Snp

Thursday

Alex Massie

Thought Crime in the Brave New Scotland

It cannot be said that Alex Salmond's ministry is off to a good legislative start. Not when its immediate aim is, apparently, to rush through ill-considered, illiberal, speech-curbing legislation that asks the public not to worry about the detail and trust that the legal authorities will not actually enforce either the letter or the spirit of the Offensive Behaviour in Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill. According to Salmond: "I am determined that the authorities have the powers they need to clamp down effectively on bigotry peddled online. The Internet is a force for good in so many ways – but it can also be abused by those who seek to spread hatred.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

This Scotland Subordinate? Only to a Crying Fool.

Much of Alex Salmond's speech on the occasion of his re-election as First Minister was entirely unobjectionable and some of it was even eloquent. A shame, then, that his peroration threw all that away: A change is coming, and the people are ready. They put ambition ahead of hesitation. The process is not about endings. It is about beginnings. Whatever changes take place in our constitution, we will remain close to our neighbours. We will continue to share a landmass, a language and a wealth of experience and history with the other peoples of these islands My dearest wish is to see the countries of Scotland and England stand together as equals There is a difference between partnership and subordination. The first encourages mutual respect. The second breeds resentment.

Alex Massie

This Social Union, This Commonwealth

On reflection, perhaps I've been a little too quick to discount the historical significance of the Queen's visit to Ireland this week. Like so much else, it's a question of perspective. If you're 80 years old and a citizen of the Irish Republic, perhaps the sight of the Irish President greeting and welcoming the British monarch on equal terms would seem quietly moving and even a cause of some pride. I might think that this was what it was all about and I might see the visit as another confirmation that the Irish state has taken its rightful place in the community of nations. That's been true for many years, but this is still some hefty symbol.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Labour’s Holyrood Campaign HQ? The Beach.

YesterdayTom Harris MP wrote a savage-but-accurate appraisal of Labour's Scottish election failure for Labour Uncut. Pretty much every part of his analysis is persuasive, most notably his appreciation that Scottish Labour has grown fat, arrogant and complacent. Just as importantly, many voters think this too. There was a widespread perception that there had to be something better than what Labour were offering and that Alex Salmond would do as that something even if you disagree with the SNP on its flagship policy or, for that matter, much of the rest of its platform.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Aunt Annabel Departs But the Tories Can Live Again

So farewell then, Annabel Goldie. As Hamish Macdonnell says, your position was weakened by the inquest into last year's disappointing (let's be kind, here) Westminster results. But Miss (never Ms) Goldie can step down knowing that her party is better-off than either Labour or the Liberal Democrats. A cynic might suggest it's easy for a leader to be honest when they know they have little chance of being invited into government, no matter what result the election might produce. And cynicism always appeals. Nevertheless - a very Annabelish word - the election campaign went almost as well for the Scottish Tories as could have been hoped.

Hamish Macdonell

A leadership contest might be just what the Scottish Tories need

That's it, the full house. Alex Salmond has seen off all three main opposition party leaders before the Scottish Parliament has even convened for the first time in this new session. Yesterday afternoon, Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie joined her Labour and Liberal Democrat counterparts (Iain Gray and Tavish Scott) in standing down. The Conservatives did not do quite as badly as either of the other two opposition parties in the election – they went down two seats, from 17 to 15 – and many will see that as the reason Miss Goldie delayed her resignation for a few days, to work out of she could continue. But, in reality, Miss Goldie always seemed destined to resign after this Holyrood poll.

Alex Massie

The Size of Things to Come & Unionism Needs a New Story

Recalling the collapse of RBS, Tyler Cowen suggests that Scottish independence might not be such a nifty notion: The conceptual point is simple.  If you think that the world is now more prone to financial crises (and I do), the optimal size for a nation-state has gone up.  Risk-sharing really matters. That's a pretty widely-held view and it is not, I think, wholly coincidental that Alex Salmond discovered* the apparently unlimited potential of renewable energy at roughly the same time banking began to seem a less useful foundation for future prosperity.   Risk-sharing**, however, is at the heart of it. It was the main reason why the SNP became a pro-EU party.

Sunday

Hamish Macdonell

Salmond sees out his rivals

Two down and one to go: that’s the score among the opposition leaders in the Scottish Parliament as the parties continue to sift through the wreckage left by the SNP tsunami last week. Iain Gray, the Scottish Labour leader, didn’t wait long. He announced he was quitting on Friday afternoon, even before the full extent of Alex Salmond’s landslide victory was officially declared. Mr Gray will stay on until the autumn but will go then to allow someone else to start the unenviable task of picking Scottish Labour up from its disastrous performance last week. Yesterday Tavish Scott, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, told his parliamentary party that he was resigning too.

Saturday

James Forsyth

The winners and losers from Thursday’s elections

After every election, the political stock exchange goes into a frenzy trying to work out who is a buy and who is a sell. Thirty-six hours after the polls closed, it is a little clearer who the winners and losers of this election season have been. Here are our selections: Winners Alex Salmond, the biggest winner of Thursday night. Salmond has achieved what the Scottish electoral system was meant to prevent, an overall SNP majority in the Scottish parliament. Salmond now has the votes he needs for a referendum on independence.

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Now Salmond can begin his battle for indepedence

After all the carry-on with the new Scottish Parliament building, they may have to rebuild it yet again to accommodate Alex Salmond’s head. Never the smallest object, it will have swelled dangerously today – and (I hate to say it) deservedly. This was his victory. Only Smart Alec can pitch simultaneously to the left and the right, and get away with it. “The SNP has become the conservative party of Scotland,” a banker friend emails from Edinburgh. “Almost every Scot I know who is a conservative in London is now strongly pro-SNP”. Salmond talks about low tax and enterprise, etc, while vowing to keep state spending up at Soviet levels. My gran once summed up his debating technique. “If he knows the answer, he gloats.

Alex Massie

Team A Thumps Team B

What a year! First Fianna Fail in Ireland, now Labour in Scotland. If only all elections were this entertaining and satisfying. At long last the anti-Labour vote was organised properly. Indeed, the SNP have won a lop-sided victory of the type Labour have been accustomed to winning in Scotland, taking more than 70% of the constituency seats on 45% of the vote. This included a victory in Edinburgh South achieved with fewer than 30% of the votes. First Past the Post for the win, eh? Labour spent much of the night complaining that there was a ball and the Liberal Democrats ran away with it and gave it to the SNP and that wisnae fair. Too bad.

Hamish Macdonell

Salmond’s next stop: testing the Act of Union

Fresh from his astonishing victory in Holyrood, Alex Salmond has declared his next stage is an independence referendum. This is scoffed at: technically he has no powers to do so and a maximum of a third of Scots back independence. But it's a brave man who'd bet against Alex Salmond right now, and there are many reasons to take seriously the prospect of Scottish independence. Here are some.   1) Scotland is making a mockery out of received wisdom. A few weeks ago, Labour was cruising towards victory. When the Scottish Parliament was designed, the prevailing wisdom suggested that the SNP could never win a majority because the electoral system was rigged against them. Even the SNP believed this.

James Forsyth

Three points from a remarkable night

This has been a remarkable election night. To my mind, there are three big stories out of the polls. First, the George Osborne masterminded campaign for a new Conservative majority is on track. AV, barring some shock, has been defeated and the Conservative vote has held up remarkably well in the English local elections. Indeed, right now the Tories have actually gained councilors in England. Add to this that the next election, if the coalition lasts to 2013, will be fought on new constituency boundaries that are more favourable to the Tories and things are looking promising for the party.    The coalition looks secure. Even after last night's drubbing, the Lib Dem leadership is not considering leaving government.

Peter Hoskin

Surprise, surprise … the Lib Dems are taking a battering

If you fell asleep expecting heavy losses for the Lib Dems, then you will not have been disappointed upon waking up. At time of writing, around 100 English councils, comprising roughly 2,400 councillors, have declared their results – and the yellow brigade have already lost four of them, along with 270 councillors. There's some way to go yet, so the picture could alter, but Labour appear to making sweeping gains, while the Tory vote is holding unexpectedly firm. As it stands, the local wing of Cameron's party has actually gained a council, along with 22 councillors in the process. Stir in the likely result of the AV referendum, and the Tory leader is looking like a net winner on the night.

Fraser Nelson

Salmond’s victory

When I stood down as political editor of The Scotsman five years ago, the country looked to be forever Labour – even if they called in Salmond for some Puck-style light relief. Not so now. The SNP seems to have pulled off a minor revolution. Scotland wakes to find Labour MSPs being toppled from former strongholds like Glasgow Shettleston – the city itself is now almost all SNP. The BBC say Alex Salmond is heading for a majority, and in a Holyrood which was designed to make it almost impossible for any party so to do. Salmond is already pledging that his next mission is an independence referendum. The Lib Dems have taken what seems to be a punishment beating for coalition with the Tories in Westminster.

Alex Massie

An Astonishing Night in Scotland

Scottish elecctions tend to be boring. Little happens. Small earthquake in Scotland, not many dead. Just for once, however, that has not been the case tonight. Labour's dismal, depressing, you-cannae-do-anything-right campaign met its deserved end. Even so, who predicted the SNP could win FPTP seats in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire. Who thought they could win a majority of Glasgow city seats? Who foresaw their historic breakthrough in Edinburgh? Andy here's-how-you-wash-your-hands Kerr and Tom McCabe and many other senior Labourites were toppled. Even Iain Gray only survived by 150 or so votes. Labour spent much of the evening arguing that the story was the collapse of the Lib Dem vote. In some seats, such as Aberdeenshire West, this was so. But in most of Scotland it was not.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

The Scotsman Sees Sense

The Scotsman's endorsement of the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives is so thoroughly, even startlingly, sensible it could almost have been written by me*. [T]here is no other credible candidate for First Minister beyond Mr Salmond. Despite his party's apparently staunch commitment to statism, we also know the SNP leader is passionate about the role of business and free enterprise in generating jobs and growth for Scotland, within or outwith the Union. In that, he and many of his colleagues – finance secretary John Swinney is one – share the beliefs of the Tories, and we feel there may be common ground between them. SCOTLAND needs a strong First Minister and a strong government, and only the SNP under Mr Salmond has the potential to provide that.

Jonathan Jones

Your guide to tomorrow’s elections

In light of ICM's latest poll, Lib Dems might be relieved to hear that tomorrow isn't all about the AV referendum. But it's a meagre sort of relief: they're facing a drubbing in the local elections too. We've put together a quick guide to those elections, as well as those in Scotland and Wales, so that CoffeeHousers know what to look out for, and Lib Dems know what to fear. Here it is: England The main question hovering over England's local elections is: how big will Labour's gains be? There are around 9,400 seats up for contention, of which the Conservatives currently hold about 5,000; Labour, 1,600; and the Lib Dems, 1,900.

Monday

Hamish Macdonell

Labour are still off course in Scotland

Of all the election results due in on Thursday night, those for the Scottish Parliament may be the most significant. Labour's Scottish base, which has been the party's bedrock for almost 50 years, seems to be dissolving. Two more opinion polls yesterday gave details. One, in the Mail on Sunday in Scotland, gave the SNP a ten point lead on the constituency vote and a six point lead on the list vote: this would give the Nationalists 62 seats to Labour’s 51. With the Greens on course to pick up three seats according to the Progressive Opinion poll, Alex Salmond would have enough votes to hit the magic 65 he needs for a majority to pass his independence referendum bill.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Alex Salmond and Donald Trump

Since Donald Trump and the Birthers are everywhere today, I wonder if Alex Salmond winces at the memory of being described by Trump as "an amazing man"? I hope so. For Salmond's role in the saga of Trump's plans to build a golf course and, just as importantly, hundreds of "villas" on one of the more spectacular pieces of Aberdeenshire coastline was not one of the SNP ministry's finer moments. To recap, Aberdeenshire council rejected Trump's application to build two golf courses, a hotel and his houses on the Menie Estate (pictured above). The Scottish government, as it is wont* to do, called in the application and to precisely no-one's surprise over-ruled the council and gave Trump permission to build the "greatest golf course in the world".