Jeremy's Den: 2020

31/12/2020

House Of Cards - The Final Cut?

You got to strike when the moment is right without thinking

And after a while you can work on points for style

Like the club tie and the firm handshake, a certain look in the eye and an easy smile

You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to

So that when they turn their backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in

(Roger Waters, Dogs, 1977)

Pigs On The Wing © Roger Waters, 1977

Dogs © Roger Waters, David Gilmour, 1977

And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown

And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone

And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around

So have a good drown as you go down all alone, dragged down by the stone

(Roger Waters, Dogs, 1977)

Remember that joke I told on Twitter about future historians writing about 2010s' Britain? Would be a shame if you didn't as I told it twice. Anyway, third time's a charm, so here we go again. First they had the worst Prime Minister in living memory. Then they had the worst Prime Minister in living memory. And finally they had the worst Prime Minister in living memory. There's something of a pattern emerging here, as I can honestly say that 2020 was the worst year of my life, but wasn't it for all of us, give or take? Now I have a hunch that 2021 will be the worst year of my life. And 2022.... who knows? Then I have a feeling '21 is gonna be a shit year for Boris Johnson too, especially as he and us won't see it out together (to be sung to the tune of The Who's "1921", but "1951" from the movie works too). More on this later. Of course recent polls are as contradictory and confusing as usual. Johnson's standing has indeed improved in the 'Preferred Prime Minister' polls, which will come as a surprise only to those who have shielded themselves from any exposure to Keir Starmer recently. I guess many peoples' thoughts on Sly Keir have gone from "now that's the lad who can beat Boris" to "how come he can't do better than Corbyn in 2017?" and now "could he really do worse than Corbyn in 2017?". While many, including himself, probably dreamed of him as Blair 2.0, he has emerged over time as worse than Kinnock 2.0, and it shows in the polls.

Of course this month's major event, the Eleventh Hour Deal, could significantly impact Boris's fortunes, and I must admit it left me quite puzzled. Like many, I was totally convinced Boris was deliberately heading for a No Deal so that he could pose as the Hero of English Resistance to the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. And it was also the surest way dosh-heavy tax-evading Tory donors could cash in on their disaster-capitalist gambles against the pound. We had a first hint things were starting to move when Johnson backed down on all punishing provisions relating to Northern Ireland in the Internal Market Bill, just hours after he had whipped his MPs into overturning the Lords' amendments that had removed them. And now Northern Ireland has been granted a special status, with some key provisions managed by the Republic of Ireland. Then unexpected U-turns happened on two key issues: fishing rights and regulations. The EU first proposed that the UK could repatriate 18% of the EU's fishing fleets' catches over ten years, then amended it to 25% over six years. The UK started with 60% over three years, never amended it, and after much haggling agreed to 25% over five and a half years. Six months earlier than the EU offered can't be spun as a Boris victory. And all the surplus mackerel in the world won't make a fucking difference.

There had also been lots of saber-rattling over the EU standards, with the UK claiming they would no longer be bound by rules they had no part in making. End result is wrapped in enough legalese that both sides can claim a win, but the dry fact is that the UK will still have to comply with EU standards on environmental, social and labour issues, or else risk sanctions taken directly from the WTO's playbook. These same WTO rules Boris said would give the UK the best of both worlds. Double whammy here being that the mutual recognition of trusted trader programmes means that UK producers will also have to fully comply with EU security standards. So on two key issues, Boris capitulated and all he got in return was jeopardising the export of Scottish seed potatoes. Something he might actually have considered a victory, as it was sure to piss off those pesky Nats, which it instantly did. And Bozo didn't make it really better when he later wafflingly admitted that he had fucked London too with concessions that will hurt the finance sector. An admission of guilt that Rishi Sunak felt compelled to correct, and I haven't the fuckiest scoobie why. Or have I?

Body language and the look in his eyes say it all, don't they?

Finally we had this outburst of Tory propaganda, specifically targeting the SNP, about 'voting against the deal is voting for no deal'. Which of course is total crap, legally and constitutionally, no matter how loudly the Tories say it and Keir Starmer or Stu Campbell repeat it. A turd wrapped in fancy paper is still a turd. They key principle is that the vote was not about the content of the deal, but only about giving the Government the power to implement it in domestic law. Because the deal itself is an international treaty, and Parliament does not have the power to ratify or overturn them. This is the Government's prerogative. Mike Russell made that point during the Scottish Parliament debate, and Joanna Cherry published a more detailed explanation in The National. Note that, if Parliament hypothetically had had the power to reject the content of the deal, which they did not have, the next step would have been to send the whole thing back to the drawing board and renegotiate with the EU. Even in that hypothetical situation, a de facto No Deal would have been possible only because it was a last-minute vote and Boris had already made an extension of the transition period impossible in earlier legislation. Remember what Theresa May did when her own versions of some deal were voted down, and she never used that fake argument that voting her deals down was voting for no deal. The Tory propaganda bureau just made that one up to score a cheap point against the SNP. And when all the lies are debunked, all that's left is Boris Johnson fucking Scotland again, and Labour gleefully lending a hand.

Back to the business at hand, the most recent polls also show that New New Labour has lost momentum (daft pun fully intended) after successfully overturning a 26% Tory lead earlier in the year. More recently, a long series of polls have shown Labour and the Conservatives statistically tied in the popular vote, which is enough to deliver a 20-30 seats' lead for the Conservatives thanks to the in-built gerrymandering that the Conservatives plan to make even worse in the next Boundary Review. Which is definitely the right moment for Sly Keir to try and deepen the rifts within Labour. You just have to wonder where Keir got that weirdo idea that it was even remotely clever to whip his MPs into voting for Bozo's deal, which has already been convincingly proven worse than Theresa May's. Whatever the reasoning, it's definitely a lose-lose attitude, as Sly Keir can no longer demand that Boris "own it" when he has made himself the de facto co-owner. Which has of course come under fire from both ends of the spectrum, from Remoaners to Lexiters, whilst triggering further resignations from an already thinned frontbench. Now all we need is Owen Jones adding his brand of spice to the broth, trying to prove that bothsidesism is the answer to all of Labour's self-inflicted woes, while contradicting himself from one paragraph to the next. Which of course is a timely reminder that a chimpanzee is more likely to type the full original text of The Canterbury Tales right on his first try than Wee Wokowen to write anything about British politics that even remotely makes sense. Anyway, we are now faced with the near-Doomsday scenario where the Conservatives lose the election but Labour don't win it, so the final choice is in the hands of that third party neither want anywhere near the power centers in SW1. You got it: those pesky Scottish Nationalists, who Keir has managed to infuriate just as much as Boris, not least of all with his bizarre idea to bring back Gordon Brown as the oven-ready world-beating expert on devolution.

We also have some conflicting views on how Labour would do in the proverbial Red Wall seats that turned blue a year ago. First we had a targeted poll predicting a 7.5% swing from the Conservatives to Labour in these seats, which would mean Labour would gain back 36 of the 45 seats they lost there a year ago. Such a result is definitely supported by the trends of national polls, but then The Guardian felt they had to explain us why this would never happen. Not just once, but twice on the same day. Before retracing their steps and detailing why and how Labour would stage a decisive comeback in the North. Which can only make you wonder what The Guardian really think and who they support. Unless it's just all Guardian columnists aligning on Owen Jones: say one thing one day and the exact opposite the next, so you still have a wee chance of being right once in a while. Anyway, the most recent polls we have now are nine days old. Guess the pollsters are off on a break right now, probably not to Amalfi, but I hear Margate's lovely this time of year. So we have no idea yet what the fallout of the Bozo Deal and the Commons' vote on it can possibly be. I feel pretty miffed it turned out better for Keir Starmer than I expected, with only ONE Labour MP defying the whip and voting against the deal, and just another 36 (or 38 if you add Corbyn and Webbe) abstaining. Interesting too that not even one Conservative MP agreed with Theresa May's scathing takedown of the deal and didn't vote for it, not even Treeza herself. But this whole chain of events will probably hurt Keir and Labour more than Boris and the Conservatives. The first batch of 2021 polls will be fun to watch and decode. Will they signal a shift in voting intentions and a new trend? That's anybody's guess right now.

Big man, pig man, ha, ha, charade you are

You well heeled big wheel, ha, ha, charade you are

And when your hand is on your heart

You're nearly a good laugh, almost a joker

(Roger Waters, Pigs (Three Different Ones), 1977)

DISCLAIMER: this video contains scenes some people might find disturbing

With your head down in the pig bin, saying 'Keep on digging'

Pig stain on your fat chin

What do you hope to find down in the pig mine?

You're nearly a laugh but you're really a cry

(Roger Waters, Pigs (Three Different Ones), 1977)

Let's face it, the Conservatives are now doing pretty badly in Scotland, Wales and London, plus all the English regions where Labour are licking their wounds, biding their time and waiting in ambush. And all the English regions where the Tories still do well are in Tier 4, which is definitely not a good omen for a party that gets smashing results with the 65+. Of course this doesn't mean Labour should order champagne just yet, before Brexit makes you wait two months for a properly red-taped case from France. Them doing well in Wales, London and in the North doesn't mean Not-Too-Hardy Keir will move to Number Ten after the next election. The true measure of success for Keir would be matching Tony Blair's performance in 2005. Back then Labour bagged 355 seats. If you factor out 40 Scottish seats that are now lost forever, that would still leave Labour with 315 seats. Enough for Labour to claim victory and find their way to a majority coalition. They would already have 2 more seats with SDLP supporting them, and getting both Caroline Lucas and the Liberal Democrats on board shouldn't be too difficult. But the current seat projections fall far short of that. These are based on just the immediate pre-Christmas polls from YouGov and Survation, with an aggregate sample of 2,724 and a theoretical margin of error of 1.88%. The weighted average of these two polls would be slighly better for Labour than the overall long-term trend, as it says Labour would win the popular vote by 2.2%, and that would deliver, on average of all projections, the rarely seen perfect tie in seats. Because, ye ken, the gerrymandering and... wait... errm.... I've said that before, haven't I?

It might not be an actual deliberate gerrymandering though, but just the unintended consequence of the rules of reapportionment. UK law says the allocation of seats in based on the electorate, which under-represents regions with low voter registration, which coincidentally tend to be more Labour-leaning. And also slightly over-represents Scotland, where voter registration is higher than the English average. A population-based allocation of seats, as is done in France or the United States, would increase representation of the North and London by 15-20ish seats overall, while decreasing Scotland's by 5ish seats. But we're not here to debate which method is fairer, are we? So what we have now is the worst projected result for the Conservatives since the last election, quite naturally so as it is the first time in a year that the Poll'O'Polls predicts Labour leading in the popular vote. But the resulting tie in number of seats would create quite an interesting, and possibly embarrassing, situation. It has the potential to be explosively embarrassing for Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with the Conservatives cheshirishly grinning from the sidelines. Would Labour have the baws to try and strike a deal with the SNP? If they do, would the LibDems refuse a coalition offer from Labour and support the Conservatives? Numbers say Labour could do without the LibDems if they choose a deal with the SNP. But otherwise they would need the LibDems to quash any Conservative attempt at a minority coalition. With the added difficulty of not knowing beforehand how many Labour MPs would defect if Keir Starmer dared offer a deal to Nicola Sturgeon. This could easily turn into some shambolic variant of three-dimensional chess with pieces changing colour unpredictably. Sure this would lead to some Belgian-length negotiations to form any sort of viable government, plus endless opportunities for the punditariat to come up with some fantasy scenarios no politician would dream of. Or everybody might agree to a snap 'correction election' and hope for a different result....

Then current polling says we would have 60ish seats decided by less than 5%, so let's try to assess the alternate outcomes if these seats went another way than predicted, one half moving against Labour versus one half moving against the Conservatives. The alternate outcomes here are based on my model's projection, not the average. But it's close enough to make no difference in the overall landscape or how we can interpret it. Whichever way the swingometer goes would make the situation much easier for everyone involved. It it moves towards the Conservatives, Keir Starmer would make the courageous (in the "Yes, Minister" meaning) decision not to try and get in the way of a Conservative minority government. If it moves towards Labour, Keir Starmer would make the courageous decision to make the LibDems an offer they couldn't refuse and lead a minority government. Now there is a lot to say in favour of a scenario where we actually have a hung Parliament with the first party bagging a low number of MPs, well below the majority threshold. For once I agree with John Curtice, who for once is not just stating the obvious, that it would offer the SNP a golden opportunity to get Indy done. I quite like the idea of the SNP rebranding themselves as a Weapon Of Mass Disruption, and sticking to it no matter the amount of flak they take. Take every opportunity to derail the Westminster process, and whenever a Bill is in danger of failing, vote against it no matter what it is about, so that it does fail. So the English parties would be left with a binary choice: either form an unlikely Grand Coalition that would pass only irrelevant watered-down legislation, or capitulate and massively approve a Section 30 Order in the hope it will deliver a massive Yes victory and rid them of the pesky Nats once and for all. Not that I believe it will actually happen, but it would be fun to watch.

This year Boris Johnson also has had to fight battles on unexpected fronts, the revolt of Tory MPs from the South of England against the reform of planning laws being one. I guess that Theresa May was delighted to be fronting this one. Karma-ish. Then Boris disposed of it in a familiar way: he caved in and withdrew the project. But the new year might not be such a bed of milk and honey. The man so desperate to be loved and cuddled will find out many he thought close actually dislike and loathe him, and that a lame joke at PMQs is no substitute for sound policy. Past experience proves that the Tories are not averse to disposing of once formidable leaders when they're past their shelf date, just ask Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. And, if Boris ever thought of doing that again, leaders staging their own coup to clean house from rebels and deadwood are seldom met with unmitigated success in the long run. Just ask Harold Macmillan. Ouija boards available at the nearest Conservative Association. Some within the party might think Boris has embarrassed them enough, that he has overstayed his welcome or simply that he has outlived his usefulness, and it's time the adults take back control of the classroom. Which is why I think Boris might celebrate the second anniversary of his moving to Number Ten, but probably not the second anniversary of his Glorious Election.

The obvious top contenders in a leadership contest are Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak, though Jeremy Hunt might want to have another go at it because, ye ken, some people never learn. And I don't think this will be resolved by picking Rupert Murdoch's and Sarah Vine's favourite candidate. The one who's not Keir Starmer, that is. I still think Rishi Sunak has the best chances as he is young, smart, attractive and quite popular despite all his sins. And also the one most likely to be an efficient counter to New New Labour among the battleground centrist electorate, the part who favour strong and stable leadership over uncharted reformism, and thusly win the Tories the next election. While Sleekit Gove is.... well.... sleekit. Then it's not my place to say, the mostly-white-elderly-male membership of the Conservative Party will decide. Those, ye ken, who stopped watching "Midsomer Murders" when they started casting Black and Asian actors in lead roles, which was definitely no longer the Home Counties as we know and love them. It's not like the Conservative Party are genetically racist though, and the forever faithful in the backwaters of Surrey would never be the sorriest of bigoted narrow-minded nyaffs and write off their party's best chance at recovery, just because they don't want a darkie at Number Ten, or would they?

Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead!
You better stay home and do as you're told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old

(Roger Waters, Sheep, 1977)

DISCLAIMER: this video contains scenes most people will definitely find disturbing

16/12/2020

A Scottish Play Special: Waiting For Big Eck

Nobody has a problem with the Celtic race

Probably because it’s a myth, there is no such thing as a Celt

Don’t idealize the Scots

They were the most brutal and enthusiastic of empire-builders

Some of them are still at it

(Harry Pearce, Spooks: The School, 2007)

Scottish polls are wild beasts and full of surprises indeed. The last time I wrote about future Scottish elections, the most recent polls seemed to vindicate my view that the situation had become less predictable and more risky. Back then Yes to Independence was stuck in the low-to-mid 50s, the SNP lost ground in Holyrood polling so that an outright SNP-only majority had become less likely, Scottish Labour no longer looked as dead as earlier polls suggested and an upset rebirth could even propel them back to second party status again. Two months and eight polls later we have quite the same picture, except on one very specific and limited point. But we'll burn that bridge when we come to it, won't we? The trend of IndyRef polling since that fateful day in 2014 is highly encouraging. Soon it's gonna be like the BBC's 2015 Election night all over again, and we'll blow the fucking swingometer out of its axis. But today, just like a month ago and just like a year ago, the only No vote that matters is Boris Johnson's, unless courts find a legally super-solid way to hold a second referendum without a Section 30 Order, which I still think has about even odds of happening, and the local Tories would still say it doesn't count. But Bozo's pigheaded denial of Scotland's real state of mind can't last for very long when faced with overwhelming evidence that Yes is now firmly the default option. Boris should also remember what happened to Margaret Thatcher just days after she delivered her infamous 'No! No! No!' speech in Commons. But for now let's just have a look at the evolution of IndyRef voting intentions, up to and including the very last Survation poll that was conducted from 4 to 9 December, but released only on Monday, probably so they could refine the announcement on their site. Data points reflect the 'headline result' once undecideds and non-voters have been removed.

A lot of the support for Independence is rooted in deep distrust in the UK Government, which is not a specifically Scottish trait. It's also quite widespread in Wales and London's Labourgravia, and now also in many areas in the North of England, who have some buyer's remorse over repainting the Red Wall blue. Which can only make you wonder which kind of legitimacy the UK Government really has when their power base is restricted to the Midlands and the rural South. Interestingly this distrust also extends to Sly Keir's New New Labour in some counties of the Realm, who are following in Scotland's footsteps. So not only do we have a stronger movement for Welsh Independence, but we also have the brand new Northern Independence Party, who are trying to attract disgruntled Labour voters by making a left-wing working class case for an Independent North, free of Westminster's London-centric rule. Not that they can be expected to succeed, but it's still fun to watch while New New Labour are still struggling with putting some flesh on their 'progressive federalism' that nobody really wants or understands. Meanwhile Boris Johnson has again established himself as the Yes Camp's main asset with his remarks about devolution that drew flak even from within his own party. It's definitely a sign of the times when even The Guardian realise that arch-unionism does not work and Severin Carrell ends up relaying Nicola Sturgeon's tweets and the SNP's talking points about Johnson. But Scotland is definitely very fortunate to have John Curtice and other entitled luminaries enlightening us about something even Oor Doogie Ross-For-Moray has known for the last six months, aren't we? For now let's just have a closer look at the most recent IndyRef polling, what the weighted average of the two most recent polls says, both of them conducted within the last month.

Even if this instant snapshot is not entirely satisfactory, besides and beyond the redundant phrasing, the Yes camp will find several reasons to be cheerful in the full data tables for the last Scottish survey conducted by Ipsos MORI, the one that had the best Yes result in six weeks. Part one is that the raw data, before any weighting, have Yes ahead 51% to 41% with 8% undecided. Right now, only seven of the last sixteen polls predict an outright majority for Yes at that stage. Part two is that the result becomes 53% Yes to 41% No with 6% undecided when it is weighted by likelihood to vote. Meaning that there is a stronger motivation to get the fuck oot of the couch to vote on the Yes side, something that was not a foregone conclusion in older polls, but should be easy to encourage and build on with the proper campaigning. Part three (and I bet you didn't see THAT video coming) is that the new voters, those who weren't there in September 2014, are predicted to go for Yes 66% to 26% with 8% undecided. That's how we get to the published headline result with undecideds discarded: Yes winning 56-44 overall, with the new voters spectacularly choosing Yes 72-28. So it's safe to guess that every passing week, bringing more and more new voters into the fold, increases the Yes vote. To sum it up, I wouldn't mind waiting just a little bit longer if that means a stronger and safer Yes victory. Would you?

I don’t know that dreams are bad

Just the people who promise to make them come true

(Calleigh Duquesne, CSI Miami: Darkroom, 2006)

Computer models are no different from fashion models

Seductive, unreliable, easily corrupted

And they lead sensible people to make fools of themselves

(Jim Hacker, Yes, Prime Minister: The Poisoned Chalice, 2013)

Some say Scottish polls for the next general election are irrelevant because, ye ken, we will of course be an independent country by then. Don't be so sure of that, lads. First I certainly won't rule out another snap election happening before 2024. Boris Johnson has already extended feelers about repealing the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, or even the possibility to call a general election without a Commons vote, just as if he already plans just that. A sure sign that something is in the air would be Boris fast-tracking the now approved 2023 Boundary Review, which would gerrymander whole swathes of UK even more than they already are, under the pretext of a fair representation of all regions across England. Then Boris might still be deposed by his own backbenchers in a replay of the 1990 coup against Margaret Thatcher, with the new First Minister of England seeking a personal mandate through a snap election. Finally, and perhaps more conclusively, the master plan in 2014 provided for full Independence only 18 months after a successful referendum. So there is still the prospect of some sort of 'rump election' happening in 2024, pretty much on the same pattern as the unnecessary and costly European Parliament election of 2019, with Scottish MPs sitting only for the time needed to wrap up the divorce settlement. So here is the snapshot I get from all polls conducted over the last four weeks, including three Scotland-only polls as well as the aggregate of UK-wide polls' Scottish subsamples.

You can see here that my seat projections err on the cautious side, even with the SNP back to a 2015ish level of support and the three English parties in disarray. For most recent polls, the pure math projects 58 SNP seats with one Red Island left in Edinburgh South. I think this is obviously the best case scenario for the SNP and I don't completely rule it out. It just looks a wee smitch extreme when other factors than poll results are taken into account. I fully anticipate Conservatives and Liberal Democrats being more resilient in a few seats than the polls imply, even if they have once again to rely on strong Unionist tactical voting. Which is why I credit the Conservatives with holding Banff and Buchan, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and possibly Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale. But that still means both Alister Jack and Douglas Ross would be wiped out, which is in itself reason to celebrate. Similarly I don't see the Liberal Democrats losing Orkney and Shetland, and possibly Edinburgh West on tactical voting and a bad day for the SNP. Then I will closely watch the results in the overlapping Holyrood constituencies next May. Even if the two votes follow different logics and patterns, I have no doubt the Holyrood results in these areas will be enlightening. Just wait and see.

I don't know if it's true, I'm just telling you what we're putting in the paper

That will irritate the shit out of people

(Benjamin Headless, House Of Cards, 1990)

Next to a small war, there's nothing quite like a general election

To stiffen up the sinews and summon up the blood

(Francis Urquhart, House Of Cards: To Play The King, 1993)

Of course the most important part in all this polling is what they have to say about the next Scottish Parliament election. First of all, the approximation of a trend, as given by seat projections from all polls conducted since Oor Doogie Ross from Elgin became Branch Office Manager for the Conservatives. There is something of a pile up now in this chart, so I guess I will have to find another Poll Zero next time. Of course we all know Doogie has been quite lame at the job, as standing up against both Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon, while approving both Boris Johnson's and Nicola Sturgeon's decisions in statements just days apart, is definitely not the path to a resounding success. There's even a solid case to be made about Labour proving more resilient than the Tories in the prospect of a SNP landslide, which definitely belongs under 'unintended consequences'. Though the unfolding Labour Civil War may also change that again in future polls. Let's just say the idea of reviving the plot to depose Richard Leonard does sound weird when most of the polls hint that Labour would lose fewer seats than the Tories. Some within Labour seem to forget that a mediocre showing in nationwide voting intentions is only part of the equation. Labour still have a strong base in a few regions, mostly in their former heartlands in the Auld Strathclyde, where they regularly bag more list seats than uniform swing based on the national trend predicts, and the way AMS works protects them from total extinction.

Clearly we are past the point where the SNP were dangerously close to 65 seats, and the trend looks quite good, with poll after poll predicting better results than in 2011, despite the many fuckups we make fun of on Twitter. I find there are similarities here with BBC Scotland's game-show "Impossible", which I've been binge-watching in a very specific and limited way recently, for some unfathomable reasons that are best left unexplored, but might have something to do with Level 3 boredom. Just imagine the question is "Why does nothing that happens on Twitter have any impact on Scottish voting intentions?". And your answers are: A) Because nobody gives a fuck about what happens on Twitter, B) Because nobody even knows what happens on Twitter, C) Because the SNP never do a fucking stupid thing. Of course here C) is your impossible answer and A) would be the right answer. Now the SNP have avoided the worst own goals when only two out of nineteen Woko candidates for selection actually made it (incumbent MSP Shirley-Anne Sommerville in Dunfermline, twice loser Toni Giugliano in Dumbarton). The funniest moment of the selection process was of course when 'he-him no-to-yes' candidate Michael Sturrock was forced out of the race in Edinburgh Southern as he hadn't bothered to check if he had been vetted by the party's NEC, and it turned out he hadn't despite loud support from Woko-compliant MPs Stewart McDonald and John Nicolson. And the best result was when Rhiannon Spear failed in her bid to succeed Michael Russell in Argyll and Bute, an outcome that was to be expected for a Women's Convener who sided with extremists willing to undermine women's rights. Bully for her. Now let's have a closer look at the Holyrood part of the last Survation poll. As usual my projection of the lists seats is based on the regional crosstabs provided in the poll, not uniform national swing. And thusly we have the third best result for the SNP and the second best for the pro-Independence parties overall since August. And also the second best for Labour and the second worst for the Conservatives.

The results projected from this poll are impressive, and also quite enlightening in many ways. First we have the SNP bagging more votes on the constituencies than all other parties combined. Of course we have seen it before, but it still makes good PR, doesn't it? The SNP bagging more votes on the regional lists than Labour and the Conservatives combined doesn't sound half as good, does it? Of course the best part is something we have seen only once before: Labour beating the Conservatives on both votes and coming back as the second party. Which is quite spectacular but probably not as good for the SNP as you might think at first glance. There is massive evidence from past polls that a significant fraction of the electorate, possibly 5%, are definitely an SNP-Lab battleground and could go either way depending on who has the most convincing campaign. Think of them as 'soft Yes' voters who could choose the SNP on 'managerial competence' but have voted Labour previously and could be convinced to just stay where they are. Earlier polls mostly hint that the SNP have won over these voters, but a few have sent the opposite message, so you never know. The SNP should not feel everything's in the bag just yet. We have had elections before where polls made everything look fine until the real campaign started, and then it all went tits up. You can also compare the projection from this poll with the results of the previous elections, and there are several firsts and records here too (see the chart below). Based on the last poll, the SNP would not only bag more seats than any party, including themselves, ever did. They would also bag more seats than either of the Lab-Lib coalitions in the olden days. Which would of course deliver the strongest pro-Independence majority ever. Finally it's great to see the Conservatives kicked back in time, almost to where they were in the early years of devolution. Evidence again that they have become irrelevant again in Scotland, after benefiting from a PR-savvy leader for a few years, and that Oor Doogie is definitely the worst casting error the SNP could hope for.

The fun part in reactions to every Scottish poll is that, whatever the poll says, supporters of alt-Yes regional lists always find it vindicates their views. If the SNP do (relatively) poorly, then it's further proof that Scotland does need alt-Yes MSPs to strengthen the next mandate for Independence. If the SNP do well enough to bag a sizeable majority on the constituencies only, it's further proof that the SNP list votes are wasted and voting for alt-Yes lists is a better choice to hold the SNP to account over the next mandate for Independence. Scotland, the only place on Earth were you can have it both ways and nobody will bat a fucking eye. Their only problem is that, even when some brand of alt-Yes list is explicitly included in the poll's prompts, they fail to register even on Mariana-Trench-grade sonars. Now the next big issue, and a controversial one too, is bound to be postal voting for the incoming Holyrood election, to circumvent the Covid-related problems. The USA's omnishambolic response to a world-beating unprecedented influx of postal votes is a clear sign of what can happen when a whole country is ill-prepared to handle a totally predictable situation. Of course the key to the problem is that the US Constitution devolves that part of the electoral process to the states, so there is no unifying doctrine and pretty much every very specific situation can be used to support any very specific point of view, even in a limited way.

Which would not happen in Scotland as someone in high places is definitely thinking in terms of a 'postal vote only election' and the Electoral Commission has had YouGov survey Scots about the possible options. As you might expect, the answers are not that clear-cut in any specific direction. People are not supportive of a 'postal vote only election', even if twice as many as before are willing to cast a postal vote. And, at face value, the preferred option seems to be a 'socially distanced' election with special precautions during the count, even if that means getting the final results only a few days later. Which sounds like reasonable middle ground and a way to avoid unnecessary controversies, as we know now that the YouGov poll had in fact been commissioned by the Scottish Government and clearly influenced the proposed Scottish General Election (Coronavirus) Bill that passed Stage 1 in Scottish Parliament last week. Of course Stage 1 is more a technical than political decision, and we will soon have more substantial debates on this matter. What seems carved in stone right now is that dissolution will be postponed to 5 May, the day before the election, so that any contingency plan can be approved up to the last minute. Which could include postponing the election itself by no more than six months, or allowing it to take place over several days, possibly from 6 to 13 May if I decoded Minister for Parliamentary Business Graeme Dey's position right.

Now is of course just the right moment for Vladimir MacAskill to subliminally remind us how much grander life was under Alex Salmond, and Estragon Kerevan to tell us how much Alex can still contribute to the Scottish political debate. While the English 'progressive' press are busy speculating and salivating over Alex's return being Nicola's demise. All of which kind of makes sense if you look at the current SNP Civil War from a different angle than just GRA vs women's rights. Of course the Scottish Parliament passing Johann Lamont's 'sex not gender' amendment to the Forensic Medical Services Bill, by a totally unexpected 113-9, was fought along those lines and indicated something of a tectonic shift within the SNP. My educated guess just after the vote was that SNP HQ had had a headcount and realised the amendment would pass, despite the Scottish Government's opposition, with the help of a significant number of rebel SNP MSPs. We had confirmation later, from reliable sources, that it is exactly what happened. The SNP votes splitting would have been an unambiguous PR disaster that SNP HQ couldn't allow. So they had no choice but to U-turn and support the amendment, and the genderist MSPs, within both the SNP and Labour, had to suck it up and vote as whipped. Except Nicola Sturgeon, who seems to have done a Johnson and sneaked out of the Chamber after FMQs, so she had no vote recorded. The SNP rebels were undoubtedly emboldened by the earlier crushing defeat of Woko Haram at the SNP's NEC election, which I think is also explained by the uneasy coexistence of two distinct ideological lines that go back decades.

A social-liberal one favoured by the current party leadership, that you could call Scottish Macronism without it being a cheap shot. And a social-democratic one in the direct tradition of Alex Salmond's 79 Group, who were kicked out of the SNP by a more traditionalist leadership before coming back with a vengeance and taking over the party. This faction within the SNP is today roughly synonymous with the Common Weal Group, who unsurprisingly endorsed Joanna Cherry and like-minded figures on the left of the party, many of them also endorsed but the SNP Women's Pledge. Unsurprisingly too, the divide between identity politics and class politics matches the one between social liberalism and social democracy. So it's easy to see that the fault lines run much deeper than the Wokos vs Terfs brawl, and are actually all about the country's direction after Independence: somewhat Macronish or somewhat Corbynish? Oddly similar to the fault lines within Keir Starmer's New New Labour, and I guess you know which side I'm on here. Not that I really believe Big Eck's hypothetical return would be like the dawning of a new era (and I bet you did not see that one coming either) for the SNP and Scotland, but you never know what can happen in the last mile before the election, between the release of the Scottish Parliament's report on the botched handling of the Salmond sexual assault case by the Scottish Government, and the publication of Salmond's Book Of Revelations about the same events. Neither of which will look good for Nicola Sturgeon. To end on a lighter note, the fun part of the Salmonite arguments is the analogy between Big Eck and Charles de Gaulle, who came back to power in France at 68, which definitely makes 65yr-old Salmond a Young Un.

But remember, in the play, where famously "nothing happens... twice", they waited and waited....

And Godot never came.

This is us versus the establishment! Our truth versus their lies! Yes!

(Alexis Meynell, Spooks: On The Brink, 2008)

02/11/2020

America Votes And Goes Home - One Day To Lift-Off

I want a world without the hypocrisy, with the kind of people
Who wouldn't just eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree
But who'd cut the fucking tree down and burn it for firewood
(Michael Langdon, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, 2018)

Technically we're one day away for Election Day in the USA, but 'tomorrow' doesn't have the exact same meaning here and there, as do so many words in English. Polling places will actually open tomorrow at 11am Edinburgh Standard Time on the East Coast, and close at 7am on Wednesday morning in Hawaii. I won't even mention the US Territories that are on the far side of the International Date Line and will vote on 2 November, or is it 4 November? Never got that one quite right, and it will be 3 November local time for them too anyway. Nuff said. And of course polling places are bound by law to stay open until the last person in the queue at closing time has voted, which might require an extra hour or two in some cases, despite the huge number of postal votes already cast. So don't expect anything close to a clear picture until Wednesday lunchtime at best, and probably even later, over the week-end or so. Only hours away from in-person voting, most major headlines deal with the nationwide polling for the Presidential election, even though it is just an indication of a general trend, as the outcome of the election depends on state-level results. Some might have expected that Donald Trump's wee bout of Covid would boost him in the polls. After all this was The Man who had just world-beaten serial world-beater Boris Johnson for the shortest Covid-related hospital stay in living memory. But it did not, as previous events seem to have influenced voting intentions in a more decisive way. More specifically the first Presidential debate, where a shouty and incoherent Trump made a complete arse of himself. This debate between Trump and Biden did little to enlighten the public. The next morning, media described it as 'a shitshow' and 'a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a trainwreck'. And it was followed by a Biden surge in polls, which then died down. For some unfathomable reasons, the trend of polls has recently become more Trump-friendly, though not enough to drag Biden down into a major danger zone.

And then the American public were deprived of the second 'town hall' debate that Trump reportedly turned down because only weaklings need extra protection from a contagious disease. But I can reveal The Donald actually never turned down the second debate, his spads did. And then injected him with enough of his experimental Covid Specials to make him believe he had. They had everything to fear from a debate involving a real audience of real Americans who had not been 'prepared' by the White House PR team. Finally the formerly-third-and-now-second debate was a definite letdown as it failed to deal with foreign policy. So we missed Trump being asked about his offer to buy Denmark from Greenland, or it might have been the other way round, his spads don't quite remember which tweet had the correct version. Or Trump reiterating his opposition to Scottish Independence because his golf tournament couldn't be called the British Open anymore. Not that it mattered anyway as Americans are not known to be fluent in foreign policy and are more likely to focus on domestic issues, like their constitutional right to one school shooting per week. The whole sequence of events definitely had an impact on voting intentions though, as the weighted average of the last six published polls has Biden on a single digit lead, instead of the double digit lead he enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of the first debate.

State by state polling shows that Joe Biden's post-debate surge mostly translated into more votes in states he already had in the bag, and his later slump mostly translated into fewer votes in swing states, which is obviously not good at all. At one point after the first debate, polls even said Biden would gain Georgia by the weest of margins. Which would have been quite a feat as the last Democrat to win it was Bill Clinton in 1992, and he owed a lot to Ross Perot snatching a big chunk of the Republican vote. But now Georgia is back in Trump's column and Biden's lead in the Electoral College has shrunk by 14 votes compared to early September. Biden's supporters take comfort in the fact that no candidate with an 8% lead in the popular vote on Election Eve has ever lost the Presidency. Then, before 2016, no candidate with a 2.9 million votes' lead had ever lost the Presidency either, had they? Team Blue have reasons to be cautious as the trend of recent state-level polls has made Biden weaker in a specific and limited way, after a counter-intuitive Trump surge in a number of key swing states. Compared to my last projection eight weeks ago, Biden has gained one electoral vote in the 2nd Congressional District of Nebraska, one of two states that split their electoral votes instead of the classic winner-takes-all allocation, but lost 15 in North Carolina that is now projected to back Trump by less than 1%. Biden's base of Solid and Likely states has shrunk from 302 to 253 votes. Most notably, predicted gains in Pennsylvania, Florida and the 2nd Congressional District of Maine have now shifted from Likely to Weak, as well as a few East Coast states shifting from Strong to Likely. Meanwhile another key state, Ohio, remains in Trump's column, which Republicans see as a good omen as no Republican has ever won the Presidency without also winning Ohio. Which does not mean that all Republicans who won Ohio have also won the Presidency, Thomas Dewey in 1944 and Richard Nixon in 1960 are proof of this. Then the most encouraging sign for Team Blue has nothing to do with the campaign issues and serious politics, as it is Trump's latest soundbite, promising to unleash his lawyers all across the USA as soon as the last vote is cast. Not the words of a confident candidate expecting a fair win.

The now very unlikely scenario where we have a repeat 2016, with Biden winning the popular vote and losing the Electoral College, would again trigger calls for a reform of the presidential electoral process. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution devolves it to the states, so a reform could proceed without the need to amend the Constitution. The only option that would require an amendment would be to abolish the Electoral College altogether and make the winner of the popular vote the President-elect, which has exactly fuck all chance of ever happening. More recently some Republicans came up with a proposal that would have allocated 435 votes by congressional district (as Maine and Nebraska already do), 100 (two per state reflecting the Senate seats) to each state's winner of the popular vote, and the three votes for the District of Columbia to the popular vote's winner. If this had been implemented in 2012, Mitt Romney would have won the presidency 282-256, instead of the actual Obama victory on 332-206, because of heavy gerrymandering in Republican states after the 2010 census. The idea has since been dropped as no state except Pennsylvania seriously considered switching to it. Another and more popular option is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, where states could individually decide to allocate their votes to the winner of the popular vote nationwide. It would effectively be 'nullification without suppression' of the Electoral College, and is unsurprisingly much more popular in Democratic states than in Republican states. It would reach the desired effect once states totalling 270 electoral votes joined it, which is far from a done deal right now, even if the 2016 result has given it some additional appeal. So the current process is likely to remain in effect for the foreseeable future, for better of for worse.

There is no such thing as nationwide polling for the Senate elections, but each competitive race has been surveyed independently many times during the campaign. State-level polls show the Democrats in a very favourable position even in states they're predicted to lose at Presidential level, such as Georgia and Iowa. Even hardcore Republicans admit that the Democrats have been better at campaigning and that Trump is more of a liability than an asset in close Senate races. Best estimate right now is that Democrats will end up with 50 seats and Republicans with 48. And the two Independents caucusing with the Democrats will allow them to take back control of the Senate with a four-seat majority. Polls here are often better for Democrats than the presidential polling, as they appear to have lost just one possible gain since September, the Georgia seat that is part of the regular election cycle. Which does not in fact change the overall projection, as Democrats are now predicted to gain the other Georgia seat, that will be decided at a by-election. I don't expect any further major upset here, though the Republicans appear to be weaker than expected in Georgia, Kansas, Montana and South Carolina. So Republican candidates definitely have to hope Trump does well in these four states and they can ride his coattails to re-election. Democrats also appear weaker than expected in just one seat: Minnesota, that they gained by a cat's whisker in 2008 on Obama's coattails, and then held with a 10% lead in 2014. The states labelled as 'Tilt' are those where a seat is predicted to change hands: six from Republicans to Democrats, one from Democrats to Republicans. The predicted Democratic gains (Arizona, Colorado, the Georgia by-election, Iowa, North Carolina and Maine) definitely qualify as 'Weak' and will probably be decided by tiny margins only. The Republican gain in Alabama looks much more solid as Democrats gained the seat only by serendipity at a by-election in 2017 and the state has a strong Republican leaning.

The situation in the Senate during the proverbial lame-duck session would draw attention to three states: California, Arizona and Georgia. If Joe Biden wins the presidency, as is highly likely, Kamala Harris will have to resign her Senate seat in California. Which would create only a very short suspense as California law does not require a by-election to fill a vacancy. The Governor has the power to appoint a new Senator for the balance of Harris's term ending in 2022. He would obviously do just that in a matter of hours and another Democrat would replace Harris. Things are more interesting in Arizona as the Senate election there is a by-election, not part of the regular cycle. In this case, Arizona law requires that the Senator-elect be seated immediately to avoid any long vacancy that would deprive citizens of representation. So, if Democrat Mark Kelly wins, as polls currently predict, he would be sworn in and seated on 30 November at the latest. The situation is even weirder in Georgia thanks to local election laws that require a jungle primary for by-elections. If none of the candidates bags an outright majority tomorrow, as is the hugely likely scenario, a runoff will be held on 5 January 2021 between the two top contenders. The combination of all this means that the Senate will be reduced to 99 seats and the balance of power altered to 51 R-48 D during the lame-duck session, opening the door to all sorts of surprises in any vote. This is why the Republicans fast-tracked the confirmation of Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett ahead of Election Day, to avoid any possible fuckup, and finally won it 52-48. Two Republican Senators had pledged they would not support the nomination in an election year, applying the same informal rule as in 2016 when another vacancy happened, that the Republican Senate majority then controversially reneged on. But only one (Susan Collins of Maine) kept her promise and voted with the Democrats against confirmation. The other one (Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) reneged on her commitment not to renege on the 2016 rule. I guess the Whip reminded Murkowski she had a rough re-election when standing against her party in 2010 and wouldn't want to risk another such gamble.

Oddly, the House of Representatives polling is not as obviously good as the Presidential and Senate polls for the Democrats. There is even a very credible scenario where they could lose some marginal seats in swing states, while not gaining enough elsewhere to make up for the losses. The trends of nationwide polling for the House of Representatives still show Democrats ahead, but they have seen better days. More significantly, the weighted average of the last six generic House polls has Democrats on 52.6%, Republicans on 45.5% and Others on 1.9%. Which is as close as can be to duplicating the 2018 results, with Democrats a wee smitch down. Compared to the Presidential polls, both parties here snatch some 2% of the vote from 'Others'. Which probably does not count as a real pattern, but just reflects the fact that minor parties like the Greens and Libertarians are fielding just a minuscule number of House candidates, as they are not willing to spend shitloads of dosh on multiple local campaigns that will deliver fuck all seats.

The projections for the next House have to rely on a mix of generic nationwide polling and targeted polls in individual districts, which you surely remember is American for constituencies. Something we don't see often in the UK, unless Lord Ashcroft pays for it from his pension pot. But it's quite common in the United States where campaign spending is limited only by the depth of the donors' pockets. There has been quite a flurry of district-level polling over the last two weeks. Most of it has been concentrated on supposedly marginal seats that could possibly change hands, and has not always delivered the expected results. Many marginals are projected to remain in the same party's hands, which only confirms the weight of the incumbency factor in close elections. But polling of supposedly safe districts has also delivered some possible upsets, most of them in the Democrats' favour. A number of seats are now in the balance that were not expected to, in Republican-leaning states such as Georgia, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas. Which is of course in line with Joe Biden making inroads in states where the demographics favour the Democrats, most prominently in areas where Hispanics and African-Americans are expected to turn out in larger numbers than at earlier elections.

The projection above, after the dust has settled, is obviously good news for the Democrats, though an unprecedented and unforeseen number of seats might prove too close to call on Election Night. What I have now is the Democrats gaining 17 seats and losing 8, thusly slightly consolidating their majority from the 2018 midterms. As you might expect, the American punditariat don't really have a consensus vision of the gory details here. Current estimates are 220-239 Democrats vs 181-188 Republicans, the rest being tossups, as in American for 'tie'. Of course the odds of Republicans taking back the House with a clean sweep of all 45ish marginal seats are somewhere to the south of fuck all. Some pundits even have a more optimistic vision of the Democrats' prospects than me, with predicted net gains somewhere between 10 and 15. Anyway, if I had to wage a tenner on the global outcome, I would go for a Democratic trifecta: Biden and Harris at the White House, House majority confirmed and strengthened, Senate back to a Democratic majority. Then the surest bet is that we won't know anything for sure on the day after Election Day and can expect a lot of court challenges from the Republicans. No doubt Trump and his cronies will prove to be the sorest losers since Dog domesticated Man, and nothing can be taken for granted until everyone duly elected tomorrow is sworn in. Fingers crossed.

08/10/2020

A Scottish Play Reboot - Episode II: Attack Of The Yoons

We Scots are an easy con. We like to think we’re a hard canny race,
But after a couple of bevvies, we become maudlin romantics.
(Willy Kinross, Lovejoy: The Colour Of Mary, 1993)

Since the December snap election, we have become accustomed to a monthly dose of Scottish polling, with thirteen IdyRef2 polls, ten Holyrood polls and seven Westminster polls conducted in 2020 already. This is just the beginning as we can expect weekly doses shortly, probably after everybody has recovered from the Hogmanay hangovers. All these polls have delivered a continuously favorable trend both for Yes to Independence and for the SNP. But there are also many reasons why the SNP should stay alert and not indulge in the sort of complacency that undid the SNP majority in 2016 and delivered some unexpected upsets in 2017. The Holyrood election is still seven months away and the second Independence referendum... err... uhhh... let's settle on 'some time later' for now. Of course the overall trend of Independence polling is now strongly favourable to Yes, but we've seen support for Yes nosedive already, not surprisingly because of some SNP fuckup that could still happen again. There is one clear way out of this: the SNP conference supporting the 'Plan B motion' proposed by Angus MacNeil and Chris McEleny. We know that the Unionists need only one No vote to defeat Nicola Sturgeon's Plan A: Boris Johnson's, and that vote has already been cast. So the SNP definitely do need a Plan B, even if that infuriates Serial Blocker Pipe'N'Slippers Wishart. There is no doubt Scottish Independence is now on the winning side, as Yes has come to be dubbed 'the default option' by some pundits. The arguments against Independence become weaker by the day and will be further weakened by the Full Brexit, and right now Boris Johnson is unable to make a case for the Union when faced with the reality of his government's incompetence. It is quite revealing that the last Attack Of The Yoons is not targeting the drive to Independence as such, but the very foundations of devolution. Fortunately the Internal Market Bill is likely to be challenged in British courts now that the EU has threatened legal action of their own. So now is not the time for the SNP to procrasturbate again and again. Only decisive action on their part can strengthen the trend of polls that show a strong and unprecedented shift towards Yes.

Then I fear that SNP HQ is going for some smoke-and-mirrors game and will do all they can to have Plan B rejected by the conference. Which would be a dick move, especially as more and more voice suspicion about the party's actual commitment to Independence, after it emerged that some in the party's NEC are actually content with devolution. There is also a truckload of circumstantial evidence that some SNP MPs feel really comfy aboard the Westminster gravy train and would be reluctant to do anything that could jeopardise their position there, which can only fuel doubt in many people's minds. Of course I am ready to be on the optimistic side, as nine of the thirteen IndyRef polls held this year have Yes ahead, including a continuous winning streak in the seven most recent ones, so this might be an incentive for SNP HQ to act more boldly and more swiftly. The weighted average of the last four shows a convincing Yes lead, though not quite completely overturning the 2014 result just yet, but only after undecideds are counted out. It's also worth remembering that only one poll actually delivered an outright majority for Yes before undecideds were factored out, and that the number of undecideds has doubled over the last six months. So I can only repeat what I already said: the best strategy is to go after the undecideds rather than after the 2014 Noes who are still hypothetical 'soft Noes' today. Just saying, and oddly now Angus Robertson agrees with me. Then Douglas Ross' bizarre outburst at the Zoomed Conservative Conference might help more than you imagine. If even the Tory Branch Office Manager for Scotland says that English Unionists don't actually give a rat's fuck about the Union, it may be one of those light-bulb 'what the fuck?' moments for some undecideds and switch them to a 'soft Yes' next time somebody polls them.

So now the big question is: what Scottish Labour will say next year about IndyRef2. And don't tell me they will do as Keir Starmer says, as I would ask 'which Starmer?'. So far he decided he would allow policies into the Labour manifesto only if they contribute to strengthening the union, strongly opposed holding IndyRef2, said that the SNP winning the next Holyrood election will give them a mandate to hold it, and that the issue 'needed looking into'. Just wait until the campaign starts and Sly Keir will have more U-turns on this than Boris Johnson on Covid regulations, and more positions on it than the SNP has mandates. And by the time he's sorted it out, over 50% of Labour voters in Scotland will also be Yes voters, only boosted by STUC's support for holding IndyRef2 as an act of resistance to Boris Johnson's Power Grab Bill. But of course Not-So-Hardy Keir always zigzags with barristerish dignity and no comical side-effect, unlike Ed Davey when he lectures Scots on how to secure a mandate for Independence, which is a bit like the lamppost trying to teach the dog to pee. Then of course the most serious threat to the Yes Camp is now the Dream Team of Neil Oliver and Kevin Hague, ready to unleash a whole shitload of blue-only Excel charts on an unsuspecting Scotland. No shit. Would I pull your leg over such clear and imminent danger? But of course the SNP might also find it clever to adopt a more Cummingsian data-based approach to targeted campaigning. Coatbridge Analytica, anyone?

Where do I belong? Where do I fit? Who are my people? Where do my loyalties lie?
We all choose our tribe, it’s that need to belong, to live within boundaries
Cause it’s scary on the outside, on the fringes.
Some labels are forced on us, they mark us and set us apart till we’re like ghosts
Just drifting through other peoples’ lives, but only if we let the labels hold.
You can piss your whole life away trying out who you might be.
It’s when you’ve worked out who you are that you can really start to live.
(John Mitchell, Being Human: Episode Four, 2009)

When the carpets start leaving the bedroom, stay clear of the… um…
Removal men? Husbands? Parquet floor? Well, whatever…
(Eric Catchpole and Tinker Dill, Lovejoy: Loveknots, 1992)

Survation's last big tent poll also surveyed the Commons voting intentions, and I have already mentioned and discussed this part in my last article about Westminster polling. So now let's have a look at what the seven Scottish polls conducted this year have to say, and how they would translate into seats. I don't rule out a minimal Conservative revival all over the UK if Boris Johnson is kicked out in a very Thatcherite and ruthless way early next year, and Rishi Sunak is anointed as the next First Minister of England. Keir Starmer and Labour HQ obviously see this as a plausible scenario and have started targeting 'Brand Rishi' accordingly. If this happens, it would certainly have some fallout in Scotland. Just remember the PR around Ruth Davidson and how it revived the Conservatives, and picture this to the power of a-lot, centered around Rishi as The People's PM, and Oor Doogie Ross relegated to the sidelines he is so familiar with. The very last poll should also ring an alarm at SNP HQ, as it shows the SNP down 3% on the previous poll and these 'lost votes' obviously going to Labour who would come back to second place by a nose. Bear in mind too that the voting patterns inherited from the 2019 election mean that the SNP don't even need a majority of the popular vote to bag 55 seats or above. So even a relatively underwhelming performance, compared to current polls, would still deliver a massive majority of seats and strengthen the PR about 'yet another mandate', no matter how many are already collecting dust on the highest shelf at Bute House. As long as it is not too underwhelming, and of course we're not there yet. But SNP HQ should stay alert and remember that complacency always come with a high price. Consider yourselves warned.

So, for now at least, Ian Murray would again be the sole survivor of all Unionist MPs after another SNP tsunami. The same Ian Murray who reneged at the last minute on his pledge to join the British Union of Macronists as it would have endangered his position as MP for Morningside Polo Club, and cut him off from both fat expenses claims and Tory dark money. Now Ian is probably firmly entrenched as a New New Labour enthusiast, no matter what the SNP throw at him, and a further Labour surge might put a few other SNP seats in jeopardy. Neale Hanvey in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath is probably immune to a challenge if he stands as a bona fide SNP candidate with full support from SNP HQ. But Labour may find it a good idea to stage a full-blown attack against Kenny MacAskill in East Lothian. Kenny's maverick ways, though they were to be expected, have definitely not made him a favourite son in Nicola Sturgeon's eyes and those of her Ninth Circle. Don't rule out them triggering a selection challenge from a more compliant candidate and, if that fails, offering only lukewarm support that could endanger Kenny. Labour might also choose to campaign strongly in seats that were once part of their heartlands, and where they overperformed in 2019. First obvious choice is Glasgow North East, Willie Bain's seat in the olden days, and where Paul Sweeney still bagged almost 40% of the vote amidst Labour's December trainwreck. Next in line would be.... come on.... try a wild guess.... aye, you got it... Rutherglen and Hamilton West. Which might turn into a suspense story long before the next general election if Margaret Ferrier 'does the right thing', as the saying goes, and resigns her seat after her Cummingsian Homecoming that made her the SNPBad Icon Of The Week. I must confess I have mixed feelings here. On one hand, once a bit of the dust had settled down, I found myself ready to lend an understanding, if not wholly sympathetic, ear to Kevin McKenna's take on the situation. On the other hand, one wrong can't make another wrong right or be used as an ex post facto excuse for it, and I still think Margaret should resign without waiting for a recall petition that would be an even more hurtful career-ender, especially now that her constituency association has urged her to do just that. So let's just try and see how an hypothetical by-election could turn out, once the Conservatives find out that Rutherglen and Hamilton are not in Glasgow, no matter what it looks like from Ettrick. Some numbers first and full decoding after the break.

Here you first have the results of the last five elections, that is all held on the current boundaries. Then a projected result for the next general election, based on the national results from the Survation poll conducted 2-7 September. Finally two hypotheticals of what could happen if a by-election was held in the coming weeks. Just a reminder of how my projection model works: it is not based on uniform swing but a mix of 70% uniform swing and 30% proportional swing, as described on this Canadian site. I have also tweaked it to specify which candidates would stand in each constituency. Which I used here to rule out UKIP at the next election, and hypothetically reallocate half their potential votes to the Conservatives. Which is why my 2024 projection is different from what you would get from a basic calculation on uniform swing with the same candidates as the last time. For the record, Electoral Calculus predict it now as 50.0% SNP, 34.2% Labour and 10.7% Conservatives; and Flavible as 47-51% SNP, 34-37% Labour and 12-13% Conservatives. Conclusion: the SNP are highly unlikely to do as well in this constituency as in 2015, even if they do better nationally, and Labour are still a force to reckon with. Which says nothing about a possible by-election, which could deliver two scenarios, both including a significant drop in turnout and tactical voting for Labour. Which could result in a very close result if the SNP select a strong enough candidate to hold the seat by the hair of their teeth. Or you can have the SNP going down to their 2017 level of support while Labour go back up to their 2015 result and take back the seat. I think this second option is far from unlikely and is within the range of possibilities, and even quite plausible. Obviously Labour have done their homework and juggled with the numbers too, as Sly Keir appears confident they can win this one. Conclusion: nobody has the fuckiest scoobie how this would turn out and all we can do is random guesses. But, if this actually happens, expect it to be a tough one for the SNP. And if they lose, they will blame Margaret Ferrier for it, just as they blamed Michelle Thomson for the loss of one Holyrood seat and one Westminster seat in Edinburgh.

Every disaster is a photo opportunity in disguise
(Francis Urquhart, House Of Cards: To Play The King, 1993)

I believe in you, I just don’t believe in this version of you.
(Michelle Davis, The Stray, 2017)

Finally Survation also surveyed voting intentions for the next Scottish Parliament election and the results are a mixed bag for the SNP. Bottom line, or headline depending on your perspective, is that this poll would deliver a 25-seat majority for the pro-Independence camp, or a 9-seat majority for the SNP alone, achieved this time on the constituencies only. The SNP's constituency vote, up 6% on the 2016 election, is obviously a major success even if earlier polls predicted they would do better. But the list vote, level with the 2016 result, should trigger some alarms at Gordon Lamb House. Clearly the 'Both Votes SNP' talking point does not work and the gap between their constituency and their list votes has more than doubled since the 2016 election, a situation most of the earlier polls did not predict. Unsurprisingly, the ongoing debate about the wisdom of supporting alt-Yes regional lists, or lack thereof, has again become more heated. Which is exactly what you can expect after a poll predicting the SNP would bag fuck all list seats despite again bagging 1 million 'wasted votes', give or take. This time I won't even bother trying alternate scenarios including various levels of support for alt-Yes lists, but I will shed a light of what the exact opposite would deliver. With 'Both Votes SNP' across all regions, my model says that the SNP would win six list seats: one each snatched from the LibDems and the Conservatives, four from the Greens. The math usually don't lie, except when they do, so I can just ask you to trust me that 'Both Votes SNP' would actually increase the pro-Independence majority. Whether achieving this mostly by undermining the Greens is a blessing or a curse is just a matter of opinion, and you know which side I'm on on this one.

For some unfathomable reason, Nicola Sturgeon chose last month to revive one of many SNP Civil Wars by taking on 'cybernat keyboard warriors' and offering unquestioning support to Rhiannon Spear on Twitter. Not surprisingly The National tell only one side of the story here, forgetting the 400ish replies to that last tweet, most of them reminding the party's leader of the obnoxious and degrading smear campaigns waged by the SNP's Woko Cult against bona fide Yessers whose sole fault is disagreeing with a fringe extremist agenda that the party has come to embrace. There is some some sort of deluded defiance here as the Scottish Government announced plans to bring back the unpopular GRA reform just days after the English Government dropped the English version and rolled back the use of 'educational' material promoting the extreme version of the Woko ideology. Then Nicola has obviously underestimated the amount of negative coverage this would trigger, especially about the part where she implicitly endorses a double standard on online abuse, depending on who is the target: one rule for those who support her and another for those who don't. Nicola can't avoid criticism too on the time and energy spent on attempting to deliver on divisive side issues, while Holyrood could have worked on more pressing and popular issues like full use of the devolved part of fiscal powers, land reform, stronger incentives for the transition to a green economy in deprived rural areas and post-industrial cities, etc.. I also have a hunch that Peter Murrell pretty much admitting to foul play in the handling of the Alex Salmond case and Nicola's own not too convincing submission about it won't help, and neither will her account of what she does remember and what she does not of her talks with Big Eck two years ago. Now there's a good angle of attack handed to the Unionists on a silver platter. But surely some damage has already been done and I can only advise SNP HQ to not just gloat at each poll predicting a win at the next election, but also to factor in the whole sequence of seat projections from all the Holyrood polls fielded this year. Which is not all milk and honey to their ears recently.

In this context, Martin Keatings announcing he intends to stand for Alliance For Independence in the Mid-Scotland and Fife region is not good news for the SNP. Martin has gained name recognition with his 'People's Action On Section 30' crowdfunder, which uncoincidentally pursues the same goals as the SNP's 'Plan B Motion' I mentioned earlier. A wee smitch of math helps here too: Mid and Fife has the de facto lowest threshold for a list seat, on 5.6% of votes cast. So Martin would need about 16k votes to snatch the seventh list seat there, or 14% of the predicted SNP list vote, and the added bonus is that he would take that seat from the LibDems. I'm not saying Martin could be 2021's Margo MacDonald, but he surely looks like a serious contender for the analogy. Then we heard the very sad news of Jo Swinson's passing.... on a Holyrood candidacy. I guess that, after a thorough study of the electorate, she found out she had as many chances of becoming First Minister if she did not stand as she had if she stood. Fuck all. And of course not standing saves her the bother of campaigning and the humiliation of having to watch somebody else deliver a victory speech at the proclamation. Again. Of course this is incredibly sad news for the SNP as the probability of the LibDems holding North East Fife has now significantly increased. There is another interesting finding in the Survation poll: Labour are up again, gaining 6% on the constituency vote and 4% on the list vote, compared to their all-time low two months ago. Which puts them just one seat away from the Conservatives and two down on the 2016 result, a much better performance than the Tories. A new scenario, in which Labour come back from the grave to become the second party again, is not as far-fetched as some may think and shouldn't be dismissed with condescending irony. Oor Doogie Ross could be of considerable help here, seeing how he has made it a habit of falling flat on his face after making a complete arse of himself, no matter how anatomically challenging that might sound. Now there would be some delicious irony if Labour could dig themselves out of their hole by becoming both the acceptable face of Unionism and a credible center-left alternative to the SNP for a number of Yes-supporting voters, proving the common wisdom wrong that says you can't have it both ways.

How do you make a rat look less threatening? You put it next to a shark.
(Nick Cutler, Being Human: Making History, 2012)