Well, actually, not a bad result for everybody for the Lib Dems actually had a more or less unconditionally good result. But "A bad result for everybody (except the Liberal Democrats)" lacks impact as a headline. So excuse me.
But for everybody else it was a bad result.
Obviously, for a start, the Tories. They lost lots of votes and lots of seats. Douglas Ross's flip flopping over Boris Johnson didn't help but the fact he had a UK Party leader that he had to flip flop about was surely the major factor. In Scotland the Tories lost approximately one in four seats they were defending. But, in England, they also wrote about one seat in four they were defending. So while Ross undoubtedly didn't make things any better for the Scottish Tories, it is difficult to argue he made them worse. And it was not all bad news for the Tories. All the profile will be on Glasgow and Edinburgh where not only did they do disastrously but, unfortunately for them, so do most of the Scottish Political Press Corps live. But actually in rural Scotland they still did "alright". In North Ayrshire and Moray they actually gained seats and, as no less a figure than Ruth Davidson pointed out on Twitter, they still have far more seats than they held prior to their annus mirabilus of 2017. So, a bad result but not that bad a result.
And then we have the SNP. These elections were last held in 2017, where the SNP got, by some way, their worst election result between 2015 and today. They did, a very little bit, better today. But it was still their second worst result in that period. They very nearly failed to be the largest Party in Glasgow, where, despite holding every Westminster and Holyrood Parliamentary seats they lost councillors, while they failed to make any progress at all in Edinburgh in terms of seats, even though the Tories departed the field, going from first to.....fifth in a day.. The whole narrative of the SNP is based on them being on an unstoppable march to a second Independence Referendum and "Freeeeedum!" They remain the dominant Party across Scotland, no denying that, but the 2017 Local elections, where the SNP had, by their standards, a terrible result were of course followed by the 2017 General Election, where they did only marginally better. You'll remember that election. It was the one where they lost 21 seats,
And so to my own Party. I'm writing a blog, not acting as a Party spokesman here. You can spin this as a great result but in truth that would be spinning. We came second but were still well off first. We increased our number of councillors and share of the vote but in each case by very slightly less than the SNP. Unionist non Labour voters, unimpressed by Boris, seem to have simply stayed away from the polls when we were the alternative Unionist choice (although notably not when that was the Lib Dems). And quietly, the results in our former strongholds of North and South Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire (where the Nats were one seat off an absolute majority) and never mind Fife (don't even look!), were disastrous. And still being second in Glasgow despite the rats was disappointing in a city where we still enjoyed an absolute majority as recently as the 2012 elections. Down South they talk of "long Corbyn" as being a handicap but up here we've also got long Dugdale and long Leonard to contend with. It was a step in the right direction on Thursday but a pretty small one. To be fair, both Anas and Jackie recognised that in their post poll interviews.
And then we have, very briefly, Alba and the Scottish Family Party. When these figures are available, it will be (mildly) interesting to see who got the most votes. That tells you all you need to know.
And then, finally, the Greens. "They did well!" I hear you protest. But did they? Sure they nearly doubled their seats but outwith Glasgow and Edinburgh (where they undoubtedly did do well) there were 1.094 councillors elected across Scotland on Thursday. The Greens got precisely 15. Less than !.5%.of all seats. It seems to me there is a big decision looming for the Greens. Are they a political Party in their own right or are they, as is often alleged, just the gardening wing of the SNP, exploiting the electoral system at Holyrood to secure any representation there at all? You can't avoid the fact that their list votes correlate almost entirely with the difference between SNP votes in the constituencies and the list, so that works for their representatives at Holyrood at least. But having fallen into the arms of a vampiric SNP are they ultimately realising that this means they now can't go out in daylight? We'll see. They are likely to be offered the choice real power and influence by us and the Libs in Glasgow and Edinburgh as opposed to a few sweeties in exchange for five years unconditional servitude by the SNP. If they choose the latter, by the next elections, somebody should perhaps set up a real Scottish Green Party. I suspect quite a few people would vote for that.
And that's that. Next year, unless Boris or whoever goes early, there will not be a nationwide election (or referendum) in Scotland.
But that doesn't mean there will be no form of election in Scotland during that period. Patrick Grady awaits the judgement of the Commons Standards Committee* If he gets suspended for 14 days there can and will be a recall petition and a by-election in his Glasgow North Constituency. If you look in detail at the Local Government results there that could lead to a very interesting result indeed.
*So does Patricia Gibson but the allegations against her are much less serious
