats) net +4%
LIB: 14% appearances (4% seats) net +10%
CON: 16% appearances (12% seats) net +4%
GRN: 4% appearances (2% seats) net +2%

*Figures rounded to nearest whole number, so don’t total exactly 100%

So that’s the Scottish political and media report card for the first session of 2012, and it doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know – Anas Sarwar is the real face of Scottish Labour, Johann Lamont has made herself available for questioning less than any other leader, and the views of the electorate are not represented fairly by the country’s media, with the SNP (and more importantly, its voters) routinely discriminated against in favour of all three Unionist parties.

If you made it this far, join us again in the summer, when we suspect the story will be much the same.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

6 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Angus McLellan

Correction needed please: Humza Yousaf is too good for the Lib Dems.

22bstar

are there any polling numbers for the Scottish local elections ?

Seasick Dave

Shurely 39 + 15 = 54 and 37 + 15 = 52?
Just saying.

So is there about to be an even keel any time soon ha ha ha ha ha ,what we we do if it was a level playing field faint?its easir going uphill because on the way down that is where the Unionists are.
 


  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

    Stats: 6,673 Posts, 1,203,196 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • willie on The Next Government Of Scotland: “Very good point Monica Worley. Voters have no where to go. The election but last was the opportunity for voters…Nov 25, 23:00
    • Alf Baird on A Personal Best For Kezia: “British identity is also a cultural illusion which many buy into.Nov 25, 22:52
    • Hatey McHateface on A Personal Best For Kezia: “What happened to you? You’ve become like Winston Smith at the end of 1984, a pathetic husk of your former…Nov 25, 22:13
    • Hatey McHateface on A Personal Best For Kezia: “In 2024, the political “right” has what our grandparents would have described as centre ground policies. That’s how far the…Nov 25, 22:05
    • James on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Clown.Nov 25, 21:50
    • robertkknight on A Personal Best For Kezia: “If an infinite number of Kezia Dugdales sat in front of an infinite number of typewriters and randomly pushed the…Nov 25, 21:37
    • sarah on The Unbargain Bin: “Thank you!Nov 25, 21:33
    • Ted on A Personal Best For Kezia: “There ain’t no stopping Reform UK, certainly not by a “centre left alliance”. It’s “centre left” that’s got us where…Nov 25, 21:14
    • Captain Caveman on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Maybe in the Scottish parliament there will be some lame, moribund left wing “coalition of the clueless” along these lines?…Nov 25, 21:00
    • John Moss on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Not going to happen. Simples ?Nov 25, 20:58
    • Hatey McHateface on A Personal Best For Kezia: “You quite sure these parties don’t exist? A heck of a lot of Scots vote for them, time after time…Nov 25, 20:56
    • Hatey McHateface on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Ach, it’s a puff piece not worth the paper it’s printed on. Nobody, but nobody, can see past February 2025,…Nov 25, 20:49
    • Robert Hughes on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Genius ! Maybe this suggested Coalition of the Centre Dim would be able to call on a reciprocal gesture from…Nov 25, 20:43
    • Ian McCubbin on A Personal Best For Kezia: “The only votes in 2026 worth making for independence are Alba, ISP , New Scotland party . An SNP/Labour alliance…Nov 25, 20:35
    • James Gardner on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Joined at the hip…..Nov 25, 20:21
    • holymacmoses on A Personal Best For Kezia: “With all due respect Kezia was in alliance with the SNP years ago:-)Nov 25, 19:44
    • Mark Beggan on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Roles in Life Politicians Salmond played the role of Independence leader. Sturgeon played God Swinney plays the Butler Flynn plays…Nov 25, 19:41
    • Craig on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Christ, is there no way we can stop her name in the public domain. Everytime I see or hear her…Nov 25, 19:39
    • Republicofscotland on A Personal Best For Kezia: “The Emperor has no clothes on – as the saying goes, this in mind that there is no such party…Nov 25, 19:36
    • Mark Beggan on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Kezia is a Bisto Kid.Nov 25, 19:22
    • Mark Beggan on A Personal Best For Kezia: “Smarty people are happy people.Nov 25, 19:20
    • Aidan on The Unbargain Bin: “To the latter question, the normal response is a load of abuse, with random capitalised words, no punctuation and normally…Nov 25, 19:11
    • Morgatron on A Personal Best For Kezia: “If brains were chocolate she wouldn’t have enough to fill a smartie.Nov 25, 19:01
    • Hatey McHateface on The Unbargain Bin: “It’s all over the MSM, sarah. This link is as good as any. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/22/equality-laws-protect-pregnant-men-snp-ministers/Nov 25, 19:00
    • Hatey McHateface on The Unbargain Bin: “Dinna be sic a sleekit wee beggar, Breeks. Spit it oot. Fit “madness” is that? Fa’s speikin oot against it?Nov 25, 18:58
    • sarah on The Unbargain Bin: “You aren’t serious, are you?Nov 25, 18:31
    • twathater on The Unbargain Bin: “Holyrood Mandy got some of her article right BUT she could have stopped after the praise about Salmond, to even…Nov 25, 18:07
    • Breeks on The Unbargain Bin: “Apologies if this has been flagged up before… I only caught it doing the rounds on catch-up. Craig Murray on…Nov 25, 17:58
    • gregor on The Unbargain Bin: “Out Of Eden: Every Move I Make: “Every step I take I take in You You are my way, Jesus…Nov 25, 17:50
    • Hatey McHateface on The Unbargain Bin: ““It’s all very well having recognition from Iran and South Africa” Perhaps you should pay more attention to the BTL…Nov 25, 17:48
  • A tall tale



↑ Top
125
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x