Alba? Or Did You Say Aɫ̪apə?

Sheepshagger was originally a nickname for the Black Watch,

The Scottish regiment, and this is a fantastic quote,

At least I think it’s fantastic, but I’m a lexicographer.

This goes all the way back, like almost a century.

It said: the use is highly offensive and it should not be used

In the hearing of one member of the regiment, let alone a crowd.

Even a subdued “Baaa” could be dangerous.

(Susie Dent, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2015)

© Calum MacDonald, Roderick MacDonald, 1987

In the first ever dictionary, Samuel Johnson famously defined oats as

“A grain, which in England is given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people”

Nowadays, of course, that definition doesn’t work for oats

Although it does work for ketamine

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2015)

The last few weeks have been kind of a rollercoaster, haven't they? They were for me anyway, especially after Alex Salmond dropped the A-bomb on Bute House with his Alba Party. I had mixed feelings initially about something that had obviously been in the making for a long time, as a carefully premeditated return to frontline politics. And it was not without its hiccups. First there was what you might call "The Curious Incident Of The Pronunciation In The Presser-Time". Which kind of marred the first day, but was soon forgotten as a forgivable live wart, when they made it right in the studio recording. Then there was a more embarrassing sequence in the aftermath of the Alba Women Conference, with heated controversy about lowering the age of consent, or not. I must confess now, though I would never say it on Twitter, that the factual evidence offered was a wee smitch too sketchy for comfort. And that some, including myself, let ourselves be carried away, even if the real issue there was worth fighting for. I shared the incidents with neighbour and friend Brian, whom you might remember from some of my tweets, and he had pretty much the killer punchline on this: "Jez, your heart is in the right place, but sometimes your brain isn't". Ouch.

Of course this caused a lot of virtue-signalling outrage from Nicola Sturgeon's most obstreperous encomiasts. Who are also joined at the hip with the genderist clique within SNP HQ. Seeing how "transphobe" had become the most over-used word since "unprecedented", they resorted to a new linguistic innovation, calling Alba supporters "queerphobes". But to they/them I say: let he/him who lives in a glass house cast the first stone. Then we now have 112 sub-species of gender identity duly approved by Woko Haram, so we can expect 112 shades of phobe to come out in the debate. Which I don't really mind, as I am kind of a cuntphobe myself. But let's just go back to the issues at hand now, starting with Nicola Sturgeon's approval ratings. Leaving aside the UK-wide results that are quite irrelevant, except for the second-home owners who game the system to vote in Scotland. Then ratings from Scottish voters only show that Nicola's net positive, while still convincingly strong, had declined slowly but steadily for months after her Covid Honeymoon peak. Then it went up again from mid-April, and strongly enough to turn the trend around after the Alba Party launch. Which is quite baffling unless you hypothesise that Scottish public opinion includes its fair share of Salmondophobes. Or you might explain that with the SNP's campaign. Including the SNP's Election Broadcast, with its theatrical-release quality that places it light years ahead of the hotchpotch of home videos and Zoom sessions offered by the other parties. Yes, I do genuinely think it does push all the right buttons, but also works on a rational level, with all the main talking points nicely woven together for maximum effect. Let's just hope it's not where the fenced money for IndyRef2 actually went.

Then came the BBC and STV debates, the latter cut into three parts due to ad breaks, but they will segue nicely into each other on YouTube. I must say Nicola did quite well and this time, unlike the botched 2017 Westminster campaign, her reliance on managerial competence in government provided just the right talking points for this campaign. She also had that genius moment during the STV debate when she asked Patrick Harvie a direct question about the powers of the Scottish Parliament and the Tory power grab. The distressed and exasperated look on Douglas Ross's face while they discussed it uninterrupted over his head was pure comedy gold. The best part being of course when both Patrick and Nicola used the opportunity to move on to promoting independence and taking down the "baby steps" of federalism. Those who found Nicola toxic afore the debates still won't touch her with a sixty-foot bargepole afterwards, so fuck them. Her sycophants won't even find fault with her trainwreck remark about "taking our eyes off the ball" over drug deaths, or her weak defence over the SQA fiasco and the QEUH situation, and will instead praise here for acknowledging mistakes and apologising for them. And this point of view will obviously prevail among the SNP membership, whatever the actual number is this week, and also with readers of The National. Which is probably all that SNP HQ expect and think matters. And it definitely works with SNP voters, as Nicola's triple-digit net positive took a slow and steady plunge for months, just as with the Scottish general population, then has gone up again over the last four weeks. Of course this might be just a side effect of the Scottish Juche and how the faithful rally around the Suryong at key moments in the nation's life. Or it can be the mechanical effect of some leaving the SNP for the Alba Party, so that those who remain are more devoted to Nicola and more supportive. And I'm not just being gratuitously sarcastic here.

But the debates weren't all about Nicola, and I have reasons to think they have altered public perception of the other leaders. Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie definitely scored points, and it's probably wise that they stuck to the solid ground of constitutional and environmental issues most of the time, with a little help from Nicola in the second debate. Wandering into identity politics would definitely have been the quicksand they would have sunk into, so it's just as well they avoided it. Oor Doogie Ross is the wannabe power player who forgot his shoulder pads at home, and then he would have needed full body armour during both debates. Doubling down on his anti-Travellers stance was definitely his low point, and yet the bar was set pretty low even afore that. And he was also totally minced to a pulp when faced with questions about the English Government taking the Scottish Parliament to court over children's rights. I dreamt I heard Tory voices in my head afterwards, begging for a third debate so they could send Jackson Carlaw on a damage control mission. Willie Rennie is both insignificant and irrelevant, with barely any idea he hasn't nicked from someone else's playbook. But of course the most unexpected performance came from Anas Sarwar. It's tempting to try and reduce him to a posh cardboard cutout of a Blairite Unionist, which he undoubtedly is, but there's definitely more to the man than meets the eye at first glance. If the SNP and Labour were tied in the polls, instead of the SNP bagging more than double the votes, I'm quite sure he would give Nicola a run for her money. And I'm not even sure Nicola would prevail. The silver lining is that Anas's major liability now is Keir Starmer himself, who is not only acting in contradiction with his party's manifesto, but is also totally out of touch with his own voters on the key issue of the second independence referendum. But of course this is just my take on the debates, and we might get quite a different impression from other campaign events as they unfold.

In England we have Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat

But Scotland’s most popular delivery service is “send the wee man for chips”

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2020)

© Calum MacDonald, Roderick MacDonald, 1987

Half the people I know couldn’t spell eggs Benedict, far less order it

They wouldn’t know what it was

(Kevin Bridges, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2015)

There are lots of other events down the campaign trail, and you have certainly read all about them in the press. The funniest moment was of course when a miffed Doogie Ross had to announce that Boris Johnson would not be visiting Scotland after all, and came within an inch of openly admitting that the sole reason was how toxic the First Minister of England is to a vast majority of Scots. I also think it's quite embarrassing and quite revealing that the SNP concentrate their broadsides on the Alba Party, even with unconvincing shaky math, and fail to take the Greens to task over their vanity candidacies in a number of constituencies. There is no strong evidence that this may result in any SNP incumbents losing their seats, though it might make it tighter for a few of them. Christine Grahame in Midlothian South comes to mind. But the key point is that Green candidacies might jeopardise a couple of potential SNP gains. One such seat is Galloway and West Dumfries. And of course the best example is Edinburgh Central, the top prize on the SNP's target list, where the Greens are obviously to blame for the SNP losing the seat in 2016. Then we had this fake on Twitter pretending to be a Green candidate openly campaigning to defeat the possibility of an outright SNP majority.

That one was quite embarrassing for the Greens, as a lot of people did not question it and spontaneously identify it as a fake, and genuinely believed this was something that could have happened. Probably because the Greens never actually came out with an "SNP 1, Greens 2" catchphrase in the 61 constituencies where they do not stand, while the Alba Party were quite clear with "SNP 1, Alba 2" from day one, and chose to overlook the SNP's constant savaging of them. Then we know why the Greens can get away with it, don't we? Now let's see what the trends of polls tell us about the constituency vote. There have been 74 Holyrood polls since the 2016 election, including 20 in 2021, so we have enough data to identify some interesting phenomena. First we see the SNP's voting intentions sharply falling in 2017 and slowly going up again all along 2018 and 2019. More evidence, if we needed any, that the disastrous 2017 general election campaign deeply hurt them. Then we see that the most significant shifts are between the SNP and Labour, rather than between Labour and Conservatives. Given the choice, Labour voters go for the other left-wing option rather than for the other Unionist one, even more so if they're part of the 35% who would vote Yes to Indy. Which might explain part of Anas Sarwar's strategy: hit harder at the Conservatives and maintain some ambiguity about IndyRef2. Finally, and more importantly, the SNP are still doing really well for a party that has been in power for 14 years and been the target of all oppositions all along. Many governing parties abroad would be more than happy to hold or slightly increase their vote share on the previous election, as the SNP are likely to do on 6 May.

The trends of the list vote convey pretty much the same message. Only with a Green variable added on top, and the Alba Party in the five most recent polls. Here we also see some movement from the Labour constituency vote to the Green list vote. Which is no surprise if you have looked at the fine print of Holyrood polls and Council by-elections. Voters who self-identify as Green today, and were eligible to vote at the first Independence referendum, went 57% Yes to 43% No, according to the last Panelbase poll. Not really the most ringing endorsement of Independence and it helps explain why the Green leadership tend to spend much more time campaigning on other issues. The cartography of transfers at Council elections also shows that, when a Green candidate is eliminated, roughly as many of their preferences go to Labour at the next count as to the SNP. The list voting intentions here only show that the voter-fluidity goes both ways. It might help Labour at some close Council elections, but it also strengthens the pro-Indy camp in Holyrood.

Recent events have triggered some more name-calling about the infamous list vote. Which is like the right time to make my own position on this clear, and expose my own contradictions, in case you hadn't spotted them already. Those who knew my previous Twitter incarnation in 2016 might remember I strongly supported Both Votes SNP then. The obvious reason being that this very pattern delivered the SNP majority in 2011, and there was every reason to believe it would again in 2016. It's also fairly easy to simulate what Both Votes SNP would have delivered in 2016: 67 SNP MSPs and 2 Green MSPs for the same 69-seat pro-Indy majority. Which would definitely have been a win-win in my book. Bear in mind this was afore Woko Haram's infiltration of the SNP's Ninth Circle, gender self-identification and the Thought Police Bill. So it definitely made sense and still does today. It also was the valid option early in this campaign when various alt-Yes mini-parties started to emerge. I did the math several times to show how this could be counter-productive and deliver fewer pro-Indy seats, and I still stand by it. The basic math of AMS says that you need aboot a 6% national average to be competitive on the list vote. Though there are precedents showing you can bag list seats on 3% nationally if your vote is very unevenly distributed, as in concentrated in one or two regions. Then two events totally changed my perspective on this. As MacMillan said, when in doubt, blame the events.

The first was of course the shamelessly rigged process for the selection of the SNP's top list candidates. A supposedly "inclusive" process by which you could end up in the top slot though being in the middle of near the bottom of the pile when the real votes were counted. A lot was said at the time about this process, so I will not elaborate more. Only to remind you it was quite transparently designed to bring back candidates from a vocal extremist fringe within the party, who had been rejected as constituency candidates. And even that failed in an iconic case in Argyll and Bute. This left me orphaned for a while as I was totally sure to never cast my vote for the SNP top candidate in Lothian, a parachuted Glasgow councillor among the worst of the Woko Haram wing of the SNP. Then came the Alba Party, which started really well with the unification of the clans, though some regrettably strayed away from that course later. It also offered the only viable alternative for anyone with a social-democratic vision of an Independent Scotland, and totally unwilling to support the Greens. I was reluctant at first to go Full Alba, for fear they would jeopardise Joan McAlpine's reelection in South Scotland. Polls soon proved this was unlikely to happen: either Joan was predicted to gain the Dumfriesshire constituency from the Tories, or regional crosstabs predicted Alba would underperform in the South and would be no threat to the SNP's three list seats there. Now we have a very credible scenario in which Alba can bag 5 to 7 list seats and nick only one from the SNP, in Highlands and Islands. Which is good enough for me, as Alba have now reached the level of voting intentions that would actually increase the number of pro-Indy MSPs. So "SNP 1, Alba 2" it is, as the catchphrase goes on Twitter. And I don't even feel pedantic enough right now to explain again why "1" and "2" is a gross misrepresentation of the way AMS works.

The expression "born with a silver spoon in his mouth" means being born into a rich family

Whilst the expression "born with a silver spoon in one hand and a lighter in the other"

Means born in Glasgow

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2016)

© Calum MacDonald, Roderick MacDonald, 1987

According to the University of Glasgow, there are over 420 Scottish terms for snow

They include snow-way, pal, I’ve got snow-money, and snow-vegetables for me

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2016)

Oddly, when you consider the number of polls we've had this year, none has been conducted over the last ten days. What are pollsters mair feart of unveiling? That the Tories are nosediving after Oor Doogie got his arse skelped in the debates? Or that the Alba Party has finally reached double-digit voting intentions? Oor Doogie's latest own goal, refusing to support consumption rooms despite evidence that it works, after taking Nicola Sturgeon to task over drug deaths during the second debate, will certainly not improve his credibility. On the Alba side, the last Panelbase poll triggered a funny incident on Twitter. Panelbase had used the wording "The Alba Party (led by Alex Salmond)" in a previous poll. So the SNP's Light Brigade were prompt to charge at Panelbase, accusing them of using the same "biased" wording in the new poll. Which was total porkies, just proving that Nicola's keyboard warriors too are quick to shoot from the hip first and check the facts later. The final irony being that the Alba Party actually did better without Big Eck being mentioned than they had done earlier with his name included in the prompt. So the last instant snapshot we have dates back from just before the second debate, but is surely as good as any. This is what my model makes of the last Panelbase poll, conducted between 9 and 12 April, compared to the simulation on uniform swing that was published at the time by James Kelly. 

Whichever simulation you choose to believe, this is an extremely satisfying result. The number of pro-Indy seats jumps from 69 to 78 in both cases, and the Alba Party contribute their fair share. Then the SNP's Virtual Guerrilla Squad should not be so dismissive of that Panelbase poll, because it shows some interesting and counter-intuitive side effects of AMS. Namely that the SNP can bag the same number of seats, and possibly a couple more, with a mediocre performance on the constituencies and losing a fuckload of votes on the lists. My model says the SNP would gain three constituencies: Edinburgh Southern and Dumbarton from Labour, Aberdeenshire West from the Conservatives. The most important part is that all three are in regions where the SNP have no list seats, so would lose sweet fuck all from the compensatory mechanism embedded in AMS. The SNP's lower share of the list vote would have only a marginal impact as it is irrelevant in the six regions where they have no list incumbent. They would lose only one list seat to the Alba Party in Highland and Islands, which is better value for votes in my book, knowing the genderist leanings of the SNP top candidate there. The most interesting situation here is in South Scotland where no constituency would change hands. But the regional crosstabs of the list vote say that the SNP vote there would go totally against the national trend and go a wee smitch up. While Alba would significantly underperform and the Conservative vote would be seriously dented by George Galloway's All For Unity. So the SNP would hold their three list seats and return all their incumbents, most importantly Joan McAlpine, and the Conservatives would lose one to All For Unity. Enter George Galloway, for worse or for worst.

The most popular verbs in England are eat, sleep, drink and run

Whereas the most popular verbs in Scotland are booze, fry, inject and scavenge 

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2013)

© Calum MacDonald, Roderick MacDonald, 1987

It’s quite surprising, it disnae feel like a radical movement tae git Scottish Independence

If feels mair like a sort of coming th'gither of pals tae hae a wee fly cup and a blether

(Alistair Heather at SNP Conference, BBC Scotland: Rebel Tongue, 2020)

Polls on the second Independence referendum have been quite disappointing this year. An uninterrupted streak of 23 Yes leads was brutally interrupted in early February. Then we had a sequence of swings form No to Yes to No until mid-March. There weren't enough polls showing No in the lead for a long enough period of time to drag the trendlines to a sustained No majority. But that does not make them look really better. The polls fielded from mid-March to mid-April remain quite worrying, with Yes very far from the double-digit leads it enjoyed in every other poll not so long ago. And the weighted average of the most recent batch of polls has been flatlining at aboot 51-49 for Yes for some weeks now. Uncomfortably close, innit? But we can only hope that the Holyrood campaign will boost the Yes vote. First Nicola Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie are like pig and blanket when discussing it during a debate, and ticking all the right boxes to get the message through. You can doubt their actual commitment to Independence, and I do, but you can hardly find fault with the current talking points. Oor Doogie Ross and Wee Wullie Rennie are also of great help, though unwillingly. Doogie only makes an arse of himself every time the issue comes up. Wullie was successfully baited by Nicola into admitting that all his significant manifesto pledges could only be implemented with Westminster's approval, thusly making the case for Independence against his own will. And Labour are obviously moving towards endorsing the principle of a second referendum, if not Independence itself. All Anas Sarwar has to do is acknowledge that Double-Devo-Max Federalism might be the sunlit uplands in some alternate reality, but will definitely never work in this one. Of course, we also need a strong Yes movement from the grassroots, ready and willing to campaign tirelessly whatever the result of the election and the shortcomings of the next Scottish Government. In the end, it's aw up tae us.

Now, if you want to always see the bright side of life, we still have plenty of time to boost support for Yes. Setting the bar at 70%, as Shettleston's MSP John Mason recently did, is plain daft. There will never be 70% for Yes, not in the foreseeable future and not even in the unforeseeable one. A sustained 60% in future polls would be enough to make me happy, but timing will be of the essence. So I advise to avoid holding IndyRef2 in 2022. Because it will be Elizabeth Windsor's Platinum Jubilee, her unprecedented 70 years as Queen of England and Colonies. There is no doubt it will be quite grandiose, a much bigger thing than the rather subdued Sapphire Jubilee in 2017. So expect an unprecedented outpour of shameless corny unionism and monarchism, with unionjacked bunting all the way up and down the Mile and across Freedom Square. Add the mandatory reruns of Philip Mountbatten's funeral, plus Oor Doogie on top, if he's still around as Branch Office Manager, yelling "how dare you even contemplate holding a divisive referendum while we are celebrating the best Queen our Union has ever had". 2023 it is, then. Two years to get Yes past 60% and keep it up there, and the real Independence Day some time in 2025. Unless Lizzie makes it even worse and abdicates during the Jubilee, so we would have to put up with celebrations for Charlie's coronation a year later, with yet another serving of unbridled unionism. Holy shitballs. So brace yourselves for the SNP still competing in the next UK general election, whenever that happens. But that's a wholly different story, innit? And one we'll deal with later.

I always thought there are broadly two kinds of Scot

The angry ginger kind and the brooding intensely private satellite type

(Tony Blair, The Deal, 2003)

© Calum MacDonald, Roderick MacDonald, 1987