Election night - the (mostly) local view
Really glad I joined the Scottish Greens and got involved this year. Going to the count last night was really good fun. We didn't get either of our deposits back but we substantially increased our vote share in both constituencies and managed about 3% (and 4th place) in Dundee West which was pretty damn good all things considered, since that was the seat the SNP were fighting as opposed to defending. And I'm really hopeful for Holyrood next year - there's a lot of sympathy for us locally, especially amongst the SNP lot, we should be able to pick up a lot of regionalist list votes here.
The anger towards Scottish Labour was palpable - the candidate for our constituency (who was running against the deputy leader of the SNP and was never going to win) was the only person whose speech after the results was booed.
Also telling was the fact the local Lib Dems are a bunch of St. Andrews old boys and spent the evening sitting with the local Tories. The Boy got chatting to one of their activists, who is actually a lefty liberal and apparently he's seriously considering decamping and joining us instead.
All in all a really positive experience, I hadn't planned to stay 'til the results were announced but I got caught up and did so anyway. Cheering on our merry little band was a great moment, although we didn't make the BBC Scotland coverage because our results were announced just as Douglas Alexander lost. And then we came home and got sucked into the TV coverage because Jim Murphy was just conceding defeat as we got in. So we didn't go to bed til gone 4am, by which time it was looking like Carmichael might be the only non-SNP left in Scotland and like the exit poll was depressingly accurate.
The next 5 years look to be *interesting* - Tory majority and an EU referendum was about the only scenario where I could see us having another indy ref within the next 10 years but I think it will depend on whether Westminster are prepared to offer electoral reform and how much devolution we now get. It's certainly depressing for the UK as a whole - branding the Scots a bunch of 'ugly nationalists' isn't going to do anything for the state of the Union and if that's the best Labour can manage, England is rather fucked.
The anger towards Scottish Labour was palpable - the candidate for our constituency (who was running against the deputy leader of the SNP and was never going to win) was the only person whose speech after the results was booed.
Also telling was the fact the local Lib Dems are a bunch of St. Andrews old boys and spent the evening sitting with the local Tories. The Boy got chatting to one of their activists, who is actually a lefty liberal and apparently he's seriously considering decamping and joining us instead.
All in all a really positive experience, I hadn't planned to stay 'til the results were announced but I got caught up and did so anyway. Cheering on our merry little band was a great moment, although we didn't make the BBC Scotland coverage because our results were announced just as Douglas Alexander lost. And then we came home and got sucked into the TV coverage because Jim Murphy was just conceding defeat as we got in. So we didn't go to bed til gone 4am, by which time it was looking like Carmichael might be the only non-SNP left in Scotland and like the exit poll was depressingly accurate.
The next 5 years look to be *interesting* - Tory majority and an EU referendum was about the only scenario where I could see us having another indy ref within the next 10 years but I think it will depend on whether Westminster are prepared to offer electoral reform and how much devolution we now get. It's certainly depressing for the UK as a whole - branding the Scots a bunch of 'ugly nationalists' isn't going to do anything for the state of the Union and if that's the best Labour can manage, England is rather fucked.