Donside by-election special: Nats lose over 70% of their majority as 5,000 people turn their back on the SNP, Scottish Labour come close to winning the seat in SNP heartland, 13 point drop shows Scottish independence is completely unwinnable

Dear All

Have you seen the movie ‘Force Ten from Navarone’ starring Harrison Ford, Edward Fox and Carl Weathers?

Edward Fox has a line in it which aptly describes the Scottish National Party’s problem:

“You can’t expect a big explosion from small three bags of dynamite”.

This was in relation to blowing up the dam, the SNP bubble has well and truly burst.

The tide as they say has turned for the Scottish National Party, earlier this morning I watched the result of the Donside by-election.

The Scottish National Party vote share has dropped by 13% points.

Mark McDonald for the SNP held the seat in what was one of the safest SNP seats in Holyrood for the Nationalists.

This although a win, this should set alarms bells going off at the SNP HQ, the SNP flung everything into winning this seat. The senior SNP ran this by-election, everything stopped as the party used activists from all over Scotland. The majority was around 2,000 votes, well down from the epic victory of 2011.

People look at the SNP and don’t like want they see; they look at the people running it and are turning their backs on them. 

It was a win but reality is it was also a political disaster.  

Does anyone still think that Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon can win the Scottish independence ballot even within the SNP?

I have stated publicly the SNP are going to lose the indyref ballot, this was a milestone on the road to defeat, unexpected because of the death of Brian Adam, but it is a small piece of the puzzle which all connects together, a series of events that in themselves don’t mean remarkably much, but the trend is there.

George Laird will be right again, you see, it comes down to a remarkable lack of talent in the SNP ranks. If you looked at what when on, the SNP used up vast resources to win this seat, something which cannot be replicated everywhere, because effectively there is no one willing to work for the party.

That is why there is such a long run in to the independence ballot in 2014; they don’t have the personnel on the ground, even using The Greens, the SSP and assorted hanger ons, it cannot be stretched. Then there is the fact of no narrative that works; no plans, no vision and continual lying, deception and just being generally pricks!  

In an interview with the New Statesman, Scotland’s ‘jolly fat man’ Alex Salmond has been shooting his mouth off again, think back to 2010, the Westminster General Election and his claim of 20 seats. Nirvana was just round the corner allegedly in that election, remember ‘elect a people’s champion?

Come the result, he got 6, the same 6 seats that party had previously, plus the loss of Glasgow East gained in a by-election by John Mason.

Salmond said on Scottish independence:

"This is the phony war. This is not the campaign. I went into an election in 2011 20 points behind in the polls and ended up 15 in front. The real game hasn't even started. We are just clearing the ground."

What a self deluded fool he is, the Scottish independence campaign is dead; all the work done has been a complete waste of time, energy, money and resources.

Clearing the ground?

Try digging the grave to be more exact, his political grave.

 

Poll after poll and even of the doorsteps of Donside, a message is coming back, No to independence.

It’s a question of trust, and Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon can’t be trusted.

Poor people know this, and the message is filtering through to the rest of society, Salmond will tell anyone exactly what they want to hear to get their vote.

The sizeable lead for the pro-UK side in the referendum struggle is as much down to their campaigning as it is by the SNP being exposed for what they are, chancers; a poisonous nasty vile clique.

Salmond’s time is up!

In an attempt to re-launch again the independence campaign Salmond tells the political magazine that the bedroom tax and David Cameron's decision to hold an in-out referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union would sway voters in favour of independence.

Pathetic, there is a lot of talk about how sharp Salmond is, he and Sturgeon have had well over a year to make an impact and despite repeated attempts, it has come to nothing.

The SNP's policy of "independence in Europe" has damaged the campaign, because the SNP lied, misrepresented and treated the Scottish public with utter contempt.

The eurozone crisis is still a major concern that goes well beyond Scotland that should be a plank of central reform of the entire European Union.

To say that the issue of Europe was now a "strong positive" for the Nationalists is laughable, how much more deluded can Salmond get?

A Better Together spokesman said:

"People can see through Alex Salmond's bluster. The debate on independence has been going on for generations. For Alex Salmond to suggest this is utterly ridiculous. The truth is the more the SNP talk about separation the more people are turning away, whether it be on pensions, currency or Europe."

Scottish independence is over, the tide has turned, on last night’s result, Kenny MacAskill and Alex Neil would lose their seats, slightly higher and Scotland’s unpopular Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon would be back on the Glasgow list.

As to the rest of the result of Donside, Labour had an excellent night, UKIP although losing their deposit by a narrow margin had nearly a 500% rise in their vote. The Lib Dems staged a remarkable recovery and took third place, keeping their deposit.

And more bad news for the Scottish Tories, they were pushed into 4^th place; this is a disastrous night for them and Ruth Davidson.

Quite simply, they didn’t run an effective political campaign. You would think give that politics is their ‘business’, they would have wised up by now. They should have not fought their campaign solely on local issues tack but attacked the SNP on the issue of cancer drugs as a centre piece of how they are fighting for working class people.

Finally, you would thought that the ‘winner’ of the Donside by-election would have given a better victory speech, I thought despite winning, it was so downbeat that he would be calling for a recount, and he sounded dense even although had prepared notes.

5,000 in Donside, Aberdeen has wised up to the Scottish National Party, ‘don’t wake up tomorrow and ask yourself could I have done more’ to put these bastards out on the street.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University