Has the Sun's 'Stur Wars' front page begun the transition to an SNP-friendly media?

Well, it had to happen sometime.

With the latest polls showing the SNP could now win all seats in Scotland, it was inevitable that the media had to finally reflect that. More than half the population of Scotland look likely to vote SNP which means the bulk of newspaper and TV consumers in Scotland are SNP voters!

While commentators bang on about the economics of full fiscal autonomy, the rest of us have been thinking about much more basic economic theory: give your customers what they want or you will go bust.

So the Scottish Sun's front page today that back's the SNP is a welcome relief from all the negativity and hate-speech the media normally direct at the "Nasty Nats."

I guess the penny has finally dropped within media circles: the SNP will be the new political masters and they'd better start cosying up to them if they want to survive.

Let's see if the BBC suddenly becomes the SNP's best friends...

Why Jim Murphy HAS to serve 5 years as MP

Imagine Jim Murphy clings on to his East Renfrewshire seat and becomes a Westminster MP once again. But, all around him, Labour has fallen and the SNP have taken their seats.

Then the 2016 Holyrood elections come up and he wins an MSP seat.

What should Jim do?

If he resigns his Westminster seat, that will trigger a by-election. It'll be the only one in the country. EVERYONE will be there to either fight it or report it. More than likely, it too will fall to the SNP. This will reduce Labour's headcount at Westminster and increase the SNP's.

Numerically, it might not make too much difference but psychologically, it'd be a massive blow to Ed Miliband's minority Labour government and a rocket boost to the legitimacy of the SNP demanding Devo Max for Scotland.

That is why, if Jim Murphy does somehow manage to cling on to his Westminster seat, he can NEVER RESIGN IT.

And this morning, as reported by Wings over Scotland, Jim Murphy confirmed in an interview on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland program that he would NOT resign his seat. That admission alone shows you just how much Labour fears the power of the SNP.

You can listen to the full interview on BBC News.

My lover Labour has left me but I WILL SURVIVE!

Over the past few days I've had a bit of an emotional crisis, trying to understand exactly what my feelings towards Labour actually are.

And I think I've finally understood them.

It's as if Labour was someone who lived a few doors down the street from me. We grew up together in the exact same community, sharing the same ups and downs. Then, as adults, we became lovers and thought we'd never part from each other because we were just so alike in so many ways.

Then my lover started reading magazines about London and became more and more attracted by its glamour and glitz. There would be days when I'd find my lover lost in dreams on the internet, thinking of the golden pavements and dancing on the international stage.

Eventually, they decided to go to London "just to see what it's like" and promised they'd be back. But they never returned. They'd fallen in love with someone else and I was left in sorrow.

Time passed. My lover has moved on but so have I. I don't hate my former lover and I wish them well in their new life in their new home - far, far away from me.

But I'm still here, in my old, run-down house, with my new lover and I'm happier than I've ever been before. We're looking forward to the future together and have plans for doing up the old place, make it a proper home.

Then my old lover turns up, not really wanting me but jealous I'm with someone new. They try to convince me we've still got something and I should dump who I'm with now. But it's never going to happen.

And then I tell them, in the words of Gloria Gaynor:

I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
if I had known for just one second
you'd be back to bother me

For those of you who've read the angst of my last few posts, you'll be pleased to know I've finally figured out my feelings. When I started writing this, I never expected to end up with the lyrics of I will survive, lol!! But thinking about it now, I could have saved myself a lot of soul searching if I'd remembered that old favourite a long time ago.

Sometimes, poetry says it better. So here, in song form, is how I feel about Labour:

I wonder readers - do any of you feel the same?

The educational route that's destroying Scottish Labour

During indyref, I re-posted and re-tweeted a great number of things, many of which turned out not to be quite so factually correct as I thought (for example, there are foodbanks in Norway). At the time, I felt embarrassed by that.

But in hindsight, those posts were great because what they now represent to me was the growing political education of all of us. In short, Scotland turned itself into the world's largest college campus as we all struggled to search for facts and get our heads round what each fact meant in the wider context of Scotland's place within the Union.

I'm not claiming I got an A-grade in that "college course of the people" but I learned enough to have my perspective changed. If indyref had never happened, I would be voting Labour right now and I imagine there's many like me that would be the same.

I don't necessarily hate Labour - so what is it that is stopping me from voting for them?

Part of it is rightly because of the behaviour of Labour during indyref and there were some figures I grew to detest quite vehemently. But Scottish Labour doesn't hold the power in the House of Commons and my hatred for Scottish Labour figures doesn't necessarily extend to all of their English counterparts.

The main block, I think, to voting Labour is the realisation that, in Scotland, we have been voting for two English parties. We can either vote for English Tory or vote for English Labour. Yes, both are technically UK wide (or, rather, Great Britain wide) but, in practice, they are both English parties. And as soon as either gets into 10 Downing Street, they are quickly caught up in the mayhem and magic of London and its global status as an historic seat of real power & wealth and that's all they ever concentrate on.

You can't put both London and Scotland first: you have to choose one as your favourite and let the other fend for itself as best it can. During indyref, the three main Westminster parties showed quite clearly that they cared more for London's global standing than they did for Scotland's people.

That is the core reason why I'm not voting Labour. Yes, there are ancillary reasons such as the lies told and their adoption of Tory economic policy but, in the main, it's because they don't put Scotland first.

Is there anything they can do to win my vote back?

I doubt it. Labour should really change their name to the Labour and Unionist Party to reflect who and what they are. And as long as they advertise that the UK-wide Labour movement will always put London first, never Scotland, I can't see them winning back their so-called Scottish Labour heartlands.

They say education is a route out of poverty. Now Scotland is educating itself through the "college course of the people," I think it's only a matter of time before our political education bears fruit. In the meantime, I'm enjoying this unexpected student life.

Why I feel I want to run away from politics today

Today, I think I want to run away from politics.

It's because I realise I've been duped again. The moment you let your guard down, you get swindled out of your own beliefs. And it's these times when I think I am just too naive, too decent and too trusting - and that these are bad qualities to have.

Can you imagine that? Being decent is a bad thing.

I feel I want to run from politics because I hate descending down into the murky filth that politicians and political journalists feel is par for the course. I don't believe in God but thank God for the internet and online blogs that expose these people for the shameless unethical people they are.

Wings over Scotland today shows how young SNP candidate Mhairi Black's comments got twisted to mean something else by the Scotsman and Scottish Labour. She said that if Holyrood does win support for a second referendum in 2016, then it is likely Westminster would try to stop it from taking place and the only way to prevent that is for the SNP to have some power at Westminster. But the Scotsman and Labour took only her last sentences to make it sound as if she was trying to get a second referendum by winning a seat at Westminster in this general election and are now making miles out of this deliberate misrepresentation.

Following this, another blog called A True Independent Scotland shows a clip from today's Daily Politics where Andrew Neil exposes the lie that was the Telegraph's letter from 5000 small businesses in support of the Conservatives. It turns out they got it direct from Conservative Central HQ and Andrew Neil read out various signatures that weren't linked to businesses and one business that wrote to complain their name was on the letter but they'd never signed it and wanted their name removed.

This makes me wonder just what involvement politicians have with newspaper stories. Do they work hand-in-hand together? Are certain newspapers really nothing more than party political newsletters?

I imagine this is why bloody revolutions begin. When our sources of morality turn out to be amoral, what do you do?

No wonder politicians want to keep a so-called 'free press.' They want to be able to have the papers that are on their side still have the freedom to print the lies that they hope will get them into power.

Perhaps I am way behind the curve on this. Perhaps most people like me who voted YES and then joined the SNP have already gone through this painful realisation and come out the other side. Certainly, I went through it during indyref.

But even so, my inner goodness kept me from seeing just how extensive the corruption went. And I know why. Because I feel awful today. I genuinely thought Mhairi Black had put her foot in it with her comments but I was willing to forgive her because of her young age (though, in truth, I should be asking her for forgiveness). And I also genuinely thought a lot of businesses do support the Tories.

Now I feel a complete fool.

And it hurts. Badly.

Are there any of the traditional authoritarian figures or institutions left that can still be trusted? Must I now daily submerge my head in the filth of their deceit? Is this my life from now on? Raking about in the muck of others? Shouting furiously at the TV? Ripping up newspapers in sheer disgust?

No wonder so many people don't bother even voting.

We need to change the system. The internet has revealed its filthy stench in all its glory. Once seen through, there's no going back.

We don't just need independence. We need power at Westminster to sort the system out for everyone. Once that's done, perhaps we'd all be happy with a federal Britain.

But until the politicians, the journalists, the banks, the lobbyists, the police and all the rest transform themselves into decent human beings, the best we can do is vote SNP and extract ourselves from this distressing, shameful system.

If we can't, it's either start a bloody revolution or run away from politics.

And that's why I feel I want to run away from politics today.

Scottish Labour want to hold England to ransom

There have been numerous press stories recently, all claiming the SNP will hold the UK to ransom if they hold the balance of power at Westminster in the likely scenario of a hung parliament.

Ed Miliband and Jim Murphy want us to stop that from happening by voting for Scottish Labour. For example, Jim Murphy in today's Courier says:

"Only Labour can stop the Tories being the largest party. With the Tories and Labour neck and neck in England, in Scotland we should vote Labour to make sure the Tories are not the largest party."

But why should the Scottish Labour tail wag the English Labour dog?

Let's look at current seat projections from a poll of polls:

Tories 283
Lab 271
SNP 47

But if the SNP didn't exist and their predicted seats were all Scottish Labour seats, then the polls would look like:

Tories 283
Lab 318

With Labour clearly in the lead, this would change the whole narrative of the election campaign. It's much easier to vote for a party when you know their miles ahead and thus most other people think they're the best choice.

So if the SNP didn't exist and last year's indyref had never happened, it's likely that Labour would currently have a majority over the Tories of 35 seats. Even the Tory-loving press couldn't spin those numbers away.

Under this scenario, with a little bit more work, Ed Miliband could easily gain an overall majority and cruise into 10 Downing Street on the coattails of Scottish Labour.

But would it be morally acceptable to have Scottish Labour hold the UK to ransom in this way?

Once you start going down the path of saying some Scottish votes shouldn't decide who governs England, then you have to extend that moral outrage to all Scottish votes. And once you do that, you've effectively become a supporter of either a federal Britain or of Scottish independence.

But the morality is clear - if the SNP aren't allowed to dictate who wins, Scottish Labour aren't allowed to either.

Let's see if Jim Murphy will stand up and publicly say that.

Nicola not allowed to use the UK's broad shoulders

During indyref, we were told repeatedly that Scotland should stay a part of the UK because of the UK's "broad shoulders." The phrase was repeated earlier this year by David Cameron in relation to the problems facing the North Sea oil industry.

Well, where have the UK's broad shoulders been over the past five years?

Scotland is famously "too wee, too poor, too stupid" to go it alone and if we had Devo Max, we'd have a super-massive, mega-ginormous, blacker-than-black financial black hole we just couldn't cope with, as Jim Murphy super-massively mega-loves to point out.

Thus, it is far better for Scotland to stay within the UK because of the UK's fantastically wonderful "broad shoulders."

Brilliant. UK's "broad shoulders" must mean "riches beyond belief." Stay within the UK and its "broad shoulders" will mean no financial black holes of even the tiniest size to threaten the nation or spending cuts that will force poverty on millions.

So why did Labour go through the lobbies with their Tory and Lib Dem counterparts to vote for an additional £30 billion worth of cuts?

Despite Murphy trying to claim Labour would need no cuts beyond 2015/16, his English imperial masters quickly slapped him down and said there'd be cuts throughout the lifetime of the next parliament under a Labour government.

Then the IFS said even Nicola Sturgeon's spending increases would mean austerity would last and last and last, and oh my god she'd choke the UK to death with the weight of debt and why don't you just stay up there and keep your tartan black hole to yourself?

Bang go the riches of the UK's broad shoulders.

"Oh no," the Unionists cry. "Not with the super-massive, mega-ginormous, broooad shoulders of the UK."

Then show me the money, you Unionist dullards!

Of course, reality is quite different. If the UK does have broad shoulders, why have we had to endure austerity for the past five years? Why are the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour all proposing another five years of austerity? All three parties have voted for an additional £30 billion worth of cuts.

It's clear we were lied to and are still being lied to.

Perhaps the UK's "broad shoulders" are now too old, too weak and too arthritic to carry the loads they used to?

Or perhaps the whole notion of shoulder widths is just one more Unionist lie, now exposed.

Are people who vote SNP a part of the UK?

The rhetoric from some on the BBC's Question Time program last night in response to the question of would the SNP be a "catastrophe" if they held the balance of power at Westminster was appalling. They were basically suggesting that SNP voters are not part of the UK.

But in the independence referendum last year, Scotland voted NO to leaving the UK and therefore all Scottish people have a right to be recognized as UK citizens. That also means recognizing that a Scottish vote is just as worthy as a vote made anywhere else in the UK.

Not all of us wanted to remain a part of the UK but it looks like we're stuck in this system. All those proud Unionists should be really proud that the Scots are now super-excitedly taking part in the greatest regular advert for the Union - the general election.

I certainly know I'm looking forward to polling day. May Westminster smile proudly as I vote to hold their feet to the fire...

Labour didn't need Scotland to create the NHS

As Labour continue to shout that they are the only party that can save the NHS and Jim Murphy uses the history of the formation of the NHS to encourage us to vote Labour, I remembered the Wings over Scotland article that showed Scotland's contribution to Westminster majorities was minimal and I found myself asking the question: did Labour need Scotland's votes in order to form the NHS?

First of all, here is what Jim Murphy has been saying at the launch of the Scottish Labour manifesto, taken from this STV News article:

"Nationalism did not create the NHS or a welfare state. Nationalism did not establish the rights of working people. Nationalism did not transform the housing conditions of Scotland's cities. All of that was done by Labour governments and, more often than not, it was opposed by the Scottish nationalists who now seek to steal these clothes."

Suggesting the SNP opposed the NHS is a big claim. He then uses the history of the NHS to urge Scots to vote Labour because:

"Nye Bevan, Labour’s creator of the NHS speaks to us through history to tell us that the NHS will survive as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it. The NHS is an article of our political faith. We will always fight for it." 

But just how crucial a contribution did Scotland's Labour MPs make to the formation of the NHS? Let's look at the first election after the ending of the second world war to find out.

The post-war general election was held on 5th July 1945 and returned Clement Attlee's Labour government in a shock to Winston Churchill's war-winning Conservatives. Labour's social reform policies were deemed to be the deciding factor.

Image from Wikipedia

Back then, there were 640 seats in the House of Commons and thus a party needed 321 seats to form a majority. Labour beat that target easily, winning 393 seats across the UK. In Scotland, Labour took 37 of the 71 seats then available; the Independent Labour Party took 3 of the seats but defected to Labour in 1947, thus bringing Scottish Labour's total seats to 40.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that removing Scotland's 40 seats from Labour's UK-wide total of 393 still gives Labour a majority in the House of Commons. The arithmetic is 393-40=353; majority is simply that number minus half the seats in the Commons, i.e. 353-320=33.

Thus, without Scottish Labour, UK Labour would still have commanded an overall majority of 33 MPs in the House of Commons and thus would still have introduced the NHS. Their closest rivals, the Conservatives, won 197 seats in the 1945 election and, without the Scottish Labour seats, the Conservatives were still 156 seats short of Labour; even if those 40 Scottish Labour seats had been won by the Conservatives, it'd still leave them 116 seats behind Labour.

A key part of Jim Murphy's message is that "more often than not, it was opposed by the Scottish nationalists" but how many MPs did the SNP win in 1945? If you listen to Jim Murphy, you'd be left believing there were SNP MPs back in 1945 and that they bitterly opposed the creation of the NHS. But although the SNP fielded candidates in that election, they didn't win a single one. So there were zero SNP MPs in the House of Commons back then and thus no SNP voice to oppose the creation of the NHS.

It's also interesting to note that the concept of the modern welfare state, of which the NHS is a part, was first put forward in the 1942 Beveridge Report and, according to Wikipedia, was supported by the Liberal and Conservative parties, as well as the Labour party. Indeed, Beveridge himself was a member of the Liberal party.

William Beveridge

So Jim Murphy's call that only by voting Scottish Labour can we save the NHS is just as false as the claims he made during the independence referendum. All three major post-war parties supported the Beveridge report and its implementation would have happened whether Scotland existed or not.

How many Queen's speeches can be voted down in a row?

There's a new attack aimed at the SNP now. It's in the form of the question: "would you vote down a Labour Queen's Speech?" with the inference that such a speech was written purely by the Labour party and without consulting the SNP.

It is then followed up by the assertion that if the SNP did vote down a Labour Queen's Speech, this would herald in a Tory government, and then the questioners leave it there. In the viewers mind, of course, this leaves the impression that voting down a Labour Queen's Speech would automatically result in a Tory government that could never, ever be voted out for the next five years.

But, in such a scenario, what is stopping the SNP and Labour (and other like-minded parties) from then voting down a Tory Queen's Speech? Given the House of Commons works entirely by votes, and each party can vote as freely as they wish, I see no reason why the SNP can't vote down a Labour Queen's Speech and then, a few weeks later, vote down a Tory Queen's Speech.

What would happen after both the Labour and Tory Queen's Speeches have been voted down?

Presumably, the Queen would invite the SNP to form the government (assuming they're the third-largest party). Then we can hear complaints that Ed Miliband would be holding Nicola Sturgeon to ransom and that there would be a risk of Labour writing SNP's budget.

So I think this new line of attack is nonsense. Any number of Queen's Speeches can be voted down, thus forcing like-minded parties to work together to create a common Queen's Speech that will gather the support of a majority of the House of Commons.

If Labour do refuse to work with the SNP, we might yet see Alex Salmond become Prime Minister.

Note: Nicola Sturgeon is not standing to be elected as an MP at Westminster, so she couldn't become Prime Minister.

Labour has already worked with SNP in Westminster!

Yesterday's BBC Newsnight program revealed in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it piece that Labour has no qualms about working with the SNP in Westminster on a vote-by-vote basis.

This is because they've already worked together like that before!

In fact, it appears that Labour leader Ed Miliband already has the phone number of Angus Robertson, the SNP Leader in Westminster, stored on his own phone and is not shy about calling him when he needs the SNP vote.

This revelation came from an interview by Newsnight's Allegra Stratton with Angus Robertson at the launch of the SNP's manifesto. It's a shame she cut him off so early. Anyway, here is what Angus Robertson said on yesterday's Newsnight in an incredibly short, 25-second piece (from 31:50 to 32:15) about working with Labour:

"I know that Ed Miliband is capable of doing that. Why do I know that? Because he's already done it with me. When he picked up the phone and he wanted to talk about a different approach on Syria, he worked with the SNP and it was a good thing because we didn't get involved in a conflict in a way that wasn't being well thought through. Now he's shown that he's already capable of doing it."

Given that such an arrangement has already happened in the past, there's little doubt it'll happen again in the future.

Will Labour now publicly admit they'd be happy to work with the SNP over the course of the next parliament?

SNP manifesto pledges Home Rule for Scotland!

The SNP have today launched their manifesto and included a pledge on delivering Home Rule for Scotland.

Of course, they needn't have done so if the spineless Westminster parties had kept their promise on The Vow or if Gordon Brown's promises weren't the equivalent of being served empty haggis casings.

Perhaps in this next parliament, we might actually get what David Cameron famously wouldn't allow on the indyref ballot paper: Devo Max.

Jim Murphy and the rest of his band of muppets will no doubt spend the rest of the campaign telling us how we're all going to become broke, starve and die if we even so much as think of Home Rule.

But does anyone even bother listening to Jim Murphy now (apart from the Labour-crazed zombies at the Daily Record, of course)? Even his imperial masters down south have given up on him.

This is the Year of the SNP and I'm beginning to think that nothing can stop us now...

You can read the SNP manifsto online at Download our manifesto here

Labour's plans to cut Scotland's benefit cap level

David Cameron has already said he'd reduce the household benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 if he is re-elected as Prime Minister.

Nicola Sturgeon has said she'd rather see the end of the cap altogether.

Jim Murphy has said he's in favour of the cap and that it will remain at £26,000.

But hang on - what's this in the Labour manifesto?

Labour's Rachel Reeves, their Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, has confirmed that they'll look to cut the cap outside of London "where housing is cheaper."

Scotland doesn't need more austerity or more people forced into poverty or homelessness. So it's time for Jim Murphy to come clean - just what is his planned benefit cap for people living in Scotland?

Will Murphy's scalp be saved by the ANGRY majority?...

Back in indyref, we laughed at the idea of a silent majority that was going to whip our asses. But, sadly, they did.

Now we want to whip their asses in return and kick Labour et al. where it'll hurt for a generation. The latest Ashcroft polls show that Jim Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat will be an SNP win, with the SNP now on 40% of the vote there and Labour on just 31%.

So our whip-ass dream looks to be coming true and our biggest scalp will be Murphy's.

But is there an angry majority just off stage, waiting quietly for their moment to pounce? Some of my NO voting friends now turn into venom-spitting snakes when ever the SNP are mentioned. Unionist rags spout anti-SNP filth, now demonising Nicola Sturgeon as the most evil woman in politics.

40% of the vote for the SNP in Murphy's own backyard is a great moral boost for us Yessers but it also means that there are 60% of his constituents who don't want to see the SNP gain power. In the referendum, these same people were largely silent until the day of the referendum.

Now, they are silent and angry that us 45ers just didn't roll over and die. We had a cause to fight for and it made us loud and happy - just as we are loud and happy in this campaign. But I fear the angry majority will let their anger cloud their judgement on the day and tactically vote the SNP out.

Unfortunately, Murphy's scalp may yet be saved...

When will Ed get the chills for Nicola?

Yesterday, I suggested we were in the era of national tactical voting. That is, the constituent nations of the UK make a pact and decide which party each nation should vote for. So Scots vote SNP, Welsh vote Plaid Cymru and the English vote Labour. I further suggested that if you can't quite bring yourself to vote for the party your nation's allocated, then vote Green.

In last nights BBC debate, Ed Miliband rather ruined the idea by behaving like a little school boy who thought he had to act tough in front of his friends by basically dumping Nicola Sturgeon. It reminded me of that scene in the movie Grease where John Travolta discover's Olivia Newton-John is now at his school but, because he's in front of his friends and it's all very public, he pretends he couldn't care less about her.

We all know that in that movie, events finally force John Travolta's character to come clean and publicly profess his love for Olivia Newton-John's character.

To be honest, shaking his head and dumping Nicola at the end of the debate last night made Ed Milibad look as clumsy and as immature as John Travolta in those opening scenes. I think he rather shot himself in the foot by doing it.

But is this a gender thing, I wonder?

Contrast his behaviour with the three ladies on the stage. Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru, Natalie Bennett of the Greens and Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP all had no embarrassment about professing their love for each other and their willingness to put Ed into 10 Downing Street. At the end of the debate, the three ladies even had a group hug together - leaving Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage to look like floundering, awkward school boys as they each stood alone at either end of the stage.

Men are generally said to be competitive and women to be collaborative. We certainly saw that old adage being played out last night. Personally, I feel a warmth in my soul that Westminster might actually reflect the family of four nations that the UK is.

But if Ed Miliband wants to be part of that, he's going to have to do what John Travolta's character Danny did in order to win Olivia Newton-John's character Sandy - that is, change his clothes and come out singing:

I got chills.

They're multiplyin'.

And I'm losin' control.

'Cause the power

you're supplyin',

it's electrifyin'!

We'll wait and see if reality follows fiction and if Ed can mature during the last three weeks of this election campaign.

To be honest, I have my doubts.

It's time to bring it into the open - we're in the era of NATIONAL tactical voting

During the indyref, we were told that the UK is a "family of four nations" and that we should stay a part of that family and work with it. The seven-way leaders' debate showed that the broadcasters only cared for three out of that family of four (Northern Ireland was excluded), and that was only after sustained pressure was put upon them to include the smaller parties.

However, the debates have opened up a new possibility: national tactical voting. That is, nations getting together and voting tactically. We already have constituency-based tactical voting, for example Willie Rennie asking Tory and Labour voters in the Gordon constituency to instead vote Lib Dem to keep Alex Salmond out.

But national tactical voting is a little different. Even though I'm voting SNP, I'd like to see Ed Miliband as Prime Minister. However, I don't want Scotland's voice to be weakened by having it divided into a nano-squeak by being spread out over four or five different parties. So I'm definitely voting SNP.

But I'd also love to see Leanne Woods' Plaid Cmyru succeed in Wales and have a Labour-SNP-Plaid alliance in power in Westminster.

So here is the national tactical voting plan:

1. if you live in Scotland, vote SNP
2. if you live in Wales, vote Plaid Cymru
3. if you live in England, vote Labour

The Greens, of course, upset the apple cart a little. I'd also like to see the Greens in this alliance as well. So perhaps the final part of the national tactical voting plan should be:

• if you can't bring yourself to vote for the party in the national tactical voting plan, then vote Green

I'm sure Northern Ireland would like to play a part in our national tactical voting strategy too but, alas!, my knowledge of the Northern Irish political scene is lacking. Perhaps someone from there could tell me how they think the last member of our family of four nations should vote.

With this national tactical voting strategy, we could easily keep the Tories out and give each of our respective nations the voice it deserves to have within the English-dominated system at Westminster. Perhaps then we'd finally have a parliamentary system that actually represented our "family of four nations."

NEW! It's Jim Murphy - as Humpty Dumpty!!

Humpty Murphy sat on a wall

Humpty Murphy had a great fall

All Labour's noises and all Labour's men

Couldn't put Murphy together again!

Jim Murphy - the Humpty Dumpty of Scottish Politics

Talk about having egg on his face?...

Jim Murphy has been royally slapped down by his English Labour imperial masters, painfully revealing exactly what they think of him.

He's just not important to Labour or its ambitions.

If he was, English Labour would have been doing everything possible to keep their man's reputation intact.

Instead, they treated him like a Humpty Dumpty that had just fallen off a wall.

Murphy had claimed on Sunday Politics Scotland that Labour would not need to impose any cuts beyond 2015/16. Then on Monday, on the Daily Politics programme, Chuka Umunna said that Jim Murphy was not in charge of the UK budget and that there would be further cuts beyond 2015/16. Then Ed Balls on Radio 4's Today programme confirmed that if he was Chancellor, Scotland would not be exempt from cuts. And Ed Miliband, at his manifesto launch, confirmed there would be cuts throughout the lifetime of the parliament under a Labour government.

So what of Jim Murphy? He's went from a man with egg on his face to being an egg that English Labour are happy to see smashed on Scottish ground.

Does anyone know how to put Humpty Dumpty Murphy back together again?

William Hill's odds favour over 51 seats for the SNP

There are some that say "the money men always know best" and then entreat their listeners to "follow the money". James Kelly of the excellent SCOT goes POP! political blog often cautions his readership that that adage isn't always true, for example results may be skewed by those gamblers outside of Scotland who don't follow Scottish politics closely but bet on the result anyway or by people who get emotionally carried away by a particular cause and bet on it winning regardless of the real situation.

But even with those cautions, it can be difficult not to look at what the apocryphal "money men" think. Here is a screen shot from William Hill, taken today, showing the odds for the total number of seats the SNP will win in Westminster at the May 7th general election (note, you have to type SNP into their search box to even find the SNP bets, which surprised me).

Reading from left to right, we see the predicted number of seats won increase but the odds against that happening decrease. The odds shown are digital odds, which I find much easier to read and understand. For example, if the digital odds are 6.5 then your return for a £1 bet is simply the two numbers multiplied together, i.e. you'd receive back £6.50. The higher the digital odds number, the less likely people believe that outcome will occur.

At one extreme, William Hill is offering odds of 101 for the SNP winning 5 or less seats which drops to odds of 3 for the SNP winning at least 51 seats. Using Excel to graph this, the odds look like this:

One can't help but wonder that if Scotland had more than 59 seats at Westminster, then the odds would continue to drop even further until we reached a point where it was guaranteed that the SNP would win every seat.

For me, after the emotional roller-coaster of the referendum, I can scarcely bring myself to believe that we'll win more than 51 seats at Westminster. But back then, I was told by friends to "follow the money" and accept that YES would lose the referendum.

I lost quite a bit of money backing YES to win - on the night before the referendum, my emotions got the better of me and I just couldn't see us losing. So I went button-click mad and blew £500 - ouch! That was money I couldn't really afford to lose.

What now?

Is it worth betting on the SNP winning more than 51 seats?

I'm still hurting from the referendum. I'm still worried about aggressive NO voters ganging up together to tactically vote the SNP out (some of my friends are aggressive NO voters and they've left me in no doubt about how their hatred of the SNP will drive them to vote tactically to kill off any SNP surge).

At the moment, I'm keeping my money in my pocket. I just hope someone keeps me away from my computer the night before polling day...

Should only first borns become leaders?

The monarchy and aristocracy have the principle that all privileges should be bestowed upon the first born only; all other siblings should get nothing and be denied everything.

For the rest of us - including the Miliband family - we have the principles enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. Although it doesn't quite state it this way, its principle is that we all have the same rights as each other no matter in what order we are born. That is, being first born gives you no more and no less rights than the second born or the third born and so on.

Try telling that to Michael Fallon, the Conservative defence spokesperson who earlier this week  accused Labour leader Ed Miliband of stabbing his brother in the back when he stood against his elder brother David Miliband for the leadership of the Labour party back in 2010.

According to Fallon, because David was born in 1965 and Ed wasn't born until 1969, that means Ed has no rights whatsoever. All privileges must go to first-born David. Presumably, Fallon thinks that the Miliband parents should have brought Ed up to believe that he is inherently worthless because he was born second? How dare Ed rise above his station! He should have lived in the gutter and been proud of his lowly, second-born status.

How superstitious must the Conservative party be to still believe that the first to inhabit a woman's womb is a magical person that can do everything? After that first birth, the magic of the womb dissipates. What is left is a second-hand container with all its resources gone.

Science, of course, says otherwise.

The human body is a dynamic system, constantly fighting against the environment to keep itself optimal against extremes in temperature, nutrients and so on. A woman's womb is part of this 'fighting' system. As part of the menstrual cycle, the inner lining of the womb is created afresh each month; if no pregnancy occurs, this inner lining is broken down and shed over several days as a woman's period.

So a second pregnancy gets the same treatment as the first: a freshly-lined womb that is crucial for the pregnancy to continue. The woman eats fresh nutrients daily and supplies the second pregnancy with all the nutrients it needs, just as she had done with the first pregnancy. Thus, the second born is just as magical as the first born.

David Miliband was the first to put his name forward as a contender for leadership of the Labour party but his brother Ed followed suit just two days later, soon to be followed by the likes of Ed Balls and Diane Abbott. Putting your name forward first doesn't mean you get an automatic right to win (if it does, let me be the first to buy this week's lottery ticket). All of those contenders are European citizens with the same rights and access to opportunities as each other.

If you believe in human rights, you will believe Ed did not stab his brother in the back. However, if you are a Conservative party member, it is clear you don't believe in human rights. (Just ask Theresa May, who in 2011 and then in 2013 called for the human rights act to be abolished.) Instead, you believe in an outdated, aristocratic system that says all rights belong to the first borns only.

Michael Fallon's attack on Ed Miliband has shown that the Tory party is not a party of the ordinary people but one that works purely in the interests of the monarchy and the aristocracy. Is it any wonder that the Tories are so toxic in Scotland?

Welcome to ScottiTics

Welcome to ScottiTics, a new blog focussing mainly on Scottish Politics.

As you may have guessed, the ScottiTics title is a contraction of the phrase Scottish Politics.

The first article will appear shortly.

Note: no one can be one-hundred percent impartial. For the record, like many Scots I've switched from Labour to SNP via the referendum.

Hope you enjoy the new blog.

Many thanks,

Gregory Beekman
ScottiTics Founder