Alba tanks it, SNP hold, Willie and Jackie romp home

[AnnieHooo]

Randomising going on. Labour bombed it. I was politically adrift yesterday but now I'm sunk.

I was being lighthearted. At the moment, independence to me is about getting away from Tory Westminster more than anything else. I just find it gutting that people vote for them.

I'm fascinated by the blind manifestos though.

@Horehound

Which I can kind of understand. It means nothing if people vote in dribs and drabs for other parties. If people wanted to be tactical they should have voted for the biggest opposition party.

Agree. But if you add up all the votes for the pro-Independence crowd like SNP, Green, Alba and then add up the pro-Union parties, that's a fairer measure, isn't it?

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us is spot on. The SNP will claim a clear mandate for their second referendum. Labour/Lib Dem/Conservative will quite rightly point out that overall, more people voted for pro-Union parties. SNP will say that doesn't matter. Unionist parties will say it does. Cue another 5 years of fighting, bickering and general nastiness during which the everyday issues like health, education and the economy are pushed onto the backburner. Again.

@RaspberryCoulis oh definitely, it is fairer that way.

But yes, we know SNP will say it's a clear mandate for Indyref2, because of course they will! They aren't Gona be like oh hang on if you add up all these other parties it's not a majority for independence so I think it is obvious to expect it.. I don't think anything is fair in politics.
And if the majority is split over pro union parties and SNP do get the approval to hold a referendum, we wouldn't expect it to pass, would we?!

I don't want independence and followed by promises of a decent education system and NHS, I want them prioritised without cries of "oh but Westminster and the Tories..."
I really don't think we need the almost 50/50 divide emphasised while the country recovers from the pandemic either. It'll be a horrible place to live.

Which I can kind of understand. It means nothing if people vote in dribs and drabs for other parties. If people wanted to be tactical they should have voted for the biggest opposition party.

Isn't the issue that it isn't clear who that actually is? There are no good options.

The blind manifesto thing is really interesting. If people voted on manifesto and taking independence out of it....
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• End division and rebuild the country from the pandemic
• Make tackling unemployment the top priority of the next Scottish Parliament
• Create at least 200,000 jobs by investing to improve roads, railways and broadband infrastructure
• A school catch-up plan including a national tutoring scheme and hiring 3,000 extra teachers

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-Build 100,000 new homes by 2032, with at least 70% of these being for social rent
-Launch a National Care Service
Oppose nuclear weapons
-Provide ScotRail services within the public sector
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• Guarantee a job for every young Scot
• Invest in the NHS to get cancer treatment back on track, improve mental health, and give carers the pay they deserve
• Deliver a comeback plan for education
• Invest in green jobs and seize Scotland's hosting of COP26 to champion an ambitious climate justice plan
• Create a community recovery fund to invest in local areas

@Srirachachacha

Which I can kind of understand. It means nothing if people vote in dribs and drabs for other parties. If people wanted to be tactical they should have voted for the biggest opposition party.

Isn't the issue that it isn't clear who that actually is? There are no good options.

True but I would have expected conservative since labour just seem to be a nothingness right now and LD have always been a nothingness and so have greens..

@AnnieHooo is that the SNPs manifesto?

Top one is conservative, SNP is 2nd I prefer conservative manifesto for sure but had to vote SNP for independence. I'm going to until we get it then vote for the party I want to rule in an independent Scotland.

I just cut n pasted it from BBC website.

@Horehound

Top one is conservative, SNP is 2nd I prefer conservative manifesto for sure but had to vote SNP for independence. I'm going to until we get it then vote for the party I want to rule in an independent Scotland.

But based on the manifestos you want the conservatives.

SNP have had control of most of what affects peoples daily lives such as health, education, police etc etc and yet all these things are failing while they have convinced people that Tory Westminster is the bad guy.

I think the issue with conservatives is that I simply don't believe them. We have had how many years of Tory rule down in Westminster and it's just got worse and worse and worse.

I think SNP tell us what we want to hear and deliver the easy wins - like Horehound I want independence so vote SNP. But should we get it, they're not the party I'd want in power.

@RedactedTaeFeck correct. So in an independent Scotland I will vote conservative

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

So at the half way point it looks pretty much like ‘as you were’. There’s likely to be small majority of seats held by Nationalists, but with the majority of votes going to pro U.K. parties. The SNP will claim this as a ‘clear mandate’ for Indyref2, Boris will say no because recovery is most important right now, and will quite legitimately point to the wishes of the majority of voters. The SNP will launch legal challenges which the U.K. govt will oppose. The courts will probably rule that any referendum is illegal because Section 30 powers lie with Westminster, and it seems unlikely Indyref2 happens any time soon. But after a pandemic that has absolutely devastated Scottish business and the economy, the SG’s focus will be not on recovery, but on trying to gerrymander another referendum against the wishes of the majority of voters. Buckle in for a rough few years everyone.

Ugh how utterly depressing. I just want some peace and quite and stability and all efforts towards recovering from the pandemic.

I wonder how many people read even a summary of the manifestos before voting. If not, what do they base their vote on? I'll admit to tactically voting Labour as they're the main opposition to the SNP in my area but to be fair their manifesto appeals to me the most anyway.

Also bare in mind that SNP have broken many many manifesto promises e.g. class sizes and do you trust them to negotiate a deal?

I'm not ideologically opposed to independence. I won't ever vote for the SNP though and I don't believe it's economically the right decision for the moment. I'd like to see a well run country with increased devolution and it would get to the point where it would be a more or less automatic progression to independence.

I just hate this division and ugliness and the denial of the realities that has ripped society in two and I can't see that ever healing under the current referendum plans. Win or lose, half the country is always going to be very unhappy.

@zizl

I wonder how many people read even a summary of the manifestos before voting. If not, what do they base their vote on? I'll admit to tactically voting Labour as they're the main opposition to the SNP in my area but to be fair their manifesto appeals to me the most anyway.

Honestly, probably not many!

@Srirachachacha

Can we just get independence and the tory voters Borders can go with England already?

Be careful what you wish for...the likes of RBS have already said they would move their headquarters south...likely it will take quite a few high earning high tax payer Tory voters with it. It won’t be the only company that jumps ship.

Not sure who is going to be paying for this new independent Scotland. But that doesn’t seem to matter to many apparently

@zizl

I wonder how many people read even a summary of the manifestos before voting. If not, what do they base their vote on? I'll admit to tactically voting Labour as they're the main opposition to the SNP in my area but to be fair their manifesto appeals to me the most anyway.

How the people currently in power are doing on the things they care about, media perception and in Scotland, their stance on the EU/independence.

The results coming in so slowly jeez. Don't we usually have results pretty fast at election times? I know they paused over night but still, seems to be taking ages!!

Results seem to be slower than expected, sure they said it'd be mostly known my Saturday pm!

I'm disappointed we've seen no Anas bounce so far, he ran a good campaign.

Oh goody, 5 more years of off you pop tories to anyone pro UK disagreeing with the SNP and their grievance stoking.

Almost half the Perth electorate voted for John Swinney. I assume they're the half who don't have or work with school age children.

They'd better publish the education report ASAP now. I hope they're pushed on that.

[quote Horehound]@RedactedTaeFeck correct. So in an independent Scotland I will vote conservative[/quote]
I think you won't be the only one, to be honest. So we'll replace the Tory government we didn't vote for, for a Tory government we did vote for . Seems like a good use of ££££.

Though in seriousness, the constitutional wrangling we have I can't see disappearing if politics is so focused around that above all else. The polls keep flipping around the 50/50 mark for yes/no (or leave/ remain?!) and though there's no formal campaign at the moment that could push them a bit further to one side or the other, there will always be a significant group of people who just couldn't change their opinion, and who will always be disappointed.

But of course there's a whole heap of policies differing between parties that don't touch on independence, but at the moment people who want a chance at Indy only really have one party to choose from. People who don't, or who don't really care, split their vote based on other priorities. Just because Tory, labour and lib dem all agree independence isn't right, ideologically or practically for Scotland or the UK, doesn't mean they are identical in their approach to other things... So its not fair to say they "should have voted for the main opposition" as politics is (or at least should be) about more than the constitution. And to be honest, we had our say expressly on the constitution a few years ago and chose to stay in the UK (though I appreciate that things have changed since then, and some feel we should have another go).

It's very frustrating, and I do think it's taking away from proper consideration of policy, (education, social issues, covid recovery or whatever), to be constantly distracted by this massive potential disruption at some point in the future.

@AnnieHooo

I don't vote SNP because I don't want to separate from rUk. I think a lot of people will vote SNP for the short term but they don't want independence.

My 19 year old son voted SNP and Green, but doesn't want independence! I'm sure he's not the only one.

We had a bit of a ranty phone conversation last night.

Yes - my dad voted SNP though he thinks independence is a silly idea . But it was the first time in 45 years in the UK he's been allowed to vote, so voted for NS because it was an SNP policy to extend the franchise ... And he's got a bit of an old man crush on Nicola-off-the-telly telling everyone how to stay safe.

My words were not very polite when he told me, to be honest. And neither were mum's. Though, to be fair to him, if the SNP leaflets where they live were anything like ours, they wouldn't have mentioned independence or a referendum at all. So he could be forgiven for not realising that a vote for the SNP would be taken as a mandate for independence. Because they wouldn't be so dishonest as to leave out such a key aspect of their manifesto from their election literature or anything.