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Well the first thought is the same as many people, and mentioned early on when doing my first ‘liveblog’ as the first results came in, and that’s the horrendous number of ‘rejected’ ballots.

Whilst a lot has already been said, I’m not sure it’s necessarily fair to say that the two elections on the same day were entirely to blame. The ‘dual purpose’ ballot paper for MSP’s was confusingly laid out. A bad setup in my view, and some improved layout or at least separate ballot papers would have helped.

When it came to voting, whilst we were at a busy time, I did feel a little rushed. Not good. Nobody was obviously available to help people when I voted, and the clerks issuing the papers didn’t seem too keen to be explaining things. In one of the declarations too there were accusations, which I understand implied that many anti-SNP newspapers were being “read”. That’s deserving of criticism and hopefully people are brought to book on the matter.

Running the local, and council elections (with the STV system) on a separate day might help, but I can’t help wonder whether the number of people voting would be much smaller than the number of spoilt ballots. It’s a tricky dilemma to hopefully take more votes, but with more mistakes, versus fewer votes caused by a lower-profile election? It’s clearly not going to be that simple, but there is a risk of apathy with too many elections.

As to the result itself, the SNP win is what I’d hope for. Sure, I disagree with independence, but hope that the change at the top happens. It’s by no means certain. Labour could form a coalition themselves – they just need one more Green party member and they’re there. It’s also irresponsible, in my view, that the Conservatives are refusing to enter into coalition talks, talking of an issue-by-issue decision. Not what the electoral system is encouraging, and seems a bit pig-headed to me.

For the first ever time in 16 years of voting, my choice of constituency representative won. I did vote for Ken Livingston for London Mayor, but it’s not quite the same. I like to think that the voters of Govan were the people behind the victory – it was a very tight race (744 majority) here. If Labour had won Govan they might well be in the lead. Of course, the maths behind the regional votes doesn’t make it quite as simple as that, but it’s a nice thought. In talking to my normally Tory voting neighbour before and after the election, it seems my comments about voting tactically changed his mind, and he voted for Sturgeon too, despite not being a big fan. Maybe that’s what’s been behind it?

I’ve also come to the obvious realisation that Glasgow is painfully hard-core Labour. Sturgeon’s win is the first SNP win in Glasgow. A look at the regional votes highlights that. 38% of the vote was Labour. 27% SNP. But Labour have 9 of the 10 constituency seats. Thank goodness for the proportional setup.

Glasgow council also remains Labour, which is disappointing. People seem to have bought in to the council tax freeze. Still, there’s much better opposition representation on the council, so hopefully that’ll encourage a more bipartisan approach.

Four party politics certainly works in Labour’s favour at all levels. The votes are divided out amongst the alternatives, and the core-vote of Labour can’t be overturned that way. But of course no party is going to back down, and the uninterrupted rule of Labour is going to continue(It’s been Labour since the 1930’s – I fail to see how that’s in the slightest bit healthy). Perhaps until people stop voting by tradition, and start thinking about the issues before them.

As an excellent piece at the Guardian weblog argues, the press mauling of the SNP is nothing short of a travesty. Expressing a preference is one thing – and papers are entitled to do that – but emotive and intemperate language is entirely inappropriate. I just hope the SNP get a chance to prove the papers wrong.

Anyway, the next week or so is going to be interesting as the parties try to sort out coalitions and agendas. I doubt we’ll be seeing an independence referendum. The rules are that if a first minister isn’t appointed in 30 days, it’s back to the ballot box. Hopefully with a clearer ballot layout this time. But I hope that’s not the case, and the SNP are able to at least make a go of it. I’d also expect that if the parliament fails within a year, and we get to vote again, the electorate will hold Labour and the Liberal Democrats to book, and the SNP share of the vote might actually increase.

That’s still a big if, and I hope I’m wrong. I certainly hope they get a chance to deliver on their key policies. One thing is for sure though, the real politics is only just beginning.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 5th, 2007 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Glasgow, Politics, Scotland, Scottish elections, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.