Holyrood Elections 2021

[Caledonian Craig]

5 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

I agree.

It was me who said I am finished with politics  if we vote no again. Let the country  deal with the consequences. For this reason part of me is not in a desperate rush for another referendum. I would rather the young people who overwhelmingly are in favour get their opportunity when the older people pass on. Independence will be kicked back another 25 + years if we fail again whereas another 5 years may see the balance naturally shift. Problem is voting SNP for another 5 years may be too much for a lot of  people . So this  chance may be the only opportunity. 

Yes the SNP (at present) and support for Independence goes hand in hand.

If, as is looking increasingly likely, we do not get an indy majority in this election then we won't be getting an IndyRef for at least another five years until the next election. But to keep independence in the forefront of politics then the SNP have to remain relevant and strong or be joined by Alva too to keep banging the drum.  

[killiefaetheferry]

5 hours ago, Och Aye said:

100% this. 

We can vote for the best party after independence or we continue to live the majority of our lives under Tory rule as voted in by the masses in England. I don't believe anyone who says they want independence but won't be voting SNP. 

 

I want independence and I won't be voting SNP.

[Och Aye]

12 minutes ago, killiefaetheferry said:

I want independence and I won't be voting SNP.

Explain to me how you can achieve this without an SNP majority. As I've said above the SNP vote can only drop, don't think it will get near its peak again for a long time. Labour vote is going to rise again. So no mandate for a referendum. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Och Aye

[Och Aye]

31 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

But to keep independence in the forefront of politics then the SNP have to remain relevant 

That is an extremely difficult thing to do after being in power for so long. 

[TDYER63]

37 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Yes the SNP (at present) and support for Independence goes hand in hand.

If, as is looking increasingly likely, we do not get an indy majority in this election then we won't be getting an IndyRef for at least another five years until the next election. But to keep independence in the forefront of politics then the SNP have to remain relevant and strong or be joined by Alva too to keep banging the drum.  

I dont agree with everything thplinth says but I think he may be right in a post he has previously  made in that we may need to go back to go forwards.
IMO If the SNP vote has stalled then its because enough people are not convinced by independence and/or not convinced the SNP are running the country competently enough. 
A SNP minority with Alba might be the thing to focus them again and give them a kick up the arse. Alternatively, a unionist led minority might lead to a ‘  be careful what you wish for ‘ situation in that folk might realise the SNP were’nt that bad. I personally dont think any of the other parties would run the country any better , but there are definitely areas where the SNP are performing very poorly. 

6 years ago I would have given my eye tooth for the polls to be in the position they are in now, all these years later, as I was concerned the desire for independence would dwindle. Somehow though it still doesn’t seem that positive. 

[AlfieMoon]

4 hours ago, Squirrelhumper said:

It certainly is amongst my peers/family. 

So many issues/policies that i massively disagree with the SNP on, particularly the last 5 years.

Education is a huge issue for me, again many family members/friends who teach, vast majority Yes voting and a lot of them utterly scunnered with the SNP's repeated failure in this area.  The last year has been the final nail on the coffin for a lot of them and folk i'd never have thought voting other than SNP, either not voting at all or going to Green. None voting Alba that i know of right enough. 

I know a lot of the headlines but what are the key grumbles from within the industry?

4 hours ago, Squirrelhumper said:

This is the issue for me, they have got complacent. 

Likes of the Hate Crime Bill could well bite them on the arse. 

I find things like this interesting as all parties (except Tories?) backed this if I remember right. Albeit that it’s the SNP who’s neck is on the line. I agree that there does seem to be a weakness on Justice legislation. There’s also a part of it that people and the media hype up the population about this sort of thing and people don’t like the idea of change from how things have always been. Btw ... I’m not trying to delegitimise that viewpoint. 

[exile]

Can't help thinking how easy it was for Brexit: they never had to gain power, run a successful government for years, never had a record to defend, never had to prepare a blueprint or a costing, just one 'advisory' referendum and a ton of propaganda, and we were on our way out.

I think the independence movement needs to decide what's going on here. Is now the time, or not?

If now is to be the time, then Holyrood 2016 is not about how to run devolution for another 5 years; if people vote for indy, Holyrood would not run (as we know it) for 5 years. If people want independence asap, then these 5 years ahead of us will be disruptive (in both bad and good senses), all policies on all fronts including education etc will be running in a completely different context and horizon, with some short term pain for long term gain. And elections in indy Scotland not long after, when education for iScotland can be debated.

If now is the time, Holyrood 2016 is a necessary 'heat' that is essential to get through to get to the 'final', indyref2. Which could be as soon as a couple of years' time. The door to independence is right in front of us; people who want it just need to vote for it.

Edited April 29, 2021 by exile

[exile]

Has anyone started to imagine what it would be like if the indy majority is lost?

Rather than the shock defeat the next morning, it will be a long drawn out death by a thousand cuts for indy supporters, over next Friday and Saturday, as it dawns that all over Scotland, SNP constituency votes have slumped and fallen short, with unexpected jubilant gains driven by shy Tories and tactical voters, and agonising list permutations where somehow both SNP and Alba end up losers.

By Friday evening, prospective First Minister Douglas Gordon Ross is looking increasingly chirpy, and the lines are running hot to London as Sir Alister Jack and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster start plotting to carve up Scotland. By Saturday lunchtime the right honorable Ross is making his first accords with Deputy FM Anas Sarwar, in a rose garden somewhere near RAF Lossiemouth, as the enduring Union is ready to be proclaimed.

Ross and Sarwar agree a splitting of Holyrood powers, some going back to the slithy Gove in Whitehall, some to an grossly enlarged Scotland Office campus in the shape of a 3D Union Flag at Ingliston, to welcome all air travellers to the captial of North Britain.

Meanwhile, Ross copies and pastes all the Tory policies from UK straight into Holyrood legislation, over-ruling all of Sarwar's earnest pledges on progressive policies and equalities. He does the deal in return for delivering the great Baron Broon's British regions-and-nations approach, with Scotland the grateful guinea pig for Labour's first Great British regional super-devo-max, meaning, this time, carving out extra powers to be super-devolved away from Holyrood to the local council areas, each giftwrapped with Union Jacks attached by George Galloway.

Edited April 29, 2021 by exile

[hampden_loon2878]

Folk indy friendly do need to realise that when we lose a indy majority, holyrood will be stripped back to the bare bones, i stand by what i said months ago, sturgeon will stand aside in the next 12 months regardless of the result 

[TDYER63]

59 minutes ago, exile said:

Has anyone started to imagine what it would be like if the indy majority is lost?

Rather than the shock defeat the next morning, it will be a long drawn out death by a thousand cuts for indy supporters, over next Friday and Saturday, as it dawns that all over Scotland, SNP constituency votes have slumped and fallen short, with unexpected jubilant gains driven by shy Tories and tactical voters, and agonising list permutations where somehow both SNP and Alba end up losers.

By Friday evening, prospective First Minister Douglas Gordon Ross is looking increasingly chirpy, and the lines are running hot to London as Sir Alister Jack and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster start plotting to carve up Scotland. By Saturday lunchtime the right honorable Ross is making his first accords with Deputy FM Anas Sarwar, in a rose garden somewhere near RAF Lossiemouth, as the enduring Union is ready to be proclaimed.

Ross and Sarwar agree a splitting of Holyrood powers, some going back to the slithy Gove in Whitehall, some to an grossly enlarged Scotland Office campus in the shape of a 3D Union Flag at Ingliston, to welcome all air travellers to the captial of North Britain.

Meanwhile, Ross copies and pastes all the Tory policies from UK straight into Holyrood legislation, over-ruling all of Sarwar's earnest pledges on progressive policies and equalities. He does the deal in return for delivering the great Baron Broon's British regions-and-nations approach, with Scotland the grateful guinea pig for Labour's first Great British regional super-devo-max, meaning, this time, carving out extra powers to be super-devolved away from Holyrood to the local council areas, each giftwrapped with Union Jacks attached by George Galloway.

Any unionists reading that would say ‘ scaremongering nationalist ‘ but strip away the colourful language and the facts are spot on.
People can either vote to keep our country’s identity or be happy to become a northern region for the next 30 years minimum . That means holding your nose one last time in the hope it pays off. 
 

[exile]

18 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

Any unionists reading that would say ‘ scaremongering nationalist ‘ but strip away the colourful language and the facts are spot on.
People can either vote to keep our country’s identity or be happy to become a northern region for the next 30 years minimum . That means holding your nose one last time in the hope it pays off. 
 

Well of course it was not meant as a literal prediction. It was mainly a question to imagine what waking up to Ross FM would feel like. Imagine a Tory-led Scots Parliament which could consent to anything the Johnson junta asks of it.

Edited April 29, 2021 by exile

[TDYER63]

3 minutes ago, exile said:

Well of course it was not meant as a literal prediction. It was mainly a question to imagine what waking up to Ross FM would feel like. Imagine a Tory-led Scots Parliament which could consent to anything the Johnson junta asks of it.

Yeah I know it wasnt meant as literal but you really are not a million miles away with your prediction IMO.

A low turnout in this election could throw up anything, and on 7 May it will be too late for people to change or cast their vote. 

[Morrisandmoo]

3 hours ago, TDYER63 said:

I dont agree with everything thplinth says but I think he may be right in a post he has previously  made in that we may need to go back to go forwards.
IMO If the SNP vote has stalled then its because enough people are not convinced by independence and/or not convinced the SNP are running the country competently enough. 
A SNP minority with Alba might be the thing to focus them again and give them a kick up the arse. Alternatively, a unionist led minority might lead to a ‘  be careful what you wish for ‘ situation in that folk might realise the SNP were’nt that bad. I personally dont think any of the other parties would run the country any better , but there are definitely areas where the SNP are performing very poorly. 

6 years ago I would have given my eye tooth for the polls to be in the position they are in now, all these years later, as I was concerned the desire for independence would dwindle. Somehow though it still doesn’t seem that positive. 

I think you are spot on. As bizarre as this sounds...I believe the likelihood of Scotland being independent in 10-25 years time to be higher in the event of an SNP minority or unionist majority outcome. 

Because I am almost certain that 3 years after an indy majority we wake up scratching our heads when the result is 53% NO. 

I am uncertain what the path to a referendum is in the other scenarios, but I'll accept uncertainty over certain doom every time. Politics can change more than you can ever imagine in an incredibly short time.

The worst thing that can happen to the indy movement is an SNP majority. Folk just don't realise it yet. 

They think covid and Brexit are favourable environmental factors, but they are wrong.

This, perhaps, unorthodox thinking is not the reason why I'm voting the way I am, but I do believe it to be true. 

 

[hampden_loon2878]

Any indications on how sturgeons vote is holding up against sarwar, labour guy at my work seems to think sges in trouble, i told him no chance!! Better not come back to bite me 

[ParisInAKilt]

1 hour ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

Any indications on how sturgeons vote is holding up against sarwar, labour guy at my work seems to think sges in trouble, i told him no chance!! Better not come back to bite me 

That would be funny if she lost her seat, can’t see it happening though.

Take it Patrick Harvie is almost guaranteed a seat because of the list?

[Toepoke]

1 hour ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

Any indications on how sturgeons vote is holding up against sarwar, labour guy at my work seems to think sges in trouble, i told him no chance!! Better not come back to bite me 

Big Asian community in her constituency might give Anas a leg up.

Would certainly be the banter outcome, an SNP majority and Sturgeon with no seat!

[hampden_loon2878]

6 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

That would be funny if she lost her seat, can’t see it happening though.

Take it Patrick Harvie is almost guaranteed a seat because of the list?

Aye Harvey is pretty much guaranteed a seat

[Och Aye]

12 hours ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

Folk indy friendly do need to realise that when we lose a indy majority, holyrood will be stripped back to the bare bones, i stand by what i said months ago, sturgeon will stand aside in the next 12 months regardless of the result 

Yep. They didn't build the  UK Scottish Office, or whatever its called, in Edinburgh for nothing. The pathetic Jocks will be well and truly put back in our box. 

[Och Aye]

9 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

That would be funny if she lost her seat, can’t see it happening though.

Take it Patrick Harvie is almost guaranteed a seat because of the list?

Aye that'd be really funny. Ffs. 

 

[ParisInAKilt]

Cmon absolutely no need for that monstrosity @Och Aye

[thplinth]

I can't be bothered fishing out the post from a while ago where I said that the constant anti-ALBA campaigning was not hurting the ALBA2 vote anymore but was in fact hurting the SNP1 vote... Watching the SNP cut off the nose of the independence movement to spite ALBA's face has been something to witness.

This is exactly what I feared was coming and long before ALBA hit the scene. 

People talking about low turnout but if it is only for one party more than for the others that is not just apathy, that is discontent.

It is only one polling company but it does not look great for May.

We have a problem

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Rev. Stuart Campbell

It’s pretty stark when you see it laid out like this.

In just four months, the SNP – because if you aggressively assert sole ownership of a political campaign, there’s nobody else you can blame when it goes south – have turned a 10-point lead for independence into a seven-point lead for the Union with the same polling company.

And while that’s pretty brutal in itself, it’s not even the real fly in the ointment.

Because once you have a referendum (or indeed a plebiscitary election) you can always turn things round in the campaign. Being slightly behind at the start is no big deal. But to GET that referendum in the first place, the SNP has bet all its chips on the moral force of a majority of Scots backing one.

That, as Wings has been pointing out for many months, is a terrible plan anyway when its target is Boris Johnson, a man of zero detectable morals. But even if you were the sort of massive clattering gullible idiot who ever thought it might work, it falls completely to pieces when you don’t HAVE a majority of Scots behind you.

In December, as well as a 10-point lead for independence ComRes found 52% of people planning to vote for pro-indy parties on the constituency vote and 50% on the regional list. The two votes tend to get near-enough identical numbers for pretty obvious reasons, so you can reasonably average them, giving you a total of 51% of votes cast for parties backing a new referendum.

That’s a thin margin, but it IS a majority and so you can use it to legitimately say “most Scots have voted for indyref 2 so democracy demands you allow it to happen”. If 51% of the vote is enough for something as big as taking the UK out of the EU, you can’t credibly argue that it’s insufficient for anything else. But where are we now?

The most recent numbers give Yes parties just 45% on the constituency vote and 48% on the list (entirely down to a drop in the SNP vote – Alba and the Greens have held firm). That’s an average of 46.5%, which ISN’T a majority. If those were the actual vote numbers then a clear majority of Scots would have voted for parties OPPOSED to a second indyref, and even in the fantasy land where Boris Johnson is susceptible to a “morality” argument, he wins it and the game’s a bogey.

Of course, as we predicted yesterday, the SNP are blaming everyone else.

But the awkward truth for Pension Pete is that the chart above clearly shows that the SNP had dropped the ball before Alba ever showed up. The Yes lead and the vote majority were both gone in early February, with No leading by three points and the combined pro-referendum vote down to 49%.

The first poll that included Alba, three weeks ago, in fact brought the independence numbers back UP to 50-50 after two months of No majorities, (perhaps because Alba actually talked about independence), and lifted the vote figures up from 49% to 50.5%, a tiny but crucial step across the winning line.

But weeks of relentless Alba-bashing from the SNP have blown that again – they’ve managed to get the Alba vote down fractionally, but at a significantly greater cost to themselves as they’ve repelled some of their own supporters with deranged and noxious hatred against a fellow indy party mostly comprised of their own former MPs, MSPs, councillors and officeholders.

(Alba didn’t do that – Alba has been telling people to vote SNP in the constituency vote with every breath, even as the SNP relentlessly and bitterly attacks them.)

The result of the SNP’s month-long fit of furious pique is that Yes now trails No by seven points, and as we’ve already noted the election vote is down to 46.5%.

You simply can’t claim any sort of democratic mandate for a binary choice on less than 50% of the vote. Claiming it based on a majority of seats that came from less than a majority of votes is the sort of thing we scream blue murder about when the Tories do it at Westminster, and justly so.

There are differences of opinion over whether this is exactly what the SNP have wanted to achieve all along, of course. But whether they intended it or not, it’s indisputably what’s happened. The supposed captains of the indy ship have blasted a huge hole in the bottom of the hull trying to kill what they see as rats, and unless they stop shooting and start patching in the next six days, all of us will sink with it.

[exile]

"deranged and noxious hatred against a fellow indy party"

[thplinth]

1 minute ago, exile said:

"deranged and noxious hatred against a fellow indy party"

Have you not been reading you and your buddy's posts this last few years. 

[slasher]

I'm really pessimistic about the result next Thursday now. It's been a pretty dismal campaign from all sides so far with only the Greens and Sarwar on a personal level gaining any traction. The bitter Alba/SNP infighting has been an unmitigated disaster and Sturgeon looks jaded to me and paying a heavy price for being a one woman band with no real succession planning. 

Still not sure what I'm doing with my list vote next week but all indy parties need to seriously up their game in this last few days. 

Edited April 30, 2021 by slasher

[Orraloon]

A few months before the 2016 election the polls had SNP on 56%, they actually got 47%. A few months before the 2011 election the polls had Labour on 47%, they actually got 32%. Polls are pish. The SNP were never going to get anywhere near the 53% that the polls were predicting a few months ago. I am very confident that almost nobody in the SNP thought that was going to happen. The polls are just there to mess with your head, just ignore them.