Monday, May 26, 2014

In numbers : the yawning chasm between Scotland and the rest of the UK

Where UKIP finished -

England and Wales : FIRST
Scotland : FOURTH

UKIP share of the vote -

England and Wales : 29.1%
Scotland : 10.5%

UKIP share of seats -

England and Wales : 35.9%
Scotland : 16.7%

So yeah, as UKIP's friends and allies in the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem parties have been pointing out all day, these numbers look ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL to me.

In truth, what you see above actually understates the enormous gulf between Scotland and the rest of the UK.  In every region of England, a splinter party from UKIP stood, and used a clever strategy to get themselves placed at the top of the ballot paper by having a name beginning with 'A', while still giving the impression with their party description and logo that they might be the authentic UKIP.  It worked to some extent, with the party receiving between 1.21% and 2.29% in every region - quite a bit higher than you'd expect for a new fringe party that hardly anyone has heard of.  So it seems overwhelmingly likely that most of their support came from 'accidental' voters who should have been in the UKIP column.

However, they didn't bother standing in Scotland and Wales.  If they had done, and accordingly made the results directly comparable across Great Britain, it's absolutely certain that UKIP's vote in Scotland would have been even lower, and it's at least conceivable that UKIP would have failed to take a Scottish seat.

*  *  *

An extra little observation about the BBC results show.  In the final summing up just after 3am, Jeremy Vine stood on his giant map of Great Britain, which was coloured in by the leading party in each council area.  He theatrically searched for any part of the country that had voted Lib Dem, before homing in on Farron territory and declaring that South Lakeland was the one and only place that had given Clegg's mob anything to cheer about.  And yet behind him, both Shetland and Orkney were clearly visible, and were brightly shining in Lib Dem orange.  It seems that Scottish island communities are still "Nowheresville" as far as the London media are concerned.

4 comments:

  1. The most out of touch twats on PB still haven't realised the SNP won in scotland last night and the kippers came fourth.

    Almost as funny as when the witless PB Romneys like SouthamObserver were 100% certain of Romney winning and Obama losing. Oops!


    It's pure comedy gold in the PoliticalBetting bubble, as usual.

    Just as hilarious are those too dumb to realise this was an EU election voting along party lines that had nothing to do with the Independence referendum.

    What were the main issues? Immigration and the EU obviously. So while that worked for the kippers in rUK those who somehow still can't tell the difference between kippers WINNING in rUK and them coming FOURTH in scotland really are making a complete fool of themselves.


    The only clown who tried to make it about a referendum was calamity Clegg when he stupidly tried to make the EU elections all about "a vote for the lib dems is a vote stay IN Europe", when the public knew perfectly well it was nothing of the sort. We all know how well that turned out for Clegg and the lib dems.

    Now the most repulsive of Clegg's ostrich faction are so desperate they are actually trying to smear the small Libdems4Change website which has committed the ultimate heresy by pointing out that calamity Clegg is toxic while calling for him to go. Pure McCarthyism and yet more proof of just how little the yellow tories will be missed as they charge headlong into complete irrelevance.


    The bottom line is we've had more pandas than scottish tory MPs for years now so it's no great hardship to have more pandas than scottish kipper MEPs and indeed lib dem MEPs anywhere in rUK.

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  2. The SNP finished top in 16 out of 32 councils. And only missed out on Edinburgh by 37 votes. A city where ukip were thrashed by everybody. Even the libdems,who had previously been beaten in the city by a penguin.

    Did the racists get into the top 3 in any council area?

    Obviously no difference between Scotland and ewani.





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  3. According to the Herald figures ukip were 3rd in 6 areas. Although only a few votes involved in most of those.

    So how many MPs, MSPs and Councillors would they have won? More than 0 or less than 1?

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  4. If they were third in a few areas, they probably would have won some councillors under STV. But it's much more doubtful that they'd be able to hold on to that vote in local elections.

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