May the Forth be with you

our area has been served very well by a man who was at one time a communist candidate and now is Scottish Socialist ,he has done a lot for the area and is always on hand to help with any problems any of his constituents have .He is pro independence .SO in my case it will be SNP 1 and 2 and him third with Greens next the independent candidate then the labour party and tories ...hopefully a lot of others will vote this way too.Our local labour council has been recorded as one of the worst in Scotland for successive years over the past 3 decades,sadly its an area where a monkey wearing a red rosette can win.Hope springs from the fact we managed an SNP MP in 2015 ,so fingers crossed we can get rid of the labour council this time around.

I've had 1 leaflet through the door. One visit from same person as on leaflet who was from out of our area and knew nothing and that's been it. I've searched on the County website - nothing. So I'm in a quandary. How can I vote for a person I don't think is up to the job or others whose names I know but don't know what their aims are for our area? I think on reflection I'm going to have to give this election a miss. It has been suggested I sully the ballot papers but the outcome will be the same. Our current council is great for buck passing between county and district so I don't think I'm missing anything. I will be voting in the General Election however

Where I live the only election was for the new mayor. This is after a referendum was held to see if we wanted a mayor. The result of the referendum was something like 66% against. Somehow though, this was not seen to be "the will of the people" and we had a mayor imposed on us anyway. So a referendum is only binding when the Govt says it is, it seems to me. I still voted though.

I don't know who is standing in our local elections. We haven't been canvassed by anyone, or had any leaflets or other information. DH did answer the phone to a very nice lady standing for the Labour party, but he's a life long Conservative voter so I don't think she will be getting his vote. I'm sorry to say, but it's the first time ever that I will not go to vote.

No elections for us today Granny23 and even if there were it wouldn't make any difference. Same bl**dy people have been voted in for the past 70 years! and they're all past it

GOLDENGIRL You should vote otherwise you cant complain about who you get.If your council hasn't been performing well .like ours,then vote them out.Simple.Otherwise you'll be stuck with them for another x number of years

Voted for a mayor we neither want nor need. There was no box for 'No Mayor' ?

Wow is the word most in use in Scotland today. Glad my vote made a difference in South Ayrshire.

My Wee County, the smallest local Authority in Scotland has Elected 8 SNP, 5 Labour and 5 Tory Councillors. None of the Tories has any previous experience in Council and as the only leaflet we got from them was the nationwide one from Ruth Davidson, telling us to use this Local Election to give Nicola Sturgeon a bloody nose by vote against a 2nd referendum with no pictures or names of the Tory candidates names let alone their local polices.

The SNP have approached Labour offering a formal coalition or
informal agreement to work together for the good of the community. This approach has been summarily dismissed and Labour and the Tories are 'in talks'. Officially, ours is a 'Hung Council' but we all know it will become another unholy Labour/Tory coalition, with little progress in urgent matters as the 'partners, struggle to find common ground.

I expect that what I have written will be dismissed as 'sour grapes' by Grannypiper et al but I genuinely fear for local services, the 350 Council workers who will now face compulsory redundancies (a Labour/Tory policy, blocked by the SNP) and, if they stick to their election promises, cancellation of the Community Campus - 2 Primary Schools + Community facilities (funded almost entirely by the Scottish Government) in favour of retaining the existing 55 year old, crumbling Community Centre, which the Council cannot afford to refurbish and maintain.

Councils throughout Scotland are facing, at this time of cuts and austerity, the loss of experienced Councillors, no overall control, deals cobbled together behind closed doors and stagnation.

I can't understand why the Labour councilors are more prepared to ally with the Tories than the SNP. Has it always been this way, Granny 23?

Mines a Prosecco too, if you are offering.

Fact is that both Labour and Tories hate the SNP more than each other. Why? - because as the SNP grew and grew it totally upset their cosy, status quo of 2 major parties taking turns to govern and strut their stuff on the world stage. When Labour abandoned their radical socialist position, in favour of a move to the centre ground, they also abandoned the ordinary working class folk who had been their strongest supporters. I think it took a while for these Labour voters to realise that their Loyalty to Labour was being taken for granted, they were only regarded as safe voting fodder, while their ever more elite leadership courted the rich and famous and racked up personal fortunes.

In Scotland, there was an ever growing, alternative party, which was, under pressure from its membership, steadily moving from the centre ground to the left and whose policies were based on what was in the best interests of ALL the people of Scotland. Many former or potential Labour supporters in particular the younger generation, have found a new home in the SNP family, some have shifted their allegiance to the smaller Indy supporting parties of the far left, some have swelled the ranks of the Greens. Scottish Labour's biggest mistake was joining forces with the Tories in the 'Better Together' Campaign. Now we are seeing middle class NEW Labour supporters slipping easily the short distance from Red Tory to Blue Tory.

Little wonder then that the, mainly elderly, remnant of Labour support are bitter and that the obvious route for ambitious, young, would be politicians is, no longer, a Labour Party internship. The Scottish Labour Party is in terminal decline, too far gone for the Corbyn effect to resuscitate it. They have become an irrelevance - the contest now is between - on the hard right The Brexiteer, Unionist Tories and on the Centre Left the SNP (who BTW won the Local Elections, with a higher percentage of 1st preferences, more votes, more Councillors, biggest group in most Councils, - whatever measure you care to use) If this was indeed a vote against a 2nd referendum as declared by Ruth Davidson then it was convincingly defeated.

Despite media hype about the Tories the SNP WON the council elections ,with over 40% of the vote and more votes and seats than last time..the tories are still UNDER 24% thats LESS than they had when Thatcher was around and the press reported the figures as a "tory wipeout" so ,its very strange to hear that a number less than that "wipeout" is now claimed as a "surge" The BBC in particular was very vocal about this amazing turnaround the tories are having...whatever happened to the media presenting FACTS ? Support for the SNP is never reported in fact despite SNP being the largest party in many if not MOST councils all that was reported was the fact they hadn't got control of Glasgow!!

Excellent example here :

www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/05/astonishing-tory-ferguslie-park-super-triumph/

of the media's bias and spin

Facts are cheils that winna ding.

I think I'm very fortunate here. Our candidates were local people and, maybe because we live fairly well into the centre of our little town, we were leafleted by all and I saw all but the Green candidate out and about. All had the same local concerns (should the car parks continue to be free; planning permissions for a new development; etc) and ignored national party stuff. The same very active, popular chap got re-elected. He just happens to go under the LibDem banner, but the nice Conservative chap who's on lots of committees and the Lay reader Labour bloke weren't far behind. I suppose the labels did give an indication of how each candidate was likely to sort a particular problem, but it seemed mainly to be about who was likely to be most active and stand up for local concerns.

A Tory / Labour group running a Council may seem unlikely but the Nationalists have made their core aim of separatism the most important issue in Scotland. At least this unlikely alliance will concentrate on providing public services and not on the neverendum agenda of the SNP.

A Tory / Labour group running a Council may seem unlikely but the Nationalists have made their core aim of separatism the most important issue in Scotland. At least this unlikely alliance will concentrate on providing public services and not on the neverendum agenda of the SNP.

Sorry to repeat my posting. I must have pressed the wrong button.

Worth saying twice varian!

The first BBC TV shock reports of how these really poor run down areas of Glasgow (bringing forth visions of children running in slum streets in rages with no shoes) had the temerity to vote Conservative did make me pay attention for a couple of minutes. I mean how could they vote so outside their class! But I fear I no longer pay much regard to the main news. Its about as accurate as the weather forecast.

Sorry to contradict Varian but it was the Tories who turned these local elections into a Referendum against a 2nd referendum. Their one leaflet featured Ruth Davidson wanting to give Nichola a bloody nose with no mention whatsoever of their candidates names or local Policies. The Tories did gain seats mainly at the expense of Labour - their 'better together' bedfellows but failed to make any inroads into the SNP vote which actually rose.

The SNP were quite emphatic in their broadcasts and leaflets, that these Elections were about local services for local people. All our sitting SNP Councillors were returned - surely an endorsement of their hard work and competent management of the Council. I hope the 5 newly elected Tory Councillors are quick learners, as none of them has any previous experience on the Council nor it would seem any local knowledge as at least one spent an hour or more standing outside the wrong Polling Station, refusing to engage in conversation with the opposing activists, until they finally took pity and gave him directions to the two Stations which were actually in his ward, and another failed to realise that there were actually 4 villages, not just the two big ones, in the ward he was contesting until he was at the Count.

I am no defender of the Tories, Granny23 but I think that you yourself have told us more than once that it is the core aim of the SNP to break away from the UK.

Ever since the "once in a lifetime" referendum of 2014, we have been told again and again that your party will carry on campaigning for yet another referendum. This agenda has caused such deep divisions in Scottish society that it has actually driven the Tory and Labour parties to work together rather have any truck with the nationalists.

Although you do a good job trying to whitewash the SNP's dreadful record in government, I think you know that this obsession with separatism has caused untold damage. All other issues are side-lined.

Nicola Sturgeon can talk the talk, she is good at getting votes, but she has proved to be unable to walk the walk- a politician has to be more than a slick saleswoman.

So how did the other parties play it G23? Was it only the SNP talking local for a local election?

No NFK. The Labour, Green and Independent Candidates are all firmly rooted in their local Communities and campaigned entirely on local issues. There were also some Liberal Candidates who were conspicuous by their absence both leafletwise and from the Hustings.

No point in arguing with you Varian as you prefer to swallow whole everything that the BBC reports and Unionist Press prints rather than believe actual facts and figures from official sources.

Er fact and figures from SNP sources!