Jeremy's Den

21/05/2020

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)

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)

10/05/2020

The State Of The Union - WC-Day Special

Eighty years ago today, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of England and Colonies for the first time.
His second term, eleven years later, made him the very last Prime Minister born before the Forth Bridge was built.
But WC-Day was definitely not WC's Finest as it was also the day Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg while England barely noticed as they were too busy invading Iceland at the same time.

additional verse by Marc Almond, 1991

We Conservatives are planing through the spray of a lifting wave
Rising upwards and onwards into the sunlight of tomorrow
(Andrea Riseborough as Margaret Thatcher, The Long Walk To Finchley, 1959 election campaign)

God writes paperback books in his underwear.
And like all writers, he churns out draft after draft.
My world? This world? Nothing but failed drafts.
And when he realizes that they're flawed, he moves on and tries again.
Because he doesn't care. Not about you. Me. Anything.
(Dean Winchester, Supernatural: Nihilism, 2019)

During the pollsters' unusually long post-election retreat earlier this year, I sought solace in the 'Our Friends In The North' DVDs which, believe it or not, I had never seen before. It was quite fun to see Christopher Ecclestone and Daniel Craig made up as some Spinal Tap impersonators and Mark Strong with hair and looking like a young Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 1970s episodes. And of course Eccleston's 'Young Corbyn' look in 1979 was priceless even if it was unintentional as Corbyn was a complete unknown when the series was filmed. There is an interesting side-plot in there when voters openly say they'd rather have the Tories in charge than Militant, and already back then a number of supposedly safe seats were lost by Labour. Bis repetita…. Then of course real-life events have now moved on a few episodes past that.

We're back to the Dark Ages

Anything's possible except the things we really want

(Our Friends In The North: 1974)

Today, five months after Their Friends In The North have again taken one big fuck of a drubbing, Keir Starmer has finally become Labour's Fearless Great Leader. Which comes as no surprise to me as I saw this coming from far away and far ago if you remember my earlier articles. First I singled him out as a credible Deputy PM to a victorious Corbyn when polls hinted at a Labour-led hung Parliament, which was just a year ago, admittedly an eternity and a generation in British politics. Then, when it became clear Labour were doomed to lose and Corbyn to resign, I had Starmer as the compromise candidate that could coalesce all factions. And now Sir Keir, as he reportedly begs people to not call him, has won by rebranding himself as the Great Unificator of post-Blairites, post-Brownites and post-Momentumers, which of course lends credibility to the theory that the once-reluctant Starmer has not just morphed into an ambitious Starmer but was indeed playing the long game all along. Someday someone will write a book about how he slyfoxed his way to the top rung of the food chain, but right now the question that matters is: will Starmer be the next Tony Blair or just the next Neil Kinnock?

If we're going to be ruled by Tories
Let's be ruled by proper Tories, not Tories in drag
(Our Friends In The North: 1974)

Of course the overall picture supports the latter, like in 1983-2019 and Foot-Corbyn and Kinnock-Starmer. Then it is very unlikely now that the handling of Covid-19 could end up being Boris Johnson's Falklands, when even The Times rips the English Government a new one. Johnson is definitely in a very precarious situation even if the Tory-sucking billionaire-owned fish-wrappers spin Covid-19 into a tour de force by Oor Boris, single-handedly taking Britannia from the humiliation at Dunkirk to victory in the desert sands. 'Remember The Alamein', as they say in Texas, or whatever. Boris might think he has the oven-ready scapegoat for any mishap in Matt Hancock, who definitely graylinged himself into redundancy when making a dog's breakfast of PPE procurement and made-up tests statistics. But it's highly unlikely that even throwing Tigger Matty under the bus will be enough of a response to public calls for a thorough investigation into what happened, and what did not. And the incoming Brexitocalypse won't help either when people realize the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is the Brexit runaway train coming at them at flank speed.

But despite all the Tories' abject failures, Starmer's dilemma over the next few years will be: can history repeat itself? Which it doesn't except when it does. And then first time's a tragedy, second time's a farce and third time's a charm. Just what happened to Labour in the olden days after the 1983 debacle: 1987 a tragedy, 1992 a farce up to and including the BBC's exit poll, 1997 a charm. Now Starmer definitely needs the electorate to be kinder to him than they were to Kinnock. If he doesn't make it on the first or second strike, he won't get a chance at a third strike and some younger slyer fox will thatcher him into the woodchipper. Remember Tony Blair was only 30 when he was first elected in 1983, the Year Of The Blue Flood, and nobody would have wagered a farthing on him becoming Labour's Leader eleven years later. There's one just like him biding their time on the backbenches right now, and what Blair got by serendipity, bribes and blood oaths after John Smith's death, the Next New One will get by playing no-quarter hardball. And we know now that some within Labour will stop at nothing to take down a leader they don't like, even if that means harming the whole party. You've been warned, Sir Keir.

If you and your New Labour Party sound any more like the Tories
They'll sue you for plagiarism
(Our Friends In The North: 1995)

But Starmer has more pressing issues on his hands, like dealing with polls that paint England a constant deep sea blue like the eyes of a scallop, and now Wales too. Which was far from the likeliest situation back in January when all Labour had to face was a waffling buffoon with 'What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander' as his Brexit strategy. You did forget that one, didn't you? Yet it did happen, no shit. Then Sir Keir can blame Comrade Jeremy for the drawn out leadership contest, and the rather convoluted wording of Labour's 2019 Rule Book (Chapter 4; Clause II, Section C.iv) that effectively means that anybody who wanted to stuff the electoral register had more than enough time to do so. Not that it helped Momentum in any way. And by the time the leadership contest at last ended, Covid-19 had reared its ugly head and brought an end to Britain As We Knew It. It proved to be quite a trap for Keir as he chose to go into 'constructive criticism' mode rather than fire full broadsides at the startling incompetence of the English Government. Obviously Labour don't want to be accused of politicking a national emergency, even when the Conservatives do it day in day out and get away with it. And now the trend of general election polls shows what 'rallying around the flag' actually means.

If the December election had something of a 1983ish or 1935ish flavour, current polls have definitely switched to something 1931ish when Labour's best hope is to achieve something vaguely 1964ish as 1945ish is quite clearly well beyond firing range. Clearly Starmer going all forensic on whoever pretends to be Prime Minister at any given PMQs is not enough. Sly Keir might well look like he will conclude his weekly quota of questions with 'The prosecution rest their case, Your Lordship', switching from civilly barkey to calculatedly bitey would be a welcome change. Especially when the SNP repeatedly indulge in futile attempts to Get Brexit Delayed. Which everybody with half a functional brain knows won't happen, because Boris has said it won't. And in this case as in many others, the only No vote that matters is Number 10's. It offers Labour a golden opportunity to reaffirm themselves as the 'real opposition' over the 'little shits', as the sorely missed Dennis Skinner called them. But then it looks like this opportunity will be sorely missed too.

This is like watching a lion raping a sheep, but in a bad way

(Ollie Reeder, The Thick Of It: The Rise Of The Nutters)

The weighted average of the six most recent polls sends the same message as the trends I mentioned earlier. The Conservatives would miss the 50%-of-the-popular-vote target by a Chinese bat's hair. But then they have made it a habit of missing targets recently, haven't they? What all these polls also have in common is a massive drop of the Liberal Democrat vote, which definitely has a karmatic dimension embedded. The key here is 'moderate' right-wingers switching back to the Nasty Party because, ye ken, Boris Got Brexit Done, so there's no point in opposing it anymore, and he is the best Defender Of The Realm. Then you also have the SNP bouncing back to a majority of the Scottish popular vote, stumbling only on a weird Tory resilience among the EU-subsidized fishing and farming communities who still haven't got the memo about how Boris's oven-ready Brexit will definitely fuck them to the hilt and beyond. Edward II also believed he was in for a treat, until.... So here is what the polls say and what selected prediction models make of it:

So the good people of England are ready to hand a part-time Prime Minister and full-time con-artist a larger majority than any of Margaret Thatcher's and almost as commanding as Tony Blair's. Which is actually not as amazingly daft as it seems. First being comfortably dumb is like an aeons-old trait of the English gene pool. Then Waffling Boris is definitely a master at triggering all the Pavlovian responses from after-drinks speeches double-dipped in English exceptionationalism. Which works beyond expectations even when he evokes the Dunkirk Spirit and all the oiks forget Dunkirk was actually one of many humiliating setbacks on Winston's watch. Then Bumbling Boris is not one to miss any warlike metaphor, even when it's totally devoid of any meaning for the 21st century. But the 20th century was so much better, wasn't it?

It may be the Mother Of All Parliaments but the Tories have their hands up her skirt
(Our Friends In The North: 1987)

The most amazing thing actually is that Labour can't gain more from the current situation, probably because they don't even really try. The current English Government are a swarm of waffling chancers who thrive on failure as long as they can play the blame game, and have conclusively proven themselves to be an ensemble cast of pimples on the arse of mediocrity, as inspiring as the house wine at a suburban Indian restaurant. But possibly Labour don't want to succeed a government for whom home is where the heartlessness is. I can sympathize with the feeling that they hate to have to step into the Tories' shoes but only after the Tories have shat in them. But Labour is also desperately misplaying the weak hand they have been dealt. For some unfathomable reason, Sly Keir thinks now is the time for kowtowing to English nationalism, which might bring back some of Their Voters In The North, or not. But will most certainly backfire with their voters in cosmopolitan London and the few, not the many, left in Scotland. Not surprisingly this is just what the most recent polls show, with Labour and Tories nose-to-nose in London and a steady leaking of pro-Indy Labour voters to the SNP in Scotland. So Sir Keir's only hope now seems to be public opinion at last seeing the light and coming back at the Tories with a vengeance. Might happen, or not....

This government is maimed but it can't be shamed, it will be fucked
(Cal Richards, The Thick Of It: Episode Sixteen)

Every seat-sniffing little shitbag that's ever filed a byline is gonna be questioning you
Cause now it's in the fucking public interest, isn't it?
And they're gonna hit you with every shit they can find
You're gonna be spread out there in front of them like a trollop in the stocks
(Malcolm Tucker, The Thick Of It: Episode Two)

14/04/2020

The Scottish Play - Act II of MMXX

The Declaration of Arbroath from Charlie Stuart on Vimeo.

McVitie: It might have been an internecine feud
Taggart: Aye, that or a fight among themselves
(Taggart: Death Call, 1986)

Weird times indeed, and Covid-19 is just part of it. So now it looks like Alex Salmond is determined to live up to the Stuarts' motto, Nemo Me Impune Lacessit, which translates more or less to Don't Fuck With Me Or Else... And we're told to just wait for Big Eck's Book Of Revelations, which rumour says will be something like invoking Den'Sha on anyone who, ye ken, fucked with him. Book hits the shelves, shitload of shit hits the fannies. Now let's just expect Big Eck will be wise enough not to trigger an all-out SNP civil war, as these sort of fights generally don't end well for anyone. Interestingly the fault lines within the SNP, and the root of all their current woes, basically overlap: Eckites vs Nicolistas, TERF vs Woke, New Fundamentalists vs Gradualists. You name it, you got it. Let's just hope now that some modicum of sanity will prevail on both sides of the Great Divide, and that the selection of Holyrood candidates will not turn into a massive cats-in-a-bar-brawl. We already have one in Edinburgh Central and we definitely don't need others, especially in the SNP's open seats and in the current Labour-held seats that are ready to fall. A truce is the price for victory.

If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of you enemies will float by
(Sun Tzu and Gil Grissom, CSI: Homebodies, 2003)

No invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever
There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom
Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand
(Ambassador G'Kar, Babylon 5: The Long Twilight Struggle, 2259)

Few new IndyRef2 polls lately, but they all say the same thing. The good news is that we have reached a plateau for some time now, with Yes and No statistically tied. The bad news is that we have reached a plateau for some time now, with Yes and No statistically tied. Whatever each camp says or does it's No 50.5% / Yes 49.5% and stuck there. Of course Kenny Farquharson's prophecy that Covid-19 would hurt Independence because the English government would handle it so well has fallen flat on its face in a pool of chemical waste. But day after day of gloomy news means the public have no reason to be overly rejoiced with the Scottish Government's response here either, no matter how consistent and efficient press briefings made it sound in the early stages. Then you can't dismiss the idea that the Calderwood fiasco, which is much more than just a PR disaster, will also shake some 'soft Yes' voters. Because even unrelated events can influence the answer to a straight Yes-Or-No question, just ask anyone who ever held an unlosable referendum and flunked it. Anyway here's what the trend of IndyRef2 polling over the last five years and some says: better now than ever but still not good enough.

The most recent polls totally point in that direction with one tie, two No victories and two Yes victories in 2020 polling. Now the Scottish Government and the SNP must really up their game as their Plan A is only bound to fail again and again. In this scenario there is only ONE No vote that matters: the one from Number Ten. And don't even think that would change in the unlikely event Keir Starmer ever becomes Prime Minister, as he and his sidekick Ian Murray now have the magic word that will allow them to paint the Yes Movement as doctrinaire naysayers: federalism. Don't even try to argue that it would never work in an England-dominated United Kingdom, they just won't listen. Remember this is the party that allowed the first devolution referendum to be deliberately sabotaged from their own ranks, and then passed only a weak devolution settlement as distant from federalism as can be. So it's definitely time to switch to Plan B, the Cherry option, which would certainly already have been endorsed by the First Minister if it did not come from the Eckite-TERF corner of the field. Fortunately the SNP will have plenty of time to refine their strategy, as there is a reality that I find self-evident while many others don't: IndyRef2 won't happen until 2022 no matter what path the Scottish Government chooses. And that also gives the SNP all the time they need to hone their campaign soundbites and remember that managerial proficiency might win a Scottish Parliament election, but it won't win independence. Just sayin'

We are star stuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out
And, as we have learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective
It broke itself into pieces to examine every aspect of its being
We are the universe trying to understand itself
(Satai Delenn, Babylon 5: A Distant Star, 2259)

It's not about the size of the dog in the fight
It's about the size of the fight in the dog
(Officer Andy Renko, Hill Street Blues: El Capitan, 1985)

We haven't had a real general election poll for Scotland since 11 December on Election's Eve, which doesn't mean we don't have clues on how Scotland would vote now. There have been 22 GB-wide polls since the December election, 20 of them with subsamples for Scotland totalling 2,676 respondents. Even if subsamples are less reliable than real polls and subject to random variation, this batch nevertheless paints a rather constant picture of Scottish public opinion. We also have three recent Holyrood polls and, even if it's a different election with different voting patterns, they also shed an interesting light on Scotland's current state of mind. Below are my seat projections based on what would happen if Westminster voting intentions duplicated current Holyrood constituency voting intentions (more on this below), which might be irrelevant, or might not. Just note that the Scotland subsample of the last general election poll from Opinium would deliver the same seat projection as the Holyrood polls. Then we have what the subsamples of GB-wide polls predict, month by month and globally. And it's only getting better for the SNP as time goes by. Make sure you never mention that to Jackson Carlaw, as it is his strongly held belief that Covid-19, and the masterful way the English Government handles it, hurts the case for Independence. Just let Jackson be a good Tory, the kind that would never let facts get in the way of a good soundbite. Or would he?

Of course nothing is carved in stone and we definitely need a full Scottish poll soon. Though it is already safe to predict that the main battleground will be the closest Con-SNP marginals (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Moray, Dumfries and Galloway) and the Conservatives might even have a shot at taking back Gordon. Then the major casualties would be the Liberal Democrats with their predicted vote share plummeting in Scotland just as polls say it would all over Great Britain. This is obviously the direct backlash of Brexit falling off the radars for now, and center-right Europhiles switching back to the Conservatives to show unquestioning support for The Precious Union. Which would only marginally help the Conservatives in Scotland, but wreak havoc on the LibDems. Jamie Stone, Christine Jardine and Wendy Chamberlain are definitely toast, and even Alistair Carmichael could be endangered, just as he was in 2015 when he held his seat by just 817 votes. But let's just be Curticely cautious here, as once again the next general election in Scotland might not be the Conservatives' to win, but the SNP's to lose. Just remember 2017.

One more bud to blossom and then you'll sing
One more fear to sting, love is what the victors bring
(Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow: Dead Men Tell No Tales, 2015)

Buy and donate on Skerryvore's website

If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons
The work becomes corrupted, impure and ultimately self-destructive
We need the right people in the right place at the right time
(Lennier, Babylon 5: Comes The Inquisitor, 2259)

Now we also have the third Holyrood poll of 2020, conducted by Panelbase on 24-26 March. That is more than three weeks after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Scotland and 11-13 days after the first reported deaths. So if there is any early Covid-19 effect influencing voting intentions, it was surely there already. There is also no Salmond Effect visible here after the verdict, and the next poll will tell us is there's any Calderwood Effect after the well-publicized fiasco. The new poll we have now is interesting because Panelbase were the least SNP-friendly pollster in 2018 and 2019, but their two 2020 polls have taken a very different direction. Since their methodology has not changed, we can safely assume that voting intentions have quite convincingly moved in the SNP's direction. And again this last poll does not show the Unionist vote coalescing around the New Great Leader Jackson Carlaw, but just the Holyrood Conservative vote aligning with their Westminster vote. The same trends are seen here as in Westminster polling. First the end of the Brexit Effect with right-wing Europhiles switching back from the LibDems to the Conservatives. Second a steady flow of pro-independence left-wingers switching from Labour to the SNP. On 13-14% Labour would have their worst performance outside European Parliament elections since the First World War while the SNP's voting intentions on the constituencies would be their best result ever in any election. So here are the voting intentions and my seat projection:

Early projections based on the rounded voting intentions in the press release delivered 'only' 70 SNP seats and 3 Greens. Then I got the complete crosstabs from Panelbase, that allow vote shares to be recalculated with decimal places and the headcount rose to 71 SNP and 4 Green seats. What a difference a decimal place makes..... And it only shows how close some of the list seats would be. Compared to the earlier headline-based projection, the Conservatives would lose one list seat to the SNP in North East, and another to the Greens in Mid and Fife. The reassessed allocation of list seats by region includes some interesting effects of AMS's quirks. Mostly that the SNP's voting intentions are high enough to get them list seats even in regions where they already bag all or almost all constituencies. In the constituencies the SNP would unseat all three remaining Labour MSPs though all three would probably hold on to a list seat. Which would be easier for Daniel Johnson and Iain Gray as both sitting Labour list MSPs in Lothian are standing down. Will be just as easy for Jackie Baillie in the West as two-term Labour list MSP Mary Fee has indicated she's standing down too. So we'll miss the fun of seeing Labour's Depute Leader out of Holyrood and a job. The SNP would also kick out Alex Cole-Hamilton in Edinburgh, which would be mechanically compensated by the LibDems gaining one list seat in Lothian, so all Alex has to do is to also top the list.

Of course, and as I pointed out in my previous article about future Scottish elections, every new poll is ground to reassess tactical voting. Again Both Votes Or Not Both Votes for the SNP. The projection of this poll's voting intentions by region shows that the seventh list seat could be a close call between the SNP and the Conservatives in Central, Glasgow, North East, South and West, with the Conservatives bagging only the West Scotland Seventh by a projected 350 votes. Greens would not even be truly competitive for any of these seventh seats. So it definitely makes sense to stay with an SNP list vote in all regions where the SNP would bag the seventh seat by a narrow margin, and switch it from the Greens to the SNP in West to secure an additional pro-Indy seat. Even in Lothian the Greens would come third behind the LibDems and Conservatives for the seventh seat and miss it by nearly 4,000 votes, so there is really no chance that even a massive switch of SNP voters would save their second seat there. The only region where shifting the list vote from the SNP to the Greens makes sense is Mid and Fife, where the SNP would not be competitive for a list seat and the Greens would win theirs by an uncomfortably close margin of only about 250 votes. Obviously this might change again after the next poll, especially if list voting intentions are less favourable for the SNP and better for the Greens. Finally here is the full projected breakdown of seats by region:

Just bear in mind that this poll is the best for the SNP since October 2016 and the second best since the last election, actually among the top five best since the Scottish Parliament was re-established and much better than any polling prior to the so far most exceptional 2011 election. Future ones might not be so good, especially if the election is postponed. Which looks like just a distant prospect right now, but you never know... It ain't over till it's over, so stay tuned for further updates and upsets

Adventurers strike at the heart of the bear
But first seek the entrance to its lair
Yesterday returneth not
Today is thine, misuse it not
Tomorrow perchance cometh not
(Taggart: Flesh And Blood, 1989)

04/04/2020

Sing A Song Of America

If the primates that we came from had known
That some day politicians would come out of the gene pool
They'd have stayed up in the trees
And written off evolution as a bad idea
Hell, I always thought the opposable thumb was overrated
(John Sheridan, Babylon 5: A Distant Star, 2259)

There is not much happening on the polling front in the UK right now, and what little happens is pretty depressing anyway, so this is as good a time as any to take a look at the events in the Former Colonies Of The Crown. 'Tis this time again, like every leap year, when the world braces itself for the Big American Election Circus, the one where everyone's fate is at stake from the White House's tenant to Daly City's dogcatchers. This year's Election Day is Tuesday, November 3rd (that's American for 3 November). All 435 seats of the House of Representatives and 35 Senate seats so far are up for election, providing no more Senate special elections (that's American for by-elections) are triggered before Election Day. Gubernatorial elections will be held in 11 states and elections for the state legislature in 44 states. The latter are especially significant this year as the 2020 census is the start of the next redistricting cycle (that's American for Boundary Review). Redistricting is mandated by law to happen every ten years on the basis of census data and to be completed for the next elections, this time the 2022 midterms. All districts (that's American for constituencies) for the House of Representatives and state legislatures are to be redrawn, the sole obvious exception being the at-large seats for the six states that are entitled to only one Representative (and you already got it, that one is American for MP). In the USA this is a highly sensitive and politicized issue as redistricting is devolved to the states. In 36 states redistricting is processed by the state legislature and more often than not this results in heavy-handed gerrymandering. Two states use a 'political commission' outside the legislature and only six use a totally independent commission. So this year's elections will decide what the electoral maps for 2022-2030 look like.

There is no speculation in the USA about Covid-19 leading to rescheduling the elections, because it won't happen. Only the primaries and special elections due to be held before Election Day will possibly be impacted. Contrary to popular belief the date of the presidential election is not enshrined in the Constitution, only the process is. Article Two, Section 1, Clause 4 of the Constitution devolves the responsibility of setting the date for Election Day to Congress and the famous 'Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November' (in plainer English, that's first Tuesday of November unless it also happens to be 1 November, in which case Election Day is moved to 8 November) is stipulated by law only since 1845. Before that it was pretty much a free for all with each state choosing their own dates as the election was held over a long period of time like in Medieval England, pre-1918. This law (Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 1 of the United States Code) has never been amended since and has fuck all chances of being amended any time soon as Inauguration Day, the day the President-elect assumes power (20 January since 1937, was 4 March before), is enshrined in the Constitution and can be changed only by a constitutional amendment that typically takes a year or more to ratify. A classic American legal oddity. More importantly the Constitution also states that the outgoing President's powers cease to exist at noon on 20 January. So it's pretty much loophole-proof and if everything goes tits up they would most probably resort to mandatory postal vote, as setting up a secure nationwide electronic voting system would take more than the few months remaining between an hypothetical full lockdown and Election Day. Postal voting is already fairly common and three states have already made it the only legal way to vote, to avoid the cost and bother of having to set up proper polling stations.

Before I start with the heavy stuff and all the charts, remember that colours are reversed in the Former Colonies Of The Crown, which is one of the lesser quirks of a country that uses 'short' tons that are neither tonnes nor tons and would be more appropriately called 'light' tons, if that makes any sense at all. And it's also the country where not just streets have no names, but districts don't have any either but just numbers. Anyway Republicans are red and Democrats are blue. Libertarians are yellow and Greens are surprisingly green, though it does not matter as neither bag enough votes to deserve their own line items in my stats. So they and the myriad of fringe candidates will be bundled as 'Others' and grey, because, ye ken, there are fifty shades of it.

Intelligence has nothing to do with politics
(Londo Mollari, Babylon 5: Point Of No Return, 2260)

You seek meaning? Then listen to the music, not the song
(Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5: Deathwalker, 2258)

The biggest headline material is of course the presidential election and at this moment the Democratic Party's primaries. The Republican primaries were just a formality as Donald Trump faced only token opposition and has already secured 94% of the primary vote and enough delegates to clinch the nomination at the Presidential Convention due to be held 24-27 August, Covid-19 permitting. The Democratic Party primary was a much more crowded affair with 29 candidates initially though only 11 ended up actually running (which, as you know, is American for standing). Then they fell like flies as the primaries went by until only two were left on 19 March: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. A lot has been said about Sanders being a socialist, which in the USA is something akin to 'atheist communist traitor to be exorcised immediately', but remember this is the USofA where Nigel Farage is considered mainstream right-wing. The closest approximation to Bernie's actual platform (that's American for manifesto) would be the SNP. No shit, Sherlock, just compare the Political Compass charts behind the links. Sanders is not even as far to the left as Corbyn's Labour was. And Biden would be something like a past-sell-date Ed Davey, which is as far to the left as you can go to be deemed 'electable' by the American MSM. As a starter, here is where both candidates stand right now after 30 states have already held their primaries:

Neither candidate has yet reached the 1,990 pledged delegates (those chosen in the primaries and committed to support a specific candidate) required to clinch the nomination on the Convention's first vote. But 1,677 pledged delegates remain to be chosen before primary season ends, so Biden needs less that half of these to get his majority. There is every indication he will get them and even more and will win the nomination on the Convention's first vote without any suspense. In the unlikely event of a massive Sanders surge that would deny Biden his majority, the Convention would go to a second vote where the pledged delegates for the other candidates are freed from their pledge and can switch to either of the finalists, and the superdelegates (the ex officio members selected from the Democratic Party's establishment) also get a vote. Both these categories would bring more support to Biden, so here it would end anyway. Forget what you saw in Season Six of The West Wing, you won't get a brokered convention as it would take at least three finalists anyway. So Biden will get to take on Trump head on, probably after also playing the 'Sanders unelectable' card during the last stages of the primary campaign. But nationwide polls paint a more nuanced picture, as the trends of the 2020 polling show:

Polls actually do show Biden doing better than Sanders but both still lead Trump by a significant enough margin, outside the polls' margin of error. But don't take that as a definitive prediction that Trump will bite the dust. Despite all what polls have to say now, the outcome of the election is a huge unknown. Will the divisive Democratic primary leave only some bruises or deep wounds? Will Biden's triangulation lead him to endorse some of Sanders's proposals? Will Trump's dismal handling of the Covid-19 emergency cost him votes in key states and key demographics? Knowing full well that the Christo-fascist demographic will support him no matter what because it's 'us and them' and 'them is unpatriotic'. Far-right propaganda blogs and Twitter trolls have already set the tone: Democrats are to blame for everything including Trump's U-turns and PR disasters. Won't end well. And even the current weighted average of the most recent polls is not that good for Democrats. Of course it shows both Biden and Sanders in the lead, but the projected results are definitely uncomfortably close to Clinton's performance in 2016, and anyway might move in unforeseen directions until early November.

Bear in mind too that nationwide presidential polls have to be taken with extreme caveats, even more than John Curtice can provide in his whole lifetime. The last batch of polls before the 2016 election credited Hillary Clinton with a 3%-4% lead over Donald Trump in the national popular vote and Democrats felt pretty confident she would win. In the end she won the popular vote by 2.1% and 2.9 million votes and lost the election. Because that's how this antique American invention known as the Electoral College works. Clinton actually lost the election by 77,744 votes out of nearly 137 million votes cast. That's Trump's total margin in three key states (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) that Barack Obama had won in 2012 and would have taken Clinton just clear of the 270-vote hurdle in the Electoral College. The aggregate of state-level polls in the last week before the election had predicted that Clinton would win all three. Current state-level polling says only Michigan is realistically within reach of the Democrats but with only a tiny lead, with Sanders doing slightly better in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Biden doing slightly better in Pennsylvania. The massive paradox with the Electoral College is that Democrats could win the popular vote by a higher margin and still lose the election. Just imagine they increase their already solid margins in California, Illinois and New York and somewhat close the gap in Texas, Florida and Georgia but still lose them. Thus they could bag something like an extra 1.5 million votes and all these would be wasted votes as they would change fuck all in the Electoral College. Which is what projections based on state-by-state polling hint at right now:

The best extrapolation from state-level polls says that Biden would win, but not that convincingly, and Sanders would lose by a hair. But as usual there is more here than meets the eye at first glance. Biden would possibly gain Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio but lose New Hampshire. While Sanders would possibly gain only Michigan and Ohio and lose none. But all of Biden's possible gains definitely rate as Tossup (that's American for tied) so there is not yet a definitely clear path to victory for him. What Democrats actually need is to switch bigger key states like Florida and Pennsylvania, which Obama won twice and Clinton lost. But both now look like uphill battles and quite possibly totally out of reach. Even if Biden seems to have a stronger baseline and would destabilize Trump in more states than Sanders, odds still are he will fail in most if not all of the currently tied states and Trump will prevail pretty much the same way as four years ago.

The avalanche has already started
It is too late for the pebbles to vote
(Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5: Believers, 2258)

Sometimes, before you deal with a problem, you have to redefine it
There's no need to embarrass our leaders by pointing out the flaws on our side
That they're aware of and dealing with in their own way
Some people just enjoy finding fault with pur leaders
They're anarchists, troublemakers, or they're simply just unpatriotic
(Political Officer Julie Musante, Babylon 5: Voices Of Authority, 2260)

This year's Big Thing, next to the presidential election, is the swarm of Senate elections. 35 seats are up (33 scheduled 'Class 2' seats and 2 special elections) with 23 Republican incumbents and 12 Democrats. These seats were last up in 2014 when the Democrats lost nine seats and control of the Senate. All this has led to wishful speculation that Democrats might retake the Senate this year. Of course there are limits to this line of reasoning. The most obvious one is that these same seats had been up for election earlier in 2008, the year of Obama's first election and an excellent one for Democrats down-ballot, even in notionally Republican-leaning states. So some sort of backlash was to be expected in 2014, though the actual results looked like overkill, and changes in voting patterns over the last six years make it likely that 2020 won't be another golden year for Democrats. Here is my current assessment of the 35 races, based in part on the punditry's views and in part on state-level polls. The nine seats lost by Democrats in 2014 are in bold italics:

It appears right now that only Colorado can realistically be gained back by Democrats, with North Carolina a more distant possibility. Democrats also have a few less obvious opportunities for pickups (that's American for gains, and also a variety of cars, but that's a different story). Arizona is the most likely, for the seat that was once held by the late John McCain. Here the evolving demographics favour Democrats but they will have to rely on a strong GOTV drive targeting Hispanic voters, usually a low-turnout category. Democrats are optimistic about this because that's how they already gained Arizona's other Senate seat in 2018, which had been in Republican hands since 1994. What will also help Democrats is that their candidate Mark Kelly has huge name recognition as a former astronaut and now a popular author, while Republican candidate and outgoing Senator Martha McSally was appointed to the seat after McCain's death, not elected, and has a history of losing elections more often than winning them. Four-term veteran Susan Collins of Maine is also in the danger zone in a Democrat-leaning state. Collins has a strong record as a 'moderate Republican', which is somewhat to the left of Gengis Khan, but her unwavering support for Trump during the impeachment proceedings might well seal her fate with a slightly left-of-center and independent-minded electorate. Another upset Democratic gain could happen in Kansas, allowing for a serious serendipity factor. Republicans lost the incumbency bonus here with four-term veteran Pat Roberts retiring. Republican candidate Kris Kobach is also kind of an extremist even by Trumpian standards and already lost the Governor's election to a Democrat in 2018. Moreover a Democrat-backed independent nearly caused an upset in this very same seat in 2014, cutting the Republican lead by more than half on the previous election in 2008. So here's my current take on the possible outcomes of these Senate elections:

The 'Democrats Max' option, though not the most likely outcome, would in fact mean Democrats taking back control of the Senate as the two Independent Senators caucus with the Democrats (that's 'take the Democratic whip' in Westminster English). Of course we also are on shifting ground here as Senate races are always highly personalized and a massive opportunity for candidates' past sins to come back and fuck them in the arse. There is also a massive downpour of corporate funding in these elections, especially as there is no such thing as dark money in American elections since the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. The 2018 Senate elections cost about 1.1 billion dollars, that's some 30.8 million dollars per seat or 24.9 million pounds at current exchange rate. The 2018 House of Representatives elections cost 1.7 billion dollars overall, 3.8 million dollars per seat or 3.1 million pounds. Just for comparison the full cost of the UK's 2019 general election was about 45 million pounds, or the equivalent of 1.8 US Senate seat or 14.4 US House seats. Also campaign spending in the UK is capped at £30k per candidate, and most candidates don't even use that much as actual spending is about £70k per constituency, while in the USA campaign money grows on magic corporate money trees and the floodgates are permanently open, you just have to ask. Quite mind boggling, isn't it? Finally there is one Senate race that isn't on the radars yet but could soon be: Texas. After all Biden-Democrat Beto O'Rourke came within 2.5% of unseating Christo-fascist Republican Ted Cruz for Texas's other Senate seat in 2018, and Texas's demographics are evolving in favour of Democrats just like Arizona's. So pundits will definitely be looking for advance warnings of a possible most unexpected upset there. Polls don't foresee it happening right now, but you never know....

With our basic freedoms at stake, no response can be too extreme
There may be some minor and temporary abridgments
In the traditionally protected areas of speech and association
But only until this crisis is over
It is going to take the efforts of every loyal citizen to keep us safe
Eternal vigilance is the price for freedom
(Political Officer Julie Musante, Babylon 5: Voices Of Authority, 2260)

Additional music: Tony Kaye, Chris Squire, 1971

The universe is run by the interweaving of three elements
Energy, matter and enlightened self-interest
(Ambassador G'Kar, Babylon 5: Survivors, 2258)

Last but not least, the House of Representatives elections for all 435 seats. Five seats are currently vacant and four special elections will be held in late April, May and June. Looks like a waste of taxpayers' money so close to the general election but, ye ken, no taxation without representation. And there has been worse some times in the past with both a special election and the regularly scheduled election for the same seat being held simultaneously on Election Day. Meaning the winner of the special election sat only on the proverbial lame-duck session between Election Day and the swearing in of the new Congress on 3 January, and the winner of the regular election sat on the next Congress. In most cases the same person won both elections but, believe it or not, it has happened, and not just once, that the two elections were won by different candidates. Last such case was in Michigan in 2018 when Democrats won both the special and the general in the 13th District, but oddly had selected different candidates for each election. But there also have been cases in the past were one party won the special and the other won the general in the same district. American logic. Right now, the trends of polls since the beginning of the year are definitely favourable to the Democrats, and the current weighted average of the six most recent polls confirms it.

Interestingly the current projection of voting intentions is strikingly similar to the result of the 2018 elections, pretty much the same situation we have with presidential polls. This is based on nationwide generic polls which have been criticized in some cases as unreliable because of regional discrepancies in voting patterns, but many pollsters rely on much larger samples that is usual in other countries, to account for the much larger electorate. Democrats might also benefit from a serendipity factor here as more Republican Congressmen-women (that's the other American wording for MPs) are standing down than Democratic ones, so Republicans lose the incumbency bonus in about three times as many seats as Democrats, many of them being fortuitously marginal seats in states where the demographics favour Democrats like Georgia or Texas. The seat projections, based on my usual mix of uniform and proportional swings, show very little change from the outgoing House. Democrats are predicted to gain four seats: one each in Georgia, Minnesota, New York and Texas. Republicans would gain only one seat, and this would be only a virtual gain, for a seat in Michigan currently held by an independent who was elected as a Republican and later left the party in opposition to Trump's policies. Even the lower end of the projections, which looks unlikely on the basis of current polling, would still deliver a Democratic majority. The solid Democratic lead in the popular vote also seriously dampens the effects of gerrymandering, which is much more common in Republican states, and in some cases would probably totally annul them. As I stressed in an earlier post about Boundary Reviews in the UK, gerrymandering is far from an exact science and even the most heavy-handed examples can backfire.

But dummymandering is not the only case where supposedly astute gerrymandering goes tits up. An ad absurdum case of gerrymandering led to an unprecedented situation in Pennsylvania in 2018. The Republican gerrymander of the state's districts was so atrocious that it was struck down by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in January 2018 and a new more neutral map was drawn for use at the general election. And that's where the fun starts. Two special elections were held on Election Day and had by law to be fought on the old court-annulled map while the general election was fought on the new map. So two Representatives were elected in the specials for districts that de facto no longer existed except for the duration of the lame-duck session, and both were simultaneously elected for different districts based on the new map. Only in America.....

But even stranger things can happen if one of the candidates dies before Election Day, which sadly cannot be ruled out this year. You'd think the obvious thing to do is for the deceased's party to select another candidate and move on. But it doesn't always happen that way. If the 'event' is too close to Election Day (within four weeks in most states, but can be up to six weeks, or more practically if the ballot papers have already been printed) then we get another Great American Success Story: the dead person is not replaced and their name stays on the ballot so the electorate can knowingly vote for a corpse, and sometimes elect them. Of course something has to be done then and you guessed it: a special election and the fun starts again..... The only case I haven't seen covered is one of the presidential candidates dying, but then I guess it would trigger the 25th Amendment. The Vice-President-elect would be sworn in as President and then nominate his own VP. And here we land in the alternate reality where everybody would sorely miss Trump as Mike Pence would then become President and he is an even worse shithead.

But, as they say, God only knows....

The future is all around us
Waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation
No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us
We know only that it is always born in pain
(Ambassador G'Kar, Babylon 5: The Hour Of The Wolf, 2261)

Additional music: David O'List, Keith Emerson, 1968

Prophecy is a guess that comes true
When it doesn't, it's a metaphor
(Vir Cotto, Babylon 5: The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, 2262)

So, to wrap it up, here's my prophecy for today: this year's elections will not alter the balance of power and will end up as an odd mix of the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 mid-terms for Congress. And of course I will have a different one next time I tell you something about the USA, as we get closer to Election Day and new batches of polls totally contradict the ones we have today.

Joe Biden wins the Democratic nomination hands down on the first ballot with about 2,300 delegates.

Joe Biden wins the popular vote by 3%, but gains only Arizona and Michigan while losing New Hampshire. Donald Trump gets re-elected 283-255 by the Electoral College.

Democrats over-perform polls and stage a few upsets in the House of Representatives elections. They keep control of the House with a slightly increased majority, 245-190.

Republicans succeed in mobilizing their base in Senate elections and lose only Arizona and Colorado, while taking back the Alabama seat they lost only by inadvertence in 2017. Senate stays under Republican control 52-48.

Be seeing you.....

Without the hope that things will get better
That our inheritors will know a world that is fuller and richer than our own
Life is pointless and evolution is vastly overrated
(Satai Delenn, Babylon 5: A Voice In The Wilderness, 2258)

Woodstock arrangement by Jimi Hendrix, 1969