Scottish Labour has, somewhat ironically, 2007 Twitter followers going into today’s cavalcade of tweets aimed at the SNP and its supposed 100 broken promises. It will be interesting to see how many followers there will be come 5pm.

Indeed, if I had the time or organisational savviness, I would suggest a counter-campaign that would actively encourage Tweeters to unfollow @ScottishLabour in protest at their hitherto relentlessly negative campaigning. Halving the number by the end of today would be a challenge but an achievement in itself.

Aside from everything else planned for today, there have been 135 tweets in total from this account so far and they have been riddled with errors and spelling mistakes. With 100 messages to type in 8 hours, it’s graduation day for whoever the young scribe is behind the keyboard.

The big question is whether Labour will succeed with a negative campaign if this tone is to continue. Call me an idealist if you will but ‘vote Labour cos the Scottish Futures Trust is taking a wee bit longer than hoped’ isn’t all that inspiring and certainly not convincing enough to prove that Iain Gray and his team are the right choice for 2011-15. The big idea remains outstanding.

I just hope many party strategists, and indeed individual candidates, can reconsider what the Parliament is there for. There seems to be a lack of focus surrounding what the objective of devolution currently is and we just end up with playground antics instead. Over the past several weeks we’ve seen Wendy Alexander and David McLetchie harrass and harangue visiting academics seemingly for partisan gain, Iain Gray clumsily insult Montenegro just to get one over on the Nats and the SNP administration grind to a halt in readiness for the coming election just to boost its chances of reelection. Where is the consensual politics and the new dawn that we were promised?

Mind you, you get what you vote for in this world and if we want negativity then we already have a frontrunner. There will be 99 red balloons punted up in the air today, (and I say 99 rather than 100 as the ‘dumping of student debt’ goes down as a bona fide broken promise for me). These balloons will either take Labour to new heights or get snagged on the lower branches.

If you’re hoping for the latter, and happen to be on Twitter, perhaps not following @ScottishLabour online to reflect how little you follow them offline is worth considering…

The first major Holyrood poll of 2011 has provided the perfect opportunity for me to try out my new ‘election predictor’ file. The theory is simple – apply the change from the 2007 results for constituencies and regions to the constituency and regions poll data. So, for example, if the Conservatives received 20,000 Glasgow votes in 2007 and their share of the vote has dropped from 20% to 10% then they will now be awarded 10,000 votes in the 2011 d’Hondt formula. It is an approach devoid of human judgement and it yields the below expectation for May 5th for the following vote

Poll result
Labour – 49%/47%
SNP – 33%/33%
Conservatives – 9%/9%
Lib Dems – 7%/7%
Green – -/3%

Seats (party – FPTP/regional/total)
Labour 55/13/68
SNP 15/30/45
Lib Dems 2/6/8
Conservative 1/6/7
Greens 0/0/0

The tightest constituency would be Orkney which the Lib Dems would hold (over Labour) by only 48 votes and the tightest seat between SNP and Labour would be Dundee East which this polls suggests Labour will win by 173 votes.

The clear overall result is that Labour is on track to romp home with a remarkable majority of 3 MSPs. A clean sweep of FPTP seats in Central, Glasgow, Lothians and the West is the engine behind this streaking ahead of the field, a result that would see a return to the old status quo of Labour hegemony north of the border. Interestingly, the SNP would see an increase in MSPs, gain 2 FPTP Aberdeen seats (from the Lib Dems) and would make large gains in the regional seats. Both Labour and the SNP win a higher proportion of seats than their percentage vote share. (53% to 47% and 35% to 33% respectively)

However, even with the Lib Dems and Conservatives in apparent freefall, the SNP can only make minimal benefit with Labour taking the lion’s share of the moves in votes. So much so that Labour is now on course to win two regional MSPs in Glasgow.

While a Labour List MSP in Glasgow has seemed unlikely in previous elections, it does make sense if > 56% of Glaswegians vote for Iain Gray’s party. There are 9 FPTP seats and 7 regional spots so perhaps it is not worth advising Labour voters to vote tactically with their second vote after all.

The Greens cut something of a forlorn figure on zero MSPs but hopefully, in the absence of an election campaign, these numbers will increase as the poll date draws closer. Nonetheless, it must be concerning for Patrick Harvie’s party that there is no evidence in the above figures that a Lib Dem decline will equate to a Green surge, despite the Green party holding firm to many of the former cornerstones of Lib Dem philosophy. We saw in the Oldham by-election that the Greens couldn’t even overcome UKIP and the BNP despite there being a Lib Dem freefall (masked by Tory tactical voting) so it appears the Greens do not have their challenges to seek. Patrick himself misses out by 2,500 votes going by the above numbers.

In many ways, these results show that the election is in Iain Gray’s hands. If the leader of the Labour group can ‘seal the deal‘ with Scotland between now and May then a majority in the Parliament is within his grasp. If Gray does not make the grade, then that 68 MSP total will start to drop and it is anyone’s guess which of the SNP, Lib Dems, Conservatives and Greens is most likely to benefit.

There’s a long way to go of course but it’s a one-horse race and a one-party Parliament as things stand now…

I decided to quickly do a little bit of investigation into the likelihood of Annabel Goldie winning her First Past the Post seat, with more than a hint of a hope that the Scottish Conservative leader could pull it off. However, I came away with the conclusion that there is a greater chance that Annabel will miss out on being re-elected to the Scottish Parliament entirely.

For a start, the boundary changes have not been kind. The 2007 Renfrewshire North result was:

Labour (Trish Godman) – 10,467
Conservative (Annabel Goldie) – 8,289
SNP (Bill Wilson) – 8,167

The 2011 notional result (after boundary changes) for Renfrewshire North and West, including candidates, is:

Labour (Stuart Clark) – 11,341
SNP (Derek Mackay) – 8,236
Conservative (Annabel Goldie) – 6,420

A competitive second place has been replaced with a distant third and I have little doubt that Derek Mackay will make it known to every last constituent that he is the main challenger, according to the numbers at least.

So a FPTP victory for the Tory leader seems a remote prospect but surely Annabel will be safely returned via the seven regional seats for West of Scotland?

Well, probably, but it is by no means certain and that is in no small part thanks to Jackson Carlaw’s expected victory in Eastwood.

The breakdown of votes in the West in 2007 was as follows:

Labour – 91,725
SNP – 75,953
Conservative – 40,637
Lib Dems – 22,515
Greens – 8,152

The elected MSPs, in order of selection, had party affiliation of:

1 – SNP
2 – SNP
3 – Lib Dem
4 – Conservative
5 – SNP
6 – SNP
7 – Conservative

Now, there is an element of calculated guesstimation at play here of course but let’s assume that Labour will retake Cunninghame North in May and the breakdown of regional votes will be as follows:

SNP – 83,953
Labour – 81,725
Conservative – 32,637
Lib Dems – 16,515
Greens – 16,404

(Assumptions:
(1) Some would-be Labour voters will realise that their second vote is wasted on Labour and vote elsewhere, Greens being prime beneficiaries.
(2) Lib Dems will see votes haemorrhage to SNP and Greens
(3) Conservatives will see a small but significant dip)

The above result would give regional seats of:

1 – SNP
2 – SNP
3 – SNP
4 – SNP
5 – SNP
6 – Lib Dems
7 – Greens

So, no Conservative regional MSP and, crucially, no Annabel Goldie. And I don’t even think I’m bullsh*tting (too much).

Indeed, the whole region seems to boil down to this:
Cunninghame North is a head-to head between SNP and Labour
West of Scotland is a head-to-head between Greens and Tories

It is now exactly five months until Scots head to the polls in early May and the farce of 2007 when voters were faced with a confusing array of 3 ballot slips has been replaced with a situation where voters face, well, 3 ballot slips, the referendum on AV replacing the local council elections.

Potentially adding to this confusion, and perhaps even pragmatically, deviously leveraging it, Bella Caledonia has announced that “an independence referendum will take place on 5th May 2011”, enabling a sort of 4-for-the-price-of-3 offer come May 5th.

The plan, in Bella’s own words, is as follows:

So with this in mind, we, the undersigned, call for all Scots who support our country’s independence to write the word INDEPENDENCE in bold letters across the AV voting slip on 5th May.

Let’s make sure the piles of “spoilt” ballot papers rejecting the British electoral system – and rule from London – are greater than those voting Yes or No.

Now, the needlessly pompous “we the undersigned” notwithstanding, I reckon this is a creative and innovative way of thinking outside the ballot box and is to be applauded for its ingenuity. It shows a very impressive level of commitment and passion for their independence objective and it shows a commendable willingness to not just lie back and accept whatever the state deigns to send our way. It is also unlikely to be much of a success.

For me personally, the independence issue just isn’t a top priority so my options will remain voting Yes or No on May 5th with regard to the actual question on voting systems being asked, not that my scrawling “INDEPENDENCE” across my Camden borough ballot paper would result in much, save for a clutch of bewildered counting staff at 3am on May 6th somewhere near London’s St Pancras station.

My main reason for taking a dim view of this venture though is that I don’t really see what a win would be. I can see how amassing 50% spoiled papers from all of Scotland’s referendum votes would be a massive coup but realistically that is not going to happen. Achieving 2% should really be the extent of anyone’s ambitions here and where would that get the Nationalists? Independence referendums are, as most would agree, a once in a generation affair so I wouldn’t expect Nats would want to use up their only opportunity between now and the year 2030 on something like this. It reminds me of Joan McAlpine’s calls for the First Minister to use a ‘Scottish Statutory Instrument’ to force an independence referendum on Scotland, despite the contrary will of the Scottish Parliament. It’s all just a little too strident and cack-handed to carry the necessary force required to create a new country.

Furthermore, not that I’m necessarily saying that it exists, but any expectation that the SNP will throw its support behind this is surely errant. National referendums should be conducted by Parliaments, as Brian Souter found when he tried to finance a plebiscite on Section 28 back in 2000. Alex Salmond would be dooming his party’s Holyrood chances if he was seen to be assisting in the perceived sabotage of a fair, if limited, Westminster referendum. Indeed, the SNP may be damaged even without any direct involvement, something that I wonder whether the organisers considered before embarking on this plan.

Of course, this is all to overlook the fact that AV would be a small step towards a better system. Scotland returned the same Westminster result in 2010 as it did in 2005. A whole decade where change was only delivered through by-elections is unsustainable and improvement, any improvement, should be too important to hamper. Even the incentive to undermine the Liberal Democrat position within the coalition and force an early General Election by voting ‘No’ would be irresponsible. First Past the Post has had its day and that day was somewhere in the early 1800s.

I don’t really know what May 5th currently means or will mean for Scotland but, call me a stickler if you like, the AV referendum will be entirely a referendum based on the Alternative Vote.