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Thanks that chart is very useful. Setting a couple of alarms based on it. Question that occurs to me- if the SNP manage to avoid catastrophe, will they have Patrick Harvie to thank for pulling the plug on Yousaf?

I remember being in Glasgow the day before the referenda, and the vile supporters and members who took over George Sq and central Glasgow, would mean I would never vote for separation, being called names and spat on, showed the true inner self of the SNP.

the SNP could win no seats, and still say, they have a mandate!

Constituency names. I remember in 1987 general election canvassing in Byres Road with some people who’d come from England. One asked an old lady if she was from Hillhead. “No I’m from Anniesland”. I explained to supporter this was in Hillhead constituency too.

Thanks for the wallchart. I won't worry about pacing myself- Lidl are doing 15 cans of Carlsberg for 8 quid.

Was it not David Dimbleby who announced on the Brexit vote "We are out" when he came on air citing the exit poll. Also Joanna Cherry trying to distance herself from the SNP party line is a bit late as she towed the party line with regards to protecting Patrick Grady . I support her with regards to woman's rights but the Grady escapade was unforgivable for me. I'm also a constituent so will not be voting for her.

Weapons Grade Horsesh1t - love it!

Massie is spot on and for the past couple of years I have been saying the same ie people want housing,health,jobs,economy sorted . Independence is the last thing on their minds. So pushing independence right now is like your partner talking about what holiday to go on when the water is pouring in the hole in the roof.

Ben Jackson The Case for Scottish Independence: A History of Nationalist Political Thought in Modern Scotland An excellent book that should be mandatory reading in Scotland although may not answer the question on total political coverage

Well, I suppose the English National Party could take its standards from its Scottish neighbours pristine behaviour. As for Ms Rowling, I think you should never underestimate the power of the Potter factor - the '9 3/4' group are as powerful as the 'Swifties'. Plus, most sane people in the real world agree with her.

Always said it swinney krankies bum boy still is same with the rest of the cabinet not a brain between them it's embarrassing

The winner is always the one with the most seats no matter what way Bernard tries to spin it 😂

Don't worry boys now Honest John Swinneys in Charlie He will take you to the promise Land

I did like the 'Ivory Tower' question (and your responses). My take is that, at the moment, the £600kgate, iPadGate and StampGate (!) are not topics being discussed in the bar over dominoes or even on the 'bus going into town. It matters not. If you think the SNP are bampots then these things just provide 'reinforcement' of your views. Ardent supporters just see this as mere hoakhum and just re-inforces their view of this being little more than nit-picking. Eacj group knows whose in the 'other' group and no one then seeks to discuss them. Middle of the road, undecided voters, probably just keep their thoughts to themselves. Rather supported by your observation that polls have not moved mcuh.

Quite remarkable that Alex Massie insists that the No vote should be respected yet never mentions that promises made to secure that No vote be delivered. Scotland was promised huge constitutional change, even more so as the polls showed Yes pulling ahead. Yet it was all watered down by Smith Comm. and every nationalist amendment rejected. People expected vast new powers. Home rule 'near to federalism was promised' - if Scotland merely had been delivered the home rule enjoyed by the Faroe Islands, our nation could have chosen to remain in the EU. No voters were betrayed as much as Yes voters. Alex is unfortunately an apologist for perfidious albion.

Never mind, Nigel, the Russian foreign ministry thinks you rock. 😄

Massie doesn't half talk utter pish

solidarity from wales, got yourselves a sub

62% 2016??? Laugh :)

Cracking shirt Alex.

Interestingly, I have picked up the frustrations amongst pollsters at the incompleteness of the 2022 Scottish census. This makes building the soci-economic base framework more challenging

What about Glasgow Warriors beat South African Bulls , in R S A . Come on - winning the PRC. Come on let's celebrate Scottish victories.

218 Subscribers? Well done. 🙂

Go Dorothy

I don’t like the snp but I WANT INDEPENDENCE

More than 50% of the electorate - that's FPTP Democracy, last time it was 55% stay in the Union.

This is a wonderdul tribute. A fantastic oral history of Scottish journalism too! Hope Liz and the family see it.

There is also the element of sheer fatigue on the part of any party that has been long in government, true of the Conservatives in Westminster just as much as the SNP in Edinburgh. Somehow, for no particular reason, a party suddenly becomes serially accident-prone. 😮‍💨

Not going to convince many people. 2014 wasn’t “close” as Elder said. 25% more voted no than voted yes.

Bower’s description of Starmer’s approach seems to me the classic social democratic one - slowly, gradually, not revolutionary so that achieve changes to last. Same differentiation made between the Labour SDP people and the Labour left.

I do like the notion of getting Dyno-Rod in to clear-out the SNP Front-Bench.

Why did Keir decide to go into politics later in his life?

quislings

My gran, Emily Swankie, was a Communist Party candidate at some election in Clydebank in the 1970s. One constituent yelled from a third floor temement ''I'm no voting Communist so I threw yer leaflet in the fire! '. Mrs Swankie yelled back: 'I'd throw you in after it, but shite doesn't burn'. Those were the days ...

Absolutely superb to see you both get together and put out a superb podcast. Two of my favourite correspondents. 👏

Another high quality episode , very prescient on Douglas Ross. On a similar theme to Stephen Flynn, do Bernard and Alex think there any "likely to lose" MPs who would make significant reinforcements to their group at Holyrood? I am very impressed by Stuart McDonald in Glasgow South (More than the other Stuart McDonald the SNP treasurer. Though he gets big marks for courage in the Appleby sense of the word) he could be out. Jamie Stone the lib dem who could be out of luck up north. This game maybe too SNP centric since they are likely to lose more seats than anyone else so feel free to throw in anyone from down south you could see as a future mayor or similar. People with bright political futures, running to be re-elected at this election, but will have to see those futures realised outside of Westminster.

Question from left field for Mr. Ponsonby and Mr. Massie. During the last Parliament, Douglas Ross was famously ignored by PM Johnson. Jacob Rees-Mogg mocked Mr. Ross for calling on PM Johnson to resign. Is PM Sunak's D Day error justification for Scottish independence? It looks like Scotland's political leaders, from all parties, would do a better job as PM than PM Sunak.

I'm using this podcast almost exclusively to follow the GE campaign, as I can no longer tolerate the news!

Canadian viewer. I thought Professor Henderson did a solid explanation of Canada 93. I would just add, how angry is the UK tory voting electorate ? Real Anger at anti inflation policy, constitutional nonsense, and bad economic management after the US free trade deal. Predicting Conservatives with less than 100 seats. Hope Scotland does better with a new Westminster government. Scotland deserves better. This is an excellent podcast, and I look forward to further videos.😊

Not the boundary commission’s fault I suppose but new seats and names make it hard for the public to make a connection or know what their seat is. Glasgow East contains large areas south of the Clyde which aren’t conceivably “east” as understood by Glaswegians, Banff and Buchan becomes Aberdeen North and Moray East losing long standing name. Alex made the point but where I live in south Glasgow is really community-wise part of East Renfrewshire ( the boundary just arbitrarily half way down some streets) or East Ren is really part of south Glasgow. Something more radical needed.

I really disliked the debate format. I'm a definite Labour voter and really quite like Starmer, but I felt Sunak really took advantage of the format, putting questions to Starmer, he did succintly state the headline Tory policies, clear attack lines and talking over the moderator to get his point across. Starmer really did poorly in the format, he had ample opportunity to challenge Sunak's £2000 tax but didn't and when the moderator gave him chance to he instead spoke about Liz Truss, he put almost no questions to Sunak, when asked to answer Sunak's questions he didn't but instead attacked Tories, and spent ages rambling on before actually getting to the point. Starmer made clear that the Tories are responsible for the past 14 years, and reminded people of Truss, but I can't say he succeeded in much else. Sunak made definite better use of the format than Starmer. They both knew the format in advance, Starmer really could have prepared better for the specific format. Also, we now know that the biggest talking points after the debate are Sunak's attack lines and Starmer's inability to rebuke them. Whilst I don't think the format of the debate allowed there to be a clear 'winner', the talk after the debate focusing on whether Sunak's £2000 attack line was correct certainly makes people question if Labour are going to be increasing taxes, even if its not £2000, are they thinking they will still be taxed another £500 more? Or £1000 more? Based on the afterath of the debate, Sunak definitely got the upper hand. They both handled Gaza well though. Was fairly clear ITV didn't really want to go near Gaza only allowing one question and minimal talking points, and neither Starmer nor Sunak interrupted or questioned each other, which I suspect was intentional as they both wanted to move on to the next topic pretty quickly.

Fully agree with the critique of the format. Much better to have each leader face the audience by themselves, possibly with a panel of experts to fact check, plus a moderator to ensure no waffling. The current format provides little substance.

Alex and Bernard offer a fascinating analysis of the leader's debate. Immediately after the debate, a YouGov poll showed 51% support for Sunak and 49% for Starmer. Accordingly, Alex believes both sides will be reasonably happy with their leaders' performances. Bernard criticised the format for stifling serious debate. He stated: 'Let's be absolutely clear, this was not a serious debate about serious issues'. Bernard lamented that crucial issues to the country's future were being shoehorned 'into answers 45 seconds long'. He characterised the format as ' just a form of entertainment'. He was unhappy with the constant interruptions and the limited time to provide substantial answers. Alex and Bernard provided a perceptive 'match analysis' of the leaders' performances and how this resonated with their strategic goals. They also lamented that the studio audience could not ask live questions. Congratulations to Alex, Bernard and Paul for an excellent podcast.

Really enjoyed this.

Well done to Alex, Bernard, and Paul. This was insightful and engaging. Bernard's discussion of chairing TV debates was fascinating. Congratulations.

Very interesting to hear a non-English perspective. Good luck with future episodes, I will be listening from far down south in Hereford

Good first episode, thanks gents. Couple of question if you take Qs from listeners? 1) Do Alex or Bernard have any thoughts on the idea that 'Cleggmania' protected the lib dems against an even worse squeeze than they would have experienced absent it ? They did gain a point in vote share, but that shook out as loss of 5 seats because of FPTP. 2)Bernard's explanation of how the indy debate audience was assembled was fascinating , but does he or Alex know if that was a one off for the big occasion? Given how many Scottish leader debates we have each cycle I kind of doubt they do as much each time. And the BBC does question time weekly seems a waste of licence fee money to do that every single week. Are either host aware if the more 'normal' debates lack the rigour Bernard described?

Good to hear another podcast talking about Scottish Politics. Enjoyed the first episode 👏👏👏

excellent 👍