The New Fat Scotland 'Thanks for all the Fish' Thread.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

The SNP was on a reduced share of the vote, down 2.3%.

And the Tory revival in Scotland just now is bigger than many realise with some increases in vote share that should be very worrying indeed for the SNP strategists...

in Aberdeenshire East their vote was up by 15 per cent, in Aberdeenshire South and Kincardine it was 20 per cent up, in Moray it increased by 18 per cent. In Banff and Buchan it went up by 14 per cent. In the city seats of Aberdeen Central and Aberdeen Donside it increased by 10 per cent in each. Over in the west, the Tories notched up 7% more in Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch.

in Angus they halved the SNP majorities in each of the county’s two seats and John Swinney’s majority was cut by two thirds in Perthshire North, whilst in the southern part of that county Roseanna Cunningham’s majority was down from over 7,000 to 1,400.

They won both of the Borders’ seats in impressive style and increased their vote by no less than 17 per cent in losing to the SNP in Midlothian South and Tweedale. In the suburbs of Glasgow, the Tories re-captured Eastwood and even in the hopeless territory of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Margaret Mitchell increased her vote by nine per cent.

Together with seats like Ayr, where John Scott – who must now be a candidate for Presiding Officer in the new parliament – held on to win, the Tories took advantage of Labour’s desertion of the centre-ground all over the country.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/05/06/the-tories-can-be-proud-of-their-scottish-results-as-long-as-the/

Shakethedisease

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And the Tory revival in Scotland just now is bigger than many realise with some increases in vote share that should be very worrying indeed for the SNP strategists...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/05/06/the-tories-can-be-proud-of-their-scottish-results-as-long-as-the/

Doubt it to be honest. It's New Labour going back to the Conservatives in old traditional Conservative areas where Dugdale's tax rises and Corbyn don't appeal. Scottish Labour's gone too far left for them. Most of the swings were direct Lab to Con.

Still there's another 5 years to go till the next one thank goodness, I think we've all been on election referendum overload since 2014. Be nice to get some breathing space after June.

Good result for you though. Enjoy ! :T

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And the Tory revival in Scotland just now is bigger than many realise with some increases in vote share that should be very worrying indeed for the SNP strategists...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/05/06/the-tories-can-be-proud-of-their-scottish-results-as-long-as-the/

So it's a mix of:

- Tories targeting likely prospects
- Unionists rallying behind the Union Jack as waved by Ms Davidson

As I've said before, the SNP in power can rely on becoming less popular as the necessary decisions of running things will alienate voters one-by-one. Each voter that gets a parking ticket is potentially a vote taken from the ruling party. The only question is where those votes go and it looks like we may have an answer.

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Doubt it to be honest. It's New Labour going back to the Conservatives in old traditional Conservative areas where Dugdale's tax rises and Corbyn don't appeal. Scottish Labour's gone too far left for them. Most of the swings were direct Lab to Con.

That doesn't explain the drop in the SNP share of the vote.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

That doesn't explain the drop in the SNP share of the vote.

Oh it's quite simple Generali. You see, if the SNP share of the vote falls, that means they are becoming more popular and Scotland will be independent in the next few years.

Of course thats also what will apparently happen if their vote goes up, or stays the same.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Shakethedisease wrote: »

The Corbyn effect, Dugdale's tax rises and sudden veer to the left also lost Labour all their previous 'New Labour' type voters who switched en masse to the Tories.

It's interesting.

Masses of people in the rural 'Tartan Tory' SNP heartlands have voted SNP for years despite voting against Indy in 2014.

Some of the swing in those seats was from SNP to Conservative now that the SNP have swung left to take Labour central belt heartlands.

Elsewhere you're correct though, Labours attempt to outflank the SNP to the left cost them tons of centrist 'New Labour' voters. You're not going to win the middle ground suggesting tax rises.

However, there's a ceiling there imo. 22% of the vote isn't particularly earth shattering. .

Scottish politics has become much more interesting now that we have an indy/union axis to worry about as well as the traditional left/right axis.

Fundamentally the Indy vote has pretty much consolidated around the SNP while the Union vote continues to be split amongst 3 parties.

Yes, there's some crossover, in rural areas some union supporters continue to vote for their branch of the 'Tartan Tory' SNP, and in the central belt and cities some left wing unionists have fallen for Nicola's 'a vote for the SNP is not a vote for another referendum' speeches or Patrick Harvie's 'no second indyref any time soon' spiel.

Likewise Labour has some left wing Indy/Home Rule supporters that continue to believe a socialist paradise can be created if we can only get away from the hated Tory's in Westminster.

But pretty much the 55/45 division in society is alive and well and hasn't really changed much since 2014.

The 45 continue to mostly vote SNP - and the 55 continue to mostly split their vote amongst three other parties.

Until something breaks that stalemate I don't really expect much to change in Scottish politics - but the next few years will certainly be interesting - and the current outlook for Conservatives in Scotland is much better than anyone could have predicted.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

That doesn't explain the drop in the SNP share of the vote.

Overall ? They won 59 out of 73 seats in the FPTP Constituency seats garnering a record number of votes, over a million in fact. So let that sink in a bit. It's a record vote for them. You seem to be under the impression that their 'lost' 6 seats is some sort of reflection of an imminent demise.. but you're not comparing them with the other parties in the FPTP vote..

Labour got 3 seats, the Conservatives 7 and the Lib Dems 4. Greens only stood in a few areas. The list system is a 'compensatory' system designed to add additional members to Holyrood. The better you do in constituencies/FPTP, the less you get in the way of list seats ?

It was here the Conservatives picked up their other 24 seats from. Labour 21, Greens got 6 and Lib Dems 1. The SNP only got 4 seats from the lists because they had done SO well in the constituency vote. And almost certainly their list vote numbers fell due to so many SNP voters in the constituency vote, voting Green on the list.

I'm afraid you're trying to see the Scottish Election the way you would with the UK General Election. But it's a different system. One which compensates those who don't do so well FPTP with additional seats in order to be more representative of the vote. Had it been like a General Election the SNP would be sitting with 59 out of 73 seats. Conservatives on 7. List seats took the Tories to 31.

This system worked in the SNP's favour last time. But against them this election. They gained 6 FPTP seats, but lost 12 on the list... that's where they 'lost' their 6 seats. The Conservatives benefited most this time round.

Additional member system Total seats Constituency Region Votes % +/− Seats +/− Votes % +/− Seats +/− Total +/− %

FPTP LIST

SNP 1,059,897 46.5 +1.1 59 +6 9 53,987 41.7 -2.3 4 -12 63 -6

Conservative 501,844 22.0 +8.1 7 +4 524,222 22.9 +10.6 24 +12 31 +16

Labour 514,261 22.6 -9.2 3 -12 435,919 19.1 -7.2 21 -1 24 -13

Scottish Green 13,172 0.6 +0.6 0 150,426 6.6 +2.2 6 +4 6 +4

Liberal Democrats 178,238 7.8 -0.1 4 +2 119,284 5.2 0 1 -2 5

Shakethedisease

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

It's interesting.

Masses of people in the rural 'Tartan Tory' SNP heartlands have voted SNP for years despite voting against Indy in 2014.

Some of the swing in those seats was from SNP to Conservative now that the SNP have swung left to take Labour central belt heartlands.

Elsewhere you're correct though, Labours attempt to outflank the SNP to the left cost them tons of centrist 'New Labour' voters. You're not going to win the middle ground suggesting tax rises.



Scottish politics has become much more interesting now that we have an indy/union axis to worry about as well as the traditional left/right axis.

Fundamentally the Indy vote has pretty much consolidated around the SNP while the Union vote continues to be split amongst 3 parties.

Yes, there's some crossover, in rural areas some union supporters continue to vote for their branch of the 'Tartan Tory' SNP, and in the central belt and cities some left wing unionists have fallen for Nicola's 'a vote for the SNP is not a vote for another referendum' speeches or Patrick Harvie's 'no second indyref any time soon' spiel.

Likewise Labour has some left wing Indy/Home Rule supporters that continue to believe a socialist paradise can be created if we can only get away from the hated Tory's in Westminster.

But pretty much the 55/45 division in society is alive and well and hasn't really changed much since 2014.

The 45 continue to mostly vote SNP - and the 55 continue to mostly split their vote amongst three other parties.

Until something breaks that stalemate I don't really expect much to change in Scottish politics - but the next few years will certainly be interesting - and the current outlook for Conservatives in Scotland is much better than anyone could have predicted.

I'd agree with pretty much in all of what you've said above. Scottish politics hasn't moved on from constitutional lines since 2014. No voters are congregating round whoever is best placed to keep the SNP out. And Dugdale's policy shifts especially on tax cost Scottish Labour dearly. The old Tory heartlands are back in play once again with SNP support moving west to the central belt.

Interesting times ahead. And weirdly, as someone pointed out on twitter, Davidson herself is now identifying herself more closely to a second independence referendum and constitutional matters than anyone else at the moment. Against obviously, but she's certainly been on the one shouting loudest about it in the last few months.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Shakethedisease wrote: »

. The old Tory heartlands are back in play once again with SNP support moving west to the central belt.

Yes I think they very much are....

Even Swinney's majority was cut from 7000 to just 1400.... A roughly 700 vote swing would have seen him ousted. That was unthinkable last year.

Ruth has a pretty good chance of detoxifying the Tory brand over the next 5 years. She's likeable, charismatic, progressive (for a Tory), and more to the point comes across as meaning what she says. Her stance on Indy has remained unapologetically firm and without a doubt she has to be the best Tory leader in decades for regaining the middle ground of Scottish politics. And she's now even directly elected.

That creates an interesting and very real dilemma for the SNP - they may well have to swing right to defend vast swathes of rural Scotland from the Tories before the next election - but that opens the door to Labour in the central belt (assuming Labour can employ a proctologist to find it's head before then).

Interesting times....

weirdly, as someone pointed out on twitter, Davidson herself is now identifying herself more closely to a second independence referendum and constitutional matters than anyone else at the moment. Against obviously, but she's certainly been on the one shouting loudest about it in the last few months.

Well, yes, but the others left her an open goal there and now the ball is in the back of the net.

Sturgeon could have defused that whole issue by ruling out another indyref until 2021 at the earliest. The Greens tried to dance around the issue but needed the 45 to vote for them en-masse in the list. Labour veered left and had some mixed messages on indy to try and regain the socialist heartlands and failed. You can't out-SNP the SNP so that policy was always doomed.

Forget the 45/55 split for a moment - polling suggests something like 70% of Scots don't want another Indyref for at least 5 years - so the anti-referendum position was always going to be fertile hunting ground for Ruth this time around. The other leaders could have just pointed to those polls and declared a 5 year moratorium on indyref talk as respecting the will of the Scottish people. They didn't and IMO have paid some element of a price accordingly.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Facebook coming up with the goods today though.....


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