Is Green party activist Allan Faulds right to claim Alba is now finished?

My eye was caught by an article in the Herald entitled 'Salmond's death signals end for Alba, pollster predicts', because if the pollster in question had turned out to be someone like Martin Boon or Anthony Wells, I might not necessarily have agreed with the assessment but it would certainly have been worth listening to.  Comically, though, it turns out that the individual is not actually a pollster at all, but is instead the Green party activist Allan Faulds, whose bitter dismissal of Alba is long-standing and clearly rooted to at least some extent in his own partisan politics.  He once claimed Alba needed to ditch Alex Salmond to have any chance, which self-evidently makes a nonsense of his new claim that Alba are finished specifically because they no longer have Mr Salmond.

Faulds does of course run a website which is purported to be politically neutral (but isn't - his own views and prejudices constantly leak through) and which sometimes analyses polls and has commissioned a couple of crowdfunded polls, but that's not what a 'pollster' is.  A pollster is either a person or organisation that actually conducts polls, which to the best of my knowledge Mr Faulds has never done.  Admittedly it's probably not his fault that he's been falsely billed in that way, because the same word has been used about me at times.

My own reading of the situation, for what it's worth, is that one of Alba's most long-standing problems has just been solved, although a counter-balancing problem has just been created, and it remains to be seen which of the two problems is/was more significant.  The problem that has been solved is the negativity associated with Alba's brand, which to a large extent derived from Alex Salmond's deep personal unpopularity, something that was consistently seen in polling from 2021 until this year.  The rapid reappraisal of Mr Salmond's legacy since he died means the party's association with him is suddenly no longer such a negative and may even have become a net positive.  But the new problem is of course that Alba will no longer attract media interest from being led by one of the true heavyweight politicians of the age, and once the coverage of Mr Salmond's death subsides, they may find it a lot harder to get noticed than they did before.

The one remaining big asset that they have, the sole factor that still sets them apart from a fringe party, is that they have a member of the Scottish Parliament.  I don't know whether Ash Regan will run for leader, but even if she doesn't, she'll need to be pushed firmly to the forefront if Alba are going to be recognised by the media as relevant.

Because Chris McEleny arbitrarily suspended my own party membership a few weeks ago after he took exception to my public calls for the party to be democratised, I am barred from viewing the party website and am thus somewhat in the dark about what is going on.  (My so-called "disciplinary" hearing was postponed after Mr Salmond's death to an unspecified date but my suspension was not lifted, so the longer this drags on, the more it feels like constructive expulsion from the party at Mr McEleny's whim.)  However, I've been told that there has been a boost in Alba's membership numbers in recent days.  If that's true, the party needs to think long and hard about how it is going to retain those new people.  The pattern so far has been that the only Alba members who have truly been happy are the ones who see their membership as a kind of 'fan club' status and just want to applaud whatever the leadership says or does.  Anyone with ideas of their own who wanted to play a part in (for example) policy formation has tended to become quickly disillusioned because they've been regarded by the party as 'problematical'.  Members have even sometimes been talked of with extreme suspicion as 'possible infiltrators' - although in their heart of hearts I don't think anyone in the leadership group truly believes that nonsense, it's just a handy excuse to treat members with 'undesirable' views as an 'enemy within'.

Alba desperately needs a cultural shift to make members feel both valued and empowered.  That can't wait a couple of years, it needs to happen right now - otherwise the current boost in member numbers may be the last one that ever happens.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

All of the last six GB-wide polls have put Labour in the 20s - that's the sort of unpopularity associated with Michael Foot, John Major and William Hague

A new GB-wide poll from Techne shows that Labour's lead is down to just three points, which is the lowest that any firm with the exception of More in Common has shown since the Trussmageddon of autumn 2022.

GB-wide voting intentions (Techne, 16th-17th October 2024):

Labour 28% (-1)

Conservatives 25% (+1)

Reform UK 19% (-)

Liberal Democrats 13% (+1)

Greens 7% (-)

SNP 2% (-)

And although the changes from the previous Techne poll are well within the margin of error and thus statistically insignificant, there's no real doubt that Labour's popularity has taken a further significant hit within this calendar month.  Until early October, all but one poll from every firm had put Labour at 30% or higher, whereas all of the six polls conducted since 4th October have put Labour on 29% or lower - that's well below anything Jeremy Corbyn scored at a general election, it's closer to the levels of unpopularity suffered by Michael Foot, John Major and William Hague (although even Major and Hague managed to just about stay in the 30s, at least in general elections).  

Again, the fact that Labour are nominally still ahead with such an abysmally low vote share may be almost irrelevant, because it's hard to believe that the right-wing vote will still be as heavily split in four or five years' time - one way or another, it's surely going to coalesce more behind one particular political force.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

So, Tory voters of Falkirk South: what was it that first attracted you to Keir Starmer's hard-right Labour party?

I'm slightly puzzled that one or two people are defending Labour's false claim to have "gained" the seat in yesterday's Falkirk South by-election.  It's true that it was one of those paradoxical situations which frequently crop up in STV by-elections, where Labour had to try to "hold" the seat even though the SNP were well ahead in the ward last time around.  But there are two fatal problems with the claim of a Labour "gain".  Firstly, a lack of consistency - there have been any number of times in the past where Labour have claimed to have "gained" a seat in a by-election even when they had been in the lead in the ward at the previous election, so they can't have it both ways. And secondly, what is actually the alternative to determining "gain" or "hold" by looking at the party that held the seat before it fell vacant?  The only one I can really think of is to tot up the first preference votes for all of a party's candidates in the ward at the previous election, see which party had the most first preference votes overall, and then see if there's any change at the by-election.  And if you do it that way, if anything the Falkirk South by-election comes out as an "SNP hold" rather than a "Labour gain" or even a "Labour hold", because the SNP were the leading party in the ward in 2022 and also narrowly won the first preference vote yesterday.

Falkirk South by-election result on first preference votes, 18th October 2024:

SNP 31.3% (-10.3)
Labour 30.5% (+8.1)
Conservatives 14.7% (-13.9)
Reform UK 9.9% (n/a)
Independent - McKean 5.5% (n/a)
Greens 4.5% (-1.1)
Liberal Democrats 3.6% (n/a)

A 0.8% lead on first preferences was never likely to be enough for the SNP to hold on for the win given that there were so many Tory and Reform UK votes waiting to be transferred, but as ever the sheer extent of the affection of right-wing voters for the Labour party is quite the sight to behold.  Excluding non-transferable votes, 85% of Tory voters transferred to Labour and only 15% to the SNP.  Better news is that Green voters once again broke more for the SNP, although not overwhelmingly so - 65 Green voters transferred to the SNP, and 42 to Labour.

I think the SNP can take some consolation from topping the poll in a central belt location, because that wasn't happening much (arguably not at all) on 4th July.  That said, this result is poorer for the SNP than last week's results in North Lanarkshire and the previous week's results in Dundee, because the swing of around 9% to Labour would be enough to put Labour approximately six points ahead Scotland-wide - very much in line with the general election result.  

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Find Out Now! Find Out How? Find Out WOW!!! Sensational MRP projection suggests SNP would win a 2019-style landslide victory if another general election was held now

There was a brief moment of hope for Robert Jenrick in the Tory leadership contest a couple of days ago when a Find Out Now MRP projection suggested he would win more seats in a general election than Kemi Badenoch would (although the results for both of them were fairly dire).  That hope has now been snuffed out by last night's head-to-head GB News debate, which like all normal people I didn't watch, but which seems to have been a clear win for Kemi Badenoch.  Hilariously, ConservativeHome's verdict on the debate was "that's two hours of our lives we won't get back".

Nevertheless, the Find Out Now results are still of interest for other reasons, because the hypothetical questions about whether Jenrick or Badenoch is Tory leader shouldn't really affect the SNP v Labour battle in Scotland, and in both scenarios the SNP are projected to score a landslide victory (remember 29 seats is the target for a majority in Scotland).

Seats projection if Badenoch is Conservative leader:

Labour 332

Conservatives 151

Liberal Democrats 63

SNP 48

Reform UK 25

Plaid Cymru 4

Greens 4

Seats projection if Jenrick is Conservative leader:

Labour 311

Conservatives 178

Liberal Democrats 58

SNP 48

Reform UK 24

Plaid Cymru 4

Greens 4

Although polls asking hypothetical questions are always problematical, I'd suggest it's reasonable to assume that a standard MRP poll would show the SNP at roughly the same level, which would put them right back to where they were at the time of their 2019 landslide.  Labour would appear to have completely blown it in Scotland in the space of just three or four months.  

On the face of it this looks like a case of Labour proving resilient in England but not in Scotland, but that's actually not true - their share of the GB-wide vote in this poll is just 29% (if Badenoch is Tory leader) or 28% (if it's Jenrick).  It's only the split in the right-wing vote that is keeping them afloat in England, but I doubt if they'll be able to rely on that indefinitely.

The GB-wide sample size was 6000, which means the Scottish sample won't have been that far short of what is normal for a full-scale Scottish poll.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

The Gaza genocide could be a watershed moment in the relationship between the BBC and its viewers - from now on, social media may start to become more trusted than the state broadcaster

With the recent 'generation anniversary' marking the passing of exactly one generation since the independence referendum was held in 2014, I was thinking back to the day after the referendum, when a conspiracy theory went viral on Facebook about the vote having been rigged.  A friend of mine posted it, and we probably all know at least one person who did that - feelings were raw, and a touch of wishful thinking was inevitable.  The story wasn't even mentioned on the BBC, and people probably - and with some justification - saw that as an example of why the mainstream media could be trusted far more than social media.  If an allegation is essentially without foundation, the mainstream media will ignore it, while it'll still be plastered all over social media if enough people want to believe it.

But contrast that incident with what happened the other day, when once again a story was all over social media but ignored by the BBC. For about 24 hours, every third or fourth post I saw on Twitter was a photo of Palestinian civilians being burned to death in a hospital tent by the Israeli military. I didn't watch the BBC that day, but I'm reliably informed that news bulletins didn't mention the story, even in passing.  That wasn't because the story was in any sense a conspiracy theory, or because there was a lack of evidence to confirm what had happened, or because there was any doubt that Israel was responsible for it.  The BBC simply made an editorial decision to ignore the atrocity, and it's extremely hard to see that it could have had any other reasoning than that the image of the Israeli state must be protected.  If any other state's military had burned civilians to death, and if it had been so well documented, it would plainly have been deemed newsworthy and might well even have been the lead headline.  The conclusion people are likely to draw from having been far, far better informed by social media is that the BBC is now less trustworthy than sites like Twitter and Facebook, because it is serving the agenda of a foreign power and acting against the interests of viewers by deliberately withholding important information from them.

This is one reason why the small minority of independence supporters who say "we're sick of hearing about Gaza, let's focus on independence" are so misguided.  Obviously the main reason for not ignoring Gaza is that we're all human beings and you don't turn your eyes away from an ongoing genocide.  But it's also the case that faith in British institutions such as the government and the BBC is being undermined before our eyes by the response to the genocide.  The penny is beginning to drop for many voters, particularly young voters, about how power is exercised in the United Kingdom and in the service of whom.  That process could indirectly lead to Scotland becoming an independent country, or at least prove to be a significant contributory factor.  

We've seen a similar effect before - I have no doubt that the SNP wouldn't have crept over the line for their narrow win in 2007 if trust in the Labour party hadn't been severely eroded by the illegal invasion of Iraq four years earlier.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

The Famous Hypocrisy of the Grouse

So it's a curious thing - as you may have seen on Twitter, I've been receiving some totally unprovoked abusive DMs from Grouse Beater of all people. I did have problems with him many years ago, but someone interceded to end the rift, I had a long phone conversation with him and we made our peace with each other.  Since then, I've gone out of my way to tread gingerly with him, and when I've seen him have blazing arguments with other people (including in the comments section of this blog), I've just stood right back and let him get on with it, even when I thought he was in the wrong. But even those precautions weren't enough, it seems.

So what's his foul-mouthed harrumphing about this time?  To be blunt, it's just sheer hypocrisy on his part.  As you may remember, he was expelled from the SNP several years ago for alleged anti-semitism.  Countless numbers of us defended him at the time, because his words were actually extremely ambiguous and were open to plenty of alternative innocent explanations.  But no good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes, and he seems to now have a visceral loathing of many of those who defended him most strongly, because some of them have since fallen foul of strikingly similar abuses of the Alba disciplinary process and have dared to speak up about it, just as he spoke up about the SNP's ill-treatment of himself. Suddenly he's become a born again Stalinist, saying that anyone who has been trampled on should just shut up and slink away where he doesn't have to think about them or remember their existence, because it's just so darn inconvenient to the party that large numbers of people should actually know that abuses of power have taken place.  As long as he isn't the one on the receiving end, and as long as the people being silenced are ones he dislikes and would prefer to shut up, it's all totally fine.

In fact, let's be honest: he would be an enthusiastic cheerleader for someone being expelled for exactly the same reason he was expelled from the SNP, just so long as you first stick a blue Alba rosette on the Conduct Committee.

Bizarrely, what seemed to trigger him tonight was that the people he calls "the Famous Five", which seems to be an alternative name for Shannon Donoghue's "wee gang of malcontents", have been paying generous tribute to Alex Salmond and saying very complimentary things about him. 

I asked Grouse Beater if he would prefer them to be making disrespectful comments about Mr Salmond at a time like this.  Unsurprisingly, he didn't have much of an answer.

Could I just say to @Grouse_Beater, who has been sending me totally unprovoked abusive DMs and blocking me before I could reply: you, sir, are a hypocrite. You, sir, are a coward. I'm not going to tolerate this behaviour from anyone, no matter what my previous respect for them.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) October 15, 2024

So where does the independence movement go from here?

Robin McAlpine's latest piece presents the independence movement as having been "orphaned" by Alex Salmond's death, with a sudden realisation that "we're going to have to do it on our own", and with no sign of a new generation of Salmond-like charismatic leaders to guide us to the promised land.  Others have expressed similar sentiments, but I must say I don't see it that way.  If the orphaning occurred, it was several years ago.  When Mr Salmond appeared on mainstream media in recent years, it was generally only to commentate on the fortunes of his former colleagues, in much the same way that Roy Hattersley used to pop up now and again to give his thoughts on New Labour.  Mr Salmond was no longer really seen as an active participant in the political process, even though on paper that's exactly what he was.

It's possible that he could yet have become an active participant once again on more than just paper, and that was what all of us in Alba hoped for, but my own view was that was becoming less and less likely due to Alba's direction of travel - in other words its drift towards authoritarianism (with accompanying mini-purges), which made it more and more of a narrow sect centred around a few closely-knit families and friends, rather than the open, welcoming space for everyone on the radical end of the independence movement that it really needed to be to have any hope of creeping up to the level of support that might win it Holyrood list seats.  Now is not the moment to be commenting in detail on the extent to which Mr Salmond's own decisions contributed to Alba going down that wrong path, although in fairness he may sometimes have been faced with impossible dilemmas given his heavy reliance on those who were keeping the party afloat financially.  

So even without the tragic loss of Mr Salmond, it's highly likely that independence would have had to be won by a new generation of talent within the SNP's own ranks.  (Unless of course John Swinney actually *does something* in his remaining time as leader, but we all know he won't.)  Realistically, that probably means Kate Forbes and Stephen Flynn.  The current ruling faction clearly want Flynn to be the next leader with Forbes in a lesser role, whereas I firmly believe it should be the other way around - Forbes as leader, Flynn as second-in-command.  But either way they look like being the two key figures.  Charisma-wise, how do they compare with Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon at a similar stage in their careers?  I would actually say extremely well.

In my blogpost in the minutes after Mr Salmond's death was announced, I mentioned that he single-handedly converted me to the cause of independence with his persuasiveness in a 1992 episode of Election Call hosted by Nick Ross.  That's absolutely true, but I have other memories of his TV performances from around that time which are much more mixed. When he stood for SNP leader in 1990, I was very, very young, but I was just about old enough to be taking a tentative interest in politics, and I remember him taking part in an informal debate with his opponent Margaret Ewing on Left, Right and Centre - Kirsty Wark's show, although Brian Taylor was the moderator for the debate.  Taylor asked the two candidates how they differentiated themselves from each other, and Ms Ewing was extremely clear - she felt she had a stronger focus on social justice.  But Mr Salmond kept speaking on her behalf, saying that Taylor was going to fail to identify any divisions because Ms Ewing actually agreed with him about absolutely everything.  I found that tactic slightly irritating, and I bet I wasn't the only viewer who reacted like that.  

Mr Salmond himself used to recount an incident from the late 80s, when he got annoyed with Robin Day for shutting him down on an episode of Question Time.  Day asked him to watch the programme back and see if he felt the same way afterwards.  He took that advice and phoned Day later to apologise, because he realised that he had gone too far and had been in danger of losing the audience, and that if anything Day had done him a massive favour by stopping him.  So in a nutshell Mr Salmond was not the finished article in the late 80s and early 90s, and we tend to forget that.  He was a good debater but he still had plenty left to learn, and plenty of rough edges to smooth off.  Even by around 1995, when he was 40 years old and had started to rack up a few electoral breakthroughs, he wasn't yet being talked about as one of the finest politicians of his generation.  He grew in stature over the late 90s, and even during the four years in the early noughties when he was no longer leader.

The pattern was similar for Nicola Sturgeon.  Before Mr Salmond's dramatic comeback, she had been intending to stand in the 2004 leadership election, but no-one was in any doubt that she would have lost to Roseanna Cunningham.  That seems incredible in retrospect, but the 34-year-old Sturgeon simply wasn't seen as the political titan she later became.  I've said myself that I never rated the younger Ms Sturgeon - I thought she mimicked Mr Salmond's style of delivery but lacked his charisma.  I felt she came across as an automaton.

Which is as much as to say that politics isn't tennis - ie. it's not necessarily a young person's sport, and there's no reason to assume thirtysomethings like Forbes and Flynn have yet reached their peak.  They're already highly regarded and as they become older they could easily emerge as statesmen/stateswomen on a par with Salmond and Sturgeon.  My question is not whether they're charismatic enough, but whether they're sufficiently committed to do what it takes to bring about independence, or whether other priorities will get in the way.

I had a long conversation with Alex Salmond during the 2023 SNP leadership election.  Although that was eighteen months ago, I think that was the second-last time I spoke to him before he died - relations subsequently cooled after I started taking a stand against the Alba leadership's increasing authoritarianism.  I don't think I'm revealing any state secrets in saying that he regarded Humza Yousaf as having no interest at all in delivering independence, and that he broadly sympathised with the strategy Ash Regan had set out (although he was at pains to point out that Ms Regan was genuinely not 'his' candidate and she was not doing his bidding - it was just a natural convergence of views).  However, I knew Ms Regan had next to no chance of winning, so I asked Mr Salmond the only question that seemed to matter: "what about Kate Forbes?"

He paused for a moment, chuckled, and said "well, I think she does support independence".  OK, that's a start, I said.

As far as Alba's own potential role is concerned, I and others have tried over the last year to democratise the party but hit a brick wall, which leaves power heavily concentrated in the leader.  That means absolutely everything depends on who is elected to replace Mr Salmond.  It shouldn't need to be as 'all or nothing' as that but unfortunately it is.  If an authoritarian machine politician becomes leader, the party will be essentially finished.  A reforming leader might just give it a fighting chance.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Alex Salmond's appearance on the Scot Goes Popcast, 6th April 2021

A couple of you have asked for the link to Alex Salmond's appearance on the Scot Goes Popcast at the time of Alba's founding.  You can watch the video version below.  I was one of umpteen alternative media people (and indeed mainstream media people) who were given a slot with him that day, so he'd already been going for hours by the time it was my turn - his mental stamina was incredible.

Although I was an enthusiast for the Alba project and I may already have joined the party by the time the interview took place, I didn't allow my journalistic pride (or my blogger's pride if you prefer) to desert me - I made sure I asked him a few awkward questions.  One in particular had longer term significance than I could possibly have realised at the time.

It's only 25 minutes long, so sit back and allow yourself to be transported back in time three and a half years to what already seems like a very different political era.

John Mason's ridiculous expulsion suggests the SNP have learned absolutely nothing from the Rutherglen debacle - you can't throw seats away like confetti and expect there to be no consequences

The SNP's decision to suspend the whip from John Mason a couple of months ago was interesting. They did it on the grounds that he had denied Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, which suggested to me that the party had moved an extraordinarily long way in a relatively short period of time.  It was only a few years ago, of course, that they were expelling Grouse Beater and suspending Neale Hanvey on very dubious allegations of anti-semitism, decisions that were followed by informal but pompous online seminars from the party's self-appointed enforcer of identity politics doctrines, Fiona Robertson.  She decreed that the SNP had to adhere to the IHRA definition of anti-semitism in full, because minority groups have the absolute right to determine for themselves what constitutes bigotry against them.  If the SNP had continued down that road, they would have ended up occupying exactly the same space as the Starmerites, and Mr Mason would not currently be getting expelled for denying the Gaza genocide, he would be receiving a medal.  I mean that absolutely seriously, because the claim of genocide is precisely the sort of criticism of Israel that the IHRA definition was intended to disallow and make unsayable.

So in a way Mr Mason's initial suspension had a kind of positive symbolism to it, if only because it was a demonstration that the SNP had decisively moved away from the Cult of Fiona, at least in one specific sphere.  But any upside of it only really applied if the suspension was going to be strictly time-limited, and initially the clear indication was that it would be.  To expel the guy from the party altogether is an absolutely shocking decision, and I think there's a warning here for everyone, no matter what your views or beliefs: if you celebrate a disciplinary process being abused against an individual because you disagree with his or her politics, it could easily be you or a friend of yours on the receiving end if the wheel turns and another faction ends up in power, or even if there's a more gradual evolution in the leadership's prevailing views, which is the case here.  Conversely, if you oppose disciplinary action because you can see that an individual is being targeted for their views, you really have to check yourself and make sure that you actually do oppose that abuse of procedure as a matter of principle, and not just because the victim is a fellow traveller of yours.  What we've seen in Alba over the last few months is almost unarguable proof that many people who blasted the authoritarianism of the Sturgeonite SNP are actually totes cool with authoritarianism as long as it's the supposedly "correct" views that are being heavy-handedly enforced, and the supposedly "wrong" views that are being cracked down upon and silenced.

Don't get me wrong, and I hope my Twitter history leaves no room for doubt on my views about the situation in Gaza.  I think Mr Mason's views were abhorrent, and seem to mainly reflect the weird obsession that evangelical Christians have with the Israeli state.  But the correct response to those views would have been to condemn them and face them down, not to try to expel them out of existence by expelling the man who expressed them.  Apart from anything else, this decision suggests the SNP have learned nothing from the debacle of the totally unnecessary Rutherglen by-election, which heavily contributed to Labour's momentum in Scotland in the run-up to the general election.  The obvious lesson should have been that you can't throw parliamentary seats away like confetti for virtue-signalling purposes, or at least not without suffering heavy consequences sooner or later.

As with Neale Hanvey in 2019, I wonder if the stated reason for Mr Mason's expulsion is not entirely honest and is a proxy for the real underlying reason.  In Mr Hanvey's case, it was disapproval of his gender critical views, and in Mr Mason's case it may be his views on abortion that have rendered him 'undesirable'.  He can't really be openly disciplined for his abortion stance because it would look like an attack on freedom of conscience for religious groups.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Simply astounding: just three months after their "loveless landslide", Labour have *lost their poll lead* and have a vote share similar to John Major in the mid-90s

I said a few days ago that crossover seemed to be approaching, and although we still haven't quite hit that point yet, a major landmark has today been reached with the first GB-wide poll from any firm since March 2022 that does not show Labour in the outright lead.  To put that in perspective, Boris Johnson was still Prime Minister in March 2022.

GB-wide voting intentions (More in Common):

Conservatives 27%

Labour 27%

Reform UK 21%

Liberal Democrats 13%

Greens 7%

SNP 2%

During the period between the Trussmageddon and the general election, I used to occasonally squint at polls showing a dip in the huge Labour lead and wonder if we were seeing the earliest hints of a turnaround.  That was never the case, and in retrospect it looks like a Labour landslide (at least in terms of seats) was inevitable from the day of Kwarteng's mini-budget.  But it turns out that all that needed to happen for Labour to lose their lead was for them to actually get into power and for voters to experience the disappointment first-hand.  It's surely likely to get even worse for them, because incredibly the right-wing vote is still almost evenly-split between the Tories and Reform UK, and as soon as that starts to consolidate, a Labour vote share of circa 27% will leave Starmer in an incredibly deep hole.  It's the sort of vote share John Major had in the depths of his unpopularity in the mid-90s.

The fieldwork for this poll seems to have been mostly conducted before James Cleverly's shock elimination from the Tory leadership election, which Labour regarded as Christmas coming early.  We'll see, but I'm not convinced that it's going to make such a difference, or at least not in the way they're banking on.  A hard right Tory leader might even speed up the process of consolidating the combined Tory/Reform UK vote.

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Just a quick note about the blogpost I put up yesterday before the dreadful news about Alex Salmond came in. I announced that I was taking a break from blogging to prepare properly for the Alba disciplinary hearing, which was scheduled for Thursday night, and in particular to compile my written submission, the deadline for which was tomorrow afternoon.  I'm abandoning that plan, because I'm assuming the hearing is now almost certain to be postponed.  That may yet prove to be a dangerous assumption, but I think it's one I have to make in the circumstances.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk