Alex Salmond.

[diegomarahenry]

I liked Alex Salmond, When he joined RT he lost any chance to be a credible politician any longer. That was before....well.....you know.

His name legally is clear, his professional and personal credibility is shot to tatters but there will be a chunk of non-“SNP cult” I believe they are called, Nationalist but not party faithful that will vote for him. I doubt it will be enough to get him a seat. 
 

I think this will go the same way as Farage and Galloway, embarrassing results that kill their political career reinvent.

[GordonS]

16 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

 

Even if there's no chance of a section 30 Order coming, it's better, in terms of how the international community might react, not to be seen to have gamed the system. A single-party majority remains vastly preferable in that context to a split ticket majority, and the existence of parties that take votes almost exclusively away from the SNP on the list narrows the path to that single-party majority.

There's no chance the international community recognises any form of UDI. If the European Parliament can vote to remove immunity from Catalan politicians then we clearly don't live in a world in which Scottish UDI would be recognised by anyone.

[Gordon EF]

3 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

In North East Scotland in 2011, the SNP won a list seat with 52.7% of the vote. In 2016, that vote fell to 44.7% and they lost that seat, despite having also lost one of the constituency seats. The Lib Dems, both times, scraped the final list seat with just 6-7% of the vote, and the Greens are very close to them.

Unless you seriously think Alba is going to beat the Lib Dems and the Greens, or that the Tories and Labour won't win at least 6 seats between them, you would have to be completely fucking crazy to vote for them.

In parts of Scotland where the SNP list vote is 42-43% and southward, the SNP constituency seats are already at risk, meaning the list vote is an important insurance policy. In the ones where it's much higher than that, Alba standing actively risks throwing away a pro-indy seat.

I'm not necessarily meaning Alba more SNP / any non-SNP, pro-independence party.

In many regions, SNP/Green both decreases the probability of an SNP majority and increases the probability of an independence majority.

[Wee-Bey]

#club(Indepen)dece

[Ross.]

I didn’t see this coming and I’m not entirely sure what to think of it. I can’t see how it is anything but a positive in terms of returning a higher number of pro independence MSP’s. 

[GordonS]

1 minute ago, diegomarahenry said:

 

I think this will go the same way as Farage and Galloway, embarrassing results that kill their political career reinvent.

We've just had a hard Brexit, so surely Farage won. The only reason he didn't get elected to the UK parliament is FPTP - but his party won European elections and even got an MEP from Scotland.

Galloway is a genuine loser, I'll give you that one.

[SANTAN]

35 minutes ago, renton said:

It seems fairly unlikely there would be a huge overlap in those demographics. It's only the SNP list vote that will suffer.

I'm not basing this on anything concrete but I'd expect a lot of Yes Das that do SNP/Green would go for SNP/Alba thinking that that's the staunch option. 

27 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

37 minutes ago, Stormzy said:

It would be a crying shame if the poor Greens lost out on seats because of this. 

I don't think they will - much that I disagree with the Greens they are still preferable to this bunch of egotistical wanks.

I agree generally speaking but also unashamedly think that if it were to happen it would be positive for the Unionist cause. 

[GordonS]

9 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

In North East Scotland in 2011, the SNP won a list seat with 52.7% of the vote. In 2016, that vote fell to 44.7% and they lost that seat, despite having also lost one of the constituency seats. The Lib Dems, both times, scraped the final list seat with just 6-7% of the vote, and the Greens are very close to them.

Unless you seriously think Alba is going to beat the Lib Dems and the Greens, or that the Tories and Labour won't win at least 6 seats between them, you would have to be completely fucking crazy to vote for them.

In parts of Scotland where the SNP list vote is 42-43% and southward, the SNP constituency seats are already at risk, meaning the list vote is an important insurance policy. In the ones where it's much higher than that, Alba standing actively risks throwing away a pro-indy seat.

The SNP vote in the NE is a long way short of the 2011 levels at UK, Scottish and council levels. It's extremely difficult to see it get back up there.

[Ad Lib]

4 minutes ago, GordonS said:

There's no chance the international community recognises any form of UDI. If the European Parliament can vote to remove immunity from Catalan politicians then we clearly don't live in a world in which Scottish UDI would be recognised by anyone.

You're obsessed with the binary. It's not about whether UDI would be recognised. It's about the political cost to the UK Government of refusing in terms of its other strategic interests.

If you think there is no down-side to refusing a referendum following a single-party majority in favour of one, then there is absolutely nothing to be gained from electing Alba MSPs. It achieves nothing.

[Gordon EF]

4 minutes ago, Stormzy said:

I'm not basing this on anything concrete but I'd expect a lot of Yes Das that do SNP/Green would go for SNP/Alba thinking that that's the staunch option. 

I think the point is that Yes Da's probably weren't planning to vote Green anyway.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

I don't think anyone should be too surprised by today's events, and it's another reminder of the behavioral similarities between Salmond and Trump - being in thrall to Russia, that certain something where women are involved, and now the chest-puffing political ego trip of the hero scorned.  He will attract a number of people, and I expect the likes of Kevin McKenna of the Herald to be at this very minute churning out a paean of praise, but my gut feeling is that most folk will nod knowingly and pass on the other side of the electoral street.

Hold firm everyone.

[GordonS]

23 minutes ago, G51 said:

The Scottish Libertarians pulled in 1700 votes across three lists in 2016. I think I’ve been rather charitable.

Especially given one of his candidates is the extremely unpleasant Chris McEleney.

How many people have heard of the leader of the Scottish Libertarians?

Not many less than have heard of Chris McEleney, I'd imagine.

But everyone knows Alex Salmond.

How about a gentleman's wager? Ten guineas says the Alba Party, if it appears on at least six regional lists, will get more than 15,000 votes.

[diegomarahenry]

1 minute ago, GordonS said:

We've just had a hard Brexit, so surely Farage won. The only reason he didn't get elected to the UK parliament is FPTP - but his party won European elections and even got an MEP from Scotland.

Galloway is a genuine loser, I'll give you that one.

I meant specifically his attempts to get in to Westminster, with UKIP and then the Brexit party where he was just ripping people off for donations and then didn’t stand. 
The only people seemingly blind to it were his hardcore supporters. I suspect that Salmond will be the same, not in terms of fleecing knuckle draggers but in being supported by a hardcore that won’t be enough to get him back in the big time.

His support will be mostly Wings readers and those folk that were smashing up Tunnocks tea cakes 

[Wee-Bey]

[GNU_Linux]

Just now, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cursedimages/

[GordonS]

3 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

You're obsessed with the binary. It's not about whether UDI would be recognised. It's about the political cost to the UK Government of refusing in terms of its other strategic interests.

If you think there is no down-side to refusing a referendum following a single-party majority in favour of one, then there is absolutely nothing to be gained from electing Alba MSPs. It achieves nothing.

I'm certain there would be no international or domestic political cost to the Conservative Government or Boris Johnson from refusing to permit an independence referendum, or recognise an unofficial one, regardless of the outcome of the Scottish election. I'm pretty sure it would help him electorally. Have you not seen the flags? Internationally, literally no-one that matters would care. The Americans aren't going to be put off making a trade deal over us - we're not Ireland. The Spanish police went around cracking skulls - literally - and the Council of Europe, the people in charge of ECHR, supported them. 

I'm binary on this because I can't see any circumstances in which it pans out otherwise.

It would help the independence movement if nobody votes Alba at all, because that shower of zoomers will just alienate the slice of the population the decided to start supporting independence in the past year. Independence is a long game again, so it's all about growing the number that support it and solidifying it for when circumstances change. There's no way to independence that doesn't go through the centre ground.

[GordonS]

8 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

I meant specifically his attempts to get in to Westminster, with UKIP and then the Brexit party where he was just ripping people off for donations and then didn’t stand. 
The only people seemingly blind to it were his hardcore supporters. I suspect that Salmond will be the same, not in terms of fleecing knuckle draggers but in being supported by a hardcore that won’t be enough to get him back in the big time.

His support will be mostly Wings readers and those folk that were smashing up Tunnocks tea cakes 

More people read Wings than The Herald. There's plenty enough to get him elected. If he gets this right and the media do what I think they're going to do there's 100,000 votes on the table. 

[Wee-Bey]

[SandyCromarty]

11 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I don't think anyone should be too surprised by today's events, and it's another reminder of the behavioral similarities between Salmond and Trump - being in thrall to Russia, that certain something where women are involved, and now the chest-puffing political ego trip of the hero scorned.  He will attract a number of people, and I expect the likes of Kevin McKenna of the Herald to be at this very minute churning out a paean of praise, but my gut feeling is that most folk will nod knowingly and pass on the other side of the electoral street.

Hold firm everyone.

 Yesterday he was taking legal action, suing the Scottish Government and calling for a police investigation.

Today it is pure and simply it's getting back at the SNP and especially Nicola, revenge.

[picklish]

Better to have a spectrum of indy parties than one big tent that is fracturing and infighting. Wouldn't be surprised if the Yes Da vote isn't pretty high, I imagine yous all know one, there's a lot of folk who read Wings, the Mumnet crowd and so on.

They won't take list votes from Greens, won't take list seats from SNP, if you want independence then I can't see it as a particularly bad thing, as much as Salmond is an ego maniac