Alas, the final paragraph of my post yesterday proved every bit as prophetic as I knew it would - there's been plenty more "James Kelly is a raving lunatic" flavoured content from Stew on Twitter since then (but rest assured he DEFINITELY doesn't stalk me!), but not even a trace of a substantive reply to the points I raised in the post demonstrating that his bizarre claim that the SNP are guaranteed to win 65 constituency seats next year, and thus that all SNP list votes will be "wasted", is fraudulent. It's safe to assume that if he was capable of providing a substantive, credible rebuttal to those points, he would have done so by now.
Luckily, though, help is at hand, and from an unlikely source. This revelation may make his 2025-vintage Fan Club feel somewhat queasy, but there was actually a time when Stew was not such a fan of "tactical voting on the list" - indeed, he used to very sensibly point out that it wasn't even a viable option. He was also a fervent proponent of what he would now (misleadingly) call "SNP 1, SNP 2".
It might be useful, then, to delve into this fascinating chapter of Stew History (it was only nine years ago) and see what arguments 2016-vintage anti-tactical-voting Stew would have deployed against 2025-vintage pro-tactical-voting Stew. Some of those arguments are extremely powerful and I don't think there's much doubt that 2016 Stew would have come out on top in any head-to-head showdown.
Stuart Campbell, 7th January 2016: "If you’re primarily or solely contesting regional seats, and you’re chiefly (as seems to be the case) targeting people who are going to use their first vote for the SNP, “Vote for us so that we can provide strong opposition to the SNP” is a pretty weird pitch.
You’re basically asking people to use their second vote to cancel out their first. And that’s quite a tough angle to be trying to sell them. Just saying, like."
That's an absolutely superb point, 2016 Stew. You're talking about RISE there, but beyond question what you say also applies equally to Alba in the present day, and given that we know they hang on your every word, it's doubtless something they'll want to reflect on.
Stuart Campbell, 20th April 2016: "RISE AREN’T GOING TO WIN ANY SEATS. They’re just not. They could multiply their current support by 10 in the next two weeks and still be nowhere near. In terms of winning representation at Holyrood for the next five years, a vote for RISE is – categorically and indisputably – a wasted vote. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote for them if you agree with their policies...But in THIS election, right here right now, voting for RISE is saying “I’m going to leave who Scotland’s list MSPs are to fate, because my vote will count for nothing”."
2016 Stew has pretty brutally slapped down 2025 Stew there. 2025 Stew argues that you can move pro-indy votes around in huge numbers as if they're pieces on a chessboard, and that it's perfectly possible to get fringe pro-indy parties to win list seats just by instructing SNP supporters to vote for them. But 2016 Stew is having none of it, and quite rightly points out that some parties are so small that they have no realistic chance whatsoever of reaching the threshold for winning list seats - thus guaranteeing that all list votes for them will be totally wasted and will only help unionist parties. Again, he's talking about RISE, and points out that if they multiplied their support by ten, they still wouldn't be winning seats. In the case of Alba in the present day, they would need to treble or quadruple their 2021 support to win seats, so exactly the same principle applies - it's simply not credible to think they can pull off that feat, and there's no sign in the opinion polls that they will. As 2016 Stew so wisely says, a vote for Alba would be "categorically and indisputably a wasted vote".
Stuart Campbell, 20th April 2016: "A “PRO-INDEPENDENCE OPPOSITION” IS IMPOSSIBLE. The only thing even remotely akin to a meaningful runner-up prize in an election is to be the largest opposition party, which gets you privileged treatment in parliament and the media. But the second-biggest pro-independence party is hoping, at best, to come fourth in this election, which gets you nothing...Whatever else happens in May, “the opposition” will still be Unionist."
We can only imagine how much more scathing 2016 Stew would be about Alba in the present day, who at best are aiming to be in sixth place. If he thought that fourth place gets you "nothing" and isn't a prize worth having, he'd doubtless be urging voters to steer well clear of any self-styled contenders for sixth place. 2025 Stew will be fuming about it, but 2016 Stew is arguably being harsh but fair here.
Stuart Campbell, 20th April 2016: "A “PRO-INDEPENDENCE OPPOSITION” IS MEANINGLESS ANYWAY. There are only two possible outcomes of a Holyrood election – either the governing party gets a majority or it doesn’t. If it does, then the composition of the opposition is irrelevant, because the government can pass whatever it wants."
Crikey. Forthright stuff from 2016 Stew here. So what Alba is aiming for is not only impossible but undesirable - if a party can't get into government it's completely pointless to even attempt to give them any seats. 2025 Stew will NOT be happy about this.
Stuart Campbell, 20th April 2016: "THE SNP AREN’T GOING TO WIN EVERY CONSTITUENCY SEAT. Whatever polls say, realistically it simply isn’t going to happen."
Without wanting to sound too sycophantic, I feel this is one of the most crucial points Stew has ever made. It's vitally important to maintain a healthy scepticism about wild claims that "the SNP are going to clean up in the constituencies and therefore won't need any list votes at all". And I know that 2016 Stew would agree with me that if it was important to maintain that scepticism in spring 2016 when the SNP were polling in the high 40s in the list ballot, it's even more important in 2025 now that they're polling only in the low 30s, which leaves any suggestion like the one 2025 Stew is making that they're guaranteed to win 65+ constituency seats looking fanciful in the extreme.
Stuart Campbell, 20th April 2016: "there are at a minimum 15 constituencies where the Nats will face, at the very least, a serious fight. If they were to lose just over half of them they’d fall short of a majority and would need list seats to get across the line."
Yup. Really, really important to not only take into account the best-case scenario in the constituency seats, but also the worst-case scenario, and to bear in mind that the SNP might need a Plan B of lots of list seats if that worst-case scenario plays out. 2025 Stew wants SNP supporters to abandon that back-up option, but 2016 Stew would give short shrift to such a profoundly irresponsible attitude.
Stuart Campbell, 24th April 2016: "The refrain we kept hearing this week from advocates of “tactical” list voting in the name of getting more pro-independence MSPs was “but this is what the polls say!”
Now, there are all sorts of obvious holes in that premise – polls are never exactly correct, and have also historically significantly underestimated the SNP list vote"
An essential and eloquently-expressed point, 2016 Stew. People can't just pretend, in defiance of all past evidence, that opinion polls are some sort of infallible God, or that they give us precise advance knowledge of what the result of the election will be, or that we can use that knowledge to somehow make "tactical voting on the list" safe and effective. 2025 Stew won't want to hear that truth - in fact he'll probably stamp his feet and furiously denounce it as "the most dishonest, knowingly false and wildly extreme lie about Scottish politics we’ve ever seen anyone tell in the 13.5 years of Wings Over Scotland’s existence".
Well, tough. Because 2016 Stew is right.
Stuart Campbell, 24th April 2016: "what we find is that a very significant swing towards the Greens in the list vote actually results in FIVE FEWER pro-independence MSPs on the list...if you’re going to put your faith in numbers, it’s always worth doing your sums first."
Cripes. So what you're saying, 2016 Stew, is that there are circumstances in which "tactical voting on the list" can totally backfire and leave you with FEWER pro-independence MSPs than you would otherwise have had, and that people who claim that this danger does not exist are lying to you.
A timely warning, 2016 Stew, and we are grateful to you for it. Not least, of course, because one of the liars you're warning about is none other than 2025 Stew himself.
This 2016 Stew chap seems a remarkably sensible fellow. Maybe we could start a Change.org petition to get him back?