Airdrie and Shotts Result 2019- The Outcome

From Sky NewsThe night of the 12th December into the 13th was a long and eventful one. As I was following the Scottish coverage I missed just how many big names went in our southern neighbours electoral battlefields. It was a night of big surprises, but in other ways delivered just what I expected.

What I expected was a Tory majority and that was exactly what the outcome was. Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” message was simple and repetitive and no attention was paid by many to the devil in the detail.

Corbynism is now dead and gone and we can “look forward” to another two or three Conservative governments before we get any kind of reprieve. Anyone who still believes that another Labour government is just round the corner really does need their head examined.

The SNP did exceptionally well in Scotland, better than I had expected to be honest. I was delighted to see Jo Swinson gone, and it will be interesting to see how much money the Lib-Dems threw at that seat.

Locally the SNP also did better than I expected. In Coatbridge Hugh “Two-Jobs” Gaffney became merely Hugh Gaffney as Stevie Bonnar took the seat back for the SNP, despite the ongoing infighting in the branch. In Airdrie the SNP’s Neil Gray saw off the challenge of Helen McFarlane of the Labour Party, and did so comfortably. Early in the campaign I had stated that the SNP lost around 10,00 votes between 2015-2017 and this was partially due to their failure to motivate those who had previously supported them to get out and vote.  That’s not a mistake that was repeated this time, with Nicola Sturgeon making a number of high profile references to Indyref 2020. This wasn’t really repeated in local leafleting though and I thought this may be a weakness. It wasn’t perceived as such.

There was also much effort on social media at organising and directing tactical voting. Former Labour MP and now Scotland in Union Chief Executive Pamela Nash was the main proponent of this with her Tactical Voting Advisor being used to advise British Nationalists which way to vote. Such was the volume of chatter that I saw it as likely that if the SNP failed to enthuse it’s lapsed support then the Labour Party would be the beneficiary of those who had stated they were going to “hold their nose and vote Labour (in reference to Jeremy Corbyn’s alleged IRA support).  So what happened?

Firstly, let’s look at turnout. In 2017 Airdrie and Shotts had 64,146 registered voters. In 2019 that had DROPPED to 64,008! That’s not much, but you would expect the registered electorate to rise, not fall. In the great scheme of things it’s not much, but then again it’s not far off Neil Gray’s majority in 2017. Of those registered 39,772 voted in 2019, up on 2017’s 38,002. So, with an extra 1770 voters turning out, how were those votes carved up?

The SNP increased their vote by 3,638.

Labour lost 1,368 votes overall.

The Tories lost 1,802 votes.

The Lib-Dems increased their vote by 617.

The Greens took 685 votes (didn’t stand previously).

Given that it’s unlikely that voters would switch from pro-Indy/Anti-Brexit SNP to anti-Indy/anti-Brexit Lib-Dems, we might see much of the Lib-Dem increase coming from Labour/Tory voters who were against Brexit.

We can probably put much of the remaining Tory loss down to tactical voting for Labour, and this could mean around 1,500 votes went to what they viewed rightly as the SNP’s main challenger.

Which begs the question: what happened to the Labour vote? If we assume that around 1,500 votes were lent by the Tories, then Labour retained around 11,200 votes from 2015, dropping almost 2,900 votes somewhere along the way.  Were those voters simply not energised by Jeremy Corbyn this time round? Did they stay at home and not bother voting at all? Or did they switch to the SNP and Greens? Those are questions which Labour will no doubt be asking, but which the SNP must also ask too. Because they need to know whether their rise in this election came from lapsed supporters or people who switched from their constitutional opponents, and if it’s the latter, have they changed their mind on the constitutional question?

As for Labour, they need to ask the same question and decide where their future lies. At the head of the party is a wounded leadership still resolved to backing the union, but how much of the remaining rank and file are now open to independence?

And what of my predictions? I saw the British Nationalist tactical voting coming and had turnout followed similar lines at 2017 Labour would have comfortably taken the seat. What I didn’t see was the total collapse of the Labour vote which rendered the tactical voting null and void. Time will tell whether they rebuild to former levels or not. I wouldn’t put money on it though.

Misleading Scotland – Dodgy Bar Charts and Alternative Facts

The last election leaflet has now been delivered and there have been some whoppers. At this election across the UK it has been reported that there have been some rather dodgy bar graphs used in the electoral material which take the statistics from the previous elections and present them as, well, something else entirely. So how have we fared in Airdrie & Shotts?

Here’s the Airdrie & Shotts result from 2017.

The SNP took 37.6% of the vote, followed closely by Labour on 37.1%. The Tories increased their vote, but still trailed in around 5,000 votes behind on 23.4%, while the Lib-Dems lost their deposit with a mere 2.1% of votes cast. In the 2019 leaflets issued by all parties both the SNP and Labour decided not to use bar charts. From the SNP’s point of view that’s understandable as such a graphic would show how close they were to being unseated, and might encourage tactical voting against them. As challengers it’s therefore strange that Labour failed to do so, as it would have showed them as strongly placed and at the same time revealed the claims made by the Tories and Lib-Dems as misleading. How so? Here’s how…

Lorraine Nolan Leaflet

The Conservative candidate presented a graph showing them romping ahead of Labour and would indicate to the casual reader that they were in pole position to challenge the SNP. One problem: the graph showed the rise in their vote share, not their actual vote share, and would need around a 70% rise to beat the SNP! That’s right. Seventy. Seven Zero. Top marks for audacity, nil points for accuracy.

William “the ghost” Crossman.

Not to be outdone the Lib Dem candidate William Crossman, who appears to have either been photoshopped onto his leaflet or popped off the train at Airdrie for a selfie and then jumped on the first train back out (has anyone ever seen him?) made the claim that the Lib-Dems are “challenging the SNP across much of Scotland”. By much he means some and that certainly isn’t in Airdrie. In his chart he’s decided to use the results of the 2019 European Election to show how the Lib-Dems increased their vote by almost 7%, which if replicated in this election could see the Lib-Dems increase their vote share from 2.1% to 2.2 and a bit %. Haud me back!

In but a few short hours we’ll see who comes out tops, but if there are awards for brass neck and bullshit the Tories and Lib-Dems would be the clear winners. Congratulations!

For comparison I uploaded all the 2019 electoral material I received to the site electionleaflets.org and you can view them all HERE.

Orange Order Supporters to Vote For “Pro-IRA” Corbyn Party

The Silent Majority

In the 2010 and 2015 Westminster elections the Tories in Airdrie consistently polled around 7 or 8% of the vote, somewhere in the region of 3,200 votes. If there was one thing that Ruth Davidson did well, it was to identify her market. Right wing, traditionalist, pro-military British Nationalists. Step forward the Orange Order.  ‘Colonel’ Davidson appealed to them and motivated them to rally to the Tories, a move which saw the Tory vote in Airdrie almost treble in 2017 and saw their candidate take almost 9,000 votes. So successful was this tactic that it took voters from the Labour Party and saw Neil Gray of the SNP take the seat with a majority of only 195. It did not go unnoticed among them that had they stayed with Labour they would have unseated the SNP candidate. They haven’t had long to wait and that lesson is still fresh in their memory.

Current BritNat Tactical Voting Guide for Airdrie

Well organised and secretive with an extensive network of contacts, the above image and others like it are now being aggressively shared on social media and the Loyalists are being asked to be a bit less, well, loyal. It’s being accompanied by sentiment such as “hold your nose and vote Labour” because having spent years convincing themselves that Jeremy Corbyn is an IRA supported they now find themselves having to back him to oust the SNP. If successful it could see potentially thousands of votes switch from the Tories to Labour and could hand the seat to them, and is likely to be successfil given that the head of the Orange Order in Scotland is a Labour councillor in Airdrie.

Neil Gray’s only chance of retaining the seat now lies in the hands of the people who he failed to motivate last time, almost 10,000 voters who simply dropped away over a period of two years for reasons unknown. Outspent and outgunned by Labour last time in terms of manpower, things have not improved greatly and the restrictive nature of the campaign will not help. At present he has failed to meet his very low crowdfunding target which does not bode well as this campaign is all about leafleting and social media advertising. Without activists parties rely on paid for mailshots delivered by Royal Mail, not a problem to dark money Tories and Union funded Labour, but a real issue to an MP who can draw on neither of those. As an MP with a significant salary you might think that a fair chunk of that would be tucked away for such occasions. All will be revealed after the election, but in all likelihood Labour will again come out on top of the spending chart, followed by the SNP, with the Tories third and Lib-Dems and Greens at the coo’s tail. With the Lib-Dems spending a massive £88 last time (yes, really- £88!) the Greens should manage to outspend them at least, even though both are likely to lose their deposits.

Do Scots Understand How Devolution Works?

Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser, 20/11/19

I feel I must reply to Kenneth MacKintosh’s letter in this weeks Advertiser as it contains some basic errors and inaccuracies, so much so that it really makes me wonder how it even got published. Who needs fake news when you have fake views.

Mr MacKintosh said that the Labour Party must fight this election on our health service and education. It is disappointing to still be seeing that people do not seem to understand the different levels of government which we have in Scotland, and what responsibilities each one has. Both health and education are devolved and come under the auspices of our parliament in Holyrood, and the correct time to debate them will be at the Holyrood elections in 2021. This is a Westminster election, and due to devolution and the Tory “English Votes for English Laws” legislation the parties in Scotland should be concentrating on those areas in which they are allowed a say in at Westminster; this would cover such issues as immigration, foreign policy, employment law, defence and the constitution.

Too many of the Labour/Tory/Lib-Dem politicians are happy talking about health, education, etc because this mirrors what their main parties are talking about and will be in line with what will appear in the main UK news broadcasts. For example, if London Labour is discussing transport then the Scottish branch of the party will do likewise, even though it’s a Holyrood issue and their policies aren’t applicable in Scotland. This can only happen due to the public’s own misunderstanding of our politics, but it’s a misunderstanding all parties are happy to exploit, and you must ask what they stand to gain by doing that.

Finally Mr MacKintosh notes that the Scottish Government underspent its budget last year. This has happened every year since the creation of our parliament and is necessary as Scotland runs a “pocket-money parliament” and is not permitted to build up a deficit. Everything has to be accounted for and our country cannot go over. Were the Scottish Government to spend its entire budget and then experience an unforeseen event which required a large amount of funding they would be forced to go cap in hand to London to be bailed out. Given that many English voters already view us as spongers who live off their generosity it’s unlikely that this would be popular. Prior to 2007 the Labour Party were in the habit of returning the underspend to London, but since they lost power that money has been carried forward to future years so it isn’t lost completely and can then be spent the next year. Of course the Britnats label this as a “slush fund”.

It would of course be far easier if we simply removed the most wasteful and remote of these levels of government; to give Scots a parliament which controlled its own economy and could legislate, borrow and build a better country without having to ask permission from our neighbours first. Then our success or failure would be our own, with no need to “blame” someone else as Mr MacKintosh puts it. But that would mean taking some responsibility for our own actions, wouldn’t it?

We Say Yes and We Are The People

Still not out of date…

In 2014 Scotland was told by the Better Together campaign that if we voted Yes to independence our place in the EU would be at risk, and this was enough to sway many people to vote No.

In 2016 England and Wales voted to leave the EU, while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. This was Scotland’s second positive endorsement of the EU in two years.

Many Scots feel rightly aggrieved that they were hoodwinked into voting No, and after five years have clearly seen the error of their ways. The myth that Scotland would be locked out of the EU has now been proven to be false, with even Spain now admitting they would not block Scotland’s entry to the EU.

The election which takes place on December 12th should finally lay several other myths to rest. For the last two years the Lib-Dems have been touting the fantasy that Scotland can remain in the UK and the UK can remain in the EU. By 13th December that won’t be an option and the main plank of their apparent recovery will have been broken in two.

The Labour Party have also been touting their own fantasy (and have been doing so since before 2014) that another Labour government is just around the corner. Ed Milliband failed to deliver it, and Jeremy Corbyn on his best day failed too, against Theresa May who fought one of the worst ever campaigns the UK has ever seen. Since then he and Labour have fallen in the polls and he’s now up against Boris Johnson who is quite bizarrely the candidate least fit to hold office yet most likely to take it.

We are possibly looking at the last days of the Labour Party in its current form and the cementing in place of the Tories for years to come. England’s voters remain shockingly ignorant of Scottish matters, with a significant number saying that getting rid of Scotland is a worthwhile price to pay to deliver Brexit, and they will decide our fate based on their desire to isolate themselves from Europe. In doing so they will elect Boris Johnson who will say no a new referendum which will appeal to many so-called Scot’s, but they are now in the minority. It’s not for him to say no, and I’d remind him of the words of the late Canon Kenyon Wright who stated that “well we say yes, and we are the people”.

The British Nationalist parties now know that when another referendum comes along their armoury is almost empty, and they truly fear us being given the chance to choose our future because we are so much better informed than we were five years ago. The choice will be simple: independent Scotland within Europe, or a marginalised Scotland within a failing and isolated UK. Is it any wonder they are now running scared?

Airdrie & Shotts Westminster Candidates 2019 – What Now?

The full list of candidates have been announced for the Airdrie & Shotts constituency, and these are:

William Peter Maurice Crossman – Scottish Lib Dems

Neil Charles Gray – SNP

Helen Margaret McFarlane – Scottish Labour

Rosemary McGowan – Scottish Green Party

Lorraine Nolan – Scottish Conservative

We are through the looking glass in many respects. I’ve spoken to people who normally vote pro-independence / SNP who say they don’t know who to vote for, with some people considering voting Lib-Dem. The anti-Brexit vote will have a choice of three of the above, or four depending how they perceive Labour’s stance on any given day. This does mean that if the Tories play strongly on delivering Brexit they could well take a significant amount of voters who would not otherwise be disposed towards them.

This is a reverse of the usual Scottish situation where the Better Together parties are all fishing in the same barrel, but they would still need to increase their vote by around 100% of their last tally in 2017 to have any chance of taking the seat.

Writing off  the Tories still leaves things too close to call with the Lib Dems possibly taking soft SNP and Labour voters, but again still not enough to take the seat. This is an election which the Greens could comfortably have sat out. but they have taken the decision to stand, and Patrick Harvie has said that that these decisions would be taken locally. Given the rather small membership of the Scottish Greens then that decision will likely have been driven by the candidate Rosemary McGowan, and if her participation draws votes from the SNP and is perceived to have lost them the seat then it won’t bode well for the Holyrood elections, and may be a costly vanity project which raises the candidates profile in the short term and damages it in the long term.

I’ve seen no local electoral material yet and as far as I’m aware no hustings will be taking place, so we haven’t exactly reached fever pitch. Locally the SNP dropped around 10,000 votes from 2015 to 2017 and that was primarily down to failure to motivate their core support. Perhaps this was down to the downplaying of independence during the campaign, or maybe this was down to their voters having seen their previous mountainous majorities and assuming that their votes weren’t that important. That mistake could be about to be replayed with the media already shouting that the SNP are likely to oust all of Scotland’s Tories. There’s a hubristic sense of ‘job done’ being displayed which could well be Kinnockian in scope, and if so that will be incredibly damaging.

As it stands it’s still too close to call though, and that’s the message that the SNP will have to shout from the rooftops if they are to entertain their hopes of giving the unionist parties the bloody nose they hope to inflict; otherwise they may find their aim is off and they are left punch drunk on the canvas, wondering what hit them.