As for other aspects of the Glasgow East result, the collapse of the Lib Dems in particular can be put down to the fact that the two main parties are broadly centre-left. So Lib Dem voters will have been especially more willing to lend their vote to one of the main parties. Conservatives will be more wary of voting for anyone else, so this is why the Conservatives were able to move up to third place in a constituency which is otherwise not fertile ground for them.

The election has also seen the constant trotting-out of that old line about how Scotland is a desert land for the Conservative Party. That really annoys me because it is simply the biggest myth since Santa Claus. A lot of people, even in Scotland, believe it. Whenever I hear a Lib Dem coming out with it I feel like giving them a slap, because if the Tories are unpopular in Scotland what on earth does that make the Lib Dems??

Okay, so the Conservatives have very few MPs and in 1997 they had none. But that is simply because First Past the Post is so hopelessly skewed against them. Of course, the Conservatives support the FPTP system, so they get no sympathy from me on that front. But it is a fact that, if you look at the numbers for the country as a whole, the Conservatives are the third largest party in Scotland not just once in a while but over and over again.

In 2007, the Conservatives got 16.6% of the constituency vote compared to the Lib Dems’ 16.2%. In the regional vote (i.e. the fairer part, where people are less likely to vote tactically and more likely to vote for the party that they actually support), the Conservatives had 13.9% compared to the Lib Dem’s 11.3%.

The numbers were even more stark in 2003, with the Conservatives getting 15.5% in the regional vote compared to the Lib Dems’ 11.8%. In 1999, back in the days when the Tories had no MPs they were still ahead of the Lib Dems.

In fact, in 1997, that infamous year where the Tories were wiped out, the Conservatives had 17.51% of the votes in Scotland. The Lib Dems had a mere 12.98%.

I don’t like to point all this out because the Lib Dems are the party that I am most sympathetic to. But it really annoys me whenever I hear anyone bang on and on about how unpopular the Conservatives are in Scotland because it simply is. not. true.

And it especially annoys me when I hear it from a Lib Dem. Not only are the Lib Dems less popular than the Conservatives in Scotland, but Lib Dems of all people really ought to be aware that they should look beyond just the numbers of MPs and look to the overall share of the vote because of the unfairness of the FPTP system.

As for worries that a Conservative Government in Westminster will sour relations between Westminster and Holyrood and therefore bring us one closer to the break-up of the union — I’m afraid I don’t buy that one either.

The SNP and the Conservatives do not actually hate each other as much as you might think. In fact, sometimes I think they are actually quite cosy. Often, the SNP will rely on the help of the Conservatives to get legislation through the Scottish Parliament (particularly for as as long as the Lib Dems appear to be content to be little more than an appendage of the Labour Party).

Of course, the SNP always complained about the Tories in the 1980s and 1990s. As did Labour. But, of course, that was twenty years ago now. Today it’s 2008, and a very different political landscape.

The idea that the Conservatives didn’t have a mandate to govern Scotland caught like wildfire. It is silly though. In any country in the world you find similar geographical differences. It’s just a fact of life. For some reason, though, although they were keen to point it out when the Tories were in government, the SNP play down such geographical differences that occur within Scotland. Just take a look at the map. The yellow is almost all in rural areas, with relatively little SNP representation in the central belt. Do the SNP complain about that as well? Hmm, funny that.

The fact is that the SNP only complained about the Tories because it was to their electoral advantage to do so. Last year they removed from their constitution the barrier to forming a coalition with the Conservatives. That tells you what you need to know. I have even seen it suggested that, if the SNP hit their target of getting 20-odd Westminster seats, the Conservatives could form a coalition with the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the event of a hung parliament.

The SNP’s real enemies today are Labour, as anyone who has endured any recent election in Scotland will tell you. Trust me — an SNP Government in Holyrood will get on much, much better with the Conservatives in Westminster than they currently get on with Labour.

To the extent that the SNP’s current electoral popularity is due to pro-SNP (rather than anti-Labour) effects, it must be remembered that there is much more than independence at play. Does an SNP success in an election mean that Scotland has suddenly converted to the cause of independence? Of course not.

Firstly, support for independence is pretty low at the moment. According to the 2007 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (which I believe asks a question about independence every year), support for independence (PDF link) was lower than it had been since May 1997. Asked to choose between independence, devolution or getting rid of the Scottish Parliament altogether, just 23% plumped for independence.

The peak of support for independence was actually in September 1997 — ironically, also roughly when Labour were also at the height of their powers. Then, independence was favoured over devolution for, as far as I can tell, the only time in history. Over the preceding decade support for independence has flitted up and down but has been in a pronounced decline since 2005.

Another point to note is that this, the SNP’s most successful period ever, has come at a time when the SNP has played down its support for independence. Take the slogan it has used since last year’s election campaign. Instead of things like “Michty me, we’ll soon be free” and all that sort of thing, their slogan was: “It’s time.” Time for what? Time for bed? The SNP don’t say.

You have to admit, it is a fiendishly clever slogan. Classic dog whistle stuff. So SNP activists and hardened advocates for independence think it’s time for independence. Anti-Labour voters see it and think it’s time for a change, time to kick Labour out. In fact, it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

Crucially, the independence issue was not rammed down people’s throats by the SNP. Given the closeness of last year’s election, that could well have been what swung it for them.

You should also bear in mind that the SNP are very far away from being a single-issue party. A vote for the SNP is not necessarily a vote for independence, and often an SNP activist will be the first person to tell you this. For instance, Richard Leyton got this line from no less a person than Nicola Sturgeon.

Don’t want an independent Scotland? It doesn’t matter. The SNP have made it very clear that independence will only come after a referendum victory. In the meantime, there is a “national conversation” about independence where you can express your views if you so wish. In effect, the SNP have tried as hard as possible to divorce the independence issue from Scottish Parliament and Westminster elections. The debate over independence now runs separately.

So what explains the SNP’s success? It’s the policies stupid. It is conceivable that Fifers who voted for the SNP did so because they were enticed by their promise to abolish the bridge tolls. Students may have been attracted to their promise to “dump student debt”. And of course, the people who felt that there should be a change in government were always likely to vote SNP because they are the second largest party in Scotland, and the only party in a position to stand up to Labour.

It must also be said that Alex Salmond’s leadership has a lot to do with the SNP’s current success. Yes, he splits opinion. But like him or loathe him, you have to admit that he is a great politician. He is good orator and has the charisma and leadership qualities necessary. The only other Scottish leader that can compare to him in my book is Annabel Goldie, and even she is pretty colourless compared to Alex Salmond.

Particularly when you compare him to the likes of Nicol Stephen and Jack McConnell, who both look permanently nervous, Alex Salmond towers above everyone else in the Scottish Parliament. Wendy Alexander was no match for him either, particularly given the state of disarray Labour are in at the moment. With Alex Salmond at the helm, the SNP should expect an upswing in fortunes, especially since their leader at the 2003 Scottish Parliamentary election was the dull and ineffective John Swinney.

Back in Glasgow East, from what I gather, the issue of independence was not completely ignored, but it certainly did not form a major part of the campaign. Instead, it was presented as a contest where the electorate would pass judgement on the records of the Labour Government in Westminster and the SNP Government in Holyrood.

The SNP were also hugely advantaged by the fact that they were already in 2nd place in the constituency. 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.

Most votes are wasted anyway, especially under the FPTP system. But a sure-fire way to waste your vote in Glasgow East was to vote for the Conservatives or the Lib Dems. Only hardened Tories and Lib Dems who despise Labour and the SNP equally will have voted for them (or, indeed, any of the other smaller parties).

In summary, I think that the SNP’s victory in Glasgow East means almost nothing for the union.

That is not to say that I think that the status quo will prevail. I think I am right when I say that all of the parties currently represented in the Scottish Parliament, and the largest parties that are not represented in the Scottish Parliament, all support some kind of increased devolution to varying degrees. That includes the Conservatives, who appear pretty open to the idea of the Scottish Parliament having some leverage over fiscal policy.

Even Labour, painted into a unionist corner by their opposition to the SNP, have toyed with the idea of fiscal autonomy. Mind you, that was under the leadership of Wendy Alexander, who seemed to be a bit of a loose cannon when it came to trying to tackle the issue of the constitution. Who knows what direction Labour will take under their new leader, but I suspect that they will find it difficult to maintain support unless the take the majority view that the Scottish Parliament should have a greater degree of fiscal autonomy.

All of this, though, is almost incidental to the success or otherwise of the SNP. Increased powers for the Scottish Parliament will not come about as a result of SNP success. It can come about as a result of the success of any party.

Well, I say “final thoughts”, but really I mean “first and only thoughts” because this is the first time I’ve actually managed to find the time and motivation to write about tomorrow’s Glasgow East by-election.

It’s difficult to know what I am hoping for. The party I am most sympathetic towards — the Lib Dems — has a pretty low chance of achieving anything meaningful. And let us face it, the only reason Glasgow East has interested people is because Labour have a chance of losing a safe seat to the SNP.

Watching the SNP and Labour battling for votes in Glasgow East is like watching the two biggest bullies at school trying to win a popularity contest. You don’t want either of them to win, but deep down inside you really like it when one messes it up, even if it gives the other guy an advantage.

It’s been quite fun to see, therefore, both parties messing it up a bit. Labour’s woes have been pretty well documented. The former MP, David Marshall, is involved in a slimy corruption scandal. He pocketed half a mill in office expenses when his office was his house and his office staff was his family — while representing the poorest constituency in the country. Yes, that sort of brass neck would make me feel ill as well!

Then the candidate Labour were going to put up for the by-election turned out also to be very possibly a corrupt bastard as well. And the two people who “stood against” him magically disappeared — presumably because they were never intended to have a chance of actually being Labour’s candidate.

So Margaret Curran was parachuted in. She is actually quite good, though the “fourth choice” jibes are pretty damaging. This also leaves “the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament” in a bit of a pickle because she was going to be their leader. But that’s a worry for another day.

I said Margaret Curran is quite good. I meant that she comes across well on the telly. But of course since she is a Labour politician she is actually a honking liar. She said she’s lived in the east of Glasgow all her life, when in fact she has lived for years in a fancy house on the south side. And she mistook a 67-year-old Labour Party activist for a 93-year-old World War II hero “who looks not a day past 70, by the way”.

Not that the SNP’s candidate, John Mason, seems to be much better. In fact, he seems like the sort of person your mother warned you about. When asked about his views on an independence referendum, his answer was somewhat creepy.

When you ask someone to marry you, sometimes you have to persist.

Lovely.

John Mason also has a history of anti-English behaviour, demanding that a school remove England flags from a World Cup display. Given that the SNP is supposed to be trying to do away with the perceived anti-English element of the party — and does a good job of it, by and large — I am surprised that the SNP should give someone with these views a platform in an important by-election.

I don’t believe the SNP is an anti-English party per se (though undoubtedly many of its supporters are anti-English). But if they do not put a lid on this element more effectively might it become their Clause IV?

This is becoming a running theme of this blog, but I’ll say it again — you can’t blame people for not wanting to vote. And it looks like turnout will be very low in Glasgow East.

That is not just because the two front-running parties keep on fouling up. It is because of the decades of Labour neglect that have been inflicted on the area. Glasgow East is a part of the world that has been held by Labour since 1922. Yet it is in an utterly terrible shape.

The statistic about life expectancy in Glasgow East being roughly equal to that of the Gaza Strip is untrue. Life expectancy in Gaza is 71.01 years. In one part of the constituency, Calton, life expectancy is as low as 53.9 years. You can expect to live longer in Pyongyang than in Glasgow.

(Update: Bellgrove Belle pointed out in the comments that Calton is actually in the Glasgow Central constituency, not Glasgow East.)

It is staggering that this kind of poverty exists in the UK. And this is a seat that Labour have held for eight and a half decades straight. Labour is the party of the poor? If by that you mean they like there to be lots of poor people, then you are bang on.

You can blame the Conservatives all you want, but the fact is that in the 86 years Labour have represented the area, Labour have been in government for around 40 of them. And of course 11 of those have been the last 11 years. Given that it is such a poor area, you would have thought Labour would be eager to help them out. Given that Glasgow East is such a safe seat, where Labour have one of their most convincing mandates, you would think Labour would be eager and willing to repay their voters.

But no. As Fraser Nelson has shown, Glasgow East is the ultimate example of the utter failure of Labour and its policies.

Of course, it is also a shining example of the problems created by Labour’s best pal, the First Past the Post voting system. It was the very safeness of the seat that enabled Labour in the west of Scotland to become the arrogant, corrupt cesspit it became.

That is why David Marshall has absolutely no data on the voters of Glasgow East. He just didn’t care. It is the voters’ very loyalty that has meant that the Labour government has continued to ignore the area. “Not a marginal seat? Not a swing voter? Not interested.”

Given that these very voters are constantly lied to by the media and various other people that Labour is the only party that can act in the interests of the poor, it is no wonder that apathy is so widespread in Glasgow East. If I thought Labour — the party that’s been in charge since 1922 — was the best hope for change, I’d be pretty glum about it too.

The really depressing thing is that Labour will almost certainly win this election. That is partly because of the lies I’ve described in the above paragraph. Is it a cliché to say that a monkey in a red rosette would win in Glasgow East? That is the only conclusion you can come to when, time and time again, the voters keep on re-electing this bunch of failures that have done absolutely nothing for them. It is accurate to describe these kinds of seats in the west of Scotland as the modern equivalent of rotten boroughs.

As for the idea that Glasgow East’s voters will be confused between Margaret Curran and the SSP’s Frances Curran, thereby losing Labour some votes, I don’t buy that. The voters won’t be looking for the name ‘Curran’ on the ballot slip. They’ll be looking for the word ‘Labour’.

I was quite surprised therefore when at the start of the campaign political pundits based in London were confidently predicting an SNP win. I think they couldn’t imagine Labour winning any election in the kind of climate the Westminster Government finds itself in at the moment. But they didn’t count on the trusty voters of west central Scotland, who continue to vote Labour like a dirty old man who likes a good hard spanking.

It shows how out of touch the political pundits in London are with the rest of the UK. Since then, things have stabilised and received wisdom seems to point towards a Labour win, albeit with a hugely reduced majority.

Even though the SNP seem confident, I don’t see Labour losing. I think the SNP are making a big mistake by confidently predicting an “earthquake“. This will allow Labour to present a narrow majority (the most likely outcome) as a victory for them when it is anything but.

The fact that Labour’s victory is even in doubt is the real sign that Labour have failed. It shows that just now there is not really such a thing as a safe Labour seat. But the SNP have given them the perfect opportunity to bounce back.

What do I want to happen? Like I say, the choice between the SNP and Labour is a choice between shit and shite. I want neither party to win. I certainly want neither party to convincingly win.

As such, I want the result to be an extremely narrow Labour victory (1,000–500 votes or less). This would maximise the pain to both parties — Labour barely clinging on to what was one of their safest seats, while the SNP lose an election they predicted they would win. Fingers crossed!

A few weeks ago I attended a talk by Eric Maskin, who this year was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory.

Eric Maskin seems to be quite an interesting person. He lives in a house that was once occupied by Albert Einstein. I imagine that would make a great pub quiz question. Perhaps even more startlingly, Eric Maskin dresses up as Albert Einstein at Halloween.

Professor Maskin came to Edinburgh en route to Sweden to talk about voting systems, a topic related to mechanism design.

Arrow’s impossibility theorem implies that no voting system is perfect at satisfying a number of desired criteria. These criteria are:

• The Pareto principle — if everyone prefers x to y then y should not be elected
• Anonymity — every voter should be treated equally
• Neutrality — every candidate should be treated equally
• Independence of irrelevant alternatives — the ability of x and y to win an election should not be affected by the entrance of a candidate z
• Transitivity — if x is preferred to y and y is preferred to z then x should be preferred to z

That fourth one is probably the one that grates with most proponents of electoral reform. We can reel off instances where independence of irrelevant alternatives has been violated. For instance, had Ralph Nader not run in 2001 then Al Gore would almost certainly have become President of the USA. A fragmented left in France allowed Jean Marie Le Pen to enter the final run-off with Jacques Chirac in 2002, when there was every chance that Lionel Jospin would have won such a face-off.

Interestingly, Eric Maskin thinks that if the SDP / Liberal alliance hadn’t run in 1983, Michael Foot’s Labour party would have won the general election. What a thought!

Just thinking about this sent me under a dark cloud. The design of institutions clearly has a disturbingly massive effect. The voting system is much more important than the voters themselves, particularly when you couple this thought with the paradox of voting.

The system that Eric Maskin concentrated on is Simple Majority Rule. This method has voters submitting rankings of candidates, just as in Single Transferable Vote. Then you take these rankings and use them to compare candidates in a head-to-head scenario, two candidates at a time. By comparing just two candidates at a time, you get rid of the problem with independence of irrelevant alternatives. If one candidate is preferred over another by >50% of the voters, he wins the election.

Well, almost. Unfortunately, this system is susceptible to Condorcet’s paradox. For instance, >50% of voters may prefer Labour to the Conservatives, >50% of voters may prefer the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats and >50% of voters may prefer the Lib Dems to Labour. In other words, simple majority rule violates the transitivity principle.

The view of Eric Maskin is that to worry about transitivity is too pessimistic. For him, the Condorcet paradox is possible, but highly unlikely. This is because candidates can be lined up on a spectrum from left to right, and voters tend to vote in accordance with these positions.

As such, he suggests that simple majority rule is good as a least-worst voting system as it meets all of the desired criteria apart from transitivity which is unlikely to be violated. No other voting system works this well as often.

Of course, because the possibility of the Condorcet cycle even exists, there must be a tie-breaker. This is probably cause for a whole new debate in itself!

The talk provided some food for thought. For several years now I have been convinced that there needs to be a move away from the First Past the Post system. For the past few years I have been strongly in favour of Single Transferable Vote.

During the talk, one person in the audience specifically asked Eric Maskin about Single Transferable Vote. He said that STV can still violate independence of irrelevant alternatives, and pointed out that a similar system to STV was used in the 2002 French election.

I’m not entirely convinced that STV is all that similar to the run-off system used in French Presidential elections. The main problem with the French Presidential election (and the other examples that have been highlighted), as Proferssor Maskin pointed out, was the fact that voters were unable to rank candidates. Well, voters can rank candidates in STV.

Nevertheless, Condorcet cycle aside, I find the simple majority rule approach quite appealing. Yet we hear very little about it. If you are interested in electoral reform, I would say it is worth looking into a bit.

• Slides from Professor Maskin’s presentation (PDF file)
• An accessible article on this topic from the Scientific American (PDF) by Partha Dasgupta and Eric Maskin
• A more academic primer on the topic (PDF)
• More about Eric Maskin from Marginal Revolution
• Interview with Eric Maskin conducted by Adam Smith (heh). This interview does a really great job of outlining what mechanism design theory is and how it affects our everyday lives

Iain Dale has heard a rumour that Alex Salmond is planning on standing against Gordon Brown at the next general election.

I live in Gordon Brown’s constituency, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. If an election were to be held tomorrow, I would vote SNP. This is not because I support the SNP’s policies, because I don’t. If I voted according to principles, I would vote Lib Dem tomorrow. Unfortunately the hopelessly skewed voting system does not reward this, hence the need for tactical voting.

But I hate Labour, and the possibility that Gordon Brown could be toppled (however slim this possibility is) is too tantalising for me to ignore. The SNP are the party in the best position to give El Gordo the gubbing he and Labour deserve.

But if Alex Salmond becomes the SNP candidate for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath I might be forced to reconsider. There’s no point voting against the most loathsome politician in the country if it involves voting for the second most loathsome.

Supposing the rumours are true, where does this leave Alex Salmond’s promise that he would give up Westminster politics? He just can’t seem to let go of it. For somebody who wants an end to “London rule”, he seems awfully keen to take part in it. This would be the second time he would have reneged on a similar promise since he became First Minister.

Via MicroShaft.

Incidentally, I really wish people would start spelling (and pronouncing) Kirkcaldy correctly. I know it is not the easiest to spell or say, but I keep on seeing mistakes from people who should know better. And given that more people talk about Kirkcaldy now that it contains the PM’s seat, it really is starting to get on my nerves a bit!