If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
Someone suggested yesterday that I should start publishing KC's comments again, because it would boost the overall posting rate by motivating others to "take him down". Believe it or not, KC does still attempt to post here multiple times a day, even though essentially he now has an audience of just one (me). Quite where such dedication and spare time comes from is one of the great mysteries of the modern world.
Just to demonstrate to yesterday's poster why allowing KC to post again would be a terrible idea in the long run, I'm going to offer an amnesty for this post only. Any comments from KC on this specific post will be published, unless it's one of his occasional sweary posts or something that would cause legal problems. Spoiler alert: any comments he makes will almost certainly be about one of the following -
a) "confirmed sightings of Nessie"
b) "a de facto referendum would be good but I'd prefer a plebiscite election LOL"
c) "Give this independence nonsense up you fools!!!!"
d) "great to see support for independence creeping above 10%"
e) "it must be true that independence support is above 50% because this is a GOLD STANDARD POLLSTER"
* * *
In other news, my morning didn't go to plan (to put it mildly) so here I am sitting on a selection of trams and trolley buses in the Riverside Museum instead.
If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
There's been some social media chatter in recent days suggesting that the new Cabinet of the Plaid Cymru government in Wales is composed exclusively of fluent Welsh speakers and will be conducting its business in Welsh. That sounded like one of those claims that might turn out to be untrue on closer inspection, so I did some digging, but I certainly can't find anything that contradicts the suggestion that all the Cabinet ministers speak Welsh. Apparently the first public meeting was bilingual, and the indications are that future closed meetings will probably be in Welsh only.
If correct, that's plainly an astonishing moment of triumph for Welsh language and culture. Centuries of systematic London-ordered attempts to eradicate the language and to assimilate the nation have reached their end point with a democratically elected Wales-only government conducting its business in Welsh, without any artificial steps having been required to achieve that. However, unusual circumstances certainly have been required to get there, and I do slightly worry about the future dangers for Plaid Cymru in a country that remains overwhelmingly English speaking.
Decades ago, I heard someone say that the fact that Scottish nationalism was an English-speaking phenomenon gave the SNP a huge advantage as compared to their Welsh sister party. I initially thought that was a very odd thing to say, but when I thought about it for five minutes I realised it was obviously true, because the SNP don't have to get over the hurdle that Plaid historically have faced of trying to convince the majority population that they are not a party that belongs only to the minority language group. Plaid have finally cleared that hurdle by becoming seen as the only viable progressive alternative to Reform, but the concern might be that once their government loses some of its early popularity, people might revert to thinking that Plaid is not, after all, for "people like us" and Labour might start to gain some attraction again.
Hopefully Plaid have some sort of strategy in place to counter any damaging signals that are being inadvertently sent out. They could probably do with explaining whether it is feasible for a monolingual English speaker to become a senior Plaid Cymru minister in the future without first having to learn Welsh fluently as a sort of 'entrance exam', and what the practical arrangements would be if that happens.
We talk about culture wars in Scotland, but the straight choice between Plaid and Reform that Wales has just made was absolutely monumental in cultural terms. Reform would have been happy enough to eradicate the Welsh language, while Plaid conducts government business through it.
If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
At this time last year, someone left a comment on this blog to say that they'd actually been hoping for an Israeli win, because the prospect of a contest in Tel Aviv would have caused the whole house of cards to collapse. I didn't agree with that sentiment then, but I'm starting to see the point. If Israel had won tonight, the boycott next year would inevitably have been far more extensive, enough to call into question the viability of the event, and at the very least that would have forced the EBU to consider switching to an alternative host country - which would have raised the question of why Israel were being allowed to compete at all. Instead, the EBU will presumably be emboldened to just carry on with the farce of Israel finishing second every year as a matter of routine, regardless of the quality of their song, and expect everyone to treat it as totally normal - even though it is effectively happening as a direct reward for genocide. The phonomenon of mass bloc voting for Israel didn't get underway until the genocide started in 2023.
Towards the end of the show, the presenters gazed kindly and patronisingly into the camera and reassured the boycotting countries that they would be welcome back any time. But of course the reassurance those countries actually needed to hear was that the reason for their boycott would at long last be addressed - either by Israel bringing the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Lebanon to an end, or by the EBU banning Israel until such time as those necessary steps are taken. It's actually disrespectful of the EBU to suggest that any country should return to the contest until their concerns are taken seriously and resolved.
As for the winner, it demonstrates why I've given up trying to predict Eurovision. There was a time, maybe two, three or four decades ago, when you would hear the infuriatingly catchy novelty entry and think "nailed-on winner", but the contest seemed to have decisively moved on from that and anyone who had predicted a winner on that basis would have seemed hopelessly dated. It's not totally clear to me why the Bulgarian song proved to be such a glaring exception to the general rule - the staging was fresh and imaginative, but the same was true of a few other entries as well. But the song itself obviously had some sort of X factor given that it won both the jury vote and the public vote.
If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
That, I'm afraid, is the correct way of posing the question, because there is no doubt that the voting system remains wide open to abuse by Israel's supporters across Europe, who will not only cast their permitted ten votes each for Israel, but will also break the rules as they did in 2024 and 2025 by finding ways of casting more than the maximum allowed votes, and even of voting in multiple countries.
The BBC deserve almost no credit in this sordid affair, but one small thing I will say in their favour is that at least the UK are going beyond the basic tightening of the rules this year to only allow online voting. That should at least throw an obstacle in the path of the less fanatical Israeli bloc voters, although the true diehards will still find a way. It'll be interesting to see if Israel are at least pushed down to second or third place in the UK televote tonight. If they still get the maximum points (and remember there is no way on Earth that they have the strongest song this year), clearly a much more radical overhaul will be required. By this point, I wouldn't be too unhappy with a return to a jury-only system, or to the juries being given three times the weight of the public vote, or something like that.
Incidentally, one thing that definitely isn't helping the situation is the encouragement to viewers to spread their ten votes between different countries. That just benefits Israel even more, because Israeli supporters will ignore the advice and vote ten times for Israel, while everyone else will heed the advice and split the remaining vote.
If anyone is thinking of tactically voting against Israel, I'd have thought ten votes for the favourites Finland would be the best bet, because you always have to err on the side of assuming that the Israeli bloc vote will be so huge that they could be in with a shout of winning outright.
If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
So the moment that couldn't be avoided has now arrived: Reform UK have, at least for the time being, overtaken the SNP as the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons due to Stephen Flynn and Stephen Gethins' resignations as SNP MPs. I believe Reform have promised not to take any more Tory defectors, though, which means that the SNP will have a chance to grab fourth place straight back from Reform by winning the two by-elections to fill the vacancies. Gethins' seat of Arbroath & Broughty Ferry shouldn't be a problem, but Aberdeen South will be extremely competitive - Flynn's margin of victory in the overlapping Holyrood seat last week was not overwhelming. It really is so, so important psychologically that the SNP hold that seat, and I'm sure they'll be throwing the kitchen sink at it.
If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome. There are three main options: a) you can donate by card HERE b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
So I just thought I'd put this post up to try to give another little boost to the ongoing Scot Goes Pop fundraiser, and I'll probably keep it pinned second from top on the blog over the coming few weeks. As you may remember me mentioning early during the Holyrood campaign, I'm due to receive some substantial funds at some point during May or June, and after that I should be OK for a decent period, but I've absolutely no idea exactly when those funds will come in, and until then I'm just trying to keep the show on the road.
Just to make you aware, I haven't been manually adjusting the target figure on the GoFundMe page - they've introduced a new system of dynamically changing the target as donations come in, because apparently that produces better results. So there's no magic number on this occasion - I'm just trying to raise as much as possible, although I could certainly do with raising another few hundred pounds at least.
So if you'd like to donate and help Scot Goes Pop keep going with its political, polling and election analysis, there are three main options:
For card donations, the GoFundMe crowdfunder is HERE.
Or you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
Or you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com
A million thanks to everyone who has already donated - it's very much appreciated.
