Evening in Vietnam drew to a close as I sat slowly receiving news of the seats declared, trickling in via my husband on the netbook.. My first panicked thoughts were, is my whole blog concept over before it's begun? Is this landslide result for the SNP in itself a demand for independence by the Scottish people? Do I even have time to complete my quest before a referendum is called? Are things really that bad that people are just sick of the Union?
I took a breath. First of all commentators assure me that Alex Salmond doesn't plan to have a referendum until 2013 at the earliest, so there's a sigh of relief. There is still time to understand this whole malarkey. See, if independence comes, I want to be as joyful as everyone else about it. I want euphoria in my heart. On such a momentous day it would be really shite to be grumpy all through the parties.
The results were thusly:
SNP 69 (+23 on 2007)
Labour 37 (-7)
Conservatives 15 (-5)
Liberal Democrats 5 (-12)
Others 3 (+1)
The others are two Greens, and Margo Macdonald the usual independent.
That's a nice majority of 9 in Parliament and the ability to push through any reform they might choose.
So why did everyone (OK, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration) suddenly decide to vote SNP? What makes people vote the way they do anyway? On one of his reams of blogs, Stephen Fry notes:
Let this be known and celebrated: we all have the right to vote the way we want. We all have our reasons and motivations and they do not justify anyone insulting or reviling us. Actually, the fact is that ‘reasons’ is probably the wrong word, for we are all (or almost all) energised in politics above all by feelings, by loyalties and deep turbulent emotions that bubble down in our depths. These have far more influence upon our political ‘views’ than rational and logical considerations. There may be those who are capable of carefully and objectively weighing the qualities of each party’s policies and coming to a voting decision on that basis, but I have yet to meet such people. We all know we should be like that, but we all know that we should only put into our mouths what reason tells us is nutritious, calorifically justified and environmentally sustainable. We eat by appetite, emotion and desire and we vote according to criteria of loyalty and connection that are much closer to the support of football teams than to rational assessment and analysis. And, of course, we respond to the personalities that are put up in front of us. I have yet to find anyone who is not influenced by personality.
I asked a whole load of my friends what they thought (admittedly a disproportionate representation of the voting public as these guys tend to think things through carefully before they do things like voting) to try and get a bit of a picture of the situation. A friend of mine who teaches history in the Western Isles (I won't say which island as it's a very small world and I don't want the Gaelic mafia to get her) noted that her students supported the SNP because Braveheart is such a good film and the English are all wankers. A sound argument, clearly. They've been raised to think this and although they cannot necessarily give a coherent and well-though-out reason, they always will think this. It makes teaching Scottish and British history a bit of a challenge, needless to say! I haven't the resources at my disposal to find out what proportion of nationalists think this way, but it wouldn't surprise me if the numbers were high. Are too many Scots voting for the concept of independence for the wrong reasons? But what about everyone else?
I spoke to a few Edinburgh young people who either (like me but for age reasons rather than distance reasons) couldn't vote or were just old enough to. Among their peers they either didn't vote SNP because they don't think independence is a good idea, or they are SNP supporters despite the fact that they're not nationalists and they don't want independence. So just 'because', then. Many agree with their policies all except the independence part. Others are in favour of the SNP because they can't stand the Tories, LibDems, or Labour.
That last motive seemed a very common one. When things in Westminster are so unsatisfactory, sometimes a party that's 'just for Scotland' seems a whole lot more promising than a bunch of people who seem to be failing us so badly. Many voters who might normally have supported the likes of LibDem or Labour turned their vote to the SNP. My mother-in-law was one of those and she explained her reasoning:
I'm impressed with Alex Salmond as a politician. I've heard him on his feet in the Scottish Parliament when I was there with the school. He has a strong presence and is a very convincing in his arguments. There is no one else at the moment, in any of the other parties in Scotland, that can give that strong leadership to their parties. I think the SNP have made a good beginning to their governing of Scotland. I also feel that at the moment a change of party would not be good for us as a country. Could we survive without England? I don't think so but it is a interesting concept and not one I would rule out- My God I never thought I would think like that!
A big motivator in the whole voting trend is that there really is no-one particularly inspiring in politics at the moment, except for Alex Salmond. Many felt that they couldn't vote for Labour because Iain Gray himself would have made a rubbish First Minister. As good old Stephen Fry noted above, so much of politics these days is about personality. It's rare to see your vote as being for your actual representative. You're asking for a leader.
So, if a vote for the SNP wasn't a vote for independence (as many commentators have said), what was it a vote for? How have the SNP managed to persuade everyone to vote for them despite this issue being synonymous with their party? Come on, we all know why they're there. A BBC Scotland poll on policy priorities of the public ranked independence down at 22 on the list out of 25. Cancer, policing and tuition fees being of higher importance in voters' minds. Admittedly only 1,004 people were questioned, but it is an interesting coincidence (or perhaps it isn't a coincidence) that in the SNP manifesto independence was down at issue 16 out of around 25 topics. A very clever tactic of the fishes (Salmond? Sturgeon? A logo shaped like a tipsy fish? I'm surely not the only one) – perhaps it's because independence was so far down the list that they did so well. (Well, duh, you all say. Thanks for stating the obvious.) The SNP have presented themselves as more than just a one-issue party (because of course the worry is, would they become redundant if Scotland actually achieved independence?) but one fit to govern long-term. One which understands Scotland and has Scotland's best interests at heart. So by not throwing independence to the forefront of their campaign, they have won over a lot of disgruntled voters from the other parties.
It can be seen as a very positive thing that for the first time since devolution Scotland has a majority government in power. Perhaps some changes for the good might even happen. But what was it – a negative vote 'there's no-one else, damnit, and the LibDems have fucked us up the arse', or a very positive 'we actually like our ruling party. We're actually voting for someone we think is good for us. We're not voting for a change because we're bored of this lot, we're giving them a chance to actually succeed.' How long is it since that has happened?
Ah yes – and those troublesome LibDems. My mother-in-law wrote:
I am very disgruntled with the Lib Dems for making the alliance with the Tories. I would NEVER vote Tory. I don't know if I'll ever vote Lib Dem again. They will really have to convince me.... The Lib Dems raped my vote and gave it to the Tories.
How very unfortunate for the LibDems! At the time of the general election their promise was to form a coalition with the winner, which they did. If they hadn't they would have been called hypocrites, but even so they were still deceivers and the devil generally. Obviously. Nick Clegg was doomed from the very start of that election campaign to sound the death knell for the LibDems. And actually, as soon as he looked like he might perhaps do quite well in the general election, everyone who normally voted LibDem didn't. As if to say, 'well I always vote LibDem, but not because I think they should be in government, but because I don't want to vote for the other two. I don't actually like their policies! Oh goodness me, don't make me laugh. Better vote for someone else.' They were so safe because they were so hopeless.
After the general election I genuinely felt like we'd achieved the best result conceivable for Scotland. And before you jump down my throat, let me explain. LibDems aside (who would never get a majority and now probably never will) Scotland would only be happy with a Labour government in Westminster. But Labour had grown pretty stale and nobody can have the same party in control forever. That would amount to a dictatorship. Gordon was a good Chancellor, but not a great PM and he was still Labour leader. Labour needed some time in opposition to recuperate.
Sadly for Scotland, that only left the Conservatives who only tend to get 1 MP in Scotland (good old Dumfries and Galloway!). But Scotland did actually return quite a few LibDems to Westminster. So the way I look at it is that whereas there could have been a government that didn't represent Scotland's voting trends at all, what we got was a government in which Scotland's votes were actually represented in the dilutory form of the Cleggites. But so much horror! So much complaint! At the time I saw the general election results as the best of a doomed situation, and was quite surprised to see how sold out LibDem voters felt. What else could they do though? Forming a coalition with Labour was not a political option. There would have been zilch mandate. Since then I haven't been in the country, though I have heard rumours about student riots in London and the like. Perhaps there was a lot of opportunity that has been wasted. Perhaps they were fighting against something (Tory policy) that could never have been overcome (look at the American disappointment with Obama – they wanted a Messiah but the reality was that he had a Congress to battle and a fucked up economy to rescue). People's political expectations when something new happens can be sky high.
In short – since the only possible result of the 2010 general election would be entirely contrary to the way Scotland votes and thus branding Westminster irrelevant to us, it's not surprising the 3 big Westminster parties suffered when it came to the Scottish elections. BBC Scotland's political editor notes:
...They [the Scots] looked around and concluded that, just perhaps, the Scottish National Party could be trusted to stand up for Scottish interests... They were not voting directly for independence. Mr Salmond openly acknowledges that.
But a referendum there will be.
Has the 2010 election outcome honestly stepped up the demand for independence? Branching from this, then, my first topic of study will be to assess where the demand for independence has come from in the first place. See you next post!
