Wings Over Scotland

Jackie Baillie conceded defeat and after a recount won by 100 votes. How awful is that?

You couldn’t drown a gnat in that depth of talent pool.

Tony Benn listed questions for democratic elections:
who put you there
what power have you got
how can we get rid of you

I’ve no real objections to rejects being on the list. I do object to rejects having two bites of the cherry by being on both constituency and list. That goes for any party.

Animal Farm.

After hearing Kelly on Friday on the radio, I’m embarrassed for the good people of Rutherglen. The man sounded like a charmless Ibrox pundit. Probably one of the reasons the sky above Ruglen town hall is still disfigured by a hideous dishcloth.

Is this the first team or their second team?I’m awfy confused..nae big hitters in there then.

We get rid of them by quietly joining their CLP’s en-masse at least a year before selection begins again.

Then you de-select them.

Job done.

‘Bring it on, Ruth … Sturgeon slaps down “over-reaching” Tory leader’
Herald

Yes!

It should be fun watching ‘Miss Trunchbull of the ‘NO to Independence we are not Tories Opposition Party’ disagreeing with everything the Tory Party in London does.

Was Kezia not an Edinburgh constituency. I think labour will be choking on their words very soon and ruthie too. She only got in by pretending not to be conservative and running a presidential election – most leaflets did not even mention party name far less their manifesto.

I’m glad Findlay and Kelly paid a price for their disgraceful mocking behaviour in parliament especially Findlay who behaved like a hung over teenager. Pity they got in at all – labour would be better off without them.

I still think one day the BBC will have to answer to the people of Scotland for their bias and the part they played in snp baaad rhetoric. Their constitution after all says they are fair and unbiased reporting of news. It should not be making judgements and bias in questions/audiences etc. When you consider BBC and MSM all still backed anyone but snp we still have the vast majority of votes and others will have to work with snp or be named and shamed.

I was pissed off to see that useless idiot David Stewart get in through the back door.

Still going on past form he’d have landed himself a nice little earner somewhere else if he didn’t get a job as an MSP.

Some develepment board or quasi charitable organisation will have provided him with a comfy seat somewhere in the Inverness area.

High time to drop the D’Hondt system surely? It was deliberately selected by the unionist parties to make an SNP majority near-impossible.

Now, it’s also allowing the same parties to keep their apparatchiks in parliament against the electorate’s will.

Single transferable vote, anyone?

Ruby is right. The Tories got in by pretending not to be Tories. Nicola must hold Ruth to account for her deceit in pretending her party isn’t the one behind Scotland’s woes.

She campaigned on the constitution and will be hoisted on her own petard. Devolution sucks and Nicola will be able to point that out time and time again that the Tory-imposed and unionist-imposed restraints on Scottish economy have their origins in devolution.

Bad Pennies.

Or bad smell. Someone has trod on something unpleasant and dragged it into Holyrood

I totally agree, the addition member system, which gives the democratic power to elect the legislature to political groups is fundamentally undemocratic. This system needs revising, a poster said yesterday that the SNP could have a majority again if for whatever reason a labour or Tory resigned or died. No you won’t if he is from the list, it’s not the power of the electorate to decide, a back room cabal of political managers will place someone in that seat. Even worse if he resigned his party membership before death, or was an independent then it’s an empty chair for the rest of the parliamentary term. So the region loses full representation.

The rules need changing, how like labour to devise a system, that at its heart gives the power to decide who will represent you, to political mandarins in smoky back room deals.

If you want to stand for election your name must be on the ballot papers, yes it will be a long list, but the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish people deserve better.

The system isn’t at fault here. It can and has been shown to have pretty fairly provided representation that reflects how everyone voted. Isn’t that what an election result should be?

Anyway, I digress from the main point…

The issue here is labour has put its size 12 clown shoes right back in it again by forcing on the electorate a bunch of rejects. For that alone, we should be thankful. I suspect for their next trick they will accept Ruth Davidsons invitation to work with her against the SNP. The only thing that could take them any lower is if all Labour MSP’s actively participated in a morris dancing competition while dressed in union jacks and simultaneously all sucking Cameron’s dick live for the STV news.

McHaggis69

I’ll think you’ll find that they already do the dancing and sucking!

HandandShrimp says:
8 May, 2016 at 9:05 am

Giving Goose

Not sure who is going to be presiding officer but I think David Stewart might be a possible. Labour have never provided one. The SNP have undertaken the task twice and the Tories and Liberals have done it once each.

Any other guesses who might do the job?

Ruby replies
interesting discussion here:

link to tinyurl.com

“IllyMay 7, 2016 at 6:14 PM

Something that the SNP could do, which I think would be quite sneaky of them, is to stick “whatsisname who left the SNP over anti-nuclear issues about staying in NATO after independence” (I honestly can’t remember his name) in as presiding officer.

It’s a sop to the “Green surge” crowd, but he’s known to be a solidly pro-indy guy, so it would get a safely pro-indy presiding officer, without diluting the SNP numbers.

And I’m not sure the Greens would want to miss the chance to get the crowing rights of having the presiding officer being one of theirs. It would make it even harder to justify them not getting the screen time compared to the libdems.
Reply
Replies

AnonymousMay 7, 2016 at 8:48 PM

Are you thinking of John Finnie?”

Listening to Kezia after being anialated, you would think they had progressed. She said we have good policies, a good manifesto so will continue with this.

But the electorate told you in no uncertain terms that they don’t like you or your policies and cronies Kezia. Why is it a good idea to continue with something so obviously failing.

I think Labour are so thrawn and ultimately dimwitted, that they will proceed as before. There is no learning, no lessons just more bullshit.They are just running down the party until noone even knows they exist anymore.

Clinging onto Britishness and the Union just makes them look like second rate Tories. I think there is no way back and they know it. People now see them as a party which is against Scotland.

Going to be an interesting parliament. Plenty of scope for the SNP to continue as before. They have a mandate to do exactly that.

Labour are not in a in position nor have the skilled people to make their presence felt.

Tories moved up the ladder by pretending not to be Tories. They now have no choice but to be Tories. They think they are going to hold the SNP to account! Nah, at every turn the Tories will be held to account in Holyrood for their actions at Westminster. The true face of the Union will be on show.

They want to be the Union’s champions? Well, they are going to have to answer for every negative impact of their Union!

The Liberals in 5th place are irrelevant.

That leaves the Greens. They dream of dragging the SNP to the left. They aren’t strong enough to exert much influence. Some, perhaps. They owe their success to their stance at IndyRef1. If they back the Unionists against the SNP, they are dead. If the don’t back Indy, should a good opportunity arise, they are dead.

The most egregious example there is that of James Kelly. He made a complete embarrassment of himself during the last parliament and voters really should have had the opportunity to get rid of him.

@Joseph. It seems to me as if SLAB really are on the slab in much of Scotland.

They know they have to become a real Scottish party but don’t have it in them to do that.

Good news for the SNP is they have some fresh blood and a few very credible new younger candidates.
Labour is stuck with the same old duds with makes them even harder to resuscitate.

Ayup, Karma.

Kezia really should have seen that one coming. 🙂

Oh the irony. Claire Baker, rejected by 7,395 votes is their “democracy spokeswoman”. This morning she is calling for Scottish parliament reforms “As a start, the presiding officer and the majority of committee convenerships should not come from the governing party.” Ruthie, who put the Con in conservatives, agrees with her, shock horror.
SNP’s reply: “The shape of Holyrood’s committees is determined by the strength of parties in the parliament – again in line with democratic principles.

“And it isn’t for any single MSP or party – certainly not those who lost the election by a country mile – to try and dictate terms.
link to archive.is

James Kelly is as thick as shit on the neck of a bottle. Sounds like a Donkey on mogadon. If he is Labour’s best then God help them.

@Almannysbunnet

Yessss!

I claim my prize!

I said yesterday, watch them climb back into bed.

Davidson declares herself ‘a John Major Tory’ Is that wise. He lost. Probably sums it up. It’s the cheek of them. Many of them standing for a Parliament they don’t support. They just want to disrupt. A bunch of charlatans.

I would recommend that the SNP put forward legislation to
revisit the current electoral set up as it does remove the
electorate’s right to reject any politician.

The First Minister of course should quote Dipity Dug word for ward and propose that we agree 100% with her and empathise with how disturbed she must be that she and the vast majority of her MSPs are in jobs that the electorate rejected them from.

Will she agree to back legislation to resolve this undemocratic and unjust form of representation, as per her original recommendations??????

The Sunday Mail, not my own, has a front page headline of ” Nice Try Nicola, but still 2 short of a majority”.
Of course this rancid Labour Flag waver is accurate, but it them prints a Picture of Dipity Dug with Specs on, in hope that it might make her look intelligent, or perhaps people might not recognise her as the incompetent.

It was she who was Deputy Leader of Labour’s North British Accounting Unit when they lost 40 of 41 Westminster seats, and of course is now the Leader who took them to their worst election result in 100 years.

The good news is that she is staring afresh, for the 3rd time, in building new Labour, with sand and soft soap.
Not only will that same leader and party continue in a downward trajectory, but the lying rag of a newspaper will
also continue to race toward oblivion.
Do the same thing and get the same results.

Fraser Nelson, the Nelson with 2 Blind eyes, is on Marr TV
to proclaim the wonders of Wee Ruth Krankie.
He seems to consider that she doubled the Scottish Tory vote, but failed to state that her campaign leaflets didn’t name her party as they are such a toxic brand.
Nor does he appreciate that it is not the Tory policies of exaggerated austerity, robbing Scotland, removal of free prescriptions and university education, etc, that increased their votes, but bitter unionists from all parties who put Westminster before Scotland in voting Ruthie.

The giant Fib Dem party in Scotland seem very happy that they will shape Scotland whilst being the 5th Largest Party in country?

I Suppose it makes sense to a party that sees lying and wonton waste of public funds as a normal part of daily politics.

Intrigued by the snippet on the Twitter feed of Brian ‘soothsayer’ Wilson saying that he’s happy about the result. Would love to see more of this. Possible a blog post subject?

O/T Grewat stuff from Bateman

“I’ve just realised after 24 hours of media consumption that Ruth Davidson and the Tories won the election. I got my sums all wrong. I thought 63 was more than 31 and that if you got fewer seats you actually lost the election. Nowadays it doesn’t work that way. If you’re really popular with the media and fit the newspaper proprietor’s agenda, you get to win regardless. Must try to keep up.

Not only that but judging from some shouty comments from Ruth Davidson, she’s now running the country and demanding a promise not to stage a referendum. That’s a referendum on independence, of course. There’s nothing wrong with having one on EU membership against most people’s wishes or having one on not taking in destitute orphans who are foreign or anything else the Tories might fancy.”

The media will not change we just have to let them self destruct.

James Kelly’s name has come up here today, he is an exemplar for Labour Party intelligence, in any other walk of life he would be kept as far away from the public as possible, he is an arrogant, ignoramus, whose sence of entitlement is as disturbing as his party’s stupidity in promoting him.
Every time I hear him speak I wonder what he has on labour, it must be something spectacular, for them to select him, no talent, no intelligence, no decorum, no political acumen, a knuckle dragging, brain addled cretinous creature, even for a political party well known for promoting ineptitude, he is a shining example. His political home is drunk in a old mans pub, after an afternoon shouting and singing ever song in the bigoted football handbook.

Jackie Baillie, who as @Donald Anderson points out won by 109 votes, had of course taken out an insurance policy of being first on Labour’s WoS list, so was either way going to be back in Holyrood. Donald, to answer your question – bloody awful.

I see some of you,s are coming round to objecting to the D ‘Hoytytoyt system. I’ve been sounding out some people for a couple of weeks on getting a Public Petition to have the D’Hoydt system changed FPTP/STV ( whatever system) & another Public Petition in Westminster ( same time if possible) & lets see the Unionists party’s Defend / Reject the Electorial system in Scotland either way we the Voting Public WIN.

Thanks Robert Graham I did know the Electorial Commission is not Devolved.

the reason this list of rogues is so long is a failure of all sides of the yes movement to agree even the simplest stratagy to remove them.

people are happier that these labour creeps got elected and that rise and tommy sheridan got shelved

you reap what sow, suck it up

They were completely irrelevant in the last parliament and will continue to be useless. No chance then of the much wished for recovery of Labour.

I’m broadly happy with the current system of electing MSPs. The make up of the parliament after all does seem to roughly reflect the percentages of how people voted. The only exception is that I agree that candidates who stand in the constituencies shouldn’t be allowed to also stand on the list. The whole reason for having this system rather than just a straight proportional list system is so that we retain something of the best part of FPTP which is that voters can have local representatives. But allowing candidates to stand in constituencies AND on the list makes a mockery of this because it means that voters who don’t like their local M.S.P can’t actually get rid of them.

I’m not sure what if any public office Brian Wilson still holds, but nonetheless you’d think that someone in the Labour party would have a word with him. He has been a prominent member of the Labour party for several decades, presumably a driving force in their strategy, during which time Labour have gone from being the dominant party in Scotland to being almost wiped out-and then he says that he’s happy about that!

Is he an SNP agent by any chance?

I liked Kevin McKenna’s comment that if one were to believe some of the front pages Ruth won the Holyrood election and is now on her way to take on Trump in the Republican nomination battle.

The fall out from these elections has been a trifle odd but the dust will settle quickly as it sinks in that is business as usual and that Ruth’s say does not run far.

The panel on radio shortbread, including the Tory Peter Duncan all agreed that independence is not off the agenda and all eyes must now turn to the EU referendum.

Richard
Yes I agree in principle but the list should be published on the ballot ok it makes for a long ballot paper but this system is a fudge.
Herald no more,
But he isn’t no more, that’s the problem, imagine your boss sacking you, but you think you can continue to work, that’s the system we have.

Wonder what the calibre is of Tory list candidates.Maybe not as bad as this bunch of gravy trainers. Bet there is some doozies in that mob!

Ken500 says:
8 May, 2016 at 9:53 am
Davidson declares herself ‘a John Major Tory’ Is that wise. He lost. Probably sums it up.

John Major won the 1992 election (after 13 years of Tory rule )
752k Scots voted Tory in 1992 , compared to 659k who voted SNP on a 711% turnout

” Many of them standing for a Parliament they don’t support. They just want to disrupt. A bunch of charlatans.”

What do the SNP stand in General elections for then ? they are standing for a Parliament they don’t support .

link to en.wikipedia.org

D’Hondt really is our version of HoL. MSPs soundly rejected at ballot box stick two fingers up to the electorate, get handed a seat, given an expenses account and merrily go on with business as usual, making laws for people they have no mandate to respresent. The cynical two bites at the same cherry shouldn’t be allowed. There should be no overlap. They should have to choose between constituency or list and that’s it.

I don’t like this particular aspect of d’Hondt but in the words of Her Maj, ‘think very carefully’ before you agitate against it. Its proportional. It would be better if we could choose individuals on the list, but then the voting papers would be massive – theyre already big enough.

Swinney’s majority was only 3336, imagine if he had lost his seat and wasnt on the list.

FPTP? after decades of pissing in the wind, voting SNP in the face of a Labour majority of 20,000 while watching Scotland being destroyed by Thatcher – no thanks.

STV? never – dont even go there.

D’hondt is a godsend – its what woke Scotland up to democracy. The first time my vote EVER counted for anything was at the first Holyrood elections in 1999. I’ll bet the Establishment are regretting introducing it – they’d be fcuked if they introduced it in England.

Watch the Establishment now pushing to change the Holyrood system.

SNP stand in a General Election because they have to unless Scotland is disenfranchised even further. In a Parliament where they are outvoted 10 to 1. Every policy the majority in Scotland support including 70% FFA . The VOW – broken promises which influenced the result.

There was no Holyrood Gov in 1992. The point is. Not comparing like with like? While Westminster were secretly and illegally taking Scotland Oil revenues, Keeping it secret under the Official Secrets Act.

John Major then lost a GE. Described Tories as ‘Bastards’ He should know.

Major’s Affair. Tory values

Shocking, this just shows to the extent that Scotland has rejected Labour.
I wonder if Sturgeon will put electoral reform on the table?

My take on the Scottish Parliament Elections –

May 2016: A Historic SNP Victory
link to daisycollinsblog.wordpress.com

I agree with the person above who says that we have a realignment in Scottish politics where it will be the SNP versus the Tories and the Labour party is effectively irrelevant. In this scenario the SNP will be dominant for a long time to come.

It’s not that there aren’t a large amount of conservative people in Scotland, but the Tories are a betrayal of conservative values by being entirely beholden to the English Conservative party. This is why the only people who will vote for them are actual English Conservatives living in Scotland, deluded sectarian types, and weirdos with a grudge against their own people.

I see some people defending the D’Hoydt system & list seats. Question Who is the Holyrood Parliament supposed to represent Scottish People or Political Party’s & as far as I,me aware we the People have no choise in list selection, Democratic is it.???

Alex Johnstone that grossly overweight tory has been doing that for as far back as I can remember, he has never been voted in by the electorate in any election whether it for Hollyrood or Westminster, lost every one but he remains a MSP and contributes very little except writing to papers spouting tunnel visioned unionist crap

Voting in elections in Australia is compulsory. You receive a hefty fine (if your name is on the electoral roll and) if you don’t vote.

The preferential voting system used in Australia for the Australian House of Representatives and for most Australian State elections is outlined under “Instant-runoff voting” on Wikipedia: link to en.wikipedia.org

“Instant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as the alternative vote (AV), transferable vote, (single-seat) ranked choice voting (RCV), or preferential voting, is a voting system used to elect a candidate in a single member constituency from a field of more than two candidates. It is a preferential voting system in which voters rank candidates in an order of preference, rather than voting for a single candidate. Ballots are initially distributed based on each elector’s first preference. If a candidate secures more than half of the votes cast, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated, and that candidate’s ballots are reassigned to the remaining candidates in accordance with the preference order. The ballots are then recounted to see if a candidate has now received a majority. This process continues until one candidate wins by obtaining more than half the votes.”

In effect, you vote for candidates in order of your preference, knowing that if your first preference is eliminated, your vote will be transferred to your second preference, and so on, until one candidate achieves more than 50% of the vote.

Political parties hand out ‘How to Vote’ cards which state their preferred order for your preferences (if you are voting for them first), however citizens are completely free to choose their own order.

This makes it possible to lodge a protest vote to indicate your support for a minor party, without that vote being ‘wasted’. It also makes it possible to vote for the ‘Sun-ripened Warm Tomato’ Party and the ‘Party Party Party’ Party for the purpose of entertainment in an otherwise dull local election without destroying your ultimate vote/voice.

Compulsory preferential voting is a great thing.

Maybe the road to indy is the Catalan way of having two broad shoulders? Two parties to cover the whole left to centre-right divide? Which is maybe 75% of Scottish politics?

Wee Nicola needs to have a private word with Harvie (or maybe Finnie and Wightman): “Together, we will take Scotland to independence. We will move to the right to mop up that area and leave the left for you to hoover up all the RISE + Solidarity types.”

It is hard for one party to be the sole “atlas” carrying the whole indy movement (although the SNP has outdone itself by being so to this day). Maybe the movement of the Greens into fourth place is a very good thing? Get a Green PO at Holyrood to further increase their political presence…

Let us “grow our greens” (!) for them to appear as a sane left-wing party who can provide responsible parliamentary behaviour (they can also attract “Tories who recycle”). And show the centre-right (whom we MUST win to our cause) that Swinney, Nicola and Co provide GOOD SOLID GOVERNMENT, balancing budgets and growing the economy….. unlike the towel-folder and the beastie-mounter*.

[* medieval scenes of the apocalypse always showed a woman riding a beast]

I have said this before, but the simple fact of the matter is, the SNP can only ever fail after Scotland becomes Independent.

The question is now, not will Scotland become Independent, but when will Scotland become Independent?

It is only a matter of time, and the Yoons know this.

I actually have a huge problem with this. A friend of mine was standing on the list for Labour (I know, misguided). He’d have been a cracking MSP and very hardworking. He’s also had a real job in engineering so would bring some perspective. Unfortunately the parachuting in of Westminster failures and the backup of list seats for constituency candidates effectively shot his chances before a vote was cast. I’m not necessarily bemoaning the lack if SLab MSPs of course, but their talent pool is so poor because if the jobs for the boys attitude, and this was a chance to get a decent guy who still has some decent values in. And they threw it away to keep the scumbag Anas Sarwar and his crooked pals in the public purse.

That is why they are never going to recover. Stubborn inability to alter course.

A very little known fact: John Major was in a ‘business meeting’ with George Bush Senior and members of the Bin Laden family, in America, on the day of 9/11.

A no fly zone for non American military aircraft was put in place, except for one flight, One commercial aircraft took off and spirited the Bin Ladens out.

John Major was the PM when the UK first attacked Iraq, and like Blair he seems to have been handsomely rewarded for his loyalty to the ‘good ole US of A’

Great in’ it!

Catalonia is not voting for Independence. EU residents in Catalonia/Spain do not have a vote in Regional/National elections. Not equal rights. Is that Democratic.

People were told vote SNP/Independence 1st and 2nd votes for higher majority.

It was the people who believed fraudulent Pollsters and MSM who ignored the advice are now chuntering on about a strategy. That was the Strategy. Unfortunately some voters still chose ignorance.

in the GE SNP contest 60 seats not 660 seats.

their talent pool is so poor because if the jobs for the boys attitude,

yup,
in a meritocracy, the cream rises to the top
in slab….sh1t floats

@Capella I put that down to Green total lack of strategic thinking.

Or maybe they are crafty wee buggers. By denying an SNP win in Edinburgh central it strengthened their hand. I suspect it was deliberate. In their mind, if nowhere else, they now hold the balance of power.

O/T if there is a Brexit one solution might be for Scotland to remain in the EU but rUK to leave. The precedent is there for only one part of a sovereign state to be in the EU – i.e. Greenland and Denmark.

Scotland gets UK’s seat at the table. EU welcome us with open arms – no accession required, we are already members. We get control of all our own EU subsidies. Westminster and the Union of Parliaments starts to look increasingly pointless. All this will take years to play out. Then and not before, we go for Indyref 2.

Having said all that, bookies odds are still 1/3 remain. I personally will be doing nothing to campaign for Remain – let Cameron do that – I refuse to do his work! The more resources Remain puts into Scotland, the less they have for rUK.

Just watched Ruthie on daily politics. A couple of mildly tough questions from A Neil and she is exposed. He asked why there was no mention of “conservative” on any of her election bumph and he suggested that the tories were still toxic in Scotland, she of course denied it. If we had a truly unbiased media who put her to the test she would crumble and disappear. The woman is a shallow bully. Also, is she the only tory leader, EVER, to wear red all the time. Has this also been carefully choreographed too. She will last as long as the craze for hoola hoops did.

Hubris without mercy, arses saved by D’hondt.

Its all about the rule of Britannia, if it wasn’t for D’Hondt, the tory BBC and press, Scotland would probably be, no, certainly would be an independent nation state today.

D’Hondt, tory BBC, Rule Britannia.

Just watched Ruth MacThatcher lie through her teeth at Ligger Neil, looking old school tory winner on 23% to 77% of the vote.

In any order, BBC Ligger Neil, ultra Scotch cringer, Murdoch henchman asks

“How are you different from the tory English, Ruth MacThatcher?”

Oh, oooh, aaaah, eh, well, eh, ooh…

It astonishes me that some readers of this blog still clearly do not understand the voting system. It has been discussed for months, complete with idiots guides.

It is considerably more proportional than Westminster. It was designed with the ultimate aim of ensuring the SNP could not win a majority. We are, by convincing 46.5% of the voters to vote for us, nearly there. We still have work to do. Especially in seats on the fringes of our Nation.

I believe in proportional representation. It would have made a big difference in the UK if we had done it in the past. I voted against the Liardems proposal in the last UK parliament because I could see they were being ever opportunists, and trying to make a system that benefited primarily them. Had they proposed a truly fair system I would have voted in favour. Had they got their way Cleggie would still be their leader.

I think that the Holyrood system in a post independence Nation will lead to instability. There are still proportional systems which are used in other countries we may need to borrow from.

But that is a matter for us after we are independent.

I cannot conceive of a system where the voters will be able to outvote the party machines or membership in the composition of their slates. Labour has a problem for instance where the members like Mr Corbyn but the MP’s detest him. We have seen some people elected here on some slates here whom we despise. But voters are rarely engaged with politics, and that is the same everywhere in the world. The party machines will game the slates whatever happens.

We got the SNP majority in 2011 by fluke. We got Indyref1 because of politics. We have more prospect now of winning our freedom than we ever had the day the SNP won in 2011.

If we had achieved the much opined 53% or more the polls were trailing we would all be crowing here. The system is proportional. If we can get to a position by 2021 where we have Indy as a manifesto commitment and 55% or more of the voters vote for us on the day. We will have a clear mandate that the will of the Scottish people is for that independence. Meantime can we all forget the spilt milk, and move on.

We can have some real fun now that we have the Tank Commander as lead opposition. Kez was so bad you ended up having sympathy for her. Ruthie is almost a minime Thatcher. And what a bunch of rejects from a UKIP branch she has alongside. Get the popcorn in.

I was thinking that this election result, whilst obviously “not good” wasn’t a total disaster however I’ve come to think there’s a way the unionists might be able to capitalise on it?

Be as obstructionist and awkward as possible (doubtless what they feel the SNP MPs are like in Westminster), vote against bills as much as possible, attempt to insert amendments (blatant wrecking amendments, more subtle crippling ones but also ones that are workable but support their interests), always vote for more debates (i.e. delay voting as much as possible) and generally make it as hard as possible for Parliament to vote out any new laws.

Then for all the upcoming elections through to and including the next Holyrood elections in 2021 campaign (as they did this time) on the basis that “the SNP are obsessed with independence and refuse to actually govern” and point to Holyrood’s inaction as “proof”.

Look two articles back

better still try thinking for yourself

the reason we are in this situation, ie the yes movement is now dead, is because Stu, kelly, bella, peter bell, commonspace, rise solidarity the greens and the snp bloggers spent the election bickering amongst themselves.

they are all to blame

Hubris on us too, Anas Sarwar Holyrood’s a dictatorship, not democratic. Anas Sarwar MP

Anas Sawar MSP

link to youtube.com

Either or.

Thanks again D’Hondt.

Tut! I get annoyed when poster discuss what is happening on live TV!

Although on saying that it’s good to know which progs will be worth watching on the iplayer.

Lecture over!

It’s amazing how short the memories of some people are.

Very few seem to remember how the majority of SNP MSPs came to be elected in 1999/2003. Losing constituency candidates elected from the list made up the vast majority of those MSPs. Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Neil, Kenny McAskill, Linda Fabiani, Shona Robison… The list goes on.

DavidB
You are saying democratic power should be held by political parties, your argument that people are not bothered is pretty poor, leave it to the parties, but David political power belongs in the body of the electorate, not slates? Also you confused me if the system isn’t safe after independence then it’s not safe now.
The list system is not democratic in its foundation.

But I agree, the parliament is going to be very confrontational, especially if the tank commander thinks she’s parking her tanks on our lawn!

I was going to say more but my arm has decided to take a holiday!

There is/are billions of tons of natural gas under Orkney and Shetland worth nearly 1 trillion, plus all the jobs,

Hydraulic fracturing is the only way to get at it,

i would never want Hydraulic fracturing on the mainland because of water contamination with all the toxic chemicals that are pumped into the earth,

but the Orkney and Shetland Islands are far enough away that there will be no harm to us,

just sayin ken.

As others have said
Just finished watching Sunday politics and the SNP clearly won the election but they also definitely lost as well

So on that basis Scotland and the FM can, (as runner up and long way behind Ruth Davidson says) “take a hike”

Democracy’s what I say it is (Tory party policy)

SC

Elections always bring out the worst in politics.

I don’t particularly blame the bickering, it wasn’t at the worst end of the spectrum. I haven’t fallen out with any Green friends. What was an issue was that people that don’t care for independence picked up on the confusion and started telling us in the MSM that it would be a good idea to do this or that for a better indy2 attempt.

We should be grateful that they came late to the party with this strategy.

However, the outcome is not as bad as people are making out. The SNP had 65 seats on the Thursday and woke up to 63 on Friday. The Greens had 2 plus 2 semi-attached independents/former SNP people. On Friday they had 6.

The situation is barely changed and despite Ruth’s best efforts nearly 50% voted for Indy parties.

The wheels are still on the bogie and people on Bella, Wings and Scot Goes Pop need to take a chill pill. We are still in this and in the driving seat.

Commonspace, as its name suggests, gives space to all sorts of ideas. I would not class it as an Indy site per se. Some of the articles there are excellent, some are little more than flame bait.

Worth bracing myself to watch Tankgirl (even Marr called her that) on ligger Neil.

Over to Edinburgh on the screen, so her face is bigger than usual, and in glorious detail, the rictus grin just slides off her face, and the wee corners are down turned.

Nasty shallow witches are always close to exposing themselves.

DavidB , it is a slow and unrelenting journey towards Independence. Next? The Council elections.

I watched Frank McAveety the other night on the Beeb’s election special..Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!He is the epitome of a bloated Tamanny Hall carpetbagging politician.

The SNP and the Greens must start NOW, and put together a nationwide team of LA candidates, good people, able people, a band of citizens capable and willing to wrest control of our Councils from this corrupt bunch of Unionist carpetbaggers once and for all.

The next step on the road to Hail Alba is to boot McAveety and his ilk out of office any political office of any shape or form.

City Car Parks? City Building? £11 million in taxi fares?
Police investigations. Matheson Square. Sex and rugs scandals?

Cosla? Why 32 councils for a population of 5.3 million?

Yorkshire with the same population has THREE Councils

We have 32 of everything, with Executive teams on six figure salaries, many of whom are Unionist political appointments.
The political Unionist rot runs right through our corrupt London Establishment society Up Here.
The fight, and ”fight’ is now the watchword, enters its critical phase.
Let’s hear it, Ms Davidson. Why does she think that we shall not hold her accountable for her WM Party’s attack on our society?
She is probably that thick, right enough.
Onwards. Aux armes, citoyens.
That’ll get me flagged up on GCHQ’s big screen.
Morning, Spooks.

The election is now over. Thank fuck for that. Can we please, pretty please get away from the tribal pish that has divided us.

The unionists are able to do it- they can unite, they can agree a strategy, they can work together. Anyone reading the Wings threads and other pro-indy sites from the unionist side must be laughing their asses off at the bile and negativity.

The time for a strategy for the election between the pro-indy parties was a year, 2 years ago. They didn’t meet or if they did they never got it sorted out. So the parties didn’t cooperate- they competed.

Now that is all fine in a democracy. We are at the beginning of a third term for the SNP and slab have been vanquished. The true enemy- the tories are now going to be exposed and Ruth Davidson’s tory party will have to answer for every policy Cameron and Osborne dreams up.

The unionists are terrified of a second referendum and the real prospect of that if we get dragged out of the EU against our wishes is now so real that they are desperate for Nicola Sturgeon to rule it out- even though she has no ability to do so.

I am not going to be stripped of my EU citizenship- I would happily take to the streets to assert it.

Watched ‘Winter on Fire’ on Netflix again last night. Anyone getting tied up in knots over d’Hondt or Bella caledonia or the Greens or indeed the prominent indy supporters bickering and blaming and stoking up this bitterness to the enormous satisfaction of our unionist enemies… they should sit down and watch the struggle of the Ukrainians against their government.

It is humbling and inspirational to see folk from all walks of life unite against a common enemy, using the skills they have to construct defences, to setup medical centres, to simply put their bodies between the Berkut riot troops and the women and children and elderly of Ukraine.

It reminded me of that glorious movement I was and am proud to be a part of.

We have a different type of struggle and we need to set about it with renewed vigour and intelligence. Work out who our real enemies are and act to neutralise them. Here’s a wee hint for those people of all stripes in the Yes camp- it isn’t Patrick Harvie, it isn’t Alison Johnstone, it isn’t Stuart Campbell and it isn’t Lesley Riddoch and it isn’t Kevin Williamson and it isn’t Iain Macwhirter and it isn’t James Kelly.

United we will win- divided we will not- it is as straightforward as that from what I can tell.

Enjoy your sunday- and find that documentary on Netflix.

Schrodinger’s Cat @ 11.10

Thank you. Couldn’t have put it as well myself, but at least I can stop biting my typing finger now.

it wasnt the msm telling us what to do, it was wos, kelly, rise, bella etc who were doing this. had these groups come to a consensus, the yes movement would have followed.

The MSM told us it was a guaranteed massive SNP majority. Most sneaky in all of it was The National. It probably did mean fewer YESers going to vote or at least kept voter turnout at normal levels.

Its clearly solid 50/50 yes/no in Scotland now. It may be higher Yes, if they had turned out to vote May 5 but here we are.

D’Hondt – or more specifically the Scottish D’Hondt system with more constituency MSPs than List MSPs thereby not being completely proportional – was designed by Unionists to try and keep out the SNP.

Now with the SNP and Greens in the ascendant, it’s the Unionist parties that benefit from the List. That’s fairly ironic and they must be glad of a proportional system.

I share the frustration that List members seem unelected. However this could be remedied by listing the List members for each region on the List ballot and voters when voting for their List party rank their preference for the List.

D’Hondt is then worked out as normal with say Labour winning 3 regional seats and then Labour’s list votes are checked on ranking to see who are the top 3 ranked by the Labour voters; similarly with the Greens, Tories, SNP etc.

That way every parties voters can have a choice of whether they want to see fresh talent or yesterday’s losers in place.

I think if we move to online voting all these options and more could be easily open to us.

The premise of the argument is faulty , In the constituency vote , people are voting for their party as well

So If you “put a Turnip up in West Fife ” , they would vote for it and the SNP , bit like they did with Labour for decades .

So by your argument none of the Beetroot’s and Potatoes , should be able to get in .

The result of the election reflects (roughly) the first choice voting intentions of Scots .

22% of electorate voted Tory (in the constituency ) …..they get 24% of MSP’s .

Heedtracker:

There could never have been a FPTP Scottish Parliament as there was no consensus for it and no-one would accept mass Labour hegemony on less than 50% of the vote. The system was a reasonable compromise. I think too much is made of the idea that it was all aimed at taming the SNP: no-one could have predicted the shift in political fortunes that we have witnessed. (Just see the stunned rabbit-in-the headlights situation that Labour finds itself in as evidence).

Labour had a policy that prevented their people standing on both the list and constituency. That policy was borne of their overblown confidence that their core vote would never leave them. Defeat in 2007 should have been a warning, but they were in such denial that in 2011 they maintained that policy and it slaughtered them in the Parliament, leaving the like of James Kelly as front bench material.

No-one can see a way back for SLAB but that is not say it couldn’t happen. Unlikely to be any time soon though…

The next stages of this will become apparent soon, then we will be able to judge how best to go forward, that is what the SNP will do. The Unionists are not going to have the success they hope for.

What we really need to be thinking about now is planning to get rid of the deadbeats that run the majority of our Councils.
We need the SNP to have a solid plan with this, in order to be able to run them out of town.

I’m looking forward to the first Scottish budget
Will the SNP manage to get through the reduction on APD?

Or will it be ditched thanks to the Tories

I am all for reducing and getting rid of the idiotic tax

But I suspect that many that voted Tory will rue the day they did vote Tory and end up still paying too much for their holiday flights

Would like to see Recall of MPs Act (enacted last year by Westminster) extended to include recall of MSPs as a way of getting rid of failing and corrupt MSPs.

Unfortunately not in time to address the Frenchgate/Carmichael fiasco, but might go some way to addressing the election of list MPS who do not fulfil their role as representatives of their constituents.

Would like to see SNP government enact this legislation early in the new parliament.

Our SNP candidate, Alison Dickie in Edinburgh central, decided on principal not to stand on the list. Sadly she lost after an amazing campaign from her and her team.

How many constituency candidates were also on the list? If it works like that.

@Tam Jardine

Yep, I hear that.