Scottish Parliament (long and rambling)
May. 8th, 2007 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcI don't normally "do" politics here (let's be honest, I don't "normally" do anything here, but I think if I did it wouldn't be politics), but here's the situation as I understand it:
1)A large proportion of people were confused by the fact they had two ballot papers with different instructions. The latest news seems to be that it wasn't so much that people were putting crosses on the council one (although one person interviewed on the radio said that's what they were told by polling station volunteers!), as that they were putting two crosses on the same side of the Parliamentary one (which had MSP candidates on one side, and parties for the top-up list on the other). I imagine didn't help that the party section started off with someone's name[1].
I have a certain amount of sympathy - I got it right, but probably only because my Mum knows how easily I get confused, and explained it carefully beforehand[2]. I was certainly too busy trying to remember what I thought of all these people, and which of them I would least object to running the country, to actually read what it said on the paper.
2)Of course, most people didn't get confused by the ballot papers, because most people weren't there. I think the degree of voter apathy (or people protesting by refusing to participate) was higher than ever before.
3)The latest, I hear, is that the electric ballot counting machines didn't work, and in some cases the counts were abandoned altogether. Which was the point at which I started getting flashbacks to the news from across the Pond in 2000...
4)Assuming we don't hold another general election to deal with all this (and probably even if we do) we're left with SNP and Labour neck-and-neck. It'd take two or more parties siding with either Labour or SNP to give them a majority, and I don't see it happening. They could, of course, form an alliance with each other, but in the hypothetical universe where either would even consider it, the election was won by the Heating for Hades Party, following the unseasonable snowstorms...
5)So the chances are we'll get the SNP and a random selection of people who dislike Labour slightly more than the Nats, and a part time First Minister with a day job in Westminster[3]. This is where it gets interesting. No-one wants a referendum on independence except the Nats, who work on the basis that this would solve all our problems and therefore they don't really need any other policies. However, the Nats know as well as anyone else that they were elected to send a message to Westminster, and not because everyone wants independence. So I suspect that, rather than have a referendum, lose, and suddenly find themselves without any policies at all, they'll allow themselves, reluctantly, to be "pressurised" into shelving it by their allies.
Assuming, of course, that this election doesn't lead to the whole thing getting labelled as a failed experiment. Unlikely, I admit, if only 'cos they'll want to get value for money out of that building...
[1]The SNP renamed itself "Alex Salmond for First Minister" to be first in the alphabetical list, and also to confuse and annoy everyone. Ex-SNP Independent MSP Margo MacDonald was apparently told she couldn't call herself "Anyone Except Alex Salmond For First Minister", because that would be Silly...
[2]And even then there was a moment's panic because I thought I should have two seperate Parliament papers. Which, come to think of it, sounds like it would have been a good idea.
[3]Although I continue to hope that it may be a deal-breaker for some of their potential allies.
1)A large proportion of people were confused by the fact they had two ballot papers with different instructions. The latest news seems to be that it wasn't so much that people were putting crosses on the council one (although one person interviewed on the radio said that's what they were told by polling station volunteers!), as that they were putting two crosses on the same side of the Parliamentary one (which had MSP candidates on one side, and parties for the top-up list on the other). I imagine didn't help that the party section started off with someone's name[1].
I have a certain amount of sympathy - I got it right, but probably only because my Mum knows how easily I get confused, and explained it carefully beforehand[2]. I was certainly too busy trying to remember what I thought of all these people, and which of them I would least object to running the country, to actually read what it said on the paper.
2)Of course, most people didn't get confused by the ballot papers, because most people weren't there. I think the degree of voter apathy (or people protesting by refusing to participate) was higher than ever before.
3)The latest, I hear, is that the electric ballot counting machines didn't work, and in some cases the counts were abandoned altogether. Which was the point at which I started getting flashbacks to the news from across the Pond in 2000...
4)Assuming we don't hold another general election to deal with all this (and probably even if we do) we're left with SNP and Labour neck-and-neck. It'd take two or more parties siding with either Labour or SNP to give them a majority, and I don't see it happening. They could, of course, form an alliance with each other, but in the hypothetical universe where either would even consider it, the election was won by the Heating for Hades Party, following the unseasonable snowstorms...
5)So the chances are we'll get the SNP and a random selection of people who dislike Labour slightly more than the Nats, and a part time First Minister with a day job in Westminster[3]. This is where it gets interesting. No-one wants a referendum on independence except the Nats, who work on the basis that this would solve all our problems and therefore they don't really need any other policies. However, the Nats know as well as anyone else that they were elected to send a message to Westminster, and not because everyone wants independence. So I suspect that, rather than have a referendum, lose, and suddenly find themselves without any policies at all, they'll allow themselves, reluctantly, to be "pressurised" into shelving it by their allies.
Assuming, of course, that this election doesn't lead to the whole thing getting labelled as a failed experiment. Unlikely, I admit, if only 'cos they'll want to get value for money out of that building...
[1]The SNP renamed itself "Alex Salmond for First Minister" to be first in the alphabetical list, and also to confuse and annoy everyone. Ex-SNP Independent MSP Margo MacDonald was apparently told she couldn't call herself "Anyone Except Alex Salmond For First Minister", because that would be Silly...
[2]And even then there was a moment's panic because I thought I should have two seperate Parliament papers. Which, come to think of it, sounds like it would have been a good idea.
[3]Although I continue to hope that it may be a deal-breaker for some of their potential allies.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 03:31 am (UTC)You have candidates listed on the ballots in alphabetical order? I didn't know anybody did that any more. In Australia, candidates are listed in a random order, precisely to avoid this sort of thing.