In the aftermath of the local elections I heard a fair bit of whining from SNP supporters about the media coverage of the result. Nothing new there I guess, the SNP have long employed the technique of 'working the refs', a tactic that has worked well for the right-wing in the US, (essentially if you keep accusing the media of being biased against you persistently enough, and for long enough they may start to cut you some slack even if there isn't a significant bias (See Eric Alterman's excellent book 'What Liberal media?' for details of how this works). So it hardly comes as any surprised that the SNP are dissapointed or angry with the reporting.That aside, what is the nationalist complaint? Well it seems they percieve, or rather, they would like you to percieve that the media was virtually portraying the local elections as a Tory victory when it was the SNP who actually won a huge victory and this was all but ignored, or even portrayed as them doing badly.
On the face of it there is an element of truth in there, the SNP did very well in the local elections especially when you consider that they've been in power in Holyrood for 10 years. But of course being in power at Holyrood is not quite the same as being in power at Westminster in the way it affects people's perception of you (especially if your number one strategy is blaming Westminster for almost anything bad), but all the same parties in power do perhaps tend to lose their luster after a term or two so the fact that the SNP has seemingly held its vote is impressive, or is it...?
I think we all know that in Scotland in recent years there is another dimension to all political voting, arguably it's the element that now dominates, and that is of course the issue of independence. The nearly two years of campaigning, associated propaganda and mud-slinging (from both sides) that preceded the 2014 referendum changed the Scottish political landscape dramatically and arguably reset all metrics and expectations associated with voting, the 2015 general election underlined how much things had changed, comparisons between pre and post 2014 voting patterns don't account for this.
When viewed through the lens of nationalist expectation the SNP's result in the 2017 local elections is dissapointing (for them). I know some who were indeed dissapointed, their own expectations were that SNP would be left with majorities in many of the local authorities, and as the largest party in almost all. They also hoped to recieve a share of the vote well into the forties, just like in 2014 (44.7%), 2015 (49.9%) and 2016 (46.5% of constituency votes) and show that the momentum is still strong...
In the event the SNP had no majorities and were the largest group in around half of councils, they recieved 32.3% of the vote, giving them 35.1% of seats. A pretty good showing but well below the mid to high forties that would fit with other recent acheivements. However, local elections are quite diffrent in nature from Holyrood and Westminster votes, there tends to be more independent candidates and perhaps a greater tenedency for voters to choose the candidate over the party; these can muddy the waters further. Thus maybe the best comparison of how the SNP are doing is with previous council elections.
Undertaking a comparison with their previous performance in the 2012 local elections is a difficult business because there have been many ward boundary changes in between. This means that an direct comparison of seats is not possible, or at least it's possible but it could give an inaccurate picture of any changes (or lack of) in voting pattern. Trying to account for this has given ammunition to those SNP supporters who want to perpetuate the media bias meme. The word from the activists is that the SNP won 6 more seats than in 2012 and 107,000 more votes, i.e. that they are doing better (see David Hayman on Question Time recently for how this is the narrative the faithful have decided to pursue) . But quoting those figures out of their context doesn't really tell you much about how the population voted compared to 2012.
The BBC attempted to resolve this problem of significant boundary changes by using recalculated 'notional' figures for the 2012 elections that treated those votes as if they had been cast under the new 2017 boundaries, these figures were calculated by Prof David Denver at Lancaster University who has been studying UK elections for decades. However his figures are based on both direct electoral arithmetic and some educated assumtions about vote disdribution in some wards to fill in gaps, They perhaps offer a slightly more realistic comparison of the results, but by Denver's own admission, it's a bit rough. These results suggest that 'notionally' the SNP 'lost' seven seats on what they would have had in 2013 under current ward boundaries. Reporting this discrepancy is of course food for the nationalists cries of media bias but frankly it makes little difference, plus 6 or minus 7, it is a tiny shift and essentially suggests that not much changed. Similarly The claim that the SNP vote increased by 107k also reveals very little when scrutinised in context.
In 2012 the SNP recieved 503,233 votes on a 39.6% turnout (you can see how popular voting for councillors is), and indeed they did get lots more votes this time around: the 2017 total was 610,454. And while that looks like an impressive increase in support, it isn't really, it's merely a reflection of a higher turnout in 2017; 46.9% in fact. In order to see if SNP support increased we really need to correct for that significant increase in turnout. Thus we must compare the percentage share of the vote, in 2012 the SNP drew 32.33% of first pref votes, in 2017 they 32.3% which is a tiny reduction, close enough to say that essentially they stood still.
Therefore in terms of their share of the vote and in councillors elected the SNP have merely maintained their 2012 performance, the recent outcome was not significantly better or worse. As I've already said, this is pretty good going for a party that has 'been in power' for a while. But given that the 2012 elections took place long before the aforementioned impact of the independence referendum and the subsequent massive upswell in support for all things SNP then it is actually surprising that they didn't do significantly better than their 2012 results. If you took these council results and directly compared them with the previous three polls (Holyrood, Westminster and Independence) you might conclude that SNP support has significantly fallen from mid forties to low 30's. However I think council elections are different enough from other national votes to make this a dodgy comparison but all the same it might just be an indication that support, or at least enthusiasm for the nationalist message is falling back, especially when you consider that the nationalists were expected by many to be much better at mobilising their voters. Frankly if I was an SNP supporter I'd be dissapointed, but probably only mildly concerned.
On the other hand there are the Tories. Often written off as an irrelevance in Scotland in recent years and that is a theme that is doggedly promoted by many an SNP supporter and was at one time by Labour too, but amusingly Labour stopped making panda jokes sometime in early 2015! The tories came a distant second to the SNP with 25.3% of the vote (up from 13.27%) but that is getting on for an almost doubling of first preference support in 2012. They also increased their seats by either 161 or 164 depending on wether you make a notional comparison; either way they more than doubled their representation. They were left largest or joint largest group in around 20% of councils. They are now pushing ahead of Labour in votes and seats. It's definetly a more interesting story than" SNP vote stays steady", can you blame the media for highlighting it. For those tempted to still try and argue that the Tory 25.5% of the vote is irrelevant, then it's worth remembering that it's not that long ago since the SNP was polling in the mid twenties in some elections (Local Elections 2007: 27.9% and 2003 24.1%, Holyrood 2003: 23.7%, and 1999 28.7% or Westminster 2001: 20.1%, and 2005: 17.7% ) once a party loses or gains favour changes can be quick....ask Labour!
So what happened, why did the SNP's vote stay pretty much the same as 2012? did all those extra people energised by the 2014 referendum stay at home? Or did the Tories managed to persuade large numbers of residual Labour voters to switch to them? Certainly there seems to have been a fall in Labour votes nearly as impressive as the Tory increase. An SNP supporter I discussed this with was somewhat dismissive of the Tory performance and claimed that those extra votes came to them just because of their stance on independence, but I pointed out that is the same single issue that has given the SNP a big boost in other ballots in the last few years. I would agree that the Tory campaign was woefully dependent on the issue of independence when it should have focussed more on local services and governance, but if the SNP insist on continuing to dangle a sword of Damocles over Scotland and dominate both Scottish representation in Holyrood and Westminster it's only to be expected that significant numbers of people will begin to look for any other way to get their voice heard.
I could speculate further on the meaning of the local results but I guess in a few weeks we'll see for sure if 'peak nat' has passed or if the these local elections were just a mere blip on the SNP's journey.
