Following on from my piece about the Linn by-election result, I'd just like to offer my own party (Alba) some free advice. Nicola Sturgeon is undoubtedly a Marmite figure and there are lots of people out there who genuinely loathe her - as I can attest from personal experience, because years ago I went on a coach tour of the Balkans and sat in front of a well-to-do Tory-supporting couple from Aberdeenshire who moaned about her for several days solid. So it may seem tempting to try to gain political support by tapping into that sentiment, and treating Ms Sturgeon as either a monster or as a byword for failure. But there's just one snag: the vast majority of people who don't like her are viscerally opposed to independence and would never even consider voting Alba. In the bubble we exist in, it's easy to lose sight of that crucial fact, because the hardcore of the independence movement contains many people who have turned against her. But broader pro-independence opinion in Scotland is not reflective of that.
Here are Nicola Sturgeon's personal ratings among people who voted Yes in 2014. The numbers are taken from the most recent Ipsos UK 'Scottish Political Monitor', conducted by telephone in June.
Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Nicola Sturgeon is doing her job as First Minister of Scotland? (Yes voters from 2014 only)
Satisfied: 78%
Dissatisfied: 19%
Don't Know: 2%
The 19% who are dissatisfied works out at roughly 8.5% of the total voting population (leaving aside the complicating factor of demographic shifts since 2014 which have changed the electorate's composition). Now, I suppose you could argue that this is just about enough to win list seats at Holyrood, but there are two problems. Firstly, not everyone who voted Yes in 2014 still supports independence, and the people who dislike Ms Sturgeon are probably disproportionately likely to have switched to No. So the pool of voters who both support independence and dislike Ms Sturgeon is probably even lower than 8.5% (maybe a lot lower). And secondly, by treating Ms Sturgeon as a hate figure you're effectively alienating the near four-fifths of Yes voters who do like her, which means you're putting all your eggs in one basket - you effectively have to get the votes of almost all of her pro-indy detractors, which leaves you with an incredibly narrow path to success.
By contrast, the pool of pro-independence voters who are receptive to the message that there needs to be greater urgency on bringing about independence is, I suspect, much, much larger, and overlaps with personal support for Ms Sturgeon. So if you can make that case positively, without attacking her personally except for carefully-justified reasons on specific issues, the pickings for Alba should prove to be much richer.
In recent days, a number of senior Alba people have been queuing up to vigorously support and endorse the "comeback" (sic) of Wings Over Scotland. Now, it may simply be that they personally enjoy reading the website, which is fine. But if it's instead an indication that they see the Wings approach as a strategic template for the Alba party, we have a major problem, because that template is built to a large extent on personal hatred of Nicola Sturgeon. Any such strategy will prove to be a dead end for Alba, and that would be indescribably frustrating because it's such a needless misstep. There are perfectly viable alternative strategies available.
Perhaps the argument will be that Wings has shown the way in how dislike of Nicola Sturgeon can be 'fostered' among independence supporters, thus increasing the pool of potential Alba voters. And it's true that Stuart Campbell probably has succeeded through sheer persistence in turning a percentage of his regular readers against Ms Sturgeon, but in absolute terms that number is extremely limited. The
most up-to-date figures suggest that less than 1% of the Scottish population read Wings in an average month, and most of those people will just be very casual readers who drop by once every few weeks or less. It's highly debatable whether Mr Campbell has even grown the anti-Sturgeon vote by as much as 0.1%.
There is, to be blunt, no future for the Alba Party as a de facto Wings Party with Stuart Campbell as its spiritual leader. One of the first things Alba needs to do is make itself liked among the masses of pro-independence voters, and it simply can't do that with what will look to most of those people like a neverending wall of irrational bile directed against someone they respect and admire.
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UPDATE: On a second inspection of the Ipsos UK data tables, I realised I'd somehow overlooked the personal ratings for Nicola Sturgeon among current Yes voters, which in line with the suspicion I outlined above, show that she's even more popular among that section of the electorate.
Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Nicola Sturgeon is doing her job as First Minister of Scotland? (Current Yes supporters only)
Satisfied: 86%
Dissatisfied: 12%
Don't Know: 3%
That means the pool of voters who both support independence and are dissatisfied with Nicola Sturgeon is only around 5% or 6%, depending on how you do the calculation - which barely leaves any path at all to winning list seats with a relentlessly anti-Sturgeon message.
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Good points you make Mr Kelly , do you make those points to ALBA members directly ? , I suppose you would have to be in regular conversation with them to do so and maybe you are not .I find it a pity that it’s all such a big part of the Scottish independence discussion given that who likes who within the support for Scottish independence is pretty much an irrelevance until election time.I think it’s all well and good to have your individual views about who you like and who you don’t like within the Scottish independence support but it’s Westminster politics that is our enemy not Nicola Sturgeon or SNP or WOS or Mr Campbell etc etc.
ReplyDeleteI really wish there was a Scottish supporting independence website where the author and leading administrator was anonymous I mean truly anonymous and not known by anybody,someone who perhaps has no interest in the Scottish independence question, a website where all opinions could survive and be heard including union supporting opinions , yes full time moderation would be essential and yes bad language and threatening or insulting comments would lead to punishments but punishment should be swift and short because it’s such an emotive subject , banning people outright forever because you don’t like their opinion or because they stepped out of line being rude or insulting and at the same time turning a blind eye to equally bad comments that support your own opinion is common but it harms the aim of inclusive discussion , it is clear that most sites are ran by people who basically say it’s my website and I will ban who I want to ban and they do tend to ban forever.This has shrunk the discussion , so so many Scottish independence supporters are now banned from one or more Scottish independence supporting websites it’s easy to conclude that banning people has become a weapon perceived as a means to win an argument of the moment.
This is no argument of the moment , tempers are raised people do say the wrong thing but banning them forever is totally counterproductive for Scottish independence , how can it be said that we have to persuade soft no, s when most sites simply ban then excluding their opinions.
Choose any Scottish independence supporting website you want and take a look at who makes comments and on every single one of them you will find that it’s the same old dozen every day , in fact they actually know each other now they’ve been doing it so long and yes they do butter up the people running the site.
What we have is the opposite of what we would all have planned and wished for at the outset.
For the avoidance of doubt, nobody is banned from commenting on Scot Goes Pop because it's impossible to ban people on this platform. Every comment is considered individually. I used to have what might be called retrospective moderation - comments would be auto-published and them I'd delete the offensive ones afterwards. But at around the time I joined Alba, people started abusing the system to post personal insults that they knew might stay up for a couple of hours before I spotted them. So now those people are just screaming pointlessly into the ether, which is a lot better for my mental health, although pre-moderation is less good for free-flowing debate.
DeleteTo answer your first question, I was on the Alba NEC until last month, and I did my best to raise some of the points I've been making on this blog recently.
Incidentally, our former regular commenter "PeeJay" still attempts to post comments here, and people would be horrified beyond belief if they saw the contents of those comments. Almost every one is racist, homophobic or misogynistic. His most recent one was about Anas Sarwar and Humza Yousaf, and called them both the P-word and the C-word.
DeleteOne man's "neverending wall of irrational bile" is another man's completely reasonable and justifiable criticism.
ReplyDeleteWith "man" being the operative word? Rightly or wrongly, Nicola Sturgeon is an idol for many younger women in particular.
DeletePeople don't need 'idols' in politics. They need people who don't try to destroy their mentor, who don't stick themselves in front of cameras at every self-promoting opportunity, who don't hate men, and who don't obsess over sexual minority politics because of their own poorly-disguised personal proclivities. Sturgeon is an absolute disgrace, and I am a dyed-in-the-wool independence supporter. She disgusts me on every level. And I am not an Alba member. Just a citizen of this 'proud' nation of ours.
DeleteI believe the SNP (under Ms Sturgeon leadership) are doing a good job in governing the nation (apart from the push to change the gra) but sadly I have little to no confidence in their willingness to achieve independence.
ReplyDeleteApologies as the above comment should have gone out with this name.
DeleteMy fault
Some comments.
ReplyDelete1. Your stats/article explain why the big dug knowingly decided to ignore what he knew about Sturgeon's persecution of Salmond to ensure his blog continued to be successful. That is his choice. To me that is being a charlatan.
2. Personally, I was in a small minority in the past as an independence supporter. I just see it as a temporary change in circumstance to be back in a small minority who support independence but not Sturgeon. Eventually independence supporters will wise up to what Sturgeon is. Hopefully not as long as some of them took with ' Scottish' Labour.
3. You are correct that Sturgeon is popular. This popularity is there despite a mountain of evidence against her and demonstrates how good a politician she is. Tony Blair was the same. Both good actors/politicians / frauds. People wised up to Blair eventually. The only hope for independence in the short term is that Sturgeon starts to believe that it is in her interests to at least get a referendum never mind win one. At present there is no sign the SNP are making any effort to win a referendum but if one took place there is always the chance of a yes win.
4. If joining Alba or any political party means I have to be a charlatan like the big dug then I am happy to pass.
Stu really doesn't give a toss about independence any more (if ever?). It's purely an ego trip driven by misogyny, his absolute hatred of Nicola who spurned him and Kezia who beat him
ReplyDeleteThere is no bigger mysogynist than your pal Nicola - as for Kezia, words fail me!!!
DeleteMike, perhaps you have missed all the men who Campbell have attacked, like James Kelly, or do you think they are women. Your misogyny claim is just an example of someone looking for something to attack Campbell with and they don't care if there is any basis in reality. Pretty pathetic stuff.
DeleteDislike FM Sturgeon is't a term I'd use, despair of her failure to progress towards independence seems more apt. And distrust? Her "forgetfulness, wasn't there" , "trembling lip" performance before the Salmond enquiry panel was, ...decide for yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe UK media "have her back"...why?
There is a big difference between thinking someone is doing a good job of running the country and thinking they are doing a good job of gaining us our independence. I find it depressing to think that 85% of current YES supporters think our current FM will gain us a means to become independent any time soon. It reinforces the notion that most voters are unthinking.
ReplyDelete