The big problem with trying to predict the list is - analysing the 2011 actual list results - and working out divisors and nett percentages for each list seat actually won by the SNP.
With for instance 8 seats won in a region, the divisor is 9. If the percentage list vote is 36%, the nett % is 4.0, but if the vote is 45% the nett % is 5.0.
In 2011 Central Scotland with 6 constituency seats, 3 list seats were won with divisors of 7, 8 and 9 - nett percentages 6.6%, 5.8% and 5.2%.
H&I with 6 constituency, 3 list seats divisors 7, 8 and 9 - 6.8%, 5.9% and 5.4%.
Mid Scot with 8 constituency, still got 1 list seat divisor 9 nett 5.0%.
NE Scotland with 10, yes, all 10 constituency seats still got 1 list seat with divisor 11 nett 4.8%.
@Yi2. It's not a percentage procedure anyway. There isn't a threshold you're trying to hit (as there is in STV), rather at every stage it's "simply" the party with the most votes / seats +1 who gets the next seat.
So it's really as much about how the other parties are doing as just your own vote. Anyone without their first seat yet is at a huge arithmetic advantage. With Labour, Tories, Liberals, Greens and now Farage's boys in the mix, a lot of list seats will be won by parties with low divisors, many at just 1.
I reckon this election will be the toughest ever for the SNP to win any list seats at all. So much easy pickings in the constituencies and so much contention on the list.
"With Labour, Tories, Liberals, Greens and now Farage's boys in the mix"
There's still only 100% in, well, errr, 100%.
If the SNP got 45% on the list, then there's more parties now to share out that other 55%. If others (Your party, family, Alba, loonies) get 6% between them, and the others shared the remaining 49% equally to make the arithmetic easy, they'd all get 9.8% for the first seat, get one seat each on the list, but then their divisor would be 2 not 1, for a nett 4.9% - and the SNP get the 6th seat (of 7) with 5.0% (8 constituency seats for a divisor of 9).
Using percentages means you don't have to invent numbers of votes for each party.
Unlike some of our regulars, I don't have an especially negative view of John Swinney - I think he's something of a relief after the personality cults of Salmond and Sturgeon, and whatever Humza was - but his electoral record is pretty gash. Is it really plausible that this guy, someone who has lost seats in every single one of the five (I believe) national elections over which he has presided as leader, could win the most spectacular victory in the history of the Scottish Parliament?
Let's hope he can pull it off, though. Either he really does have an amazing secret plan and we'll have a referendum, or the whole thing will be exposed as a breathtakingly cynical ploy. Both would be a reckoning, I think
Come on KEATON you know find well that if he pulls off an SNP majority it will be because Reform have split the Britnat vote, even more than previously, so the SNP can win nearly all the seats in the first past the post constituency part of the election. It's nothing to do with Swinney as the SNP are still in the 30%s in the polls.
Surely you don't believe in a secret plan. For nearly a decade people said that Sturgeon had a secret plan. Any secret plan she had did not involve independence. I note that you said on WGD how can any request for a sec 30 referendum succeed on a 30 odd percentage vote. The fact that polls are showing independence at 57% shows how so many independence supporters do not trust Swinney. Also to think any PM in Westminster will agree a referendum when polls are saying 57% yes and they will likely lose is delusional.
The answer since 2020 has always been a de facto referendum.
The thing I dislike about Swinney is his longstanding opposition to independence. Ask around in the party. His reputation as the most gradual of all the gradualists took him decades to earn.
Anas is a snake, as proved with his failed attempt on Starmer.
Offord is the worst of the worst. Peerage by money. Defected to the right wing nasties etc.
Cole-scuttle spends his way through elections better than all the others, and for a supposed Liberal, is decidedly nasty, including swearing in a committee.
Ross Greer? Nah!
SNP 1/2. If it fails, it fails. But it won't fail because of splitting the vote to parties that ride the coat tails and then forget their Indy pledges. That includes Alba, who targeted the SNP more than the other parties.
If there's a guarantee of all constituencies in a given region going to the SNP, I'd maybe consider another, but there's no guarantees, so SNP 1/2 for me.
Anon at 10.01am - I didn't know you can get non bio, oops did it again, non binary valentine cards. Is there a new section for weirdos in the valentine card displays called UNSURE WHAT YOU ARE. Sturgeon and Green bampots bumping in to each other trying to get the best non binary card.
The best laugh about this troll is that Valentine's Day was two weeks ago and it has taken him all this time to compose his pathetic one liner. AI will most definitely be a boon to someone like him. AI wins hands down against TI ( troll intelligence).
So a question in relation to Reform UK in Scotland for May's elections
Why is it that there is still no candidate list that has been announced from them for May's elections in Scotland ?
Not even sure where their 'leader' in Scotland , Malcolm Offord, is to to stand as a candidate.
So what's the big secret........or the problem ?
Is it to be a case of more defected Tory Councillors , now Reform UK Councillors in Scotland, to be their candidates in May, as then that will result in more by-elections in Councils.....like perhaps a certain Thomas Kerr.
I read in January that "Farage said about 100 Scottish candidates had undergone vetting and training in London".
("Training in London"....as in they will receive training on how to lie or how to verbally attack the person asking the question , if , that is , they do not know the answer or if they do not want to give an answer to the Q)
That sounds about right for Reform UK , but not so much for Scotland surely ?
However if it is true that they have these candidates already, then why not announce who they, the 100 'Scottish' candidates are , as time is running out....and not much time for the public to then scrutinise them as individuals..........or is that the idea ?
Mind you I suspect that some voters in Scotland who do intend to vote for Reform UK , will do this with no intention of ever bothering to try to scrutinise the respective candidates standing for Reform UK within their areas .
Honestly it is always the same people who try to spoil , as in make things worse, for all of us in Scotland with those whom they choose to vote for......time and time again.
Unless I’m reading the data tables incorrectly, the sample population is 468. That’s absolute garbage. A standard, full Scottish poll has a standard population sample of c. 1,000. A standard, UK, MRP poll has a population sample of c. 17,000. A Scottish MRP poll would require a pro rata sample population of c. 1,360. The Stonehaven exercise has a third of the requisite population sample for an MRP poll.
The sample size is only 468 which is just under the normal size of circa 1000 respondents, so a little health warning there.
Assuming 95% confidence that would suggest a tolerance of +/-4.5% around the estimate rather than the usual +/-3%.
On the other hand the data are not weighted by past voting history such as the (now relatively ancient) Scottish Independence and Brexit referendum results as well as prior elections (both Westminster and Holyrood) so there should be potentially less distortion caused by false recall.
I see the Bath Balloon has temporarily shifted away from his pin-ups in Reform and is now begging, cajoling and indeed even schooling Scottish Labour supporters in the best way, as he sees it, to vote tactically against the SNP in May.
Campbell would happily sell Scotland down the river, shut the Scottish Parliament, reverse devolution itself and revert us Scots back to the tender mercies of a unionist WM Parliament, just to try to destroy the SNP.
He is nothing more than a demented, obssessive, turncoated scumbag who should be completely disowned by the Yes Movement.
He is now, without any shadow of doubt, our enemy..
Wee Stewie is suffering from rejected lovers syndrome, Nicola Sturgeon spurned him so like IFS he's loaded with hatred for everybody that won't vote the way he tells them to
Compare the snp now and a few years ago when ALBA was going to sweep all aside. John Swinney has been the steady hand when needed most in my view. I actually heard a long life labour supporter talking about voting SNP due to Starmers mishandling but also to Swinney’s steadiness.
Anon at 9.01pm When did steadiness ever win a nation’s independence? Sure it can help win an election but is that all the SNP is now - just another party. Don’t call yourself an independence supporter when you are happy with “ steady “. Steady is keeping the status quo meaning “ they have a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
There’s only one winner at Gorton & Denton. All the other parties had a disastrous night. The Greens weighed in with a highly commendable, and surprising 41%. Reform UK trailed by 4,400 votes, but that’s their high water mark, because the Tories got only 2% of the vote. Starmer’s Labour got trounced. Reports that the Muslim community turned out strongly for the Green Party. Imagine that, the Muslim community refused to vote for a dyed in the wool, bunch of Zionist, cheerleading Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and a live streamed genocide. The Green Party put up a fantastic local candidate, Reform tried to ship in a truly odious carpetbagger from the SE of England. Farage (who hand picked the candidate) took the result with grace, and humility. Nah just kiddin’, he immediately pulled the race card and said he only lost due to “sectarian voting and cheating”.
I have to say heard a spokesperson for Reform. What an odious individual. How dare the Greens print election leaflets in other languages, possible election rigging (family voting), It sounds familiar. The Green candidate spoke very well - It is now taking voted from the left of English Labour. Roll on May.
IFSy has been painted into a corner. He’s raging at the apparent popularity of SNP and panicking that Indy might be in the offing. The last thing IFSy wants. Cue “anons” pile in. None of them are IFSy, honest.
Anon troll at 9.17 am seems to think his lies achieves what exactly. This troll posts relentlessly on SGP as an anon so you cannot see it is him all the time. You have to laugh at the brass neck of the troll complaining about people posting as an anon. I post as INDEPENDENCE FOR SCOTLAND the words the troll hates to use because he is a Britnat running scared of a de facto referendum.
Anyone reading my posts will see that I am happy for an SNP majority to happen just as I was in 2021. It will show for a second Holyrood election that Swinney following on from Sturgeon is a devolutionist. 5 years of a Holyrood Independence majority and Sturgeon, Swinney, Yousaf did nothing just as I said would happen. Yet people expect Swinney to suddenly do something now by being steady. I told people to wake up in 2020 and if they didn’t we would be where we are now. People happy with steadying the SNP ship, an embezzlement case, Murray Foote as SNP Chief Executive, a wipe out in 2024 of MPs, a massive gap between independence vote share/ SNP vote share and over 50,000 members lost. All this when Westminster is in total disarray with many opportunities for an independence vote.
The BBC is running strongly with allegations of “family voting” at the Gorton & Denton by-election. Family voting is an offence. The organisation alleging this does not appear to have reported the offence to the Police. They did however put up a lengthy, and detailed account on their website headed; Major concerns over Family Voting at Gorton and Denton poll, within minutes of the polls closing. The council, and other election observers reported no such activity. The organisation, Democracy Volunteers, is superficially plausible. Dig deeper, and all is not what it seems. Like Amnesty International, Democracy Volunteers are useful idiots (and that’s an extremely generous interpretation). The key is in selectivity, and context. The outrageously rigged President election last year in Romania goes without comment. Elections where the “wrong result” (from the perspective of the Anglo-American security state) occurs are subjected to obsessive nitpicking. Individuals employed by Democracy Volunteers have bios with strong links to the likes of Chatham House (the de facto annex to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and MI6).
At any polling station you have polling clerks and Presiding Officers who monitor what goes on and can take action. For example if someone needs assistance. I heard one of the individuals on BBC R4 complaining but at no time did he say the group he represents had complained. Question I would have were the so called observers their legally or working clandestine ?
Astounding result for the Greens. There do seem to be genuine concerns about the amount of “family voting” but the result was so huge I don’t think that made much difference. The Greens (and Reform I suppose) can now win in literally any seat. UK politics is about to see a seismic shift unless the traditional parties can capture the imagination. Both Tories and Labour have had a series of really bad leaders. John Swinney is almost as bland as Starmer.
Yet Swinney is forecast to possibly be on course to win an Indy majority on solely SNP votes. Can you explain? The by election was a fortunate collision of various factors. Labour unpopular. Starmer hugely unpopular. Large Muslim community angry at Starmer and Labour collusion in genocide. Popular photogenic enthusiastic hard working local councillor against Labour candidate who was seen as denying Burnham a chance to stand. Add in the protest element that always occurs in by elections. Hey presto. Good solid victory, unlikely to be replicated elsewhere in any big numbers. Labour have been presented with an opportunity. Starmer will go in May. Who they choose to replace him with will be crucial.
Greater Manchester Police have confirmed that they have received no complaints about voting irregularities. The organisation, Democracy Volunteers was quick to put up an inflammatory article on their website, but not so keen to actually make a report to the Police. The nexus at Democracy Volunteers appears to be the University of Exeter. Who knew the SIS were active in sleepy Devon? Then again, they’re rampant at the University of St Andrews, so quiet backwaters have their attraction. Alumni at the University of Exeter include a whole bunch of spooks, BBC “journalist” Frank Gardner to name but one. One to watch at Democracy Volunteers is Deputy Director, Max Wheeler. Wheeler appears to be in his early twenties, yet was a founder of the organisation. It’s not so much his CV that raises questions, as his total lack of one. Very spooky.
Swinney is a steady hand and supported the folk in Gaza while Starmer was advocating no food or water to them. Swinney will win while Starmer won't. Is it you ifs? I think you should own up.
The big problem with trying to predict the list is - analysing the 2011 actual list results - and working out divisors and nett percentages for each list seat actually won by the SNP.
ReplyDeleteWith for instance 8 seats won in a region, the divisor is 9. If the percentage list vote is 36%, the nett % is 4.0, but if the vote is 45% the nett % is 5.0.
In 2011 Central Scotland with 6 constituency seats, 3 list seats were won with divisors of 7, 8 and 9 - nett percentages 6.6%, 5.8% and 5.2%.
H&I with 6 constituency, 3 list seats divisors 7, 8 and 9 - 6.8%, 5.9% and 5.4%.
Mid Scot with 8 constituency, still got 1 list seat divisor 9 nett 5.0%.
NE Scotland with 10, yes, all 10 constituency seats still got 1 list seat with divisor 11 nett 4.8%.
@Yi2. It's not a percentage procedure anyway. There isn't a threshold you're trying to hit (as there is in STV), rather at every stage it's "simply" the party with the most votes / seats +1 who gets the next seat.
DeleteSo it's really as much about how the other parties are doing as just your own vote. Anyone without their first seat yet is at a huge arithmetic advantage. With Labour, Tories, Liberals, Greens and now Farage's boys in the mix, a lot of list seats will be won by parties with low divisors, many at just 1.
I reckon this election will be the toughest ever for the SNP to win any list seats at all. So much easy pickings in the constituencies and so much contention on the list.
Just to make it clear - this is not comparison or projection, it actually happened in 2011.
DeleteIt's the way I tell 'em! Specially at a sleepless 5 in the morning.
Fair points well made, but there are always twenty shillings to the pound.
Delete"With Labour, Tories, Liberals, Greens and now Farage's boys in the mix"
DeleteThere's still only 100% in, well, errr, 100%.
If the SNP got 45% on the list, then there's more parties now to share out that other 55%. If others (Your party, family, Alba, loonies) get 6% between them, and the others shared the remaining 49% equally to make the arithmetic easy, they'd all get 9.8% for the first seat, get one seat each on the list, but then their divisor would be 2 not 1, for a nett 4.9% - and the SNP get the 6th seat (of 7) with 5.0% (8 constituency seats for a divisor of 9).
Using percentages means you don't have to invent numbers of votes for each party.
Unlike some of our regulars, I don't have an especially negative view of John Swinney - I think he's something of a relief after the personality cults of Salmond and Sturgeon, and whatever Humza was - but his electoral record is pretty gash. Is it really plausible that this guy, someone who has lost seats in every single one of the five (I believe) national elections over which he has presided as leader, could win the most spectacular victory in the history of the Scottish Parliament?
ReplyDeleteLet's hope he can pull it off, though. Either he really does have an amazing secret plan and we'll have a referendum, or the whole thing will be exposed as a breathtakingly cynical ploy. Both would be a reckoning, I think
Personally I think it's pretty amazing what John Swinney has achieved - to his credit.
DeleteCome on KEATON you know find well that if he pulls off an SNP majority it will be because Reform have split the Britnat vote, even more than previously, so the SNP can win nearly all the seats in the first past the post constituency part of the election. It's nothing to do with Swinney as the SNP are still in the 30%s in the polls.
DeleteSurely you don't believe in a secret plan. For nearly a decade people said that Sturgeon had a secret plan. Any secret plan she had did not involve independence. I note that you said on WGD how can any request for a sec 30 referendum succeed on a 30 odd percentage vote. The fact that polls are showing independence at 57% shows how so many independence supporters do not trust Swinney. Also to think any PM in Westminster will agree a referendum when polls are saying 57% yes and they will likely lose is delusional.
The answer since 2020 has always been a de facto referendum.
kept the seat warm for alex last time
Deleteproved himself less useless than the total binfire humsa
played interference for "madame mcmao" and her crimes with his big black redactor pen
what a legacy - another wallace, another bruce
The thing I dislike about Swinney is his longstanding opposition to independence. Ask around in the party. His reputation as the most gradual of all the gradualists took him decades to earn.
DeleteAye he’s achieved the square root of sfa and he never will. Look at his past record of him being in power. Inspiring ae.
DeleteGiven the alternatives, Swinney isnae too bad.
DeleteAnas is a snake, as proved with his failed attempt on Starmer.
Offord is the worst of the worst. Peerage by money. Defected to the right wing nasties etc.
Cole-scuttle spends his way through elections better than all the others, and for a supposed Liberal, is decidedly nasty, including swearing in a committee.
Ross Greer? Nah!
SNP 1/2. If it fails, it fails. But it won't fail because of splitting the vote to parties that ride the coat tails and then forget their Indy pledges. That includes Alba, who targeted the SNP more than the other parties.
If there's a guarantee of all constituencies in a given region going to the SNP, I'd maybe consider another, but there's no guarantees, so SNP 1/2 for me.
57% for independence - good. We should be having a de facto referendum for independence.
ReplyDeleteSwinney will do nothing, whatever the election result, about independence - bad.
Will SNP numpty members finally wake up from their self inflicted delusion - ??
How high would the yes vote be if there actually was an independence campaign RIGHT NOW.
Aw what's up IFS did Nicola no send you a valentine card?
DeleteAnon at 10.01am - I didn't know you can get non bio, oops did it again, non binary valentine cards. Is there a new section for weirdos in the valentine card displays called UNSURE WHAT YOU ARE. Sturgeon and Green bampots bumping in to each other trying to get the best non binary card.
DeleteThe best laugh about this troll is that Valentine's Day was two weeks ago and it has taken him all this time to compose his pathetic one liner. AI will most definitely be a boon to someone like him. AI wins hands down against TI ( troll intelligence).
So a question in relation to Reform UK in Scotland for May's elections
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that there is still no candidate list that has been announced from them for May's elections in Scotland ?
Not even sure where their 'leader' in Scotland , Malcolm Offord, is to to stand as a candidate.
So what's the big secret........or the problem ?
Is it to be a case of more defected Tory Councillors , now Reform UK Councillors in Scotland, to be their candidates in May, as then that will result in more by-elections in Councils.....like perhaps a certain Thomas Kerr.
I read in January that "Farage said about 100 Scottish candidates had undergone vetting and training in London".
("Training in London"....as in they will receive training on how to lie or how to verbally attack the person asking the question , if , that is , they do not know the answer or if they do not want to give an answer to the Q)
That sounds about right for Reform UK , but not so much for Scotland surely ?
However if it is true that they have these candidates already, then why not announce who they, the 100 'Scottish' candidates are , as time is running out....and not much time for the public to then scrutinise them as individuals..........or is that the idea ?
Mind you I suspect that some voters in Scotland who do intend to vote for Reform UK , will do this with no intention of ever bothering to try to scrutinise the respective candidates standing for Reform UK within their areas .
Honestly it is always the same people who try to spoil , as in make things worse, for all of us in Scotland with those whom they choose to vote for......time and time again.
Unless I’m reading the data tables incorrectly, the sample population is 468.
ReplyDeleteThat’s absolute garbage. A standard, full Scottish poll has a standard population sample of c. 1,000.
A standard, UK, MRP poll has a population sample of c. 17,000. A Scottish MRP poll would require a pro rata sample population of c. 1,360. The Stonehaven exercise has a third of the requisite population sample for an MRP poll.
The sample size is only 468 which is just under the normal size of circa 1000 respondents, so a little health warning there.
ReplyDeleteAssuming 95% confidence that would suggest a tolerance of +/-4.5% around the estimate rather than the usual +/-3%.
On the other hand the data are not weighted by past voting history such as the (now relatively ancient) Scottish Independence and Brexit referendum results as well as prior elections (both Westminster and Holyrood) so there should be potentially less distortion caused by false recall.
I see the Bath Balloon has temporarily shifted away from his pin-ups in Reform and is now begging, cajoling and indeed even schooling Scottish Labour supporters in the best way, as he sees it, to vote tactically against the SNP in May.
ReplyDeleteCampbell would happily sell Scotland down the river, shut the Scottish Parliament, reverse devolution itself and revert us Scots back to the tender mercies of a unionist WM Parliament, just to try to destroy the SNP.
He is nothing more than a demented, obssessive, turncoated scumbag who should be completely disowned by the Yes Movement.
He is now, without any shadow of doubt, our enemy..
Wee Stewie is suffering from rejected lovers syndrome, Nicola Sturgeon spurned him so like IFS he's loaded with hatred for everybody that won't vote the way he tells them to
DeleteAnon at 9.58am is a lying pathetic troll. You won’t find any post from me telling anyone to vote Reform or any Britnat party.
DeleteCompare the snp now and a few years ago when ALBA was going to sweep all aside. John Swinney has been the steady hand when needed most in my view. I actually heard a long life labour supporter talking about voting SNP due to Starmers mishandling but also to Swinney’s steadiness.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 9.01pm When did steadiness ever win a nation’s independence? Sure it can help win an election but is that all the SNP is now - just another party. Don’t call yourself an independence supporter when you are happy with “ steady “. Steady is keeping the status quo meaning “ they have a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
DeleteYou're well rumbled IFS do us all a favour and do one
DeleteBreaking News -
ReplyDeleteLast week in Buffalo Trump's ICE thugs picked up a BLIND refugee, who walked with a walking stick.
Then, after realizing he couldn't be deported, they dumped him five miles from his home in the freezing, bitter cold.
The poor, innocent soul DIED trying to make his way back to his house.
Remember, Farage/Reform want to model their new UK ICE on the murderous American model.
Reform are, withoutdoubt, a Fascist Party.
There’s only one winner at Gorton & Denton. All the other parties had a disastrous night.
ReplyDeleteThe Greens weighed in with a highly commendable, and surprising 41%.
Reform UK trailed by 4,400 votes, but that’s their high water mark, because the Tories got only 2% of the vote.
Starmer’s Labour got trounced. Reports that the Muslim community turned out strongly for the Green Party. Imagine that, the Muslim community refused to vote for a dyed in the wool, bunch of Zionist, cheerleading Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and a live streamed genocide.
The Green Party put up a fantastic local candidate, Reform tried to ship in a truly odious carpetbagger from the SE of England.
Farage (who hand picked the candidate) took the result with grace, and humility. Nah just kiddin’, he immediately pulled the race card and said he only lost due to “sectarian voting and cheating”.
I have to say heard a spokesperson for Reform. What an odious individual. How dare the Greens print election leaflets in other languages, possible election rigging (family voting), It sounds familiar. The Green candidate spoke very well - It is now taking voted from the left of English Labour. Roll on May.
ReplyDeleteNo prizes for coming second.
ReplyDeleteReform were well and truly gubbed in that byelection and, like the playground brats they really are, stomped off and played the race card yet again.
Be very interesting to watch Reform's overall UK-wide polling numbers over the next few weeks, as they could well start to crumble.
And they have now lost any momentum they might have had, going into the Scottish election in May.
Good news all round.
IFSy has been painted into a corner. He’s raging at the apparent popularity of SNP and panicking that Indy might be in the offing. The last thing IFSy wants. Cue “anons” pile in. None of them are IFSy, honest.
ReplyDeleteAnon troll at 9.17 am seems to think his lies achieves what exactly. This troll posts relentlessly on SGP as an anon so you cannot see it is him all the time. You have to laugh at the brass neck of the troll complaining about people posting as an anon. I post as INDEPENDENCE FOR SCOTLAND the words the troll hates to use because he is a Britnat running scared of a de facto referendum.
DeleteAnyone reading my posts will see that I am happy for an SNP majority to happen just as I was in 2021. It will show for a second Holyrood election that Swinney following on from Sturgeon is a devolutionist. 5 years of a Holyrood Independence majority and Sturgeon, Swinney, Yousaf did nothing just as I said would happen. Yet people expect Swinney to suddenly do something now by being steady. I told people to wake up in 2020 and if they didn’t we would be where we are now. People happy with steadying the SNP ship, an embezzlement case, Murray Foote as SNP Chief Executive, a wipe out in 2024 of MPs, a massive gap between independence vote share/ SNP vote share and over 50,000 members lost. All this when Westminster is in total disarray with many opportunities for an independence vote.
The BBC is running strongly with allegations of “family voting” at the Gorton & Denton by-election. Family voting is an offence. The organisation alleging this does not appear to have reported the offence to the Police. They did however put up a lengthy, and detailed account on their website headed; Major concerns over Family Voting at Gorton and Denton poll, within minutes of the polls closing.
ReplyDeleteThe council, and other election observers reported no such activity.
The organisation, Democracy Volunteers, is superficially plausible. Dig deeper, and all is not what it seems. Like Amnesty International, Democracy Volunteers are useful idiots (and that’s an extremely generous interpretation). The key is in selectivity, and context. The outrageously rigged President election last year in Romania goes without comment. Elections where the “wrong result” (from the perspective of the Anglo-American security state) occurs are subjected to obsessive nitpicking. Individuals employed by Democracy Volunteers have bios with strong links to the likes of Chatham House (the de facto annex to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and MI6).
At any polling station you have polling clerks and Presiding Officers who monitor what goes on and can take action. For example if someone needs assistance. I heard one of the individuals on BBC R4 complaining but at no time did he say the group he represents had complained. Question I would have were the so called observers their legally or working clandestine ?
DeleteAstounding result for the Greens. There do seem to be genuine concerns about the amount of “family voting” but the result was so huge I don’t think that made much difference.
ReplyDeleteThe Greens (and Reform I suppose) can now win in literally any seat. UK politics is about to see a seismic shift unless the traditional parties can capture the imagination. Both Tories and Labour have had a series of really bad leaders. John Swinney is almost as bland as Starmer.
Yet Swinney is forecast to possibly be on course to win an Indy majority on solely SNP votes. Can you explain? The by election was a fortunate collision of various factors. Labour unpopular. Starmer hugely unpopular. Large Muslim community angry at Starmer and Labour collusion in genocide. Popular photogenic enthusiastic hard working local councillor against Labour candidate who was seen as denying Burnham a chance to stand. Add in the protest element that always occurs in by elections. Hey presto. Good solid victory, unlikely to be replicated elsewhere in any big numbers. Labour have been presented with an opportunity. Starmer will go in May. Who they choose to replace him with will be crucial.
DeleteGreater Manchester Police have confirmed that they have received no complaints about voting irregularities.
DeleteThe organisation, Democracy Volunteers was quick to put up an inflammatory article on their website, but not so keen to actually make a report to the Police.
The nexus at Democracy Volunteers appears to be the University of Exeter. Who knew the SIS were active in sleepy Devon? Then again, they’re rampant at the University of St Andrews, so quiet backwaters have their attraction. Alumni at the University of Exeter include a whole bunch of spooks, BBC “journalist” Frank Gardner to name but one.
One to watch at Democracy Volunteers is Deputy Director, Max Wheeler. Wheeler appears to be in his early twenties, yet was a founder of the organisation. It’s not so much his CV that raises questions, as his total lack of one. Very spooky.
Swinney is a steady hand and supported the folk in Gaza while Starmer was advocating no food or water to them. Swinney will win while Starmer won't. Is it you ifs? I think you should own up.
DeleteGreat to see that the white supremacist/ fascist/racist money men funding the Reform dross had their arses well and truly booted last night.
ReplyDeleteBannon & Co will be beelin' today.
Maybe, just maybe, English voters are beginning to turn away in disgust from the Farage dungheap.
Maybe, just maybe, the Racist Rump down there are getting put back in their stinking wee box.