Scottish Political News

Peter Peacock Resigntation

The Education Minister, Peter Peacock has resigned.  It is understood he has resigned on health grounds.  More later and on the resulting re-shuffle.  It is unlikely that his deputy will take over as he is Lib Dem Robert Brown. 

If McConnell is to avoid a major reshuffle, in the running could be Allan Wilson, Hugh Henry or will Lewis Macdonald finally become a real Minister (unlikely!).

Tory Pussy

Great story on Devil's Kitchen about a cat that has been expelled from the Tory Party after being a member for two years! You can find the story here.

Authors required

A very slow week on this blog last week, primarily due to being a bit busy!

I posted a request last month for anyone who wants to become an author on this blog. The intention is that over time this blog will help to generate a good amount of policy debate and political news in Scotland. Political blogs in Scotland are still few and far between, despite the fact that they could have much to add to our understanding of what the parties are up to and what people think about them.

So, if you're from a right wing / centre right / libertarian background and interested in being part of a new and hopefully exciting political outlet in Scotland then drop me a line here.

Should Annabel suspend her press officer?

So, will Annabel Goldie take action against the Tory press officer who called Celtic fans "gypsies" after the Hearts-Celtic game last week?

The press officer is standing for a council seat in Edinburgh next year and is one of the key people in Annabel's team leading up to the May elections.

A not too disimilar case in England last week saw David Cameron swiftly move to suspended Tory Councillor Ellenor Bland from the party pending a full investigation by David Cameron.

Ah no, that would involve Annabel taking a decision.

STV nightmare for Scottish councils

A poll by Holyrood magazine has shown that the public don't even know that the voting system for councils is going to change next year. 71% were completely oblivious that there is to be a major change next year.

The removal of the direct link between councillors and the voters is one of the worst things that the Lib-Lab coalition could do to Scottish councils. It will now be even harder to hold your local member to account.

Interestingly though, it looks like Labour councillors are going to be worst hit by the new system. Once the system was explained, around 50% of Labour voters said that they were likely to split their vote and vote for other parties in 2nd and 3rd position. Labour candidates not top of the list should be concerned!!

Only hope for Scottish Tories to avoid consignment to history is to separate

Excellent letter by Bruce Skivington in today's Scotsman.

Bruce suggests that the Tories should split into two groups, one for unionists to fight Holyrood; the other who believe in Tory values of small government, regulation not ownership by the elected representatives, and free economies.

Will Annabel get the message now?

Maybe with the Scotsman's new regular poll Annable Goldie will get the message that her strategy of doing absolutely nothing at all, having no impact, being out of touch with the voters and failing to understand what Scotland wants is failing to stop the Scottish Tories decline.

Annabel and her advisers (I presume?) have completely and utterly failed to grasp how much the country has moved on, especially in our communities around the country where the kind of things that the Scottish Tories are currently speaking about are pretty much alien or of no interest.

A massive change is required and at this rate it looks like it will take another drubbing in the polls for the party to realise this.  The Scottish Tories need to realise that their 14% poll rating is their absolute core vote.  Annabel could dance up and down Princes Street naked singing satanic songs and 14% would probably still vote Tory - they probabaly always will.  The party needs to start speaking to the huge group of potential right of centre voters outwith the Tory hardcore.  The trouble is if they only listen to this hardcore, they will come out with the same ideas.

Election wide open?

Today saw the first in a series of new polls in the run up to the Scottish Elections.  Firstly, this is great news as Scotland has been somewhat bereft of polls in recent years.  So, thanks to the Scotsman for starting them up again.  Good to see them using ICM who I consider to have some of the better / more accurate polling tactics.

However, what today's poll demonstrates is that the election next year is, for the first time since devolution, wide open.  I may have been a bit premature yesterday by claiming that the Nats had once again peaked too soon!

Labour have a got a real problem.  They are clearly unpopular.  I don't believe that people are turning to the SNP because of independence or due to their policies.  They have (correctly) been pretty quiet on the policy front.  Despite today's poll showing a big increase in support for independence  (51% claim they would vote for it), I still don't believe that this is at the forefront of people's minds when they go into the ballot box.  People are turning to the SNP as they are the alternative to the Labour Party which they are leaving in droves.

It takes more than one poll to make a trend and it will be interesting to track this trend as the Scotsman continues to roll out new polls.  However, there have been other polls recently and they too have all shown a fairly consistent lead for SNP.  Can they hold on to it?

Hopefully the Scotsman will print the actual % results next time rather than just a graph which makes you guess the percentage points.