Where was I?

Oh yes, the European election. A fascinating map has been produced by the House of Commons library showing the result on a council-by-council basis. Here it is:

The interesting things to note include the UK-wide result in terms of council areas won:
Conservatives 280
Labour 66
SNP 22
LD 12
UKIP 9
Plaid Cymru 7
Green 3


So the SNP won a third as many councils as Labour in spite of contesting only 32 of the 399 council areas that Labour contested. We also won 10 more council areas than the Lib Dems. To put it another way, we won 68.75% of the council areas we contested, Labour won 16.54% of the council areas they contested, and the Lib Dems won only 3% of the council areas they contested, Plaid Cymru won 31.82% of the councils they contested (22 councils in Wales, I think).


The Conservatives, of course, won 70.18% of the councils they fought - a massive result across England. The Greens only won 3 councils, but remember that they're a party just building themselves just now. That belt of blue across southern Scotland might, perhaps, give an indication of the direction of travel for votes down there - Lib Dems to lose seats to the Conservatives and lose seats to the SNP in other parts of Scotland - as will Labour. Labour only won three councils in Scotland.


Interesting times indeed. Mind how you go!

European results - a reprise

For all those who couldn't see the last one properly (and complained about it) - I think you can click to make this bigger; it's the European results for Edinburgh as supplied by the Returning Officer at the count.

European results

European election results for Edinburgh. Here's a scan of the European results for Edinburgh as provided by the Returning Officer:

The Labour party

Having watched the moral decay of the Labour party - its abandonment of collectivism, its dismissal of those who think differently, its increasing lack of concern for those it once professed to champion, its increasing delight in dissembling, the disgusting behaviour of its MPs, the demagnetised moral compass, the apparent lack of any understanding of government or its purpose, its lack of rationale for all it does, the reduced irreducible core, the pandering to wealth at the expense of those in poverty, the rise of the careerist and the malady of 'Buggins Turn' - would Harold Wilson now say that the Labour party was nothing?

Devolution repainted

I've read the Calman Report (it wasn't worth it). I find myself struck by the lack of understanding the Calman Commission had about the current devolution package, what goes on, what the legislative powers of the Scottish Parliament are, how politics works, and how the Governments interact - all of which is in the public domain. Most of the recommendations made are what already happens or can happen should it be desired like, for example, Recommendation 4.3 that the Parliaments should have mechanisms to communicate with each other - yup, they already do.

There are also bits where the recommendations would unnecessarily clutter the current legislative landscape, exempli gratia Recommendation 4.15:

RECOMMENDATION 4.15: A new legislative procedure should be established to
allow the Scottish Parliament to seek the consent of the UK Parliament to legislate
in reserved areas where there is an interaction with the exercise of devolved powers.

Scotland Act Schedule 4:

The law on reserved matters
2 (1) An Act of the Scottish Parliament cannot modify, or confer power by subordinate legislation to modify, the law on reserved matters.
(2) In this paragraph, “the law on reserved matters” means—
(a) any enactment the subject-matter of which is a reserved matter and which is comprised in an Act of Parliament or subordinate legislation under an Act of Parliament, and
(b) any rule of law which is not contained in an enactment and the subject-matter of which is a reserved matter,
and in this sub-paragraph “Act of Parliament” does not include this Act.
(3) Sub-paragraph (1) applies in relation to a rule of Scots private law or Scots criminal law (whether or not contained in an enactment) only to the extent that the rule in question is special to a reserved matter or the subject-matter of the rule is—
(a) interest on sums due in respect of taxes or excise duties and refunds of such taxes or duties, or
(b) the obligations, in relation to occupational or personal pension schemes, of the trustees or managers.
(4) Sub-paragraph (3)(b) extends to cases where liabilities under orders made in matrimonial proceedings, or agreements made between the parties to a marriage, are to be satisfied out of assets of the scheme.
3 (1) Paragraph 2 does not apply to modifications which—
(a) are incidental to, or consequential on, provision made (whether by virtue of the Act in question or another enactment) which does not relate to reserved matters, and (b) do not have a greater effect on reserved matters than is necessary to give effect to the purpose of the provision.
(2) In determining for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)(b) what is necessary to give effect to the purpose of a provision, any power to make laws other than the power of the Parliament is to be disregarded.

The important bit there, of course, is paragraph 3:

3 (1) Paragraph 2 does not apply to modifications which—

(a) are incidental to, or consequential on, provision made (whether by virtue of the Act in question or another enactment) which does not relate to reserved matters, and

(b) do not have a greater effect on reserved matters than is necessary to give effect to the purpose of the provision.

In essence, Calman is suggesting that something which works fine at the moment, thank you, should become a formal and bureaucratic flummery for the purposes of allowing Calman to suggest something.

Frankly, I expected that those who set out to defend devolution would at least understand it.

Mind how you go!

Opinion poll - even better

That Yougov poll - it's even better than I thought. The results are up on the polling company's website now and show the following:

Westminster:
SNP 31%
Lab 28%
Con 17%
Lib 16%
Other 8%

Holyrood constituency:
SNP 39%
Lab 26%
Con 14%
Lib 14%
Other 7%

Holyrood Additional Member (list):
SNP 34%
Lab 26%
Con 14%
Lib 13%
Other 14%

Others split as
Green 7%
SSP 3%
Sol 1%
Other 3%

And so we come to the point in Scottish politics where we have Other Others ...

However, and all that, I calculate that this means that the SNP would get oodles and oodles of seats - actually, I haven't done any calculations on it at all, I've only just seen it and thought I'd share, but I am comforted by a consistent gap opening up there and the indications from the detailed results that we are now gathering support from all over now, that supporters of other parties are more and more prepared to back the SNP. Interesting, too, that support for the other parties now equals the Conservatives and exceeds the Lib Dems on the AM vote - and that the Greens take a straight 12% of the Lib Dem vote.

What's equally interesting is that this poll was done from the 2nd to the 4th of June and a UK-wide Yougov poll done a week and a bit later (11th to 12th) appears to show (on a small sample, remember) somewhat similar results - us and Labour strengthening slightly, Conservatives staying where they are and the Lib Dems weakening. It also indicates that 59% of Scots think that Gordon Brown is doing badly as Prime Minister, 75% of us think that the economy is in bad shape (31% think that it's right down the drain), 39% of us think it's a bad thing that Peter Mandelson is running the country, and half of us think that the appointment of Alan Sugar was a "silly gimmick".

Most fascinating and I look forward to many more. Mind how you go!

Jolly good poll, what?

A Yougov poll in the Sunday Times indicates that the SNP is still on the up in terms of support and that the European election result was a pretty good indication of the direction of travel in public opinion in Scotland. Poll results -

SNP 31%
Lab 28%
Con 17%
Lib 16%

That only leaves 8% for the Greens and any other parties to take up which will be disappointing for them after a decent performance last week. It does, however, show that we're on course to win Edinburgh North and Leith at Westminster - which would be the third time in a row that the SNP has won in a constituency-wide vote here. We were 405 votes ahead in the Additional Member (list) vote in 2007 and increased that to 641 votes in the Euro (different boundaries, with nearly all of the Holyrood seat in the Westminster seat). I'm looking forward to pushing that majority into four figures when the election is called.

Electoral Calculus has us winning North and Leith on those figures - then there's the additional support we've been gaining in the constituency lately, the drop in Labour's vote here, the drifting away of Lib Dem support and the Conservatives returning to former levels with the Greens coming on strong. I'll be keeping a cautious eye on the Greens - they could be fighting it out with Labour for second place if they continue to move forward with the Conservatives some distance behind in fourth and the Lib Dems way off the pace in fifth.

Also interesting was the UK-wide poll in the same story that showed drops in support for both Conservatives and Labour (Cameron's party still maintaining a 16% lead though). What was interesting was that the Lib Dems didn't capitalise at all, their support unchanged - the smaller parties now matching the Lib Dems for support. Could the Greens take out one of the Lib Dem MPs? I take it that they will be making a fairly big deal of the secret meetings between Labour Ministers and airport lobbyists.

"Why from the Lib Dems?" you may ask. News from the European elections around Scotland suggest that their vote is being chewed up by the SNP, by the Conservatives, and by the Greens. They dropped out of contention in the Edinburgh seats they thought they were taking and are in danger of losing Edinburgh West, and that story was repeated around the country.

Up in Aberdeenshire they lost Gordon to us and they lost West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. The SNP took Argyll & Bute, the Conservatives swept them away in the border seats, the SNP won in Danny Alexander's seat - and we won in Jo Swinson's seat.

It looks like being a very interesting Westminster election as Labour lose out and the Lib Dems fade away while the SNP makes the front running. The worry for Labour will be how improved the Conservative performance is and the worry for the Lib Dems will be whether the Greens overtake them and cement that position for the future.