The Political Thread

[Old Tankie]

Fair enough.    That's far too clever for me.  Although, as it happens, I'm right then!

[Dog Deever]

There was a guys comments had been copy/pasted from his fb and shared about a while back. He was saying he had just heard he was on the ballot count and would be bringing a pencil so there would be plenty of spoiled ballots.

[Jim_Campbell]

Ah, well — that tweet I mentioned was clearly bollocks. My apologies.

Cheers

Jim

[8-Ball]

I've just been to vote and now I am reading the Judge Dredd story "Better The Devil You Know/Twilight's Last Gleaming." It gladdens my heart to see that, regardless of the outcome tomorrow, enough people gave a shit.

[Frank]

I've just been to vote and now I am reading the Judge Dredd story "Better The Devil You Know/Twilight's Last Gleaming." It gladdens my heart to see that, regardless of the outcome tomorrow, enough people gave a shit.

Aye - that was the first time I'd encountered the statistics on how few folk actually bother to vote in general elections, and a crucial part of my political education.

To be fair to Jim Campbell, the huge voter turnout has left most political commentators amazed and scratching their heads in disbelief. Shetland reports their postal ballot returns were 92%, and the fact folk who have never bothered voting in an election before apparently means all the polling companies have to admit that their numbers could be hugely wide of the mark - since their modelling is based on looking at how folk voted in previous elections.

[Frank]

Adam Boulton on Sky News just said their unofficial polling puts it at 53% for NO.

[I, Cosh]

To be fair to Jim Campbell, the huge voter turnout has left most political commentators amazed and scratching their heads in disbelief. Shetland reports their postal ballot returns were 92%

Don't suppose I've ever thought about it, but wouldn't you always expect that to be higher given that you have to go out of your way to arrange it? Unless, of course, you phone up to enquire about it some time in advance and are informed that they only actually send them out once a month or so. When you're already out of the country. But what sort of idiot would do that?

[Frank]

YouGov say 54% NO:  http://yougov.co.uk/news/categories/politics/

[Fungus]

True, less than 95% for postal vote returns sounds bonkers. Put the shortfall down to "it's already won/lost" mindset I guess. Apart from the historic nature of the vote, nothing like a close fight to get people out. Bit of a perfect storm, vote-wise.

All of which kind of shows up the broken, frustrating first-past-the-post system for what it is. Think I've skipped some Westminster elections - Labour own the constituency - but never a Holyrood one.

[Frank]

You would think so, but returns of postal ballots in general seem to be around 80%, and that's in a referendum where there's supposed to be high interest and better than average voter turnout.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

It's all very exciting listening to the results come in on the radio!

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Radio 5Live are saying that it's all but certain that NO has won.

[Frank]

Aye, it's still not mathematically impossible for YES to win, but Edinburgh seems certain to end that remote chance. They turned out in big numbers, and where that has happened NO tend to have won.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Yep with two hours left to go it seems NO is the winner.

Yah boo really - I've not said owt because it's not a vote I can take part in and I knew I'd just sound like some ideological sod over the border but I've read and heard a lot from folks over the last few weeks and NO always seemed to me like the dullest option. The boring one. The one our bollocks government wants. The "keep calm etc" one - heads down, move on, forget about it. Nae bother.

Sad to wake up to anything that says "PEOPLE VOTE YES TO MORE OF THE SAME"

Although actually it's not very likely to just be more of the same. It can't be. The very fact that it happened at all and it has been so close is a very big statement indeed and our Trout has tweeted tonight the most succinct observation I've seen about the inspiringly large turn-outs:

"Politicians take note. If people believe their vote will count, they will cast it."

Baby steps forward this Friday rather than giant leaps - change is the long game.

[Fungus]

I think we dodged a bullet...
but Salmond speaking now is moving all the same. Wow.