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

Alex Salmond, 1954-2024

Hopefully it goes without saying that my earlier blogpost today, which briefly mentioned Alex Salmond, was written before I heard the awful news.  I went out for a walk a few minutes ago, and my phone started buzzing with Whatsapp messages from Alba members in a state of complete shock and bewilderment.  

I have no problem at all in concentrating on the positives in this post, because I can pay no finer tribute to any politician than that they were the person who originally converted me to the cause of Scottish independence.  I'm sure I must be one of tens of thousands of Scots, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who can say the same of Mr Salmond, which speaks volumes about his communication skills and powers of persuasion.  I can pinpoint the exact moment of my conversion - it was an edition of Election Call presented I believe by Nick Ross, during the 1992 general election (when I was still too young to vote), and Mr Salmond was given the chance to answer viewers' questions about independence at unusual length, which he did very fully and convincingly.  At some point towards the end of the programme, it was as if my objections just suddenly ran out and I said to myself "yeah, I agree with that", and I haven't changed my mind since.

In the years afterwards he was my political hero, running rings around Labour politicians in knockabout debate but also courageously going where others feared to tread, saying what needed to be said about the Kosovo and Iraq conflicts, and saying it in pitch perfect terms.

I was devastated when he stepped down as SNP leader in 2000, and I literally punched the air in delight when I heard he would be standing as leader again in 2004, just hours before nominations were due to close.  I knew that might make all the difference, and by God it did.  Without his comeback the SNP would never have taken power in 2007, we would never have had an independence referendum in 2014, and the extra devolved powers would never have come to Scotland after the referendum.  If Donald Dewar was the father of devolution, Alex Salmond was the father of its post-2014 deepening.

For my money the crowning glory of his career was his unforgettable performance against Alistair Darling in the second referendum debate, which came so close to winning outright independence for Scotland.  You can see an excerpt below.

While I take a few days off to prepare properly for my Alba "disciplinary" hearing, it may be a good time to give the 2024 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser one last big push

I may not be blogging much over the next few days, because I've still got to compile my written submission for my Alba disciplinary hearing, and the deadline is fast approaching.  I still find it hard to keep a straight face when I write the words "disciplinary hearing" given that what I'm accused of is so unbelievably vague and ultimately amounts to "making criticisms of how the Alba Party is currently run, in a way that the leadership finds irritating", which in any sort of genuinely democratic party would actually be something to be proud of, not to be "disciplined" for.  Nevertheless, in spite of the inherent absurdity of the situation, I do intend to take both the disciplinary and likely appeals process extremely seriously, and thus to devote the necessary time to it.  I most certainly don't criticise any of the people who 'jumped before they were pushed', because I now know as well as anyone the stress and potential mental health impact caused by a vexatious and/or malicious disciplinary process.  However, the fact that people have 'voluntarily' left, at least nominally, has given their detractors the excuse to dismiss them as "a wee gang of malcontents" who were always hostile to the party (which could not be further from the truth, incidentally - many of the people who have left were, until they started to be bullied or victimised, extremely committed to the party and personally loyal to Alex Salmond).  

If the leadership have already decided to get rid of me, as Yvonne Ridley claimed a few weeks ago, I want it to be abundantly clear to everyone that I am not voluntarily leaving, that my departure is 100% due to an expulsion that will be incredibly difficult to justify, and that if the expulsion hadn't occurred I would have stayed in Alba indefinitely.  Indeed if Chris McEleny hadn't arbitrarily suspended my party membership pending the hearing, I would currently be running as a candidate in the Alba internal elections, both for Membership Support Convener and for an ordinary NEC slot.  So for those reasons I do need to 'go through the disciplinary process properly', even if I strongly suspect the outcome is already set in stone.

Given that there'll be a natural pause in blogging while I write my disciplinary submission and prepare my verbal presentation for the hearing itself, this may be a good moment to give the Scot Goes Pop annual fundraiser for 2024 a last big push.  There are only two-and-a-half months left in the year, and it won't be all that long before I'll have to start thinking about a 2025 fundraiser.  But as things stand, the running total on the 2024 GoFundMe page is only around halfway towards its target figure.  In reality the situation is a bit better than that, because there have also been direct donations via Paypal, but it's fair to say that I'm still a long way short of where I need to be to secure the blog's future.  I've been continually lurching from mini-crisis to mini-crisis for about three years now, and although I've always been able to just about keep things afloat with these repeated appeals, I can't guarantee that will always be the case.  To use the well-worn cliché, if everyone reading this blogpost today chipped in a couple of pounds, the problem would be solved within 24 hours and I wouldn't even need to mention fundraising for a few months.  But of course in the real world it doesn't work that way.  

Many thanks to everyone who has already donated this year, and if you have done please just ignore this post.  But if you haven't donated yet, and if you find Scot Goes Pop useful and would like to help it continue, here are the various options - 

Card payments can be made via the GoFundMe crowdfunding page HERE.

Direct Paypal payments can be made to my Paypal email address:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

I know a small number of people prefer direct bank transfer - for the necessary details, please email me.  My contact email address is different from my Paypal address and can be found on my Twitter profile or in the sidebar of this blog (desktop version of the site only).

"We were supposed to have momentum!" laments Anas Sarwar, as Labour flatline in one by-election and go backwards in another - results that are consistent with a nationwide lead for the SNP

Last week brought two SNP by-election wins in Dundee, this week has brought two Labour by-election wins in North Lanarkshire, including one in a ward where the SNP topped the poll last time around.  But in actual fact the underlying message of both weeks is identical.  The net swings to Labour are small enough to point to a small SNP lead nationally, which is a far cry from the typical pattern in by-elections prior to 4th July.

Mossend and Holytown by-election result, first preferences (10th November 2024):

Labour 36.5% (-2.9)

SNP 34.8% (-7.8)

Reform UK 15.6% (n/a)

Conservatives 7.5% (-5.3)

Liberal Democrats 4.9% (n/a)

UKIP 0.7% (n/a)

Fortissat by-election result, first preferences (10th November 2024):

Labour 36.6% (+0.1)

Progressive Change 24.0% (n/a)

SNP 20.3% (-10.6)

British Unionist Party 10.9% (-7.9)

Conservatives 5.6% (-5.6)

Liberal Democrats 2.6% (n/a)

The swing to Labour in Fortissat was 5.4%, and in Mossend & Holytown it was a mere 2.5%.  That averages out as a 3.9% swing across the two by-elections, which if applied to the whole of Scotland would leave the SNP in the lead by around four percentage points - very similar to what we've been seeing in opinion polls recently.

Furthermore, the small Progressive Change party that performed so strongly in the Fortissat ward is essentially a straight breakaway from the SNP, so it would seem logical that it took more votes from the SNP than from Labour.  If so, the pro-Labour swing may even be slightly exaggerated due to local factors.

Reform UK's good showings remain a cause for concern, but we can at least celebrate a setback for the hardline Brit Nat BUP in the ward that is the closest thing they have to a heartland (they got a councillor elected there in 2022).

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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

My US election dilemma (advice is welcome)

Those of you of a certain vintage may remember that the Guardian newspaper was widely regarded as having made a complete fool of itself twenty years ago when it tried to influence the US presidential election by getting its readers to send personalised letters to voters in Clark County, Ohio, urging a vote for John Kerry rather than George W Bush.  If it had any effect at all, the perception was that it slightly increased Bush's margin of victory in Ohio, because people disapproved of outside interference in American affairs.

Anyone who was involved in that miscalculation may draw some satisfaction from learning that the boot is apparently on the other foot this year, and people from the US are sending handwritten notes to registered voters overseas urging them to vote.  I received the above note from a lady in California a couple of weeks ago, and although it doesn't say "please vote against Trump", I do detect a bit of a subtext there! 

But here is my dilemma. I have a history of voting for left-wing third-party candidates in presidential elections, but in 2016 and 2020 I held my nose and voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden respectively, on the basis that any election in which Donald Trump is on the ballot is an emergency and you don't muck around.

The same logic applies this year, but I just could not have imagined the scale of the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the Biden/Harris administration's seemingly unconditional backing for the genocidal Netanyahu regime.  Any vote for Harris thus feels like an endorsement of the genocide.  Additionally, I felt happier about voting for Clinton and Biden because they seemed to have abandoned their previous support for the death penalty, which is a key issue for me, but I gather opposition to the death penalty has been removed from the Democratic platform this year, and Harris is being evasive about her own position.

I'll have to make a decision very soon, so I'd be interested in your thoughts.  What would you do?  Vote against the genocide by voting for the Green candidate Jill Stein, or vote against Trump by voting for Kamala Harris?

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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

James Cleverly's elimination is the perfect illustration of what can go catastrophically wrong if you try to "game the voting system"

Very long-term readers will recall that in past Holyrood elections, especially 2016, I cautioned at considerable length against the dangers of trying to "game the voting system".  Prominent Green supporters and RISE both argued that it was perfectly possible and even necessary to game the system, because the SNP were supposedly "guaranteed" to win at least 65 constituency seats, and therefore any SNP votes on the list would be "wasted".  It was claimed that SNP supporters had some kind of duty to abandon their first-choice party on the list and instead vote for a second-choice pro-indy party.

The point I made was that the list vote was actually the more important of the two votes, because the overall composition of parliament is roughly proportional to how people vote on the list ballot, not on the constituency ballot.  Therefore, in general, people would be very foolish not to vote for their first-choice party on the list.  If anything, it's the constituency ballot that lends itself to tactical voting, but if you try to play silly buggers on the list there's a severe danger of ending up with a perverse outcome.  Yes, in theory it might be possible to game the system by voting for a second choice party on the list, but only in conditions that don't and can't exist in the real world - ie. 100% opinion poll accuracy, foreknowledge of how everybody else is going to vote, and certainty of exactly how many constituency seats that will translate into for each party.

This position of "vote for your first choice party on the list, don't listen to the siren voices telling you it's safe or necessary to abandon your first-choice party on the list" was cynically misrepresented for years by the usual suspects such as Kevin Williamson, Mike Small and Stewart Bremner as "James Kelly trying to suppress the Greens and RISE by pushing the 'both votes SNP' or 'SNP 1&2' line". And that really was an appallingly cynical misrepresentation, because they carried on doing it even after I repeatedly pointed out that I didn't use the phrases 'both votes SNP' or 'SNP 1&2', and that I actively objected to the latter because it misleadingly implies the constituency and list ballots are 'first preference' and 'second preference' votes.  I also pointed out that my advice to anyone whose first choice party was the Greens was that they should vote Green on the list, which was plainly not consistent with the idea that I was some sort of "both votes SNP" drone.  I simply objected to SNP supporters being duped into using their most important vote for another party - and I had no control over the fact that ultimately it was only SNP supporters who were being targeted by the "game the system" scam.

Although yesterday's bizarre outcome in the Conservative leadership election took place under a completely different voting system, it's nevertheless the perfect illustration of some of the points I used to make about what can go wrong if you try to game the system.  What seems to have happened is that some James Cleverly supporters looked at the result of the penultimate ballot on Tuesday, concluded that their man was guaranteed to make the members' run-off, and that it was therefore safe and smart for them to vote for one of the other candidates.  Some of them voted for their second-choice candidate to try to eliminate whoever they regarded as the most objectionable candidate, while others may even have voted for their least favourite candidate on the logic that this would make the members' run-off more winnable for Cleverly.  The latter group must feel particularly idiotic now, because far too many of them attempted the tactic and ended up accidentally eliminating Cleverly from the race altogether.  In other words, they assumed perfect foreknowledge of how everyone else was going to vote, and discovered the hard way that such foreknowledge simply isn't possible in the real world.

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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 Tories opt for a hard right turn - as they almost always do

Well, if you needed any evidence that the betting markets are not some sort of predictive God, or that sudden movements on them are not proof that punters have inside knowledge, here it is (yet again).  Robert Jenrick dropped like a stone on the markets earlier, probably on the logic that James Cleverly had enormous momentum behind him after his performance at the party conference (and in yesterday's ballot), and that Jenrick supporters would defect to Badenoch to stop Cleverly.  That actually was a reasonable enough assumption, but it hasn't happened.

Kemi Badenoch 42
Robert Jenrick 41

James Cleverly 37

I can't say I'm sorry about Cleverly's elimination, because in a field of insufferable candidates I find him the most insufferable of the lot, but this does mean that whatever happens from here the Tories will once again be choosing a radical right leader, as they did so successfully with Liz Truss two years ago.  Unless Badenoch stumbles badly, it seems highly likely that she'll be the winner, and I suppose the one consolation is that she's known for her gender critical views - but she's an extremist on many other issues.  

On the ECHR issue, which I think might ultimately have a decisive role to play in Scotland becoming independent, Jenrick is committed to withdrawal and Badenoch says it "might" be necessary to withdraw.  

I wonder if Allison Pearson's stroppy column threatening to defect to Reform UK if Cleverly won, and other contributions like hers, may have played a part in Tory MPs' mysterious last minute cold feet about Cleverly.

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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

Crossover nears: Labour's GB-wide lead over the Tories cut to just one point

The batch of three GB-wide polls that I mentioned the other day were ominous for Starmer, because they showed Labour had lower percentage support than under Jeremy Corbyn in the crushing 2019 defeat.  But at least they still showed Labour in the 30s, and with a cushion of sorts over the Tories.  Neither of those things are true in the new More In Common poll, which has the worst results for Labour in years and years.

More In Common GB-wide poll:

Labour 29%

Conservatives 28%

Reform UK 19%

Liberal Democrats 11%

Greens 7%

SNP 2%

Now that we've seen a poll that is a "statistical tie", it's surely only a matter of time until some poll somewhere along the line shows an outright Tory lead.  It's also possible that once the Tories get into the lead, they could stay there throughout much of the course of this parliament, building a clear expectation of a change of government in 2028 or 2029 - that would be in line with the logic of Labour having got off to such a record-breaking awful start in government.  But clearly much will depend on whether the Tories elect a leader who the public regard as credible.  And on that subject, the result of the penultimate MPs' ballot has just been announced - 

James Cleverly 39

Robert Jenrick 31

Kemi Badenoch 30

Tom Tugendhat 20

I suggested on Sunday that Jenrick supporters might look at the ConHome poll, which showed that Badenoch was the only person who could beat Cleverly in the members' run-off, and reluctantly switch to Badenoch on a tactical basis.  It looks like that may have happened to a very small extent, because Jenrick has lost two votes and Badenoch has gained three.  There had been chatter that maybe Jenrick might "lend" some votes to Tugendhat to try to engineer a Jenrick v Tugendhat run-off, which the poll suggested was the only winnable scenario for Jenrick.  But that was never going to work, because Jenrick simply didn't have enough votes in hand to get both himself and Tugendhat over the line.

So the only real question now is whether a few more Jenrick supporters might defect to Badenoch, because if they don't, Cleverly will probably sail to victory.

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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

"We are SO disappointed in you, Keir and Anas": Scots voters say they expected Labour to behave better

As you may have seen, there's a GB-wide YouGov poll on the topic of how sleazy the new Labour government is, and unsurprisingly the verdict of voters is: VERY sleazy.  The only sliver of consolation for Starmer's mob is that the previous Tory government is regarded (albeit by a slender margin) as even sleazier, but that doesn't apply to the two Prime Ministers - Keir Starmer is regarded as sleazier than Rishi Sunak, and that verdict is shared by the Scottish subsample (30% of Scottish respondents say Starmer is the sleazier of the two, 28% say Sunak).

If I was a Scottish Labour supporter, though, the result from the poll that would terrify me is the one about expectations: did voters expect Labour to be less sleazy than they turned out to be?  In Scotland, there's a significantly greater percentage of people who simply didn't see the Labour sleaze coming - 

Which of the following best describes how you feel the new Labour government has performed on the issue of upholding standards in public office? (All GB respondents)

I expected them to behave well but they have behaved worse than I expected: 38%

I expected them to behave badly but they have behaved better than I expected: 3%

I expected them to behave well and they have done: 15%

I expected them to behave badly and they have done: 25%

Which of the following best describes how you feel the new Labour government has performed on the issue of upholding standards in public office? (Respondents in Scotland only)

I expected them to behave well but they have behaved worse than I expected: 46%

I expected them to behave badly but they have behaved better than I expected: 3%

I expected them to behave well and they have done: 15%

I expected them to behave badly and they have done: 17%

Labour only won in Scotland by the narrow margin of 35% to 30% in July, and if that was at a point where the public had a much higher estimation of them, it's not hard to see why they now seem to have fallen behind the SNP.  There also has to be a question mark over whether they can regain the advantage over the next couple of years, because once a good reputation is lost, it's very difficult to recover it.

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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

Netanyahu fans on Twitter claim with a straight face that they might have voted Alba if it hadn't been for me. If I've single-handedly cost Alba the pro-genocide vote, my humblest apologies.

There are numerous ironies to my potential forthcoming expulsion from the Alba Party, which if it happens will ultimately be due to a blogpost I wrote in April arguing for democratisation of the party's internal structures - something which the leadership were seemingly more hellbent on thwarting than I could ever have dreamed possible.  Many of those ironies relate to Alba's scathing reaction to disciplinary action that the SNP has taken against its own members - for example, Fergus Ewing's one-week suspension from the SNP parliamentary group.  However unjustifiable the action against Mr Ewing was, and I do believe it was wholly wrong, a one-week suspension plainly pales into insignificance compared to the draconian action taken against numerous Alba members recently, including expulsions and lengthy suspensions. I myself have already been suspended from the party for longer than one week without even having faced a disciplinary hearing yet, and that's been purely at the arbitrary whim of one man - Chris McEleny.

However, as far as the ironies were concerned, nothing could have prepared me for what happened last night.  I got into an exchange with Nicole Lampert, a London-based "journalist" specialising in pro-Israel propaganda and genocide apologism.  She was going off on one about the fact that a pro-Palestinian counter-demonstration was audible during what she described as a "vigil" in Glasgow to "mourn the dead" of October 7th last year.  "Give us 24 hours to mourn our dead in peace!" she histrionically demanded.  My question to her was whether pro-Israel counter-protests should be banned for the next year to allow Palestinians to mourn their dead in peace, because of course almost every day for the next year will be the first anniversary of atrocities committed by Israel.

She then claimed that the pro-Palestinian protesters in Glasgow had been shouting anti-Semitic language, which left her on fairly weak ground, because she had already posted what she clearly regarded as a "damning video", and yet all that could be heard in that video were the familiar slogans "from the river to the sea" (which cannot be anti-Semitic because Netanyahu has used it at press conferences) and "free free Palestine" (which is perfectly consistent with support for Palestinian freedom in the context of a two-state solution).  Oh no, that wasn't what she was talking about, she clarified. She was instead talking about anti-Semitic language that couldn't be heard in the video.  She alleged that "Scottish Jews" had been called "genocidal scum and baby-killers".  Did I think that was acceptable, she demanded to know.

I pointed out that she had supplied zero evidence of that language having been used, and also that even if she could find any evidence of it, she would have to establish that it was actually being directed at "Scottish Jews" rather than at the genocidal Israeli government - because of course if it was the latter, the language used would not only be acceptable but entirely accurate. That was the final straw for her - unable to grasp any distinction between Scottish Jews and Benjamin Netanyahu, she hilariously 'reported' me to Chris McEleny and Neale Hanvey, having noticed on my Twitter profile that I'm an elected member of three Alba committees.  "You and I have our differences on Israel/Palestine but this guy claims to be one of your lot and SURELY THIS CAN'T BE ALBA POLICY!!!!" she screamed.

Desperately trying to keep a straight face, I explained the irony of her reporting me to someone who already has me suspended from the party, albeit for radically different reasons from the ones she might approve of.  But over the next few hours, Ms Lampert was followed by at least four pro-Netanyahu accounts all claiming earnestly to have seriously considered voting Alba but declaring that THEY WOULD NEVER DO IT NOW BECAUSE OF THE VIEWS OF THAT BASTARD JAMES KELLY, THE ALBA COMMITTEE MEMBER.  By that stage, I didn't even bother pointing out the comical irony of them saying that about someone who is suspended from the Alba Party, because there comes a point where all you can do is step back and quietly marvel at the sheer absurdity of a situation.

I must say I had no idea there was such a potential groundswell for Alba among pro-genocide voters (didn't they think to check party policy?), and if I've single-handedly managed to screw that up in what may be my last few days as a party member, what can I say.  I'm so, so sorry, guys.

So were the pro-Palestinian protesters right to audibly disrupt the Glasgow "vigil"? I probably wouldn't have advised it, but there again you have to take into account what the true nature of the event was.  Jackson Carlaw posted a photo of himself making a speech at the "vigil", in which he apparently argued strongly against any end to Israel's genocidal actions until the hostages are released.  The fact that a right-wing politician was even invited to make such a speech suggests that there may have been an agenda that went a lot further than simply "mourning the dead".

Tory MPs may have to *act* Cleverly to *stop* Cleverly

What I'm about to say will to some extent contradict my previous post, because looking at the latest Tory members' poll from ConHome, I really do struggle to see why Robert Jenrick is still favourite to win the leadership contest.  (And as of this moment he is still favourite - I've just checked.)

There's going to be a head-to-head members' ballot between just two candidates, and regardless of whether he is up against Kemi Badenoch or James Cleverly, the poll shows Jenrick losing by a wide margin.

Jenrick v Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch 53%

Robert Jenrick 33%

Jenrick v Cleverly

James Cleverly 54%

Robert Jenrick 36%

The only candidate Jenrick would beat in a head-to-head is Tom Tugendhat, which is no use to him because Tugendhat is plainly not going to be his opponent.  So precisely how is Jenrick supposed to emerge from this process as leader?  In spite of what the betting odds say, I don't think he can, unless the poll is completely wrong.

The poll does keep alive the possibility of James Cleverly being stopped, though, because Badenoch would narrowly beat him in a head-to-head - 

Badenoch v Cleverly:

Kemi Badenoch 48%

James Cleverly 42%

So logically what may now happen is that hard-right MPs might ditch Jenrick in favour of Badenoch in the remaining ballots to engineer a Badenoch v Cleverly run-off, which appears to be the only way Cleverly might yet lose.

Arguably Cleverly should currently be listed as favourite, with Badenoch as second favourite and Jenrick a distant third.

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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 message from Britain-wide opinion polls is consistent - Labour now have less support than they did in 2019 when they were heavily defeated under Jeremy Corbyn

The latest batch of three GB-wide opinion polls all have similar fieldwork dates, and are remarkably consistent in their findings - 

Opinium (2nd-4th October 2024):

Labour 31% 

Conservatives 24%

Reform UK 20%

Liberal Democrats 11%

Greens 8%

SNP 3%

BMG (2nd-3rd October 2024):

Labour 30% 

Conservatives 25%

Reform UK 20%

Liberal Democrats 13%

Greens 7%

SNP 3%

Techne (2nd-3rd October 2024):

Labour 31% 

Conservatives 23%

Reform UK 18%

Liberal Democrats 13%

Greens 7%

SNP 2%

It's safe to assume that all of these polls have been weighted by recalled vote from the general election in July, which makes it almost certain that the drop in Labour's support is real.  The fieldwork was confined to Great Britain, ie. Northern Ireland was excluded, which means the baseline figure from July is not Labour's UK-wide vote of 34%, but their GB vote of 35%.  So their vote is down by around 4% or 5%, which is a pretty significant drop after only three months.

Yes, they do remain ahead, and on paper they would probably win an election if it was held tomorrow, but I think there's quite a compelling argument that in an underlying sense they're already behind.  It's incredibly difficult to believe that in four or five years' time they'd be able to win a general election on their current level of support, which is for example lower than the 33% they took in GB under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the crushing defeat of 2019.  The combined Tory/Reform UK vote ranges between 41% and 45% in these three polls, and if that somehow consolidates behind a single bloc over the coming years, even at this stage Labour look like toast.

But will it consolidate?  There was a comparable situation at the 1983 election, when the Tories won an artificially large landslide thanks to a near even split in the opposition vote between Labour and the SDP-Liberal Alliance. Most people probably assumed at the time that the division would resolve itself over the course of four or five years, but it didn't really - in 1987 Labour clawed back a little bit of support from the Alliance but nowhere near enough.  So there are no guarantees, but with Robert Jenrick remaining the clear favourite in the Tory leadership contest, and with Jenrick's platform so closely mimicking that of Reform, there does appear to be a clear route-map towards a reunited right-wing vote.  Maybe Jenrick and Farage will agree an electoral pact, or maybe there won't even be a need for that because Reform UK's current supporters will decide Jenrick is good enough to be getting on with and will swing behind the Tories.

The relevance for Scotland, of course, is that there could within a couple of years be a clear expectation of a hard-right government committed to withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.  That could start to make the SNP's offer of independence look a lot more attractive than Labour's meaningless waffle about "the change that Scotland needs".

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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

More analysis of the Dundee by-elections

Just a quick note to let you know I've written a short analysis piece for The National about the SNP's victories in yesterday's two Dundee by-elections - you can read it HERE.

Dundee DEVASTATION for Sarwar as SNP humiliate Labour TWICE in by-election double-header - they don't call it Bash Street for nothing

Strathmartine by-election result, first preferences (3rd October 2024):

SNP 35.0% (-10.3)

Liberal Democrats 26.9% (+8.2)

Labour 26.9% (+4.0)

Conservatives 4.2% (-1.7)

Greens 3.6% (+0.2)

TUSC 3.4% (+2.7)

Lochee by-election result, first preferences (3rd October 2024):

SNP 37.3% (-5.9)

Labour 35.6% (-0.2)

Conservatives 6.8% (-1.6)

Alba 5.5% (+2.4)

Greens 5.5% (+1.3)

Liberal Democrats 4.8% (+1.7)

Workers Party of Britain 4.4% (n/a)

Local by-elections are often mainly about symbolism and momentum, but these two really did matter because the SNP's overall majority on Dundee City Council was at stake - and has survived.  In fact Lochee is technically a gain from Labour, although the SNP were defending a lead in both wards from last time around.  The SNP's 1.7% lead on first preferences in Lochee was tight enough that Labour could potentially have won with transfers from other unionist parties - the combined vote for the Tories, the Lib Dems and the Workers Party exceeded the combined vote for the Greens and Alba.  So it's intriguing that it didn't happen, and it'll be interesting to find out why from the detailed numbers.

Can the SNP still be considered to have had good results even though their vote fell?  Yes.  The percentage changes are measured from the 2022 local elections, when the SNP's national lead over Labour in the popular vote was 12.3%.  The average swing from SNP to Labour in the two by-elections was 5%, which would leave the SNP about two points ahead nationally.  That's not too shabby only a few weeks after finishing five points behind Labour at the general election.  In practice it's probably even better than it appears, because the SNP's vote share in local elections is often on the low side compared to other elections.

For the second week in a row, Alba have had an OK-ish result in a by-election, although I suspect that's mainly about improved organisation and a more effective get-out-the-vote effort rather than any increase in Alba's underlying national support, which probably remains at roughly the very familiar 2% level.  Indeed, there's a potential danger in getting half-decent results in low-turnout local by-elections, because Alex Salmond was very quick last week to suggest that Alba's 6% showing in Perth meant that they were on 6% across Scotland and were therefore on course for list seats.  That's plainly not the case, but many Alba members are all too hungry to believe in that kind of statement.  If the party effectively hypnotises itself into thinking a breakthrough is just around the corner, the deep-seated problems that in practice will prevent Alba from winning any list seats at all may not be tackled or resolved.

And it can't go without note that Lochee is yet another election in which the Workers Party of Britain, for which Craig Murray stood at the general election, put up a candidate directly against the Alba Party, of which to the best of my knowledge Craig Murray is also still a member.  Let me reiterate yet again that this is not a jibe against Craig personally, and in fact I have the highest admiration for both his politics and his personal courage.  The point is about Alba itself.  Craig has driven a coach and horses through the most important commandment in the Alba rule-book by standing for a party in direct competition with Alba.  And yet somehow it's as if that never happened - Craig's membership remains untouched and no disciplinary action has been taken against him.  By contrast, my own Alba membership is currently arbitrarily suspended on the whim of one man (Chris McEleny, the non-elected General Secretary), which is preventing me from exercising my right as a paid-up party member to stand in internal elections.  Later this month, I will face a so-called "disciplinary" hearing in which I could be expelled from the party altogether for essentially two things - a) using my elected position on an internal Alba working group to push for democratisation of the party's internal structures in a way that the leadership apparently has no intention of tolerating, and b) making certain limited criticisms of the leadership in posts on this blog.  I am far from being the first member to face this kind of treatment - other expulsions and lengthy suspensions have already occurred.

The double-standard, and the difference of treatment for the favoured and the unfavoured, is blatant.  It's overwhelming proof of a disciplinary machinery that is not functioning as advertised, but is instead being shamelessly abused as a tool to suppress dissent and deter the free expression of views within the party.  I will be taking a stand at the disciplinary hearing and at the likely subsequent appeal hearing, because frankly Scotland has no need of a carbon-copy of the authoritarian party that expelled Grouse Beater for no good reason, that suspended Neale Hanvey for no good reason, and that bullied Denise Findlay into a public resignation for no good reason.  Alba needs to be a lot, lot better than that, otherwise what is the point of it being there?

Britain's "Little Empire of Leftovers" is gradually breaking up - and it would be naive of unionists to think that Scotland is immune to the process

I suspect that when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the UK assumed that its remaining "Little Empire of Leftovers" would be its to keep in perpetuity, because the territories that were left had either fiercely pro-British populations (as in the case of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar), or were too geographically remote for other countries to plausibly stake a claim on them and too small to be plausible contenders for full independence (as in the case of Pitcairn).  Well, the handing over of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, albeit with all the imperfections of a 99-year lease back to the UK and US of Diego Garcia, is a massive jolt to that complacency, because the UK has been forced to this point by a brilliant diplomatic campaign by the government of Mauritius.  It's entirely possible to see how that could be a model for picking off some of the other UK overseas dependencies.

Next in line is surely Cyprus, which is the most comparable to the Chagos situation, because the UK simply decided to confiscate 4% of Cypriot territory as a condition for the country becoming independent.  The military bases on that retained territory have seemingly been used recently to assist Israel in its genocidal campaign in Gaza.  The precedent of Diego Garcia surely means that those bases must revert to Cypriot sovereignty and any continued UK military presence there would only be acceptable as the result of an agreed settlement.

I've never taken the view that Spain has a legitimate claim on Gibraltar or that Argentina has a legitimate claim on the Falklands.  Both territories have stable populations which have exactly the same right to self-determination as the people of Scotland, and they have exercised that right by decisively rejecting Spanish and Argentinian rule.  But I do think in time those populations, probably starting with Gibraltar, may come to see the value of essentially keeping their current system but changing the title deeds, ie. becoming nominally independent but entering into a free association agreement with the UK to allow London to continue controlling their foreign affairs and defence.  That would demonstrate to the world that decolonisation has occurred and make them masters of their own house.  In the case of Gibraltar it would require Spanish cooperation to circumvent the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht, but one day there might be a Spanish government with the foresight to realise that decolonisation of Gibraltar is actually in Spanish interests.

In the case of the small Caribbean dependencies, the increasing development of pan-Caribbean governance structures may eventually provide the architecture that would make it viable to shake off the London link.

Meanwhile, there are also broader "Little Empires", covering the independent states where King Charles is still monarch, or where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council still has jurisdiction as the final court of appeal.  Both of those empires are continuing to contract, with Barbados recently becoming a republic, and Saint Lucia becoming the latest country to abolish Privy Council jurisdiction last year.  It's surely only a matter of time before Australia and Jamaica adopt home-grown heads of state, which will probably lead to others following their example.

The tide of history is only moving in one direction, and it would be naive of unionists to think Scotland is immune to it. I remember in my childhood hearing Alan Whicker talk about the upcoming Hong Kong handover.  He said "when the sun sets on the British Empire, it'll set over Kowloon Harbour".  But actually when it really sets, it may be over the cliffs of St Kilda.

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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

Who's an unpopular boy, then? It's all gone wrong for Anas Sarwar, says shock Ipsos poll

Before I forget about it, let's take a quick look at the "Ipsos Scotland Political Pulse" poll that was published last week, because it contains yet more positive straws in the wind suggesting the SNP may now have a good chance of winning in 2026 - or at least "winning" if that is defined as remaining the largest single party and possibly remaining in power without an overall pro-independence majority.  For the uninitiated, the Political Pulse is very different from the regular Ipsos polls for STV, because it's conducted via online polling panel rather than by telephone, and there are no outright voting intention questions.  However it does contain personal ratings for leading politicians, and we know those are often more predictive of election results than standard voting intention questions anyway.

Net ratings of leading politicians (Ipsos, 18th September 2024):

Kate Forbes (SNP): -11

John Swinney (SNP): -11

Anas Sarwar (Labour): -16

Keir Starmer (Labour): -23

Rachel Reeves (Labour): -27

Douglas Ross (Conservatives): -47

Rishi Sunak (Conservatives): -53

OK, these numbers don't exactly demonstrate enthusiasm for the SNP, but you only have to defeat what's put up against you, and both John Swinney and Kate Forbes appear to be considerably less disliked now than any of Labour's top team.  And if you're a bit underwhelmed by the depth of Starmer's unpopularity at -23, remember the fieldwork is already a couple of weeks old and he's almost certainly slipped further since then.  

Other polls asking about leadership in the alternative way, ie. a head-to-head question about who would make the best First Minister, have almost always shown the SNP leader ahead in recent times, regardless of whether that person was Humza Yousaf or John Swinney.  So whichever way you look at it, the question of leadership does still seem to give the SNP a clear edge, even after all their travails and even after losing a phenomenon such as Nicola Sturgeon.

This will probably be the last poll in which Douglas Ross is rated, so it's nice to see him getting such a lovely send-off.  (Or should that say sending-off?)

Just as crucial is that Labour as a whole no longer have a superior rating to the SNP as a whole.  It's essentially level-pegging now with the SNP on -12 and Labour on -13. Respondents also have slightly less confidence in the Labour government's plans for the economy (-37) than they do in the SNP government's plans (-33).

And although the SNP government is perceived as having performed poorly on every policy area that is asked about, the perception of respondents is that Labour would do even worse - with the sole exception of education, where there's a tie between those who think Labour would do better than the SNP and those who think they would do worse.

In all honesty, I think anyone looking at these numbers totally objectively, say an observer from a foreign land, would come to the conclusion that the most likely outcome of the 2026 election is a modest SNP win.  But of course there's still a lot of water to pass under the bridge.

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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

In Liz We Trussed - but could Jenrick be Just The Ticket?

When Boris Johnson resigned just over two years ago, it seemed like a setback for the independence cause, because he was regarded as the best recruiting sergeant we could ever have.  But I and others believed that there was one remaining hope.  In Liz We Trussed.  If Truss rather than Sunak won, there would be a potential Thatcher-like figure in Number 10 who would be electable in England but loathed in Scotland, which might just be the decisive factor in pushing Scotland towards independence - just as Thatcher herself had been decisive in transforming the slender pro-devolution majority of 1979 into what John Smith famously called "the settled will" of the early-to-mid 90s.

Of course what none of us anticipated, and in fairness there was no way we could have anticipated it, was that Truss would literally prove to be the most hapless Prime Minister in British history, would bring the economy to the brink of collapse within a month-and-a-half, and would single-handedly make a Labour government in 2024 a nailed-on certainty, thus allowing Scottish Labour to ride the momentum and narrowly defeat the SNP.  In retrospect, the Truss victory in the 2022 leadership election was not only bad for the SNP and the wider independence cause, but worse than we could ever have imagined.

So it's obviously dangerous to be too confident in any assumptions we make about knock-on effects from the current Tory leadership vote. The opposite of what seems obvious could easily prove to be true. But for the fun of it, let's have a go anyway.

For reasons that are probably self-evident to regular readers, I haven't been paying as much attention to the vote as I normally would, and I've been a bit puzzled as to why Robert Jenrick has emerged as a strong favourite with the bookies.  I know he's topped the MPs' ballots, but that shouldn't really matter if Kemi Badenoch is the darling of the membership in the way we were told until recently.  But if the bookies are right and Jenrick wins, the Tories are going to move into space associated with the far right.  I had wondered if some of his extremist rhetoric was designed to win the vote and he would tack more to the centre thereafter, but I watched his video about the ECHR earlier today, and he hasn't left himself any wiggle-room at all.  It seems clear he would turn the Tories into a "leave the ECHR, no ifs, no buts" party.

Now, that only matters if he's capable of winning a general election.  My verdict on Jenrick's video is that he has that kind of generic Tory 'slimy toad' speaking style that makes my flesh crawl, but then I'm not really his target audience.  He does have fluency, he does have confidence.  He could potentially win back a lot of voters from Reform without necessarily alienating the voters who stuck with Sunak in July, and that's all he'd really need to do unless Labour can get back to the sort of popularity they haven't had since 2017 when they took 40% of the vote under Jeremy Corbyn.  At the moment that's hard to imagine.

It's just conceivable, then, that Jenrick could become Prime Minister in 2028 or 2029 and that Britain really could leave the ECHR.  What would be the reaction of moderate, pro-European No voters in Scotland?  They reluctantly reconciled themselves to Brexit, but would they really be so sanguine about Brexit II: This Time It's The Kitchen Sink?  It would be an extraordinary opportunity for the independence movement, essentially an unexpected second chance for us to take advantage of the golden opportunity we somehow managed to squander in 2016-19.  But the SNP would need to have the right leadership and strategy in place.

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