Team A Thumps Team B

What a year! First Fianna Fail in Ireland, now Labour in Scotland. If only all elections were this entertaining and satisfying. At long last the anti-Labour vote was organised properly. Indeed, the SNP have won a lop-sided victory of the type Labour have been accustomed to winning in Scotland, taking more than 70% of the constituency seats on 45% of the vote. This included a victory in Edinburgh South achieved with fewer than 30% of the votes. First Past the Post for the win, eh?

Labour spent much of the night complaining that there was a ball and the Liberal Democrats ran away with it and gave it to the SNP and that wisnae fair. Too bad. The collapse of the Lib Dem vote was greater than I anticipated but entirely deserved after a campaign in which they offered no good reason to vote for them. One lesson of this election is that trying to run away from your own record in government is not a recipe for electoral success.