Jeremy's Den

20/01/2022

Come Vote For Me

Everyone has the right to believe anything they want

And everyone else has the right to find it fucking ridiculous

(Ricky Gervais)

The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism,

Satire, derision or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible

(Salman Rushdie)

One Of Twenty Two. Naw, that's not my Borg name, just my first article of the new year. When resistance is not futile, not now and not ever. Interestingly, one of the last polls of 2021 was YouGov surveying their panel about 'cancel culture'. Or, more accurately, self-censorship imposed on society by a vociferous minority of activists. There is a lot of enlightening information in this poll when you scroll down all the crosstabs, but I will deal only with the basic findings. When asked generically if they refrain from expressing their views, for fear of adverse judgment, 57% of Brits say they at least sometimes do and 27% say they never do. Which amounts to 68% vs 32% with dontknows removed. But we get a somewhat different picture when the question shifts to some specific issues, all of which are known to trigger vastly different and potentially controversial views from different corners of society. On average, 26% of respondents say they never conceal their views, 27% say they rarely do and 47% says they at least sometimes do. The results also show that the issues you might spontaneously consider the most controversial or divisive are not always those people choose to avoid.

YouGov also tested their panel's attitude about some very specific statements, which might be described alternatively as defining a 'progressive' outlook or a 'conservative' outlook. The first one strikes directly at the heart of 'cancel culture', and oddly a plurality think people should be protected from offensive speech, whatever 'offensive' really means. Only a minority have the opposite view that free speech should be protected. The breakdown by age bracket shows that the Zoomers are again the cheugiest of all, with 50% of the wee tossers supporting censorship and only 31% supporting free speech. Those over 50 have a different perspective, with 43% supporting free speech and 40% supporting censorship. The latter number is unexpectedly high though, which oddly supports the BBC's view that replays of old series should be expunged to protect fragile snowflakes. Which is obviously not shared by Channel 4 or ITV, if you consider the tone of Alex Brooker's jokes about himself, or Josh Widdicombe's jokes about Brooker, on 'The Last Leg', or the vintage 1950s vocabulary in 'Grantchester'. Interestingly, a sizeable portion of YouGov's panel have no problem agreeing with views that can be described as bigoted. Unfortunately YouGov did not publish full crosstabs by demographics on the other issues. So we don't have any means of establishing, or disproving, some sort of correlation between age and some views that can be described as 'outdated'. Maybe there would be some surprises in store if we had the full data, like the younger generations not being the least racist or the least misogynistic. Too bad we'll never know.

There is an interesting series of crosstabs concluding the poll, when people with opposite opinions on a sensitive issue are asked how likely they are to censor themselves on that issue. The panel were asked to rate their likelihood of not expressing their views on the same scale from 'always' to 'never'. Below is what you get, only about the specific issue to which the two conflicting views relate. Except for the 'free speech' item where I used the average of ratings on all nine hot topics. Oddly, people supporting free speech are also the most likely to censor themselves on sensitive or controversial issues, when supporters of censorship tend to be more outspoken. Which may also hint at a correlation with the belief that you are 'on the right side of history', which is one of the Zoomers' most arrogant perceptions of themselves, as nobody knows what the future has in store. The other crosstabs confirm that people are less likely to censor themselves when they hold what are generally considered 'progressive' views. Though the definition of what is 'progressive' is in itself a controversial issue, innit?

I must confess that my own point of view on these various items is quite diverse, not necessarily inclusive, and you could even argue borderline contradictory. I have absolutely no problem with anyone refraining from expressing their views on race relations, Britain's past, gay rights or women's rights, if these views are racist, colonialist, homophobic or misogynistic. White straight male supremacist, to wrap it up in one umbrella category. Here I totally support the view, which you might label 'woke', that all these have no place in 21st century Britain, and that it is right to legally label them as hate speech. State-enforced censorship is also legitimate in some cases, like German law making Nazi propaganda a criminal offence. But you already know where I draw the line, at what has become the symbol of the worst extremist excesses of wokeism and cancel culture: gender ideology, and how it has become a poisonous cult, infecting all aspects of public life and intertwined with powerful business interests. On another key issue, I do think people should be made fully aware of the darkest sides of our past, and events like Black History Month contribute to this, but I won't support a virtue-signalling rewriting of history to shoehorn it into today's moral compass. The past is what it is, as immutable as chromosomes and biological traits, and also part of what made us 'us', for better and for worse. Let the facts stand and our view of them change. Education should be enlightenment, not turn into some variant of re-education lifted from the Komsomol or Khmer Rouge playbook. But let's not think too hard for too long, and just turn our attention now to the latest titillating polls.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it

(Flannery O’Connor)

That’s the way it goes in this business, anybody who makes it big

They’re bound to leave behind a trail of dead carcasses

(Perry Mason)

Before we dive head first into the molten gold of current polling, let's journey four weeks back in time. That's when Opinium polled voting intentions in parallel universes where people actually know the names of the Prime Minister and the Leader Of The Opposition, instead of the usual generic polling. So, instead of the anonymous list of parties that's featured in standard polls, Opinium mentioned 'The Labour Party led by Keir Starmer' versus 'The Conservative Party led by...' alternatively Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Michael Gove. Just to test the effect of explicitly knowing who would be the Prime Minister after the election. The baseline against which to assess this was Opinium's most recent poll at the time, conducted between 21 and 23 December, which was (SPOILER ALERT) better for the Conservatives than what we have now. But never mind, only the differences between the baseline and the alternative options matter here. The voting intentions again show that Rishi Sunak has built enough of a positive public image to become an asset for the Conservatives, though a full-blown campaign would certainly damage him when his record as Chancellor becomes a key topic. Then it is always enlightening and fun to see that some prominent Tories have even less street cred than Johnson.

It's interesting to see that naming Boris as the Conservative Party leader costs them 2% of the vote. You would think that people implicitly assumed that the generic poll was already with Boris and Keir facing each other, and answered accordingly. But clearly they need reminding, so perhaps as long as it isn't said aloud, it isn't real. And we see how Boris can act as a repellent for soft Tory voters, while Rishi acts as a magnet for soft centrist opposition voters and snatches an extra 3%, mostly from the Liberal Democrats. Nevertheless, there was clearly a sense of impending doom looming on the horizon already a month ago, as even Sunak couldn't turn the ship around and steer clear of defeat. And all these seat projections started from a baseline with Labour leading by 7%, a few points below what we have today. So it is safe to assume that even Sunak would lead the Conservatives to a massive defeat if the general election was held around Jubilee Day. More on this after the ad break.

It's quite fun to see that explicitly pitting Boris against Keir would have delivered Labour an outright majority, instead of the baseline where they would have to seek support from the Liberal Democrats. Pitting Rishi against Keir makes it even more problematic for Labour as they would have to seek help from the SNP too, no matter how often and loudly Keir had said he ruled it out. Then of course both Liz and Mikey would be Keir's dream opponents, delivering majorities of Blairish magnitude. I guess this poll would be food for thought for the 1922 Committee if they saw it, and realised that choosing Liz Truss instead of Rishi Sunak carries a penalty of 6% of the popular vote and 84 seats. But you never know what goes on in these peoples' minds, do you? More on this quite soon. More recently, Opinium polled their panel about a sextet of Tory Grandees, asking the general public if they think they would make a good or bad Prime Minister, and the results pretty much confirm what we might have heard from the punditariat's grapevine.

Unsurprisingly, Rishi Sunak emerged as the Top Dog here, which might trigger another undercover operation from Number Ten, dubbed 'Kill Top Dog'. Which you could expect to be something like Benny Hill leading the Queen's Own Royal West Kent in a reboot of Blackadder Goes Forth. The Saj coming a distant second is more unexpected, as he has done nothing really significant enough recently, to attract the public's attention. Which might also be the key to his relative success, as some level of dullness might be an asset after years of Boris's spaffing flamboyance. Interestingly, Sunak and Javid also top the subsample of Conservative voters, scoring 76% and 53% respectively of 'very good' or 'fairly good' ratings. They are the only two with a majority, as Michael Gove emerges as the outsider for Conservative voters, but with only 43% of positives. The general public then differ from the 1922 Committee in their assessment of Liz Truss, who is mostly an unknown quantity for them. Guess this cheesy 'that... is... a... disgrace' video did little to enhance her public image, as she does barely better than Michael Gove and Priti Patel. Both of whom seem to embody the general population's vision of what Conservative PM-wannabes should not be. Not that I expect either to seriously consider a leadership bid this year, but who knows? After all, Esther McVey and Matt Hancock tried the last time aboot, didn't they? Ironically, Dim Dom Raab, who fancied himself worthy of the position three years ago, is not even considered worth mentioning in this poll. Probably for the best, as (SPOILER ALERT) even Conservative Party members rate him as badly as The Prittster. All the gory details somewhere down the line.

That’s the game, everybody giving everybody else a bad time

Trying to hold on to what they got, no matter what

It’s a dog-eat-dog racket

(Perry Mason)

This version from Robert Fripp's Exposure album, 1979

Hope and odds make poor bedfellows

(Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Picard, 2020)

Three weeks into 2022, and already we are again facing the volatile mood of the British electorate. At the zenith of the Tory Sleaze and PartyGate shitstorms in mid-December, Labour peaked on 41% of voting intentions and a 9% lead over the Conservatives, which would have safely taken Keir Starmer to Number Ten on the back of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. One lone projection even predicted an outright majority for Labour, though it involved some pinches of wishful thinking and creative number crunching. But the most recent polls make this outcome not just not as far fetched as it looked on Dugmas Eve, but actually quite plausible. It looks like the public just has had enough of all the constulting snollygosters in the Conservative Party, and is ready to embrace New New Labour. Interestingly, the first batch of 2022 polls showed a semblance of reprieve for the Conservatives, as Labour's lead shrunk to 4% for a wee while. Then it skyrocketed to double digits, and you all know as well as me how the Conservatives brought it on themselves. So we now have this unprecedented alignment of the galaxies where Keir Starmer, the beigest Labour leader since the Domesday Book, could actually sail triumphantly at flank speed into Downing Street, piggybacking on a landslide of Blairish magnitude. Weirdest things have been known to happen, haven't they?

Admittedly the weirdest thing in an already weird year is, or was, the so called 'Operation Save Big Dog'. The fact that Boris reportedly chose the name himself is beyond hilarious when you remember that Big Dog was Bill Clinton's nickname in the days of yore. Ye ken, this Bill with the cigar, Monica and the wee blue dress. Or it might have been just Boris's subconscious speaking. Now, proceeding with the plan, when it has been leaked to the press, would make as much sense as Churchill greenlighting D-Day after being told that the whole plan had been sent to the Wolfschanze. But we have learnt already to never underestimate the Conservatives' arrogance-fueled stupidity. Then came 'Operation Red Meat', which sounded a lot like 'Operation Dead Cats' with a bit of fake news and recycled stuff from the past added to the broth. All of this contributed to Boris plummeting to unprecedented depths in all polls, most importantly the 'Preferred First Minister of England' ratings, surveyed regularly by Redfield and Wilton, YouGov and Opinium. Who usually come up with different numbers, but the exact same trends. The ones that say 'Boris is dead, just give him time to realise it'. The odd part here is that Sir Keir seems to be flatlining in this polling. Then there are worse fates than flatlining on aboot 35% while the other lad keeps going steadily down the pipes, aren't there?

Can't wait to see what will happen with these ratings, now that Boris Johnson has pretty much nailed his political coffin shut with his waffling at the 12 January PMQs and the latest episode of PartyGate, the one with the bonus scenes on the wee hours of morning on the day of Phil Mountbatten's funeral. Their is massive karmatic irony in all this, as the main contributing factors to Boris's downfall are precisely the genetically engineered traits than made Boris Boris. Being an entitled arrogant narcissistic wanker, basically. Also stupid enough, or just arrogant enough, to not see the warning signs that the public were fed up with Boris Being Boris, and wanted Boris Not Being Boris for a change. But Boris just can't cosplay Not Being Boris, even if his life depended on it. You can take the lad out of the Bullingdon Club, but you can never take Bullingdon out of the lad, can you? Now the real question for the Conservatives is 'how does Rishi do in the polls against Starmer?'. Unsurprisingly the answer is 'much better', but it might not last, if the next pages from the Book Of Party Revelations wipe the whole Tory lot away. For some reason, none of the pollsters take Liz Truss seriously enough to also include her in their 'Preferred First Minister of England' surveys. Guess her time will come though. Or not.

You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend.

Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.

(Man With No Name, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, 1966)

There are lots of things we don’t know but all the things we do know are bad

(Chris Whitty)

There were more bad news for Boris Johnson in a recent YouGov poll of Conservative Party members, conducted on behalf of Sky News between 30 December and 6 January. 50% of the panel voted for Boris Johnson at the 2019 leadership election, 24% for Jeremy Hunt and 26% have joined the party since. Which is probably the right balance between the old geezers who think Jeremy Corbyn was a threat to national security, and the ambitious young things who see Ben Bradley as the leading light of their generation. And, despite all evidence to the contrary, they are not that negative about Boris Johnson. 61% of them think Bozo is doing well as Prime Minister and only 38% think he isn't. Then comes the part that is more of a mixed bag. 59% think he should stay as leader of the party and 34% think he should stand down. We've seen more ringing endorsements before, haven't we? Part of Bozo's problem is that only 30% of his own party's members think the general public trust him to tell the truth, while 66% think they don't. And, even more worryingly, only 45% of party members think he can be trusted, while 39% think he can't. So the obvious amuse bouche question was about some possible contenders for the leadership, and whether the panel think they would do better or worse than Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party. Of course, YouGov managed to have the two front-runners nicely bookending their list of pretenders, just emphasising how badly some of the others do. We sense something in the air here, don't we?

Seeing Wunderkind Sunak top the poll is definitely not a surprise, though I would have expected Liz Truss to be a more distant second. Then it's always fun to see that Priti Patel, Dim Dom Rabb and Michael Gove are out of the race even before it's begun. The only downside is that it leaves them with more than enough time on their hands to plot something against Rishi, if they feel Cheesy Lizzie would better accommodate their own high opinion of themselves, and keep them on cushy jobs in the Cabinet. Then the next challenge is the next general election, and Conservatives seem rather confident about their collective future. 79% are true believers enough, or delusional enough, to think they are likely to win the next election, with only 14% thinking they will lose it. But a lot of them don't see Boris as part of this sunlit future, as 47% think he will lead them at the next election, and 45% think he won't. Which feels just one bat's whisper away from 'Boris must go so we can win', but of course that's my words, not theirs. So YouGov's hors d'oeuvre question was about the same PM wannabes, and whether the Conservative faithful think they would do better or worse than Bozo as their figurehead at the next election. Here Rishi gets the exact same assessment as for the first question, while all others lose some ground. Liz's positivish rating here is quite at odds with the general public who, you might remember from earlier, saw her as almost as big a disaster waiting to happen as Michael Gove. But listening to public opinion is not the Conservatives' forte these days, is it?

Of course the panel were also asked, after all that foreplay and massaging of the poll about who would be better and who would be worse, about whom they really want to be their next Lider Maximo. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss top the plat de résistance question with 33% and 25% respectively, followed by None Of The Above, Jeremy Hunt, Don't Know, Sajid Javid, Priti Patel and Dominic Raab in that order. Those who supported Boris Johnson at the last leadership election go for Liz by a hare's breath, 30% to Rishi's 29%. Those who supported Jeremy Hunt also go for Rishi now by 35% to Jeremy's 26%, with Liz bagging only 9% here. Finally new members go for Rishi over Liz by 36% to 29%. It's certainly no coincidence that YouGov fielded and published all this when all signs and portents point to a reboot of the Winter Of Discontent. Against the same and since long-forgotten background of an energy crisis, shortages of basic commodities and high inflation. Looks like Lizzie's 70th's bash is gonna be all 'panem and circenses', only without the panem. Or 'The Hunger Games', as we call that now. Alas, poor Boris, no matter how hard you try and put lipstick on a turd, the people still see it's a turd. So do not ask for whom the bell tolls, the vultures are hovering over you already...

It is quite easy to imagine a state in which the ruling caste

deceive their followers without deceiving themselves.

Dare anyone be sure that something of the kind is not coming into existence already?

(George Orwell)

The scariest moment is always just before you start

After that, things can only get better

(Stephen King)

There is massive irony in hearing some Conservative bigwigs like Liam Fox claiming that the handling of the pandemic is the defining issue of Johnson's Premiership. Do they really expect public opinion to forget or forgive the multiple instances of mishandling that resulted in the highest death toll in Europe? Even the much-vaunted vaccination programme now looks like less of a world-beating success story. According to the latest official statistics, the UK lags behind 11 of the 27 member countries of the European Union, which was mocked at the time for its 'bureaucratic inefficiency'. Even France, which had the shakiest start of all, weeks after the UK, is now more than 2% ahead in the proportion of its population that has been fully vaccinated. It definitely looks like some Conservatives are once again using Covid as a cover for the massive failure of Brexit, which was Johnson's actual defining issue when it propelled him to Number Ten. Surely they have seen the polls fielded regularly by YouGov, that demonstrate that more and more people believe that Boris Johnson has made a pig's breakfast of dogs' ears of Brexit. There always was a strong proportion of the public who believed the English Government handled the thing badly, even in times of relative Brexphoria. It can obviously only go up now that the worst predictions, once dubbed as Project Fear, are coming true one by one in quick succession, and fewer and fewer people still believe Brexit was handled well.

Of course you have to be blind or in denial to not see the telltale signs of a massive failure. The mass production of red tape, now the fastest growing industry in Britain. The massive delays and cancellations of all variants of trade to and from continental Europe. The shortages of basic commodities on the shelves. The reliance on pompous nationalist clichés and memories of the long-gone Empire, as a substitute to actual meaningful action. Then you have to wonder if there is some sort of buyer's remorse about Brexit itself. Admittedly there have been plenty of troubled waters under the bridge since, with other sensitive issues like the refugee crisis interfering, so the public's view is less one-sided than on the first question, though still prominently negative. But there is still a buffer of about 10-12% who still think Brexit was the right choice, even if the handling of it has gone pears up. Even Scots, the most reliable Remainers in 2016, are not fully consistent now, as the last YouGov surveys show 6-9% thinking Brexit was the right choice just handled badly.

This doesn't tell us what Brits would do if offered the option to rejoin the EU. What little polling there has been on this over the last two years is ambiguous at best. And probably just as reliable as 2016 polls, that were conspicuously off until the very last day when YouGov predicted Remain would win by 4%. This has probably become a moot point anyway, as even the Liberal Democrats have given up on campaigning for a second EU referendum. And of course Keir Starmer has promised to Make Brexit Work, which makes as much sense as promising to teach the Venus de Milo to play the fiddle, but never mind. They have to fill these Policy Papers with summat, haven't they? While cautiously avoiding the other options that should be on the table, and might get more support than rejoining the EU, like choosing EFTA instead. But this might split the Labour Party on a meaningful and forward-looking debate, and of course Keir will have none of that, and prefers to endorse the decidedly Corbynite concept of some variant of Lexit, no matter how fundamentally flawed it is. Keir should also be alerted by the fact that Owen Jones came up with the idea first, before the EU referendum, proof enough that he should definitely not touch it with a sixty-foot bargepole dipped in antiseptic. The ultimate irony is that a massive majority of Brits now support Leave, and Scots overwhelmingly so, of course when asked if Boris Johnson should leave or remain as Prime Minister. Did you really think it was about anything else?

When something goes missing, you can always recreate it by the hole it left

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: Hell Bent, 2015)

I like the LibDems cause they’re like, sort of, the political

equivalent of bisexual swingers, they just do it with anyone

(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2015)

Clement Attlee won the 1945 election on a 11% swing from the Conservatives and a 11.5% lead. Tony Blair won the 1997 election on a 10% swing from the Conservatives and a 12.5% lead. Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election on a teeny weeny 5% swing from Labour and a 7% lead. All of which of course pale in comparison with the SNP winning the 2015 election in Scotland on a 24% swing from Labour and a 26% lead, but that's not the point right now. The point here is that two successive poll this month hinted that Keir Starmer could do better than Attlee, Thatcher and Blair, and possibly win the next election on a peak 13% swing from the Conservatives and a peak 14.5% lead. Which might happen, or not, and other polls have been less optimistic about Labour's prospects by a few percentage points. But my current Poll'O'Polls also says that Boris Johnson's constant sparpling no longer works with huge swathes of the British public. They have their eyes on the prize, and the prize is getting Bozo and his herd of sycophantic fly-by-nights oot. Right now, the rolling average is based on the last seven polls, fielded between 13 and 17 January, with a super-sample size of 16,425 and a theoretical margin of error of 0.76%. It predicts a Labour lead over the Conservatives of 'only' 10.4%, with an 11% swing from the Conservatives to Labour since the December 2019 general election. Which is, just coincidentally, pretty much the punditariat-approved threshold for an outright Labour majority under the pre-gerrymandering boundaries.

The most recent polls were published just before rebel Conservative MPs started their own Operation Rinka in response to Johnson's Operation Big Dog. Now you have to wonder who is going to be Johnson's nemesis, and make Big Dog suffer Rinka's fate, metaphorically. Could be the ever-present Dominic Cummings, always one step ahead as long as it can help him not becoming one of the fatalities in one of many scandals. Or it could be the aptly-named Sue Gray, the most famous unknown in the UK, though I would not, at this point, wager a tenner on her delivering the fatal blow. Or, more unexpectedly, it might be Dim Dom Raab, who let himself be cornered again into saying something stupid on national TV. Not genuinely stupid actually, just the kind of stuff that can be used against you in a court of law. The predicted votes by nation and region, factoring in the regional crosstabs of GB-wide polls, are quite enlightening, in comparison to the 2019 results. Northern Ireland is not included as English pollsters just don't go there usually, and locals are not that interested in Commons elections.

This is just what polls said in the few days leading into a week that might be crucial for Boris Johnson's future and the future of the UK. The Conservative MPs of the 2019 intake have definitely injected the most unforeseen element of slapstick into the whole farce, when Big Dog might now be taken down by the Pork Pie Putsch. They have every reason to be worried if they have seen the spectacular surge of Labour voting intentions almost everywhere, including what was thought to be True Blue Heartlands until the North Shropshire by-election, back then what now feels like a lifetime ago. But we can also take two steps back, and not just one, to get a broader view of the current situation. Labour's current voting intentions are now aboot 1% higher than the Corbyn surge of 2017, though with a wide variety of local situations. They're 6% higher than 2017 in the South and 2% higher in the Midlands. But just level in the North, 5% lower in Wales, 4% lower in London and 3% lower in Scotland. In many cases the surge of the LibDem vote, which is now projected 3% higher than in 2017, is a major factor in Labour gains as it snatches center-right voters from the Conservatives. The actual impact of the shifts in voting patterns is also somewhat obscured by the surge of the Green vote, now predicted 3% higher than in 2019, and 4% higher than in 2017. The LibDem surge might be just temporary, boosted by their recent by-election gains, but the Green surge is certainly more of a long-term trend. Labour will have to factor that in at the next election, and possibly adapt their strategy to make tactical voting attractive for potential LibDem and Green voters.

An MP who claims back £1.31 that he spent on jellied eels?

One, where have you ever seen jellied eels for £1.31?

Two, who gives you a receipt from a pub car park?

Three, a Conservative MP eating jellied eels?

I don’t touch souffle! Stick to your own!

(Rob Beckett, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

People should not come to Blackpool thinking “dirty weekend”

It’s also very dirty during the week

(Jon Richardson, 8 Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown, 2021)

The seat projection based on this polling is merciless for the Conservatives, who would lose 133 seats and a lot of prominent bigwigs. Labour would gain 117 seats, in the biggest shift since 1997, and easily doing better that Thatcher in 1979. It actually took Thatcher two elections, 1979 and 1983, to reach a similar level of gains. With Sinn Féin expected to hold their seven seats and still not take them, this would put Labour just two seats short of a working majority. Guaranteed support from the SDLP would allow them to scrape just past the hurdle and start with a 1-seat majority, 322 to 321. There is no doubt in my mind that Keir Starmer would then seek an agreement with the Liberal Democrats, to make his position more comfortable. Technically, a confidence and supply deal would be enough, though it wouldn't guarantee safe passage of all new legislation. So I'm ready to wager a tenner on Sly Keir actually offering the LibDems a full-blown coalition to tie them more securely to his flagship. There's little political capital at risk here, as New New Labour and the LibDems are so close on most issues that Keir wouldn't need to water down any meaningful legislation. Even the LibDem's stance on public ownership is phrased fuzzily enough in their latest policy papers, that it can accommodate Labour's equally half-baked proposals on this. So Britain will live happily ever after in the sunlit uplands of inclusive social-liberalism. Or summat like that.

Of course the loss of the Feeble Fifty from Scotland means Labour will probably never equal Blair's performance in 1997 and 2001 ever again. But here they match the 2015 result with 317 seats in England and Wales versus 315 back then. And, before you ask, the three Scottish Labour seats are projected to be Edinburgh South, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, Airdrie and Shotts. The SNP would make up the losses and more with one gain from the LibDems (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) and three from the Conservatives (Dumfries and Galloway, Moray, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine). So we would have Alister Jack, Wee Andy Bowie and Doogie Ross on the list of Conservative fatalities, which would also include dozens all across England and Wales. I won't bore you with the full list of the other 130, as a lot of them are Red-To-Blue Wall backbenchers whom nobody has ever heard of, or ever will now. Though there are some of the Big Dog (or rather Middle Dog, and even some of Yesterday Dog) variety on the list: Stephen Crabb, Iain Duncan Smith, Graham Brady, Tobias Elwood, Victoria Prentis, Conor Burns, George Eustice, Amanda Solloway, Dominic Raab, Chloe Smith, Alok Sharma, Daniel Kawczynski, Lucy Frazer, Robert Buckland, Grant Shapps, Maggie Throup, Robin Walker, Steve Baker, new media darling William Wragg and Father of the House Peter Bottomley. The breakdown of projected seats by nation and region clearly shows the extents of the Conservative debacle pretty much all across the UK. Only the Northern Ireland seats are unchanged, because there has been no Commons polling there since the 2019 election, as the pollsters are focused on the incoming Assembly election.

Of course these projections must be compared not just to 2017 and 2019, but also to 2005, which is the true benchmark of a genuine Labour success. Just not mentioning Scotland here, for obvious reasons, even if bagging three seats North Of Berwick is something of a feat these days. Elsewhere, Labour would be pretty much level with 2005 in the North (134 projected seats now vs 133 then) and Wales (30 vs 29). Lagging noticeably behind in the Midlands (49 vs 64). And doing better in London (52 vs 44) and the rest of the South (52 vs 45). To stay in the mood of the medieval architecture metaphors, Labour here have successfully restored and improved the Red Keeps in the North and London, come short of fully restoring the Outer Red Wall in the Midlands, but punched gaping holes in the Blue Wall in the South. And, before I forget, predictions that Boris Johnson would lose his seat are grossly exaggerated and premature, as this would happen only if you assumed the same swing away from the Conservatives in London as in the rest of Great Britain, and we have already seen this is just not happening yet. Though Labour would stand a better chance if the LibDems and Greens both declined to stand in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and actively campaigned for the Labour candidate. Then, and only then, would Big Dog be toast on his own turf. Just saying.

We don’t do charity in Germany, we pay taxes

Charity is a failure of governments’ responsibilities

(Henning Wehn)

What happens to an unstoppable force when it hits an unmovable object?

(Jon Snow)

Now is as good a time as any to assess the impact of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster Constituencies, the long-delayed exercise in redrawing the constituencies to account for shifts in population and voter registration, as UK law mandates that the allocation of seats by nation and region be done in proportion to the electorate, and not the population. This review, after a lot of comings and goings, false starts and discarded reviews over a period of nine years, was finally authorised by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020. The four Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have now published their initial proposals, which are now subject to public scrutiny. The four Commissions' websites have all the information you need about the Review, including detailed data about the proposed new seats, that I used for the reengineering of my model and my assessment of the proposals. Which are only a first draft as up to three consultations will happen before the final proposals, that will be sent to Commons some time in 2023, so that the revised boundaries may be used at the next general election. The Conservatives have a vested interest in these changes, as the proposed boundaries would have delivered a 113-seat notional majority in December 2019, 26 seats higher than the actual result. They could also turn around the result of a close election, as shown in the example below.

This projection for the next election is based on the Redfield and Wilton poll fielded on 10 January. The last that predicted a close election, before the next episodes of PartyGate propelled Labour to double-digit leads. On these numbers, the proposed boundaries would switch a 25-seat lead for Labour to a 6-seat lead for the Conservatives, who would remain the first party despite losing the popular vote by 4.5%. As always, the devil is in the details, and the details of the Act are where we find the explanation. More precisely in how the Boundary Commission for England implemented them in a creative way that favours the Conservatives. The Act defines what must be the average size of each constituency, based on registered voters on 2 March 2020. And also what the permissible variations are, based on a range of 95% to 105% of the average size. I will rely here on data from Great Britain only, as there are specific rules for Northern Ireland, and also a wholly different array of parties on offer there. I have also excluded the five 'protected island constituencies' (Isle of Wight West, Isle of Wight East, Na h-Eileanhan an-Iar, Orkney and Shetland, Ynys Mon) which are exempt from the rules, as specific communities that cannot be merged with a mainland constituency. Which might, or might not, be the wish of local voters, but has been the law for years, and in this case helped the Conservatives bag an extra seat by carving the Isle of Wight into two seats. The bias in recarving the seats is not obvious in the statistics by nation. But you readily see it in the statistics by party, which show quite noticeable discrepancies between the Conservatives and the rest.

The result here is quite stunning. The average Conservative constituency has an electorate lower by 1,265 than the legal average. Which amounts to 799,480 potential votes GB-wide, or the equivalent of 11 seats. As a mirror image, the average Liberal Democrat seat is 1,145 voters above average, a handicap of 723,640 GB-wide or the equivalent of 10 seats. Of course this is quite simplistic and the reality of the gerrymandering's impact is more subtle, as we have seen earlier. And there is little anyone can do about it, even if the matter was taken to a Court. There are multiple examples of Conservative seats, that were already within the legal range of electorate, being reduced in size so that new Tory-leaning seats could be carved from bits and bobs. And of Labour seats, that were also already within the legal range, being increased in size by the addition of more Labour-leaning wards, turning safe seats into genuine sinkholes. But, as long as the recarving is strictly within the parameters set by the authorising Act, no challenge will succeed. Unless the plaintiff argues that it also broke one of the basic guidelines of boundary changes: preserve existing community ties such as parliamentary seats being within just one Council area. Then the massive irony would be that Douglas Ross, of all people, would have one of the best cases for undoing the dismembering of his current seat. See my previous article for the how and why.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed

They must rely exclusively on force

(George Orwell)

Never doubt the courage of the French

They were the ones who discovered that snails are edible

(Doug Larson)

Let's take a short detour through France now, and the last polling about their incoming presidential election. I won't bore you with all the vital statistics of the candidates, as you can gather pretty much everything from Wiki here. There's one, and often more, for every tribe from Trotskyists to far-right conspiracy nutters. I have chosen to track only the main ones, those who could plausibly bag more than 5% of the vote, or thereabouts, in the first round to be held on 10 April. And that's still seven of them, with only Emmanuel Macron so far clearing the 20% threshold, that seemed to be the one needed to carry on to the runoff, to be held on 24 April. But the current split of the right-wing votes hints that the threshold might be lower than that, possibly as low as 16%. Then the current list of candidates is not the final one, as candidates need to be sponsored, pretty much like the Labour leadership election. French law requires that candidates much be sponsored by at least 500 elected officials, so there might be some surprises in store before the filing deadline on 4 March. Trendlines of first-round voting intentions show that center-right candidate Valérie Pécresse enjoyed a brief 'honeymoon surge' after winning Les Républicains' primary, but the momentum as since died down. Pécresse in now tied with Marine Le Pen, who has benefited from far-right candidate Eric Zemmour shooting himself in the foot multiple times with extremist outbursts, after also enjoying a surge just after he announced his candidacy.

Interestingly, the issues of 'wokeism vs common sense' have also become prominent in the French campaign, as the cancel culture has also become a thing down there. Gender ideology has gained some traction within the radical left, but is still not a major concern for the general public, as the most controversial bits like gender self-identification are not part of the debate so far. Instead, major controversies focus on the left's endorsement of critical race theory and their attitudes towards radical political Islam. Which is what you might expect in a country where one of the pillars of the Constitution is 'secular republicanism', obviously something totally alien to British thought patterns. So far only the Communist Party's candidate Fabien Roussel is sticking to 'traditional left-wing values', though it does not serve him in the polls. The current weighted average of the latest polls shows the electorate split 1/4 for the different shades of the left, 1/4 for the Macronist variant of social-liberalism and 1/2 for the various clans of the right. Which is both good and bad for Emmanuel Macron. Good because he is predicted to bag roughly the same share of the vote as in the first round of the 2017 election, so seems immune to the anti-incumbent mood he triggered himself back then. Bad because he does not improve on that result, so there is no sign of an incumbency bonus or any sort of momentum in his favour, though he does relatively well in popularity polls. Better than Boris Johnson, that is.

Meanwhile, second round polling still surveys both Macron vs Le Pen and Macron vs Pécresse. With Macron winning in both cases in the most recent polls. The left have pretty much ruled themselves out of the second round by splitting the vote between eight candidates. There are major irreconcilable differences between the various factions, from nuclear energy and an hypothetical Green Deal to foreign policy and intersectional politics. This could spell doom for the left at the incoming legislative election, to be held in June, when they where already hit pretty hard at the previous one in 2017. Interestingly, current second round polling is not that good either for Emmanuel Macron, as it is mostly in the 55-to-45 range, instead of the massive 66-to-34 he bagged against Marine Le Pen in 2017. His supporters are hoping his handling of the various stages of the Covid pandemic will prove an asset in the last stages of the campaign, tough it hasn't been faultless, but still less chaotic than Boris Johnson's. But the success of the booster jag programme and a recently stronger stance against anti-vaxxers might help. Macron also obviously expects a surge in the polls when he will at last officially announce his candidacy, which is expected some time in late January or early February. Which is also the time-frame in which voting intentions have coalesced at previous elections, and become a fairly accurate predictor of the actual results. But, as always, no upset can be ruled out.

I’ve been keeping the fact that I’m a genius even from myself

(Aisling Bea)

31/12/2021

The Nutters And The Plan

It's shite being Scottish

We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking Earth

The most wretched, miserable, servile,

Pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilisation

Some people hate the English, I don't, they're just wankers

(Mark 'Rent Boy' Renton, Trainspotting, 1996)

We, on the other hand, are colonised by wankers

Can't even find a decent culture to be colonised by

We're ruled by effete arseholes

It's a shite state of affairs to be in

And all the fresh air in the world won't make a fucking difference

(Mark 'Rent Boy' Renton, Trainspotting, 1996)

This is going to be my last blog post of 2021, and Dog knows a lot has happened this year. Not least me turning 30, and I have gotten over it just as my dear friend and neighbour Brian predicted. Climbing one rung higher on the food chain eventually just made me more conscious that the Zoomers are the clearest and presentest danger to Civilisation-As-We-Know-It since Dog domesticated Dofos. But let's not indulge in personal stuff for too long, and let's head straight for the heart of the matter. I intended this last article of the year to be about Scotland only. But I can't not mention the North Shropshire by-election, as the shockwave of its fallout is still sending ripples across the playground of British politics. And making the Liberal Democrats dream about what the future has in store for them. To fully grasp the impact of that political asteroid, let's see first how this constituency had voted since the dawn of the Thatcher Era, and then bear with me as I indulge in some historical trivia.

The constituency was established in 1832 as a two-seater. The first two co-owners of the seat, because that's how it worked in the days of yore, were a Conservative and a Whig, one of those who were to the Liberal Democrats what The Quarrymen were to the Plastic Ono Band. Then, from the 1835 election to the vaporisation of the seat in 1885, both co-owners where Conservatives. A new one-seater constituency called Oswestry was created in 1885, covering pretty much the same area as the current North Shropshire seat. This variant existed for almost a century and returned Conservative MPs all along, except for an unfortunate lapse of reason at a 1904 by-election, when it elected a Liberal, one of those who were to the Whigs what The Beatles were to The Quarrymen. The mistake was corrected at the 1906 general election, an early sign that Libs of all shades are good at gaining blue seats at by-elections, but shite at holding them at the next general. The seat was slightly remodeled and rebranded as North Shropshire in 1983, without changing its political persuasion. So, for 115 years from 1906 to 2021, it showcased an unbroken chain of True Blue MPs, last but not least Owen Paterson, the one who got the ball rolling for this year's '8.5 on the Richter scale' event. But you can legitimately also pin that one on Boris Johnson, and his willingness to protect the never-ending stream of Tory corruption.

The morning after such an event, there are always two sides to the story: what do the numbers actually say? And what do we want them to say? Well, it was a walloping for the Conservatives, and it was a walloping for the Conservatives. Full stop. Boris Johnson will find it hard to put lipstick on that particular pig, as it was an epic disaster of Willie Bain grade, with a swing of 34% from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats. Even worse than Chesham and Amersham, where the swing was 'only' 25%. But I wouldn't take it as clear evidence that Boris Johnson has run out of road, and is now left desperately spinning his legs in mid-air before plunging into the abyss. He's still the boss, after all, as in 'mob boss'. 101 poundshop dalmatians... oops...sorry... libertarians voting against the weakest Covid precautions in the world because, ye ken, their local's profits matter more that a few thousand oiks in intensive care, is one thing. 54 with a functioning brain cell sending a letter of no confidence to the 1922 Committee is another, especially when the New Model Virus provides you with an oven-ready excuse to procrasturbate. So we will have to wait a little bit longer until we know if the Shootout At Oswestry Town Hall was the last straw into Boris's political coffin. And, even if it goes that way, there is still the possibility of a reboot of the 1990 leadership contest. Something like the public's favourite Rishi Sunak, and the Committee's favourite Liz Truss, nuking each other into oblivion, and we end up with Jeremy Hunt sneaking his way through the cracks to Number Ten.

This by-election was also, even if The Guardian will never print it, quite a doomy and gloomy day for their fairytale Progressive Alliance. Labour HQ got the memo and carefully avoided going anywhere near North Shropshire, clearly wishing for massive LibDem tactical voting. But Their Man In Oswestry, Ben Wood, clearly didn't, even if he had obviously been selected as the beigest possible candidate, with no previous electoral experience and the lowest possible name recognition. And also because he's not a Corbynite, which is enough to grant you a pass to the big boy's locker room in Keir Starmer's multiverse. He nevertheless fought it to the last man, himself, despite the lack of funding and support from Lab Central, and it was even worse with the Greens. Clearly neither the local candidate nor Greenie Central ever seriously considered they should tone it down a few notches, to help oust the Tories, and ended up increasing their vote share. So now Keir Starmer not only has to boost the generic Labour vote across England, he also has to make it Green-proof in every constituency. Which would be a minor challenge with the Greens on barely 3% of the popular vote, as in 2019. But might prove trickier if the Greensters live up to their current polling and bag three or four times more votes. Bully for Keir, the only advice he will get is that of the punditariat punditificating about issues they always get wrong because, ye ken, losing votes at a by-election is a sure predictor of a massive victory at the next general. No shit, Sherlock.

Seize the moment

Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved away the dessert cart

(Erma Bombeck)

The best magician in the world can’t pull a rabbit

Out of a hat unless there’s one already there

(Perry Mason)

So now at last, it's this time of year when I can try and sum up what happened in Scottish polls since the last Scottish Parliament election on 6 May. First of all, fourteen IndyRef2 polls from seven different pollsters. One predicts a tie, two a Yes win and twelve a No win. A popular one was conducted a month ago already, this (in)famous Ipsos-Mori poll for STV that predicted 55% Yes to 45% No with undecideds removed, when the steadyish trend for the previous six weeks had been more like 49-51. The trend of voting intentions since 2014 is just mildly encouraging, as it looks like we have an Ever Given referendum, endlessly stuck between 'almost there' and 'not quite there yet'. Then some may argue, and certainly will, that it's more akin to a Schrödinger's Neverendum, as we never know if it's quite alive still, or quite dead already. Or call it the Snow White referendum, as we can all live happily ever after in the comforting belief that 'someday our IndyRef will come'.

The question is of course what the Scottish Government and the Yellow-Green Axis have done to further the cause of independence. It's fair to say the Greenies have done fuck all, while the SNP has talked a lot. The more you look at it, the more you reach the unavoidable conclusion that Nicola Sturgeon's Master Plan for Scottish Independence is pretty much the same as Boris Johnson's Master Plan to contain Covid. Plan A is to make it up as they go. Plan B is that there never was a Plan B until it was too late to come up with a real Plan B. Of course the SNP have loads of reasons to feel comfy within the confines of devolution. It saves them a lot of the heavy lifting that goes with full government, and offers them endless opportunities to whine about SW1 and boost their support doing that. Then there is the money. It's not just that Pete Wishart would have to live off his share of Runrig royalties, which would be pretty slim as he never contributed anything significant to them either. It's about the party itself, which is currently entitled to a total of about £1.2m every year, in Short Money from the House of Commons and Policy Development Grant from the Electoral Commission. Which is not something you'd want to lose when the equivalent system in Scotland provides far less money, and none goes to the governing party anyway. So I guess SNP Central are not totally unhappy with the current weighted rolling average of IndyRef2 polls, that still has No leading even with a conspicuously Yes-friendly poll in the mix.

Right now there are also some rumours that SNP Central might get on board for a three-way referendum including 'Devo Max', whatever the fuck that actually means, on the ballot. Which is indeed an option Big Eck pretended to consider in 2011-2012, to strongarm David Cameron into accepting the Yes-Or-No question. Because Call-Me-Dave had convinced himself that Devo Max would prevail, and he definitely did not want any of it. It's still quite possible Boris Johnson would accept it, based on the same belief that Devo Max would win, but now this has become SW1's fallback option and they would welcome it, as a way to undermine independence for the next generation and then some. Bear in mind this would be a fully acceptable outcome for Labour too, as it fits with both Gordon Brown's Vow and Keir Starmer's federalism. From the 'progressive' side, The Guardian published a column on the prospects of a second independence referendum, just after the Ipsos-Mori poll was published. And, for once, I must say I quite agree with their views. Though I would say the game looks more like poker than chess, and who will outbluff the other. Unless there never was any such game. The whole thing was just an elaborate panto staged for our benefit, and Nicola always knew Boris was behind her. And kindly asking for a Section 30 Order was just the theme song... as Devo Max was always the real goal for both.

I have no idea what Plan B is

But it’s going to be a very big relief when I think of it

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio, 2016)

If there is an idiot in power, those who elected him are well represented

(Mahatma Gandhi)

I have finished my assessment of the Johnson Gerrymander, officially known as the 2023 Boundary Review, in Scotland. Before I start, let's be clear that the SNP are pissing down the wrong tree when they whine about Scotland's influence in Commons being unfairly reduced. First of all, we have fuck all influence, and you can't reduce what does not exist. Second, there is nothing unfair in the reduction from 59 to 57 seats, it's basic maths. The allocation of seats by nation and region is based on the electorate, and everybody knows the basic demographics. The overall population of Scotland is increasing at a lower rate than the UK's average and, even with a higher voter registration rate, so is the electorate. Thusly, the Scottish share of the electorate goes down, and so does the number of seats. Ian Blackford can throw all the toys he wants out of the pram, maths is one part of reality the SNP can't alter with a vote in Holyrood. Furthermore, the notional votes in the new constituencies show that the SNP would have bagged 48 seats in December 2019 under the new boundaries, just as they did under the current ones. The Liberal Democrats are the victims here, as they notionally lose two of their four seats, while the Conservatives and Labour hold their respective six and one. Gerrymandering is pretty much Braveheart-Meets-Frankenstein. The constituencies are drawn and quartered and then reassembled with sometimes unintended consequences. Or are they in fact intended? Anyway, here's what the new map delivers for Scotland (click on the images for a larger version).

In the four constituencies that are predicted to change hands, my 'notional MP' is the runner-up at the 2019 election. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Glasgow and the Highlands would lose one seat each, as several seats were much below the required electorate. But I suspect that the redrawers had an extra clause in their mission statement: deprive both Ian Blackford and Douglas Ross of an obvious successor seat. And they used the same method in both cases: cut the original seat in half and reassemble it with bits and bobs from adjoining areas. The result is actually clean in the Highlands as two of the three current seats are well below the lower edge of the allowed range of electorates. Blackford's only problem with the new boundaries is that his home on the Isle of Skye is now in the new Highland Central, notionally Drew Hendry's seat. Which leaves him little choice but challenging Jamie Stone in the new Highland North. What happened in Moray is odd and anything but clean, as the current seat fits the electorate requirements and is also neatly coterminous (or coextensive, depending on your mood for the day) with the Council area. But the current proposals have it grossly dismembered and shared between three new seats that also include wards from the Highland and Aberdeenshire councils. Which goes against common sense and also against the Boundary Commission's guidelines that promote the preservation of community ties. So I guess there is no conspiracy theory in saying that someone Doon Sooth seriously wanted to get rid of Oor Doogie. Otherwise, the new boundaries protect both the SNP and the Conservatives, as the notional results in the new seats show.

The notional 2019 results are just simple maths, based on the reassignment of votes by ward on the new boundaries. The voting intentions and seat projections for the next election are based on the average of the constituency and list votes at the last Holyrood election, to illustrate the point with an hypothetical situation totally disconnected from current Westminster polling. It is quite clear that one of the goals of the Review, implicitly or explicitly, was to be kind to the SNP. As for which ulterior motives, your guess is as good as mine. Another visible consequence is to shield the Conservatives from most of the impact of a slump in their voting intentions, as they would fare better under the new boundaries on the same share of the popular vote. Before I forget, there is another interesting stunt in the new Boundary Review, compared to the previous version that was published in 2018. This time, the changes to the Edinburgh constituencies have been kept to the minimum, with just Musselburgh rejoining Edinburgh East, as was the case between 1997 and 2005, and some minor reshuffling of wards within the City Council boundaries. But the most significant change is that Edinburgh South West keeps the exact same boundaries, instead of being dismembered and part of it reassembled with Livingston. The 2018 version would basically have seen Joanna Cherry and Hannah Bardell pitted against each other in a new seat. Now Joanna's seat is kept unscathed and she has the obvious opportunity to stand again on her home turf. Of course it's not like someone in SW1 is taking the mick out of Nicola Sturgeon here, making it her problem to use her foot soldiers in the SNP's NEC to kick out Joanna. Or is it? Anyway, this is probably not the last we hear from the Boundary Commission as pretty much everyone in the Scottish political biosphere is opposed to the proposals. Watch this space.

Witch hunts never end, you burn one, you have to find another

Everyone needs to have something they can feel good about hating

Plus everyone loves a bonfire

(Cully Barnaby, Midsomer Murders: The Straw Woman, 2004)

Winning is all about looking happier than the other guy

Talk with confidence even if you’re terrified

Act as if you know their plan and sometimes

If you’re very lucky, they’ll actually tell you it

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Girl Who Died, 2015)

There have been 36 Full Scottish polls of Westminster voting intentions since the 2019 general election, including seven since the last Holyrood election. We also have a massive fuckload of Scottish subsamples from GB-wide polls, which we should obviously not take at face value, because of the higher margin of error. But the combination of the two nevertheless paints an interesting, and probably quite reliable, picture of the trends behind the evolution of the Scottish electorate over the last two years, or the last six months. And the current trends, with the SNP back in the mid-40s, Labour coming back strongly to second place, the Conservatives down to the low-to-mid-20s, and the Liberal Democrats crawling back to around 10%, are definitely not the best case scenario for the SNP. I even have a tenner on this situation being Nicola Sturgeon's worst nightmare.

There are many counter-intuitive traits in Scottish voting intentions. First is that the Conservatives were not that much of a threat to the SNP, as long as the LibDems were down the pipes on 5% or lower. Any seat that the SNP might have lost to the Conservatives (insert Gordon or Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock here) was easily compensated by the SNP bagging the three LibDems mainland seats, and plausibly Orkney and Shetland too. Second is that Labour was never definitely irrelevant and off the pitch for good. At the 2019 election, five seats came out as SNP-Lab marginals, while Ian Murray was deeply entrenched and out of the danger zone in Edinburgh South. The Airdrie and Shotts by-election proved that you should not write off Labour prematurely, even if the SNP held the seat with an increased vote share. The current configuration adds some interesting challenges for the SNP. The unexpected LibDem surge means that their seats are no longer easy preys for the SNP. Regional crosstabs of the most recent Full Scottish polls even say the LibDems might be in a better position than ever in Edinburgh West and North East Fife. Then the Conservatives, even on 20-22%, are still predicted to hold three to five seats (Banff and Buchan, at least two of the Border seats, possibly West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine). Finally Labour is likely to benefit from the SNP's self-inflicted wounds in the two seats currently held by the Alba Party. An SNP-Alba split vote would instantly switch both back to Labour. So the current snapshot of possible outcomes of the next general election is not all milk and honey for the SNP.

These projections are based on polls conducted over the last six weeks. Here I have nine Scottish subsamples of standard GB-wide polls, with sample sizes in the 100-150 range. The last Full Scottish poll from Opinium, with a sample size of 1;328. And finally the Scottish subsample of Focaldata's massive MRP poll, which has a sample of 24,373 GB-wide, and a Scottish subsample of 2,106, bigger than any standard Full Scottish poll fielded since December 2019. So the tone is set pretty much by Opinium, who had the the SNP on 48%, and Focaldata, who had them on 37%. Interestingly there are similar patterns here as in GB-wide and English polling. A mild recovery for the Liberal Democrats, from their abysmal results in earlier polls, undoubtedly boosted by their by-election gains. More significantly, a surge of the Labour vote, who appear to snatch additional votes from both the SNP and the Conservatives. The combination of this swing and regional variations puts five of the SNP's 2019 seats squarely in the danger zone. By order of likelihood to fall: Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, Airdrie and Shotts, Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, East Lothian, Motherwell and Wishaw. This even without factoring in the accelerant that SNP-Alba split votes could be. Even if my projection is less radical than Focaldata's, which predicted 11 Scottish seats for Labour, it confirms that Labour is still a force to reckon with in the Central Belt. But also in West Scotland, where Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire would be Labour's next top targets. So the SNP should probably brace themselves for upsets where they least expect them. Just saying.

COP26 was held in Glasgow, but I'm not sure Glasgow is the right city

If you're trying to convince the world it's worth saving

(Jimmy Carr)

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes an act of rebellion

(George Orwell)

Now I have to devote some time, again, to the chronic over-representation of Scotland in GB-wide voting intentions polls. Because we had this miraculous YouGov poll just before Christmas, that gave The National and the Sturgeonist Twittersphere a massive hard-on, because it infamously had the SNP on 6% of GB-wide voting intentions. Which neither one nor the others questioned, while also mentioning that the SNP bagged 47% of the Scottish subsample, and it was quite obvious that the two numbers just did not add up. Let's go back to the basic facts first. In December 2019, Scotland accounted for 8.4% of Great Britain's population, 8.6% of registered voters and 8.8% of valid votes cast. I use GB-wide figures here because almost all polls don't include Northern Ireland, so any valid argument has to be GB-based. Thusly, the SNP bagging 45% of the Scottish vote at that election translated into 4% GB-wide, which is quite probably the magic number everyone has in mind when assessing current polls. It was actually 3.98%, but never mind. It is very easy to figure out how Scottish voting figures translate into GB-wide votes, and vice-versa. Just use the 8.8% share of votes cast as the ratio in both directions, and here is what you get.

So, YouGov's infamous 6% never were 6%, and not even close. 47% of the Scottish vote is actually 4.2% of the GB-wide vote, which YouGov would have rounded to 4%, not 6%. 6% would have been an implausibly high 68% of the Scottish vote, which you don't have even in Pete Wishart's wettest dreams. This sort of misrepresentation only happens because there is a significant over-representation of Scottish voting intentions in all polls. It is quite easy to detect when pollsters actually release the full data of their surveys, as per British Polling Council rules. These have to include the number of respondents in the original sample and every subsample used in any of the polls crosstabs. And then the same level of detail for the final panel on which the poll's headlines results are based. These are what I call the 'valid answers', as in the 'valid votes cast' in a real election. This final panel is the end product of the pollster's sausage-making algorithms that generally include weighting by demographics, likelihood to vote, remembered vote at past elections... All this voodoo-dolling actually alters the poll's results, which is readily noticeable when both the raw results and the final headline results are disclosed. Simple maths, on a sample of recently conducted polls, show a major flaw: Scotland's share of the valid answers is over-weighted, and sometimes quite significantly. On average, and I think quite coincidentally, it matches Scotland's share of registered voters in the original panels. But Scotland's share of votes cast is 1% higher than at the last election. Which results in a major distortion of the SNP's vote share in the GB-wide headline results. QED.

I don't have the similar data for YouGov, as they have a far more restrictive interpretation of their duty of disclosure, under British Polling Council rules, than any other pollster. YouGov publish rounded vote shares and don't disclose the exact numbers of valid answers in every cell of the crosstabs, as other pollsters routinely do. They also don't define exactly what the sizes of their samples and subsamples represent, though there is circumstantial evidence that they represent the original sample and not the valid answers. YouGov's Scottish subsamples are always aboot 8.6% of the GB-wide sample, which is the correct ratio based on registered voters in December 2019. It also hints that there is a massive distortion in their final panel of valid answers, as their much-publicised headline results are ridiculously at odds with the results of the Scottish subsample. The massive inconsistency between the two hints that the over-representation of Scotland in their final weighted and filtered panel is probably even bigger than with other pollsters. So this another reminder that everyone should think twice before celebrating an 'unprecedented' SNP vote share in any poll's headline result. And just look at the Scottish subsample first, to get the real snapshot and not a distorted one.

It is quite possible that we are descending into an age in which

Two and two will make five when the Leader says so

(George Orwell)

Half of my stories are true, the other half just haven’t happened yet

(Sam Garner, Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan, 2012)

Since the last Scottish Parliament election, there have been eight polls of voting intentions for the next one. Which show different patterns from the House of Commons voting intentions, which has its own logic but might also be just the last ripple of previous trends, as the last Holyrood poll is a month old and couldn't register the fallout, if any, of all the stuff that has happened in SW1 since. The results of the constituency voting intentions (top chart) and the list voting intentions (bottom chart) show no buyer's remorse over the last election, and indeed quite the opposite. Contrary to Westminster polls, there is no Labour surge to be seen here, although the most recent polls was fielded more that three weeks after the shit hit the fans in SW1 and Owen Paterson resigned. That's the neverending story of our Tale Of Two Nations: Keir Starmer may look like a welcome alternative to Boris Johnson, but Anas Sarwar is not one to Nicola Sturgeon. Neither is Oor Doogie Ross, as shown by the Conservatives' mediocre polling.

Of course, the strong support for the SNP-Greens coalition, often stronger than at the last election, is puzzling for many reasons. First there is no such thing as a honeymoon period when you start your fourth term, but there is something of one here. Then it gives credibility to what was once just one of Anas Sarwar's quips during the last campaign, that the SNP's talking point should be that "at least, we're not as bad as the other lot". That may also be a vote by default for Nicola Sturgeon, as nobody actually wants Anas Sarwar, Douglas Ross or Alex Cole-Hamilton as the next First Minister. Now the real issue is how all this polling, if it ever came true, would affect the allocation of seats at Holyrood. I ran a simulation based on the weighted average of all eight polls, which is as good a scenario as any when you're more that four years away from the next election. My results, including the regional variations in both votes, are pretty much the same as what you get on uniform swing, as the compensatory nature of the Additional Member System irons out the differences. And in both cases we would have a stronger pro-Independence majority, and Labour counter-intuitively doing better than the Conservatives on smaller vote shares for both. The key here is obviously Labour being more resilient on the list vote, while the Liberal Democrats would gain back 'big boy status' thanks to their higher list vote.

There is an obvious risk in all this polling, that it will fuel the SNP's hubris and their already strong tendency to take voters for granted, despite 2017 having set a precedent to the contrary twice. The SNP shouldn't ignore the risk of the next election cycle being a reboot of 2017, or warnings that they may well go down the same road as Labour before them, even when they come from people SNP Central relentlessly smear and demonise. Because the actual point here is what is the point of a stronger pro-Independence majority in Holyrood, or a stronger SNP group in Westminster, if it has fuck all impact on the SNP's strategy? There is an easy way to remember what the point is: Nicola Sturgeon must always be one step ahead and have one more mandate for Independence than Boris Johnson has children. Simples. Which is of course not the point at all, innit? Hoarding mandates like hunting trophies, to let them gather dust on a shelf at Bute House, is definitely not what Independence supporters expect from 'the one party of Independence'. Not acting beyond sheepishly asking for a Section 30 Order again, and whining about it when it is predictably turned down, just does not cut it. The SNP should be paying more attention to the natives getting restless over unkept promises. Otherwise there will be an electoral price to pay sooner or later, and it will be too late to whine about that too.

I love the way Scotland gets all celebrations in one corner of the year

So that, being Scottish, you have Christmas craziness

And then Hogmanay insanity, Burns Night three weeks later

And then, for the rest of the year, nothing, just a long hangover

(Stephen Fry, QI: Highs And Lows, 2010)

A Scottish friend of mine used to say “I don’t know why

You English people go on about our accent being impenetrable

Americans find it easier to understand, easier than English”

Then I saw ‘Trainspotting’ in America

And there were subtitles all the way through

(Stephen Fry, QI: Highs And Lows, 2010)

Another poll should trigger some alarms at SNP Central, or not, given that they are genetically engineered to dismiss anything that goes against the party line. It was conducted by Opinium in early December, surveying people across the North of Scotland, about various issues related to the oil and gas industry and more specifically the Cambo oil field. It was not widely covered by Scottish media, especially not The National, but it was deemed important enough by the Press and Journal and The Times to warrant full coverage. It was fielded after Nicola Sturgeon publicly stated that Cambo should not get the green light, and Shell withdrew from the project, with a panel covering the North East and Highlands and Islands electoral regions. The raw data say that 36% oppose Sturgeon's position and 29% support it, which is definitely not an endorsement. The tweaked data, with "don't knows" removed, also show at best lukewarm support across the political spectrum, and significant opposition in some corners of the compass. I excluded Green voters here, as political affiliations are based on the 2019 general election votes, and this returns a ridiculously small Green subsample.

As you might expect, Conservative voters are up in arms against the cancelling of Cambo, but LibDem voters also oppose it by a teeny weeny margin. Which will be called 'not valid' only by those in the metropolitan bubble who will overlook the fact that the Conservatives are breathing down the SNP's neck in the North East, and the LibDems still have higher than average support in Highlands and Islands. The obviously inconvenient truth for SNP Central is that their own voters offer only minimal and lukewarm support: 34% of the full subsample, and 47% of those who express an opinion. There is actually a majority of SNP voters sitting on the fence, when you add those who neither support or oppose (25%), don't know (21%) or prefer not to say (5%). Then the panel were asked to rank the SNP-Green deal's and the oil economy's impact on a scale from 'very positive' to 'very negative'. Massive majorities agree that the oil and gas industry has had a positive impact on both Scotland's and the UK's economy. Which is kind of a proven fact, but it's still worth checking people are aware of it. There is obviously no such enthusiasm over the coalition deal, and probably for a fuckload of different reasons, not limited to just the economic impact on the North East, even if it's what the question asked. SNP voters massively support it, and the only reason I see for this is that they believe ScotGov's promises that there will be sunlit uplands beyond the horizon. Time will tell, I guess.

As part of the drive to Net Zero, 44% of the panel think Aberdeen should receive priority financial support while 20% think the resources should go elsewhere and 36% have no opinion. Prioritising Aberdeen surely makes sense, as you can expect it will take years to retrain an oil rig worker to become a worker for the wind industry for example, if you target only retraining within the energy sector. Public funding appears to be the key here, as the panel don't have a really positive view of the energy companies' willingness to invest in the North East after the SNP-Greens deal. 28% think they will invest less, 19% think it will be more and 15% it will be the same, while a massive 37% have no idea. Interestingly, the poll's wording explicitly mentions direct funding from the UK government in a reserved matter, presumably to get all options covered, and that does not seem to be a red line for the public. And, in this specific case, there are a thousand reasons why the SNP should forget their objections, no matter how relevant and justified they are, and just take the money and run. Finally, the panel were asked how the canceling of Cambo had influenced their assessment of the First Minister, the SNP and Independence, from 'more favourable' to 'less favourable'. With 'unchanged' split into two subsets: was favourable before and still is, was unfavourable before and still is.

Of course this comes mostly from a region that has turned from an SNP heartland to a Tory heartland after Brexit, and with stronger than average opposition to Independence. But, even so, it's far from a ringing endorsement of the deal and its fallout, and should not be brushed aside lightly. Patrick Harvie must have the only rose-tinted glasses left in Scotland, if he expects all issues here to be resolved as if by magic and to everyone's satisfaction. Or that imposing an ideologically-driven policy, no matter how sound it is in the long run, without due attention to the short-term impact, will not have electoral consequences. Or he doesn't care because the Greens have a weak voter base in the North East, while their key metropolitan voters in Glasgow and Lothian will love every aspect of the plan. But this obviously just Classic Paddy, the same one who claimed with a straight face that only far-right obscurantists opposed shafting the oil and gas industry and its workers. Then we already know that only the far-right will dare challenge Nutter Paddy on his most asinine opinions, and only fascists will disagree with Paddy's strongly held beliefs, even when they reach a level of stupidity and delusion not even mendacious hardline Tories can match. We'll see how well that works at polling places soon enough, won't we?

A lot of the stuff Scots claim to like, they only do to trick us

Like haggis is something they pretend to like

So when you go to Scotland, you have haggis and you find out it’s rancid

They all have a jolly good laugh about it

(Jon Richardson, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

Same with that Rabbie Burns, even they can’t understand it

It’s just made-up language and they pretend it’s ancient Scottish poetry

But it’s not, it’ just gobbledy “Haigh tha morra, flookie da pookie”

And they go “Och, aye, that’s ancient lyricism, that is”

He was just pissed the whole time, aye, and a hogey had a bogey

(Jon Richardson, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

Next stop is now the Council elections that will be held on 5 May 2022. And the poll of North East Scotland I mentioned just before highlights one of many issues that will undoubtedly have an impact on the results. Their electoral system (Single Transferable Vote, STV) is praised by the supporters of proportional representation (PR) against the so very British first past the post (FPTP) as more diverse, inclusive, democratic and whatnot. Which is of course fucking bullshit as STV is actually an intrinsically perverse system. It does not deliver PR and allows for more tactical voting than FPTP, because it's a multi-round system where each party can choose to field several candidates, and the multiverse of lower-rank preferences is a worse challenge than Star Trek's three-dimensional chess. One of the best examples of STV's built-in perversity is the 2020 Dáil Éireann election, where cross-tactical down-ballot voting from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael defeated several Sinn Féin candidates who topped the first preferences. Numbers easily prove that both genuine PR and FPTP would have delivered Sinn Féin as the first party, while STV relegated them to second place and out of government.

The perversity of the system is amplified by the strategy to 'vote till you boak', ranking candidates until you find one that's genuinely so offensive you don't want him anywhere near a Council seat. Then a candidate who is just 'not as bad as the really bad lot' might get massive third of fourth preferences from all corners of the political compass and end up defeating the genuine preferred candidates who did better on first preferences. Just think of Labour candidates, who might be considered as 'not as bad as really fucking bad' by pretty much everyone from Greens to Conservatives for hugely different and conflicting reasons, and end up hoarding enough transfers to bag a seat against all odds. It has happened, hasn't it? Then there is every reason to not believe Council elections polls, which have proved to be a massive fuck up in 2017. If their predictions had been right, the SNP would have bagged more seats than they fielded candidates. In the end, the SNP's actual results were the same as in 2012 in both votes and seats, give or take a handful that were doubtful anyway, because of the confusion between actual seats won in 2012 and notional seats on the new 2017 ward boundaries. So I won't comment any further on this year's polls, as the only one we have so far looks just as shite as the two we had in 2017. The main flaw is obviously ignoring independent candidates, who are quite a presence at Council elections, and don't fit in the 'others' category used by pollsters. Until pollsters have found a credible way to address this flaw, and my educated guess is that they won't, just ignore the polls.

The hustings ahead of these elections, whatever form they take during a pandemic, are the right moment to grill candidates about everything within the Councils' remit. Which is not just potholes and bin collections, but everything that happens in schools and warrants scrutiny by concerned parents. First the Scottish Government's non-legally-binding, probably because it's not law-abiding in the first place, 'inclusive' guidance for schools, which addresses an issue that pretty much does not exist, and should be dealt with on a sensitive and sensible case-by-case basis when it does. Then the state-funded promotion of highly controversial 'educational' material from TIE, often seen as grooming schoolchildren into an ideology parents are likely to oppose, which conjures ghosts of sinister times past in sinister places afar. Or overzealous stonewallised headteachers enforcing unisex toilets that nobody asked for and girls would not use, until public outrage forced the Council to backpedal in a hurry, or be taken to court for knowingly violating the provisions of the Equality Act 2010. Finally the infamous 'sex census' targeting school-age kids, which definitely did not go down well with the general public, and received mostly hostile media-coverage when details surfaced. These are all legitimate issues and parents should not fear being smeared as bigots if they hold their Councillors to account over these. Especially when the SNP are not really in a strong position in outgoing Councils, as the year-by-year evolution of seats shows.

Five seats are currently vacant, but only one by-election is scheduled (Preston, Seton and Gosford ward of East Lothian Council, on 20 January) as the last four vacancies occurred less than six months before the elections. So, whatever the result of the last by-election, and there is every reason to believe it will be a Labour hold, the big picture we have now is representative of what will have on the eve of the elections. Which is not good for the SNP as they will be below 400 seats, their lowest number since the end of the 2007-2012 term. They have so far lost 35 seats, when they had lost only 19, and remained above 400 seats overall, during the 2012-2017 term. The main reason is the same in both terms: defections. But, while defectors sat as independents in previous terms, almost half of them have joined the Alba Party during this term. So what we need now is 354 candidates from the Alba Party, one in every ward, or from other like-minded small pro-Independence parties, as long as they strike a deal not to compete against each other in the same wards. This is the only plan we should have, to kick out the most outrageous gender ideology nutters, without resorting to the nuclear option of massive abstention that would hand control to the Tories in many cases. By the way, I must say that the reactions to my deliberately provocative tweets on the matter were really fun. But I had warned you beforehand that these were mind games, hadn't I? And you still fell for it and made my day. Bait, hook, line, sinker and the whole rod too. Be seeing you.

It’s always quite weird Scotland comes on top of these

“How happy are you with your life?” studies, and I think

That’s because researchers don’t really understand sarcasm

(Frankie Boyle, Room 101, 2017)

20/01/2022

Come Vote For Me

31/12/2021

The Nutters And The Plan

Everybody's Queen For A Day