Now that there has been some time to allow the result of the Glasgow East by-election, I feel like posting some thoughts that are less drunken and kneejerk than my previous post. Originally this was going to be one post, but I ended up blabbing for almost 3,000 words so I have split this into three separate posts which will appear one-by-one over the coming days.

First of all, I’ve spotted a few people south of the border wondering about the impact of the result on the union. For instance, Jennie at The Yorkeshire Gob, Jonathan Calder at Liberal England.

I might be on my own here, but my impression is that people in Scotland simply are not asking that same question. I must say that, as far as I can see it, the Glasgow East by-election result could hardly mean less for the union. Although the SNP are proud — and rightly so — of their victory last week, the reality is that this was much more of a Labour loss than an SNP win. Deep down, I think the SNP know that too.

I read (or heard, I can’t remember) a good analysis of Labour’s current woes. I have completely forgotten where I saw this, but the analysis was this. While the people of England and Wales have fallen out of love with Gordon Brown, the people of Scotland have fallen out of love of the Labour Party.

As regular readers may remember, I have from time to time been quite exasperated at how much people (perhaps particularly people south of the border) are still prepared to give the Labour Party the benefit of the doubt time and time again. I think now I understand why. The Labour Party in Scotland acts differently to the Labour Party in the rest of the UK. It’s certainly perceived differently.

Here in Scotland, voters smell the stench of corruption in the Labour Party. When you bear this in mind, as Holyrood Watcher points out, it’s not so difficult to understand why Labour lost in Glasgow East.

It is not just financial wrongdoings either — it’s a sense that Labour took its core voters for granted. There is a mega mega backlash against Labour in its core constituencies in Scotland.

Take my part of the world, Fife, as an example. Until recently, Fife was completely red apart from in the slightly more rural north-eastern part where Menzies Campbell enjoys a healthy majority.

That changed in 2006 when the Liberal Democrats took the Dunfermline and West Fife seat in a by-election, overturning a significant Labour majority. That was an election that Labour shouldn’t really have lost. But the loss was just blamed on Iraq, or whatever, and people shrugged their shoulders and carried on.

Then last year in the Scottish Parliamentary elections the SNP pulled off a surprise by winning Fife Central. It wasn’t the safest of Labour seats, but it was still a sign that Fife wasn’t quite the Labour heartland it used to be.

That was in the Scottish Parliamentary election. But if I remember correctly, the SNP are fairly confident that they will win the roughly corresponding Westminster constituency of Glenrothes. I have relatives in Glenrothes and apparently there is a lot of support for the SNP there.

Assuming the Lib Dems cling on to their two other seats in Fife, that would leave Labour with just one seat in Fife — Gordon Brown’s in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, where I live. Given the massive unpopularity of Gordon Brown at the moment, any “halo effect” there might have been will probably have vanished, and who is to say that the SNP cannot win here? Come the Westminster election I am planning to vote for the SNP to get rid of Labour.

And here is the thing. The SNP can probably count on much of its support for this reason. It is an anti-Labour thing rather than a pro-SNP thing. That can be seen from the fact that (according to my line of events anyway — your mileage may vary!) the ball was started rolling by the Lib Dems.

For a while I thought that the significant anti-Labour vote would mean that whichever party was in the best position to beat Labour in a particular constituency would grab the votes. Come the Scottish Parliamentary election it didn’t quite work out that way and the only real beneficiaries were the SNP.

I guess in the end the Lib Dems were unable to gain in the same way for a number of reasons. First of all, the media coverage made the election into a Labour vs. SNP battle pretty early on. Also, the Lib Dems did not run a great campaign from what I could see, and I never thought Nicol Stephen was up to much as leader.

Also, the Lib Dems were tainted by association. It was difficult for them to capitalise on the anti-Labour vote when they were having to spend the election campaign defending their record as part of a coalition partnership with Labour. That’s why the SNP capitalised on the Labour backlash and the Lib Dems didn’t.

So it looks as though the SNP and the Greens have come to some sort of deal, something just short of a proper coalition. But I’m with Shuggy — I don’t really understand what’s in it for them.

Obviously it can give the SNP two extra votes in the Scottish Parliament. But it is only two votes, and still far short of a majority. An SNP–Green coalition is not a good deal stronger than an SNP minority administration.

Meanwhile, I am really scratching my head as to why the Greens want to get involved. When coalition talks started, there was a joke (or was it a joke? Was it real?) that the Greens had two conditions. Those conditions were no more nuclear and fewer carbon emissions — which are both already SNP policies anyway.

If the Greens wanted to maximise their influence (as you would assume they would), you would expect them to at least ask for something a bit more radical, like no second Forth Road Bridge. Obviously no deal would be made in those circumstances because it would make both the SNP about as electorally popular as Hitler, particularly in Fife. But it would be a good starting point for the Greens.

But I’ve not heard anything about demands made by the Greens, besides a few “disagreements about transport policies”, which is a bit vague. It sounds like the Greens are giving up a lot for the sake of not a lot of power (because it would still be a minority administration).

I guess both the Greens and the SNP are hoping that the Lib Dems will come to the table. Their original stance was principled, but the fact that they are refusing to even talk about it is beginning to make them look petulant.

After all, as has been pointed out by many people, any referendum on independence would probably be lost. And a multi-question referendum would give the Lib Dems the perfect opportunity to campaign for more fiscal federalism in Scotland. Even though these issues are technically reserved matters, the debate that would be initiated could also open to door to a campaign to resolve the West Lothian Question via a federal solution in Westminster.

Moreover, there is the fact that the SNP and the Lib Dems are so damn similar, apart from the issue of independence. Would it not, for instance, be a good opportunity to implement a form of Local Income Tax, which both parties favour over the current system?

Meanwhile, those rumours that the Lib Dems’ refusal to talk is really being dictated by Gordon Brown don’t go away. I don’t know how true it is. But the very idea makes me quite uncomfortable, and for as long as the Lib Dems refuse even to talk about it, it begins to look true.

Back to the SNP, and Holyrood Watcher has noted how the SNP now face the harsh realities that come with actually being in power. Compromises to be made, and the fact that there are scarce resources (I sense this is a particular weak point for the SNP!).

The one solid Green demand — to go ahead with Edinburgh’s tram scheme — is uncomfortable for the SNP to take on board. And the SNP appear to be learning that increasing spending in one area involves opportunity costs, ie. decreasing spending in another area. Doh! Why didn’t they think of that before?

Update: Just as I finished writing this post, I saw this from Brian Taylor:

So what is this deal? The SNP and the Greens agree that - they won’t build any new nuclear power stations; they’ll introduce a law to cut climate-change pollution year on year (instead of vague longer-term targets); and they’ll “work to extend the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament.”

Ha! In other words, no nuclear and fewer carbon emissions. ie. the Greens have extracted bugger all from the SNP. Oh well. And that wording, “work to extend the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament” — very weak, don’t you think? The Lib Dems would like to do that as well. It looks to me like this the plan — to bring the Lib Dems on board.

Update: Having read the actual agreement (PDF), it is actually a bit stronger than that. It mentions ‘independence’ and contains a strong hint that a referendum is still on the cards.

Wouldn’t you know it. Just as some of us were praising the Lib Dems for refusing to sell out on their principles on independence, another bunch of people are accusing them of being “neither liberal nor democratic”.*

Is refusing to accept a referendum undemocratic? I don’t think so. In this country at least, referendums have been used for periods of significant constitutional change, pursued by whichever party is in power. In essence it provides a double mandate to go ahead and make those changes.

The first mandate is when a majority of the legislature supports the change and proposes the referendum. The second mandate comes when the referendum is won. Essentially, it is a mechanism to make bloody well damn sure it is what the electorate wants.

And there is the big sticking point for supporters of independence. Because while the SNP have a plurality seats and got a plurality of votes in the election, they have nowhere near a majority.

As I said on Friday, there is no mandate for a referendum. That post provided a reaction from an anonymous commenter:

If there’s a majority for it in parliament there is. Simple as that.

To which I reply, “precisely”. Because there is not a majority for it in Parliament.

On the Lib Dems’ refusal to enter into coalition, Iain MacLaren says,

This is a real disgrace and shows the contempt with which the LibDems treat their own voters.

In fact, the opposite is true. The Lib Dems’ “own voters” voted against independence and voted against holding a referendum. If they were to make a slippery deal with Alex Salmond on an independence referendum, they would have utterly betrayed their own voters.

He goes on,

Will we now see the same attitude over local council coalitions too?

But this misses the point a bit, I think. Presumably — and correct me if I’m wrong here — none of the parties that the Lib Dems might go into coalition with in local councils is asking them to commit to breaking up the country.

At Island Life (emphasis mine):

So, for “Liberal Democrats” that were willing to get into bed with a party who undemocratically went to war in Iraq, undemocratically want to renew Trident and undemocratically close A&E departments in busy hospitals, only to completely dismiss out of hand forming a democratically chosen parliament with a party who wants to ask the people’s opinion on an important constitutional matter is the most narrow minded and petty nonsense I’ve ever heard.

That completely misses the point as well. Calling the Iraq war and suchlike “undemocratic” is popular, but what is the definition of democracy? In this country we have a representative democracy. A party asks for a mandate, gets it, then does what it wants. No matter how much we might disagree with it, the Labour party was democratically elected. So what makes any of their policy pursuits undemocratic?

And the fact that this is and important constitutional matter only underlines why you should be cautious not to hold referendums at the drop of a hat.

The SNP were the only party to make gains on Thursday, but have a look at the bigger picture when it comes to independence. Of the six largest parties in the Scottish Parliament, three were in favour of independence and three were against.

Of the three against, all made losses, but not big losses. An overall loss of six seats.

Of the three in favour, one made big advances. But the other two have disappeared without a trace (one spectacularly so), save for a couple of Greens.

In terms of pro- / anti-independence split in the Scottish Parliament, things are not much different to how they were before. Yes, the SNP are the largest party — but mostly at the expense of the other pro-independence parties.

The split in seats and votes is just over a third in favour, and almost two thirds against independence. Opinion polls asking voters their views on independence tend to discern roughly the same split.

The protests from supporters of independence are mostly along the lines of, “how can they call themselves a democratic party if they aren’t willing to hold a referendum? They must be scared of the result!”

That misses the point. Put simply, no party has ever campaigned for a referendum on an issue they disagree with. If the SNP ever found themselves in a position to do so, they would never hold a referendum on, say, bringing back the death penalty. That is because they are against bringing back the death penalty. But aren’t they scared of the result?**

Well, no. You just don’t hold referendums willy-nilly. This is not a direct democracy, and most people like it that way. Even Alex Salmond takes a cautious stance on referendums. I saw him on Newsnight a couple of weeks ago where he said that a referendum is something that should only come round once a generation.

I’m not sure that it’s a generation since the last referendum. But whatever, he might want a referendum but he accepts — as I think most people do — that you don’t just hold referendums at the drop of a hat. And a margin of victory that could not possibly be tighter, with over 60% of the Parliament having been elected on an anti-independence manifesto, is hardly an apt circumstance to hold a referendum on independence.

* Is nationalism a liberal ideology? Hmm.
** Unlike the issue of independence, opinion polls on the death penalty suggest that a majority are in favour.

…for the time being?

According to the BBC, the Liberal Democrats are refusing to go into coalition with the SNP for the time being. The stumbling block is, of course, the independence referendum.

I am quite surprised. As the campaign went along, both the Lib Dems and the SNP seemed to be leaving wriggle room for compromise. To suddenly shut the door on a deal is surprising.

This is the second time in less than twelve hours that the Lib Dems have ruled out a coalition deal. Tavish Scott was on The Politics Show this afternoon and when he was asked if a coalition deal with Labour was on the cards he said confidently and without hesitation, “No.”

Perhaps the Lib Dems have figured that they have nothing to gain from making another coalition deal. They are getting a bad reputation from voters, who are increasingly seeing the Lib Dems as political prostitutes.

Maybe they have decided the best course of action is just to go away and lick their wounds after all. And they will now score brownie points for sticking to their guns and refusing to sell out on the question of independence.

Still, I’m sure this isn’t the end of it. Nicol Stephen might have made a rash decision. Maybe Alex Salmond raised the stakes too high by trying to secure a proper referendum on independence, rather than more powers for Holyrood or a multi-question referendum.

A lot of people have talked about “confidence and supply” over the past few days, and that did sound like a feasible option.

I guess the bottom line is that the election was just far too close for any solution to be allowed to come about. As things stand, Scottish politics is in total gridlock. Things are even too tight to choose the Presiding Officer. And with the Lib Dems refusing to go into coalition with anyone, a re-election really is on the cards.

Via Mr Eugenides.

Update: The BBC story has been expanded a bit now.

“I made it clear to him that unless and until the SNP removes the fundamental barrier of a referendum on independence during the next four years, there can be no coalition,” Mr Stephen added in a statement.

I guess not much has changed, except that the ball is firmly in Alex Salmond’s court. Is he prepared to remove that “fundamental barrier”? It would enrage SNP activists.

Now that we are away from the hysterical, improvised reporting, I think we have a clearer picture of the problems that happened on Thursday night with the Scottish Elections.

The problems with e-counting were a minor problem. The pundits on television were really annoyed about it — but I think that was because they were unable to report a result. The bottom line is, the results are in and they are correct. We hope they are correct anyway — and there is no real suggestion that the e-counting machines were misreading votes.

All spoilt ballots were verified by a human, so any talk about recounts to take into account the spoilt ballots is nonsense. A spoilt ballot is a spoilt ballot. There’s not much else you can do about it.

There was e-counting, but there was no e-voting. Voting still took place with paper and pencil. The machines didn’t cause the spoilt ballots — they are two separate issues, despite some reports I’ve seen conflating the two issues.

Talking of conflating, it seems as though that is what caused the confusion among the electorate. Combining the two Scottish Parliament votes on the one paper was a massive mistake. Here is why.

Anybody talking about how “complicated” the Single Transferable Vote is, is a liar.

The reason was the introduction of “single transferable vote” for council elections. This high-minded proportional device was forced on Labour by the Scottish Lib-Dems as part of their price for joining the coalition government in 2003. It is designed to break Labour’s rusted-in grip on local government in the west of Scotland, and it requires the voters to mark a list of names with numbers in order of preference instead of with the old crosses. Used to voting in a hurry, scribbling an X on the way to or from work, the citizenry got muddled.

There is so much wrong with this paragraph. For a start, anyone who voted with an X on the council vote still had their vote counted as the equivalent of a 1. So it wasn’t these crosses that were the spoilt ballots.

Also, there were far fewer spoilt ballots in the council election than in the Scottish Parliament election. In fact, the Scottish Parliament ballot paper was five times more likely to have been spoilt by a voter.

Single Transferable Vote, far from being complicated, is actually — literally — as easy as 1, 2, 3. And the fact that there were relatively few spoilt ballots in the STV system proves this.

But now for the head-scratching bit. The system used for the Scottish Parliament has not changed, yet it has caused the most confusion. A popular theory gathering steam is that the layout and wording of the Scottish Parliament ballot paper was too ambiguous.

At the top it was headed, “You have two votes”. That is true, but they are two different kinds of votes — one constituency (first past the post), and one regional (d’Hondt top-up list).

The two columns were different colours — one purple, and one peach. And that sentence, “You have two votes”, had two arrows coming out of it, one pointing to each column. In addition, above each column was the instruction “Mark one box only”.

So, the instructions were all there, complete with colour coding for dummies. But still a lot of people got it wrong. I think it is fair to say that putting both votes on the one paper was a mistake. In addition to the fact that an STV election was happening at the same time, it is easy to see how some people might have become confused.

This whole mess could have been avoided with one simple measure. Put the Scottish Parliament votes on separate sheets like before. Each sheet should be headed “You have one vote on this sheet of paper”. That would probably have made the whole thing crystal clear.

This is all part of a wider issue about the voting system. The two votes were put on the same piece of paper to try and emphasise how they were inter-related.

It is often said that many voters believed that the regional vote (sometimes colloquially referred to as “the second vote”) was meant to be a second preference vote, which is not the case. To try and tackle the perception, the regional vote became “the first vote”, and took precedence on the left-hand side of the ballot paper. But this just seems to have confused voters even more.

Frankly, I find it astonishing that so many people lack basic understanding about the voting system. On the vox pops on television I’ve heard a lot of people bemoaning the lack of information about the changes made this year. But they were very well publicised.

The changes to local government have been well-known for years in advance. In fact, it was a central plank of the Lib Dems’ coalition deal with Labour four years ago. It was big news when it happened. Okay, that was four years ago. But anybody who was watching the news then will have been aware about it.

A leaflet came through my — and, I presume, everyone else’s — door explaining quite clearly how to vote. I’ve seen features about it on the internet and television. Even the political parties themselves, eager not to lose any votes on spoilt papers, were often keen to stress how the voting system worked on their leaflets. All of these were ignored by the voters who spoilt their papers.

A few weeks ago I mentioned this animation designed to explain the voting system. Ryan Morrison in the comments mentioned how patronising it is.

I’m a big fan of encouraging people to vote, it’s one of the most important things you’ll ever do and I also support the idea of lowering the voting age to 16 but surely this was aimed at seven year olds?

Even I don’t think seven year olds should have the vote!

Fair enough, most won’t have seen that website. But, apart from producing an animation aimed at people even younger than seven, I really don’t know what else the authorities were supposed to do to explain it.

For some people, you would probably have the pay the BBC somehow crowbar it into the plot of River City to get people to realise. Or get the barman at the Queen Vic to say, “Here, have you heard about this new voting system they are using this year?”

I am left to conclude that the people who didn’t understand what to do in the polling booth simply do not follow the news carefully. There is a debate at the moment as to whether or not it is fair to say that a lot of people who spoilt their ballots actually deserved to have their vote discounted.

Yes, everyone should have the vote — even the not-so-smart. And voting should not be a difficult process. But the point is, this isn’t a difficult process. It was probably more complicated than it needed to be, due to the reasons I’ve mentioned above. But the bottom line is that the instructions were reasonably clear and it wasn’t difficult.

Voting is a right. But it is also a responsibility. When you cast your vote, you are essentially imposing your decision on other people. I’m not surprised that some people are openly wondering about the ability of the electorate to make these decisions. After all, the electorate decides who is in government. I’d like to think that the people making this decision are not ignorant. Not necessarily intelligent, but at least not ignorant.

(Incidentally, proof if proof be need be that the electorate is stupid, I learned today that Labour’s regional vote actually went up in this election. What would Bentham say about that?)

Another problem which has been touched upon by a few people was the fact that names and slogans appeared on the party list. Infamously, the SNP was actually “Alex Salmond for First Minister” on the ballot paper. Solidarity was “Tommy Sheridan — Solidarity”. Other parties put slogans in their name (eg. “The Publican Party — Smoking in pubs”).

It is a tactic that can work. Like AA1 Double Glazing in the Yellow Pages, the SNP got to the top of the list by changing their name so that it began with A. It seems as though it worked, because they made massive gains in the regional vote.

Some are complaining that this caused confusion, that it brought campaigning into the polling booth where it shouldn’t be and that it has led people to believe that the regional vote is a vote for the First Minister. Maybe this should be looked at, but I don’t know how it can be stopped.

Should political parties have ‘official’ names that can only be changed, say, every ten years? A possibility, I guess. Otherwise, I don’t see how these practices can be stopped.

It will be interesting to see what the Electoral Commission’s report has to say about this whole debacle. But having thought a lot about it, I am fairly sure that keeping the two Scottish Parliament votes separate would probably have avoided it all.