Capturing the Moment

A quiet day after a late night watching the Election results. More interesting than most people had predicted. The Greens did indeed get Andy Wightman in on the Lothian list, the SNP didn't quite manage an overall majority as the proportional voting system did a better job of reflecting the popular vote and the Tories pushed Labour into third. A bit odd to hear and read commentators saying that the result means Labour are in terminal decline when in the same breath they are discussing the Tories recovery. After all, they were supposed to have been wiped out in Scotland in previous elections... Not good for Scottish Labour all the same and it seems they urgently need to find out what the point of them is. The Tories better represent Unionism in Scotland, the SNP are obviously for Independence, the Greens seem to have captured the more radical Independence ground and the Lib Dems are ultra-localism. Perhaps it is simply a case of waiting until the memories of siding with the Tories have faded but I think they need a better platform than that. Complete independence from the UK party would be a start. It might be too late in Scotland to offer a true federal solution but that might also be the way to counter the politics of protest espoused by UKIP in the bits of England and Wales that don't appear to be getting a good deal in a UK economy warped and dominated by the asset-rich South East. Maybe working for greater political autonomy for Scotland that fixes some of the obvious traps set by the Westminster government - like the devolving of earned income tax but not dividend income tax - is the way to go. Although the South East of England is the main beneficiary of the current way of doing things, even there many people are not thriving - there is a constituency to mobilise. Or maybe the Scottish Labour party actually needs to back Independence too. If it is detached from UK Labour it can make up its own mind.