LongTimeLurker

The irony of this would be off the scale:

Strange things can happen sometimes with the last list seat so maybe he's been looking carefully at the numbers rather than doing a Donathan?

I seriously doubt people in Scotland would be able to successfully guess which side of the constitutional divide up to around 90% of the population is on simply by looking at their facial features or that they would usually have a very good idea of somebody's probable political leanings simply by looking at their name. We'll never truly be anything like Ulster even if we have some of the same social divisions on the go in parts of the central belt.

I always hope the SNP wins in Shetland to put an end to people who call it "the Shetlands" endlessly droning on about Shetland separating from Scotland. If you don't even know what the place is called and have never been dive bombed by a bonxie STFU is always my inner response to reading or listening to any of that patter.

Arguably they have already lost most of the voters that can't stomach that sort of thing. If the Unionist parties had lost sizable numbers of list MSPs to Alba they would be having serious conversations about how to level the playing field again.

Was pointing out earlier how a different Unionist strategy with a combined set of candidates on the constituencies but the three parties running independently on the list could have easily won a majority for the No side this time if they played the same sort of game Alba was playing. That didn't seem to go down too well. Alex Salmond outed himself as a self-indulgent narcissist with that move as the SNP-Greens axis has Holyrood stitched up as things stand at the moment.

Suspect you are right but there was no Lib Dem to Tory swing in Aberdeen South and North Kincardine and not too many Labour voters to be found in Aberdeenshire West:

That's definitely the way it will be spun to justify going with the SCC but it's only the fully engaged portion of the fanbase that grasp that rather than armchair Old Firm fans who only occasionally pay attention to their local ex-junior EoS or WoS club and maybe show up a couple of times a season for something like Beith vs Kilbirnie or Bo'ness United vs Lithgae Rose.

...which is why Nicola will be hoping Boris uses the legal system to block a referendum for another electoral cycle. Keep stoking the general mood of grievance until it's possible to have comfortably over 50% in the Yes camp. The Yes side has a more efficient strategy for electing MSPs right now than the parties in the No camp so pro-independence Holyrood governance emerged significantly before the outright pro-independence majority needed to actually win a referedum.

Age cohort demographics suggest No would still be more likely than not to win for another 10 years or so, but after that it's looking very rosy for the Yes side right now.

Expectation management to enhance the ability to gloat later?

You wouldn't - the SNP would hoover up the list seats instead - and they would still take constituencies where they polled over 50%. In the scenario I describe SNP constituency seats would form part of the d'Hondt calculation on the lists but the Unionist side ones with a joint slate would not as they would be using Con, Lab and LibDem as seperate Alba style alter egos. That would game the system towards a Unionist majority given the constituency vote share on the current numbers would be Unionist 51% SNP 48%.

The Yes side has gamed the system by having some SNP voters use the Greens as a disguised alter ego party on the list to turn 48% or so into a solid majority that likely ensures near permanent SNP control of Holyrood governance. That is something Donald Dewar and co thought they had prevented as a possibility by implementing the d'Hondt system. Labour-Lib Dem was expected to be the permanent axis of power instead. If the three Unionist parties had selected a unified slate on the constituencies then stood seperately on the list to game the system in a similar sort of way we would be staring down the barrel of Douglas Ross as first minister pushing Sewell motion after Sewell motion. The Yes side gaming the system further with Alba actually taking a significant number of seats this time around would probably have prompted that response next time around from the No side.

Despite all the hysteria on here about how Ken Ferguson and the SPFL board were in cahoots, Ken Ferguson lacked the clout necessary to get the Club 42 boundary shifted and this season's playoffs cancelled because the existing rules were clear cut and the full-time clubs that set the agenda at SPFL board level don't really give a flying one about League 2.

Labour were hoisted on their own petard because they championed the idea that politicians should only do either the constituency or the list when it was top SNP politicians that had to rely on doing both.

We have reached the stage we are at now with the pyramid more by fortunate accident than design. If Kelty hadn't taken a huge risk by defecting to the EoS to be licensed Tom Johnston would probably still banging on about 100k toilet blocks and the Holy Grail. Clubs like Spartans, Caledonian Braves and BSC Glagow with near zero fan interest would also still be spinning a yarn about how they rather than the likes of Bo'ness United, Bonnyrigg Rose, Auchinleck Talbot and Clydebank, who have lower division SPFL sized fanbases, are the progressive future of football because they use floodlights and issue season long fixture lists.

At least they appear to be getting a new ground unlike Baillieston in the junior era. Hopefully a Baillieston club will be one of the newcomers taking advantage of the new WoS approach.

...but it's not 50%+1 voting for pro-Yes parties so it looks like No would probably still have won a referndum if a ballot on that had also been provided as opinion polls are also suggesting right now. If the SNP doesn't reach 65 today Boris will have a set of arguments that will look reasonable enough to many people for not going along with a second referendum. The SNP have done very well in this election but not so well that a Yes victory is assured in the short to medium term. Today's older generation will have to largely have departed the scene before there is likely to be a solid pro-independence majority that will stand up to an intense few weeks of electoral campaigning.

No would probably still win. Pro-independence candidates need to be getting well over 50% in most constituencies for a referendum victory to be likely and that's not what we are seeing.

It is in referendum terms as it makes it more difficult for Boris to refuse.

Buckie fishermen swinging back to the SNP again after Boris's Brexit deal mess probably.

Main thing the SNP have got right there now is having a candidate that's actually from there originally who is well liked locally.

73?

Excellent showing for the SNP in Shetland.

Buchan and Banff Coast would have been a stroll for the Tories prior to what Boris's Brexit deal did to the fishing industry.