Kezia Dugdale is now Deputy Leader

There were three women and two men in the Scottish Labour leadership contest: the media largely ignored Sarah Boyack, Kezia Dugdale, and Katy Clark: most of the mainstream publicity I saw treated the contest as if it were a race between two men, Jim Murphy and Neil Findlay.

Jim Murphy won, MP for East Renfrewshire, and currently his name gets about 2,750,000 hits on Google.

Kezia Dugdale also won: she is the Deputy Leader of Scottish Labour, and currently her name gets about 75,900 hits on Google.

Neither Reckless nor Carswell

Will UKIP have two MPs in the House of Commons before 2015?

No, I don’t think they will. I don’t think they’re even likely to have one.

Despite Daily Mail fantasies of all white working-class people being racist, UKIP clearly present a threat to the Tory party and thus possible electoral benefit to Labour by splitting the right-wing vote, as I think we will see proved when the Rochester and Strood byelection date comes round.

General Election 2015

As I write, the SNP membership has increased by 63% to be the UK’s third party by size. (The LibDems, whose membership has fallen by a third since May 2010, have 43,451 members: the SNP now have 62,870.)

The Scottish Green membership quintupled in a week, from 1,200 to nearly six thousand.

The most likely result of the May 2015 general election is still a Labour majority or Labour as the largest single party.

Tuition fees, remember?

It’s been so long.

Do you remember this? On Wednesday 28th April 2010, Nick Clegg began a final push for students to vote for the LibDems.

“Labour and the Conservatives have been trying to keep tuition fees out of this election campaign.

“It’s because they don’t want to come clean with you about what they’re planning.

Big Issue gives Coburn UKIP-time

David Coburn claims in an interview with the Big Issue that he was against the EU from 1st January 1973 onward, for a rather odd reason:

“I was politicised young, while I was a pupil at Glasgow High School. I collected old coins, bought and sold silver shillings to dealers, I was busy and happy. Then we joined the European Union, decimalisation was introduced, and overnight my coin business was destroyed. That set me not only against the government, but also the EU.”

David Coburn was born in 1958. If his birthday is between March and August, he would probably have started primary school in August 1963, and gone on to high school (secondary school) in August 1970, when he was 12. (If his birthday is between September and February, he would probably have started at high school in August 1969.)

But the day that the UK and Ireland decimalised our currencies was 15th February 1971, when David Coburn could not have been older than 13. The transition period for the pre-decimal currency ended on 31st August 1971.

We’ll overlook David Coburn’s confusion of the EU (established 1993) with the European Economic Community. He’s also confused the year the UK decimalised the currency (announced in 1966, when he was 8: finally completed in 1971, when he was 13) when the year the UK joined the EEC (1973, when he was 15).

Instead let’s consider his claims to have been running an antique coin business when a schoolboy.

The #indyref campaign begins today

In less than four months, we’ll go to the polls to vote Yes or No to the question:

“Should Scotland be an independent country?”

And today, the campaign period for the referendum officially begins.

But as I pointed out a few weeks ago (and Simon Jenkins pointed out yesterday) the SNP are not offering independence: they want major decisions for Scotland’s governance to be made at Westminster/in London. (It’s all in the White Paper: haven’t you read it?)

Labour vote surges in English local elections

Looking ahead to 2015, the polls say (and the bookies agree) the next general election is likely to be a Labour victory.

The results in so far from the local English council elections support that (full results won’t be out til later today): despite a low turnout (estimated at 36%) Labour has maintained or gained control in 27 local councils (up 2 – there were 161 local authority elections yesterday) and won 617 council seats (up by 101). Including – as I found out via Twitter – David Cameron’s favourite Tory council Hammersmith & Fulham.

The Conservatives have lost control in 8 councils (they’ve kept control in 27) and are down 99 council seats. The Liberal Democrats have lost control in one council (kept control in two) and are down 93 council seats. None of this looks good for their general election prospects.

The Green Party have four seats so far, up by one.

None of this, however, is the headlining news.

Looking ahead to May 2015

Everyone in Scotland is so focussed on the referendum that they’re forgetting the European elections on 22nd May. (And that’s worrying, because low turnout is how parties like UKIP get in.)

Illustrating this forgetfulness about the European elections, last night on Have I Got News For You an English comedian made a joke about “Methadone elections” and Susan Calman took audible offence because she’d forgotten about the EuroElections and thought he meant the independence referendum was methadone: but the English comedian had forgotten about the Scottish referendum – he was making a joke about the methadone of the European Parliament elections compared to the heroin smack of a General Election.

Yes means yes… probably

George Osborne says the Treasury won’t permit Scotland to use the UK pound, supposing Scotland votes for independence. In May 2015 – regardless of how Scotland votes in September – Osborne’s reign as least-qualified British Chancellor since the one who forgot his budget speech in 1869 comes to an end, so his pronouncements are necessarily limited to campaigning for a Yes vote.

(What? There was another reason for his coming up to Scotland? Seriously, does anyone think a very posh, very English Tory Minister telling Scots what they can and cannot do is likely to be anything but a drawback for the Better Together campaign?)

Quite possibly the worst result for 18th September would be for fewer than 50% of the electorate to vote, but for Yes to win by a narrow margin. The more Conservative Ministers moved to join the debate the better in that regard.

UKIP weather

David Silvester, elected as a Conservative councillor for Henley-on-Thames (pop. 10,000) resigned from the Tories and joined UKIP in 2013 to protest David Cameron’s support of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act. A local paper published his letter about same-sex marriage causing the floods on Saturday 17th January 2014.

David Silvester quit the Tories for UKIP over #equalmarriage: now claims gay marriage causes flooding #ORLY? http://t.co/zZsLSZWWtd #Henley

— lgbt.co.uk (@lgbtcouk) January 18, 2014

On Sunday, following a small social media stir, founder of @UpikTips started a new Twitter account that evening: @UKIPweather, which has now tweeted 18 times and has over 100,000 followers – a phenomenon which brought David Silvester’s comments into the mainstream news. (For contrast, UKIP’s official Twitter account has only 36,300 followers.)

EXTREME WEATHER WARNING! Tonight for the first time, just about half past ten. For the first time in history it's gonna start rainin' men

— UkipWeather (@UkipWeather) January 18, 2014