On The Road To Holyrood

In Roman numerals, putting a bar above a number multiplies it by one thousand

Whereas in Scotland, putting a bar above something means it now also has an upstairs bar

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2014)

© Alec Dalglish, 2015

In 2010, Kevin Bridges released his debut DVD “The Story So Far”

It proved so popular in Glasgow thefts of DVD players went up 50%

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

So now we know officially that the counts for the Holyrood election will be held on Friday and Saturday, 7 and 8 May. Let's just hope they have a muckle ferry at the ready in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, to carry the ballot boxes from the wee islands to Stornoway in time, so we don't have to wait for the full Highlands and Islands results until after the proverbial Sabbath Break. Expect an interesting Friday afternoon then, when the pundits will stop ranting aboot Labour losing the Hartlepool by-election, and will start ranting aboot the Tory-enabling Scottish Greens making the SNP lose Edinburgh Central for the second time in a row. Too bad we won't have the results of the Airdrie and Shotts by-election at the same time, but the SNP have only themselves to blame for this massive fuckup. When Neil Gray waited until the very last second to resign his Commons seat, he gifted the Labour-Conservative North Lanarkshire Council a golden opportunity on a silver platter to postpone the by-election until 13 May, and make an utter fucking joke of the SNP's pledge to save taxpayers the expense of a Commons by-election. If the SNP had simply enforced a 'no double-jobbing' rule and demanded that MPs resign from Commons only after being elected to Holyrood, it would have resulted in pretty much the same situation, only in a few more constituencies. Besides, it definitely would have made them look better than a bent rule that's coming back to bite them in the arse. Let's just hope the SNP will be saved the full humiliation of losing the Commons seat on a lousy turnout, which would make them look like fucking glaikits. And don't rule that out too quickly, just remember Labour nearly gained the seat back in 2017 and could very well succeed this time aboot. That's what my Westminster model predicts, based on the last poll from Survation, with regional crosstabs showing Labour would overperform and the SNP underperform in Central Scotland. Labour definitely have some life left in them, mostly in the Auld Strathclyde area, which should keep the SNP on their toes and avoiding complacency.

Then let's focus on the bigger picture of the Great Matter at hand. Recent Holyrood polls have been quite contradictory, with few of them bringing good news for either the SNP or the Alba Party. But it's been quite good overall for the Greens, who will most probably increase their number of MSPs. Which is not that surprising when you consider that, according to the latest YouGov poll, aboot half their list votes come from voters who choose Labour or the LibDems on the constituency vote, and probably don't mind the Greens being low-key on Independence. They're also most likely part of those "enlightened" young ones who will let Patrick Harvie get away with calling a member of the public a transphobe on live radio, because she was arguing for women's sex-based rights. Which, under different skies, would have been the Green variant of Gordon Brown's Bigotgate. But not in Scotland in this day and age, where "transphobe" has become the virtue-signalling rallying cry of the misogynistic gay-denying left. This is just one of the many paradoxes of this campaign, and not the most important. What is most striking, and you have surely noticed it on their national campaign material, is that both Labour and the Conservatives are literally begging for list votes, but leave the constituency campaigning to the local candidates. Which of course has not gone unnoticed by the SNP, who use it to ironically hit at the opposition's lack of ambition. This attitude is even a bit surprising as the trends of the constituency vote show that the SNP has had better days. And we also have Labour first catching up on the Conservatives, then overtaking them. Of course Labour are highly unlikely to gain any constituencies, but they could have a fair shot at holding the ones they have.

It is also quite remarkable that the SNP are the only party explicitly campaigning on becoming the next Scottish Government and having one of their own become the next First Minister. There is a stark contrast here with UK general elections, where the Leader of the Opposition naturally campaigns to become the next Prime Minister. You might even have the leader of the third party fancying herself as the next PM, but that's like a once-in-a-generation stunt. Or Germany, where all major parties have their Spitzenkandidat, the one who will become Chancellor if their party wins the election. And now Nicola Sturgeon has taken the unusual step of campaigning for the benefit of English voters, not surprisingly in that beacon of English progressivism, The Guardian. Which has probably as many readers in Glasgow as The National in London. But never mind, it's the paper of choice of the Woke Labourgravia Elite, and they even seemed to like what she wrote. The list vote trends also show some interesting movement in recent polls. The SNP are bound for a very lacklustre performance, being challenged for list votes by the Greens and the Alba Party, and oddly enough also by Labour. Though here Labour have so far failed to overtake the Conservatives. This is definitely something that should worry Anas Sarwar, as an overperformance on the lists is the only way Labour can beat the Conservatives on the number of seats, and gain back the second party status they enjoyed from 2007 to 2016. But I guess the only way they can achieve this is with a softer stance on holding a second independence referendum. This might not gain them more SNP constituency voters, but they might lose fewer of their own to the Greens. Just saying.

Finally, current polling begs the question: is there a Shy Albannach Factor at work? I do believe there is, as I think the true potential of the Alba Party is more likely to be 8-10% rather than 1%, and only the relentless savaging of Big Eck from all corners of the compass prevents it from being visible in the polls. But of course even True Believers have to brace themselves for failure and accepting it gracefully. If the Alba Party actually bags just 1% on Election Day, that will be a massive missed opportunity and a carefully laid-out own goal for the Yes camp. We can only hope SNP HQ will realise they're not just pissing down the wrong tree, but also in the wrong fucking forest. But if failure is bound to happen only due to personal hostility, there is little even Big Eck himself can do about it, or is there?

Sometimes you have to learn how to lose before you are ready to win

(Arnold Rimmer, Red Dwarf X: Trojan, 2012)

© Martin Gillespie, 2012

Resentment of the English is the only thing that holds Scotland together

Otherwise they’d be at each other’s throats

Before the active Union, the Highlands fought the Lowlands

Catholics fought Calvinists, Dissenters fought Anglicans

Campbells fought McDonalds and now Rangers fans fight Celtic fans, they just never stop

Offer them Independence and it’ll scare the pants off them

(Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Prime Minister: Scot Free, 2013)

The trend of IndyRef2 voting intentions is again very disappointing, with four polls in a row putting No in the lead by 1% to 6%. The weighted average of the last five polls, all conducted within the last two weeks, is also far from encouraging. We would have 43.5% Yes to 45.8% No, with 10.7% undecided. Which translates into 48.7% Yes to 51.3% No. Quite far from where we were in October when Yes bagged up to 58%, or even in March when we still had a more satisfying 52-53% for Yes. There are obviously many reasons for this swing towards No. The daftest explanation being what I read from some SNP zealot on Twitter, that Alex Salmond is to blame for that as the numbers were better before the Alba Party appeared on the scene. Surely someone should look up the differences between coincidence, correlation and causality, unless it's asking too much of their wee brain. Or someone should get a crash course at understanding campaign dynamics, and realise some of the Unionists' talking points might work when the SNP sometimes appears off-piste on the constitutional issues. There are many floating voters around here, some of whom might be swayed to No if they agree that now is not the time just yet, or that everybody should concentrate on a short-term recovery plan and forget about the long-term plans. I would allocate some of the blame to the Scottish Greens, who are often even less straightforward and convincing than the SNP on Independence, which already says a lot. There are obviously many Green voters who think a green agenda can be implemented within the limits of devolution, and I think the Harvie-Slater duo have done very little to debunk this.

Another weird take on IndyRef2 undoubtedly comes from Laura Webster in The National, who feigns to discover that Green voters are the weak link in the Yes camp. This has already been highlighted time and time again in previous polls, you just have to pay attention to the crosstabs of IndyRef2 voting intentions with Holyrood voting intentions. Remembered vote at the 2014 referendum shows that Green voters then went 57% Yes to 43% No. Seeing them aboot split down the middle now is in no way surprising, when you consider their increased vote share includes about half who would vote Labour or LibDem on the constituencies. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to add 2 and 2 here, does it? But of course it's far easier to blame Big Eck for everything from lousy polling to rainfall, and cuddle the Greens to protect the identity politics agenda. The real litmus test will come after the election, when we compare the IndyRef voting intentions then with the vote shares of the pro-Independence parties. I have a hunch that only somewhere above 55% of the list votes would translate into 50% Yes, still leaving us with a long way to go before we reach the comfort zone. With the added risk that constitutional issues will again be put on the back-burner for a while, in the name of post-Covid recovery and plans to salvage the economy. Unless the SNP learn how to multitask, which I seriously doubt they will.

We’re all in the same boat, even the Universe

And even though the boat has a hole in it

At least we get to see the sea

(Kryten, Red Dwarf XI: Krysis, 2016)

© Alec Dalglish, 2014

This is a battle between two ways of life

One that leads inevitably to slavery, the other to freedom

(Margaret Thatcher, The Long Walk To Finchley, 1950 general election campaign)

The interesting part of the voting intentions trends is that the Conservatives are down on their 2016 results on both votes in three out of four of the most recent polls. Of course news from London and Boris Johnson's recent shenanigans don't help. You have to be fair to Oor Doogie Ross, he did say that Bozo's rant about bodies piling high was indefensible. But the episode just points at one of Doogie's biggest problems. He's told so many porkies before that people no longer want to listen to what he has to say. And if they do, they dismiss it as just more porkies or shameless hypocrisy. Which is exactly the case here, and Doogie didn't help his cause later, backpedaling and saying he does not believe Bozo actually made the appalling comments, and still supporting his Overlord in the neverending Tory Sleaze scandal. And Oor Doogie did not really shine either when asked about it during the Channel 4 debate, making it easier for Nicola Sturgeon to score one against him. So Doogie's fair game now and I don't think the stories will go away in Scotland as easily as the Tories hope they will in England.

The most recent snapshot we have now is the last Panelbase poll, commissioned by James Kelly, and conducted between 21 and 26 April. As is usually the case with Panelbase, and is definitely a shortcoming, it does not include regional crosstabs. So I calculated the over and underperformances by region from the averages of the last three previous polls, that were fielded between 16 and 22 April. Not exact science, but that's the best I could possibly do. This Panelbase poll also has what I consider a major flaw: they have the Greens on 4% of the constituency vote, as they are included in the prompts for all respondents. Other pollsters have a different approach, asking for a voting intention only for the parties that are actually standing in each respondent's constituency, obviously delivering more accurate results. Then this is something my model takes care of as it automatically reallocates the votes when a given party is not standing in a given constituency. In that case, it decreases the national Green vote to a more plausible 1.1% while slightly increasing the SNP and Labour votes, consistent with patterns seen in other elections. The combination of this explains why the SNP would end up gaining three constituencies, instead of the overall "no change" you have on uniform swing. Then factoring in under and overperformances on the list votes takes down the Alba Party from eight seats on uniform swing to just six. They would widely miss a seat in Central but be just a few hundred votes shy of one in Glasgow. So there's still hope.

Now there is an interesting twist to this poll if you forget about all the regional crosstabs stuff and simply replay the constituencies on basic uniform swing all across the country. Then the SNP miss their top target Edinburgh Central by 1% with the Greens bagging 14%. The SNP also miss a possible gain in Galloway and West Dumfries by 3% with the Greens bagging 4%. Thusly, on the most commonly used method of seat projection, you have the Greens squarely in the way of an outright SNP majority on the constituencies only, the scenario I have already identified and advocated as the one path to an unquestionable victory. But of course the Glasgow clique at SNP HQ will choose to ignore than and carry on cuddling the Greens, and possibly invite them into government. The Greens' game-plan is painfully obvious: sabotage the chances of an outright SNP majority, so they hold the balance of power when SNP HQ asininely refuse to work with the Alba Party. If the SNP and the Greens actually go into a government coalition after the election, as some have already proposed, I strongly advise Nicola Sturgeon to keep Harvie and Slater on a very short leash. And to be ruthless and unforgiving on coalition discipline. This is Scotland, for fuck's sake, this is not Israel, where they have votes in the Cabinet because members of hotchpotch coalitions can't even agree on some key issues. If you're in government, you toe the line and you suck it up when things don't go your way. Just ask Nick Clegg for advice. And there is no "three strikes" rule here. At the first strike, you're gone. Take it or leave it, or git tae fuck.

I do enjoy a wee bit of Scottish water, that’s the whisky

I went on a whisky diet once and lost three days

(Johnny Vegas, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2016)

© Alec Dalglish, Daniel Gillespie, 2010

There’s an old Scottish saying: give a man a crumb, he’ll try and take the whole loaf.

What’s Scottish about that? The pertinacity!

(George Warleggan, Poldark: The Original Series, 1975)

And now the return of a feature I used in some earlier articles a long time ago, and dropped until we were really close to Election Day: the full breakdown of seats by region. The lighter Saltire-ish blue shade is of course for the Alba Party list seats. The worst part here is certainly the SNP down to one list seat in South Scotland, meaning only Emma Harper would stay, with Joan McAlpine and Paul Wheelhouse both out. Of course the SNP will blame the Alba Party for this, but they might as well blame the Greens, who would also nick a list seat off the SNP down there. They might actually admit, or not, that they did it to themselves, with the combination of a poor performance and a rigged selection process. I have no problem reminding them Joan McAlpine did win the real selection vote, and only the bent rules propelled Emma Harper from third place to the top slot. Or you might just go for the lex parsimoniae, aka Occam's Razor, and blame it solely on the way AMS works. Gain the East Lothian constituency from Labour by a hair and compound that with a mediocre list vote and you're done, two list seats down. Overall, the SNP are predicted to gain three constituencies: East Lothian from Labour, West Aberdeenshire and Edinburgh Central from the Conservatives, but all three will be extremely close. The crowded field in Edinburgh Central might even result in a situation you rarely see, even with the quirks of FPTP: the winner bagging less than 30% of the popular vote.

Overall, this is really not satisfying for the SNP. Ending up with the same number of seats, with constituency gains nullified by list losses, is possibly the worst case scenario outwith of a net loss. It only illustrates one of the SNP's weaknesses at this election: the distinct possibility of a dismal result on the lists, that can't be cured by smallish overperformances on the constituencies in a few regions. This validates the strategy I have been advocating right from the start: focus on getting a majority on the constituencies only, deploy the yellow steamrollers all over the country and go for everybody else's jugular. Some of the opposition's candidates are so bad you won't need much effort and campaign dosh to knock them out. The strategy is especially valid in South Scotland, where both Dumfriesshire and Galloway and West Dumfries are definitely within reach, allowing both Joan McAlpine and Emma Harper to come back as constituency MSPs. The list vote would thusly become less of a concern, with Paul Wheelhouse likely to come back even on a mediocre performance as the Conservatives would also have to fight off a strong challenge from All For Unity, who are generally predicted to do rather well in the South. In the Borders and on the Border, which George Galloway will have to remember are two different things. 

Did you know, for example, “fantoosh” is a word

Used mainly by Scottish people to show extreme pleasure?

For example: “Fantoosh, I’ve found another viable vein in my big toe”

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

© Alec Dalglish, Craig Espie, 2012