the Tories won seats, predominantly in the regional lists, because they were dogged in getting their vote out and as a result of quirks of our electoral system. To put it in perspective:
Nevertheless, they did numerically double their vote over the low of the last election. How much of that they'll retain over time is another matter.
There have been glib suggestions they may have picked off some ex-Labour voters as well, but a counter-argument holds that it's more likely they attracted centre-right Lib Dems, making inroads into the SNP's hold in rural areas away from the central belt, where under Salmond the SNP had in the past turned Tory/Lib Dem constituencies SNP, so you could maybe see this as a return to form. Their platform was "Ruth Davidson", "a Strong Opposition", "Ruth Davidson", "Unionism" and "Ruth Davidson".
Davidson's not without appeal if you like that sort of thing, and superficially not yer stereotypical Tory. She's one of three of Scotland's party leaders (her, Labour's Dugdale and the Greens' Patrick Harvie) who's come out as gay. She's had an unbelievably easy ride in the media up here, and the next few months are going to be make or break for her as people take a closer look at her and her policy beliefs, which will reveal she's much more a mainstream Tory than initial impressions might suggest.
So you seem to be broadly right about the unionist voters. Demographically, they will diminish in time unless things change radically among younger voters.
Since people like Bad Dog may not have seen my earlier explanations of where I stand when I first started posting here and people can jump to all sorts of conclusions, I am not an SNP member, and likely never will be. I was born and brought up Welsh, and lived in Reading for eight years or so before I moved to Scotland, where I've been for over 30 years now. For years after I abandoned Labour, having been a party activist, I was a floating/tactical voter.
I don't consider Sturgeon my "leader", just my First Minister. I'm a cynical old bastard, and not used to being caught up by politicians, and it's been a long haul for me to grudgingly accept that damn, this woman keeps impressing and surprising me, certainly in comparison to any of her adversaries. And there's some strength in depth in the SNP beyond the caricatures of her and Salmond: Hosie, Swinney, any number of impressive women, and promising, charismatic relative youngsters like Humza Yousaf.
So yes, they wouldn't get my vote if I didn't consider them competent and credible. They've earned that opinion from me.
As for the constitutional question, Holyrood was supposed to herald the death of the SNP, whereas it's actually placed us on a conveyer belt that may be unstoppable. The more powers are devolved, the more apparent it becomes how certain aspects don't add up to joined-up government in Scotland, so other areas need to devolved too. Whether that ever reaches full independence is anybody's guess. My own gut feeling as things stand is that it'll be a relative long, gradual process, and when, if independence does come, it may be at a time when we have more federalism in other areas of the UK too, so it would seem a much less jarring leap than it does now.
And as for online antics, the papers tend to seize gleefully on any Twitter etc. transgressions by pro-independence and SNP supporters, but don't do the same for some of the horrible "unionists" I've witnessed myself, of whom there are plenty. I don't think any of them do anybody any favours, and I wish they'd all cut it out and get a life.
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