This Scotsman has to vote tomorrow, but they won’t tell me who to vote for.
Council elections here use the Single Transferable Vote method. This is the only sensible electoral system. It’s a Proportional Representation system, unlike the laughably awful First Past The Post (FPTP) used in Westminster – rant here – and lets us pick candidates, unlike the Holyrood Party List thing which is beholden to party hacks (and not especially proportional). This means tomorrow I get a genuine input to picking four councillors in my area. For this reason (and many about wanting to pick the right people) I am duty bound to vote.
But my choice rationale isn’t as it should be.
Nobody votes on what they’re asked about. Just as referenda on great national questions are decided on whether the bins are collected, tomorrow I’ll be choosing my bin-collection chiefs on national issues. This is wrong, but valid. The issue is in perception. Imagine a party wonderful at local stuff but horrendous at running the country. Imagine all voters are Dr Spock and vote logically to re-elect this party to the councils. The party will infer the electorate are happy with them in general, and keep up the awful job nationally. In reality the logical electorate won’t be perfectly so, and will assume everyone else is happy with this party in general. Each voter will be less convinced by their dissatisfaction and more likely to re-elect the awful party nationally.
In short, by voting Conservative for the council tomorrow I’ll increase the likelihood of Honest Boris the Most Corrupt and Incompetent lasting longer. That would be a Bad Thing.
It might be a Good Thing for the council though. An SNP/Labour shower are there at the moment, and have made a shambles of it. Luckily the perceptions continue…
Governments have a sell-by date. There’s only so long they have ideas and motivation, and a finite period before they get too comfortable (read corrupt). At twelve years the Tories in Westminster and fifteen the SNP in Holyrood are past their time. No votes for them.
Labour mightn’t be shining in Edinburgh, but negative success for them tomorrow will translate to negative success for them nationally. As they’re the only opposition to the worst national government in my living memory I might just have to pay that price.
Regular readers will know I wouldn’t have been voting SNP anyway, for many reasons, some local and others about perception:
- They’ve been useless in Edinburgh, clearly
- They’re past their sell-by date in Edinburgh (fifteen years I think) and Holyrood
- Scottish secession, let’s call it Scexit, is as stupid as Brexit was, and for the same reasons
The last is important, and has further effects (below).
So, one party that shouldn’t get a vote will (though probably not a ‘1’), and two others are ruled out (fairly or not).
For the ‘Scexit’ reason above the Greens have to fail. The most important problems in the world are environmental, but Scottish Greens have hitched themselves to the secession cart. This is a gross mistake on their part. An independent Scotland of 5.5 million and piffling GDP will have less influence on the world – thus important things – than as an influential nation of the UK. In reality the Scottish Greens are an SNP-extra. They must learn this, and for perception reasons I won’t see my vote supporting an environmentally less influential policy. No vote.
(Here’s the issue…)
As for the rest? On my turf we are replete with independents. Cool. Usually these are nuts, but occasionally they’re people with a real motivation concentrated on their area who don’t feel obliged to hitch themselves to huge political machines. So how do I discern which? Good question. I’ve had flyers through the door for a few, telling me what they’re against not what they’re for. I searched the interweb and failed to find websites for any. All I want is a manifesto (i.e. a list of I’m for… things), to no avail. Some have Twitter and assorted social media feeds, but my life is too short to follow weeks of dialogue.
So guys, give me a bullet-point list of (no more that ten) things you want by lunchtime tomorrow and you may have my vote. But, surprising though it may seem, I’m not voting for people who won’t tell me their policies.
BTW…
Alba are just the Alex the Groper fan-club, nae chance.
Lib-Dems are reasonable, rational and moderate. They have to be a shoo-in for no.1.