Scotland 2011 - Results Thread

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To be unlocked at 10pm.

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Polls have closed

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It's usually a couple of hours. Rumours before then are often very unreliable.

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Aberdeen looks good for the SNP, apparently.

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Labour actually up a bit; but the LibDem vote collapsed - almost entirely - to the SNP.

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Confirmed SNP gain East Kilbride.

Inevitable given the general pattern; unfortunate for Labour though, as Kerr did show signs of having ideas during the leadership contest.

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SNP Gain Glasgow Southside (Lab)

Sort-of a hold though. Big win for the other fish.

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Scotland is officially a nation of ticket splitters.

Anyway, Gray holds on be the skin of his teeth.

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Iain Gray was 151 votes from defeat. Damn, do Scotland election laws allow for requested recounts?

Any recounts will have been done already.

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Labour really cocked up the two or three months in the run-up to the election; massive error as that's the period when the media narrative gets formed.

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Wrt to the LibDem thing, note also that much of the LibDem vote in South Wales (an on and off phenomenon that dates back to the birth of the SDP and no earlier) was actually made up of disaffected Labour-ish types. Look at the results in the all the cities and big towns in South Wales.

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It has to understand what went wrong; not only to lose the election but to loose their core vote.

Let's no exaggerate; a significant part of the core vote. Which is bad enough (and was enough, combined with other factors, to cost them core constituencies). But there's half a precedent for that; remember the 1999 elections in Wales? I write half because what happened in parts of the Valleys that year was a short-term protest vote, while this clearly isn't (and of course the general context has nothing in common). The main lesson is that Holyrood elections aren't merely part of the usual Westminster-driven electoral cycle, but more like those in Canadian provinces or Australian states. I don't think Scottish Labour took that on board (as I wrongly assumed until about two months ago) and that's why they stood still in support and lost seats.

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Interesting that both devolved administrations ought to be perfectly secure for their full terms barring the usual.

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Interesting that both devolved administrations ought to be perfectly secure for their full terms barring the usual.

But...but....but... I thought nasty-complicated PR meant grubby, backroom-dealing, unstable [speak softly for fear of scaring the children] coalitions *shudder* ...

Should I clutch my pearls?

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Some form of purple?

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Just a note to say that if anyone sets up an Inverclyde by-election thread this week, they will be made to regret it. Partly for the usual reasons of decency and so on. But also for reasons that long-time readers should be able to work out from joining the dots. Thanks/diolch.

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Is it too soon for an Inverclyde thread yet? Labour's shortlisting tomorrow, just btw.

No, you can start one if you want; a couple of weeks is a decent enough interval.