If my theory about whichever party being in a position to beat Labour will win is correct, then it is no wonder the SNP did well while the Lib Dems tanked.

Of course it is. Pretty well established Theory within PolSci, Duverger’s Law applies to by-elections in a much greater degree than in general elections, voters are less likely to vote in by-elections, but those that do

a) want their vote to matter and
b) are aware the nation is watching.

The big challenge in most by-elections for both parties and voters is to establish who the challenger is—sometimes you have 2nd/3rd position being very close, and vastly different results in other local elections, which is why you get parties putting resources in when they on paper don’t have much of a chance, or sometimes you even get spoiler campaigns, like in Ealing Southall where the Tories campaigned heavily in 3rd place and managed to stop the LDs squeezing their vote.

I think, overall, you’re correct, the SNP get a bunch of votes for a large number of reasons, but nationally in Scotland they’re seen as the alternative party of Govt and hence get ‘opposition’ swing votes, just as the Tories do in England. Especially true given the coalition nature of Scottish politics, if you want a change of administration, then you need a different ‘largest party’, switching to the LDs from Labour is less of an option as the LDs are unlikely to come first, thus Labour could’ve hung on, etc.

I love watching Scottish politics, a 4-party dynamic with 3 different voting systems: utterly insane but interesting psephology.

I have no suitable Alex Neil quote to hand, but Alex Salmond considers himself to be a social democrat, saying in 2007 that his positions are “part of the socialist pantheon”.

Whereas Jim Mather said in 2003 that “any notion that an independent Scotland would be a left-wing country is delusional nonsense” and that most Scots “have enough experience of left-wing policies to know that they only make matters worse”.

If such wide divergences exist within any other party, I certainly can’t think of them. That said, I doubt that Mather would break ranks to say such a thing today. It seems to me that the SNP is bound together only by their shared motivation to break up the UK and by rigid internal discipline which seeks to ensure that no individual undermines that effort by failing to toe the line.

I think you’re right about independence not being a burning issue. I am sure if you asked the person on the street, 9 times out of 10 they would give you an opinion on independence. But they are more primarily concerned about the state of the local hospital, the price of a pint and X number of other “bread and butter” issues.

You quite rightly point to the fact that Labour had been in power for 11 years and that this is a big factor in their downswing. I forgot to mention in this post that Labour really shot themselves in the foot in the long term by setting up the Scottish Parliament because it was always going to bring electoral dynamics into play. Sooner or later there was going to be a change of government, and that change was always going to be to the SNP.

Scottish Unionist — I think you are being a tad harsh on the SNP in your second paragraph there. I think whenever anyone joins a political party they must be prepared to compromise some of their beliefs in exchange for being part of an umbrella grouping for the sake of the bigger cause. You could point to all of the major parties and point out similar divergences in ideology.

In a lot of ways I think this broad-based approach is quite healthy. It chimes with the cuddly notion of the “new politics” for one thing. And for another thing, we don’t want to end up like the socialists with the Judean People’s Front etc etc.

Firstly, the SNP is a more unnatural coalition than possibly any other party in British politics – with key figures ranging from Alex Neil on the left, through Alex Salmond (ex-socialist, now social democrat) to Jim Mather on the right. Ditto their support base. So policies need to be constructed in such a way as to tip the nod in each direction, thus giving them at least a superficial catholicity.

Even more significantly, the SNP exists primarily to remove Scotland from Britain. They’re on a mission – and in that respect are, in fact, a single-issue party. Policy serves and flows from the central agenda. So the gradualist applecart mustn’t be upset, and populism is the inevitable consequence. What the focus group wants, it gets. In the short term, until various chickens start to roost, that’s a vote winner.

Still regardless of the time of night that was a very thorough and interesting comment. And I think it pretty much sums up the situation.

I’ve never looked at the independence debate or general discussions around the constitution as being ‘public’ issues. This isn’t to say that some members of the public won’t have strong views on them, simply that they’re not burning topics for people in the way they are for politicians.

Instead I suspect most people just get on with their everyday lives without ever giving a thought to such matters. The general exception would be if a referendum was held and then this would obviously focus minds.

Similarly with the Glasgow East election. Independence clearly wasn’t mentioned during the campaign, instead people passed a negative judgement on a Labour government which has been in power for 11 years. And this was also true of the Holyrood election last year.

Of course if a referendum is held in 2010 then people will consider the issue more closely, although based on pretty much every opinion poll I don’t think the SNP get their way. And in some ways the most interesting question is what happens then?