Scotland: The John Swinney Years



:RuGlasses:

Scottish parliament elections could lead to a complete inability to form a government, and I can't wait to see it.

The next election is in two years, but there's no guarantee the SNP will be able to pass their upcoming budget which means an extra (not early) election, when the polls look like that. MESS!
 
Scotland continues to be fun.



A pro-indy majority, all the major parties losing seats, and reform getting a decent chunk of seats too. I have just been assuming we'd have a labour led administration after the next election but it's possible that might not end up happening after all if this holds for the next year and half (or few months if the budget falls)
 
Labour's arrogance about Scotland completely unchanged after the last 10 years.
 
Oh Scotland, not Reform. I really thought they'd get short shrift north of the border
 
DriFinn Home for Christmas said:
Oh Scotland, not Reform. I really thought they'd get short shrift north of the border
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Scotland has always had Tories. Even in the early 80s, Thatcher had no difficulties staffing the Scottish Office (as was). Plus, Scotland has a lot of rich landowners who hate the working class.
 
AGinAg (38) said:
Good luck getting a referendum.
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I think the best case scenario for that is a hung Westminster parliament. Labour will probably be a little less "Now is not the time" but I am not holding my breath that a majority government of any party will grant a section 30.
 
I find the idea of a yes victory at even that margin rather chilling. However, I'm much more interested in voting yes now than I was then.
 
We have a by-election coming up as well, which will be interesting to see how things are looking under a Labour Westminster government. Labour would have been expected to run away with it until recently.

It is a constituency seat so FPTP rules apply.

 
Do not get those stubborn blue parts at all. The staines never shift. I also don't quite get the upper North East obsession with the colour orange.
 
straightorbroken said:
Do not get those stubborn blue parts at all. The staines never shift. I also don't quite get the upper North East obsession with the colour orange.
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Shetland had HOT TOM in 2021 and squandered the opportunity :(

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:nononono:

I love embarrassing Labour as much as the next person, but we really don't to make THEM second place thank you very much.
 
Happy Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election day. This seat has went from almost sure-fire Labour gain, to comfortable SNP Hold, to possible Reform gain over the course of the campaign :zombie:

Analysis (UPDATED)​

Well, things certainly moved rapidly in the days and weeks after publishing this piece. Down south, Labour suffered an absolutely crushing set of County Council and Mayoral results as Reform UK surged to unforeseen success. Although there were no elections in Scotland, the shape of polling UK-wide has shifted in Reform’s favour, with Labour slipping into second place. Though starting from a lower base, they have likewise been on a steady upwards climb up here too.

That has massively destabilised this by-election to the extent that I think Labour are now quite likely out of the running. “Quite likely” is important: I’m not saying they’ve got no chance, just that the by-election situation has developed not necessarily to Labour’s advantage. With Reform making gains and by-elections serving as a classic opportunity to give governments a kicking, I now expect them to do even better than previously assumed. That will damage Labour’s prospects much more than it will the SNP’s, never mind that Davy Russell has taken to hiding from media engagements.

As such, I think that means the SNP now have the edge here, and it will be a battle between Reform and Labour for second place. There’s even a chance that Reform could win, though I’d still say that’s substantially less likely than the SNP doing so. Even if they do, let’s not forget the history of Hamilton by-elections. Winnie Ewing’s famous 1967 victory put the SNP on the map, but she failed to hold it at the next full election.
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ballotbox.scot

By-Election Preview: Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse (Scottish Parliament) 5th of June 2025

A by-election nobody wanted to arise is an absolutely must-win contest for Labour but not for the SNP: they’ve won without Hamilton before, and could again.
ballotbox.scot ballotbox.scot
 
Getting ready to call for John Swinney's resignation and for Hamilton to be annexed.
 
We should just flatten it, rewild it and just have a momument to futility where the Hamilton Palace used to be.
 
The Reform vote is hideous. Less than a thousand separating them from the SNP.
 
Another L for Reform. Even though its 26% more of the vote than they deserve it does feel a little bit like the wave has broken and is starting to roll back.
 
big ron said:
Another L for Reform. Even though its 26% more of the vote than they deserve it does feel a little bit like the wave has broken and is starting to roll back.
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Scotland was always a harder sell. We didn't vote to leave the EU and I know it's been 9 years of constant propaganda since then but I think it would take a lot more for Scotland to shift far enough for them to make any real gains.

We'll see what happens if they go into an area that has historiclaly had Conservative MPs, in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. That would be a lot more telling.
 
octophone said:
I think it would take a lot more for Scotland to shift far enough for them to make any real gains.
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I'm not so sure. Obviously the Scottish Parliament is proportional so they'll pick up a fair few seats there next year, but Westminster being FPTP means they'll slip through the middle of a few seats where Labour, SNP, Green, and Lib Dems split everything from the centre leftwards.

The Tories look doomed on those numbers
 
The 4/5 way splits in constituencies is going to make the next election very exciting at least!
 
ZenGiraffe said:
I'm not so sure. Obviously the Scottish Parliament is proportional so they'll pick up a fair few seats there next year, but Westminster being FPTP means they'll slip through the middle of a few seats where Labour, SNP, Green, and Lib Dems split everything from the centre leftwards.

The Tories look doomed on those numbers
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That's fair but it is dependent on the extent to which the Tories can recover some ground, thus splitting their vote too. Badenoch will be jettisoned before the year is out, possibly before the summer is over because they've done nothing but sink under her, she's a bad speaker and she's just flinging culture war shit around in the absense of ideas.
 
Aye, cheerio Kate, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out. Fucking holier-than-thou, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-trans arsehole. I hope your kids hate you.
 
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