I have refrained from comment on the most recent travails of Alba Party because I wanted to see how things played out after party leader Kenny MacAskill’s rather dramatic announcement last Saturday.
The big problem with trying to predict the list is - analysing the 2011 actual list results - and working out divisors and nett percentages for each list seat actually won by the SNP.
With for instance 8 seats won in a region, the divisor is 9. If the percentage list vote is 36%, the nett % is 4.0, but if the vote is 45% the nett % is 5.0.
In 2011 Central Scotland with 6 constituency seats, 3 list seats were won with divisors of 7, 8 and 9 - nett percentages 6.6%, 5.8% and 5.2%.
H&I with 6 constituency, 3 list seats divisors 7, 8 and 9 - 6.8%, 5.9% and 5.4%.
Mid Scot with 8 constituency, still got 1 list seat divisor 9 nett 5.0%.
NE Scotland with 10, yes, all 10 constituency seats still got 1 list seat with divisor 11 nett 4.8%.
As possibly the only other person in Scotland still following along here ;-) I feel it necessary to point out the major issue with doing this type of comparison at this time with the data set that we have available.
This type of comparison is comparitive. It compares the known outcome from last time against the currently available polling results to make an estimation of the possible outcomes from those polling changes based on the estimated changes.
Unfortunately however the system that we will be operating with at the next election is not directly comparable with the system that was in operation at the previous election, because the changes in relative popularity of the existing 'contestants' is not the only significant change this time round.
The issue is that the number of electorally significant parties in contention for list seats at this election has increased substantially with the addition of 'your party' (England), 'reform' (England) and George Galloways 'Workers Party of Great Britain'.
The reason that this complicates the predictions is that now the number of parties that will be competing for seats under the Party List award system looks like it will now be substantially greater than the number of Party List seats available in each electoral region.
The reason that this is highly likely to significantly affect the result that we are primarily interested in, which is the number of Party List seats awarded to the SNP, is that the SNP with its high divisor will only be predicted to be allocated the last seat or very improbably the second last seat as other parties' divisors are incremented and thus their 'effective' number becomes reduced.
With 2 or 3 new parties with significant List votes and divisors of '1' having been added there now must be a very significantly reduced chance of this occurring in the way that it has done in the previous electoral calculations.
I have however not progressed further than this hand waiving style of logic primarily because the uncertainties are large, the margins tight and the data inadequate.
We cannot know how the regional Party List calculations will turn out until election night.
We can probably say with some certainty that 2 significant factors will combine to make it much harder for the SNP to be awarded Party List seats this time.
The first, simplest and most obvious is that under the semi-proportional 'Additional Member' 'make up' system the SNP has a much much lower proportion of the 'make up' vote than previously and thus similarly decreased chances of an award.
And the second confounding factor as described, the unknowable effect of the 3 'New' parties.
I have left out any mention of Alba as their polling is still far far below what can reasonably be expected as required to pass the (effective not explicit) Party List vote threshold.
As things stand if Alba were able to triple their vote from where it is reported now by current polling in the weeks remaining until Election Night they would still be unlikely to be awarded a single Party List seat.
But that wasn't a comparison or prediction, it was the actuals from 2011. It was real.
There are people "out there" saying that with 8 constituency seats in a region giving a divisor for the list seats of 9 to start with there is no chance the SNP will get any list seats. Well, that is totally wrong. In 2011 they got list seats in 4 out of the 8 regions with divisor of 9 in three of them, and 11 in one. There is absolutely NO formulaic reason that can't happen again.
Any comparison or projection should as a bare minimum, reflect history not fantasy.
I am really not sure what is the point that you are trying to make.
I am not going to engage with your knocking down the straw man that you just propped up:
'There are people "out there" saying that with 8 constituency seats in a region giving a divisor for the list seats of 9 to start with there is no chance the SNP will get any list seats.'
Nobody can be _certain_ what will happen.
It says as much in my commentary.
People must evaluate the situation in their electoral region.
We can make educated deductions about what is more or less likely.
If you have an argument against ANYTHING that appears in my comment, or indeed in the rest of this thread, or indeed the article, then please make it.
Polling suggests that the SNP could win a majority of seats - all constituency - if there is a proportional swing in vote share across the country. They would simply be the largest if there is a uniform swing.
Your Party and Workers Party are not showing up in polling. Reform have consistently posted 18%-20%, constituency and list. The latter have been catastrophic for the Conservatives and harmful for Labour since the former's indicative vote share is 50% of its 2021 level while the latter is 20% down relatively on performance last time.
As things stand this suggests circa 20 seats for Reform (all List) whether you use a uniform or proportional method of mapping to parliamentary representation.
All indicators point towards 8% on this list being the threshold for gaining a seat (per region) so 8 seats if vote shares are evenly spread. Previously this has been around 6%.
Alba Party are barely registering. The other micro parties advocating 'Independence' are not registering at all. None will gain seats as things stand.
Of course, none of the above will benefit Scotland's cause in any event.
Correct! Any discussion based on the question of which party or parties best serves Scotland's cause is quite meaningless given that no party is proposing anything that would further that cause. But try telling people that!
Even if you're right, it makes it a choice between least bad - or not voting (or spoiling the ballot). For me the SNP is least bad, but they need to do more to get my vote in May - flat out for Independence and no progressive waffle.
But it will be either SNP 1 and SNP 2 to use the lingo - or spoil the ballot with INDEPENDENCE diagonally across it with all parties crossed out. The other parties are worth diddly squat.
Logically, if you accept that the current offering from the SNP is not an offer of Independence, and all the other nominally 'Independence' parties are similarly worthless, then the reasoning must then indeed turn from
'who is best for independence?'
towards
'who would be the least bad?'
For the Unionist parties to achieve a majority (of seats) could be catastrophically bad for our cause.
So then the 'hold your nose' and vote SNP constituency and the most likely nominally pro Independence party to get awarded a seat on the list would seem to be the strategy that maximises the utility of your one pair of votes.
Some might argue that repurposing your ballot paper is a gesture.
Similarly some might argue that choosing to not use your vote to block the Unionists is definitely contributing to a harm. :-(
Meanwhile, for all those saying 2011 was a fluke, and such a thing could never ever ever never happen again, the SNP will never get an overall majority, the latest MRP gives the SNP an overall majority - 67 seats. With the last poll last week giving them 64 seats (Yougov).
Now then, for those interested in squiggly graphs, at the rate of an extra 3 seats every week for the next 10 weeks, the SNP would end up with 97 seats (laughs). And for those adamant that the most current poll over 4 months away, oops 3 months away, oops just over 2 months away definitely projects the exact result of the election in May in the future, now it's absolutely certain (amusingly an anagram of "a cretin"), the SNP will achieve the overall majority Swinney is looking for (laughs).
But it does mean it's all to play for. Whatever it is we're actually playing for.
Most of the mappings from vote shares to seats assume a uniform swing. That is, the absolute change at national level will be reflected at constituency/region level e.g. a 10% reduction indicated for Conservatives overall in the constituency ballot will mean -10% for all constituencies compared to the previous actual election.
Another popular method is that which assumes a proportional swing. That is, the relative change at national level will be reflected at constituency/region level. e.g. a 10% reduction indicated for Conservatives is converted to a 50% proportional reduction if their 2021 result was 20% vote share. So the projected Conservative vote share for all constituencies will be calculated as half the previous actual election vote share.
The newspapers tend not to say which technique has been employed from poll to poll i.e. we don't know whether the projections are like for like.
In general recent poll projections of SNP in the high 50s in terms of seats reflect the uniform method whilst the proportional method points to SNP at around 63-64 seats.
Other methods like MRP are more complicated and can involve local seat information and other factors. I don't have knowledge of the mechanics of these.
But, as you say, even if it "does mean it's all to play for" we "don't what it is we're actually playing for". Or what the SNP is playing for, for that matter.
First time I've done this for some odd reason - worked out the list seats for the SNP in terms of divisor and nett percentages for each list seat. Last divisor / % pair for each region fail to get a seat, and being a table it looks a mess. I might clean it up and put it up on my wordpress as the table it is. Or not! Like many people it's hard being bothered.
SNP 2011 by Region Con Seats SNP List % List Seats Div % Div % Div % Div % Div %
You're right, it is hard being bothered. However, I managed to work myself up to be a little bit interested, just from a technical point of view:
In summary:
I used the 2021 actual vote shares and applied them to 2016 vote shares, then mapped to seats using a) uniform and b) proportional approaches.
Actual SNP vote share in 2016 was 47% (constituency) and 42% (list) and the respective 2021 actuals were 48% and 40%.
Seat projections for both seats were 63 and the actual result was 64. So very accurate (overall). This was the case for the other parties.
Then I did the same using an average of the 5 most recent polls for 2026 election from Ipsos, Find Out Now, Yougov, Norstat and Survation and applied changes to the 2021 actual result.
The upshot was quite different: Under a uniform swing the SNP projection was 59 seats whilst the proportional basis indicated 65 seats. Quite different. As were the projections for the other parties (when comparing the method outcomes).
The reason for the variance is that there is a big difference in vote share projected in 2026 compared to what occurred in 2021. For example, the SNP polling vote share for 2026 is around 34% compared to 48% actual in 2021 in the constituencies whilst the list vote share is indicated at 29% in 2026 versus 40% in the 2021 election.
The SNP 'gains' under the proportional method is generally due to the fact that the conservative vote share has halved (relatively) compared to 2021 whilst the SNP vote share has only dropped by a third (relatively) so they have picked up marginals like Ayr, Aberdeen West and Eastwood from the Tories.
So, on a substantially lower proportion of the vote the SNP may well get greater parliamentary representation. That would be a perverse but nonetheless plausible upshot.
It all depends whether vote share changes a) uniformly or b) proportionately. Or indeed whether c) votes share changes inconsistently across the country in which case all bets are off.
Yes. And while constituency seats can still be picked up with a far lower vote percentage because of the split vote, that doesn't work on the list. Divide 45% by 9 and it's 5% - still enough to maybe win a seat. Divide 52.7% by 11 and though that's 4.8%, there's only 47.3% to share between all other parties, even though none of them won a constituency seat.
Divide 36% by 9 and it's 4%, leaving 64% to share between other parties - I don't think any list seats have been won with that low a figure.
I only work out the list seats, not the constituency seats - I take a prediction of seats from scotlandvotes or whatever. And for the overall regional percentage I just divide the poll value by the previous actual, and then multiply each of the 8 regions by that factor. Well, the spreadsheet does once I set it up!
On the uniform simulation for 2026 I found that, after projecting votes shares for both ballots and allocating constituency seats on the basis of FPTP, the lowest net 'starting' vote share per seat won (for any party winning a seat) was 6.3%. The average net share per seat won was 9%.
Using the proportional method the average net vote share per seat won on this list was 9.5% with the minimum at 6.2%.
The actual floor was lower in 2011 than that which I have projected for 2026 (based on polls) is probably due to less real competition on the list - in this case there was no imposing presence in 2011 like that currently of Reform (where indications they get nothing in the constituencies thus have zero dilution to their regional vote).
There are so many vagaries in the allocation process that projecting seats can be highly erratic.
James Kelly rightly puts a few caveats on these projections.
The most important one being that there seems to be some assumption about tactical voting of Labour Party supporters in favour of the SNP in order to 'keep Reform out'.
As he implies it is quite difficult to second guess voter behaviour with 'what if Reform is doing well in your area' type scenarios. A bit like trying to project the effect of vote splitting between constituency and regional list and mapping to a nationwide result.
Another interesting story developing ( Alba)..while former prince hides...mandelson's lawyer angry that the polis could think he would flee to the Virgin Islands ( what did they do to deserve him ye huv tae ask) and William Windsor not in a good place( might huv tae show his accounts)....while Charles Windsor follows mum's rules..keep calm and carry on as tho nothing has happened...camilla showing the flag somewhere( who cares?) and Katherine in new outfit. Anne got a cheer ..but don't relax Ann ..you could be next.
So what's changed. while ye were oan the bus Peter?...nothing really...corruption ,lies, protestations galore, keep Scotland a prisoner... basically just the usual...and now it's Alba's turn.
Tried to pay the energy bill last night but TSB blocked my card..why? the amount seemed awfy high..(winter bill.)...after a few severe words with TSB fraud DEPT... apologies....meantime the good and great are ripping us off no end...
Unless Alba adopt the Scottish UDI strategy ah'm no donating...we do need another independence party...but no' another holy wullie effort...
Didn't anybody in Alba notice the embezzlement/stealing? TSB were quick off the mark wi' ane wee wumman....whit's the problem Alba..?
My attention now fixed on the american nuclear powered wee boat (threatening Iran )..that has nae lavvies...so if Alba have problems......
The broken-doon lavvies are one thing but a much bigger problem may be the operational-range of the the carrier's very clever and outrageously expensive aircraft, that's a problem that all the plumbers in the world wouldn't be able to fix.
Good point Carmen..but basics are everything..who's gonny fire the big guns when everybody's in a queue at the lavvy..plumbers included. I think there are 4,500 onboard...and if some are women!....the men are ok ..side of boat ..women?..world war 3 might break oot....
Nobody can form a new NEC without an internal election either. But that is what the statement suggests. Given that the intention is to stand candidates in May, there is hardly time for these internal elections. So, I guess this group of four - no surprises there - has some other process in mind.
Why are so many self-described supporters of Scottish Independence so reluctant to promote a policy which would bring that about?
Why do they prefer continuing with the idea of a plebiscite election (which would be ignored by London) or asking London for another referendum, which, if granted (unlikely), would be held under London rules and hove the same result as 2014!
It suggests that they do not really want our country to be free!
That's a good question. The best answer I can come up with is that people are lazy. They go with the simplest idea, even if it's a bad one. They want agency. But without effort. So, when political actors come along and present them with something that sounds effective while also being relatively effortless, they grab hold and won't let go.
The whole 'max the Yes' thing is a perfect example of this. There's a wee bit of arithmetic to make it look 'scientific', but the basic message is that this is easy. Just do this, and you get what you want.
As ever, it relies on nobody asking the awkward questions. Like, is that really what we want?
Meanwhile: "Waitrose to stop selling mackerel from Scottish waters in UK first"
Well. I'll never go shopping there ever again. Oh wait ... I never have.
The big problem with trying to predict the list is - analysing the 2011 actual list results - and working out divisors and nett percentages for each list seat actually won by the SNP.
With for instance 8 seats won in a region, the divisor is 9. If the percentage list vote is 36%, the nett % is 4.0, but if the vote is 45% the nett % is 5.0.
In 2011 Central Scotland with 6 constituency seats, 3 list seats were won with divisors of 7, 8 and 9 - nett percentages 6.6%, 5.8% and 5.2%.
H&I with 6 constituency, 3 list seats divisors 7, 8 and 9 - 6.8%, 5.9% and 5.4%.
Mid Scot with 8 constituency, still got 1 list seat divisor 9 nett 5.0%.
NE Scotland with 10, yes, all 10 constituency seats still got 1 list seat with divisor 11 nett 4.8%.
As possibly the only other person in Scotland still following along here ;-) I feel it necessary to point out the major issue with doing this type of comparison at this time with the data set that we have available.
This type of comparison is comparitive. It compares the known outcome from last time against the currently available polling results to make an estimation of the possible outcomes from those polling changes based on the estimated changes.
Unfortunately however the system that we will be operating with at the next election is not directly comparable with the system that was in operation at the previous election, because the changes in relative popularity of the existing 'contestants' is not the only significant change this time round.
The issue is that the number of electorally significant parties in contention for list seats at this election has increased substantially with the addition of 'your party' (England), 'reform' (England) and George Galloways 'Workers Party of Great Britain'.
The reason that this complicates the predictions is that now the number of parties that will be competing for seats under the Party List award system looks like it will now be substantially greater than the number of Party List seats available in each electoral region.
The reason that this is highly likely to significantly affect the result that we are primarily interested in, which is the number of Party List seats awarded to the SNP, is that the SNP with its high divisor will only be predicted to be allocated the last seat or very improbably the second last seat as other parties' divisors are incremented and thus their 'effective' number becomes reduced.
With 2 or 3 new parties with significant List votes and divisors of '1' having been added there now must be a very significantly reduced chance of this occurring in the way that it has done in the previous electoral calculations.
I have however not progressed further than this hand waiving style of logic primarily because the uncertainties are large, the margins tight and the data inadequate.
We cannot know how the regional Party List calculations will turn out until election night.
We can probably say with some certainty that 2 significant factors will combine to make it much harder for the SNP to be awarded Party List seats this time.
The first, simplest and most obvious is that under the semi-proportional 'Additional Member' 'make up' system the SNP has a much much lower proportion of the 'make up' vote than previously and thus similarly decreased chances of an award.
And the second confounding factor as described, the unknowable effect of the 3 'New' parties.
I have left out any mention of Alba as their polling is still far far below what can reasonably be expected as required to pass the (effective not explicit) Party List vote threshold.
As things stand if Alba were able to triple their vote from where it is reported now by current polling in the weeks remaining until Election Night they would still be unlikely to be awarded a single Party List seat.
All comments/contributions welcome.
But that wasn't a comparison or prediction, it was the actuals from 2011. It was real.
There are people "out there" saying that with 8 constituency seats in a region giving a divisor for the list seats of 9 to start with there is no chance the SNP will get any list seats. Well, that is totally wrong. In 2011 they got list seats in 4 out of the 8 regions with divisor of 9 in three of them, and 11 in one. There is absolutely NO formulaic reason that can't happen again.
Any comparison or projection should as a bare minimum, reflect history not fantasy.
I am really not sure what is the point that you are trying to make.
I am not going to engage with your knocking down the straw man that you just propped up:
'There are people "out there" saying that with 8 constituency seats in a region giving a divisor for the list seats of 9 to start with there is no chance the SNP will get any list seats.'
Nobody can be _certain_ what will happen.
It says as much in my commentary.
People must evaluate the situation in their electoral region.
We can make educated deductions about what is more or less likely.
If you have an argument against ANYTHING that appears in my comment, or indeed in the rest of this thread, or indeed the article, then please make it.
Polling suggests that the SNP could win a majority of seats - all constituency - if there is a proportional swing in vote share across the country. They would simply be the largest if there is a uniform swing.
Your Party and Workers Party are not showing up in polling. Reform have consistently posted 18%-20%, constituency and list. The latter have been catastrophic for the Conservatives and harmful for Labour since the former's indicative vote share is 50% of its 2021 level while the latter is 20% down relatively on performance last time.
As things stand this suggests circa 20 seats for Reform (all List) whether you use a uniform or proportional method of mapping to parliamentary representation.
All indicators point towards 8% on this list being the threshold for gaining a seat (per region) so 8 seats if vote shares are evenly spread. Previously this has been around 6%.
Alba Party are barely registering. The other micro parties advocating 'Independence' are not registering at all. None will gain seats as things stand.
Of course, none of the above will benefit Scotland's cause in any event.
Correct! Any discussion based on the question of which party or parties best serves Scotland's cause is quite meaningless given that no party is proposing anything that would further that cause. But try telling people that!
Even if you're right, it makes it a choice between least bad - or not voting (or spoiling the ballot). For me the SNP is least bad, but they need to do more to get my vote in May - flat out for Independence and no progressive waffle.
But it will be either SNP 1 and SNP 2 to use the lingo - or spoil the ballot with INDEPENDENCE diagonally across it with all parties crossed out. The other parties are worth diddly squat.
Logically, if you accept that the current offering from the SNP is not an offer of Independence, and all the other nominally 'Independence' parties are similarly worthless, then the reasoning must then indeed turn from
'who is best for independence?'
towards
'who would be the least bad?'
For the Unionist parties to achieve a majority (of seats) could be catastrophically bad for our cause.
So then the 'hold your nose' and vote SNP constituency and the most likely nominally pro Independence party to get awarded a seat on the list would seem to be the strategy that maximises the utility of your one pair of votes.
Some might argue that repurposing your ballot paper is a gesture.
Similarly some might argue that choosing to not use your vote to block the Unionists is definitely contributing to a harm. :-(
Meanwhile, for all those saying 2011 was a fluke, and such a thing could never ever ever never happen again, the SNP will never get an overall majority, the latest MRP gives the SNP an overall majority - 67 seats. With the last poll last week giving them 64 seats (Yougov).
Now then, for those interested in squiggly graphs, at the rate of an extra 3 seats every week for the next 10 weeks, the SNP would end up with 97 seats (laughs). And for those adamant that the most current poll over 4 months away, oops 3 months away, oops just over 2 months away definitely projects the exact result of the election in May in the future, now it's absolutely certain (amusingly an anagram of "a cretin"), the SNP will achieve the overall majority Swinney is looking for (laughs).
But it does mean it's all to play for. Whatever it is we're actually playing for.
Most of the mappings from vote shares to seats assume a uniform swing. That is, the absolute change at national level will be reflected at constituency/region level e.g. a 10% reduction indicated for Conservatives overall in the constituency ballot will mean -10% for all constituencies compared to the previous actual election.
Another popular method is that which assumes a proportional swing. That is, the relative change at national level will be reflected at constituency/region level. e.g. a 10% reduction indicated for Conservatives is converted to a 50% proportional reduction if their 2021 result was 20% vote share. So the projected Conservative vote share for all constituencies will be calculated as half the previous actual election vote share.
The newspapers tend not to say which technique has been employed from poll to poll i.e. we don't know whether the projections are like for like.
In general recent poll projections of SNP in the high 50s in terms of seats reflect the uniform method whilst the proportional method points to SNP at around 63-64 seats.
Other methods like MRP are more complicated and can involve local seat information and other factors. I don't have knowledge of the mechanics of these.
But, as you say, even if it "does mean it's all to play for" we "don't what it is we're actually playing for". Or what the SNP is playing for, for that matter.
First time I've done this for some odd reason - worked out the list seats for the SNP in terms of divisor and nett percentages for each list seat. Last divisor / % pair for each region fail to get a seat, and being a table it looks a mess. I might clean it up and put it up on my wordpress as the table it is. Or not! Like many people it's hard being bothered.
SNP 2011 by Region Con Seats SNP List % List Seats Div % Div % Div % Div % Div %
Central Scotland 6 46.4 3 7 6.6 8 5.8 9 5.2 10 4.6
Glasgow 5 39.8 2 6 6.6 7 5.7 8 5.0
Highland and Islands 6 47.5 3 7 6.8 8 5.9 9 5.3 10 4.8
Lothian 8 39.2 0 9 4.4
Mid Scot and Fife 8 45.2 1 9 5.0 10 4.5
NE Scotland 10 52.7 1 11 4.8 12 4.4
South Scotland 4 41.0 4 5 8.2 6 6.8 7 5.9 8 5.1 9 4.6
West Scotland 6 41.5 2 7 5.9 8 5.2 9 4.6
Total SNP MSPs 53 16
You're right, it is hard being bothered. However, I managed to work myself up to be a little bit interested, just from a technical point of view:
In summary:
I used the 2021 actual vote shares and applied them to 2016 vote shares, then mapped to seats using a) uniform and b) proportional approaches.
Actual SNP vote share in 2016 was 47% (constituency) and 42% (list) and the respective 2021 actuals were 48% and 40%.
Seat projections for both seats were 63 and the actual result was 64. So very accurate (overall). This was the case for the other parties.
Then I did the same using an average of the 5 most recent polls for 2026 election from Ipsos, Find Out Now, Yougov, Norstat and Survation and applied changes to the 2021 actual result.
The upshot was quite different: Under a uniform swing the SNP projection was 59 seats whilst the proportional basis indicated 65 seats. Quite different. As were the projections for the other parties (when comparing the method outcomes).
The reason for the variance is that there is a big difference in vote share projected in 2026 compared to what occurred in 2021. For example, the SNP polling vote share for 2026 is around 34% compared to 48% actual in 2021 in the constituencies whilst the list vote share is indicated at 29% in 2026 versus 40% in the 2021 election.
The SNP 'gains' under the proportional method is generally due to the fact that the conservative vote share has halved (relatively) compared to 2021 whilst the SNP vote share has only dropped by a third (relatively) so they have picked up marginals like Ayr, Aberdeen West and Eastwood from the Tories.
So, on a substantially lower proportion of the vote the SNP may well get greater parliamentary representation. That would be a perverse but nonetheless plausible upshot.
It all depends whether vote share changes a) uniformly or b) proportionately. Or indeed whether c) votes share changes inconsistently across the country in which case all bets are off.
Yes. And while constituency seats can still be picked up with a far lower vote percentage because of the split vote, that doesn't work on the list. Divide 45% by 9 and it's 5% - still enough to maybe win a seat. Divide 52.7% by 11 and though that's 4.8%, there's only 47.3% to share between all other parties, even though none of them won a constituency seat.
Divide 36% by 9 and it's 4%, leaving 64% to share between other parties - I don't think any list seats have been won with that low a figure.
I only work out the list seats, not the constituency seats - I take a prediction of seats from scotlandvotes or whatever. And for the overall regional percentage I just divide the poll value by the previous actual, and then multiply each of the 8 regions by that factor. Well, the spreadsheet does once I set it up!
On the uniform simulation for 2026 I found that, after projecting votes shares for both ballots and allocating constituency seats on the basis of FPTP, the lowest net 'starting' vote share per seat won (for any party winning a seat) was 6.3%. The average net share per seat won was 9%.
Using the proportional method the average net vote share per seat won on this list was 9.5% with the minimum at 6.2%.
The actual floor was lower in 2011 than that which I have projected for 2026 (based on polls) is probably due to less real competition on the list - in this case there was no imposing presence in 2011 like that currently of Reform (where indications they get nothing in the constituencies thus have zero dilution to their regional vote).
There are so many vagaries in the allocation process that projecting seats can be highly erratic.
We're really dealing in best guess scenarios.
Meanwhile this from Scotland's other psephologist:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25886417.poll-finds-snp-majority-scottish-election-red-flag/
https://archive.is/3VhxH
James Kelly rightly puts a few caveats on these projections.
The most important one being that there seems to be some assumption about tactical voting of Labour Party supporters in favour of the SNP in order to 'keep Reform out'.
As he implies it is quite difficult to second guess voter behaviour with 'what if Reform is doing well in your area' type scenarios. A bit like trying to project the effect of vote splitting between constituency and regional list and mapping to a nationwide result.
Another interesting story developing ( Alba)..while former prince hides...mandelson's lawyer angry that the polis could think he would flee to the Virgin Islands ( what did they do to deserve him ye huv tae ask) and William Windsor not in a good place( might huv tae show his accounts)....while Charles Windsor follows mum's rules..keep calm and carry on as tho nothing has happened...camilla showing the flag somewhere( who cares?) and Katherine in new outfit. Anne got a cheer ..but don't relax Ann ..you could be next.
So what's changed. while ye were oan the bus Peter?...nothing really...corruption ,lies, protestations galore, keep Scotland a prisoner... basically just the usual...and now it's Alba's turn.
Tried to pay the energy bill last night but TSB blocked my card..why? the amount seemed awfy high..(winter bill.)...after a few severe words with TSB fraud DEPT... apologies....meantime the good and great are ripping us off no end...
Unless Alba adopt the Scottish UDI strategy ah'm no donating...we do need another independence party...but no' another holy wullie effort...
Didn't anybody in Alba notice the embezzlement/stealing? TSB were quick off the mark wi' ane wee wumman....whit's the problem Alba..?
My attention now fixed on the american nuclear powered wee boat (threatening Iran )..that has nae lavvies...so if Alba have problems......
For OUR Scotland whose weans have got lavvies.
The broken-doon lavvies are one thing but a much bigger problem may be the operational-range of the the carrier's very clever and outrageously expensive aircraft, that's a problem that all the plumbers in the world wouldn't be able to fix.
Good point Carmen..but basics are everything..who's gonny fire the big guns when everybody's in a queue at the lavvy..plumbers included. I think there are 4,500 onboard...and if some are women!....the men are ok ..side of boat ..women?..world war 3 might break oot....
One can only imagine the scene..I'll stop there.
I believe the 'Group of 4' behind the statement comprises Tommy Sheridan, Suzanne Blackley, Angus Brendan MacNeil and Christina Hendry.
AB MacNeil is a strong proponent of declaring the upcoming Scottish Parliament poll a 'plebiscitary election'.
Maybe this will change in the light of the recent developments ... but maybe not.
Either way Kenny MacAskill has made it clear that nobody can takeover the leadership of the party without an internal election.
Nobody can form a new NEC without an internal election either. But that is what the statement suggests. Given that the intention is to stand candidates in May, there is hardly time for these internal elections. So, I guess this group of four - no surprises there - has some other process in mind.
Why are so many self-described supporters of Scottish Independence so reluctant to promote a policy which would bring that about?
Why do they prefer continuing with the idea of a plebiscite election (which would be ignored by London) or asking London for another referendum, which, if granted (unlikely), would be held under London rules and hove the same result as 2014!
It suggests that they do not really want our country to be free!
That's a good question. The best answer I can come up with is that people are lazy. They go with the simplest idea, even if it's a bad one. They want agency. But without effort. So, when political actors come along and present them with something that sounds effective while also being relatively effortless, they grab hold and won't let go.
The whole 'max the Yes' thing is a perfect example of this. There's a wee bit of arithmetic to make it look 'scientific', but the basic message is that this is easy. Just do this, and you get what you want.
As ever, it relies on nobody asking the awkward questions. Like, is that really what we want?