RAMBLINGS ON WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT... PART 1

So... We did not badly last night, did we?

I was far too pessimistic, as ever. I just couldn't believe that it was even possible for us to get over 50 seats. I couldn't conceive that Labour, which had ruled Scotland since forever, would melt even more quickly than the Tories did after Thatcher laid waste to the country.

But damned hard work from the SNP, from Nicola Sturgeon, who never stopped, to the candidates, who were out day and night, tweeting and meeting, to folk going round chapping doors, putting leaflets through letter boxes, putting posters up in windows and gardens...and yes, Munguin, blogging, secured an unimaginable (at least to me) victory.

And now the work starts.

First let's kill dead the Labour narrative that if Scotland had only just voted Labour as usual, like it's supposed to do, we would have had a Labour government. 

We wouldn't. 

If every single seat in Scotland had sent a Labour MP to Westminster, we would still have had a Tory government. 

Currently the Tories have 325 seats; Labour 229. If the 58 seats in Scotland which did not vote Labour had done so, they would have had 287 seats and the Tories would have had 324. (Check my arithmetic. I only had about an hour's fitful sleep.)

Because the English voted Tory, like the English almost invariably do, we have a Tory government.

So leaving that behind, what went right for the SNP was that they worked hard for sure, but they also had a positive message about Scotland and about the future. And that wasn't anything to do with independence. No matter what Jim and Kez were saying.

It was about getting us what we were promised.

Gordon Brown, in partnership with David Cameron, and with Miliband and Clegg in tow, made us promises in September when they thought we were going to vote for independence. Enough of us bought these promises at face value, for Gordon to be able to claim to have saved the union, just like he'd saved the bankers, and the world, and just about the whole of civilisation, only 5 years earlier.

But the next day the promises started to fall apart. Cameron had pulled off a coup and got Gordon to sell us something that wasn't quite what it seemed.

On the day after we voted NO, thanks to promises of the best devolution in the universe, Cameron, like the sneaky little Eton boy he is, put in terms and conditions that Labour would NEVER have agreed to. 

English Votes for English Laws (EVEL), which he insisted must be a part of any improved devolution for Scotland, would mean that, effectively, Labour would never be the government of England again. Even if it won a general election depending on seats form Scotland and Wales, it would never control votes on English matters. 

In fact, it wouldn't be worth voting Labour in England, because the Tories would control everything that they proposed on English matters. And that is a large chunk of the Westminster timetable, comprising a vast spend. Why would Washington, Berlin, Paris or Beijing be interested in a government that didn't control a vast part of its territory and its laws?

Anyway, what did Gordon do about all this deceit? He fumed a little, probably smashed a few Nokias off the wall, then took off on his international jet setting and left us to stew, picking up his salary whilst being an ex-politician.

Seeing that the Clunking Fist and of course, his deadly enemy Alistair Darling, had nothing to say about the duplicity, Cameron reckoned a green light had been shown and carried on going back on much of what Brown had promised on his behalf.

[It's interesting that the Prime Minister of "our" United Kingdom, had been obliged to get Brown to deliver his promises because of his own unpopularity in Scotland. Nor was he able to send his deputy, or his Secretary of State. In fact he couldnt even ask the leader of the opposition. They were all seen as too unpopular.]

The Smith Commission was duly set up. But now Labour didn't want to devolve much to Scotland, because whatever was devolved to Scotland would be effectively devolved to England, and outwith their control.

Then when a very watered down Smith Commission reported, it reported not to the people of Scotland, but to a largely English Tory and Liberal Cabinet, which pulled it to pieces.

Some of what had been promised was simply not allowed because it offended Iain Duncan Smith or Theresa May; some of it turned out to be illegal anyway, like the setting in stone of the Edinburgh parliament.

No one stood up for Scotland except the SNP and the Greens. But in London we had no power. Six MPs isn't exactly a formidable block.

So we did something about that.

To be continued....