Sunday, May 8, 2022

Ignore the silly partisan propaganda from Green-supporting Ballot Box Scotland: in fact, Alba took a respectable 2% of the vote in the local elections

So first of all, I'd like to deal with some of the more colourful 'feedback' that my analysis piece received yesterday.  There were attacks from completely opposite directions, which means that if I was the BBC, I would just shrug and say "well, if both sides are criticising me, that must mean I'm getting it just about right". However, I won't stoop to such a lazy approach, and I'll try to engage specifically with the points that have been made.

Firstly, an Alba supporter said that I wasn't being honest in my assessment that the local elections produced a good outcome for independence parties - he reckoned that no result without an Alba breakthrough could possibly be good for independence, because the SNP and Greens aren't serious about holding a referendum.  Now, let's be clear: I was as disappointed as anyone that Alba didn't manage to win any councillors, but a breakthrough for Alba would have meant perhaps five, ten or twenty seats.  The bulk of pro-indy representation was always going to have to come from the SNP, so yes, it absolutely does matter that the SNP made gains in this election.  I said exactly the same thing after the Holyrood election last year - I'm always going to celebrate a win for a pro-independence party, because if unionist parties were to suddenly move into the ascendancy, all hope for independence would be extinguished for the foreseeable future.  Even if the current SNP leadership don't intend to honour their promise of a referendum (and I firmly believe they don't), what a good result for the SNP and Greens does is keep the flame burning.  For as long as pro-indy parties run the Scottish Government with electoral momentum behind them, there's always the hope that something will turn up.  Nicola Sturgeon could take that UN job she's been auditioning for over the last decade, leaving space for a more radical leader of the SNP to emerge.  Or the current leadership themselves could actually change course if pressure from the rank-and-file starts to build.

On the other end of the spectrum, an SNP leadership loyalist complained about me referring to the SNP's progress in the election as "modest".  He/she argued that the results must in fact be stellar because they exceeded what the Britain Elects model said would be a good outcome.  Hmmm.  I'm not speaking with hindsight when I say that the Britain Elects model was total mince as far as Scotland was concerned - I made that point rather robustly on the night before the election, and if you don't believe me you can check.  It's there in black and white at the bottom of this blogpost.  Britain Elects were pumping nonsense in and getting nonsense back out.  Their central forecast was that the SNP would actually lose seats, which was ludicrous given the party's continued dominance in the opinion polls, and particularly given that their underperformance in 2017 left them with plenty of scope for gains.  The claim that a net gain of just three seats was the best-case scenario was even more laughable, and has actually been comprehensively disproved by the results - the notion of 'outperforming a best-case scenario' is a contradiction in terms.  

The reality is that there were three opinion polls that specifically asked for local election voting intentions - the Panelbase poll that I commissioned myself towards the end of last year, and two more recent polls from Survation.  All three polls suggested that the SNP would take a first preference vote share of over 40%.  Few commentators believed that was likely due to past precedent, but nevertheless it was thought perfectly possible that the SNP would reach the high 30s, and indeed the highly respected polling expert Mark Diffley predicted they would take around 40%.  If that had been the case, they would have made dozens and dozens of seat gains.  Instead, they finished with 34% of the vote and made just over twenty gains.  So I think it's more than fair to point out that the gains were "modest" compared to what some of the pre-election expectations had been.  Nevertheless, as I noted in my article, what really mattered is that those gains were sufficient to take the SNP to their all-time best result in a local election.

Someone also took issue with my point that Alba's vote share was generally creditable in the wards where they stood.  The individual prayed in aid a piece from Ballot Box Scotland claiming that Alba received 0.7% of the national vote, and suggested that meant Alex Salmond's party was on the "lunatic fringe".  Now, I fully appreciate that some people find Ballot Box Scotland to be a very useful service, in spite of the comical pomposity of the Green party member who runs it and his extreme touchiness about even the most minor criticisms of his "project", which he seems to regard as having the sanctity of a holy temple.  I myself found myself turning in desperation to BBS at times on Friday, because he was doing the bread-and-butter stuff (actually posting the election results) that our public service broadcaster should have been doing but neglected to do.  But that doesn't change the fact that BBS is not politically neutral - it pretends to be, and a tantrum will generally ensue if anyone dares to point out that it isn't, but the mask well and truly slipped during this campaign with a naked anti-Alba agenda.  I defy anyone to read the comments BBS has made about Alba's results since Friday and conclude that they're coming from a place of studied objectivity.

As far as the 0.7% figure is concerned, that's pretty much meaningless, because it's calculated across all the wards in Scotland, of which Alba only actually stood in approximately one-third.  In other words, BBS is regarding the Alba vote as zero in two-thirds of the wards in Scotland, which can be justified on a technical basis but is bound to result in some pretty silly analysis if you make the mistake of taking it remotely seriously.  It's impossible to exactly say what Alba's share of the national vote would have been if they had stood everywhere, because we don't know if they'd have done quite as well in the wards which they sat out.  But it seems entirely reasonable to suspect that they would probably have been somewhere close to the 2% mark, in other words very similar to their result on the Holyrood list vote last year.  And 2% is roughly the average figure they got in the wards where they did stand.  So it looks like the pre-election opinion polls that showed Alba firmly registering on 2% or 3% were broadly right - in spite of the bizarre eagerness of BBS to rubbish those polls.

(By the way, even if the 0.7% figure hadn't been totally meaningless, I'd still strongly take issue with any notion that a low share of the vote demonstrates that any given party is on the 'lunatic fringe'.  It might show that they're a 'fringe' party, but 'lunatic'?  There have been any number of moderate, centrist parties over the years, for example the SDP, that have polled poorly.)

With the benefit of hindsight, ie. if we'd had a crystal ball handy and had known that Alba were going to fall short of winning seats, there would have been a strong case for putting up candidates almost everywhere in Scotland to demonstrate beyond all dispute that the respectable national vote share was there - in other words, we could have treated the national vote share rather than seats as the real 'prize'.  OK, the number of candidates who stood reflected the natural limit of the number of people who actually put themselves forward (with the caveat that there was a vetting process), but the shortfall could probably have been made up by encouraging people to stand as 'paper candidates'.  But, there again, hindsight is always a wonderful thing.

It's really important to bear in mind that, although the local election voting system is a form of proportional representation, the proportionality is actually pretty weak compared to other PR systems.  That's because there are only three or four councillors elected in each ward, meaning you need a really strong performance in specific geographical areas to have any chance of getting any seats at all.  That makes the system surprisingly similar to first-past-the-post, and completely different from the Holyrood system, where you can win seats even if your vote share on the list is modest and thinly spread.  With approximately 2% of the national vote at present, it's not hard to see the path towards Alba becoming a party with representation in the Scottish Parliament in 2026.  If they could climb up to 4% they might well win the odd seat here or there, and if they get up to 6% or higher they'd win a really strong haul of seats.  And where will those extra votes come from, you might ask?  Well, it's not rocket-science.  Either the SNP will honour their solemn promise to hold an independence referendum in 2023, or they won't.  And if they don't, there are going to be an awful lot of disgruntled SNP members and voters looking for a new political home long before the 2026 election comes around.

I have lots more to say about the local election results and what they mean for both the SNP and Alba, but for now I'm going to pause for breath!  There'll be another blogpost along soon, probably tonight.

13 comments:

  1. ", which is really an excellent site now." This is mad liar Irish Skier's take on Ballot Box Scotland. What a numpty. If it is endorsed by that pratt it must be crap.

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    1. Well well mad liar Irish Skier comes out with a true statement - " never trust a liar". So that means don't trust what Skier, Sturgeon or Johnston have to say. Liars all.

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  2. Nasty WGD numpty Dr Jim says Kirsten Oswald, Sturgeons NEC enforcer and my MP says Indyref2 is definately happening next year. Did she offer to resign if it doesn't. What do you think? In fact have any of them offered to resign if Indyref2 doesn't happen next year? What do you think?

    Jimbo is always blasting Alba politicians for not resigning when they left the SNP. He says they have no integrity. So Jimbo are you going to call for them all to resign if no Indyref2 next year? Or do you and the SNP leadership have ZERO integrity?

    My opinion is No chance as Jimbo is just an SNP party drone with ZERO integrity.

    Carrots are supposed to be good for your eyesight but numpties cannae see what is staring them in the face.

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    1. So I guessed Dr Jim was referring to Oswalds chat on the Sunday show this morning. So I thought I would view the Oswald interview. Numpties like Dr Jim are totally delusional if they think Oswald confirmed Indyref2 next year in that interview. All she had to say was YES to the question - will we be in a booth next year voting in Indyref2. Instead it was classic politician waffle. Oswald is just another charlatan of which there are very many in the SNP leadership. Worse than the Tory Masterton who held the seat previously and I won't be voting for her again.

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  3. " Maybe Boris didn't give them enough money." This is the claim made by nasty WGD numpty Dr Jim in reply to why Alba did not field more candidates. He claims Alba supporters are unionists funded by Johnston.

    The reality is that unlike Sinn Fein the SNP just love the money they get from Westminster. A party of independence being substantially funded by the institution and country they want to be free from is totally compromised. Just like in 1707 they have sold out for London's gold.

    In all the current posts on WGD prattling on about Sinn Fein not one contrasts Sinn Fein boycotting Westminster and SNP people like Wishart living the high life funded by Westminster for 20 years.

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  4. It was a good result for the status quo. Sad as it is to say, and not for the want of trying, but Alba were unable to produce anything that's going to worry the SNP, so there's no pressure on them to change their approach, and indeed the SNP will take these results as a vindication of their approach. So all we have is their word that they intend to hold indyref2 by the end of 2023 at the latest. I guess all we can really do now is wait and see how that pans out, and if it doesn't, if the majority of pro-indy SNP voters shrug their shoulders and continue voting SNP anyway.

    What would be interesting to know from the council results is the tale below the first preference votes. What are people who are ranking the SNP at the top doing down below, and what are (the obviously much smaller number of) people who are ranking Alba at the top doing down below? What level of crossover is being shown, or are both camps sure the other one is the wrong one?

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  5. " Keep the flame burning"

    I understand this argument and that is why I voted SNP in the constituency last year for Holyrood. The SNP diktat of both votes SNP and attacks on Salmond/Alba by Sturgeon released me from any guilt of not voting SNP in future The same stuff by Sturgeon in the local elections this year also means means I will never vote SNP under the current leadership. Oswald will not get my vote at the next UK GE.

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  6. Poor old Keaton. He tries to be sensible on WGD but the doggers chew him to pieces. Full marks to Keaton for his perseverance. Surely it must be obvious to Keaton now and most normal people that the WGD numpties are not normal. Facts are ignored in the world of the doggers but self delusion is everywhere.

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    1. I get slagged on here for being an SNP drone, and on WGD for being a Salmond worshipper, or Unionist, or whatever. Clearly, like the BBC, I'm getting it just about right.

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    2. Keaton, clearly you need some love and empathy but I don't think holding up the BBC as your role model/standard is the correct way to achieve that aim😀.

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    3. So if you're comparing yourself to the BBC does that mean that you'll fail to give a proper report on the election results? :)

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    4. Keaton, you have the standard WGD numpty response if you tell them the facts. Facts they do not like. So they say you are a Unionist and wormtongue. All Oswald had to say to the closed question she was asked was YES but she waffled.

      In my opinion SNP members should have been demanding Sturgeon's resignation when she accepted Johnston telling her to get lost re sec 30 in Jan 2020 and then saying there would be no illegal referendum in 2020. Has Sturgeon ever said she would proceed with a referendum if it was declared illegal by the U.K. Courts - not to my knowledge. Why is she hiding her legal advice on this subject?

      I'm actually starting to feel sorry for the numpties because they are desperate to start campaigning but have no answer to a member of the public asking - " What's the date of this referendum?"

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  7. WGD numpty Indyref2yespleasenicola asks why does The National use Britnat terminology in its reporting. More specifically - "a fresh push to leave the UK" when it should be " a fresh push for independence." The answer is obvious and it is staring the numpties in the face but despite all the carrots they have eaten since Sturgeon declared in Jan 2020 she would not proceed with an illegal referendum they just cannae see it.

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