Labour suddenly in urgent need of those 'totally irrelevant' SNP votes at Westminster

I'll give some more considered thoughts on the outcome of the general election when I have more time, but one quick thought occurs to me, particularly with Vernon Bogdanor's repeated suggestions that we're heading towards a snap second election ringing in my ears - suddenly the SNP's pending judicial review on the TV debates looks a whole lot less academic. And if the legal route isn't successful, I hope they have a backup plan up their sleeves - with the Greens now having made their long-awaited parliamentary breakthrough, there must be some way in which the 'smaller' parties can join forces over this and ensure that the total exclusion of alternative political voices is never allowed to happen again.

We also seem to be unmistakably in a position where Labour only have a theoretical chance of holding onto power if they are willing to court SNP support. Which begs the obvious question - will Jim Murphy be Labour's emissary? If so, how on earth is he going to square that with his most beloved jibe that "the SNP are a total irrelevance in a British general election"?

People queueing up to vote? In Scotland?

I've just gone to vote, at roughly the same time of day I've chosen at previous elections, and...holy dooley. I've never seen such queues. It was quite a contrast to a certain European election a few years ago (turnout 25%) when they looked completely shocked to see me! So as much as I hate reliance on anecdotal evidence (naming no names at this point) I think it's a fair guess we're in for bumper turnout figures tonight, perhaps exceeding the low 70s range we saw in 1997.

For months now I've been resistant to the idea - repeatedly put forward by the likes of Michael Portillo - that the perception of a close contest would be enough in itself to fuel a significant increase in turnout. I don't necessarily think I was wrong about that, though - it's been the (rigged) leaders' debates that have made most of the difference. That point in itself might seem like cause for concern for the SNP, but more broadly, how can we expect a high turnout to affect their prospects? Logically, it ought to be a bad thing, because support for the party is highest among older age groups, who are usually more likely to vote regardless of circumstance. In theory, a higher turnout among young people might be expected to dilute that advantage. But there's one big problem with that theory - if anything, the SNP have underperformed in the last four general elections, with the assumption being that nationalist voters are less likely to take Westminster elections seriously. A higher level of voter interest this time might counteract that problem.

So you can look at it either way - not long to wait until we find out which way it will go.

A small piece of history for the SNP?

Polling day has arrived at last, and I face it with more than a degree of foreboding now, following Michael Crick's hints last night that some Tory sources think they will probably win a small majority. Still, that at least leaves the words 'probably' and 'small' to cling to over the coming hours! If by any chance the worst doesn't happen, I'm encouraged to see a report in the Scotsman revealing that the broadcasters have been urged not to 'shape' the result by prematurely declaring a winner in the event of a balanced parliament. I recall after the Canadian election eighteen months ago being somewhat bemused to see CBC "project a Conservative minority government". Isn't that a contradiction in terms? Even the most sophisticated computer would be hard-pressed to read the minds of the other party leaders sufficiently to "project" whether there's a chance of them forming a coalition or not. And, just to prove that point, the three non-Tory parties in Canada did indeed sign a coalition agreement just a few weeks later, only for it to be subsequently scuppered by a bizarre sequence of events.

To accentuate the positive, if a Conservative government is elected today, every poll indicates that our new rulers will come to power having just been beaten in Scotland by the SNP. Those polls may be wrong of course - they were in 1992 (in Scotland as much as in the UK at large). But if that is the way it works out, it would be a historic first. The Nationalists have beaten the Tories in the popular vote on no fewer than four previous occasions, but those were all elections the Tories lost at UK-level - October 1974, 1997, 2001 and 2005. The outcome of this particular tussle will have much greater psychological significance, not least in any game of cat-and-mouse (sorry, relationship of mutual respect) that unfolds between a new Tory government at Westminster and the SNP government in Edinburgh.

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A brilliant line from Rory Bremner about the Tories, from one of his shows earlier in the week -

"We're going to be a stealth government - people you've never heard of, doing things you wouldn't believe."

It's indeed very striking that for all Cameron keeps repeating the (mildly irritating) phrase "if you want a new team", we've heard virtually nothing from this most lightweight of teams over the last month.

In many parts of Scotland it's 'vote Labour, get Cameron'

At (the oddly scheduled) First Minister's Questions earlier this afternoon, Alex Salmond did a great job of driving home the truth revealed by David McLetchie's gaffe earlier this week - namely that votes for the Lib Dems and Labour in Scotland are essentially 'enabling' votes for Tory rule. It really drives a coach and horses through Jim Murphy's desperate (and depressingly familiar) attempts to hoodwink people into thinking that 'the only way' to prevent a Tory government is to vote Labour. In truth, it's not just that Labour aren't 'the way' to thwart a Cameron victory, they're not even 'a way' to do so. Thanks to the majoritarian voting system so beloved of both main London parties, if you live in Scotland and want to stop the Tories...basically, forget it. In most parts of the country, you simply don't have a part to play. While Jim Murphy mouths endless touching platitudes about how important it is for people to go out and use their vote (perhaps he should release a charity single?) he's quite content for your vote not to count for anything, and for the election to be decided over your heads in the 150 or so marginal constituencies - the overwhelming majority of which are in a few specific regions of England. In most cases, the only conceivable way out of this bind is to cast a vote for a party that refuses to legitimise such a rotten system.

However, for a lucky minority in Scotland, their constituency will genuinely be in contention tomorrow, and that's where anti-Tory tactical voting does come into play. Unfortunately for Murphy's argument, it's only in a small number of these seats that Labour are the party best placed to stop the Tories (ironically Murphy's own seat is one of those few exceptions). So I was particularly bemused to note that in the Daily Mirror's cut-out-and-keep guide of how to vote tactically to block the Tories, the SNP's vital role in many constituencies is mysteriously airbrushed out of the equation. I left this comment on Kevin Maguire's blog -

"I see in your tactical voting guide that you couldn't quite bring yourself to admit that there are at least four seats where only the SNP can stop the Tories - that's more than the number of Scottish seats where Labour are the 'Tory blockers'. In many parts of Scotland it's 'Vote Labour, get Cameron'."

To return to my earlier observation about Jim Murphy, I think the moment in the Scottish debates that made my blood boil like no other was when a member of the STV audience zoned in on the point about voters in safe Labour seats being effectively disenfranchised, and Murphy responded by saying - "I understand the point you're making, sir, but with respect I don't agree", before going on for the 1,147th time to recite his "We Are The World, We Are The Children" line about the only wasted vote being one that is not cast. Of course he did understand the point that was being put to him perfectly well, but you'd never have guessed it from the answer he actually gave. If he had been remotely sincere about treating that voter "with respect", he'd have addressed the substance of the question, and explained why in his position of power he's been quite content to uphold the injustices of the current voting system, rather than essentially patting the guy on the head and telling him not to think too deeply about the whole thing.

Do we really want a repeat of Ian Lang's '92 taunt?

The unionist party leaders on Newsnight Scotland tonight did an admirably good impression of three utterly baffled individuals, when Nicola Sturgeon was pointing out that the Tories were planning to 'claim as their own' Labour and Liberal Democrat votes in this election to justify their rule in Scotland, and that therefore only SNP votes could be regarded as true anti-Tory votes. But I think we all know that Tavish, Annabel and "The Snarl" doth protest too much. To understand why, we only have to recall Ian Lang's 'victory cry' the last time the Tories attained the full levers of elective dictatorship, despite attracting only a small minority of the vote in Scotland -

"Tonight, Scotland has said 'no' to nationalism, and Britain has said 'no' to socialism, and that's a double-whammy."

There can rarely have been a more brazen political taunt, given that implicit in it was an acknowledgement that Scotland had just voted 'yes' to socialism, or at the very least 'no' to five more years of Conservative rule. But that didn't matter, Lang was essentially saying, because the majority of Scots had just indirectly legitimised Tory minority rule by voting Labour or Liberal Democrat, on the basis that both those parties supported the continuance of the union. Precisely the same logic will apply this time round, as evidenced by the fact that Iain "the Snarl" Gray has just pronounced himself positively relaxed about the prospect of a Tory government that lacks a Scottish mandate - to his eyes, devolution is sufficient to resolve the issue of legitimacy. I doubt most Scots will agree.

So Tavish, Annabel and Iain - do you understand the point now, or will you be requiring a diagram?

Absence speaks louder than words

In the early afternoon, I had been planning to write a mischievous post about UKIP, after I spotted in the TV listings that they had put their leader Lord Pearson up for a four-cornered debate with the "three main parties" on immigration. I was going to say - what were they thinking? Hadn't they learned anything from Pearson's (intensely amusing, it has to be said) humiliation at the hands of Jon Sopel? I knew that Nigel Farage had resigned as leader to concentrate on his Buckingham campaign, but surely to goodness he could have afforded to nip away for a few hours to prevent another meltdown for his party on national TV?

But then I switched on the debate, and lo and behold, Farage was there in Pearson's place. It seems even UKIP are capable of spotting a dud leader when they see one...eventually.

No postal vote numbers here, guv.

I'm very sorry to hear that Jeff Breslin may be facing the stress of a police investigation for revealing information about postal votes, especially since - a) if a mistake was made it was plainly an honest one, and b) no actual numbers were published in any case, only general impressions of which way the wind might be blowing. The latter point makes me think the complaint was nothing more than a stunt by the SNP's opponents, as I'd be amazed if anything comes of it.

But I asked this question on Political Betting after the Kerry McCarthy incident - is it just my imagination, or didn't a newspaper reveal precise figures for postal vote numbers (in Ochil for example) a few days before the 2007 Holyrood election? I certainly recall Nick Robinson making reference to what those numbers were showing on The Daily Politics - it sticks in my mind because I was furious that as a London journalist he was clearly allowing himself to be fed information by Labour sources only. I don't recall Robinson, or the newspaper in question, having their collars felt. Has the law been tightened in the interim?

'Braveheart was a long time ago...'

In my last post I briefly mentioned Richard Bacon's interview with Ieuan Wyn Jones on BBC3, which was one of a series of interviews with the party leaders specifically for the benefit of first-time voters. Each programme contained voxpops from young people, allowing them to articulate their concerns, and deliver their verdict on the political party in question. There was an interesting contribution from one guy on the programme featuring Alex Salmond, in which he expressed his disdain for the idea of Scottish independence in the following terms -

"Braveheart was a long time ago. You know what, English people? I forgive you. We still kicked your ass, but I forgive you."

A very witty line, but also of course a monumental red herring. It's an attempt to conflate two entirely different things - chippiness against the English, and a desire for Scotland to stand on its own feet as a normal independent country. Most British people got over America's uppitiness in 1776 a long time ago, but it doesn't logically follow from there that we all now want to be ruled from Washington DC. (Leaving Tony Blair's deepest longings out of this for a moment.)

In truth, and it may seem counter-intuitive to some, chippiness against the English is most commonly found among people who are - at least passively - political unionists. It's the 'ninety-minute nationalist' phenomenon identified by Jim Sillars all those years ago. People who have a victim complex on behalf of Scotland actually need the union to be maintained so they can carry on nursing their grievance indefinitely.

Salmond wins the best debate

It has to be said my own immediate impression of the TV debates during this campaign hasn't always borne a lot of relation to the 'definitive' version of events I've read in the newspapers the following morning. But, for what it's worth, I thought last night's was by some distance the best of all the debates (UK or Scottish), with an electric atmosphere, an air of spontaneity, and a moderator who was not only empowered by the rules to hold the combatants to account, but actually did so very effectively. Indeed, Glenn Campbell said a couple of things out loud that I've been waiting for someone to point out for weeks now. Firstly, that the supposed 'right to sack MPs' is being massively oversold, as it will seemingly only apply when an MP has explicitly been found guilty of wrongdoing by the parliamentary authorities, which won't be very often. Secondly, that the Liberal Democrats cannot credibly claim to be a 'new' party, when via their predecessor party the Liberals they've actually been around for longer than Labour, and just as long as the Tories. The SNP were in fact the youngest party involved last night, although even they go back all the way to 1928!

My other strong impression was that Alex Salmond emerged as the clear winner, with Alistair Carmichael failing to sparkle quite as much as he had in the two previous debates, and David Mundell once again living down to expectations. It's much harder to meaningfully assess Jim Murphy's performance, as I've always felt that he's a wooden, transparently insincere debater - and yet Hamish Macdonell somehow felt able to score him the narrow winner of the first STV debate. Evidently there's something I'm missing, and I missed it again last night. But at least Murphy resisted the temptation to tell us yet again about how "as a Scottish patriot, and as a Murphy, it gives me no pleasure to have to say that Ireland is very nearly as rubbish at governing itself as Scotland would be". Perhaps he's happy to give someone else a shot at being the toast of Dublin.

One mildly encouraging point is that, to my surprise, a couple of my (non-political) relatives were just as keen to catch this debate as they had been for the UK one on Thursday. Given that it received only a tiny fraction of the hype, I was amazed they even knew it was on.

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No wonder Ieuan Wyn Jones looked utterly baffled when Richard Bacon asked him on BBC3 whether the English or the "French Celts" were the more natural allies for Wales. Would that be the Bretons you're talking about, by any chance, Richard?

Snooker sickener

Of all the professional snooker players I might just have thought capable of corruption, John Higgins - seemingly the gentleman of the game - would have been the absolute last. The apparent revelation today is a real sickener for his legion of supporters just at the moment he was due to once again become the official world number one after a vintage couple of seasons. His impeccable reputation is one reason why I (perhaps naively) think his explanation that he was "spooked" by the way the conversation was going, and just went along with it to make sure he "got out of Russia" in one piece, might just about be theoretically plausible. I wouldn't say it was likely on the balance of probabilities. But there's the rub - is the burden of proof in a disciplinary matter like this the same as in the criminal law? If so, it's hard to see how his version of events can be entirely disproved, unless there's more to come out.

But the real loser here is, of course, the nation of Ukraine. Nineteen years on from independence, and John Higgins still thinks Kiev is in Russia. Tut, tut.

SNP comfortably ahead of Liberal Democrats in TNS-BMRB poll

Rather infuriatingly, and for the second time in a row, Scotland on Sunday have made reference to a new full-scale Scottish YouGov poll on their website, without (as far as I can see) revealing the voting intention figures. However, judging from the commentary the SNP seem to be behind the Liberal Democrats. There's much better news, though, in a TNS-BMRB poll for the Scottish Mail on Sunday that puts the Nationalists in second place by a full seven points -

Labour 44%
SNP 23%
Liberal Democrats 16%
Conservatives 13%

We've become almost desensitised to the catastrophic figures for the Scottish Tories, but it remains the case that we could easily be just one week away from the utterly unprecedented situation of the UK party of government languishing in fourth place in Scotland, both in terms of votes and seats. That'll suddenly seem hugely significant if and when it comes to pass, even if it doesn't quite yet.

Much seems to be made in the reporting of this poll of Salmond having lower personal ratings than Brown, Clegg or Cameron. However, this seems considerably less important once you discover that the question actually asked was "which leader has impressed you most during the General Election campaign?". You can only admire the brazenness of the unionist media at moments like this. They move heaven and earth to ensure Salmond is barely seen during the campaign, and on the very rare occasions that he is seen, they ensure that he's certainly not given the same status as the 'national UK' leaders. Then they innocently ask the public if they've heard as much from Salmond as from the other three guys. The public ponders this for a moment, and says "actually, no...right enough, we haven't".

"Salmond campaign flops!" the unionist media triumphantly screams.

Memo to Jackanory Jim : be careful what you wish for

Labour have been busily feigning outrage for weeks that Alex Salmond wasn't taking part in two of the three Scottish side-debates, so you'd probably imagine they will now be pronouncing themselves thoroughly satisfied with his change of heart about tomorrow's final BBC debate. Er...no, actually. If the early reaction of a Labour activist on Twitter is anything to go by, it appears they're attempting a seamless switch back to the "what-does-he-want-to-take-part-for, he's-not-even-a-candidate-in-this-election" line.

Jeez. Sort it out, guys.

In spite of what I said about this a couple of weeks ago, I'm sure this is absolutely the right call by the SNP. The three rigged UK-wide debates have now been broadcast, and strategies for preventing a repeat of that outrage can be left for another day. For now, it's all about taking every last opportunity to maximise the SNP's vote in this election. Jim Murphy will be privately horrified that his slightly creepy Jackanory-style storytelling approach to debating is about to face the full Eck treatment for a second time.

Thankyou to the Guardian for scratching my three-year itch

The Guardian's decision this evening to endorse the Liberal Democrats (albeit with certain caveats) may well have considerable ramifications, but I must admit my own first reaction to the news was rather petty. I've previously documented here some of the epic online scraps I've had over the last couple of years with (for the most part) right-wingers, but as far as I can remember my very first one was on the discussion page for a Wikipedia article, back in the early months of 2007. It all started with a contribution I made to Alex Salmond's WP biography which, without wanting to blow my own trumpet (*cough*) was deemed good enough by the Sunday Times to be worth nicking in slightly altered form for part of a profile of the soon-to-be First Minister. So I was somewhat miffed to spot that my handiwork had been butchered by a contributor called 'Longlivefolkmusic' on the grounds of "bad writing", and sarcastic suggestions that the whole article had been a "campaign page" rather than a bio. Upon further investigation, however, it transpired (as is so often the case on Wikipedia) that the said contributor had something of a bee in his bonnet that was distorting his concept of 'neutrality'. He was a right-wing American who saw 'liberal bias' in every corner - hardly untypical, but for some reason his own personal fixation was correcting this problem primarily in UK political articles, which he set about doing with an affected air of teacherly condescension and utter exasperation. In particular, the word 'sheesh' seemed to feature a great deal in his edit summaries.

The problem for him, unfortunately, was that he clearly wasn't half as familiar with his subject-matter as he imagined himself to be, and in 'correcting' text he had taken one look at and assumed to be biased he frequently ended up inventing startling new facts. (A particular favourite of mine was that the Liberal Democrats had "merged" with the Pro-Euro Conservative Party.) So, as he'd left such an inviting open goal, I couldn't resist getting my own back by correcting some of these factual errors, and I naturally attached some condescending "in-the-style-of-Longlivefolkmusic" edit summaries to my revisions for good measure. It wasn't long before I provoked a reaction - but to my surprise the one that really got his goat was my rather innocuous replacement of his description of the Guardian as a "pro-Labour" newspaper with the words "left-leaning". Now, the Guardian is undoubtedly a progressive and anti-Conservative newspaper, and I could see how an American used to a closed two-party system would assume that this automatically made it a Labour publication, but it seemed to me its measure of support over the years for the Liberals, SDP-Liberal Alliance and the Liberal Democrats made the unqualified term "pro-Labour" far too simplistic, especially for an encyclopedia. 'Left-leaning' seemed to me to be a much more accurate and uncontroversial description - but to my bemusement I was informed by an incandescent Longlivefolkmusic that it was far too "affectionate"! I naturally set about defending my corner robustly, but little did I realise that the argument I was embarking upon would -

* Take up 10,000 words.

* Last for two months.

And this was a discussion about the appropriateness of two words. Only at Wikipedia.

At one point he convinced himself I was a woman (I've absolutely no idea why he would jump to that conclusion about someone calling themselves 'Sofia') - but that was one factual error I didn't bother correcting. Anyway, I now at last feel thoroughly vindicated, but I'll try to resist the temptation to pop back and say 'I told you so'.

As for the Guardian's recommendation of tactical voting where necessary to keep the Conservatives out, their logic would seem to clearly suggest a vote for the SNP in at least four constituencies - although I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that point didn't occur to this most brazenly Anglo-centric of newspapers. It doesn't end there, though - a large part of the rationale for a Lib Dem endorsement is that party's commitment to genuine electoral reform. As the SNP share that commitment, surely a vote for the Nationalists in seats where they are the only alternative to Labour would also be consistent with the approach the Guardian have set out?

Frankie Boyle and humanity : the other side of the coin

Having criticised comedian Frankie Boyle in a recent post for his 'lack of humanity', I must admit I'm left with a totally different impression of him after reading this lengthy statement he's released in response to the BBC Trust's decision to apologise for a joke he made on Radio 4 about Israel's treatment of Palestinians -

"The situation in Palestine seems to be, in essence, apartheid. I grew up with the anti apartheid thing being a huge focus of debate. It really seemed to matter to everybody that other human beings were being treated in that way. We didn’t just talk about it, we did things, I remember boycotts and marches and demos all being held because we couldn’t bear that people were being treated like that.

A few years ago I watched a documentary about life in Palestine. There’s a section where a UN dignitary of some kind comes to do a photo opportunity outside a new hospital. The staff know that it communicates nothing of the real desperation of their position, so they trick her into a side ward on her way out. She ends up in a room with a child who the doctors explain is in a critical condition because they don’t have the supplies to keep treating him. She flounders, awkwardly caught in the bleak reality of the room, mouthing platitudes over a dying boy.

The filmmaker asks one of the doctors what they think the stunt will have achieved. He is suddenly angry, perhaps having just felt at first hand something he knew in the abstract. The indifference of the world. ‘She will do nothing,’ he says to the filmmaker. Then he looks into the camera and says, ‘Neither will you’.

I cried at that and promised myself that I would do something. Other than write a few stupid jokes I have not done anything. Neither have you."