Ivo den Bieman

If only ‘soft social democracy’ was on the table. UK Labour just offer more of the same Toryism in a slightly politer tone. f**k ‘em.

It's a very complicated answer and I may attempt a better one tomorrow, but in brief summary: deep-seated traditionalism + deference to authority + kinship / family ties + thrawn-ness + veneration of "hard work" + old -fashioned contempt for being seen to take "charity" + no real history of trade unionism + remoteness from metropolitan centres / thinking + robust indivdualism = a Tory vote in Peterhead / Fraserburgh. when you remember that in the brief post-Brexit Channel scraps in rrecent years, Peterhead boats were prominent in the skirmishes- one "ramming" a French counterpart- a Tory vote is a little more comprehensible. deference to authority can be seen in the town's MP history. Salmond was the MP from 1987-2010 largely on the basis of a big personal vote. His replacement was a bit lacklustre- she replaced him in 2010 with a 10% drop in the vote. Whiteford benefitted from the Tories choosing a balloon in 2015, but was ousted by the current Tory skidmark in the SNP's disastrous 2017 showing- the nasty little w**k increasing his share of the vote there in 2019 in the "get Brexit done" election when the Tories fell away badly elsewhere in Scotland. It's an SNP / Tory marginal. Labour have never ever featured here and even the slimy shape-shifting electoral bindweed, the Liberals, have failed to meaningfully insert themsevles between the electoral flagstones here. Unfortunately the Tories have got their hooks in now and will be very hard to shift. Relevance of second home owning absentee English migrants: zero

More than ‘a bit of a generalisation’ just plain wrong.

Aberdeenshire & Moray both NOC as councils but the Tories clearly the largest party in both areas. The last redoubt of Toryism in Scotland north of the borders. Embarrassing.

Yep given that local Labour defied the national UK leadership I'm not sure they're quaking in their boots at the propsect of a patronising lecture from the Weegie hypocrite.

Hm. LD will also being listening to offers from wee Barney, Marie Boulton and the Tories. Given their staunch pro-union posturing I'll be surprised if they enable the SNP. Who knows.

Yeah I can't see Carnoustie being licensed anytime soon. Just don't think the appetite to progress beyond the present level is there.

Have they been though? Tory + Lab + Ind is a bigger group. SNP are the biggest party but that didn;t stop the others last time...

The Broch took a bit of a kicking up thread for being full of thick fishermen Tories, so the P&J felt it important to give the town a bit of balance:

Into the relegation play-off for McEleny, with only the oddball local independent keeping him from the bottom of the table

The way people engage with politicians has changed fundamentally. What you describe means that a Russian-minted liar, chancer, fraud and thief like Johnson would never have got near the top echelons of the Tory Party until around 10 years ago- before then he'd have been, at best, an eccentric backbencher in the mould of Sir Gerald Nabarro or Nicolas Fairbairn.. Tory-voting people know all this about the leadership, and they just don't care. Politics is increasingly transactional and appeals to old fashioned notions like the common good and decency, to a long track record of diligent public service, just don't cut it any more. Look at Starmer. I have no time for the guy, but fundamentally he is "decent"- meaning reasonably fair minded and, well, boring. In an era of trivia and celebrity style personality a guy like that just doesn't cut through. They are simply too dull. There's also an increasingly shattered notion of what "society" is, or should be. Add in a constant thick fog of disinformation and lies via the dead tree press and social media, and you get chancers and snake oil salesmen like Johnson and Farage, and the downright corrupt and evil, as you rightly characterise other cabinet members, running things, appearing to move the country in the direction right / far right voters want whilst simply enriching themselves and cronies / clients.

Labour doing nicely in Aberdeen so far:

Disappointing to see "Mr Dunfermline" Leishman slithering back in, narrowly.

Yes, Alba's vote count seems to be in the same band as a "Broomhill FC" "home" gate, which is pleasing. They'll keep noisily circling the drain for a while.

I see you're in Aberdeen so the P&J live ticker is your best bet. https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/scotland/4246901/live-scottish-live-election-results-day/

Context: Brexiteer loon defects to Alba 220 × 160

max 15 nerds

That's great you're amused, pleased to hear it.

I still can't see this "pledge" as being anything more but a device to get the vote out on Thursday. The SNP still dominate Scottish politics and don't have to try too hard to do so. The opposition is an absolute shambles led by a semi-retired linesman, a smarmy hypocrite and whoever leads the "Lib Dems" these days. There's been an undeniable rightward drift from the SNP in recent years and we've seen some of the old Labour entitlement begin to appear in the demeanour and attitudes of SNP politicians. A government that rules by default because all potential alternatives are so crap isn't a government fired up and motivated to bring about change. The SNP also benefits from the UK government being an incompetent, corrupt, troughing binfire but one day these people will be out (and hopefully, more than a few of them in jail, where they belong). One day the SNP will have do do a bit more than say "but at least Nicola isn't Boris Johnson/ Theresa May." For now, they don't have to bother much.

I guess this is his last few weeks on Sportsound then...

Where I live I've only had a leaflet from a Tory candidate- one of these appalling Brideshead Revisited candidates who seems to think posing with a Golden Retriever and looking serious by some litter will get people to forget the appalling Tory-Labour stitch up locally. That said all of the "local" candidates are about as appealing as a damp evening in Magnitogorsk. Spoiled ballot it is.

Could easily see Tayport, Lochee United in the HL in 5 years' time. Carnoustie, too, if they decide it's for them (not convinced they want it really).

The problem was there was never a big enough crowd to generate any atmosphere for 90% of MTFC's existence. I remember a dire 0-0 between Meadowbank and Montrose in the autumn of the 91-92 season; genuinely one of the worst games I've seen in my thirty years watching football. Attendance: 188. The ten or so Montrose fans in the travelling support tried to get a chant going but it was like shouting at an old beetroot stain in an abandoned fridge. That day, Meadowbank's team of exotic perms and tatty 'taches played the offside trap endlessly. I think Terry Christie cloned Wattie Boyd in the lab at his High School; it seemed to be a rule that you had to have a tache and a perm to play for Meadowbank at that time, with only wee Stevie Logan having a note from his mum. The last time I was at old Meadowbank was in the 2009/10 season when Steven Tweed's squad of bottom of the league YTS boys won 3-1. There were over 1,000 there and with a crowd that size the atmosphere was not too bad, even setting up a lively confrontation between our supporters' bus and some E-number fuelled wee boys who'd spent too much time watching Green Street, after the full time whistle. I hope ECFC get a proper stand in "new" Meadowbank which sounds very depressing. All the best for the play-offs.