Trying To Understand
It can be very hard to follow the arguments of people trying to convince you to vote for the SNP on the regional list at next year’s election. Here’s one just a month ago:
So that’s clear – indy supporters MUST IGNORE the “siren voices” telling them to vote for smaller indy parties, because they can’t win any seats and therefore to vote for them is to “throw away” your list vote.
And this was them just two weeks ago, strenuously insisting that the small parties were a busted flush and there was no chance of a “non-SNP route to independence”:
So it was a bit confusing to read this yesterday:
Because all of a sudden, it seems that you CAN vote for the smaller indy parties, regardless of whether they win seats or not, because the list vote will actually be a de-facto referendum and the votes will still count. And indeed, apparently you SHOULD do so, because an SNP-only route – the thing which was the only hope a fortnight ago – is now “totally unachievable” and ONLY working in concert with the smaller indy parties can succeed.
Heavens, what huge transformative event did we miss?
The answer, of course, is none. The ostensible reason for the screeching U-turn is John Swinney’s announcement that he was going to campaign for an SNP majority, something which was always inescapably implied by the idea of voting SNP on the list. All Swinney did was confirm explicitly what the “Both Votes SNP” advocates had been demanding all along.
But which of the strategies is in fact “achievable”? Let’s look at the numbers.
Pretty much every analysis of current polling agrees that the SNP are currently in line for somewhere between 50 and 60 constituency seats. It’s very difficult to see how they could credibly get below 50 given that the “Both Votes SNP” loonies are also trumpeting that Swinney’s party are currently 24 points ahead of Labour.
But let’s dismiss that subsample as an outlier and stick to proper full weighted Scottish polls. The ones conducted in 2025 so far have given the SNP constituency-vote leads of 13, 17, 14, 11, 20, 14, 14 and 11 points. That’s an average lead of 14.3 points. (Only slightly lower than their 2011 lead of 15.7 points, when they did win a majority.)
The SNP vote in those polls, meanwhile, was 35, 35, 34, 34, 35, 33, 33 and 34, which comes out to an average of 34.1%.
How do those sort of numbers translate in an FPTP election? Well, last year’s UK election saw Labour get a vote share of just fractionally below that SNP figure – 33.7% – with a lead over their nearest rivals of only 10 points. On those figures they scooped 65% of the seats they contested and ended up with a crushing majority of 172, one of the biggest in history.
Getting 65% of Holyrood constituency seats would net the SNP 47, but since their vote is bigger, and their lead a whopping 43% bigger, than Labour’s were in 2024 (partly because the non-SNP vote is divided among four significant parties rather than three), it’s very reasonable to assume they’d do a bit better and we can sensibly suggest, for the sake of argument and in line with most projections, 54.
That leaves them 11 short of a majority. Could they make that up in list seats? If you’re a sane person, never in a million years. But we’re not talking about sane people here.
Because according to the “Both Votes SNP” loonies, 2026 represents the SNP’s best opportunity to win list seats since 2007. We must assume that “since 2007” includes 2011, when they won 16 list seats, so “a substantial number” must logically mean 17+.
54 plus 17 is 71 – five more than you need for a Holyrood majority. So if the loonies are telling the truth about the list vote, then an SNP-only majority is in fact perfectly achievable even on current polling.
So what about the alternative plan? Polling for the list vote in 2021 looks like this:
We’ll be super-generous and assign all “Other” votes to the pro-indy side, which gives us an average combined pro-indy list vote of… 42.5%. That’s a LONG way short, and perhaps more pertinently it hasn’t budged an inch since a year ago, when polling first started including Reform and Alba separately. Indeed, it’s lower than the Yes vote in the actual indyref 11 years ago.
(It would also require all the parties involved to make specific commitments in their manifestos that a vote for them was expressly a vote for declaring independence, and there’s precisely zip chance of either the SNP or Greens doing that.)
It’s very hard to imagine what could suddenly boost that long-stagnant figure by a fifth between now and May, especially since Jeremy Corbyn’s new party is likely to pinch some votes from the SNP and, particularly, the Greens. At this moment in time, it’s a hopeless fantasy.
(In the longer term it’s the only viable way forward for the independence movement. But right now, and with the SNP implacably opposed to it, it has no chance. Which merely reaffirms the obvious-to-all-rational-people fact that the single most important prerequisite for progress on independence is the destruction of the SNP.)
We can’t begin to imagine the level of cognitive dissonance it must require to demand independence supporters give both votes to a party whose leader you yourself say is deliberately forcing it off the agenda for “at least” another half-decade.
But we suppose it helps a lot when you’ve already abandoned all pretence of logic to the extent that you’re willing to claim that the SNP are going to win a bucketload of list seats next year. Because hatred and jealousy rot the brain as well as the soul.
Independence has been off the agenda since 2014. The ‘hatred and jealousy causing brain rot’ have polls and policies all to themselves. The stench of rotting souls is the only policy on the table.
In the last few years these are some things that the party for Scottish independence have done that I recall.
Sold offshore renewable rights cheaply
Kept covid restrictions on place longer than needed
Allowed transgender ideology to takeover
Submitted to the UK supreme court over independence
Allowed the ferries affair to continue for to long
Tried to denigrate the justice system by introducing jury less trials,reducing jury numbers and scrapping not proven
Allowed the proliferation of student accommodation in Glasgow and Edinburgh despite mentioning a housing crisis.
Done little or nothing to prevent the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery
So far doing little to prevent Alexander Dennis closure.
Mention if you can think of any more
With friends like this who needs enemies
a Hate Crime Bill that missed out women. Then the misogyny bill not followed up.
Its so annoying and I’m being polite here, when you have so called Indy supporters arguing that JS is a great man FFS please show me where.
The national is so bad with individuals claiming to want Indyref2 and when you here their defence they give for the SNP or its leaders and their logic behind JS Indy plan, you have to ask yourself are these people just a plant who write for the national to get people arguing with each other.
JS said that both Nicola and Humza’s plan wouldn’t have worked how do you know John until you try?
THIS IS FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE DENCE AND I DO MEAN DENCE, IF OUT POLITICAL MSP’S AND GOVERNMENT AREN’T CHALLANGENING WESTMINSTER DIRECTLY WITH ACTION RATHER THAN MEANLESS WORDS, THAT ONLY APPEASE THE SIMPLTONS IN SOCIETY THEN NOTHING WILL CHANGE AND IT’LL THE SAME GROUNDHOG DAY WE ARE ALL TRAPPPED IN FROM 2014 AND NOW LOOKS TO BE 2031.
It says it all when the so-called Indy paper, aye right. Want you to sign up for one year’s membership for £20, that only shows how many people support it and I’m not surprised. This Rag has not achieved anything towards securing Scotland Independence in fact it went out of it way to misdirect the movement and its support of the SNP is threating never sicking to say the least during the Sturgeon era and now Swinney’s.
If John or the SNP was remotely wanting Independence, he’d write a letter to the PM now telling him that the SNP and Scottish government has been seeking a section 30 order since 2015 and that the SNP was going to put in its manifesto one policy on Independence and if a section 30 order wasn’t given than Scotland would seek to remove its self from the UK and form a new Scottish parliament with constitutional powers of a Independent Country, but he won’t and he and the SNP won’t in 2031.
Its time to remove the weakest link in the SNP JS but we can’t afford for SF to take over nothing will change and who ever it is he needs to remove the Sturgeonites supporters for good.
Following the tragic death of Alex Salmond, it’s clear for all to see that Scotland simply doesn’t possess politicians of sufficient intellect and calibre to establish and run an independent country. Any talk of how best to vote in order to advance the cause is therefore rendered completely meaningless.
Hmmm.
Somebody once said that a country gets the leaders it deserves.
That’s why the Orcs always end up being oppressed by a pitiless tsar, no matter what they try to do. They’re Orcs after all.
Alas, if this saying is true, and it seems to be, then in Scotland the reality is that Scotland simply doesn’t possess voters of sufficient intellect and calibre to motivate the kind of politicians who could establish and run an independent country.
Just look at the political dross the majority of Scottish voters have put into power since 2014! In many cases repeatedly, even when it was obvious they were nowt but oxygen thieves.
AlanM/Hatey: it would be informative and interesting to run a poll to see just which politician people believe would be able to not only run a viable and feasible coin try post independence, but who would also be able to negotiate with the British State on our behalf. Not one hoves into view without straining your perspective.
The gender woo woo/woke/dei lunatics, subscribers to the death cult, spineless cowards and hangers-on in the party – in all the parties – cut the balls off the SNP and fed them to the Greens as an appeasement measure. That very effectively castrated the independence movement associated with the SNP and Greens. Was it deliberate? Oh, I think so. Who orchestrated it? The SNP, with a bit of help from Westminster and Whitehall.
We should not be recommending that people do not vote SNP in the second ballot; we should be recommending that they do not vote SNP at all and lend their vote to the coalition independence parties. So long as the SNP can garner votes in the FPTP ballot, in dependence is screwed. SNP loyalty is a guarantee of no independence any time soon – or ever, really, via the SNP.
@Lorn
Robin McAlpine’s latest blog explores the reasons for Kate Forbes standing down.
He reckons she’s one of the best at ScotGov. He reckons she should have been FM. He reckons he knows her real reasons for going.
All of that is all very well, and it may even be true.
But what strikes me is the total lack of “conviction” in her. There is no belief that although things are hard now, by sticking in and working away things can be made better in the future.
It all seems a bit like “I tried – I didn’t immediately get what I wanted/expected/deserved – so meh”.
Juvenile and entitled, in other words. A far cry from the mature behaviour of those who persevere.
And thus useless as leadership material that can inspire and build a following.
Hatey
Did you actually read Robin McAlpine‘s piece? You comment gives no sense of the force of his argument. Since you did not post a link to it, I will.
==========
“Forget the crap – Forbes is leaving because John Swinney’s SNP is a shitshow”-Robin McAlpine
link to robinmcalpine.org
@Cynicus
Scotland is a shitshow too. Perhaps we should all follow Forbes’ lead and leave.
As a high heid yin in the SNP, Forbes bears some responsibility for the dual shitshows of Scotland and the SNP. It is her moral responsibility to stick with it and try to clean up the mess. It’s not as if she won’t be well remunerated for her efforts.
As for all the greetin over the family-unfriendly conditions of being an MSP 4 hours drive away from her constituency, honestly, what the feck did she expect when she started? Are we expected to believe she was blissfully ignorant of Scotland’s geography?
Maybe she is jist standing down because her work is done…
Helped kybosh leadership race for Ash, and helped deliver Freeports and SEZs.
Why anybody would be bigging her up at all when she was instrumental in delivering policies that are “Everything that is wrong in Scotland”, I don’t know.
link to robinmcalpine.org
link to gov.scot
And in her various ministerial roles she was undoubtably aware of and complicit in the shit show that is the ongoing renewables energy farce, with the likes of ScotWind auction giveaway, and Hydrogen production (Equinor), and lack of guaranteed jobs created here in Scotland by those industries.
Whining about the difficulties of the work environment in politics and balancing that with personal life shows a complete lack of awareness and consideration for every other worker that has to try to get by in a society shaped by said well remunerated politicians that delivered policies that will likely only make it harder for workers outside the well paid public sector sinecures to get by.
“Forbes bears some responsibility for the dual shitshows of Scotland and the SNP. It is her moral responsibility….”
========
NO NO. NO
it is the responsibility of Sturgeon, whole and entire. Okay- The two continuity puppets who succeeded her arguably bear SOME responsibility. The dogs in the street know that Murrell rigged the ballot against her in favour of Yousaf when she tried to take on the responsibility you describe.
@Cynicus
It always amuses me to see somebody adamantly maintaining that one single individual forced a government, political party and civil service, totalling tens of thousands of individuals, down wrong paths over a period of years. All by herself.
But don’t you change. We need all the laughs we can get.
As for your belief that somebody who has accepted the burdens and the privileges of public office can just shrug their shoulders, say “it wisnae me” and flounce off, well perhaps there we see in microcosm what’s fundamentally flawed with our people.
It’s as pathetic as those people who never pick up litter because they don’t themselves drop it.
Just as pathetic, I’m afraid, are the people who are happy to applaud that kind of “it wisnae me” behaviour.
How do you see Scotland? Five and a half million powerless, identikit followers, and one single, glorious, omnipotent leader? And if she be good and great, the realm doth flourish? And if she be partan-faced and fond of munching rugs, the realm doth fail?
That’s totally ridiculous, yet you insist that all faults arise from one individual whilst all around her helplessly wring their hands in impotent anguish.
They could hire someone to check if their latest statements are gibberish or if they contradict
Other recent statements prior to them being published or they could read here for free but all just seems so confusing for them.
.
Hi Stuart,
Aplogies Chief, I kinda stopped commenting since having a stroke a while back. But Artificial Intelligence is actually helping with the dyslexia it brought.
Rarely do I wish bad fortune on anyone, but James Kelly’s attempt to suck some financial blood from your website by manufacturing shyte articles is a busted flush and VERY irritating.
That’s deeed-horse fundraiser of his proves this.
Creepy looking Kelly is now broadcasting from his Midden-HQ Junkyard Hoose via You-Tube for more cash and has raised a staggering £8 in the last 24 hours. EIGHT POUNDS in 24 hours!
Yon horse is getting well pumped. I got the horrors seeing and hearing Hannibal McLecter of the…
Pro-independence blog by James Kelly – one of Scotland’s three most-read political blogs.
… on YouTube
If James Kelly is such a smart syphilis-ologist, or even jist with an auld abacus, surely Kelly can coont his fundraiser is stuck with rigor mortis at a terminally miserly £4,468 for a WHOLE year?
Whereas in ONE DAY the smart, forensic journalism of Stuart Campbell was respected enough to raise £139,732 for a Wings £50,000 fundraiser. Fact…
link to archive.ph
So Dr Jimmy Lecter leaching aff o’ this Wings site is pathetic.
Jimmy Lecter, let’s face it… ya daft wee Ned, mibees now is the time to get yer erse doon the job centre and buy a mop and some cleaning products? Ye kin start wi’ yon Hoose o’ yours. Actually putting that place on YouTube in the state ye keep it is an affront. Ya clarty midden-dweller.
If ye need a reference, perhaps ask Mr Campbell, the proper journalist will kindly help you become a Mopologist.
Pure fact, Stuart Campbell is a well respected journalist: link to archive.ph
Jimmy, I would pay to keep you OFF of the internet, as you are a pure irritation and would give the artist Edward Munch a challenge to capture yer visog on a canvas: link to archive.ph
By the way Jimmy, the Wings website owner’s name is spelt “Stuart.”
Where in your idiot mind and micro Scot-Goes-Plop blogette do you get “Stew” spelling fae?
Best wishes on recovery.
Well said Al-Stuart.
Jimmy Kelly appears to be very green with envy of Rev Stu.
Wishing ye guid health and be ye well Al, good to see ye back.
The real Scots know and understand.
Anytime I’ve had a look at James Kelly’s blog posts posts its all anti Alba and or anti Stu Campbell. Its most certainly not a blog site you’d go to for informative, well researched comment. Like the old Duracell bunny beating a drum he just goes on and on and on.
Once he was SNP, then he was Alba, then he was back to SNP. He certainly comes across an an independence spoiler and the question is therefore who is supporting him in his endeavours.
Personally, I think ignoring James Kelli is the best option and eventually Scot will go Plop. That’s it will not mention him again!
He thinks ‘Stew’ will annoy the Rev. He really is a rather sad, pathetic individual these days, desperately trying to find a paying audience for his polling ‘analysis'(spoiler alert, they all point to an SNP landside and no votes for Alba)-zzzzz
Can we not introduce a policy of Assisted Dying for the SNP?
It’s prognosis is terminal decline, so can we not just use next year to save it from a slow and agonising death?
No votes SNP!
A wee bit of euthanasia – great idea!
Good article by Robin McAlpine – thanks Cynicus.
Hello Prickly Pal , good to see you here !
Robin McAlpine:
« It [SNP] fiddled the inevitable need for a rapid replacement to stop the party voting for Forbes (she would be party leader now if there had been a contest) and then fiddled the constitution to prevent a further challenge. It got all its loyal footsoldiers reselected for Holyrood next year. It has forced all critics out of the party. It has watched Alba stutter and die. It has won everything. Now it stands in the ruins and what it won doesn’t look worth winning. It has no ideas, it has no energy, it has no talent, it has little support. It is a faction that cannibalised a party, a party now stripped of all dissent with what is left is barely worth having. »
link to robinmcalpine.org
I do not recognise any party in modern politics that has not cannibalised itself. As we head towards one party politics and one world governance.
They are all acting in a syncronised downfall. Its called prepping for the big moment,
Tories, labour, Snp,
Along side all parties and Councils failing around the world it is notable how they are all going bankrupt but still able to giving our monies away from public purse strings to their ideological beliefs,
From SNP to Starmer they are like magicians making money disappear they claim do not have in the bank of Englands treasury,
And now we have the monarch of England wanting to divert from that so called treaty of union article to be the defender of the faith to incorporate new to the treaty of union faiths.
It is not just Scotlands politicians that have new ideological cult beliefs, and gone rogue, from people,
We are just the corner piece of the bigger jigsaw.and we can only turn Scotland around to stand on its feet when we recognise what the picture of the jigsaw is as a whole unfractured.
The SNP are small players and all the verbal moanings in the world against them in particular will not right Scotland,
The problem is the connection Scotland has to the devolved governance from Westminster, which in turn is nowadays is devolved from the EU, which in turn is devolved from the WEF and in turn from Davos etc,
The solution is to break the Chain,
This is what other Countries that have been forced to follow the same criteria are beginning to recognise, almost to late.
The SNP are just following the one set instructions and funded and financed to do so.
Hence Stuart Campbell’s incisive conclusion above:
« Which merely reaffirms the obvious-to-all-rational-people fact that the single most important prerequisite for progress on independence is the destruction of the SNP. »
When you have walked for hundreds of miles but don’t seem to have gained any milage, perhaps it time to take off the burdensome back pack that holds you back.
Soon in the months coming I will be retiring from political observations here on wings, its been a long journey,
And I like many others greater in commentry than myself have passed along this way,
And like them sadly I will bow out of wings with no advancement on Scottish independence due to aiming at the wrong solution to the problem.
As I leave my old life behind to start anew with a lighter step, I realise that To leave….. I will do so by the same door I came in,
And hope that many if not most will understand that message.
I will comment for a month or two yet, but I am thinking that when I move I will not bother with the internet, or with television, but enjoy the freedom to paint, metal detect, go walks, cycling, continue to learn , enjoy the beauty of the country side of life around me, and meet up with family more often. While still being fit and healthy.
The shennanagans of Politics is a dark world,
But now actual Life is for living.
James Cheyne @ 13.43.
Vaya con Dios amiga, when that time comes.
James Cheyne;
“Were it not folly, Spider-like to spin
The thread of present life away to win
What ? For ourselves who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very breath we now breathe in.”
Sven,
Thanks for that lovely message,
10 years nearly I think when I first came to wings,
prior to that there was nowhere I knew of for a Scottish person or a voice. And nowhere to spend you’re thoughts on matters for the people of Scotland,
In those days I was a cartoonist for two small branches of larger newspapers in different towns, , and as time progressed and we approached 2014 referendum, the bias from those two newspapers was selective in its printing and drowning out local voices.
My political view began to clash more often with my employers, the establishment newspapers. So I resigned an looked for alternative news for Scotland, and from Scots themselves.
Stuart Campbell’s site was the one that everyone was suggesting,
I have made connections with many intelligent people through those years including Alex Salmond at his home,
Whom was encouraging myself to stand for local Council elections, until my Spouse was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
Hence just over ten years later an with sadness I must retire to take in my next new breath to spin a new future life web.
But wish all those that continue to keep Scotlands voice heard all the best in the future from myself.
And a big thank you to Stu and his unique journalism and to his family for putting up with us all these years,
And to the friendly people I have interacted with over the years whilst keeping in mind never allowing the troll establishment voices to drown the Scots voice.
But I am happy within myself and looking forward to changing gears. New perspectives, and new insights, new Scenary.
I have been invited to go out for the day on a moter bike, and someone else has invited me out on a converted golf cart for a cross country and seaside run,
Between, painting, gardening, metal detecting, meeting up with family, and lovely walks in the country with my wee dog,
Life sounds promisingly good at a different pace and rather full in a new direction,
But not moving from Scotland,
A few years back I had a dream, ( literally ) and re occurring, that Scotland would be a independent Country by 2032,
Not long to go,