Could AS 4 FM ruse have changed the course of history?

Yesterday's events in the Scottish Parliament - serving as a reminder that the First Minister is actually chosen by MSPs and indeed formally appointed by the Queen - brought to mind polling day a fortnight ago.

For personal and local reasons I decided not to vote for the SNP in the constituency vote, opting instead for the Labour candidate (as I recall it this was my first ever such vote). However, since the national poll was a two-horse race and Labour were distinctly overwhelming overall, my intention was to endorse the SNP via the list vote.

But I was sufficiently annoyed by the "Alex Salmond for First Minister" ruse employed by the Nationalists on the list ballot paper that my vote actually ended up, er, elsewhere, since unfortunately this seemed all too symptomatic of the kind of chicanery employed by politicians to hoodwink the public, and which helps bring the whole political system into disrepute.

As I opined in this letter published in Scotland on Sunday a couple of weeks before the poll, as well as representing cheap sloganeering which should have no place on the ballot paper the phrase could also mislead the public into thinking that they were voting directly for Alex Salmond, and also that this vote was cast in some kind of quasi-presidential contest.

However, several sources of evidence seen subsequently confirmed the impression that the intention was to mislead rather than to merely sloganeer.

First, a full page newspaper advertisement featured a portrait-style photograph of Mr Salmond, and prominently featured was the following text (and graphic), which read:

ON MAY 5, BOTH VOTES SNP.

Alex Salmond for First Minister SNP X

Your local SNP candidate SNP X


The juxtaposition of the 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' phrase from the list ballot paper with the text 'Your local SNP candidate' from the constituency paper surely exacerbates the misleading impression.

This was yet further underlined by various leaflets distributed both locally and nationally, which additionally included text along the lines of that shown in the graphic above, viz: "First, vote to re-elect Alex Salmond as First Minister. Then vote for your local SNP candidate".

Similarly, an SNP promotional video featuring celebrity backer Elaine C Smith featured the comedienne saying:

"What you do is look down there for Alex Salmond's name, put a cross next to that and that's you voting for him". [...]

"Vote for Alex Salmond on the salmon coloured paper".

At around the same time a Scottish Sunday Express article quoted Sir Sean Connery as saying:

“If you want Alex Salmond to be First Minister you have to vote for the SNP on both ballot papers.

“The salmon coloured one is for the list vote, which decides the First Minister and the government of Scotland.”

With some irony, during a Channel 4 News interview following the SNP's victory, Ms Smith said: "We've got a very sophisticated electorate in Scotland who understand completely the way our voting system works".

Which combined with the video suggests that she herself doesn't have a clue how the system works, or alternatively that she's patronising voters and treating them as if they're zipped up at the back, à la Mary Doll in Rab C Nesbitt.

As for the other actor (and knight bachelor), it's perhaps more charitable to suggest that as a resident of the Bahamas he's unaware of how the Holyrood ballot works rather than deliberately trying to mislead those of us actually living here, but considering the fuss the Nationalists (and SNP supporters in particular) made of Iain Gray's retreat into a sandwich shop, it's surely hypocritical to exploit in this way someone who left the country rather than stay to fight for his beliefs.

Of course, the SNP did have some kind of official explanation for all of this, but it was entirely lost on yours truly, presumably because it was either total bull or that I lack the necessary sophistication.

Anyway, apologies if I've got it wrong, but as I recall it was along the lines that MSPs elected via the list vote were more important to the subsequent selection of the First Minister than the constituency MSPs.

Which seems ridiculous in view of the fact that the latter substantially outnumber the former, and all MSPs have an equal vote as regards the choice of First Minister.

And it seems that the experts consider that this time round the SNP performed better in the constituencies than in the regions anyway, but of course the latter is a voting system corollary of the former.

But - and eventually cutting to the chase of the post title - could the AS 4 FM skulduggery have materially influenced the result, and to that extent perhaps made the difference between a minority Holyrood administration and the actual majority SNP Government, hence an independence referendum and a whole host of other measures which would have been impossible with a minority, and thus fundamental to the history of Scotland and the United Kingdom?

Well this blogger certainly lacks the sophistication to provide the definitive answer to that question - the dominance of the SNP in the constituencies anyway perhaps suggesting an answer in the negative - but what's in any case disappointing is that the SNP adopted this essentially dishonest strategy in the first place, presumably on the assumption that it would gain more votes than those lost (from those like myself irritated by the whole thing) and to that extend influence the result.

Of course, the basis of the whole thing was to put the emphasis on the popular Mr Salmond rather than the more anonymous list candidates, who the vast majority of the public will never have heard of, which will unfortunately still be the case at the end of their term.

Ironic, then, that during the campaign Mr Salmond dismissed suggestions that his party was a one-man-band by claiming it was an "orchestra". Thus a tad inconsistent with trying to portray the poll as 'Alex Salmond for President', but if it's not a one-man-band then the SNP is certainly more Rod Stewart and the Faces than the pipes and drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.

And it's also unclear why the opposition didn't make a bit of a fuss about this issue - rather than Labour's ludicrous complaint about the free Midge Ure concert, for example - but perhaps Labour thought this would invite scorn along the lines of an 'Iain Gray for First Minister' comparison, and of course ridicule seems as important in politics as substance.