Note: For those understandably scared by the word “Nationalist,” please read my previous diary here.
You can follow live election results here.
Tomorrow is the Scottish Parliamentary election, as well as a UK-wide referendum on the Alternative Vote. Wikipedia has a better explanation of that than I do. Every poll for the past seven weeks puts the Scottish National Party and Greens in position to take a majority in Holyrood. Last night's STV poll gave the SNP a massive lead.
Scottish Polling is notably incompetent, as is Scottish Journalism. When labor crept up two points giving the SNP a lead of only 8%, the Scotsman declared “LABOR SLASHES SNP ELECTION LEAD.” I've seen the Scotsman referred to as the Sloppy Hootsmon (I have no idea what that means, but I'm sure it's negative.) It's obviously incompetent reporting like this that leads to such monikers. Sure enough, the next poll, to come out reversed the trend, showing the SNP back up at 45, and their closest competitors, labor, had fallen to 27, giving the SNP an 18 point lead. Labor's negative campaign may have become quite shrill. We'll see how that works tomorrow.
Update The first results from the Scottish Election are expected at 2:00 AM BST, which is 9:00 EST. I'll begin a liveblog around 8:00 or 8:30 EST to take us through the Election.
A final note on polling, British Journalists are incredibly incompetent when it comes to covering British politics. I would say malicious or biased, but there doesn't seem to be any malicious attempt to hide the truth, especially when incompetence is as likely an explanation. Last time around, the SNP had a nine point poll lead, but ended up with only .8% more votes than Labour, and one more seat. This was mostly because Scotland was using a brand new proportional vote election system, which they had never used before.
The best source I have found, a man who has won journalism awards for his SNP Tactical Voting Blog, is Jeff of Better Nation. He now lives in London, and is supporting the English Greens there. He has always been an expert number cruncher and pollster, and his predictions usually point out to be true. He points out that last election, the SNP was in second place in 41 seats across the country. If they are able to capitalize and increase their vote shares in those constituencies, they'll take parliament. The SNP has been trending at 45% of the vote for weeks, with the remainder split between several smaller parties. While I would be happy if the STV vote proved true, no Scottish pollster has a good record. But perhaps some of the better pollsters such as Ipsos-Mori have corrected their metrics. Time will tell.
(There has been some whining about the STV poll not being weighted against previous polls. They are, but not against the ipsos-mori poll. They're weighted against their own poll. Why people want STV to weigh their poll against a completely different metric, I will never know.)
Despite all of this the SNP has earned its support. The reason for the high polling is that everyone from jailed socialists to business leaders, and even the Murdoch-owned sun, is endorsing the SNP. The reason for their poll lead may have nothing to do with nationalism.
If you watch the debates, you see that economic issues and effective government are what causes the broad based support for the SNP. They are the most effective government that Scotland has ever had. They have eradicated the private sector from the Scottish healthcare system, leading to better service and shorter waiting times. They've frozen the council tax, which keeps all property taxes from going up (this helps everyone, but wealthy people especially,) they've instituted small business grants to help out entrepreneurs, they've made sure seniors have free bus passes, they've made college education and prescription drugs free, and they've set the most ambitious emissions elimination policy on earth. They are truly a center left party: use the free market when it works, use the government when it doesn't.
If you want to spend an hour watching the Scottish Leaders Debate, click here. It's really interesting to see the people respond to the politicians.
The other parties don't know how to respond. As confidence in the SNP administration increased, they eventually panicked, and started voting against anything the SNP proposed, no matter how sensible and popular. A good example is minimum alcohol pricing. Scotland has massive social problems with alcohol fueled violent attacks, and knife crime. The SNP attempted to institute a minimum alcohol price, which would prevent people from drinking massive amounts of cheap alcohol. Despite this policy enjoying almost universal support, the major parties voted against it, and are paying for it now.
Labor is scrambling to hold on to its voters across Scotland, and this is evidenced by the fact that they have swamped their strongholds with 10,000 labor activists, some from elsewhere in the UK. Their focus is holding on to their electorate. This isn't helped by the videos of him running from constituents who were demanding that he stand up against the conservatives:
The fact that he fled into a Subway led to many politicians being asked the question “What would YOU have taken refuge in?!” with the answer “Well I would have chosen [Appropriately Scottish Food Chain Here].”
The Liberal Democrats have earned their nick name, the Fib Dems. They've reneged on their previous support an independence referendum. Now they're pledging to oppose it. They're hurting because their party is in coalition with the hated Tories in London. This could be the end of the Liberal Democrats in Scotland, with most of their vote being absorbed into the SNP. At the same time, they'd be part of the Government in London. Imagine that: Scotland's two least popular parties are the ones in Coalition in London. If it's a bad day for the Liberal Democrats, they'll end up as that other party. You know, that one. The one that can't even get more seats than the Greens.
The Conservative and Unionist party will always have between 10 and 15% of the electorate. They always have. Outside of their strongholds, however, they sometimes don't even bother to run candidates because it would be a waste of money. In some areas, it would be dangerous for the conservatives to campaign. Their mere presence could cause riots in some areas of Glasgow. This is all thanks to Maggie Thatcher's assault on Scotland some thirty years ago, from which Scotland still has not recovered.
Labor's campaign has become increasingly negative. Every time the SNP runs, it is said that they will tie up the country in constitutional wrangling. Now, Iain Gray is asking when the SNP plans to hold their independence referendum.
A note: Political Ads work differently in Scotland. Here's one from the SNP:
Apparently, they put out a political ad in the form of a Jakil music video. The next one points out one the major goals of the SNP: Good Government. The SNP has two goals: The first is to give Scotland the best government possible. The Second is to convince the people of Scotland that they are better off independent.
I've been looking for the Party Political Broadcasts from Labour, but I can't find them. If someone else can, post them below and I'll paste them up here.
As you can probably tell, I'm pulling for the SNP. I also support the Scottish Greens, and the proportional representation system guarantees that support for multiple progressive parties guarantees seats for multiple progressive parties. We may even see the greens overtake the Liberal Democrats. And I'll reiterate something I said in a previous diary. If the SNP doesn't take a Majority, count the number of greens, and add the SNP and Greens together. The two agree on mosts things. If together they have 65 or more, then there will be an Independence Referendum, an a lot of other great policies coming out of Holyrood. The Greens and the SNP have already pledged to work together.
I'll begin covering the results around noon tomorrow.
[A note: My links haven't translated from my word processor, despite the fact that I worked out the tags. I'll be adding links to this article over the next little while, but I wanted to get it up immediately.]Updated by OllieGarkey at Wed May 04, 2011 at 05:38 PM PDT
Update: Bella Caledonia is calling for Scots to spoil their AV Ballots by writing "Independence" across the ballot. This forces the british government to hold, pay for, and count an independence referendum that they don't want.
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/...
This as the Scotsman writes that Scotland holds the key to swinging the AV referendum in Britain.
http://www.scotlandvotes.com/...
Meanwhile, the mainstream British media has taken notice of North Britain for once, and is pointing out that the Scottish Elections will be a major setback for the Labour party.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...