Elections: What just happened?
From Reform's breakthrough to Labour's thrashing and the SNP winning forever, these were landmark contests.
In a previous life I would have been up all night watching the election results and, with a cold towel wrapped around my head, written thousands of words of analysis for one or other newspaper trying to make sense of what the voters had just decided. These days, having left the circus, I’m detached and instead had a good night’s sleep on Thursday into Friday, woke refreshed and after a train journey to Glasgow only tuned into the results late. Still, a lifetime of immersion in the vagaries of British politics means I still have some thoughts. Here, via Q&A, is my attempt to answer the key questions.
1) What does the SNP have to do to lose?
Good question. The Nationalists presided over an epic shambles since their last election victory in 2021. The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had to resign and her erstwhile husband is awaiting trial. On education, health, and the economy, the record is abysmal, plus Scotland’s islands have suffered an appallingly poor ferry service that has disrupted life and frayed the economically vital tourist lifeline.
And still the SNP won on Thursday, winning 58 seats out of 129 in the Scottish parliament. That’s seven seats short of an overall majority.
For the SNP a win is a win, but remember that most Scots did not vote for the party. Turnout in the Scottish election will end up somewhere just north of 50% and in seat after seat the Nationalists won with a small share of the vote against divided opposition.
The rise of Reform in Scotland split the Unionist opposition even further. There are now four parties opposed to the SNP and independence - Labour, Reform, the Lib Dems and the Tories. The voting system that was designed in the 1990s to keep the Nationalists out, now works in their favour.