The Year Of The Nats

It was the year of fire

The year of destruction

The year we took back what was ours

It was the year of rebirth

The year of great sadness

The year of pain

And a year of joy

It was a new age

It was the end of history

It was the year everything changed

The year is 2021

The place... Scotland

(Babylon 5, Season Four opening sequence, almost....)

© Al Stewart, Peter Wood, 1976

Keep your mind open too wide and your brains will fall out

(Detective Superintendent Colin Osbourne, Silent Witness: Beyond Guilty, 2003)

I have a feeling '21 is gonna be a good year. For Scotland if not for England. Because I can't honestly give a rat's fuck about what will happen to or in England. They wanted Brexit and the First Minister of England they elected got it done. More or less. Now it's their mess and they have to own it and sort it out. And don't even try that "we're all in it together" cooshite, because we're not. You have painted yourselves into a corner without exit, but we have the motive, means and opportunity to get ourselves out of this. So keep calm and eat your Brexit snoek, and let us go our own way. Just wait and see. Scottish Independence is the next logical step after the First Minister of England surrendered Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland and Gibraltar to Spain, isn't it? And you all should be so happy to see those pesky thrifty Jocks go, who can't even manage themselves and you subsidise to the tune of £15bn a year. Oor Doogie Ross, Baroness Ruth Davidson and Nigel Farage said it, so it has to be true. It's £289mil a week, so I guess all we have to do is paint that on the side of a bus and tour it from Carlisle to Truro, and you will instantly vote us out of your Precious Union, so you can take back control of all that dosh. But don't come whining and blaming us when you realise there is no dosh at all, and it was all a lie that you were just too happy to believe. 

© Rebecca Hendin, The Guardian, 2020

2020 was the Year Of The Nyaffs in so many ways that anything 2021 becomes can only be an improvement. Then I would be at a loss choosing the Nyaff Of The Year, as they are so many who deserve it. Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg would definitely deserve a Lifetime Achievement Award, which clears the field for other worthy contenders. Of course Dominic Cummings would get an award, you'd just have to pick for which of his many feats over last year, and getting himself sacked for being too much of a nyaff, even by Johnsonian standards, doesn't count. I guess we could also have an Ensemble Cast Award for Priti Patel, Matt Hancock, Robert Jenrick, Dominic Raab, Gavin Williamson and Oliver Dowden as The Worst Cabinet in Living Memory. North Of The Wall, I definitely nominate Oor Doogie Ross for his successive U-turns on the Internal Market Bill, which had him ending up exactly where he started from. Kirsty Blackman for her asinine whining over Woko Haram taking one fuck of a shellacking at the SNP's NEC election. Wee Andy Bowie for his attempt to spin the Bozo Deal as a great success and England's Christmas present to Scottish fishermen. Rev Stu Campbell, though technically he's way Doon Sooth, for relaying the Tory lie that 'voting against the deal is voting for no deal' in another attempt to smear and undermine the SNP . And finally another Ensemble Cast Award for all the Genderist Cultists who left the SNP and joined the Scottish Greens, after the SNP were forced by their own rebels to let Scottish Parliament pass Johann Lamont's 'sex not gender' amendment to the Forensic Medical Services Bill. Then of course that was last year, and since then we've seen some new outpour of madness. More on that later when discussing this year's polls.

Now Scottish politicians of all shades are getting ready for this year's election, and there is no doubt the Brexit fallout will play a huge part in the campaign. It would indeed be a dereliction of duty if the SNP did not use it to massively make the case for Independence. Because, no matter what SNP HQ have in mind, the Scottish Parliament election has to be, and will be for millions of voters, a 'pseudo-referendum' on Independence. I don't think the SNP desperately trying to shoot themselves in both feet and both hands simultaneously will have much impact here. I am quite sure voters have their priorities straighter than the governing party, and that support for Independence will continue to be the default option for the foreseeable future. Of course The Cause will benefit greatly from Labour rebranding themselves as the party of English Nationalism, a move that even the Starmer-friendly Guardian thinks is a massive blunder that could derail Sly Keir's attempts to make his party attractive again, and is fought by the true progressives within Labour. Sly Keir has also come up with what he probably thinks is the Magic Wand against Independence: Radical Federalism, or Double Devo Max, or The Vow 2.0. Of course you are welcome to unbelieve everything that Labour, or a think tank close to Labour, has ever said about it being a viable alternative. Because it's not, but could be a massive Squirrel In The Room, the distraction Unionists need to keep our eyes off the proverbial ball. Only Panelbase have tested a three-way vote so far, in their latest survey for The Sunday Times. They found that only 20% of Scots support this Third Way being on the ballot, and just 17% would actually vote for it. But it would snatch 5% off Yes and 12% off No, so Yes would not get an outright majority. You can bet the English Establishment would use that as evidence the referendum was inconclusive and we don't get Independence after all. So let's stick to the classic Yes-Or-No question, and here's what the updated trends of voting intentions say, once undecideds are counted out.

I think that the situation is not as bad as the recent downward trend of the Yes vote would make you believe. First of all, you should not consider just the raw results, bot also how they compare with previous answers to the same question. Here the Survation and SavantaComres polls show no change from the previous surveys by the same firms, that were both fielded in December. Only the Panelbase poll is a bit worrying as it shows the Yes lead down by 6% on their previous poll conducted in November. But this earlier poll was one of those showing an unexpectedly high level of support for Yes, so part of the explanation might just be random differences in sampling. Or not. Then the reassuring part is that the weighted average of the three January polls is not significantly different from what we had the last time I wrote about this in November, as the chart further down shows. Just notice that undecideds still make up about 10% of the electorate, and potentially still hold the key to success. As I have said multiple times already, the path to victory is converting undecideds, and I'm delighted to see The National has now endorsed this strategy and launched a new campaign that looks quite successful so far. Let's just hope this will not fall flat after the SNP announced their Eleven Points Roadmap, that quite muddied the waters by being released after hearings were concluded in Martin Keatings's People's Action On Section 30, which has now been sent to the Inner House of the Court of Session. It was quite puzzling to see Pete Wishart claiming the first ruling was a final blow for the case, when it obviously was not, as it was not dismissed on its merits but pretty much on technicalities. But Pipe'n'Slippers Pete had probably not read the SNP's document in full, as its Article 10 clearly states that court action to circumvent Section 30 will be on the table after Holyrood passes a Referendum Bill. Always fun to see Wishy making an arse of himself trying to out-sturgeon Sturgeon on gradualism. But then who still really cares about what Pete has to say?

There's a widespread theory in social sciences that human primates are naturally resistant to change, even when they affirm they support it, because they are unsure what the consequences will be. In many cases too, a lot of people who want change to happen don't expect it to happen, because they don't believe there will be a majority for it, even when polls say otherwise. So there is a double element of doubt, which seems to be currently absent from the Scottish collective mind. First factor is certainly that Independence has been the center of the political debate for more than eight years now, since the Edinburgh Agreement paved the way for the first referendum. All the pros and cons, even the wildly hypothetical, have been debated at some point from all possible perspectives, so people certainly think they have all they need to know to make an educated choice. In this context, I definitively think that any reincarnation of Project Fear will fail, because the people know better and the lies have already been debunked time and again, and all the phony reports in the world won't make a fucking difference. There is conclusive evidence in recent polls than more people want IndyRef2 to happen within the next five years than would vote Yes, and also that more expect Yes to win than would vote Yes or want the referendum to happen. Which is quite far from the double whammy of doubt you could expect when faced with the prospect of such radical change. And if you think Independence is screwed by the SNP reopening the Pandora's can of worms of identity politics, and prioritising pandering to an obstreperous extremist fringe over the proverbial top prize, bear in mind that all that was left at the bottom of the box was Hope, or so the saying goes. Not that Hope, of course. 

Our relationship is based on mutual loathing but it’s a living thing

It needs nurturing, it has to be sustained by continual conflict and abuse

(Charlie Gimbert, Lovejoy: The Sting, 1986)

© Al Stewart, 1976

Instead of scuppering the Scottish nationalists, a Scottish Parliament has made them more popular

Now, that might only be a blip but, with her own politics, her own news,

Today’s Scotland feels a lot more than 400 miles away from Westminster

No constitutional chopper has come down between Scotland and England

But it feels as if a slow, gentle separation is taking place

Like two pieces of pizza pulled apart, still connected, but only by strings of molten cheese

(Andrew Marr, History Of Modern Britain, broadcast on BBC on 19 June 2007)

Of course everyone expects the pandemic to have an impact on our May election. Which is why the Scottish Government tabled the Scottish General Election (Coronavirus) Bill, that the Scottish Parliament passed unanimously on 23 December. This was Stage 3 of the process, so the Bill is now law. It postpones dissolution to 5 May, the day before the election, so that any contingency plans can be debated and voted on until the last moment. It also increases the Presiding Officer's power to postpone the election, from one month to six months. Holding the election over several days has been ruled out, unless the Electoral Management Board propose it at a later date, which right now looks unlikely. Finally the most important, and possibly most controversial part, addresses postal voting. Tory MSP Oliver Mundell has recently been warned by the Electoral Commission over 'postal vote fishing', that is asking constituents to send their application to his constituency office instead of the Electoral Registration Officer. There is also circumstantial evidence that Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie did the same, which sounds definitely fishy. The Bill now brings the deadline to apply for a postal vote forward to 6 April. This is considered necessary to deal with an increased workload for election officers, as postal votes are expected to rise from 18% in 2016 to 40-50% this year. But the Scottish Government also made it clear they are not encouraging postal vote, as every precaution will be taken to make in-person voting safe. Let's just hope it will work and we won't have any nasty surprises in the next three months. The Bill nevertheless includes provisions for an all-postal vote, clearly as a last resort measure that would involve postponing the election by a yet unspecified delay. We have pretty much all bases covered and all parties in agreement, so let's roll.

This bill not only provides a base plan to hold the election as scheduled, it also provides a backup to the base plan, a backup to the backup and a last resort scenario. Scotland is more prepared to hold a safe election than any other country worldwide, and Unionists who say otherwise now are only talking through their arse in shameless bad faith, because poll after poll points to a 2011ish SNP landslide. Just remind them that Portugal held a presidential election in January, and the Netherlands will hold a parliamentary election in March, and nobody in either country claimed it would be unsafe and asked for a postponement. The Welsh government too has never raised the possibility of postponing the Senedd election, due to be held the same day as the Holyrood election. What might, or might not, happen with the English local elections is also totally irrelevant here. Some have suggested they should be postponed, but stress the rationale is a world-beating state of unpreparedness and the total lack of contingency plans, which means everything Doon Sooth will be left to last minute improvisation, with councils receiving fuck all support or advice from the English government. The polar opposite of the Scottish situation, and now the point is moot anyway after England and Wales decided to hold their locals no matter what. Anyway we've had three Holyrood polls in January, from SavantaComres, Survation and Panelbase. Oddly they basically agree on the constituency vote, but show different results for the list vote that are beyond the margin of error or a plausible sampling variation. Just below is the weighted average of voting intentions and how my model translates that into seats. We again have an outright majority for the SNP, which they would 'as usual' bag on the constituencies alone, and a sizeable pro-Independence majority. Though we have drifted now from earlier "much better than 2011" results to "just as good as 2011" for the SNP. More reasons to not be complacent and avoid obvious own goals, though it might be too late for the latter advice. We will have a better assessment of the shockwaves from recent SNP bar brawls soon enough, probably with the next Scottish Political Tracker from SavantaComres, which is quite probably being conducted right now. 

For the first time, I am using here a re-engineered version of my model, which relies now on the regional crosstabs for both the constituency vote and the list vote, when pollsters publish them. This is the case here for SavantaComres and Survation, so only the Panelbase poll injects a minority component of uniform swing. The regional crosstabs say the the SNP would do better than their national average in Central Scotland, Glasgow, Highlands and Islands, but significantly worse in South Scotland. Labour would do better just in Glasgow and West Scotland, the Liberal Democrats in Highlands and Islands, the Conservatives in North East and South, the Greens in Glasgow and Lothian. But the odd workings of AMS mean the projection based on regional crosstabs would have a significant impact in one region only: South Scotland. Here my revamped model says the SNP would fail to gain any of the four Conservative constituencies, but would swap that for two list seats. The SNP would lose one list seat because they are projected to gain East Lothian from Labour, which AMS would automatically compensate. Which would create a tricky situation for the SNP as their three MSPs from the South were all elected on the list in 2016. The last shenanigans of the SNP's NEC mean this would most probably cost Joan McAlpine her seat, definitely bad news for those who advocate a return to sanity within the SNP. Then the Conservatives would find themselves in quite a conundrum in Highlands and Islands, where they would bag only two list seats. Since one is already reserved for the return of Oor Doogie Ross to Holyrood, two of their incumbents would have to be kicked out, probably by a coin toss. The comparison of my results with those from two other sources, that both rely on uniform swing, shows that the different algorithms make little difference in the end. Different predicted outcomes in the constituencies are erased by the leveling effect of the allocation of lists seats. And if one party misses a list seat in a region where they underperform, it is likely to be compensated in another region where they overperform. So the conclusions you can draw from your projections remain the same.

It would definitely be good strategy for the SNP to stress how Scottish Labour, no matter how 'independent' they want to rebrand themselves, are more than ever subservient to the decisions taken in London by Keir Starmer's Ninth Circle. The leader who has made himself sound so bland that even The Guardian find him uninspiring, and hold his chestnuts to the fire for his many inconsistencies. Scottish voters will never buy the crap, reminiscent of the Iraq War era, that the Liberal Democrats can be something of a progressive alternative to a confused Labour. Not when they have the SNP on the ballot, who would benefit mightily from distancing themselves from their social-liberal policies, and embracing again the social-democratic values that made them successful in the past. And that also happened after a fiercely fought civil war, with Alex Salmond first expelled and then coming back with a vengeance and taking over the party, as John Curtice reminds us in The National, though he then rambles on again about the obvious. A strong push against a still possible Labour rebirth has the potential to deliver what the SNP need: a handful of list seats that would prove all the alt-Yes naysayers wrong. if you keep whispering "Vote Labour, Get Tories" in their ears. The freak scenario now would be to see the SNP nose-diving in polls, a clear and present danger former SNP PR lad Kevin Pringle was right to point out in The National. It's quite clear that some at the highest levels of the SNP food chain are genuinely worried about Nicola needlessly re-igniting the internal feuds. Of course there will be a price to pay for the infighting against an imaginary 'enemy within' leaking into the public domain. This is not what SNP voters expect, they want the party to concentrate its broadsides on the real enemy: the Conservatives who have repeatedly betrayed and insulted Scotland over the last five years and beyond. And of course nobody should refrain from the pleasure of exposing Oor Doogie Ross for the abysmal failure he is, even compared to his lacklustre predecessor.

The SNP's NEC once again bending the rules to shoehorn some of Woko Haram's Lost Boys into Holyrood despite their massive earlier defeats, and the unexpected sacking of Joanna Cherry from the Commons' frontbench dominated the news for a couple of cycles. But I suspect there was some Squirrel Effect here again as the most important item, in the long run, didn't make headlines: Humza Yousaf withdrawing the amendments to his Thought Police Bill that would have protected freedom of speech from the Genderist Inquisition, and delegating 'a broader definition of freedom of expression' to two prominent members of that clique, without involving the SNP's women groups or human rights lawyers. The various daily twists and turns of the Holyrood probe into the Alex Salmond case are also good clickbait. So now I guess we will never see Big Eck's Book Of Revelations on the shelves, as the revelations, and then some, are all over the press and social media day after day. So all Alex could do of all that is a scrapbook, and I don't think he will ever need one in the foreseeable future. But all the fracas could lead to Nicola Sturgeon being impeached at some point, which I think can still be delayed until after the election. Which totally explains retrospectively, for those who did not get it when it happened, the plot to keep Joanna Cherry away from Holyrood and install Angus Robertson as the heir apparent. But the best laid plans.... and an unexpected credible contender for Bute House has been mentioned: Kate Forbes, who unexpectedly became the instant target of some genderists. I totally admit the SNP's social-democratic wing would find themselves in quite a paradoxical situation if they ended up supporting Kate as First Minister against Angus, as she is not the most progressive voice about women's rights and gay rights. But we have resolved worst contradictions in the past, haven't we? Bottom line anyway is that I fear that SNP HQ should now abandon all hope of a 'peaceful and orderly transition' within their Ninth Circle and brace themselves for something quite more brutal.

An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground, to rule over the ashes

(Sun Tzu)

© Al Stewart, 1976

It's OK to panic, as long as you do it according to procedure

(Commander Karen Sommerville, Silent Witness: Shadows, 2010)

With all these encouraging prospects in mind, unless the next batch of polls totally contradicts them, the next general election might seem somewhat irrelevant, or inconsequential. Last year concluded with a massive survey conducted by Focaldata, relayed first by The Times and then by The Guardian (the only one not behind a paywall) and The National. With a 22,186 sample GB-wide, it delivers an outcome similar to what I described in my last post of last year: a tie in seats between Labour and Conservatives, with the SNP surging back to 2015 level. Their Scottish subsample must have been around 2,000, but Focaldata haven't published the size of their subsamples, and predict the SNP would bag 57 seats. According to the data file Focaldata have released, with individual projections by constituency, the two 'missing' seats would be Labour holding Edinburgh South and the Conservatives holding Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, their safest Scottish seat in 2019. This year we have just one poll, from Survation on behalf of Scot Goes Pop, conducted between and January. It shows a surprisingly low level of support for the SNP, both in comparison to previous Commons polls or to the Holyrood polls conducted simultaneously. Here is what we have, with the SNP uncomfortably close to their 2019 result, and what my model makes of that. Here too, I have re-engineered my model to factor in the regional crosstabs, when the pollster provides them. Which Survation does, with result quite similar to their Holyrood crosstabs, but with some differences coming from the different nature of the votes and possibly the personal stature of incumbent MPs.

Unsurprisingly the Conservatives do better than their national average in the North East and the South. This would allow them to hold all three Border seats, plus Banff and Buchan. On a bad day for the SNP, the Tories would also save Wee Andy Bowie in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, though they might not all be happy at the prospect. And more unexpectedly they could also gain Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock by a rabbit's ass' hair. But Oor Doogie Ross would be kicked out of Moray even if the SNP underperformed. The Liberal Democrats would do better than average in Highlands and Islands, but the SNP also would, so that wouldn't help Jamie Stone, who would lose his seat whichever way the wind blows. But LibDems would also overperform in Lothian and Mid Scotland and Fife, which would allow them to hold Edinburgh West and possibly the ultra-marginal North East Fife. Labour would overperform in Glasgow and West Scotland, which wouldn't help them much at first glance because the SNP are so far ahead in most seats there. But, on a bad day for the SNP, Labour would snatch back Glasgow North East, ironically Anne McLaughlin's seat, whose partner is Graham Campbell, SNP councillor for the Springburn-Robroyston ward of Glasgow and one of most prominent conspirators in Joanna Cherry's demise. And not so surprisingly also East Lothian, which has changed hands twice since the 2015 SNP landslide. I guess some within the SNP would love that, as it would get Chief Maverick Kenny MacAskill out. On a very bad day, Labour could also have a decent shot at Rutherglen and Hamilton West, which also changed hands twice since 2015, and even Inverclyde, which has been in the SNP's hands ever since the 2015 landslide. At the far end on the swingometer and on a good day, the SNP would snatch back Edinburgh West from the LibDems. Plus Banff & Buchan and Dumfries & Galloway from the Conservatives. Which would make Alister Jack the first ever sitting Secretary of State for Scotland to lose his seat to the SNP. Bear in mind that Douglas Alexander, Jim Murphy, Danny Alexander and Michael Moore were no longer Scottish Secretary when they lost their seats to the SNP, though they had been earlier in their career. And Alistair Darling technically never lost his seat as he had stood down before the 2015 election where Joann Cherry gained it, and was anyway also no longer Scottish Secretary at that time.

Finally, just above is the comparison between what my upgraded model delivers from the Survation poll, and what the two other projectors readily available online make of the same polling data. Oddly, Electoral Calculus predicts Labour would gain back Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, which might be mathematically correct based on the 2019 results, which were a political outlier, and uniform swing. But neither Election Polling nor me see it happening, that is unless somebody close to the Stirling University Mafia manages to pull a dirty trick on Neale Hanvey in the name of ideological purity going back seven generations, and I certainly wouldn't put this past that mischievous clique. Then the differences between my revamped model and others are not that big and just stress a situation we already knew existed. The Conservatives being strong in the South, and Labour still doing well in parts of Auld Strathclyde, will come as no surprise to anyone who paid attention. That it could be more damaging to the SNP than generally thought is no real news either. Just a timely reminder that, when you say that no vote should be taken for granted, you have to mean it and act accordingly. I honestly have no idea right now which modeling is the best. I guess we will have to wait until the next election to know if my idea of including regional crosstabs, with the risk involved in smaller samples, was a genuine lightbulb moment or just completely fucking daft. But this next election will possibly never happen, or will it after all?

In Edinburgh, they have salt and sauce

In Glasgow, we have salt and vinegar because we’re classy

(Susan Calman, on QI: Revolutions, 2020)

© Al Stewart, 1973