The last time I ran a poll like this was way back when Scot Goes Pop was more or less an out-and-out Eurovision blog. I fully appreciate that 95% of regular readers probably won't have an opinion at all, so if the poll attracts only three votes you can safely assume that not much search engine traffic has been generated by this post! The voting form can be found at the top of the sidebar, and the poll will close on Monday - the day before the first semi-final. Multi-voting is enabled, so you can vote for as many songs an you like, but not for the same song twice!
In no particular order, here is my own selection of favourites -
CROATIA (Nebo by Nina Badrić)
This was the first song I really fell in love with during this year's national final season, and the new arrangement is even better. It's not going to win, but in line with my personal rule of only voting for songs exclusively sung in a language other than English, I may well vote for it in the second semi-final.
ICELAND (Never Forget by Gréta Salóme & Jónsi)
Jónsi deserved a much higher placing in his first appearance in the contest a few years back, and he has an excellent chance of making up for it this time round. I was a bit worried that the song might lose some of its drama after being switched from Icelandic to English (that problem has occurred many times before), but in fact it sounds just as good.
IRELAND (Waterline by Jedward)
I know I made a snide remark about Jedward in my last post about the contest, but in truth I've always rated their chances. Lipstick was a bit of an acquired taste last year, but Waterline has a much more instant hook. The million dollar question is whether the live performance will be up to scratch - miracles were achieved twelve months ago, but reports from the rehearsals so far are mixed.
A scary thought - would an Irish win guarantee a third Jedward entry to the contest next year?
SERBIA (Nije Ljubav Stvar by Željko Joksimović)
Željko Joksimović has been the contest's 'magician' in recent years. He finished second as the representative of Serbia and Montenegro in 2004, but could easily have won - he was later revealed to have beaten the eventual winner in the semi-final. A year later, he penned the gorgeous song Jutro for Jelena Tomašević, which almost certainly would have won the country's national selection had political voting not got in the way (although someone of my political persuasions can hardly blame the Montenegrins for seizing the opportunity to make a point!). He returned to the contest in 2006 as the writer of the Bosnia and Herzegovina entry - another cracker, which finished third. He sat out 2007, which ironically was the year that Serbia finally won. But that turn of fate enabled him to achieve a unique first in 2008 - he was the contest's co-host in Belgrade, and he also wrote the Serbian entry (Oro performed by Jelena Tomašević), which finished sixth.
This year he returns as both songwriter and performer, and a lot of people seem to be assuming that he'll be the bridemaid and not the bride once again. I'm not so sure - the song matches his usual high standards, is probably more accessible than Oro, and in any case he's guaranteed to have both Russia and the Balkan bloc vote right behind him.
(In researching this post, I consulted Željko Joksimović's biography on Wikipedia, and realised to my amusement that I had written some of it and forgotten all about it!)
DENMARK (Should've Known Better by Soluna Samay)
A lovely, gentle, bitter-sweet and extremely catchy song, which I couldn't get out of my head for several days in February. However, it's not desperately original, and with it being so low-key I think it may struggle to grab people on a first listen.
UNITED KINGDOM (Love Will Set You Free by Engelbert Humperdinck)
I was fully expecting to be underwhelmed by this song, but in fact the first thought that went through my head when I heard it was "Olsen Brothers". That's not to say I expect it to win (after all, even the Olsens came a cropper in 2005), but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the top five.
HUNGARY (Sound of Our Hearts by Compact Disco)
This was an early fan favourite, but seems to have fallen off everyone's radar. It's still as catchy as it ever was, and it's another one that I struggled to get out of my head after I first heard it.
SPAIN (Quédate Conmigo by Pastora Soler)
This is the second year in a row that I'll be cheering on Spain, albeit the song could hardly be more different from Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao. Undoubtedly the best ballad of the field, and if this doesn't get the result it deserves I'll begin to wonder if the televoters of Europe have got something against Spain or the Spanish language.
SWEDEN (Euphoria by Loreen)
Although I think Sweden's chances of winning are being vastly overestimated, that's not to say I don't rate the song itself. In many ways it would be a fantastic breakthrough for the contest if a dance track of this quality could win, but I don't think it's going to happen.
FRANCE (Echo by Anggun)
Normally when I say "France have got a great song, but haven't got a hope of winning", it means they've entered a powerful ballad. But this year they've excelled themselves with a very worthy entry that breaks the traditional mould.
SLOVENIA (Verjamem by Eva Boto)
Will probably be overshadowed by the country's Balkan neighbours, but is beautifully sung, and boasted one of the most eye-catching stagings in the national final season. I'll be gutted if they dispense with the head-dress.
* * *
UPDATE : The poll is now closed - you can find the results HERE.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Is it every Scot's patriotic duty to show an interest in an Under-23 match between Egypt and Belarus?
Intriguing news that UEFA have encouraged Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland to ponder the possibility of a joint bid for Euro 2020. As exciting as it will be to see the Commonwealth Games return to this country in two years' time, I think most people would agree that the European Championships are an even bigger event, and in any case would break completely new ground for Scotland in a way that hosting the Commonwealth Games again will not.
From what I vaguely recall of the reasons that the Scottish/Irish bid for Euro 2008 failed, though, there seemed to be an (inexplicable) perception at UEFA that supporters in this part of the world are too parochial to turn out for matches in which their own national team isn't involved. That puts an intriguing twist on the lack of interest that has been generated in the Olympic matches that will be played at Hampden this summer - three preliminary-stage matches in the men's competition, four preliminary-stage matches in the women's competition, and one women's quarter-final.
Of course the underwhelming response to date is entirely the fault of the English FA and the BOA, who through their cynical actions have somehow managed to engineer a situation in which it seems deeply unpatriotic for any Scottish football supporter to embrace any aspect of the Olympic football tournament, even where the Greater England team is not directly involved. But if we now know that UEFA's eyes are on us with a view to 2020, perhaps we should consider the bigger picture and realise just what a thrilling prospect that Under-23 showdown between Egypt and Belarus will be.
From what I vaguely recall of the reasons that the Scottish/Irish bid for Euro 2008 failed, though, there seemed to be an (inexplicable) perception at UEFA that supporters in this part of the world are too parochial to turn out for matches in which their own national team isn't involved. That puts an intriguing twist on the lack of interest that has been generated in the Olympic matches that will be played at Hampden this summer - three preliminary-stage matches in the men's competition, four preliminary-stage matches in the women's competition, and one women's quarter-final.
Of course the underwhelming response to date is entirely the fault of the English FA and the BOA, who through their cynical actions have somehow managed to engineer a situation in which it seems deeply unpatriotic for any Scottish football supporter to embrace any aspect of the Olympic football tournament, even where the Greater England team is not directly involved. But if we now know that UEFA's eyes are on us with a view to 2020, perhaps we should consider the bigger picture and realise just what a thrilling prospect that Under-23 showdown between Egypt and Belarus will be.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The negligence of Councillor Alex Gallagher : three killer questions about independence he has yet to ask
Star blogger "Braveheart" (aka the newly re-elected Labour councillor for North Coast and Cumbraes) continues in his fearless quest to randomly put the word independence in inverted commas at every available opportunity -
"Agree Lab/SNP cooperation could be a good thing. Don’t understand: if Lab/SNP cooperation can solve the problems in Edinburgh, what’s the point of “independence”, which cannot?
...why destroy a working system? How would “independence” add value?"
Quite so. It's even more inexplicable that the SNP were actually trying to win the election in Edinburgh outright - now that really would have been a mortal blow to the cause of separatism. But what really puzzles me is that Alex regularly hits the nail on the head with killer questions like that, but never seems to get round to posing these equally vital ones -
1. If the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth can already efficiently regulate the tides of the sea, how can "independence" add value?
2. Thousands of yellow wagtails successfully arrive in southern Scotland every spring after spending the winter in warmer climes. How would "independence" help?
3. Jocelyn has been very happily married to Brian for thirty-seven years. They enjoy bowling and talking to their pet parrot. Wouldn't "independence" just get in the way?
Of course, none of these questions become any the less perplexing if you replace the word "independence" with the words "a Labour government" - and nor does the question Alex actually asked, for that matter.
"Agree Lab/SNP cooperation could be a good thing. Don’t understand: if Lab/SNP cooperation can solve the problems in Edinburgh, what’s the point of “independence”, which cannot?
...why destroy a working system? How would “independence” add value?"
Quite so. It's even more inexplicable that the SNP were actually trying to win the election in Edinburgh outright - now that really would have been a mortal blow to the cause of separatism. But what really puzzles me is that Alex regularly hits the nail on the head with killer questions like that, but never seems to get round to posing these equally vital ones -
1. If the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth can already efficiently regulate the tides of the sea, how can "independence" add value?
2. Thousands of yellow wagtails successfully arrive in southern Scotland every spring after spending the winter in warmer climes. How would "independence" help?
3. Jocelyn has been very happily married to Brian for thirty-seven years. They enjoy bowling and talking to their pet parrot. Wouldn't "independence" just get in the way?
Of course, none of these questions become any the less perplexing if you replace the word "independence" with the words "a Labour government" - and nor does the question Alex actually asked, for that matter.
Monday, May 7, 2012
You can't be half-pregnant, but it seems you can have PR without much proportionality
There's much consternation in the elites of the EU this morning, because it looks like the two pro-austerity parties in Greece, New Democracy and PASOK, will fall just short of an outright parliamentary majority. But in truth it should never even have been close. The two parties' combined share of the vote tumbled from 77.4% in 2009 to just 32% yesterday, so the fact that they've still ended up with more or less exactly half the seats is a perversion of the democratic process that you'd only ever expect to see under "good old British" first-past-the-post. Given that Greece supposedly has a system of proportional representation, how on earth did it happen? There are two reasons. The more prosaic one is that a great many parties fell below the 3% threshold required for any representation, meaning that all the parties that reached the threshold had surplus seats to share between them. The more eccentric reason is that the Greek system randomly hands 50 bonus seats to the party in first place. This applies regardless of whether the leading party has 60% of the vote or 7%, and regardless of whether its lead over the second-placed party is 23% or 0.00001%. It is, in short, a nonsense, and has clearly thwarted the democratic will of the Greek people on this occasion.
I can only assume that the rule was introduced to produce a decisive winner in old-style two-party contests, but when the party system suddenly becomes more fractured, the effect is far more distorting. To put it in perspective, New Democracy are projected to secure 108 seats with their "election-winning" 18.85% of the vote, whereas the left-wing coalition in second place will claim just 52 seats with their 16.8% of the vote.
But there are more insidious ways in which the devisers of electoral and governing systems can deliver 'proportional representation' without much proportionality. One of the very first posts I wrote on this blog back in May 2008 pointed out that PR for the London Assembly is a sham, and the election last Thursday illustrated that point beautifully. London voters were deeply divided - the Tories led by 44% to 40% in the mayoral vote, and Labour led by 41% to 32% in the Assembly election. The purpose of PR in such circumstances ought to be to produce balance and pluralism. But because a two-thirds majority is required for the Assembly to exercise its one and only meaningful power (to reject the Mayor's budget), the Tories are left with absolute power on a minority vote - just as would happen under FPTP. The irony is that, in combination with the two-thirds rule, PR for the Assembly actually makes it less likely that there can be any check on the Mayor's power, because the distorting nature of FPTP would have made it easier to achieve the big majority required to alter the budget.
So London has the superficial appearance of proportionality and pluralism without an iota of the substance - a characteristically Blairite concoction. Thanks heavens we in Scotland (to use Mrs Thatcher's phrase) have gone in completely the opposite direction, and instead of concentrating local government executive power in the hands of one person, have dispersed power by means of a genuinely proportional system.
I can only assume that the rule was introduced to produce a decisive winner in old-style two-party contests, but when the party system suddenly becomes more fractured, the effect is far more distorting. To put it in perspective, New Democracy are projected to secure 108 seats with their "election-winning" 18.85% of the vote, whereas the left-wing coalition in second place will claim just 52 seats with their 16.8% of the vote.
But there are more insidious ways in which the devisers of electoral and governing systems can deliver 'proportional representation' without much proportionality. One of the very first posts I wrote on this blog back in May 2008 pointed out that PR for the London Assembly is a sham, and the election last Thursday illustrated that point beautifully. London voters were deeply divided - the Tories led by 44% to 40% in the mayoral vote, and Labour led by 41% to 32% in the Assembly election. The purpose of PR in such circumstances ought to be to produce balance and pluralism. But because a two-thirds majority is required for the Assembly to exercise its one and only meaningful power (to reject the Mayor's budget), the Tories are left with absolute power on a minority vote - just as would happen under FPTP. The irony is that, in combination with the two-thirds rule, PR for the Assembly actually makes it less likely that there can be any check on the Mayor's power, because the distorting nature of FPTP would have made it easier to achieve the big majority required to alter the budget.
So London has the superficial appearance of proportionality and pluralism without an iota of the substance - a characteristically Blairite concoction. Thanks heavens we in Scotland (to use Mrs Thatcher's phrase) have gone in completely the opposite direction, and instead of concentrating local government executive power in the hands of one person, have dispersed power by means of a genuinely proportional system.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
And more good news : Hollande will be President of France
It's a curiously paradoxical five-yearly tradition that the French-speaking parts of Switzerland and Belgium demonstrate their apartness from their larger neighbour by playing a crucial role in French presidential elections - the media in those regions are not bound by the embargo on exit polling, and are always the first to give an early (and invariably accurate) indication of the result. They've just done so, and are showing a lead for François Hollande of about 5-6%.
We'll know for sure when the polls close in a few hours.
UPDATE : Some real (leaked) results from France's overseas territories...
St. Pierre and Miquelon :
François Hollande 65%
Nicolas Sarkozy 35%
Martinique :
François Hollande 68.5%
Nicolas Sarkozy 31.5%
Guadeloupe :
François Hollande 72%
Nicolas Sarkozy 28%
French Guiana :
François Hollande 62%
Nicolas Sarkozy 38%
Saint-Martin :
François Hollande 51.5%
Nicolas Sarkozy 48.5%
Saint Barthélemy :
Nicolas Sarkozy 83%
François Hollande 17%
These are all better results than the previous socialist candidate Ségolène Royal managed in her 2007 defeat. There are also real results from French citizens in other countries, which show a very mixed picture. However, the report on the website of Belgian broadcaster RTBF points out that Hollande's narrow lead in Toronto represents the first time the left have ever won in that city. Perhaps unsurprisingly given Quebec's social democratic traditions, Hollande is much further ahead in Montreal.
We'll know for sure when the polls close in a few hours.
UPDATE : Some real (leaked) results from France's overseas territories...
St. Pierre and Miquelon :
François Hollande 65%
Nicolas Sarkozy 35%
Martinique :
François Hollande 68.5%
Nicolas Sarkozy 31.5%
Guadeloupe :
François Hollande 72%
Nicolas Sarkozy 28%
French Guiana :
François Hollande 62%
Nicolas Sarkozy 38%
Saint-Martin :
François Hollande 51.5%
Nicolas Sarkozy 48.5%
Saint Barthélemy :
Nicolas Sarkozy 83%
François Hollande 17%
These are all better results than the previous socialist candidate Ségolène Royal managed in her 2007 defeat. There are also real results from French citizens in other countries, which show a very mixed picture. However, the report on the website of Belgian broadcaster RTBF points out that Hollande's narrow lead in Toronto represents the first time the left have ever won in that city. Perhaps unsurprisingly given Quebec's social democratic traditions, Hollande is much further ahead in Montreal.
Final results in : SNP confirmed as winners of the popular vote
Just a very quick update on yesterday's post - as expected, it has been confirmed that the SNP won the popular vote on Thursday, along with the most seats. Here are the full figures from the party's website -
SNP 502,201 - 32.32% (+4.46% on 2007)
Lab 487,884 - 31.39% (+3.24%)
Con 206,856 - 13.31% (-2.26%)
LD 102,399 - 6.59% (-6.10%)
Grn 34,252 - 2.20% (+0.16%)
Ind 184,329 - 11.86% (+0.98%)
Oth 36,055 - 2.32% (+0.9%)
These numbers of course relate only to first preference votes, which is the standard way of measuring the popular vote in countries that use STV (basically the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Malta).
I was slightly bemused to see Kate Higgins suggest on Scottish Roundup that Ian Smart's analysis of the results was "far from triumphalist". He may have had some cautionary words for his own side, but he also made the wild claims that Labour had won the popular vote, and that the SNP needn't concern themselves too much with coalition negotiations around the country. Well, he's been proved completely wrong on the first count, and I don't think I'm sticking my neck out too far in suggesting he's light-years off-beam on the second count as well.
Yes, it was a tight election, much tighter than last year's - but the SNP won, and on every measure.
SNP 502,201 - 32.32% (+4.46% on 2007)
Lab 487,884 - 31.39% (+3.24%)
Con 206,856 - 13.31% (-2.26%)
LD 102,399 - 6.59% (-6.10%)
Grn 34,252 - 2.20% (+0.16%)
Ind 184,329 - 11.86% (+0.98%)
Oth 36,055 - 2.32% (+0.9%)
These numbers of course relate only to first preference votes, which is the standard way of measuring the popular vote in countries that use STV (basically the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Malta).
I was slightly bemused to see Kate Higgins suggest on Scottish Roundup that Ian Smart's analysis of the results was "far from triumphalist". He may have had some cautionary words for his own side, but he also made the wild claims that Labour had won the popular vote, and that the SNP needn't concern themselves too much with coalition negotiations around the country. Well, he's been proved completely wrong on the first count, and I don't think I'm sticking my neck out too far in suggesting he's light-years off-beam on the second count as well.
Yes, it was a tight election, much tighter than last year's - but the SNP won, and on every measure.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
The SNP's victory in numbers
Many thanks to DougtheDug on the previous thread for clearing up a point that had been bugging me for a few hours. I could distinctly recall that the SNP won fifteen more councillors than Labour in 2007 - this time the gap is thirty, and yet the BBC and others are reporting that Labour have made a slightly bigger net gain in seats than the Nationalists. The explanation for this discrepancy, of course, is that 2007 isn't being used as the baseline for the figures. Now, there's certainly a case to be made for taking into account seats that have changed hands in by-elections over the last five years, but to count as "Labour gains" seats won back from Glasgow First (ie. seats Labour "gained" from themselves) is without a doubt grossly misleading. To give a more meaningful idea of the direction of travel, here is the number of councillors won by each party yesterday, with changes from the 2007 position -
SNP 424 (+61)
Labour 394 (+46)
Conservatives 115 (-28)
Liberal Democrats 71 (-95)
Greens 14 (+6)
SSP 1 (-)
Others 201 (+8)
So not only did the SNP secure the most seats, they also enjoyed the biggest gains. Not a repeat of last year's landslide, but unambiguously a victory.
Not that you'd know it if you listened to Sarah Boyack. No, she would have you believe that Labour, unlike the SNP, weren't remotely interested in the overall number of seats they won in Scotland, but instead in "gaining the trust" of individual communities. That's the sort of sophistry that can easily make your head hurt, because uttered with conviction it can almost sound like a plausible distinction to draw - except of course that the best way of measuring which party has been most successful in gaining the trust of individual communities is to look at who won the most seats throughout the country. Evidently this is Labour's stock line for the occasion, though, because Duncan Hothersall tried a variation on it when I queried him on Twitter -
"There were 32 elections in Scotland yesterday. The idea that there is one national result is farcical."
Hmmm. I presume by the same token that Labour's victory throughout England and Wales is a mirage simply because the Tories held on in Harrogate.
* * *
In the mid-1990s, the perception was that the SNP had performed exceptionally well in local elections, in spite of finishing some 15-18 percentage points behind Labour in the popular vote. And until 2007, Labour used to regularly crow about the SNP having "lost every single election in its history". So this notion that Labour can be said to have performed well on Thursday in spite of being clearly defeated by the SNP is rather new and startling, and it demonstrates just how thoroughly the underlying assumptions of Scottish politics have been turned on their heads in a very short space of time.
* * *
Although the SNP's lead over Labour is gratifying, to my mind the much more important factor is the net gain in seats. I once read a suggestion that the reason Labour unexpectedly lost the 1970 election was that by shedding so many local councillors between 1967 and 1969, their local organisation had simply withered, and they could no longer compete with the Tories' national network of footsoldiers. Campaigning methods may have been transformed since then, but the number of councillors still correlates with strength on the ground, so an extra sixty in the bag can't be a bad thing in the run-up to the independence referendum - and nor can six more Greens, as it happens.
One thing is for sure - the overall number of seats won is far more significant in respect of the independence referendum than who controls Glasgow. It's been said a number of times that winning Glasgow would have been a crucial stepping-stone towards a Yes vote - but how, exactly? On the list of people whose voices are going to carry some weight in the referendum debate, the leader of Glasgow City Council ranks about 594th. Indeed, there are even circumstances in which taking control of a flagship council can ultimately prove an electoral millstone - we need look no further than the Glenrothes by-election for evidence of that.
* * *
There was an amusing period yesterday when the running tally on the BBC News homepage showed the SNP in third place throughout the whole of Great Britain, ahead of the Liberal Democrats. That didn't mean the party was in line to become the UK's third party of local government, because only seats up for grabs this time round were being taken into account. Nevertheless, for the SNP to come so close to beating the UK Lib Dems "on the day" was nothing short of astonishing. As I write this, the Lib Dems stand on 431 seats throughout Britain, and the SNP are on 424.
SNP 424 (+61)
Labour 394 (+46)
Conservatives 115 (-28)
Liberal Democrats 71 (-95)
Greens 14 (+6)
SSP 1 (-)
Others 201 (+8)
So not only did the SNP secure the most seats, they also enjoyed the biggest gains. Not a repeat of last year's landslide, but unambiguously a victory.
Not that you'd know it if you listened to Sarah Boyack. No, she would have you believe that Labour, unlike the SNP, weren't remotely interested in the overall number of seats they won in Scotland, but instead in "gaining the trust" of individual communities. That's the sort of sophistry that can easily make your head hurt, because uttered with conviction it can almost sound like a plausible distinction to draw - except of course that the best way of measuring which party has been most successful in gaining the trust of individual communities is to look at who won the most seats throughout the country. Evidently this is Labour's stock line for the occasion, though, because Duncan Hothersall tried a variation on it when I queried him on Twitter -
"There were 32 elections in Scotland yesterday. The idea that there is one national result is farcical."
Hmmm. I presume by the same token that Labour's victory throughout England and Wales is a mirage simply because the Tories held on in Harrogate.
* * *
In the mid-1990s, the perception was that the SNP had performed exceptionally well in local elections, in spite of finishing some 15-18 percentage points behind Labour in the popular vote. And until 2007, Labour used to regularly crow about the SNP having "lost every single election in its history". So this notion that Labour can be said to have performed well on Thursday in spite of being clearly defeated by the SNP is rather new and startling, and it demonstrates just how thoroughly the underlying assumptions of Scottish politics have been turned on their heads in a very short space of time.
* * *
Although the SNP's lead over Labour is gratifying, to my mind the much more important factor is the net gain in seats. I once read a suggestion that the reason Labour unexpectedly lost the 1970 election was that by shedding so many local councillors between 1967 and 1969, their local organisation had simply withered, and they could no longer compete with the Tories' national network of footsoldiers. Campaigning methods may have been transformed since then, but the number of councillors still correlates with strength on the ground, so an extra sixty in the bag can't be a bad thing in the run-up to the independence referendum - and nor can six more Greens, as it happens.
One thing is for sure - the overall number of seats won is far more significant in respect of the independence referendum than who controls Glasgow. It's been said a number of times that winning Glasgow would have been a crucial stepping-stone towards a Yes vote - but how, exactly? On the list of people whose voices are going to carry some weight in the referendum debate, the leader of Glasgow City Council ranks about 594th. Indeed, there are even circumstances in which taking control of a flagship council can ultimately prove an electoral millstone - we need look no further than the Glenrothes by-election for evidence of that.
* * *
There was an amusing period yesterday when the running tally on the BBC News homepage showed the SNP in third place throughout the whole of Great Britain, ahead of the Liberal Democrats. That didn't mean the party was in line to become the UK's third party of local government, because only seats up for grabs this time round were being taken into account. Nevertheless, for the SNP to come so close to beating the UK Lib Dems "on the day" was nothing short of astonishing. As I write this, the Lib Dems stand on 431 seats throughout Britain, and the SNP are on 424.
Friday, May 4, 2012
A year later than expected?
Just thought I'd jot down a few brief thoughts about the local elections while we're waiting for the last results to come through. In a way, this is the result we were expecting at the mid-point in the campaign for last year's Holyrood election, with both the SNP and Labour advancing at the expense of the Tories and especially the Liberal Democrats. As far as I can see, this is literally the SNP's best local election results in history, so how anyone will be able to spin that as a setback is a bit of a mystery, but certain London media folk will doubtless still try to do so, mainly because they seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that Scotland consists entirely of a city called Glasgow.
I do still wonder if the decoupling of the elections from the Holyrood vote for the first time since 1995 has made a difference for Labour, because the campaign has been very low-key, and to some extent has melded into a wider UK 'referendum' on the Westminster coalition. That was what we feared might happen last year, but didn't as a result of the Scottish 'framing' of the campaign. What will really matter now in determining who wins the spin war will be the overall result in terms of seats and first preference votes across Scotland. Alex Salmond seemed confident a couple of hours ago that the SNP will come out on top in both, but we'll just have to wait and see because it looks quite tight. Incidentally, one of the frustrations of the 2007 local elections was the difficulty of tracking down the first preference percentages for the whole country, so I hope that's not the case this time.
Last but not least, whatever criticisms might be made of Allison Hunter, I'm not sure her Labour counterpart's qualities are anything to write home about. He holds the award for the most cringe-inducing interview of the day, describing a 2:2 split with the SNP in a Glasgow ward as a "fawntahhhh-stic" result for Scottish Labour, and dismissing the SNP's overall showing as "dehhhh-sperate, dehhhh-sperate".
Moments like that remind me why I'm a Nat. Roll on 2014.
I do still wonder if the decoupling of the elections from the Holyrood vote for the first time since 1995 has made a difference for Labour, because the campaign has been very low-key, and to some extent has melded into a wider UK 'referendum' on the Westminster coalition. That was what we feared might happen last year, but didn't as a result of the Scottish 'framing' of the campaign. What will really matter now in determining who wins the spin war will be the overall result in terms of seats and first preference votes across Scotland. Alex Salmond seemed confident a couple of hours ago that the SNP will come out on top in both, but we'll just have to wait and see because it looks quite tight. Incidentally, one of the frustrations of the 2007 local elections was the difficulty of tracking down the first preference percentages for the whole country, so I hope that's not the case this time.
Last but not least, whatever criticisms might be made of Allison Hunter, I'm not sure her Labour counterpart's qualities are anything to write home about. He holds the award for the most cringe-inducing interview of the day, describing a 2:2 split with the SNP in a Glasgow ward as a "fawntahhhh-stic" result for Scottish Labour, and dismissing the SNP's overall showing as "dehhhh-sperate, dehhhh-sperate".
Moments like that remind me why I'm a Nat. Roll on 2014.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Why you should seriously consider using all (or most) of your preferences when you vote today
After I mentioned the other day that I was planning to give the Labour candidate my sixth preference out of six in the local elections, Auld Acquaintance left this comment -
"I wouldn't even give that bunch of chancers my 6th preference, In fact I am not even using all my preferences."
That of course chimed with the sentiment uncovered by the poll I ran a few weeks ago, when most of you said that you weren't planning to rank the three London parties at all, and also with a comment that was left by an anonymous poster at the time -
"Surely the best way to not vote Labour up is to leave them off the ballot. Just select SNP and SSP and that's that?"
I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but the latter comment did make me wonder slightly if there might be some confusion about the voting system. There seems to be a sense that only ranking the SNP candidates somehow makes for a more 'emphatic' vote against Labour (or Tory, or whichever party), or conversely that opting to rank the other candidates with your lower preferences would 'dilute' your vote for the SNP. Neither perception is accurate.
If your top preferences are for the SNP, your vote cannot possibly stray from the SNP column until all the Nationalist candidates in the ward are either elected or eliminated. So if an SNP candidate fails to be elected, you need have no fear that your lower preferences for unionist parties will have somehow contributed to that. But if you don't fill in those lower preferences, what you are effectively doing is abstaining on every question other than the fate of the SNP candidates - including, for example, whether you would rather see an independent or a Labour councillor elected. How many of us are truly neutral on that point, particularly if we live in a council area where the fight for control is between Labour and SNP? We wouldn't literally be "voting Labour up" by abstaining, but we'd sure as hell be missing a golden opportunity to vote them down.
In my own three-seat ward, there are two SNP candidates, one SSP, one Labour, one Tory and an independent. It seems overwhelmingly likely that the Labour candidate and both SNP candidates will be elected. But from what I've heard about him, the independent seems rather impressive (notwithstanding his sniping against the local SNP!), so it's perhaps not entirely inconceivable that he might just about find himself in the mix. Now, let's suppose the SNP candidates are the first two to be elected, and their excess votes are then proportionately redistributed to help decide whether Labour or the independent claims the third seat. It would seem absurd to have abstained in that stage of the voting, given that it would dilute the SNP's overall chances of dislodging Labour from power in the council. So here's how I'll be ranking the candidates -
1. SNP
2. SNP
3. SSP
4. Independent
5. Conservative
6. Labour
Only the sixth preference is superfluous here - not ranking Labour at all would have exactly the same effect, but all of the other five preferences are potentially significant. I would obviously prefer Labour to Tory in a Westminster contest, but given the state of play locally it makes sense from a tactical point of view to place the Tory fifth. I'm placing the SSP third solely on the basis that they are an explicitly pro-independence party - I've no idea where the independent candidate stands.
"I wouldn't even give that bunch of chancers my 6th preference, In fact I am not even using all my preferences."
That of course chimed with the sentiment uncovered by the poll I ran a few weeks ago, when most of you said that you weren't planning to rank the three London parties at all, and also with a comment that was left by an anonymous poster at the time -
"Surely the best way to not vote Labour up is to leave them off the ballot. Just select SNP and SSP and that's that?"
I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but the latter comment did make me wonder slightly if there might be some confusion about the voting system. There seems to be a sense that only ranking the SNP candidates somehow makes for a more 'emphatic' vote against Labour (or Tory, or whichever party), or conversely that opting to rank the other candidates with your lower preferences would 'dilute' your vote for the SNP. Neither perception is accurate.
If your top preferences are for the SNP, your vote cannot possibly stray from the SNP column until all the Nationalist candidates in the ward are either elected or eliminated. So if an SNP candidate fails to be elected, you need have no fear that your lower preferences for unionist parties will have somehow contributed to that. But if you don't fill in those lower preferences, what you are effectively doing is abstaining on every question other than the fate of the SNP candidates - including, for example, whether you would rather see an independent or a Labour councillor elected. How many of us are truly neutral on that point, particularly if we live in a council area where the fight for control is between Labour and SNP? We wouldn't literally be "voting Labour up" by abstaining, but we'd sure as hell be missing a golden opportunity to vote them down.
In my own three-seat ward, there are two SNP candidates, one SSP, one Labour, one Tory and an independent. It seems overwhelmingly likely that the Labour candidate and both SNP candidates will be elected. But from what I've heard about him, the independent seems rather impressive (notwithstanding his sniping against the local SNP!), so it's perhaps not entirely inconceivable that he might just about find himself in the mix. Now, let's suppose the SNP candidates are the first two to be elected, and their excess votes are then proportionately redistributed to help decide whether Labour or the independent claims the third seat. It would seem absurd to have abstained in that stage of the voting, given that it would dilute the SNP's overall chances of dislodging Labour from power in the council. So here's how I'll be ranking the candidates -
1. SNP
2. SNP
3. SSP
4. Independent
5. Conservative
6. Labour
Only the sixth preference is superfluous here - not ranking Labour at all would have exactly the same effect, but all of the other five preferences are potentially significant. I would obviously prefer Labour to Tory in a Westminster contest, but given the state of play locally it makes sense from a tactical point of view to place the Tory fifth. I'm placing the SSP third solely on the basis that they are an explicitly pro-independence party - I've no idea where the independent candidate stands.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
A message to the birds : what about MY rights?
We've got some swifts nesting in the loft at the moment, after a technologically-advanced drilling operation to gain access through a corner of the roof that seems to have been going on for several years. However, an internet search has revealed that it would be illegal to disturb the nest in any way, and we'll have to wait until winter at the earliest.
I dunno. These bloody immigrant birds - not content with stealing our women and our jobs, it seems they can just swan into our houses without so much as a by-your-leave, and the law tells us that's fine. They've got more rights than the decent, law-abiding, Labour-voting (sixth preference out of six), hard-working families of this country. We're not even allowed to shoot them.
Let's all move to Texas and napalm some geese.
I dunno. These bloody immigrant birds - not content with stealing our women and our jobs, it seems they can just swan into our houses without so much as a by-your-leave, and the law tells us that's fine. They've got more rights than the decent, law-abiding, Labour-voting (sixth preference out of six), hard-working families of this country. We're not even allowed to shoot them.
Let's all move to Texas and napalm some geese.
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