First Ministers Questions

Despite Wikipedia hardly being the bastion of accuracy at the best of times, whilst procrastinating and doing the old reading articles linked to previous articles I stumbled across the entry for First Ministers Questions.

First Minister's Questions is the name given to the Question Time in Scotland, where every Thursday when the Scottish Parliament is sitting the First Minister spends half an hour answering questions from Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs).

How romantic of Wikipedia to still believe that to be the case! As much as I enjoy, at times, the verbal jousting and general banter involved in FMQs I struggle to believe that FMQs serves its actual purpose anymore.

Each week Wendy Alexander may as well just stand up and ask the First Minister to tell her how crap she is at her job and how brutal the opinion polls are for her and her party. Annabel Goldie could stand up and say something like “we’d like to improve and would the First Minister like to tell me that ten years ago in Government we didn’t want to do that?” Nicol Stephen may as well just, instead of trying to think of a left field attack on Salmond, just ask to convey to him how much disdain he has for him because ultimately, no matter what any of the opposition leaders asks him, that is effectively the answer that they will receive. Then we get to the SNP backbenchers and their “constituency” questions which usually revolve around asking the First Minister “why it is that he is so smashing at his job?”

First Ministers questions are meant to be an opportunity for the opposition leaders to quiz the FM on the policies of his government not to hear about opinion polls and wisecracks about donations etc.

Yesterday, official report available here, Wendy Alexander quizzed the First Minister over the Government’s policy of cutting class sizes and asked about a timetable and a cost. A reasonable question to ask you might think and you’d be right to think so.

However, Salmond, clearly not knowing the answer, decided to lambaste Wendy for previously being against the policy. The leader of the opposition parties have the right to ask these questions – heck that is the purpose of them – and it means it’s a wasted half hour if all Salmond will do is take cheap digs at the other party leaders.

Last Thursday at FMQs, official report here, Annabel Goldie quizzed the First Minister on early release and how it should end. In his response all Salmond did was tell Annabel that it was a Conservative Government that brought it in ignoring the fact that the last Tory Government actually left a repeal of AER on the statute books, only for Labour to ditch it when they won the 1997 election. What a thoroughly garbage response. Just because we brought a policy in does not mean that we can’t change our mind on it and it is insulting to everyone for Salmond to ignore that fact.

Another cracking YouGov poll

It’s been a fair few years since opinion polls have been as readily welcomed by Tories as the recent series have been and today’s in the Daily Telegraph is no different.

When asked on voting intentions, 47% responded that they would vote for the Conservatives compared to 23% who would vote for Labour and 18% for the Liberal Democrats. As well as that 54% - up 5% since April - would rather see a Conservative Government under David Cameron with only 29% would want a Labour Government under Gordon Brown which is down 2% from April.

While on economic competence the Conservative Party are up 12% on their 2005 Election performance, Labour are down a massive 27%.

Another grim grim poll performance for Labour – but of course there is only one poll that counts and we won’t be seeing that one until 2010.

Scottish Conservatives making the difference

Good wee piece on Conservativehome today regarding the release of the Scottish Conservatives 2008 Annual report in which the party lists its achievements since last May’s election.

The ConHome piece also highlights this article by Alan Cochrane in today’s Daily Telegraph.

P.s. Been blogging lite recently solely due to laziness. Back next week.

STB

Two bad polls for Gordon Brown

I feel most of the Bendy Wendy stuff will have been covered by every other blogger as well as most newspapers so I am going to enter slightly silly season on my blog looking at some of the more left field stories/polls involving Gordon Brown in the last few days.

I doff my hat to Guido Fawkes for this tip off. It seems that Gordon Brown will become the first incumbent Prime Minister to not be featured in Madame Tussauds for over 150 years after a poll of 6,333 people found that 83.8% (5308) did not want Gordon Brown featured with just 16.2% wanting the current PM immortalised in wax.

One of my Labour voting friends is also dismayed at the results of a poll carried out by Grazia, Britain’s first weekly glossy magazine (apparently). The poll showed that of the women interviewed, 18 percent voted Conservative in 2005 compared to 27% voting for Labour but if an election was to be held tomorrow the figures would be somewhat different with 33% saying they’d vote Conservative compared to just 14% voting for Labour. 37% of women also think that the Conservative party will do more for women compared to 29% who think it is the Labour party that will do more for women. When it comes down to telling the truth, 26% of respondents think David Cameron is more likely to keep his promises, ten percent higher than the amount that believe Gordon Brown will keep his.

My favourite question listed a series of words, including intelligent; approachable; honest etc, and asked the respondents what words they would most associate with both Gordon Brown and David Cameron. The top three for Gordon were: intelligent (41%), Old Fashioned (46%) and Boring (50%) with the top 3 for Cameron being: modern thinking (53%), intelligent (41% -meaning that the respondents think DC is just as intelligent as Brown) and approachable (39%).

Labour's worst poll rating of all time

Further grim reading for the Labour Party in today’s press. Not only were they greeted with headlines such as “No way back for Wendy” and “Losing his (Gordon Brown) grip on Scotland” but the latest YouGov poll has Labour at its lowest poll rating of all time. The new poll, conducted by YouGov for the Sun Newspaper, has Labour trailing a massive 26 points behind the Tories who are on 49%. Is it all bad news for Gordon Brown? Well, apparently not as asked if voters would back Labour under a different leader, all of the suggested alternatives have a minus net reading – still safe then Gordon!

But what does the poll mean in Scotland. Well, the poll broken down by Scottish figures has Labour on 26%, the Tories on 21%, Lib Dems on 13% and the SNP on 32%. Before going further – this is the third YouGov poll since April that has the Scottish Conservatives on more than 20%. If this was the result in Scotland the next time round Labour would lose Scotland with the SNP taking 23 seats compared to Labours 21 with the Tories taking seven seats – including Alistair Darling’s Edinburgh South West – and the Lib Dems taking 8 seats – down 3 since 2005. The big winners from this latest poll are the SNP who comfortably meet their target of 20 seats whilst at the same time making a very impressive gain of 17 seats. Labour are the big losers down a whopping 20 seats since 2005 with the Tories picking up six seats of which five are from Labour – Edinburgh South, Edinburgh South West, Dumfries and Galloway, Stirling and Renfrewshire East – and one from the Liberal Democrats – Berwickshire Roxburgh and Selkirkshire.

Who are the big hitters from Labour that would lose? Other than Alistair Darling the biggest name that would lose their seat according to this poll is Des Brown. Others include Michael Connarty, Nigel Griffiths, Gavin Strang and Anne Moffat. The Liberal Democrats would also lose Danny Alexander and Shadow Shadow secretary of state for Scotland Michael Moore.

Did Brown bottle it?

ScottishToryBoy learns that Scottish Labour are briefing the press that Brown bottled it yesterday at Prime Ministers Questions as a line had been agreed.

Does Scottish Labour think Wendy stands a better chance of hanging on than Gordon?

Vision

I came across an SNP leaflet titled Vision and contains the following little survey:

Do you think?...

Scotland should…

1 Be able to decide to bring our troops home from Iraq?
2 Be like Ireland and have a voice and votes in the European Union?
3 Be given the choice over Scotland’s future in a referendum?
4 Be like New Zealand and introduce a decent pension to drive down pensioner poverty?
5 Be like Norway and invest a share of our oil revenues in a fund to benefit future generations?

If you answered YES to one or move above, perhaps you should find out more about the SNP and our ambitions for the future of Scotland.

Interesting….. I think Wendy may have answered YES to question three just the other day. No?

Wendy hung out to dry by Brown

I just watched Prime Ministers Questions for the first time in a wee while, interesting to see the next Prime Minister having Gordon Brown over a barrel. He asked Gordon Brown, who had previously said that there’s a line in Britain that pitted "those of us who are prepared to support the shared values of the union" against "those who are prepared to play fast and loose with the union and put the whole future of the union at risk" and failed to back Wendy Alexander over her referendum calls, if he backed Wendy Alexander over her referendum calls.

Brown responded by stating that Wendy hadn’t said that, when asked again by Cameron if he backed Wendy he again refused to answer the question. It’s quite clear that Wendy has been cut adrift again by Gordon Brown. Although it’s difficult to see how she can remain as leader when the person who put her there refuses to back her it is difficult to see if this really is rock bottom for Wendy’s leadership or just another day.

A further to my last post and whether or not Labour can lodge a referendum bill:

From Scottish Parliament Standing Orders (9.14). Given that the SNP have clearly stated their intent to bring forward a Bill on this subject in the lifetime of this Parliament, any such Members’ Bill would fall.

12. The member who lodged the final proposal obtains the right to introduce a Bill to give effect to it only if—

(a) no later than the end of the period referred to in paragraph 11—

(i) at least 18 other members have notified the Clerk of their support for the final proposal; and

(ii) the members supporting the final proposal include members of at least half of the political parties (or groups formed under Rule 5.2.2) represented in the Parliamentary Bureau; and


(b) the Executive has not given, by the end of the period referred to in paragraph 11 (or has waived its right to give, within that period), an indication under paragraph 13. [see below]


13. An indication under this paragraph is an indication, given in writing by a member of the Scottish Executive or junior Scottish Minister to the member who lodged the final proposal and to the Clerk (who shall arrange for the indication to be printed in the Business Bulletin)—

(a) that the Executive will initiate legislation, within the same session, to give effect to the final proposal; or

(b) that Her Majesty’s Government has initiated or will initiate legislation, during the current or next session of the UK Parliament, to give effect to the final proposal.

The right to give such an indication may be waived at any time during the period referred to in paragraph 11 by notice in writing to the member who lodged the final proposal and to the Clerk; and such a notice shall be printed in the Business Bulletin.

This referendum stuff

Am I right in thinking that the opposition can’t lodge a bill on a subject that the Government already intends on lodging a bill on? If that’s the case, does that mean that the pro independence Wendy Alexander and her beleaguered troops will have to support the SNP bill on an independence referendum? You really couldn’t make it up.

Yesterday in el Parly, Wendy hosted a press conference on her pro independence stance but is unable to answer a few simple questions.

1. Does she favour a simple yes or no question in an independence referendum or a multi question option?

2. If it’s the former, what is the point in the Calman commission?

3. When does she intend on lodging this bill? Now? 12 months? 2010?

What a weekend

I took a few days off blogging – effectively a long weekend – expecting nothing to have happened or been newsworthy over that period. Alas, how wrong I was.

As I wrote my last post on Friday I had no idea that the result of Thursday’s council elections in England and Wales were going to be anywhere near as good as they turned out to be. It’s fair to say that new Labour died on May 2nd. I also find the comparisons to John Major a tad unfair especially as Major at least had a mandate to be leader having won a leadership contest. I do find myself thoroughly agreeing with Euan McColm in the News of the World (not available online unfortunately) that Brown has only got himself to blame and barring a mistake of huge proportions David Cameron will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

I was also thoroughly delighted to see Boris winning the London Mayoral Election on Friday. I do believe that Livingstone is a talented politician but him being voted out of office was another vote against Gordon Brown’s Labour Party. I even read Tony Benn blaming Thursday’s results on ‘Blairism’ and even the most ardent acolytes of Blair must accept that fact.

I think the biggest surprise of the weekend is over Labour’s stance on an independence referendum. I’m curious if she even knows what it is she is doing. When reading the article in the Sunday Mail, found here, I have to admit I didn’t really believe what I was reading but it quickly became apparent that Mark Aitken had a wee scoop on his hands judging by Monday’s coverage of the story at least.

Labour woes

No' a great day in camp Labour by any stretch of the imagination. It seems rather amusing that Labour are probably doing a bit better in Scotland than they are in England and Wales...

Tories hold Abbey

The Conservatives held the Abbey seat in the Council by-election down in Dumfries. The final result was Conservatives 2006 and Labour 1712 with the SNP finishing third. I was told on Wednesday by someone from within Labour that they feared finishing third but alas not.

***Update***

BBC Story

Full result:

Michael Thomson (Con) 2006 votes
Tom McAughtrie (Lab) 1712 votes
John McNaught (SNP) 833 votes
Graham McLeod (Ind) 216 votes
Keith Mycock (LD) 164 votes

Ultimately, a cracking result for Michael Thomson – the former independent councillor and thus a well kent face – but what does it mean for the SNP and Labour? I think the major surprise was the performance of the SNP. There was a belief from within Labour that they would be pushed into third place with the Nats coming second – they even ran quite an attack campaign on the Nat candidate - but in the end they were well off the pace. The Labour vote was still quite solid but losing the by-election isn’t great news for either Dumfries MSP Elaine Murray or D+G MP Russell Brown.

I received the following anonymous response:

Is this a resurgence of Tory support against a backdrop of SNP stagnation?

In May 2007 the Tories polled 34% of the vote whilst last night we got 43% although the Labour share of the vote also went up – from 28% last year. The Tories need a strong SNP in D+G as last time the SNP vote absolutely collapsed but this indicated just how soft the Nat vote is in Dumfries. They have, however, selected a man who is also a Councillor, Andrew Wood, so there is a chance he may attract some votes. We can but hope.