Scottish Parliament election - 5th May 2016

[Phony Moderate]

TNS has the SNP on 60% in the constituency vote, 50% in the regions (due to the Greens taking 10%). All other parties below 20%.

http://www.tnsglobal.com/uk/press-release/support-for-snp-rises-again-ahead-of-2016-holyrood-election

[Phony Moderate]

Conservatives beating Labour to second would be interesting...

Corbyn would probably be a goner if that happened, let alone Dugdale.

[Phony Moderate]

Afleitch, could you please elaborate on the language used that alienated Labour's Catholic base?

Union. Flag. Queen. Tradition. British.

Thank you.

Most of those would alienate the average secularist, frankly.

[Phony Moderate]

So 98% of the Scottish electorate plans to vote for either an anti-austerity party, a party led by a lesbian or a social liberal party. Someone ought to tell Ben Carson to bomb the place.

[Phony Moderate]

Scottish independence would happen within a couple of years of any unionist coalition/pact being formed.

[Phony Moderate]

Scottish tories...who are they?

All ten of its members:

[Phony Moderate]

So it seems that, by law, Scottish Labour leaders have to be utterly useless: http://youtu.be/qZAq3DeZFVY

[Phony Moderate]

So Kezia Dugdale just stated that she's in a relationship with a woman, which makes Labour the fourth major party in Scotland to currently have an LGBT leader (others being the Tories' Ruth Davidson, the Greens' Patrick Harvie and UKIP's David Coburn).

Hey, are those Christian Party nutters with that leader who stood a lot in Scotland still around?

[Phony Moderate]

So Kezia Dugdale just stated that she's in a relationship with a woman, which makes Labour the fourth major party in Scotland to currently have an LGBT leader (others being the Tories' Ruth Davidson, the Greens' Patrick Harvie and UKIP's David Coburn).

Major Party? How many elected representatives does UKIP have in Scotland?

Alright, parties who are represented in the televised debates.

[Phony Moderate]

Pretty sure I'm going to stick to BBC Scotland on election night; IIRC last time they actually gave some attention to the numbers, which is something that is getting rarer on the UK-wide BBC (both on general and local election nights). Plus it'll mean avoiding Jeremy Vine and his OTT graphics.

[Phony Moderate]

Greens 39
SNP  29
Labour 15
Lib Dems 13
UKIP -16
Tories -31

[Phony Moderate]

UKIP 54
Tories 28
LibDems -4
Labour -5
Greens -30
SNP -39

Would probably vote Tory if I actually lived in Scotland; UKIP is far too focused on the issues of immigration and EU withdrawal for my tastes, and they also seem to be a bit of a joke party in Scotland anyway. Makes sense that I'm the closest to them ideologically, though.

You could of course vote for both if you wanted to.

[Phony Moderate]

Is Sturgeon the best party leader in the UK today? She seems pretty competent in comparison to the others. She has actually managed to make anti-austerity policies popular.

It's easy to make anti-austerity policies popular; it's another thing to get people to vote for such policies.

[Phony Moderate]

Is Sturgeon the best party leader in the UK today? She seems pretty competent in comparison to the others. She has actually managed to make anti-austerity policies popular.

It's easy to make anti-austerity policies popular; it's another thing to get people to vote for such policies.

Tell that to Corbyn. Plus people are voting for her.

Many people do generally like the idea of anti-austerity policies, but many of them (at least in rUK, and that was my point) just don't (for a variety of reasons) vote for such policies come election time. Hardline immigration policy has also long been popular, yet UKIP has never won more than a single seat in a general election and the BNP never placed higher than third in a parliamentary seat.

[Phony Moderate]

Also worth noting that 78% in that poll say they are 10/10 certain to vote....which suggests that turnout could be over 60%, by far a record for the Scottish Parliament.

[Phony Moderate]

I assume BBC is covering this live at 5pm.  Will they come out with exit polls at 5pm for  Scottish Parliament (and I assume Welsh Parliament and London Mayor)?

It starts at 6:45PM Eastern time. No, there won't be any exit polls as such; they are only done for general elections nowadays. Sad as back in the day they were even done for by-elections.

[Phony Moderate]

I assume BBC is covering this live at 5pm.  Will they come out with exit polls at 5pm for  Scottish Parliament (and I assume Welsh Parliament and London Mayor)?

It starts at 6:45PM Eastern time. No, there won't be any exit polls as such; they are only done for general elections nowadays. Sad as back in the day they were even done for by-elections.

Thanks.  Also when will results start tricking in ? I assume around 11pm?

Not sure what time, but I recall Rutherglen (which Labour won) being the first in 2011.

Worth noting that the results in the UK as a whole will trickle in over the next three days due to the sheer number of different elections; the PCC elections will probably come in last.

[Phony Moderate]

I'm going to predict the SNP will lose their majority, but will form minority government.

(I'm an SNP member, btw)

Bear in mind, if the SNP win 65 of the 73 constituencies they have a majority without the list votes even being counted.

And then there's the Greenies too.

[Phony Moderate]

SNP gain Rutherglen, 4,000 odd majority.

[Phony Moderate]

Why did the Tories do so well?  Presumably Ruth Davidson is personally popular, but is there more to it than that?

Because the political cleavage in Scotland is now secessionist vs. unionist rather the left vs. right; the Conservatives are the most effective unionist party.

[Phony Moderate]

Would it be reasonable to compare the fallback in SNP support in the north to the Lib Dems' SW England fallback between 2001 and 2015? I.e. people were voting for them because they weren't one of the main parties rather than because of any strong support for the policies.