The Scottish Play - Act III of MMXX

My plan shows that Scotland is an equal partner in the United Kingdom
And it's full of marginal seats.... I mean depressed areas
(James Hacker, Yes, Minister: The Official Visit, 1980)

© Jon Anderson, Vangelis Papathanassiou, 1981

Scotland is a proud and unique nation
For three hundred years we’ve been occupied, labouring under the English yoke
Subdued, suppressed, subjected to an alien government
All the important decisions that affect us are taken in London
Have you any idea what that feels like?
It’s time to set the people of Scotland free
(Deputy Prime Minister Rory McAlister, Yes, Prime Minister: Scot Free, 2013)

So now we have two more full Scottish polls, or should I say five? Anyway YouGov surveyed Scotland on 24-27 April and Panelbase on 1-5 May, so that's two. YouGov polled Westminster and Holyrood voting intentions, while Panelbase polled the same plus IndyRef2, so that's five. For exhaustivity's sake, Panelbase also polled Stu Campbell's conspiracy theories and perennial obsessions, as he's the one who paid them and did not shy away from outrageously leading questions. Anyway, let's just focus on what really matters, that is everything that does not relate to Stu Campbell's personal fantasies. First the IndyRef2 voting intentions and here the trendlines (9-point rolling average) show a massive surge of the Yes vote from October 2017 to December 2019 until we reached a tie, then No bounced up back a wee smitch and then Yes did the same until now where we again have a tie. Which means that Yes, without any official referendum campaigning, overcame a 12-point No lead over 30 months, for which we have grassroots movements like All Under One Banner to thank. Bear in mind too that the Yes vote fell sharply between May and October 2017 as a direct fallout of the SNP's abysmal campaign for the 2017 general election. You can only dream of where we would be now if we had started from the 6-point gap we had before the 2017 campaign, instead of double that. Some might draw the conclusion that the SNP don't actually want independence and feel more gemütlich (Angus Robertson would get that one instantly) running a mildly devolved nation and whining every other day about the abusive English yoke. Not that I agree with that. Though, some days....

The Covid-19 crisis has highlighted, and sometimes revealed, sky-high levels of tension between England and Scotland, and also between England and Wales. This was not just the result of different approaches to devolution, but mostly the direct consequence of Boris Johnson trying to impose a highly centralized and quasi-presidential conception of government, which has proved controversial even within the Conservative Party. This could sow the seeds for a major constitutional crisis but how it will help or hurt the Scottish Independence cause remains to be seen. What we have right now is the predictions of six IndyRef2 polls fielded after the December general election: two ties, two Yes wins, two No wins and their weighted average reflects just that with Yes on 50.07% and No on 49.93%. Which means that, on the same turnout as in 2014, Yes wins by 5k votes. Or alternatively means there are even odds that Yes loses. Again. Which kind of reminds you of the second Quebec Independence referendum in 1995 when Oui lost by 1% on a 93% turnout, and the call for Independence was never heard or heard of again. Of course these are two radically different situations, though weather can be just as shite in Northern Quebec as in Shetland, and I wouldn't want you to believe I am drawing any parallel between the two, would I? Or am I? Just hoping Yoons never heard of Quebec, or think that you can get there through Calais. One can hope, can't he?

But it is also the point where the SNP have to brace themselves for a major reassessment of their own strategy. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we stick to Nicola Sturgeon's gradualegalistic approach that a Section 30 Order has to be obtained. That past pledges by former leaders are an accurate predictor of the shape of things to come, which of course you may doubt as much as I do. And finally that technicalities and practicalities mean that the referendum would be held fifteen months after the Section 30 Order being granted. With all these conditions fulfilled, the window of opportunity is two years into the next Labour government with the referendum held the next year. So, if Keir Starmer is good at his job, we get IndyRef2 in September 2027 and, if he is not, in September 2032. I won't even try to speculate what the state of Scottish public opinion could be that far away in the future. But I can speculate on how much time the Scottish Government will need to finally admit that Section 30 is a dead end: until the next time the current English Tory government tells them again to git tae fuck. And then, but that's a mibbe-aye-mibbe-naw situation, they will start seriously considering a solid Plan B that's already on the table right now, and that I have come to endorse, after some initial doubts, as the one way out until somebody comes up with a convincingly better scheme. Just call an advisory referendum without a Section 30 Order, which is not off limits as it's a general purpose provision that all referendums in the UK are advisory unless the specific enabling legislation says they are legally binding. Rely on the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 and wait for the English Government to challenge the move in court. There are even odds the Scottish Government would prevail and there is more honour anyway in genuinely trying and failing than in never trying at all.

This is a Scottish matter for the Scots to vote on, it’s none of your business
It’s up to us to decide whether we want to stay in the United Kingdom
The future of Scotland is a matter for the Scottish people alone
The English don’t care about Scotland one way or the other
When you gave us devolution, you gave us certain powers
You don’t like our choices, so now you’re having a wee tantrum
Threatening to go home and take your ball with you
(Deputy Prime Minister Rory McAlister, Yes, Prime Minister: Scot Free, 2013)

Being an MP is a vast, subsidized ego trip, it’s a job in which you need no qualifications
There are no compulsory hours of work, no performance standards
You get a warm room and subsidized meals for a bunch of self-opinionated windbags and busybodies
(James Hacker, Yes, Prime Minister: A Real Partnership, 1986)

Then both our favourite pollsters surveyed the voting intentions for the next general election. The House of Commons one, that is. Some might argue that this is irrelevant because we will be an independent nation long before it happens. But remember what I just said about 2027 and 2032. Then you can't rule out Dominic Cummings advising Boris Johnson that he should ride the Covid-19 'Rally Around The Flag' wave while it still lasts and call yet another snap election. Naw, just kidding. Though sometimes the craziest things do happen when you least expect it. Like Boris Johnson actually being the First Minister of England and not a grumpy backbencher relegated to obscure afternoon TV shows and page three of The Spectator. Anyway we've had two polls in quick succession so I will rely on the weighted average of voting intentions, as both paint a very similar picture. They say the SNP could duplicate the 2015 landslide and even the low point would be better than the 2019 election. The voting intentions here clearly show once again there is no coalescence of the Unionist vote around the Conservatives as they would get only marginally more votes than in December, and suffer another round of losses to the SNP thanks to the quirks of FPTP. What we have here is again the pro-Independence vote coalescing around the SNP, with Labour mostly contributing but even the LibDems too as they definitely face being relegated to extinct species status. The SNP kicking out the LibDems from all their mainland seats comes as no surprise, and Alistair Carmichael is definitely in the danger zone as he was in 2015, though Orkney and Shetland would be decided on a few hundred votes only and possibly even fewer. 

Now here is what my model predicts for the six current Conservative seats, with the projected winner's vote in red italics. It looks like it's definitely game over for Wee Andy Bowie in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, and a very close call for David Mundell in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale. But I definitely won't rule out a comeback for Alister Jack in Dumfries and Galloway or Douglas Ross in Moray. These two could also be decided by some hundreds of votes and the SNP would definitely be safer if they convinced some more of the rump Labour voters to switch in both. As always, time will tell, but Keir Starmer might prove an asset for the SNP here rather than for desperate Labour candidates.

I have a hunch that Ian Murray too could qualify for extinct species status when the next general election comes around. Remember than Ian owes his seat to massive Tory tactical voting and Tory dark money, in a constituency that's actually a three-way marginal. So he might lose form both ends next time. His and Keir Starmer's unquestioning Yoonism is likely to alienate yet another bunch of Indy-leaning Labour voters, and the Conservatives might find it's the right time to throw Ian under the bus when they have a gambleable chance at bagging the seat. At this moment, let's just be satisfied by another massive vindication of the SNP as Scotland's first party. Beware though that we obviously have a 'Rally Around The Saltire' effect here just as UK-wide polls show a 'Rally Around The Union Jack' effect in England and Wales. Unlike the Holyrood election (more on this one below) there is more than enough time for this 'Covid Honeymoon' to die down before the next general election. And also more than enough time for the SNP to totally fuck it up, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as they are prone to do when they think it's in the bag. So maybe, just maybe, we do need worse polls along the way to make sure the SNP stay alert and put up a real fight. Just don't just take past voters for granted, as the 2017 precedent shows.

Underpaid? Backbench MPs?
How can they be underpaid when there’s about 200 applicants for every vacancy?
You could fill every seat 20 times over even if they had to pay to do the job!
(James Hacker, Yes, Prime Minister: A Real Partnership, 1986)

Our Parliament is just a glorified borough council
We pay all our taxes to you, you take your big cut off them
Then you parcel our share into tiny little bits
And tell us what we are to spend it on, like pocket money for kids
We want our taxes to go to Edinburgh, not London
We’d pass some of the revenue on to you for central government expenditure, of course
But the rest…. The rest would be Scottish people spending Scottish money
In Scotland on Scottish communities for Scottish needs
What could be wrong with that?
(Deputy Prime Minister Rory McAlister, Yes, Prime Minister: Scot Free, 2013)

Finally we also have two brand new Holyrood polls. Before going into more detail about what they say, let's pause for a while to look at the trends in Holyrood voting intentions since the last election. Just below are the trendlines for the constituency vote first and then the list vote. What we have here is a strong correlation between the ups and downs of Conservatives and LibDems on one side, and those of Labour and the SNP on the other side. Again this goes against common wisdom that there could be some sort of Union Jack effect favouring the Conservatives. In fact, the Brexit Factor seems to have been a stronger explanatory variable here, and probably accounts for most of the LibDem surge in Europhile Scotland, and their later crashdiving when people came to terms with the fight against Brexit being now irrelevant. And here too we see the left-wing electorate switching back from the SNP to Labour as a consequence of the SNP's muddled 2017 campaign, and then pro-Indy lefties switching back to the SNP. Obviously Gordon Lamb House spads are also fully aware of this and would be delusional if they drew different conclusions from the same facts. The message is clear: managerial competence alone does not win elections, though it might help. But the people love visionaries much more than accountants. You've been warned, Nicola. 

What we have here is definitely a path to a massive SNP landslide, with all the caveats I already mentioned about the Westminster voting intentions. But with the election now less than a year out and little time for the Covid-19 effect to die down, I fail to see what could possibly derail it. Save an asteroid crashing down in Pollokshields or Alex Salmond's Book Of Revelations selling five million copies. Then I guess some in ScotGov's Ninth Circle have an updated version of the original Covid-19 slogan devised specifically for Big Eck's personal use: 'Stay Home > Protect The SNP > Save Oor Arses'. Just kidding. Now let's see what the weighted average of the last two polls predicts. What's quite amazing on this polling is that the SNP alone would get an 'impossible' 17-seat majority and the pro-Indy camp an unheard-of 25-seat majority, which of course Jackson Carlaw would deny constitutes a mandate to seek Independence. Even if the SNP, on the constituencies only, would outperform the Second Lab-Lib Coalition of 2003, and match the First Lab-Lib Coalition of 1999. Then of course this is the result of the Conservatives' massive toxicity in Scotland and the people of Scotland facing a simple no-brainer choice: who do you want to be the next First Minister? The incumbent who managed the Covid-19 crisis with proficiency, despite a few quite noticeable but quickly resolved fuck-ups, and humility? Or the former car salesman whose last two forays into private enterprise ended in administration and the still unsolved Mystery Of The Missing Paintings? And I will ask the SNP for royalties if they use these ones during the campaign, which they should. Of course this would be one-to-the-baws but I could live with that as I (for once) agree with Kevin McKenna that the SNP need a Tartan Cummings to counter the Yoons' shameless 1984ish goebbelsism.  

I also simulated the best/worst case scenarios for the SNP. Quite easy to do with my algorithms by factoring the SNP 2% below/above current polling on both votes and the missing/extra votes going to/coming from the Unionist parties. Curent polling is so massively one-sided that even the worstest simulation still delivers an outright SNP majority, even if it would be a fragile one on just one seat. The bestest scenario would deliver more SNP seats than either of the Lab-Lib coalitions bagged in the Antiquity Of Devolution pre-2007. More evidence that the popular vote can indeed defeat the core purpose of AMS and you don't even need to game the system to achieve that. Just playing by the book and campaigning strongly and convincingly does it. The only thing the Pro-Indy Bloc would miss is a two-thirds majority. Which is not that important anyway as the only case where you need one is to change the electoral law, and you definitely want to stay a few bargepoles away from that particular can of worms. As you can be sure the Little Green Men would then pressure the SNP into 'STV For Holyrood', seeing how it superbly works for Scottish Councils, where post-election backdoor combinaziones have become the norm. So better forget it.

Just for fun, as it definitely has fuck all to do with anything, I was cyber-assaulted some days ago by one of the branches of the Cybernat Thought Police when I mentioned the UK and 'other countries' in a tweet. The only tweeps more annoying than the Woke Clan are the Vocabulary Nazis who have oven-ready function keys to save them the carpal strain of typing 'there is no such thing as Scottish Labour' or 'the UK is not a country' seventeen times a day. Just try 'other political entities asserting ultimate authority over specific geographical areas' instead of 'other countries', enjoy the Applebyan mouthful and get the fuck off of my cloud. Back to the matter at hand, current polling says that Conservatives in Scotland (because, ye ken, 'there is no such thing as Scottish Conservatives', even though they obviously are both Scottish and Conservatives) would hold only Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire. Which is ONE seat, not three, just have to say it for the benefit of geographically-challenged Dominic Raab. And, while we're at it, Dom, Calais is definitely NOT anywhere neat Ettrick. Even Jackson Carlaw would lose his seat and have to rely on the compensatory-seats-for-losers part of AMS. On these numbers, Labour would be reduced to a squad of 'unelected' MSPs and the LibDems would be almost wiped out from the mainland, with even Willie Rennie only one weasel's arse's hair away from being lyed-and-woodchipped in North East Fife. And it would certainly get much worse there for the Orange Tories if Oor Wee Wullie gave way to Squirrel Killer Jo Swinson's comeback. Note too that these results would be extremely good news for the SNP in South Scotland. With four predicted constituency gains and one open seat, they could easily accommodate all three incumbent list MSPs who would lose their 'unelected' seats, plus one hypothetical newcomer (insert 'sitting MP standing for MSP in Ayr' here, though this is pure speculation on my part) and an hypothetical returner (insert 'former MSP and more recently MEP' here and again it's pure speculation). And here comes the usual full breakdown of predicted seats by region:

A word now about the last supposedly big event in Scottish politics: the emergence of Colette Walker's Independence For Scotland party (ISP). And not coincidentally we are reminded of Margo McDonald's achievements as the iconic rebel against the SNP's leadership of her time. Not sure the writer sees the irony here in taking someone who rebelled against Alex Salmond as the role model for someone who would rebel against Nicola Sturgeon. But never mind as my part here is to assess the ISP's possible impact on the next Scottish Parliament election. Psephologyfying is a lot like CSIing: you don't have an opinion, you just let the evidence speak for itself. And in the case of the ISP, the evidence can lead you in many a contradictory direction. Let's say their baseline vote is about 1%, as polls predict for hypothetical pro-Indy minor lists, and then they gnaw their way up step by step, snatching 1% of the vote at a time from the SNP until they reach 13%, having taken 12% from the SNP, or one fourth of their predicted list vote. And the verdict remains the same as when I tested some 'third party' scenarios a while ago. On 2-3% of the vote the ISP have no impact whatsoever. On 4-5%, which is probably their most likely vote share, they do more harm than good as they actually reduce the overall number of pro-Independence MSPs. On 6% and above they do increase the number of pro-Independence MSPs but it's really a mixed bag as they would take seats from the SNP before taking any from the Unionist parties. And here we avoid a more embarrassing outcome only because the SNP would secure a majority on the constituencies only. So I tend to agree with 'Pipe And Slippers' Pete Wishart, just this once: don't take any chances and don't gamble the pro-Indy majority simply because you're not fully satisfied with the SNP. So vote Greens on the list if that makes you feel better, but don't come whining later if that enables them to hold on to their power of nuisance. And stay away from minor parties with unclear ulterior motives.

It says a lot about the bizarre state of the Scottish political debate that the first question the wannabe-MSPs are asked is not 'Do you think an Independent Scotland should rejoin the EU?' or 'What should be Scotland's currency after Independence?', but 'What is your take on GRA reform?'. I guess you already know what's mine, so I won't bore you with repeating it. Let's just say I think of lot of the arguments from the Woke Clan should be filed under 'crapchiatry', as do much of the ramblings of post-hippie Californian tenured professors who have way too much time on their hands and several too many bad acid trips under their belt. Then the SNP have only themselves to blame for this, as nobody put a crossbow to their head and threatened to machine-gun the dug if they did not modify the Gender Recognition Act 2004. When you open a can of worms, expect them to come back to bite you in the arse. I would hate it if the fate of Scottish Independence was to be decided by where a telephoneboothload of activists stand on gender self-identification, on the shelved-but-not-deepfrozen 'a woman is a man because she says so' bill. But you definitely can't rule out just yet that it will not happen. And be careful with double negatives too. So maybe, just maybe, at the end of the day and all things considered, we do deserve to be, in Rent Boy's immortal words, 'colonized by wankers'. Because we too are wankers, just a different blend. 

Scotland is not at all that remote
It's that pink bit about two feet above Potters Bar

(James Hacker, Yes, Minister: The Official Visit, 1980)

© Robert Burns, 1791