Padre Andrew

Was heading down to the Holyrood rally yesterday (wearing my kilt) when I was recognised at the train station by an old guy who’d been on the polling stations for the No side when I was doing the same for Yes. He tried to give me a hard time stating we had to accept the result – insisted that the SNP (and specifically Nicola Sturgeon) was refusing to do so. I said of course we accept the result, we’re democrats… that’s as far as I got, he just walked away. Not rubbing my nose in it, he was just insisting that it’s over. Well, I haven’t heard the fat lady sing yet, so…

I hope somewhere the Yes campaign has stored all the photos of Labour sharing a platform with the Tories. Town halls, street stalls, there must be loads of pictures. In Perth at least the Labour lot looked embarrassed when they shared a street stall, but that just shows how much they were doing something they didn't believe in.

Cheery reading

No, he's not. He's a good guy who used to be confused. It's guys like this we have to win over. Insults aren't going to work. And in response to Armchair Bob, no, he's not George Galloway either.

18 months ago a pal of mine was a die-hard Labour supporter. Despised the SNP. Despite supporting Irish nationalism he could see no place for an independent Scotland. Gave me grief if he saw me out leafleting. Together with others I managed to shift him to be a Yes voter (the Elaine C Smith video from Calton Hill really helped) – the illogicality of his stance finally got through. Considering where he’d started out, this move was very significant for him, and I did wonder how he would see things post-ref. Would he go back to Labour, one more time, “to keep the Tories out”? Last night he showed me his SNP membership card. If this guy’s turned, Labour really are in trouble.

If Blair can get his own thread for winning an award then this deserves one too, but I’ll put it here. Alex Salmond managed to get a praise-worthy piece in the Daily Record. People, when that starts to happen you know that Labour is in trouble. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/joan-mcalpine-labour-insulting-alex-4652227 Joan McAlpine: Labour insulting Alex Salmond as he stepped down won't sit well with public [she means the Labour public]

How would it work if a lookalike candidate stood? Not SNP, but something like ‘Indy for Scotland’? Would the same rules apply?

On the face of it this is trivial, but the timing is what did for her. It allowed the Tory-leaning media to downplay the impact of another by-election loss for the Conservatives, and instead focus again on how out-of-touch Labour are with ordinary people. On a night when the Labour front bench thought they could turn the discussion to how much trouble the Conservatives are in, suddenly the topic has changed and Labour are on the back foot again.

Worse [better?] than that - it's a double. 'John Daly' is..... the OP.

The political threads have dried up a bit. Time to note that Wings is getting tore into “the brightest of Scottish Labour’s young minds”. http://wingsoverscotland.com/not-quite-getting-it/

Re singing generally: at Hampden you know where the singing usually starts, and folk join in. We’ve all been displaced in these other grounds, so you don’t get the same groundswell from the North Stand. Not an excuse, just one possible reason.

There's also a "Mark-with-a-'c'" version of this on Facebook somewhere [=Carc!]

Have they tweeted anything about these neds that are supposed to be coming up to cause trouble? Don't know whether to believe the radio reports or not, but they were wetting themselves about this on RS this evening.

We’d great craic with a crowd of Galway lads in the west end – where you could get served. By the time we hit Glasgow Cross the pubs were desperate. The Irish boys were in good form, as you’d expect. Looking forward to Dublin next year.

Outrage tells them you’ve been hurt. Best ignored. Like some others on here I used to like Steve Bell, and yes I’ve a few of his books. He got at Thatcher and Blair very effectively. But he does have a real hatred of the SNP. I think he’s an old-fashioned Labourite who can’t distinguish between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism. By that logic, the SNP can be equated with the Nazis.

Johnson is the genuine article, though. I've respect for him. Everything about Miliband looks contrived. He comes across as a fraud, and he's more awkward than any other politician I can think of. A presentation disaster.

He said the SNP were in crisis...

I heard that one. Some TA outside a pub in Whitehall called across the road to him. He got half way across when the cheers turned to taunts and he hightailed it out of there

Today’s Sunday Herald piece on Murphy ended by quoting one Labour MP saying that if Murphy won the contest Labour “were f*cked”. The SH is in no way supportive of Murphy, and yet it gave him big coverage, three large photos. The other candidates got much less coverage. He’s a canny operator when it comes to the media. I guess someone whose career is built on promoting himself needs to be.

It’s not One Member One Vote for the Scottish leader election – it’s still one third parliamentarians, one third unions, and one third members. Which still means an MSP or MP who’s a party member and union member could bag three votes.

Listen to this man - he speaks the truth. [i'm thinking of some old Mexican in a spaghetti western saying this. All I get on Google is some old 'meme' crap]

Dugdale. I’ve no idea where the name is from, but I always think of Doug and Dinsdale Piranha, the East End gangsters from Monty Python. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXjrMU0jpAE

As delightful as the STV poll is, I can’t see it happening that way. Labour will begin some kind of a fight-back, whoever wins the leadership contest. My money’s on Eggy Jim. He’d epitomise the ‘branch office’ factor, but he knows a thing or two about politics. They’ll find a safe Labour seat for him somewhere for 2016. I think Nicola would find him a tougher prospect than either of the other candidates. It’s not going to be dull, whatever happens. A possible confounding factor is UKIP. That ComRes poll was interesting, but I’d want to know how soft the Labour vote is in seats they currently hold. In Rochdale the Labour vote might be going to UKIP to keep the Tories out [bizarre logic, but then party politics throws these things up]. If Labour lose ground to UKIP in their own seats next year then they could implode before 2016. And a YES alliance cleans up.