Wow.
That was some night. Not since 1997 has there been an election result as riveting as Scotland 2011. Throughout the early hours of Friday, increasingly flabbergasted politicians and journalists tried not to give in to hysteria as the scale of the SNP’s triumph became apparent. With an absolute SNP majority in Parliament, Labour bereft of its big-hitters and the Lib Dems reduced to just five seats, Scotland is truly a different place today.
There has long been a saying that you could put a red rose on a turnip in many parts of Scotland and it would get elected. (Some uncharitable people would say that has actually happened, but I would never be so rude). It’s certainly not the case anymore. But why?
For many Scots, there is a sentimental attachment to Labour that is all about family: we think of our fathers or grandfathers - miners, shipyard workers, printers, proud Labour men who faced the humiliation of unemployment in the eighties - and we vote in their memory. But new voters in this election were born as late as 1993. They don’t remember Thatcher: they barely remember Major. The 1980s, when a Tory government was imposed on a country that never voted for it, are nothing but history to them. Tribalism is over: Labour will have to earn the loyalty of a new generation if its to regain its Scottish dominance.
The other reason for the SNP’s victory is simply strategy. They did not talk Scotland down, but painted a picture of a country with both problems and potential. Labour deployed two different strategies during this election, both of them ineffective. They started by trying to sideline the SNP and re-run the 2010 UK election, focusing on the message that Scotland needed Labour to fight Tory cuts. This failed on two counts. Firstly, the SNP were so buoyant in the polls that trying to ignore them just looked silly. And creating an image of Labour thundering down to Downing Street and demanding a square go with David Cameron does not work when your leader is Iain Gray, a decent man who sadly has all the charisma of a walnut.
Labour’s second strategy suggested that an SNP government would be distracted by striving for independence, rather than focusing on jobs. This might have worked earlier on, but momentum had shifted to the SNP, and Labour were unable to get it back.
So what now? Already the results have claimed the scalps of Iain Gray and Tavish Scott, the unfortunate Lib Dem leader. And Alex Salmond is wasting no time in demanding that the Scotland Bill currently at Westminster be amended to give Holyrood more powers.
With control of the Parliament assured, the SNP are promising a referendum on independence in the next few years. Polls suggest that it would be lost if held tomorrow. But no-one would ever have predicted a majority government at Holyrood, especially not one led by the SNP. So an independent Scotland by 2016? Unlikely, but after Thursday, nothing would surprise me.
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