Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Aberdeen Donside - swing of 8% to the Tories and turnout is up quite significantly from 2016

Only one result but interesting.

Edit: Although as pointed out by Kirsty Wark Aberdeenshire tends to be a little different still - it's more Brexity (lots of fishing communities) and conservative. It also voted more strongly in the North-East (Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, Moray) than anywhere but the Borders.

BBC reporter just said that he's been told by a senior Tory that they're still very worried it'll be an SNP landslide.

[alfred russel]

I'm not sure yet if we can draw across from local council elections in England to Scotland yet - not least because they have very different voting systems and in Scotland especially people tactically vote because they know that's necessary in the constituency seat. Often they do it to elect/stop a nationalist/unionist candidate.

The polling indicates SNP is going to approach 50% for the constituency vote but hover in the mid to upper 30s for regional. The effect is that for SNP the vote is almost just a first past the post election for the 73 constituency seats.

I'm only interested in the SNP result because that is all I've been gambling on.

[Sheilbh]

Fair. The tactical voting only matters in the constituency vote so I'd keep an eye on it.

I love elections in general - but I also particularly like this one where you have reporters in England plus Scotland plus Wales all contributing to the same story. I wish all reporting was more like this and properly UK/British rather than just Westminster unless something enormous happens.

I'm still angry at Westminster reporters worrying that the different nations having different lockdown policies was incredibly confusing and unwieldly

Edit: Incidentally my favourite thing about local elections is ward names - this is wonderful from Lincolnshire: Market Rasen Wolds Also in Cornwall - Falmouth Arwenack and Falmouth Penwerris - just great work.

Edit: Never heard a more magnificently sonorous, Kirk voice than the returning officer of Na h-Eileanan an Iar.

[alfred russel]

Fair. The tactical voting only matters in the constituency vote so I'd keep an eye on it.

I love elections in general - but I also particularly like this one where you have reporters in England plus Scotland plus Wales all contributing to the same story. I wish all reporting was more like this and properly UK/British rather than just Westminster unless something enormous happens.

I'm still angry at Westminster reporters worrying that the different nations having different lockdown policies was incredibly confusing and unwieldly

Edit: Incidentally my favourite thing about local elections is ward names - this is wonderful from Lincolnshire: Market Rasen Wolds Also in Cornwall - Falmouth Arwenack and Falmouth Penwerris - just great work.

Here is my point:

Aberdeen Dunshire just declared its results. SNP wins the constituency by about 25%. It is part of the NE Scotland Region, which has 10 constituency seats and 7 regional seats.

Last time SNP got 9 of the 10 constituency seats and 0 of the 7 regional seats. If SNP wants to get more seats in the NE of Scotland, it is all about that last constituency seat. They got 44.7% of the regional vote last time, and polling shows it will likely decline this time. In either event, they probably need to get around 50% of the regional vote to get a regional seat.

On the other hand, if they lose a second constituency seat, they are unlikely to get it back at the regional level (they might get one back if they lose two though). That is basically the same analysis in every region other than South Scotland and the Highlands/Islands.

[Sheilbh]

Understood and you're right.

Big Labour swing in Clydebank (5.8% from SNP), Tories and SNP are down. I wonder if Anas Sarwar impressed even more than expected - I was very impressed in the bits I saw from the debates but didn't see much movement in the polls

Incidentally I also wonder if we're going to see more intertwining between British politics and the Indian sub-continent. Anas Sarwar's dad was a Labour MP for Glasgow for decades and a really big party figure, he's now the Governor of Punjab and a Senator in Pakistan. Rishi Sunak's father in law is a very wealth and influential man in India as the former chairman of Infosys. I know from when I lived in Whitechapel that there are close links between Bengali politics and the factions within the Labour Party and council there. It'd be an interesting development

[alfred russel]

Understood and you're right.

It is a great rationale for the Alba party. If half of voters love the SNP/Alba agenda, vote in the constituency for SNP and Alba at the regional level and bring home 75% of the seats. Kind of a flaw in the voting system.

[Sheilbh]

It is a great rationale for the Alba party. If half of voters love the SNP/Alba agenda, vote in the constituency for SNP and Alba at the regional level and bring home 75% of the seats. Kind of a flaw in the voting system.

Yeah. I don't know if it'll work because of Alex Salmond's issues/unpopularity but I think that describes it better than the half of the English commentariat who were gloating that it would just split the vote without noting the different electoral system.

I don't know if it's a flaw or to an extent working as designed - but the assumption when it was designed was that Labour would always dominate the constituency vote. I don't think anyone at that time would have predicted tactical voting on the constitutional issue as the big thing in Scottish politics - and people know how to use the system.

BBC reporter said there's about 8% higher turnout in Scotland from the last election and said it looks like it'll be a battle between higher turnout which normally helps the SNP v unionist tactical voting.

[Sheilbh]

Sounding good for you - Sir John Curtice who is the best psephologist around and always on the BBC on election nights saying that while it's still early the results so far don't suggest that the SNP are putting in the type of performance they need to win a majority on their own.

Edit: Although - just had a result in Dundee West and he's said that's more encouraging and there's no sign of tactical voting. So it depends which trend holds.

[Josquius]

Its interesting as you have the usual suspects going "haha labour tears today" when all I seem to be seeing is labour gloating? :/

Labour gloating? At what?

I just mean I'm seeing very strong attacks on Starmer from the ultra-Blairites/centrists and from the left. I think the results are looking bad but everyone needs to calm down a little.

It sort of makes sense I suppose - for the left they need to prove Starmer will fail and this is why Labour should have stayed on the Corbynite lines; for the centre they need to point out Starmer isn't what they wanted either so their alternative hasn't even been tried.

Gloating at Starmer being beaten.
You would think Labour had just won something to see the way a lot of the Corbyn fans are acting.

[Sheilbh]

Gloating at Starmer being beaten.
You would think Labour had just won something to see the way a lot of the Corbyn fans are acting.

I know

As I say, at the minute, I think the left want to beat Starmer more than they want to beat Johnson. They would rather win the factional battle over the Labour Party than possibly lose that and have a non-Tory government

It's the opposite of the US where the left rowed in behind Biden, helped win the election and now have leverage. And the consequence from the perspective of the rest of Labour is either they win despite the left and owe them nothing, or they have to get rid of the left to win

[Sheilbh]

Liverpool mayor going to second round.

Labour candidate only got 39%, the independent got 22%, Lib Dems on 17%, Greens on 9%, Liberals on 7%, Tories on 4% and the Trade Union Socialist Coalition on 3%.

In the last mayoral election Labour got 59% so won on the first round. The corruption scandal and arrest of the previous mayor, plus Labour HQ meddling in the candidate selection seems to have really hurt them.

Stephen Yip, the independent, needs a lot of votes to win - but it would surprise me if he had a significant number of second votes from the other opposition parties.

[Sheilbh]

Another positive sign for AR - Nicola Sturgeon just asked about chances of getting an overall majority: "it's always been a very long-shot"

Edit: And useful context on the Lib Dem fightback in Sunderland - and a great lesson in "all politics is local, especially if it involves a convicted paedohile or a possible former council leader possibly murdering someone and getting away on double jeopardy"

Stephen Bush
@stephenkb
Sunderland results continue to have very little to do with its Brexit position! The local Lb Dems don't run on Brexit, but on the poor Ofsted rating for local services, the convicted paedophile ex-councillor & the former council leader who may or may not have murdered someone.

[alfred russel]

Another positive sign for AR - Nicola Sturgeon just asked about chances of getting an overall majority: "it's always been a very long-shot"

I've cashed out, but my position was always based on SNP getting a majority really was more like 50/50 rather than they would miss. When I first started betting, the odds of them missing a majority were at 23%. The current odds are at 62% - I think that is fair.

[Sheilbh]

Another sign of the shift - in 2017 Ben Houchen won the Tees Valley Metro Mayor on the second round with 51% of the vote (first round he won 40%) although with 4 parties running. This time around:

Jessie Joe Jacobs (Labour) - 8,236
Ben Houchen (Conservative) - 24,663

Edit: Final result - Tories won over 70%/120,000 votes



And I think he's an interesitng guy - he's been writing a lot on Tory sites like Conservative Home about what the Green New Deal/Green Industrial Revolution should look like from a Tory perspective which has since been echoed by Johnson and how I think it'll play out in the UK - arguments like this:

The Prime Minister has rightly identified that a Green Industrial Revolution can deliver both post-Covid-19 economic recovery and his Levelling Up agenda. This policy, whilst surely popular with middle class voters in the South, will also go down well in the UK's industrial communities.

Many of the people I represent have little time for the Hug a Husky politics of the pre-Johnson era, or the increasingly bizarre publicity stunts of extremists like Extinction Rebellion. They're just as into clean air and against pollution as anyone, but the real draw of a Green Industrial Revolution is that it will mean more good jobs, both skilled and professional. Good jobs close to home too, not roles necessitating long commutes and weeks on end away from family.

The latest clean technologies, including carbon capture and hydrogen power, can simultaneously bring the UK closer to net zero while creating good-quality jobs in the places they're most needed. The Government has already announced the Tees Valley as the home of Britain's national Hydrogen Transport Hub and has signalled its support for the Net Zero Teesside Carbon Capture project, which will deliver on these new, well paid jobs of the future.

If the Tories can start delivering on that sort of thing - with a healthy dose of state aid. But it's a reminder of the Tory coalition which is incredibly broad from culture warriors to hardcore Thatcherites, to sort of right-Christian Democrats like him, with rural old money and property developers and landlords in between. He's done a lot on trying to develop industry in his area. I think looking at the British media (especially when the only bits not behind a paywall are the Guardian and the Daily Mail ) - you only really see one or two of those strands.

And I imagine a lot of the Labour Party strategists are barely aware of him or Andy Street in the West Midlands because everything is so Westminster-centric.

[Sheilbh]

The racist and fascist in Glasgow Southside got 46 votes and came dead last (to widespread laughter in the hall)

Nicola Sturgeon won, obviously - but the new Labour leader is also standing in this seat and they got a 9% swing which is impressive.