UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[IceAgeComing]

I am going to create a thread for the Scottish Parliament Elections but I thought I'd post this here just now because I think it says something.

Panelbase did another poll earlier this week for some pro-independence blog (so keep that in mind - but Panelbase are a trustworthy firm so I feel comfortable posting this) which is pretty grim reading for, well, everyone bar the SNP.  All changes are from last month

Westminster Voting Intention:

SNP: 51% (+1)
Con: 21% (-5)
Labour: 19% (+2)
LD: 6% (+1)
Grn: 2% (nc)

(on a uniform swing: would lead to SNP: 58 Lab 1 Con+LD 0 but that wouldn't happen in reality)

Scottish Parliament Voting Intention (constituency/list)

SNP: 53% (nc)/48% (nc)
Con: 21% (-2)/19% (-3)
Lab: 16% (+1)/16% (+1)
LD: 6% (+1)/8% (+1)
Grn: 3% (nc)/7% (+2)

Would result in 72 SNP seats (+9), 25 Con seats (-6), 19 Labour seats (-5), 8 Lib Dem seats (+3) and 5 Greens (-1); an SNP overall majority of 15 in a parliament with PR

Independence Referendum voting intention:

Yes: 52% (+2)
No: 48% (-2)

With Don't Knows:

Yes: 48% (+2)
No: 45% (-1)
DK: 7% (-1)

If that was the result in the Scottish Parliament pro-independence parties would both clearly have a majority of the votes (56%/55%) and seats (60%) and it'd be incredibly tricky, with what they've said before, for the Westminster government to block a second independence referendum.  Would be the best SNP election performance ever; the worst Labour performance ever and the Greens end up losing seats despite gaining votes because of the SNP winning almost every constituency which raises the effective threshold.

I don't think its that surprising though: the Tory performance in 2016 and 17 was all Ruth Davidson; and now she's gone Carlaw is invisible and so the face of the Tories in Scotland is Boris who is, well, about as popular as the Coronavirus.  The almost universal position is that the Scottish government response has been better than the Westminster one; I think that Brexit has done a good job at helping to eliminate the hesitation that some voters had to voting SNP in the past, and I think that broadly being a stable government for the last few years has done a very good job at making them appear very reasonable while Westminster has lurched from election to crisis to crisis to election with three PMs in four years.

[IceAgeComing]

There's one other thing about the Boris thing that really ought to be mentioned.  He was in hospital for a serious respiratory illness not that long ago: they can have massive, life-long impacts on your health.  While they denied it he was probably on a ventilator (they don't move you to A+E for a lark) and that suggests he was very seriously ill.  If his health is bad he might either resign because of it or be pushed to quit if people think that he can't handle the work anymore.  We don't know any of this but its worth talking about.

Come to think about it and given the current Scottish polling numbers, an interesting scenario is what happens if the SNP loses its majority and the Greens do not make it in.

Do they lead a minority government regardless? Do they seek confidence and supply from Labour? Or do they go with the Lib Dems?

In any case those all kill Indyref 2 of course.

Greens will almost certainly make it in: they're pretty much guaranteed a seat in Glasgow and Lothians unless their vote collapses below 3% which isn't likely.  They could lose seats but that depends on the constituency results as much as the Greens vote share.

It also must be said that the election is in nearly a year's time, there's no telling what state the economy or the job market will be in and how much of that is perceived to be Holyrood's fault, never mind the fact that a strong campaign by either of Labour or the Tories could change things within weeks. There's also the fact that the only time since 2015 Labour have done well in Scotland was 2017, was when they were seen as credibly and seriously challenging for power nationwide. If Labour have a healthy lead in the national polls by then, who knows what could happen.

Also, am I the only one who thinks its really pathetic for Yes that despite everything that's happened, Brexit, Corbyn, Boris, etc. that they can only manage a 4-point lead? I think if indyref2 did happen it would have serious potential to backfire quite significantly on the SNP. We can only hope.

That first point is valid: but it would not surprise me if the economic impact is seen as a UK-wide problem; and that Westminster therefore gets a bit of the blame.  I could certainly see it being a thing where each side blames each other and it entrenches the vote more than causing a massive swing away.

And that's the thing with the independence numbers as well: 2014 very much entrenched those feelings in people and while you are seeing people a small number of people switching (and its not all in one direction: Banff and Buchan voted for Independence in 2014, I think it'd vote against now) the fact is that both sides are probably guaranteed to get 45% in a referendum and the fight is over that middle group.  Its unlike any other issue really: its one of identity as much as policy and identity issues tend to be entrenched very deeply into people and are much harder to swing people against.

The SNP has been in government for 13 YEARS, are they showing any drop in support as almost all governments that outstay their welcome do?

Remember that we're talking about a devolved administration and not a national government: there are plenty of examples of single party domination in those.  To use some examples from Canada as one of the better examples (Westminster system country etc): look at the Alberta PCs and the Ontario PCs dominating their provincial politics for 40+ years each.

There have been signs of a fall but no one was able to capitalise: had Lamont not done that interview in 2014 (when she reigned as Scottish Labour leader and instantly did an interview calling Scottish Labour a 'branch office' and effectively saying that the SNP were right about them) 2015 would have been competitive and they'd be in a much better place to be an alternative government: in 2017 the Tories clearly had momentum but it'd be a coup for them to compete in the Central Belt (not that you need to win constituencies there to govern: look at 2007) but losing Davidson really hurt and Boris being PM has killed their support in a lot of places.  Meanwhile the SNP has a popular leader in Nicola Sturgeon and broadly by being incredibly uncontroversial they haven't angered that many people - well, those that would actually vote SNP anyway.

That Lamont interview is actually a massive turning point in Scottish politics and no one really talks about it anymore: it killed the credibility of Labour eight months before the 2015 general election and they've never recovered: and based on the quality of talent in the Scottish Labour Party I doubt they will for a while.  They might benefit from a Starmer bump but that's only ever going to push them so far: perhaps into second place ahead of the Tories.  Realistically to try and pull back a lot of their lost support they'd need to de-emphasise the union a lot in their campaigning but that isn't what they want to do - a lot of old Labour voters backed Independence in 2014.

[IceAgeComing]

It was an impressive bit of political wrecking - would be interesting to have been a fly in the wall on SNP offices when that stuff came out; just have felt like Christmas had come early.  Labour didn't exactly help by elected Jim Murphy as their leader and running an incredibly bad campaign - if Labour's 2015 campaign was bad nationally it was catastrophic in Scotland.  Trying to run entirely on the union wasn't exactly a bright idea when the pro-independence places were the ones that were Labour heartlands.

Murphy tried to stay as leader for a week after as well which was just comical

[IceAgeComing]

Colluded by... standing for election?  Labour don't have the right to win a majority of seats in Scotland you know

[IceAgeComing]

The protests in London to "protect the statues" went as well as expected.  A load of EDL and other far right goons went down to London, were kettled around Westminster, drunk a lot of beer, tried to fight with the police, there were arguments between All Lives Matter and White Lives Matter people where the former perhaps realised the people they were allied with were dodgy; there was a literal river of urine running from a hidden corner where everyone went to relieve themselves, the Tesco by Parliament was closed by police to stop them from buying all of the booze in the shop etc.

The Black Lives Matter counterprotesters stood behind police lines and laughed at what, quite frankly, was a pretty sad group of people.  Seems to be most of the far right goons you see at things like this plus some new people who broadly seem to have not quite realised they were getting themselves in for and who didn't like the fascists.

[IceAgeComing]

That's why its good there wasn't really a counter protest; based on past history of the British far right all you need to do is give them enough rope to hang themselves and they do a good job of that

[IceAgeComing]

BoJo seems to have thrown Trump under the bus. Which is something.

Poor foreign policy. Trump holds grudges and may be back in four years' time.

I mean there's no guarantee that Boris is still there in four years time!

[IceAgeComing]

The Scottish Govenment's communication has been a lot better but that's the biggest difference really: there never have been significant policy differences, only differences in timing really.  That difference has created a clear perception that the Scottish Government has handled it better and in reality that probably matters more than anything else.

If you are the Conservatives though you probably are a bit relieved that there isn't a clear major difference: would have strengthened the Independence case even more.

[IceAgeComing]

This is a very simplistic way of looking at things and a deeper analysis is needed but its worth noting: seats held by the Conservatives in 2017 went from a 70.8% turnout in 2017 to a 69.9% turnout in 2019 (the Conservatives gained around 300,000 votes, Labour lost around 1.2 million votes, around 30,000 more votes were cast) while seats held by Labour in 2017 went from a 66.6% turnout in 2017 to a 64.0% turnout in 2019 (Labour lost 1.3 million votes, Conservatives gained around 30,000 votes, 300,000 less votes total were cast).

To me this would suggest that Al's point is correct: not only does there appear to be a clear difference in turnout between Conservative and Labour seats (down 0.9% in 2017 Tory seats, down 2.6% in 2017 Labour seats) - and that's possibly including a few Labour seats where there wasn't the same depth of feeling against the Labour Party that there was in some of those Northern seats - but also the raw vote pattern does show that Labour->not voting seems to be the strongest vote trend in 2017 Labour held seats with Labour>Conservatives one of the weaker ones - at least from the raw vote totals.

[IceAgeComing]

If Alliance get past DUP do they get dibs on First Minister?

No; since they are not a Unionist or Nationalist Party.  The rules on allocation are that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister must come from different communities; and the First Minister comes from the largest party of the largest community while the Deputy First Minister (which is an equal office: Co-First Ministers would be a better comparison) comes from the largest party of the other community.  The only exception is if the largest party is a cross-community party when they'd be First Minister and the largest party of the largest community would be Deputy First Minister.  The Alliance aren't finishing first in an election any time soon; so the First Minister will only realistically be a DUP or Sinn Fein politician.

[IceAgeComing]

I'm trying to decrypt what you are trying to ask there: I think you are saying that they could register themselves as being a Unionist party rather than being cross-community?

They'd never do that: it'd kill them as a party if they did since it'd split.  While a bulk of the party are probably small-u unionists and while it primarily gets support in more middle class Unionist areas - the places that were strongest for more traditional UUP style politicians where the DUPs style never played particularly well - part of the reason for that is the fact that its a cross-community party that does garner a non-zero amount of support from Catholics as well.  It also effectively guarantees them the right to hold the Justice Minister role since that's voted on a cross-community basis and the easy compromise solution is to give it to a prominent Alliance politician - indeed when Alliance refused to stand anyone in 2016 it almost scuppered power sharing months before it actually ended: they ended up having to give the role to Claire Sugden (an Independent Unionist; although the most progressive Unionist in the Assembly) because neither of the big two parties wanted it out of fear that it'd immediately put scrutiny of everything the PSNI did.

The current situation does limit the amount of power that the Alliance has but it does guarantee them at least some power as the biggest cross-community party and realistically that's not changing unless they grow signficiantly (and if they did there'd be pretty consistent calls for the community that wasn't represented in the two main offices to have a person involved in decision making as well and it'd likely happen) or unless the Greens or someone else end up having someone very suitable for the Justice Minister role and even then the Alliance might still qualify for a normal Minister.

[IceAgeComing]

My favourite is alma-mater (shudder) Gerry Malone who lost in Hillhead in 1982, won Aberdeen South in 1983, lost it in 1987, won Winchester in 1992 lost it in 1997 by two votes, won a legal challenge and got hammered in the by-election

It was a long time ago when things were very different, but the list of constituencies that Leslie Haden-Guest* ran in is genuinely impressive in its range as well: the ones I remember offhand are Southwark North, Wycombe, Brecon & Radnor, and Islington North, but there might have been a few others - don't have access to a copy of Craig 1918-49 with its useful index right now.

_{*Labour's first Jewish MP (and parliamentary candidate, actually), later a member of the Lords. Grandfather of Christopher Guest who he looked pretty much exactly like.}

Luckily for you I own the complete run from 1832-1974 (went through a period of checking Amazon semi-regularly over a period of years and when someone was trying to sell at a reasonable price I bought): it says he contested Southwark Central for Labour in 1918, unsuccessfully contested Southwark North in 1922, winning it in 1923, holding it in 1924 before losing it in a March 1927 election after resigning from the Labour Party (over them sending troops to China apparently) and seeking re-election under a Constitutionalist label with support from local Conservatives (finished third behind the Liberals and Labour, which probably isn't that surprising for a candidate that left his party over a foreign policy issue before seeking re-election with the support of a party that was never strong in the constituency), contested Salford North for the Conservatives in 1929 (although Wikipedia states his party label as being "Unionist" which makes a lot more sense considering the area and the person; Craig doesn't differentiate between the two post-1910 since there's no practical difference), Wycombe for Labour in 1931 (probably one of a small handful of people that supported the Conservatives in 1929 but Labour in 1931), Breconshire and Radnorshire in 1935 and then he was elected MP for Islington North in an October 1937 by-election, then retaining it at the General before before going to the House of Lords before Parliament was dissolved in 1950.  I had a brief look at Craig 1885-1918 to see if there was anything pre-war but he is not in the index. So I guess he was only successful when he stood in London!

That far back is a different time though; while transport and communications links were rapidly improving I suspect that there was still an expectation that your MP would have to primarily live in London to get the job done and that having a local man was not an essential part of things.  Now while you'd think because of those improvements it might be easier for someone to be a genuinely good local MP while working remotely the expectations have heavily shifted and that local presence is a lot more part of the job: if anything it feels like the responsibilities of an MP have broadened significantly in recent decades.