Did you hear the one about the election everyone lost? On May 6, Labour, the party in power, lost 100 seats and with it the chance to continue in government after 13 years. The Conservatives lost the victory all the polls had been promising them for the past 18 months.
The Liberals suffered perhaps the most devastating humiliation after Cleggmania turned out to be a complete and utter mirage. The man who apparently wowed us so much in the TV leadership debates actually lost a number of seats rather than gaining any.
Scotland
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was found guilty on January 31, 2001, of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in Scotland that killed 270 civilians.
The official left-wing of the Scottish Labour Party has failed to get a candidate onto the ballot paper in the election of the partys next leader. The August 22 Morning Star reported that Any leadership candidate needed a minimum of five other MSPs [members of the Scottish parliament] to support them, but the Scottish Campaign for Socialism was only able to muster four names in total as nominations for the post closed at noon on August 21.
On August 14, Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), revealed his minority government’s plans for a referendum on Scottish independence.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) ruled on June 28 that the 2001 conviction of Libyan citizen Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi — sentenced to 27 years’ jail for allegedly bombing Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people — “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”. The SCCRC referred al Megrahi’s case to Scotland’s appeal court.
In the May 3 elections to the Scottish parliament, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won 47 seats out of a total of 129 — a rise of 20 seats compared to the 2003 election. Labour lost four seats, emerging with a total of 46; the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost one seat apiece, winning 17 and 16 seats respectively. The results mean that for the first time in Scottish political history, the SNP won more seats that any other party, although not enough to command a working majority in parliament.
An authoritative opinion poll for the Scotsman newspaper indicates a strong increase in support for the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in the run-up to the Scottish Parliament elections on May 3. The April 6 Scottish Socialist Voice reported that “in both the constituency and regional list vote, 5 per cent of Scots voters plan to vote Scottish Socialist”, according to the ICM poll. This represents a 3% rise in the regional vote and a 4% increase in the constituency ballot — the biggest increase in support in the previous month for any political party in Scotland.
More than 120 branch delegates and a substantial number of visitors attended a conference in Glasgow on March 3 to finalise the Scottish Socialist Party’s manifesto for May’s Scottish Parliament elections.
Parliamentarians from the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the Dutch Socialist Party, the Greens and the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru party were arrested on January 8 following a protest at the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the River Clyde. The protest was organised by Faslane 365, which is promoting a year-round blockade of the base.
Scottish Socialist Party MSP Frances Curran has described as a democratic outrage a decision by the Scottish Parliaments Communities Committee to block the SSPs bill to provide every schoolchild in Scotland with a free nutritious meal each day.
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