Welcome to Scotland’s 1997

Key Points

• SNP secures absolute majority in Scottish Parliament
• Labour leader Iain Gray to stand down "in the autumn"
• Lib Dems all but wiped out
• Margo MacDonald reelected

Welcome to Scotland’s 1997. Remember how you felt on the morning after polling day 14 years ago? Remember the feeling that right had triumphed? Remember the feeling that everything had changed for the better, for ever? Remember the feeling that a dark night had passed and a new dawn had washed the country clean? Now, remember how that feeling was betrayed? Betrayed by Tony Blair’s soft-Toryism. Betrayed by the growing gap between rich and poor. Betrayed by Iraq. Judging by Scotland’s political map this morning, the people of Scotland haven’t forgotten that betrayal either. This morning, Scotland’s political map is yellow. And, if you’re a Lib Dem who’s not checked the results yet, I’ve got some bad news for you about the exact shade. Landslide is not a big enough word to describe the SNP’s achievement. In the constituency vote, it’s easier to talk in terms of what Scottish Labour have managed to hold on to. They held their leader’s seat by 151 votes. They held on to precisely one of Edinburgh’s six seats and – amazingly, extraordinarily – just three of the eight Glasgow seats. Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth and the Central Belt towns are SNP fiefdoms now. The SNP seem to have picked up nearly every Lib Dem vote in Scotland: and that’s the bad news for the minor party in the Westminster coalition. Their vote has melted like snow off a sunbed. Rightly, they have been punished for their folly. Various Labour talking heads have tried to use this fig leaf to explain their dismissal by the electorate. However, the Labour vote is down and those voters disgusted by the Lib Dems chose en masse to steer clear of Iain Gray’s lot. And Labour may yet remain Iain Gray’s lot, as just about every other serious leadership contender has lost their seat: thanks to the party’s suicidal decision not to put their constituency candidates on the regional lists. The seeds of Labour’s defeat were sown not just in 1997 but 1988, when a classic Labour numpty was handed his hat by Jim Sillars in Glasgow Govan (now a safe SNP seat). Labour was supposed to learn then that you couldn’t pin a rosette on a donkey and weigh the votes. Instead, Labour turned its entire party into a donkey: packing their Holyrood benches with List C lightweights, picked for their loyalty rather than ability. Naming no names, but there are some ousted MSPs who were an insult to the intelligence of the Scottish electorate. Since 1997, and since long before then, Labour has taken its core voters for granted and they are paying the price now. Enough about the losers. This result is not about Labour’s woes or the Lib Dems’ extinction. This is a ringing vindication of Alex Salmond, the strength of his team, the positivity of their campaign and their record in government – which is impressive given the way the Unionist parties tried to thwart them at every turn. And, despite what all the pundits are saying, this is a ringing endorsement of the SNP’s core policy: independence for Scotland. Nobody who voted SNP does not know that that aim is at the party’s heart. Just as pundits far and wide failed to predict that Scots were capable of voting differently in UK and Scottish elections, the talking heads are failing to realise that this result is a verdict on England’s choices at Westminster. And on Westminster itself. Go outside this morning and inhale. That smell is not just rain on the grass, it’s the heady scent of Scottish democracy flexing its muscles.

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Related posts:

1. Daily election roundup, 27 April
2. Scottish Election: Labour leader hangs on, just, as colleagues washed away in SNP landslide
3. Labour in a guddle over independence referendum