Since few of them looked much like they wanted to fight the election, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that they are more energised by fighting for the narrative for what happened in the election they were all really bad in. And some of the commentators aren’t much better.
So just as a wee reality check, my six favourite post-election myths – not for any purpose other than this stuff is driving me mad and I want to get it off my chest…
Honey I shrunk the landslide
Swinney claims the SNP was near collapse when he took over. It was still Scotland’s biggest party by miles so it clearly wasn’t. He says he rescued it, but he didn’t move the polls, the parliamentary arithmetic did. One of the most remarkable aspects of this period is that in opinion polls, Swinney never gained more than a couple of points more in support than at the worst point under Yousaf.
Remarkable because at the same time the Labour vote imploded because of Starmer. What was telling was that a bunch of vote appears to have gone from SNP to Labour between 2022 and 2024 and then left Labour between 2024 and 2026 but didn’t really come back to the SNP. The election result is an artifact purely of the distorting effect of the constituency vote.
On the list the SNP has only been lower once in the devolution era – also under Swinney. He has certainly dialled down the chaos from the Humza era, mainly by not doing anything very much, and no-one is disputing that it is some result to get 58 MSPs after 19 years in power. But Swinney taking quite such a bold victory lap is unconvincing, as is saying ‘landslide’ when it looks more like ‘backslide’.
But why? Why attempt to gild a perfectly serviceable lilly? Like I have said a number of times, I think Swinney’s position is much, much more difficult than is being accepted and I see this push as an attempt to get as far in front of what is coming as is possible before it comes. What it isn’t is a realistic explanation of what just happened.
Singing the Norwegian Blues
But if Swinney looks unpersuasive, Starmer is delusional. There is very little to say; literally no-one thinks he can turn round his reverse midas touch, so no-one wants him to fight 2029, so why anyone is doing anything other than getting him out the door as soon as possible is beyond me.
But hey, let’s stick with this ‘the public prefer politicians they hate’ line if it makes metropolitans feel better
I know the liberal commentators still think Brexit is what we all talk about every day of the week and they remain convinced that ‘the electorate doesn’t forgive chaotic parties with leadership challenges’. Except that’s what happened to Corbyn before 2017 and he did a lot better than Starmer in 2024.
And the biggest vote ever received by a party in Britain came after Boris Johnstone toppled Theresa May. But hey, let’s stick with this ‘the public prefer politicians they hate’ line if it makes metropolitans feel better. Out in the actual world, the Norwegian Blue is definitely dead, it killed Scottish Labour and the rest is just a matter of when.
Now that we’re important
Let me offer a controversial view – the Scottish Greens are in a weaker position than they were last term. Why? Because they have become more disposable. Last time round it was ‘Greens, Labour or Tories’ for the SNP to form a majority. But the Tories were somewhat resurgent and Labour was fighting for recovery so neither had any incentive to play ball.
Now there are five parties that can give the Scottish Government a majority and two of them are pretty desperate. This is a direct equivalent of ‘decreased market power’. You used to be the only vendor of votes in town, now there are potentially three and certainly two. Numbers don’t matter here, sums matter. It is the sum of numbers that counts.
And the sum of 15 and zero is 15, which is a long way short of a majority. Last time the SNP had to woo the Greens; this time it is more the other way round. The extent to which the Greens have significance may be directly proportionate to how effectively they persuade Swinney they are sane, credible partners. He’s been making goo goo eyes at the Lib Dems for a little while now.
But the spirit of democracy…
Of all the pish I’ve heard post-election, the pishiest is this new thing that liberal commentators have for Reform – purely for ‘spirit of democracy’ reasons. This is one of the most inexplicable things I’ve ever heard in politics. As in what the actual fuck are you all talking about?
Do you have any example ever of a government giving the loosing opposition free gifts?
Either the SNP must respect Reform MSPs because of their mandate, or they have to go out of their way to show respect to Reform voters… [checks]… for democratic reasons. Again, what the actual fuck? Do you remember George Osborne calling in Ed Milliband for his take on the budget? Did Boris Johnstone spend time producing respectful messages for Corbyn voters?
In fact do you have any example ever of a government giving the loosing opposition free gifts? Do I really have to explain how democracy works (which we did here just in case)? Fifty per cent of the vote plus one and you are god. And I don’t have much more patience with the political liberal virtue signalling (ooooh, you’re being actively disrespectful to Reform, you’re so cool) than with the commentators who are inventing new pseudo-democratic rules to fill column inches.
The SNP should ignore Reform politicians and ignore their voters like every government does to a losing opposition who is never going to vote for it ever. It would be even better if they just did it quietly and didn’t feel they had to tell you they were doing it for liberal brownie points which have no currency and just leave us all with days of stupid commentary.
One more push
The National is already alight with what looks like a burgeoning theory that doing the same thing over and over again truly will produce different results if you really, really want it to. We have SNP politicians trying to make ‘keep voting for us forever and cross your fingers’ sound like a strategy and not surrender.
We have readers firing in more theories about how to wangle 41 per cent vote into a ‘de facto referendum victory’. Some of them think that the SNP should ‘knock more doors’ which it seems will make independence more likely. In fact it seems there there is lots and lots to be done by not doing anything and most certainly by not by constructing a coherent case and selling it to the public.
Something changed
Independence block – 72 to 73. Centrist/centre left unionist block 26 to 27. Right unionist block 31 to 29. So no, not really.