I write this close to dawn on the morning after the election and I’m fairly brimming with rage about the fiasco that the Scottish elections have turned into! Of all the winners and losers, it seems clear that the real losers were us – the Scottish electorate! Helicopters grounded and boats breaking down are maybe less avoidable. The software problems that delayed so many counts, maybe more so, but even these are not the real crimes of these elections.
At the end of the day, how many voters were disenfranchised either by never receiving their postal votes or by the rejection of so many ballot-papers? Somewhere between 100,000 and 160,000 will end up being rejected. In many constituencies the majority of the winning candidate is far less than the number of spoilt ballots and this is magnified on the regional list. At a rough calculation I reckon this must cast doubts over the legitimacy of between 10 and 20% of those elected. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT AN ACCEPTABLE OUTCOME! Especially in a situation where the overall outcome looks like being so close.
There seems to have been considerable confusion about the ballot papers. Holding the elections on the same day as council elections under a new STV system was always going to be a mistake. But there also seems to have been confusion around voting twice in different columns on the same paper, by the long list of parties on the regional vote (which is probably unavoidable). But before I jump on Alex Salmond’s bandwagon of moral outrage, I think he needs to acknowledge the role he has played in the confusion.
There seems to be evidence emerging that the labelling of the SNP as “Alex Salmond for First Minister SNP” has added to this confusion. This cheap and cynical tactic served two purposes – first it put them first alphabetically on a very long list. Secondly, it wrongly made out that the regional vote was actually a referendum for first minister. There can be little doubt that this tactic has worked – the SNP are doing outstandingly well on the list vote, but whilst legal, I find this tactic as being against the spirit of an election which is supposed to be based on free, informed choice! It was deceptive and manipulative. So, yes, Mr Salmond, j’accuse! You are part of the problem – put your hands up, before you start criticising others.
Other thoughts – the turnout was shamefully low – in some Glasgow seats as low as 30% for a national election. That’s DISGRACEFUL!
Personally, I’m disappointed that the smaller parties seemed to have been squeezed out by the portrayal of the election as a straight contest between Labour and the SNP. I feel the parliament will be the poorer for it. Also, we now have the real prospect of not enough seats for the Lib Dems and Greens to form a majority coalition with either party and if they can’t elect a first minister, we all go again in 28 days!
The Labour party seem to have done much better than predicted and much better than they deserved after such a negative and fear driven campaign. All in all its rather depressing.
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8 comments:
Tony - good thought and good rant. I enjoyed reading it!
It was a total fiasco ... i was up till abut 3ish, when i went to bed, and was told by david mcneish that it got worse after that.
I think SNP will probably sneak it, but agree about the cynical way that have worked the list vote. however, listening to his speech last night, he is a great orator. It was passionate, gracious and inpsiring. I don't think i am front runner ... i have overegged the greens considerably i think - and not sure labour will get quite as high. Pretty sure i will do better than matthew though, which is always pleasing!
So here's a question: why is the turn out of the UK elections higher than the scottish elections?
SNP have won! I have worked out my results here. How have i done?
I was doing so well until the last couple of hours! Can't believe the greens exploding so badly! And if SNP hadn't picked up those could of seats in Lothians, i might have been really close! oh well...
I've posted my comments on Rupert's blog generally. Yes, it was a fiasco but the "trick" pulled by the SNP is nothing compared to the vicious scaremongering put their way by the popular press over the years (the "newspapers" known by people of my particular green n white ilk as the Hun and Daily Ranger).
Looking at the predictions
Tony 31 out. Which seemed odd, until I realised that Tony had predicted 130 seats would be won.
Rupert 18 out - top stuff
Matthew 30 out
Lindsay 24 out, although the only predictor of Diminishing greens
Anthony 22
Apparently a lot of the problem has been that people were told to vote twice on the one form and did - in the same column twice.
As Tony pointed out, it generally seems worse on the west coast...
Thanks for the comments guys. I’ve put more thoughts on the results and what might happen now on a comment on Rupert’s blog, so won’t elaborate further here.
I can confirm that Rupert is indeed the winner, Ant in second, Linds third, Matthew fourth and I’ve disqualified myself for cheating (or being unable to add up).
Rupert raised an interesting question – why is turn out lower than for Westminster elections when Holyrood actually decides on what are many of the key issues for voters.
Firstly, I’d say that compared to many of our European neighbours, turn out for Westminster elections are pretty low. I think part of the issue is that negative campaigning puts people off voting – in this election and in several previous ones, labour did wage (backed by certain newspapers) a very negative campaign, which probably did put some people off and polarised opinion amongst those who did vote. The SNP’s campaign was more positive, but was almost presidential rather than issue based and at times (deliberately?) blurred the distinction between the two parliaments because Blair is probably less popular and a better target than McConnell at the moment.
More importantly, I think that the profile of the Scottish parliament is too low. Most people’s association with the parliament is the building fiasco. Positive achievements of the parliament are mainly overlooked. Given that most people get their news from TV, its probably the case that a debate on, say, healthcare at Westminster gets more attention in Scotland than one at Holyrood would, despite the fact that it’s the Holyrood one that would affect us north of the border.
I don’t just blame the media – I think all the main political parties are poor at highlighting how the parliament works, what powers it has and what its achievements have been. I think the one shining exception to this is Margo MacDonald, who does a wonderful job promoting the parliament.
I think the worst example of this comes in European elections, where last time the parties could barely even be bothered to campaign let alone to highlight what the European parliament does and what they were actually voting for. They seemed to treat it as an opinion poll for Westminster and then had the bare-faced cheek to complain at low turn-out.
I think the parties also have a duty to educate voters about how the voting process works in different elections – this time round, from the leaflets I got, some parties were definitely better at this than others. As I’ve already said, I think the SNP were deliberately slightly misleading. The Greens and, I have to say, the tories actually gave the best info on how the system worked.
Well i can't believe i won guys.
I was really confident about 3pm on friday ... but then the lost of couple of seats, and suddenly SNP snuck in the back door.
Been good fun interacting over this with you all ...
Tony - great comment. Sorry i didn't see it when i posted the last comment.
I think you make a really good point about visability of holyrood and westminster. I, like many others, watch the main BBC news, rather than the "regional" news. This does mean that it is easy for the effect of scottish politics to pass you buy on a day to day basis ... and this is from someone who is pretty interested in politics!
Not sure what you can do about that?
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