George Galloway is a useless waste of space. Also from Chris Applegate. This isn’t the first time he’s been criticised for not attending Parliament. How much actual work (not $peaking tour$) does he do?

The Politics Society at Edinburgh University is organising a number of talks this year. Michael Portillo has already been, but we can look forward to Lord Douglas Hurd, Ann Widdecombe and George Galloway.

So when are they going to invite somebody from the left?!

Scottish Political Junkie blogs about the Scottish Socialist Party, who haven’t exactly been having the best of years.

It would be no surprise if the SSP imploded before the next Scottish Parliament election and Tommy Sheridan stood for Respect, the party started by George Galloway MP.

Well things certainly sound bad for the SSP at the moment. The SSP may be troubled, but I wouldn’t know if it was on the brink of implosion. Whatever, though, Scotland’s socialist movement won’t be going anywhere. Support for the SSP seems to me to be higher than that for similar left-wing parties in Europe (the SSP got 7% of the second votes in 2003 compared, for instance, to 4% for the PDS in Germany in 2002).

Post-SSP, if such a period were to exist in the near future, Tommy Sheridan would still be a figurehead. And I certainly don’t see him joining up with Respect given that Sheridan is in favour of Scottish independence whilst George Galloway is equally against it, so much so that it was the major barrier to Galloway joining the SSP following his expulsion from Labour.

Imagine, though, Sheridan and Galloway in the same party. Both are (now) sharp dressers and, whether or not you agree with them (or even if they agree with each other!), they are both undoubtedly great speakers. I certainly wouldn’t like to try being in a debate opposing the pair!

While he’s on his trip to the USA to have an argument, George Galloway is going to miss his deadline to take the oath.

Unless the Speaker lets him off, if he sets foot on the floor of the House when he gets back, he will be fined £500, and his Bethnal Green and Bow seat would be automatically vacated.

Oh well. I’m sure he won’t mind. As his former constituents in Glasgow Kelvin probably know, it’s not as if he ever attends Parliament anyway.

Arthur’s Seat:

A cracking night for the Scottish LibDems, mild anxiety for Labour, disappointment for the SNP and frustration for the Scottish Tories.

Contrasting with my view earlier in the evening that it was a good night for everybody except Labour. Looking back, though, the SNP did say that they wanted 6 seats minimum (that’s the impression I got anyway), so in this respect they only just scraped a good result. I still think to Tories’ win is a big one though, even though they lost out on Dumfries and Galloway. However, the Conservatives and the SNP have been shoved down to fourth and third respectively. Undoubtedly the Lib Dems were the biggest winners in Scotland.

Stuart Dickson and Alister Black have their takes on the Scottish results.

Nick Griffin was wearing anti-racism wristbands.

I bloody love you, you’re my best mate, etc. Tony Blair seems to be acknowledging some sort of message in some way. First there was Gordon Brown playing a central role throughout the campaign. Then Alan Milburn is off (apparently not jumped before he was pushed. Absolutely not. No). At dawn he was calling everybody his comrades! Then his speech outside Number 10 acknowledged that Labour would have a tougher time in this Parliament.

I’ve just been watching the Scottish lunchtime round-up here. David Robertson asked Colin Fox how he could be taken seriously if he’s walking about the streets of Glasgow dressed up as Robin Hood. Fox’s response was robust, and I agree. The SSP’s humorous approach has been one of the few interesting things about the election campaign. It’s part of the SSP itself though; let’s get used to it and enjoy it for what it is: a serious message delivered in an entertaining manner.

Tabloid Photoshop contest.

To round off, there are two real highlights from last night that stick in my mind. Galloway versus Paxman of course is one. But the other is Robert Kilroy-Silk hearing just how few votes he got. He looked genuinely puzzled, like he couldn’t comprehend how he could barely get more than 5% of the votes.

I think that’s all for the moment…

Update: Peter Hain is on News 24 right now trying to make out that Tony Blair is responsible for “bumping off” four Tory leaders.

UKIP have lost £225,500 in lost deposits. Ouch!

Update: What is also amazing is just how accurate the polls were. Not just the exit polls, but the polls in general were pretty much bang on!