Scottish Parliament Election, 6th May 2021

[ElectionObserver]

Where is the power to change the Scottish electoral system located? At Westminster or Holyrood? If it ends up with a "gaming of the system" via Alba, giving a pro-independence supermajority, there might be pressure to change the system to a better one. Obviously the best thing would be to ditch the constituencies, and just have open lists in the regions, but this is the UK, so it would most likely be changed into something worse I would assume.

That power lies with Westminster. Same goes for the Senedd - it was Labour who banned dual candidacy and the Tories who repealed that rule. Though changing the system without the consent of the Scottish government could almost certainly backfire.

This is totally wrong. The power for Scotland is with the Scottish parliament and Wales the Senedd since the Scotland Act 2016/ Wales Act 2017. The UK parliament only retains power over UK Westminster elections (and PCC elections in Wales).

That's why Scotland and Wales allow 16 and 17 olds to vote or why Scotland uses STV for its local council elections.


The AMS system has always been a horrendous one which was obviously open to gaming. Anyway, it would be very easy to solve the problem of shell parties running on the list. That's by getting rid of the second ballot paper and just counting a party's total vote in each region from the first ballot paper. It would have the additional benefit of encouraging more parties to stand in each constituency and for them to campaign harder making elections more competitive. It would also make setting up splinter/ minor parties more difficult (which is an advantage IMO.

[ElectionObserver]

The SNP seem to have really recovered since the whole Salmond affair and are now back well above their pre-Covid level, though not as high as their mid-Covid peak.

On these numbers, nationalists should win a comfortable majority in parliament. The Ipsos-Mori poll has the result as 81 nationalists (+12 on 2016) to 48 unionists (-12). The Panelbase poll has 80 nationalists (+11) to 49 unionists (-11) - though they have Alex Salmond getting elected which would make things 'interesting' for the SNP. Both polls give the SNP a majority to govern alone with 70/ 66 out of 129.

Ipsos-Mori for STV (30/3-4/4) (Constituency / List). Changes from mid-February.
SNP 53% (+1)  /  38% (-9)
Conservatives 20% (-3)  /  21% (-1)
Labour 18% (+3)  /  18% (+4)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-1)  /  6% (-)
Green 2% (-1)  /  12% (+4)
Alba  (Not standing in constituencies)  /  3% (New)

Panelbase for The Sunday Times (30/3-1/4) (Constituency / List). Changes from early March.
SNP 49% (+2)  /  39% (-3)
Conservatives 22% (-1)  /  21% (-1)
Labour 20% (-)  /  17% (+2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (-1)  /  5% (-2)
Green 2% (-)  /  8% (+2)
Alba  (Not standing in constituencies)  /  6% (New)
 

[ElectionObserver]

The SNP really seems to have rebound from the whole Salmond thing last month. Given the polls released in the last couple of days from reputable companies (Ipsos-Mori, Panelbase and now Opinium), an SNP majority is looking more likely than not.

Still a month until the election, but postal voting applications in Scotland closed a couple of days ago and local government electoral services departments will be posting out ballot papers from the middle of next week. Postal votes have been applied for by about a quarter of the electorate who will make up more than a third of voters.

I'm not sure much is going to change either. Scottish Labour continue to appear as though they are on death's door even with their new leader*. The SNP have taken their lunch and they have no idea how to get it back. Who knows - perhaps the SNP have already eaten it?
The Conservatives are trying to rerun their 2016/ 2017/ 2019 election campaigns with the SNP and independence bogeyman, but it really does show the law of diminishing returns.

The figures are here:
Opinium for Sky News (1/4-6/4) (Constituency / List). Changes from mid-March when the SNP reached their lowest point in the polls.
SNP 53% (+7)  /  44% (+2)
Conservatives 21% (-3)  /  22% (-)
Labour 18% (-2)  /  17% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (1)  /  5% (-)
Green (No Data Given)  /  7% (-)
Alba  (Not standing in constituencies)  /  2% (New)

There was a TV debate the other day. This is what the poll says on how well the leaders did. *Surprisingly well for Labour I think.
''Mr Sarwar (Labour) is also seen as having done a good job in the debate where 62% think he did well and 28% badly, whereas Ross (Conservative) is seen to have done badly with 28% saying he did well and 62% badly among those who watched or saw highlights.
However, Ms Sturgeon (SNP) is still seen to have performed best with 67% well and 27% badly''.

The UK Westminster election numbers are:
SNP - 50%
Conservative - 24%
Labour - 19%
Lib Dem - 4%
Under FPTP, the SNP would win the vast majority of seats like they did in 2019.

[ElectionObserver]

I recall reading in an opinion page suggesting that one way the United Kingdom government could cut the legs out from under the Scottish independence movement is to offer Scotland the opportunity to join the European Single Market:

There is, however, a halfway house that London could offer Scotland. It is clear that, whatever the UK may gain from leaving the EU, the cost of leaving Europe’s single market is crippling. The current disruption may tail off but the idea of an economic or commercial benefit from leaving the single market seems absurd. Not a week passes without some new lunacy on border controls, migrant workers, supply chains or bureaucracy. The “hardness” of Brexit was a thoughtless gimmick by a bunch of cronies to seize control of the Conservatives.

If imaginative thinking could be found, perhaps a way to placate some of the discontent, then, is for Scotland to join the two Irelands in that existing single market. It need not leave the UK or join the EU. It would form with Ireland an economic “Celtic crescent” across the Irish Sea. Belfast would trade freely with Glasgow, Edinburgh with Rotterdam and Hamburg. Scotland’s economy would remain open to Europe and doubtless draw new investments and business as a result.

One price is obvious. There would have to be some sort of customs barrier north of Hadrian’s Wall. There would be checks and there would be bureaucracy – as now between Norway and Sweden. But that is England’s fault for rejecting single market status. The Cheviot Hills could be a more manageable border than the still putative one on the island of Ireland.

How likely is that?  It seems a reasonable compromise to me.    

It's less likely than independence, that's for sure.
The current Johnson administration is very much 'one-nation' not just in reference to Toryism, but also in reference to the union. Their march towards a single British market will remove powers from the Scottish government rather than add.

I personally think it's a big mistake and is probably the greatest gift to nationalists, but that's the way we are heading.

I know some will disagree, but the only way to save the union is to look again at how the UK works and how the governments of the UK work/ interact with each other.

[ElectionObserver]

The Spectator has mooted the idea of Anas Sarwar unseating Nicola Sturgeon in Glasgow Southside.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-nicola-sturgeon-in-for-a-scare-in-her-own-seat-

Simply not going to happen. For anyone not aware, The Spectator is a strongly unionist and anti-SNP magazine and even they concede she will hang on.

Back in 2016, she won with 61% of the vote and in 2011 with 54% of the vote. Labour were second both times with 23% and 35% respectively.

Sturgeon will be elected with a majority of at least a couple of thousand votes on a bad night.

[ElectionObserver]

I voted at 2pm after the rain. Voting did seem really brisk.

I'm in Glasgow Cathcart so it was a simple SNP/Green.

Pretty much everyone I know in my area has seen or met Nicola today (her seat starts across the road)

I wonder what turnout will be like.
The previous record was 58.4% in 1999 and second 55.8% last time in 2016.

I've seen lots of reports of brisk voting at the polls despite the bad weather. This is with a quarter of the electorate voting by post up from the high teens back in 2016.

Could we see record turnout?

[ElectionObserver]

I voted at 2pm after the rain. Voting did seem really brisk.

I'm in Glasgow Cathcart so it was a simple SNP/Green.

Pretty much everyone I know in my area has seen or met Nicola today (her seat starts across the road)

I wonder what turnout will be like.
The previous record was 58.4% in 1999 and second 55.8% last time in 2016.

I've seen lots of reports of brisk voting at the polls despite the bad weather. This is with a quarter of the electorate voting by post up from the high teens back in 2016.

Could we see record turnout?

That seems to be the case, but I'm hearing ground reports that the increase is skewed towards areas less favourable to the SNP.

Are you talking about that Lib Dem in Edinburgh Western? I have seen the complete opposite online too with SNP people saying they are really happy.
Really, nobody has any idea until the ballots are counted who has voted and who they have voted for.

[ElectionObserver]

So, what now for Scottish Labour?

The good news is that their historic decline seems to have finally bottomed out (this election will have seen the last of the "legacy" vote from when they were Scotland's hegemonic party dissipating)

The bad is that despite the rave reviews Sarwar has been getting they didn't actually make progress (and of course some on the party's left are drawing the predictable "conclusions" about that)

I have to say I disagree with this.

Labour benefited a lot from tactical unionist voting this time around. They could still go lower and certainly haven't 'bottomed out'. A lot of the ancestral Labour vote they still have, they will retain for decades to come as it's unlikely the SNP/ others will take much more if they haven't already unless there's another/ a further realignment of Scottish politics.