Joyce McMillan's article calls for the SNP to become a unionist-for-now party and to betray its promise to give the Scottish people a choice on their own future in the event of Brexit. We should have no truck with any of that.

I know I'm not the only person who was disappointed and deeply concerned to see the Glasgow SNP councillor Mhairi Hunter, and one or two others close to the party leadership, give the seal of approval to an absolutely extraordinary article by Joyce McMillan that amounts to a counsel of despair for the independence movement, and a call for an indefinite delay for any meaningful push towards independence.  The main points of the article were as follows -

* Nicola Sturgeon should not even request a Section 30 order (because the request would be rejected) and SNP supporters shouldn't be pushing her to do it.  This point is implied by the article rather than explicitly stated, but I defy anyone to dispute that the implication is readily apparent.  It effectively paints as a form of extremism any suggestion that Ms Sturgeon should do what she's already done once in 2017, and what we've been strongly led to believe she's about to do again.  It would also mean that it's somehow outrageously militant to merely ask that the SNP stick to their own manifesto commitment - and remember that the manifesto arguably went further than simply pledging a Section 30 request.  It certainly didn't acknowledge any Westminster veto on the holding of an independence referendum in the event of Brexit.

* The example of Catalonia demonstrates that the holding of a referendum without the agreement of Westminster would set the cause of independence back 10 years.  This is a really appalling piece of victim-blaming on McMillan's part.  The Spanish authorities trampled all over the Catalan people's democratic rights, meted out arbitrary violence against citizens casting a peaceful vote, and took political prisoners.  But apparently this is all the Catalans' fault for failing to meekly take "no" for an answer.  In actual fact, hardly anyone is seriously talking about following Catalonia's example by holding an illegal referendum - what is being suggested is instead that the current powers of the Scottish Parliament should be tested by passing a Referendum Bill and then seeing if the Supreme Court upholds it.  If they don't, no harm done, and alternative methods for seeking an independence mandate would then have to be considered.  But if they do, the referendum would become the law of the land, so what exactly would be the problem?  Why are some senior SNP people in such a hurry to brand something as "illegal" when a) we don't know whether it is yet, and b) there'd definitely be no illegality in simply putting the matter to the test?

In any case, the United Kingdom is not Spain.  Disappointingly, it probably is the case that there's a natural majority within the UK population for denying Scotland's right to democratic self-determination for the time being, but what there most certainly isn't a majority for is the deploying of Spanish-style tactics in pursuit of that policy.  There would be an outcry if any such thing happened.  The UK government are in practice much more restricted in their options than the Spanish government were, and they know that full well.

Not that any of this has got anything to do with politely requesting a Section 30 order, an act that would be fully in line with the UK's constitutional arrangements, but which for some bizarre reason McMillan also regards as unconscionable.

* There can be no move towards independence until "consensus" and "harmony" are achieved, and this may well take 20 years, as was the case with devolution.  Blimey.  Where do you start?  First of all, it implies that the UK government were entirely right to ignore the narrow 52-48 vote in favour of devolution in 1979 (an outrage that McMillan herself has spoken out against plenty enough times).  It drives a coach and horses through the SNP's long-standing position on a referendum, which has always been that a simple majority of 50% + 1 is sufficient.  In the 2014 referendum, the SNP were certainly seeking consensus between Yes and No voters, but the form of that proposed consensus in the event of a narrow Yes vote would have been a compromise involving a "soft" form of independence - ie. a currency union, a monarchical union, a social union and so on.  (Much of that remains on the table - the only exception is the currency union, and the blame for the failure of that idea can be placed squarely at the London Treasury's door.)  Now it seems that the only appropriate form of "consensus" if there's a narrow majority for independence is no independence at all.  A suitably Orwellian proposition.

Isn't it also a bit odd that someone who cautions against hasty action that could put the cause of independence back 10 years would then advocate doing nothing for 20 years anyway?  I mean, doesn't the latter put the cause back by 20 years rather than 10?  What am I missing here?

And last but not least, putting a referendum on the backburner for 20 years until this utopian state of "harmony" is achieved would also mean that the SNP's current stated position, and the position stated in their manifesto, ie. that the Scottish people should have the right to another say on their own constitutional future in the event of Brexit, is a sham.  The idea that anyone would have taken that promise to mean "but only once you've had a chance to mull it over for a couple of decades" is risible.

McMillan's stance is not technically anti-independence, but it can be summed up as "unionism for the foreseeable future, and then we'll see".  It reminds me very much of the original constitutional policy of the current governing party of Quebec (the Coalition Avenir Québec) which was a ten-year moratorium on any talk of an independence referendum.  That then gradually mutated into "we will never hold a referendum, but we might seek more powers for Quebec within the Canadian federation".  Why any elected SNP representative would be flirting with this stuff is beyond me.  I would suggest our response to this disturbing development should be the opposite of what McMillan wants - we should redouble our urgent calls for Nicola Sturgeon, in the first instance, to renew her request for a Section 30 order within the next few weeks.  That, frankly, is a position of moderation not extremism, and we should have no patience for any attempts to gaslight us into believing the contrary.

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No, Lady Hermon's support does not give the government a DUP-proof majority

There's a rather odd little article on the New Statesman website by Patrick Maguire, claiming that Lady Hermon's announcement that she will never back any motion of no confidence means that Labour will have to find a vote on the Tory side if they are ever to have any chance of bringing down the government, even if the DUP change sides.  (The implication being they've got very little chance.)  But in fact there's nothing remotely new about what Lady Hermon said, and as things stand it makes no difference to the parliamentary arithmetic anyway.  As expected she voted against the no confidence motion last night, but the government still won by fewer than 20 votes - meaning that if the DUP had backed the motion, the government would have lost.  No need for any Tory defections at all - the DUP could have swung the balance on their own.

That said, it was initially rather alarming to realise that the margin of defeat for the government in those circumstances would have been just one vote.  On the face of it, that raises the possibility that the DUP might eventually decide to bring about a general election, but fail to do so.  Remember that on a tied vote, the Speaker is supposed to exercise his casting vote in line with the status quo, which in the case of a no confidence motion means voting to save the government.  So the arithmetic with the DUP opposing the government looks very close to being a coin toss.

Thankfully, it turns out that three ex-Labour MPs who now sit as independents abstained last night - Fiona Onasanya, the odious John Woodcock, and Ivan Lewis.  Mr Woodcock is clearly a lost cause, and I don't know what the situation with Mr Lewis is, but I would guess Ms Onasanya probably just couldn't be bothered to turn up, because she's no longer subject to Labour discipline and she knew the motion was going to fail anyway.  So it's likely that the combined opposition forces can count on an extra vote or two in any truly competitive no confidence vote, which should ensure that only the DUP are required - assuming, that is, Ms Onasanya remains out of jail.  She obviously wouldn't be able to vote from prison, and if any jail sentence is of a duration of one year or longer, she would automatically forfeit her seat in the Commons, triggering a by-election in a marginal constituency that the Tories could conceivably win (if the current opinion polls are to be believed).  In that scenario, the parliamentary arithmetic would become that bit more daunting.  But it hasn't happened yet, and it may not happen at all.

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There was an even more peculiar article on the Corbynite alternative media website Evolve Politics last night, with a ludicrous headline claiming that the SNP were plotting with the Lib Dems to prop up the Tories in future no confidence votes.  The mind boggles as to how clueless any reporter would have to be about the realities of Scottish politics to give even the remotest credence to that story.  Sure enough, Kirsty Blackman immediately informed them in no uncertain terms on Twitter that they were wrong.  They hilariously reacted as if they had just succeeded in extracting some sort of 'concession' from her under pressure, but of course she was merely stating the blindingly obvious.  The SNP are in fact considerably more determined and more united in their attempts to bring down the government than the Labour party are, as evidenced by their tabling of a no confidence motion in December when Labour were holding back.

And if you think about it, the SNP's stance effectively kills the story as far as the Lib Dems are concerned as well.  Although it's not hard to see why the Lib Dems might want to threaten to abstain on a no confidence vote in an attempt to pressure Labour into backing a second referendum, there's no way they'd be able to see that threat through unless they had the safety-blanket of another party doing the same thing.  Single-handedly propping the Tories up at this stage would be electoral suicide for Cable's mob.

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Last night increased the chances of a People's Vote - but it probably increased the chances of No Deal even more

"If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?"

I'm sure Donald Tusk is a very nice man and kind to animals, but the now-notorious tweet above just looks idiotic to me - unless of course he actually wants a no deal Brexit for some reason, and is trying out a touch of reverse psychology.  All he's succeeded in doing is vastly increasing the paranoia among Brexit supporters about a dastardly Brussels plot to overturn the 2016 referendum, which will pile the pressure on Tory MPs to take a hard line over the coming weeks, and to ensure that Britain leaves the EU on 29th March at all costs, etc, etc.

I've found over recent weeks that when I'm trying to work out what will happen next with Brexit, a useful starting point is to look at whatever Mike "impartial Lib Dem election expert" Smithson is predicting, because it can usually be pretty safely ruled out as a possibility.  Before Christmas, he famously gave us the all-time classic of: "The DUP will vote for Theresa May's deal because they're scared of a united Ireland.  Don't worry, I've thought about this for three seconds so you don't have to."  Undeterred by being proved catastrophically wrong on that one (who would ever have guessed?) he's now claiming that Theresa May is about to back a People's Vote, and will use the drive for cross-party consensus as her excuse for the U-turn.  For good measure, he adds that this means the ERG's strategy was "not very smart" - which presumably implies that a better "strategy" for them would have been the same highly sophisticated one he expected from the DUP if they wanted to avoid a united Ireland, ie. to pack up, go home, and stop making such a damn fuss.

Hmmm.  I suspect the ERG will want to wait to see if Smithson's prediction is actually correct before giving up on life completely.  The reality is that last night's vote did increase the chances of a People's Vote, but it also increased the chances of no deal.  This is a high stakes game, and anyone who claims to know for sure which side is going to win it is deluding themselves.  One thing I am confident about, though, is that if a People's Vote does happen, Theresa May will not be responsible for helping to bring it about (or not intentionally, anyway).  OK, we know she lies every day of her life, so her repeated insistence that she won't back a referendum can't be taken at face value.  But we can rely on what we've learned about how she will measure success or failure in her tenure as Prime Minister.  She wants her place in history to be the delivery of an orderly Brexit, and if that really isn't possible she would settle for just delivering Brexit.  A People's Vote would put Brexit at severe risk, so if forced to choose between a referendum and pretty much any alternative, she would always choose the alternative.

If you're trying to work out what the "May lie" was last night, I think the most promising candidate was her assurance that she is not trying to run down the clock.  I would not be at all surprised if running down the clock is the exact purpose of the forthcoming cross-party talks.  It's very hard to believe that she has any intention of reaching an understanding with Labour - yes, there might be a natural parliamentary majority for a much softer Brexit, but if she went down that road she would leave the most hard-line Brexiteers feeling they have nothing left to lose by breaking away from the Conservative party, which in turn could bring down the government.  I suspect she'll be happy enough to look like she's doing something urgently, but to no great effect - with the intended outcome being a miracle last-minute parliamentary approval for something approximating to the current deal, or a "nothing to do with me guv" no deal by default.

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No, Mr Kellner, support for staying in the EU has not "rocketed"

Just a quick one, because I see Peter Kellner has gone into full-blown propaganda mode on behalf of the "People's Vote" campaign, and is using his status as a prominent former pollster to attempt to convince people that the "polls are clear" and that support for staying in the EU has "rocketed".  His evidence?  A new YouGov poll showing that people prefer staying in the EU to leaving on the basis of Theresa May's deal by a margin of 59-41, which he contrasts with polls earlier this year showing Remain ahead by around four to six percentage points.  But he knows perfectly well, indeed he knows better than anyone, that the comparison he's making is not remotely meaningful or like-for-like.  The poll he's referring to also asked the standard question that YouGov have been asking since the EU referendum, about whether the UK was right or wrong to leave the EU.  The results on that question were much more familiar -

Right to leave: 41%
Wrong to leave: 47%

YouGov haven't provided figures with Don't Knows excluded, but it must be either a 53-47 or a 54-46 split, depending on how the rounding worked out.  On the high side for Remain, yes, but hardly evidence of "rocketing".

So why were the results so different on the new question giving people a straight choice between Remain and May's deal?  It's probably partly a "question ladder" effect.  Before being asked that question, respondents were first asked whether they support or oppose the draft Brexit deal, and by a margin of almost 2-1 they said they were opposed.  It would have been difficult for some people who are essentially Leave supporters to say they think the deal is awful one minute, and then say they would vote in favour of it the next minute.  After all, several prominent Brexiteers have said that they would prefer to remain in the EU to leaving on the basis of the deal.  But if it ever actually got to the point where there was a straight choice in a referendum between Remain and May's deal, it's safe to assume that almost all Brexiteers would get behind the deal (however grudgingly) and those numbers would in all likelihood start to look very different.

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Do the Tory Brexiteers care more about Brexit than they do about their own careers?

Reading the front page story in the Sunday Times today, I could for the first time just about start to see a semi-plausible scenario under which a "People's Vote" could take place on Theresa May's watch, leading potentially to the cancellation of Brexit.  If the government's own proposal for a referendum was for a straight choice between May's deal and No Deal, it could be argued that this is not a betrayal of any red line because either outcome would result in Britain leaving the EU.  And then when parliament amends the proposal against the government's wishes to add a Remain option to the ballot paper, May could just shrug her shoulders and say "nothing to do with me, guv".  That wouldn't wash with the ERG - they'd probably end up regarding May as a Ramsay MacDonald-type "traitor".  But we know from past experience that May doesn't fret that much if people can see straight through her, just so long as her excuse sounds defensible in her own head.

The odds are still against it, of course.  It's probably significant that the plan is reported to have the endorsement of "Theresa May's team" rather than May herself, and we know there are also strong forces in the Cabinet tugging her in completely the opposite direction, and towards an acceptance of No Deal.  Even if the plan was to be put into operation, there must at least be a question mark over whether the addition of a Remain option would command a majority in the Commons.  The assumption so far has been that the parliamentary arithmetic on a People's Vote would be very tight, and logically exactly the same ought to apply to any Remain amendment (although perhaps the government conceding the principle of a referendum would embolden more Tory Remainers to rebel).  And having repeatedly promised that Brexit will happen bang on schedule on 29th March, it would be hard for May to call a referendum on her deal knowing that a referendum campaign would eat up much of the remaining three months, and that she'd inevitably have to request an extension of Article 50 simply to have enough time to actually implement the deal if the public gave her the go-ahead.  But perhaps she could put on an indignant voice and blame a short delay on "saboteurs", or whatever.

Then there's the problem that the leaking of a plan like this can in itself make the whole thing less likely to happen.  Brexiteers now know where the danger lies, and May could find herself under intense pressure to explicitly rule out any Deal v No Deal referendum over the coming days.  If it ever looks like something might come of it, though, I do wonder if the hard-core Brexiteers could look towards the nuclear option of approaching Labour and indicating they might vote against the government on a motion of no confidence, or at least abstain.

A lot of people have asked why there would be any problem getting a no confidence motion passed, given that the number of Tory rebels required would be quite small.  The answer is simple - in most parliamentary votes, Tory MPs have the option of voting against the government without facing any terrible consequences, but confidence votes are completely different.  Even a non-authorised abstention on a confidence vote would lead to an automatic withdrawal of the whip, which in turn makes it impossible to stand as a Tory candidate at the next election.  So unless you're someone like Douglas Carswell, with enough of a personal vote that you could hold your seat regardless of party label, you'd be looking at career death.  That was why the Maastricht rebels in the 1990s all instantly fell into line as soon as the government tied the issue to a vote of confidence.  They of course justified it to themselves as a principled decision - Bill Cash said he was damned if he would hand the Maastricht ratification process over to a Labour government who would sign Britain up to a "federal superstate".  And there was a small grain of truth in that  - polling in 1993/4 left little room for doubt that Labour would win a snap election.

No such excuse is available this time, because it's anyone's guess who would come out on top in an election held over the next few weeks.  And in any case, is it just possible that the prospect of Brexit being cancelled is such a big deal for some MPs that they might, just this once, be prepared to put their careers second, and their principles first?

It might not seem immediately obvious what they would have to gain by triggering an election, given that there is so little to choose between May and Corbyn on Brexit.  But in fact there could be a few things -

* With parliament dissolved for several weeks, any attempt to legislate for a referendum could be severely interrupted, with the clock still ticking down towards the 29th March deadline.

* May and the rest of the Tory leadership would be forced to write a manifesto that appeals to the Leave vote that the party is now so heavily reliant on in elections.  They might find themselves making cast-iron promises that Brexit will definitely happen, and that it will happen on time, and that the backstop won't be permanent, etc, etc.  OK, they wouldn't be the first politicians to betray a promise within days or weeks of winning an election, but it's never a comfortable thing to do.

* Any substantial seat gains for the Tories would probably lead to an increase in the number of Leave-supporting MPs in the Commons (although they'd still be in the minority).

* There would be scope for a tactical voting drive, with websites directing Brexiteers towards the candidate in their constituency that is most likely to vote for a 'real' Brexit.  In some cases that will be a Tory, in a very few seats it might be a sitting Labour MP like Kate Hoey, and in others it could be a UKIP or Faragist candidate.  Usually that sort of targeting has only a very marginal effect, but given the passions that Brexit is arousing, it might just be different this time.

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We're about to see the difference between a real political party (the DUP) and a branch office (the Scottish Tories)

So there's a deal in principle between the UK government and the EU, but whether it will ever get through the various stages of ratification remains to be seen.  It seems likely that the text must incorporate another convoluted fudge on the Irish backstop, with Northern Ireland being treated differently from the rest of the UK in a way that drives a coach and horses through Theresa May's supposed red line, but with some sort of political commitment that the backstop can never come into play and therefore doesn't matter.  I suspect that won't be good enough for the DUP, and that in turn will put the Scottish Tories in a very awkward place.

After last year's general election, one of the political correspondents on TV (I think it may have been Faisal Islam, but correct me if I'm wrong) notoriously claimed that the Scottish Tories were now "technically the fourth largest party in the Commons".  That was nonsensical on all sorts of levels - even if you could somehow justify regarding branch offices as separate parties, Welsh Labour would still comfortably outnumber the Scottish Tories.  But to be charitable, maybe he misspoke and intended to say "effectively" rather than "technically"- ie. he believed that Ruth Davidson combined a certainty of purpose with a hold over her Westminster group, and that they would therefore act in practice like a distinct party.  If so, we're now about to be treated to yet another demonstration that he couldn't have been more wrong.  Mundell and Davidson will swiftly backtrack on their supposed threats to resign on the basis that a worthless political assurance can be treated as gospel, whereas Arlene Foster will see the situation as it actually is and will stand her ground.  And that's the difference between being a real party leader and a puppet.

A couple of other points.  We're now closer than ever before to the clarity on Brexit that Nicola Sturgeon was looking for before making an announcement on a second independence referendum.  It won't be clarity on the long-term shape of a post-Brexit economic relationship, but it could be clarity on where the UK will find itself on 30th March next year, which I presume is all she can realistically hope for.  Could we be just weeks away from the First Minister pressing for a Section 30 order once again?

And secondly, what happens if the DUP pull the plug and there's a snap general election?  Can the Scottish Tories fit both "No2Indyref2" and "No2EURef2" on their campaigns posters in the north-east?  If not, which message do they prioritise?  Decisions, decisions...

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Is Sarah Smith auditioning (again) to become Scottish Tory press officer?

As you probably know by now, the Scottish Parliament voted at 5pm today to deny legislative consent for Westminster's EU Withdrawal Bill, and did so by a thumping 93 to 30 margin.  It would be an unprecedented breach of the Sewel Convention for the UK government to proceed without consent, but that is apparently what they are minded to do.  So we're now into uncharted waters twice over - not only are we heading towards the first clear breach of the Sewel Convention, but we're also awaiting a date in the Supreme Court as the UK government makes its first ever attempt to have legislation of the elected Scottish Parliament struck down by judges.

It's probably fair to say that you wouldn't quite have a full appreciation of the significance of these events if you've been relying on the "analysis" of the BBC's Scotland Editor Sarah Smith, which has been embedded into the main online BBC article on the subject.  According to her, this won't actually be the first overruling of the Scottish Parliament by Westminster - it supposedly happened last year when Theresa May said no to an independence referendum, and nobody cared then, and nobody will care now.

Just a few snags with that -

1) It's a fictionalised version of what happened last year.  Nobody has a clue whether Theresa May would have got away with saying "no" to an independence referendum, because she didn't say "no" to a request that was actually pressed.  She was given respite by Nicola Sturgeon's voluntary decision to put the request on hold for a year or so.  The day of reckoning is yet to come, but perhaps isn't too far off.

2) It's an utterly bogus and irrelevant comparison anyway.  It is not within the devolved competence of Holyrood to require Westminster to pass a Section 30 order, so the "now is not the time" schtick (as outrageous and undemocratic as it was) did not represent a breach of the Sewel Convention or of the devolution settlement.  The current plans to transfer powers from Edinburgh back to London without consent most certainly do.

3) How dare a BBC editor tell her viewers what they care about and what they don't care about?  That's pure propaganda, and is exactly the sort of thing a Tory spin doctor would say - "the people of Scotland don't care about this, they want Nicola Sturgeon to get on with the day job, etc, etc".  By contrast, and not unreasonably, the SNP line is that of course the people of Scotland care about protecting the devolution settlement they voted for so emphatically in the referendum of 1997.  What business is it of a BBC editor to adjudicate for herself, on the basis of no supporting evidence that I'm aware of, that the Tory spin is factual and the SNP perspective is not?  (Especially given that any alleged public apathy has been cultivated by the BBC burying its own coverage of the power-grab wherever humanly possible.)

It's particularly ironic to recall that Sarah Smith is the daughter of the late John Smith - the man who popularised the view that devolution is the "settled will" of the Scottish people.  I wonder what he would have made of his daughter's notion that people don't actually care about their own settled will.

Does the Sunday Herald really think the SNP should campaign to let another country decide our constitutional future again?

Naming no names, but it's been bitterly disappointing to see a small number of people on the pro-indy side making negative comments about yesterday's historic march.  Here's what I don't understand: I can see the logic (albeit I don't necessarily agree with it) of avoiding marches during election campaign periods when there's canvassing work to be done.  I can see the logic (albeit I don't necessarily agree with it) of saying there were dangers attached to the protest outside the BBC just before the 2014 referendum.  But what exactly was the problem with yesterday?  There is no election on the immediate horizon, and the march was simply making the positive case for independence.  It created visibility, excitement (lots of passers-by stopped to take photos) and a sense of momentum.  I can't see any downside, unless you're seriously worrying about the annoyance factor of a few minutes of traffic delays on a Saturday afternoon, which is getting into the realms of the ridiculous in a country that is well-used to coping with the minor disruption caused by Orange walks.

I'd have to conclude that the negativity in some quarters boils down to a cringe factor - a feeling that the pro-independence movement, uniquely among the political movements of the world, can only succeed by apologising for its existence and getting back into its box in case anyone finds the sight of it too irritating.  Good luck in trying to win people over to a massive constitutional change in that manner.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Herald seems to think the only significance of the march is that a couple of dozen Union Jack-waving counter-protestors turned up to shout at the tens of thousands of pro-indy marchers.  You'd be tempted to conclude that anyone could sabotage a march or rally of absolutely any size by just rounding up a handful of mates - although in practice I doubt if you'd get the same publicity for your stunt if the march or rally was about any other subject.  This appears to be an indy-specific phenomenon.

Despite being a pro-independence paper, the Sunday Herald are also now taking an official editorial position that Nicola Sturgeon should change policy and campaign for a second UK-wide referendum on EU membership.  As Dr Philippa Whitford pointed out, it would be a bit odd for the SNP to do that unless there was the slightest prospect of Labour and the Liberal Democrats agreeing to a referendum in which a 'double mandate' is required - meaning departure from the EU couldn't happen unless Scotland itself voted Leave.  Without that safeguard (and it's clearly a non-starter as far as the unionist parties are concerned), the SNP would be backing a referendum that would deny this country its right to self-determination, and thus breach the party's raison d'etre.  It's completely unthinkable.  And in any case, even with the SNP's support, a second EU vote still wouldn't happen anyway because of the realities of parliamentary arithmetic at Westminster.  The SNP would effectively be sending a message to the public that "we don't really need an independence referendum, because there's another way of staying in the EU", when we all know perfectly well that isn't true, and that an independence referendum is the only available way to preserve EU membership (or indeed even single market membership).  Why on earth would we try to sabotage our own lifeboat?

I would also note that it's rather disingenuous for the Sunday Herald editorial to claim that they're not asking Ms Sturgeon to make a choice between a second indyref and a second EU referendum, given that the thrust of Paul Hutcheon's front page piece is that the latter has to be "prioritised" over the former.  This, let's face it, is a newspaper that now seems to want the push for independence to be put firmly on the backburner to make way for an utterly doomed UK-wide campaign to cancel Brexit.  I hope (and this time am reasonably confident) that the SNP leadership will give short shrift to that idea.

How a vote to stay in the customs union could trigger another snap general election

As I've noted a number of times before, Stephen Bush of the New Statesman has an uncanny habit of making political predictions that either prove correct, or that prove a hell of a lot closer to being correct than the conventional wisdom of the moment.  For example, although he wrongly predicted a Conservative majority at last year's general election, he nevertheless stuck his neck out and said that the Corbyn surge being picked up by the polls was real, at a time when most commentators were absolutely convinced it wasn't.

That said, I'm extremely unsure about the logic that has led him to conclude today that Theresa May can't use the threat of Corbyn as Prime Minister to bring Tory rebels into line, and that she will therefore probably be forced into making a U-turn on remaining in the EU customs union.  Basically Bush makes the point that under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, the Prime Minister can't designate a vote on the customs union as a vote of confidence in the government.  So Remainer rebels would know that even if that vote was lost, and even if Theresa May felt compelled to resign as a result, the most likely outcome would be a Tory Brexiteer such as Michael Gove becoming PM, rather than Jeremy Corbyn.  And then the new Brexiteer PM would have his hands tied by the pro-customs union arithmetic in the Commons anyway.

I think what this ignores is that staying in the customs union would cross enough of a red line for anti-European Tory MPs that they might actually prefer taking their chances with a snap general election, in the hope of getting a rebel-proof Tory majority that could overturn what had been decided.  So if Gove or Boris Johnson stood in a leadership contest, they could find themselves under tremendous pressure to indicate that they will call an election in short order.  And as we learned last year, if a Tory PM asks parliament to approve an early general election, the Labour opposition does not say no.  What that means in the first instance is that pro-European Tories will know that rebelling on the customs union might lead to a general election that would carry not one but two possible risks - a) that Corbyn might win, or b) that the parliamentary arithmetic might become much more favourable for a Hard Brexit than is currently the case.

A right of reply to Pete Wishart: why "losing is not an option" is an immature belief that would lead to the quiet death of the independence cause

As you may have seen doing the rounds on Twitter, the letters page of this month's iScot magazine contains a contribution from Pete Wishart MP, billed as a "right of reply response to James Kelly's article Why the SNP must use its mandate to call an Indyref".  I have to say I'm rather bemused by it, because with one possible minor exception it doesn't actually engage with the points I made in the article at all.  Quite the contrary, in fact - it implies that I said things I didn't say, or that I said the opposite of, which suggests to me that if Pete is replying to anyone, it's to an imaginary person who is not me.   My article was in itself a reply to Pete's 'Braveheart' piece in The National, and to a large extent all that Pete's "reply" does is reiterate the points he already made in his original article about why the SNP's hard-won mandate for a second independence referendum should be allowed to expire (albeit he fleshes some of them out a bit).  Well, this is my own right of reply to his "reply", and I'm actually going to try to take things forward by tackling some of his arguments and claims directly.

First things first: Pete says that the only thing that dictates his attitude to the timing of an independence referendum is winning it.  He obviously thinks that point is a no-brainer, but is it?  Isn't there also the small matter of honour in politics, and carrying through a solemn commitment made to people who voted for you in good faith?  We must never forget that before the June 2017 general election, the Scottish Parliament voted to hold an independence referendum in this current Holyrood term, meaning before May 2021.  People were then urged to vote SNP on the basis that if the party won a majority of Scottish seats at Westminster, that would constitute a "triple lock" mandate for the referendum.  A comfortable majority of seats was duly secured.  If Pete thinks that no SNP supporters took the 'triple lock' commitment seriously or cared about it, I would suggest he urgently catches up with the writings of Thomas Widmann, a pro-indy blogger with Danish citizenship, who listened to the SNP leadership's promise about an independence referendum before Brexit, and made hugely important personal decisions about whether to remain in Scotland on that specific basis.  He now doesn't know what to do, because it's so difficult to read whether that promise is actually going to be honoured, at least in part (ie. we already know the originally planned timing is likely to slip at least a bit).

Pete writes at length about the canvass results the SNP received in his own constituency.  It's a statement of the obvious that the Tories were gaining traction with their ultra-simplistic 'No to Indyref2' message among people who didn't want Indyref2, but Pete also claims that he never met a single person who was refusing to vote SNP because the party wasn't being strong enough in its support for a new referendum.  I'd suggest we'd all be well advised to take the implication of that claim with a heavy dose of salt, because there is ample polling evidence that large numbers of SNP voters from 2015 abstained in 2017 rather than switching to another party.  By far the most plausible explanation for that phenomenon is the failure of the SNP leadership to find a suitably inspiring pitch on independence.  But even if we accept Pete's contention that pro-referendum voters were broadly happy with what the SNP were saying during the election, isn't it rather problematical (or fatal) for Pete's argument that what the SNP were saying during the election is the opposite of what Pete is saying now?  There was no talk during the campaign of "we want a mandate from you, but we probably won't use it unless everything seems perfect".  The call was for a mandate which was actually going to be used.  It's a bit meaningless to pray in aid your belief that pro-referendum folk were satisfied with what you were offering at the election if you're also arguing that what you offered should not be delivered now that the votes are safely in the bag.

It seems to me there is a very obvious subtext in Pete's letter that the holding of an independence referendum should be subordinate to considerations of what is going to win or lose the SNP votes and seats in a Westminster election.  That sort of thinking really ought to be alien to a party that is serious about achieving independence, but it actually doesn't even make sense on its own terms, because in all probability a pre-2021 referendum would precede the next Westminster election, and indeed every other election apart from by-elections.  Yes, a snap general election is still possible, but the strengthening of Theresa May's personal position means it's considerably less likely than it was.

To turn now to the central thrust of Pete's letter, he repeatedly uses language like "Losing again is simply unthinkable" and "losing again should simply not be an option".  That's an argument that has great emotional resonance for some people, who think back to how they felt on September 19th, 2014, and want to avoid feeling that way ever again.  It's also, I'm afraid, an extremely immature argument, because the nature of holding any democratic vote at any time is that defeat is always an option.  Absolutely always.  I can give you chapter and verse on referendums from around the world in which one side or the other has lost a commanding lead in the blink of an eye.  It is simply a statement of fact that if we hold a referendum, we might win it and we might lose it.  But here's the the thing - if we want independence, we can only get it by holding a referendum, which means we have to risk losing again sooner or later.  Pete is arguing that we must wait until we have "optimum conditions" that will "ensure" and "guarantee" victory, but those conditions will simply never exist in the real world.  His prospectus is a recipe for what you might call the 'heat death' of the independence cause - the SNP would continue nominally arguing for independence into infinity, but the rallying cry would be the hollow shell of "let's keep preparing for those optimum conditions!", which will always be supposedly around the corner, but will never actually arrive.

In my article that Pete is nominally "replying" to, I turned his call for "pragmatism" on its head by pointing out that pragmatism actually demands that we hold a referendum when we can, and not when we can't.  In other words, even if his "optimum conditions" were theoretically achievable, they wouldn't be much use to us if they happened to coincide with a time when there was no pro-independence majority at Holyrood, and therefore a referendum couldn't be held.  To the limited extent that Pete indirectly addresses that point, his answer is totally unsatisfactory.  He claims that if the pro-indy camp can't win a majority at Holyrood, there would be very little chance of winning a referendum anyway.  Frankly, that's an absolute nonsense, and I can't believe he really thinks that.  There are any number of reasons why pro-independence voters might vote for an anti-independence party (especially Labour) at a parliamentary election but then still vote for independence in a referendum.  We saw plenty of evidence in opinion polls last year that a minority of people were moving from SNP back to Labour but were still backing independence.  The idea that if pro-indy parties "only" win 48% of the seats at a Holyrood election, it would then be virtually impossible to achieve a pro-independence majority vote at any point over the subsequent five years, which is essentially what Pete is arguing, is risible and not worthy of serious discussion.  The only thing that would make a Yes vote impossible in those circumstances is that we wouldn't be able to hold a referendum in the first place without a pro-indy parliamentary majority - and that's the trap Pete is leading us into.  He tells us what a tragedy it would be if we were to hold a referendum prematurely and lose it when it could have been won later - but how would that be any more of a tragedy than spurning the chance of holding a referendum when we actually have the mandate, and as a result being utterly powerless to hold a referendum for potentially decades thereafter, including at times when we might easily have won?  That scenario could very easily unfold if a minority of pro-indy voters revert indefinitely to voting for the Labour party for cultural reasons.

Pete seems incredulous at the notion that you should use a mandate for a referendum just because you have one.  I suppose that depends on whether you believe that pro-indy majorities at Holyrood are as plentiful as grains of sand on a beach, or whether you recognise that under the Additional Member voting system they're actually murderously hard to come by, and they should be treated as precious when they come along, and not casually squandered.  We're not talking about a referendum next week - by all means let's choose the "optimum moment" between now and May 2021 when our mandate expires.  But going beyond that date on a wing and a prayer is a different matter entirely.

Now to deal with a few miscellaneous red herrings that Pete throws in -

* I'm not quite sure what the relevance of this is, but he claims that failure in the 1979 devolution referendum (thanks to the 40% rule) led to the near-wipeout of the SNP at Westminster.  Not so.  The SNP had gone into reverse well before the referendum - by 1978, Labour had shown itself to be serious enough about devolution that it started winning back 'soft nationalist' votes.  It's highly likely the SNP would have lost seats regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

* He suggests that the lesson of the 1995 Quebec vote is that a second defeat can set back an independence movement for a generation.  In actual fact, the pro-independence Parti Québécois continued to hold an absolute parliamentary majority for eight years after the 1995 defeat.  Because of excessive caution it didn't take advantage of that enviable situation, and as a result hasn't had the arithmetic to call a referendum at any time since 2003.  (And one of the main reasons why it keeps failing to win elections is because it continually ties itself up in knots with a muddled prospectus of "we want a referendum, but not yet", which reassures nobody and inspires nobody.)

* He ascribes to me (or to the imaginary person he's responding to) the belief that simply calling a referendum would make a decisive shift towards Yes likely.  I have never said that, and indeed I have repeatedly pointed out that the opposite may happen, including in the very article Pete is "replying" to.  I believe this is projection on his part - he's so preoccupied with "guarantees" and "certainties" that he believes anyone who argues against him must automatically be saying that a Yes victory is already guaranteed.  Completely untrue.  I simply take the grown-up view that we might win if we fight a good campaign, that we might lose if we fight a bad campaign (or if we fight a good campaign and are unlucky), and that the future is fundamentally unknowable.  We can help shape the future but we can't possess it in advance.

* He talks of something called the "indy-gap", meaning that support for an early referendum runs below support for independence itself.  But is that actually true?  The most recent Ipsos-Mori poll showed that just under half of people who expressed a view wanted independence...and just under half of people who expressed a view wanted an independence referendum within the next three years.  So simple question, then - where's the indy-gap?  To claim that it exists, at best you'd be cherry-picking only the polling numbers that suit your argument.

The Parable of the Reasonable Tory Thieves

Tories:  Hey, Scotland!  We're going to have to break into your house soon and steal 111 items.  Don't worry, we'll only be taking what we need, and you'll still have plenty.  Next Tuesday suit you?

Scotland:  This is absolutely outrageous.  Stealing is totally unacceptable in a civilised society.   Please keep your hands off our possessions.

Tories:  OK, OK, maybe 111 is a bit excessive.  We'll only steal 25.  So, next Tuesday?

Scotland:  It is not acceptable for you to steal anything at all.

Tories:  Come on, be reasonable.  We're offering you a very substantial compromise.

Scotland:  We're sorry, but if you don't stop talking about breaking into our house and stealing our possessions, we'll have no option but to reinforce the locks on our doors, and to install advanced anti-intruder devices.

Adam Tomkins:  Reinforcing the locks on your doors simply because someone is threatening to steal from you is an unnecessary, ill-thought-through, incoherent and provocative step.  Scotland must stop sulking, fling its doors wide open, and rejoice at every item that is generously left behind by the benevolent intruders.

A paradox: did Tory losses at the general election make a hard Brexit more likely?

There was a great deal of speculation back in June about whether the election resulting in a hung parliament - albeit, crucially, one in which the Conservatives and DUP held a majority between them - made a hard Brexit significantly less likely.  The theory was that Labour would wield much more influence, and that even the DUP would help steer the government towards a softer Brexit because of their pragmatic desire for a 'frictionless frontier' with the Republic.  Well, the latter point is now looking distinctly ropey, because the one and only reason a hard Irish border even remains a possibility today is because the DUP vetoed the deal yesterday.  It's still the case that the DUP would probably sign up quite happily to a soft Brexit as long as there were explicit guarantees that the degree of 'softness' would be uniform throughout the UK, and that Northern Ireland wouldn't end up in a 'one country, two systems' scenario.  But any such guarantees would trigger a mass Tory rebellion and quite possibly bring the government down.

The trouble with trying to bounce people into an agreement they wouldn't ordinarily sign up to is that you have to move so fast that they don't know what's hit them until it's too late.  The gambit almost worked yesterday, but a miss is as good as a mile, and Theresa May's game has now been well and truly rumbled.  Having taken such open satisfaction in foiling Dublin's plans, the DUP will presumably only be able to get back on board if the Irish government are seen to publicly back down on points of substance, and that's surely very unlikely.  Meanwhile, Tory Eurosceptics are now wise to May's willingness to concede a soft Brexit if that's the only way of squaring the Northern Ireland circle, and they'll move over the coming days to close that option off.   Where else is there to go?

Right at this moment, it does appear that the loss of the Tory majority has - against all expectations - created a dynamic that makes a hard Brexit more likely, not less so.

Schrodinger's No Regulatory Divergence

I've just been catching up with the fudge on Northern Ireland that looks set to save the Brexit negotiations - but at what price?  My first reaction was that it would bring down the Tory government because the DUP would withdraw support, but it looks like what we're actually moving towards is a situation where the EU and Ireland insist that a special status has been agreed for Northern Ireland, while the DUP insist the deal doesn't mean any such thing.  Or to put it another way, the DUP have seemingly decided to "explain" a sellout to their own voters, rather than oppose it.  I'm not sure that's sustainable, but if the DUP leadership do try to hold the line, they could quickly find themselves facing the same fate as David Trimble and Reg Empey.

And what of Scotland?  It seems to me there is one answer, and one answer only, to the question of why Scotland can't have the same deal as Northern Ireland.  That answer is "because it would create a border on the island of Great Britain".  But the moment the Tories actually say that out loud, the unionist population of Northern Ireland will hear the message loud and clear that a border is being created between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the DUP leadership will be toast.

There are two political parties that are suddenly in a pickle today - and the SNP isn't one of them.

And this is why Indyref 2 is not going away...

As you may have seen, the House of Commons has just voted on an amendment to the Queen's Speech, tabled by Labour MP Chuka Umunna, calling on the UK to remain within both the EU single market and the customs union.  The Corbyn leadership whipped Labour MPs to abstain (yet again), leading to confident predictions among the London commentariat that there would be a huge rebellion against Corbyn.  Well, I don't know how we're supposed to define 'huge', but given that 75%+ of the PLP are known to be Corbyn-sceptic, and given that the vast majority of the PLP are also pro-European, I have to say I'm somewhat underwhelmed by just 49 of the 262 Labour MPs voting in favour of the amendment, which was defeated by more than 200 votes.  No Tory MPs at all voted in favour, meaning that less than 16% of Commons members (even after the Speaker, Deputy Speakers and tellers are excluded) backed single market membership.

We've been constantly told since election night that there is no majority in the Commons for leaving the single market, but I'm not sure what use it is having a 'silent majority' on your side if those people are not prepared to vote for what they believe in.  Unless something dramatic changes, we are still heading for a very hard Brexit, meaning in turn that the prospect of Indyref 2 is simply not going to go away.

From Brexit to Trump : can we trust the polls anymore?

I think it's probably fair to say that it's been a great many decades since US media coverage of an American election has referenced British politics so frequently.  That's a sign of how Brexit matters internationally in a way that routine changes of government don't, but it's also a sign of Trump supporters casting around for glimmers of hope wherever they can be found.  The theory is that support for Trump is vaguely similar in character to support for Brexit, and that if the latter was underestimated by the polls, there's no reason to think the former isn't being underestimated as well.

From this side of the Atlantic, there have been two reasons commonly cited for why that is probably wishful thinking.  The first is that we knew in the days prior to the EU referendum that the postal votes that had already been cast were painting a different picture from the opinion polls, and that Remain had a significant deficit to overcome on polling day itself.  On the whole, the opposite seems to be happening in the US at the moment, with the early voting data tending to look more promising for Clinton than for Trump.  The second reason is that, supposedly, the opinion polls in the EU referendum were nowhere near as inaccurate as portrayed.

The first reason makes perfect sense to me, but I have to say I think the second one is pushing it a bit.  This goes back to the meat of a rather unpleasant (and now largely deleted) argument I had with a New Statesman journalist and a few others on Twitter in August, on the topic of "can we ever trust the polls again?".  Immediately after that exchange, I had been planning to write a blogpost setting out my thoughts, but I decided against it because the whole thing had become too heated.  However, this may be a good moment to make some of the points I had been planning to make that night (but leaving aside the personalities involved, obviously).

* First of all, it really must be understood that the standard 3% margin of error in individual opinion polls does not provide any sort of alibi for the polling failure in June.  If the methodology used across the industry is basically correct, the error on the polling average should be considerably lower than 3%.  For example, if one campaign is actually on 44%, you would expect just as many polls to have that campaign one, two or three points below 44% as have them one, two or three points above 44%.  The underestimates would balance out the overestimates, and you would end up with an average that is pretty close to being bang on the money.  So it's a form of sophistry to look at the string of late polls that overestimated the Remain vote, and claim that the ones that fell within the margin of error (or came close to doing so) were all technically "accurate".

Regular readers of this blog will remember that I had been completely open to the strong possibility of a Leave victory throughout the referendum campaign, but when the last polling numbers came in on 23rd June, I finally threw my hands up in the air, and said that if the polls were right, there was clearly going to be a Remain victory of some sort.  My exact words were -

"Leave can only really win now if there's been some kind of systemic problem with the public polls - although that's scarcely unheard of."

I entirely stand by that summary, and exactly the same is true of the situation in the US right now.   Donald Trump still has a chance, but that categorically isn't because he's "within the margin of error".  He may be within the margin of error in individual polls, but if he was really tied with Clinton, and if the polls were getting it right to within the margin of error, there ought to be as many polls putting him three or four points ahead as there are putting him three or four points behind.  Self-evidently, that isn't the case.  The reason he still has a chance is because it's fairly common - as our own referendum demonstrates - for polls to be misleading due to factors that are not taken into account by the standard margin of error.  That 3% wiggle-room only allows for normal sampling variation, and basically assumes that the underlying methodology is otherwise going to be perfect - which is pretty optimistic in this day and age.

If Trump wins, or if Clinton wins much bigger than we expect her to, it'll be because the polls were wrong, just as they were on Brexit.  Not necessarily wrong by all that much, or by a historically unprecedented amount, but certainly wrong in a way that the margin of error can't account for.  (Although polling firms will doubtless attempt to make that excuse by cherry-picking individual polls.)

* It's been suggested a number of times that the EU referendum polls were much more accurate than supposed, because people tend to only look at the last batch of polls, and ignore the ones earlier in June that were more favourable for Leave.  That's plainly a load of nonsense, because the reason why the later polls moved towards Remain is remarkably simple - there was almost certainly a genuine swing towards Remain as polling day approached.

The word "accurate" is a bit slippery when used in relation to opinion polls, because strictly speaking, and with the obvious exception of exit polls, all polls are snapshots of public opinion rather than predictions of election results.  A poll can be an accurate snapshot even if it differs markedly from the final outcome.  Nevertheless, if "accurate" is used to mean closeness to the final result, it's perfectly reasonable to say that later polls should be more "accurate" than earlier ones, because the closer you get to election day, the more people have made up their minds.  Therefore, the fact that the EU polls got progressively less "accurate" towards the death of the campaign makes it worse for the polling industry, not better.  It strongly implies that there was a significant in-built error all along.  When Leave appeared to be slightly behind, they were actually slightly ahead.  When Leave appeared to be slightly ahead, they actually had a decent cushion.  And so on.

* One of the apparent saving graces for the polling industry in June was that, against all expectations, online polls proved to be somewhat more accurate than telephone polls.  Nevertheless, the performance of the online polls was significantly tarnished by a Populus poll published on referendum day that was absolutely miles out from reality - it gave Remain a 55% to 45% lead.  It was suggested to me that somehow that poll doesn't really count, because it was the only published Populus voting intention poll of the entire campaign, and is therefore difficult to put into proper context.  I must say I can't make head nor tail of that line of argument.  We know that Populus had been conducting extensive private polls throughout the campaign, meaning they'd had as much opportunity as any other firm to hone their techniques.  It may well be that a 55%-45% lead was an outlier from their normal results, but it shouldn't have happened at all if their methodology had been essentially sound.  (Even the occasional 'rogue poll' that statistically will happen one time in every twenty shouldn't really be out by as much as 7%.)

So, yes, that Populus poll does deserve to be treated as an online poll like any other, and the fact that it was one of the final polls of the campaign (when it should have been more accurate, not less) does detract from the notion that online polls in general performed tolerably well.

*  *  *

To return to the original question, I think the simplest way of putting it is this.  If you want polls to be as accurate as the industry claim them to be, then you can't and shouldn't trust them, because recent history suggests you'll often (but not always) be disappointed.  If, however, you just want a ball-park sense of public opinion that is more reliable than, say, Neil Lovatt's beloved betting and financial markets, then yes, polls are still a very useful tool, and the outcome in June bears that truth out.  It really just depends on how demanding your own expectations are.

A progressive alliance may soon be needed more than ever

Just a quick note to let you know that I have a new article at the TalkRadio website, about how last week's High Court ruling could turn out to be an emergency for pro-Europeans and progressives if it triggers an early general election.  You can read it HERE.

Freedom to silence

I had a short Twitter exchange with the Spectator's Alex Massie earlier tonight, which was sparked by his observation that "a free press requires accepting the freedom it will write things you find distasteful or even deplorable" - a reference to the pro-Brexit media's appalling reaction to the High Court judgement. I pointed out to him that freedom of speech also requires the press accepting the freedom of others to criticise the press. He innocently denied that anyone had ever disputed that point - and so I reminded him of the furious reaction from journalists to the measured criticisms a couple of SNP politicians made of Stephen Daisley. Suddenly the goalposts shifted - somehow the criticism of Daisley wasn't legitimate after all, because that was 'beyond' criticism. It was a 'silencing'. I'm puzzled by that distinction, because although the sequence of events is hotly disputed, one fact that no-one can reasonably deny is that the Scottish Government and the SNP have no power whatever over broadcasting. Even if it's true (and it doesn't seem to be) that John Nicolson and Angus MacNeil had something to do with STV's decision to change Daisley's role, the only weapon they ever had at their disposal was the strength of their own arguments. If that alone proved sufficient, doesn't it suggest that their arguments were actually rather persuasive, and probably correct? A cynic might conclude that Massie doesn't so much have a problem with the freedom to criticise journalists, but rather with the freedom to do so convincingly and non-impotently.

The other point that occurs to me is this : if Massie thinks that the freedom to criticise journalists is not absolute, but must always fall short of his own arbitrary definition of "silencing", shouldn't exactly the same exception apply to the freedom of the press? Why should the press be allowed to intimidate judges, for example? It doesn't seem terribly outlandish to suggest that the real target of the reporting in the Daily Mail and the Sun was not so much the three High Court judges who were vilified, but rather the Supreme Court judges who will hear the appeal. The message was effectively : "you're next, unless you make a decision we approve of". Does Alex Massie think the freedom of the press extends to the right not merely to 'silence' judges, but to actually subvert the law of the land?

By the way, a little memo for the press : a direct democracy involves the electorate making decisions by referendum, and those decisions being automatically implemented by virtue of the rules laid down by the constitution. Theresa May getting to decide whether and when to invoke Article 50 is not direct democracy, any more than parliament making exactly the same decision would be. If you don't like it, campaign to change our constitution to make it more like Switzerland's. There's no point in moaning because judges refuse to ignore the law.

*  *  *

As you may already have seen, the Tories scored two local by-election gains in Aberdeenshire on Thursday.  Both were in wards where the SNP topped the popular vote last time around, although thanks to the now-familiar quirk of the STV voting system, the Inverurie result was technically a gain from the Liberal Democrats rather than the SNP.  (And I'm sure we've all noted that Mike "can't be arsed" Smithson is considerably less eager to propagandise about technicalities when it's the Lib Dems on the receiving end.)  Weirdly, the SNP vote more or less held up in Inverurie but dropped steeply in Banff - I don't know if that contrast can be wholly or partly explained by personality factors.  In both elections, though, it looks as if the Tories ultimately have unionist tactical voting to thank for their triumph (along with the traditional tendency of Tory voters to be more inclined to turn out in low-interest contests).

Inverurie and District by-election result :

Conservatives 38.8% (+21.4)
SNP 34.6% (-2.6)
Liberal Democrats 22.5% (+5.2)
Labour 4.1% (-9.1)

Banff and District by-election result :

Conservatives 44.0% (+20.9)
SNP 36.2% (-19.2)
Liberal Democrats 19.8% (+8.7)

There's actually nothing radically new in these results - they follow the same pattern as the Holyrood election in May, with heavily No-voting areas coalescing around the unionist party best-placed to beat the SNP.  To the extent that some ex-SNP voters are switching direct to the Tories, those are highly likely to be people who voted No in 2014 and who have little prospect of changing their minds at the next indyref.  What we're seeing, then, is simply a mirror-image of the phenomenon of Yes voters in working-class Scotland bringing their party allegiance into line with their constitutional preference.  That's not a cause for concern for the Yes campaign in a referendum (we're chasing floating voters, not the unpersuadables), but it might well pose a problem for the SNP in the snap general election that now seems to be a distinct possibility.

For the first time in my life, I must say that I can't muster much enthuasiasm for the prospect of an early election, because I struggle to see how it can possibly leave us in a better position than we're already in.  The likelihood is that the SNP would remain dominant, but would shed a few seats - to the Tories, and possibly to the Lib Dems as well.  The crude projections suggesting Labour could be wiped out are almost certainly wide of the mark - unionist tactical voting would once again save Ian Murray's bacon.  And the seemingly inevitable Conservative landslide at UK-wide level would rob the SNP of the balance of power they currently hold on a small number of key issues where the Tories are divided.

Would there be any advantages?  Well, it would be an opportunity for Nicola Sturgeon to further amplify the mandate she already has to hold a second referendum if she deems it to be in Scotland's interests.  And it's possible that a 1983-style crushing UK-wide defeat for Labour might lead to 'constructive despair' among the progressive unionist vote in Scotland, thus boosting support for independence.

So, yes, there are pros and cons, but on the whole I hope Theresa May continues to bottle it.

*  *  *

"But what will [the Tories] do about the Fixed Term Parliaments Act?" asks Mr Smithson in big bold letters.  Hmmm.  Would "repeal it" be too obvious an answer?  The other options would be to obtain a two-thirds majority for an election by daring Labour to vote in favour, or to deliberately lose a vote of no confidence in the government.  One way or another, though, there isn't really much of an obstacle to an election if May decides to go for it.

Throw Scotland out! Take your blasted oil away! And give us our nukes back so we can stick them on the Thames - where they belong!

Just a quick note to let you know that I have a new article on the TalkRadio website, about the epic pleasures of the #ThrowScotlandOut hashtag, and the petition that inspired it.  You can read the article HERE.

A question for Theresa May

"The UK must speak with one voice on Brexit."

"In all of its public statements, the Scottish Government must loyally support the single UK negotiating position.  If they do not, they will be undermining us."

"The Scottish Government does not have a veto on the UK negotiating position. We will tell them what it is, and then they must support it to the hilt."

Isn't that called colonialism, Theresa? It sure as hell isn't called the respect agenda.

So what was it about Brexit that finally won Kezia Dugdale over?

Just a quick note to let you know that I have a new article at the TalkRadio website, about Scottish Labour's curious journey from being officially undecided on whether to support a second independence referendum on 24th June, to being dead set against it now that all the reassuring facts about Brexit have come to light.  You can read the article HERE.