LongTimeLurker

Latest Scotland only poll numbers from Panelbase. SNP 39 Tories 29 Lab 21 LDem 10.

...or maybe it's just a few borderline cranks on the internet on a fitba board that shouldn't be taken too seriously rather than Scotland's answer to Kristallnacht.

Agree there were too many lines closed but if you check out what happened with this particular line you'll find a lot of it including the branch that went past Meadow Park in Irvine had closed for passenger use by the 1930s.

Was staying in a hotel close by through work a few years back. Was hoping to see a game at the stadium but it turned out Rapid had folded to be replaced by various tribute acts at Liga IV level none of whom had a home game on there and Sportul Studentesc whose old ground was even closer to where I was staying appear to have done a Third Lanark and sunk without trace. Went to check out Ceacescu's old home instead.

Not quite so good for the SNP:

At the other end of the scale from Comres:

Shire somehow managed to lose 3-2 to nine men having been up 2-0 after 10 minutes judging by what's on twitter.

Think clubs would need to already have their application in by now to have a shot at the 2020/21 Scottish Cup.

Next door to the station is pushing it a bit having walked between the two, but it is fairly close by and right next to the main railway line. CFR Cluj who Celtic have been playing against this season are also a railway team.

Think Ian Blackford's seat is the one to watch for a potential shock and NE Fife will definitely change hands, because the LibDems are good at targeting seats and encouraging tactical voting. Think Boris will get a majority of around 30 and the SNP will win most seats lost last time back from Labour and several of the more marginal ones from the Tories to be around 45. Hope Jo Swinson gets the full Sheena Easton treatment from the voters of East Dunbartonshire for her accent change.

Have seen it claimed that Unionists outpolled SF and the SDLP in F&ST at the latest council elections. It's weird how the slow demographic shift over the decades never seems to stop this one constituency from being a cliffhanger in the same way it was in the Hunger Strike era, because there are other rural NI constituencies where Unionism used to be competitive electorally but has now fallen away to around a third of the vote at best. When people suggest that the SF machine will get the job done it's probably referring to which party does the best job at using proxy and postal votes to maximise their turnout now that voter impersonation isn't as easy as it used to be in that part of the world.

Having Corbyn as leader was mainly in response to what was happening in England and definitely wasn't the way to attract voters who are Unionist in a Scottish context. That isn't helping Labour in this election campaign. Being close to wiped out FPTP firstly at Holyrood and then at Westminster means that they have lost most of their best career politicians and are now fielding candidates who never should have made it beyond local council level, because the next generation of careerists are increasingly attracted to the SNP. Hence how Labour wound up with somebody as inept as Kezia Dugdale as leader at Holyrood, who some paranoid Labour activists genuinely started to speculate was an SNP plant sent to destroy them.

Looks like this was closed even before Dr Beeching and it's difficult to argue with given there was no obvious need to have two different ways to reach Ardrossan from Glasgow Central.

The main problem in avoiding an election and cobbling together an interim government for six months or so to do something sensible on Brexit was that neither the LibDems nor the Tory rebels were willing to countenance having Jeremy Corbyn as PM as the way to achieve it.

The breakdowns in the Ipsos-Mori poll are worth a look: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-11/ipsos-mori-scotland-election-2019-pm-tables.pdf For example, in Glasgow they predict amongst registered voters 18+ and 9or10/10 certain to vote: SNP 39, Tories 27, Lab 20, LDem 10, Greens 3, Brexit 0 [undecided 10, Refused 1] while in NE Scotland they have: SNP 50, Tories 30, LDem 10, Lab 6, Greens 2 [undecided 6, Refused 3]

The use of better didn't imply optimal. Those numbers would definitely be better for the SNP than the 2017 general election outcome. A lot depends on whether tactical voting is going to be mainly anti-SNP or anti-Tory on how the marginals will pan out this time. The Tories might be piling on voters in central belt constituencies where they have no chance rather than in their areas of strength.

...and catastrophic for Labour. Would they even still hold Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath against the disavowed paper candidate for the SNP on those numbers?

Have driven past it a couple of times on the way to Chicago and felt no huge urge to stop. Think it's not especially bad compared to somewhere like Detroit, which really is very grim in the more rundown parts. Gary used to be viewed as being the ideal modern industrial town before the steel industry went into decline.

Have flown over it in a commercial flight and it leaves you wondering who exactly is doing the air traffic control. Skirting North Korean airspace on an Aeroflot flight out of Seoul to Moscow is as close as I ever plan to get to the DPRK.

Think that would have been Glenboig Juniors' old ground and would have been used by them in the 1970s up to the late 1980s. A team called Mount Ellen United played there before that.

That one's been mentioned by Jacksgranda. The DUP were at 55.8% last time so Alliance will have to do very well to win that in terms of attracting moderate Unionist votes. Definitely not impossible as opinion polls suggest a swing in their direction but still a long shot is my understanding of what's being said about that one. In North Down, the DUP are helped by having neither Alliance or UUP as the clear alternative destination for Sylvia Hermon's votes. It's not natural DUP territory as a lot of it is very posh so that's where the Alliance party probably has its best shot at carving out a safe seat down the road.

That would provide a higher calibre of opponents than the east and north regions can at the moment, so would be the natural next step.

Railway companies in the 1800s had to buy more land than they actually needed to get their lines built and that meant they had parcels of cheap land available for sale when football clubs were being set up.

The question in North Belfast is if people who voted SDLP and Greens last time when it was already very much a straight tribal headcount between the DUP and SF in terms of who could win are really more likely to vote SF rather than Alliance this time around. That's what many people appear to think still gives Dodds a slight edge. Other ones to watch that I don't think have been mentioned by Jacksgranda are South Down as a possible pick up for the SDLP if enough Unionist and Alliance voters decide to vote tactically (maybe the SDLP will go back to being the South Down and Londonderry Party again given a lot of pundits seem to think Foyle is going their way as well), and South Antrim as a possible UUP pickup from the DUP where Remain leaning Unionists don't need to worry about SF, which is not the case for example in Upper Bann, although some people appear to think the DUP might be in trouble there as well.

Have you ever actually met any Palestinians?