Welcome to our weekly weekend recap. Our team here at ScotlandVotes share their best stories from the weekend. It’s not just all Scottish politics. But please dip in and have a read…

Ben Riley-Smith was one of the referendum’s star performers and he continues to deliver with his piece in The Sunday Telegraph. With the prospect of impending disaster for Scottish Labour in May, Riley-Smith takes the temperature of sitting Labour MPs. It is not a comfortable read, “A third, when asked how things were looking in Scotland, simply formed his hand into a gun, raised it to his mouth and pulled the trigger.” DM

Bill Jamieson’s article in The Scotsman is a good scene-setter for the GE. CM

In the Scotland on Sunday, Euan McColm asserts that Nicola Sturgeon has made a strategic error in revealing the SNP’s red line issues in any post General Election coalition negotiations. NB&CM

Nick Cohen’s furious column in The Spectator argues that David Cameron is facing a crisis ahead of the General Election as voters will see the Conservatives as increasingly out of touch and acting in self-interest. DM

In the Sunday Times, Alex Massie discusses the current controversy over consensual stop and search arguing that “the arrogance of an over-mighty police force has been on full display and it has not been an ennobling sight.” NB

Likewise, Iain Macwhirter in the Sunday Herald suggests that Police Scotland “is either too big, out of control or both.” DM

Welcome to our weekly weekend recap. Our team here at ScotlandVotes share their best stories from the weekend. It’s not just all Scottish politics. But please dip in and have a read…

Fascinating interview with Ed Miliband in the Financial Times. The authors claim that Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell sounded out Alan Johnson on whether he was interested in taking over. CM

The news in the Sunday Herald that Jim Murphy is seeking to campaign using term Labour for Yes, shows how much importance Labour’s campaign team are putting in public perception at the top level without looking at the detail – however many nationalists are getting worried about the tactic – despite Alex Salmond using a similar tactic for Holyrood when SNP regional list was entered under “Alex Salmond for First Minister”. KM

Euan McColm looks at last week’s stop and search controversy in Scotland on Sunday and concludes that Nicola Sturgeon will not avoid challenging long-term government positions, where it makes sense, contrasting this with Alex Salmond’s record of defending the indefensible against opposition attacks. NB

The first issues index of 2015 was published by pollsters Ipsos-MORI last week. Snapshot of some interesting findings here. CM

Enjoyed a fun story in The Scotsman on Jack McConnell being ousted from his seat by a fellow Lord on the way down to London on an East Coast train. KM

Inevitably, enhanced powers for Scotland would lead to a clamour for more powers for other parts of the UK. The Core Cities (made up of leaders of the 10 biggest economies outside London) have “called for Scottish-style tax powers to encourage growth” reports the Financial Times. DM

A scathing attack from entrepreneur Luke Johnson appeared in this weekend’s Sunday Times. It is quite shrill in places and he calls big business “too craven to say in public what they think about Labour’s attitude to business”.  CM

Friday saw the Scottish Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee published their recommendations on how to regulate lobbying in Scotland. Kenny Stewart, Government Relations Manager at Glasgow 2014 had his say on Medium arguing that in lobbying it ‘takes two to tango’. DM

Kenny Murray delves into social media analytics to see who is winning the battle online.

It was a competition many never expected and in recent days, it has been overshadowed by the continuing frenzy on who will lead Labour in Scotland. However we thought it’d be prudent to have a look at the competition for Nicola Sturgeon’s replacement as she ascends to the top job in Scottish parliamentary politics.

Now, Facebook doesn’t give much scope for analysis so let’s take a look at the topline stats of page likes:

1. Stewart Hosie – 1,584
2. Angela 4 Deputy – 1,581 likes
3. Keith Brown – 581 likes

Stewart Hosie narrowly beats Angela 4 Deputy to the post, however – he uses his own MP page, Ms Constance has set up a brand new page dedicated to her leadership campaign – so we believe she wins this round, followed by Stewart Hosie in second place and Keith Brown in dead last with a paltry 581 likes.

Let’s more specifically focus on Twitter – after all it was the main vehicle for debate among the talking shop during the independence referendum, although many did wrongly predict a resounding Yes win due to the social media statistics – we could be on the wrong track altogether, alternatively we may be 100% right.

So, where do they sit on follower count?

@StewartHosieMP has a decent 7,791 followers at our last check

@AConstanceMSP has a very good 7,145 followers some of whom may be backing her

@KeithBrownMSP has a smaller 6,886 followers reading his thoughts

So again, Stewart Hosie seems to be winning, with Angela in second place, ever so closely and early favourite Keith Brown is in dead last.

Using Topsy (see below), we can see that if the vote was to be decided purely on who gained most mentions via Twitter, then Keith Brown would win hands down – followed by Stewart Hosie and in last place with less than a fourth of the tweets that mention Keith Brown, Angela Constance.

To be fair, that’s not the only method – these tweets could be attacking them or simply mentioning them. Let’s take a look at the sentiment score. This scores the tweets based on their tone and what sentiment they imply, the higher the score – the more supportive they are.

Keith Brown

Topsy, gives Mr Brown a sentiment score of 63 – which is quite good going for a politician. If this was an approval rating, it could be looked on very favourably. Although this comes from a sample of just over 4,000 tweets it’s probably accurate to a good degree of what the Transport Minister has experienced online. 

It’s not just sentiment score though, how many twitter users have declared their vote for Keith Brown? 198.

Angela Constance

Ms Constance does pretty well considering the smaller sample size – a sentiment score of 55 is not to be sniffed at – however is it several points lower than Keith Brown who for once, seems to be winning in one vein of this competition online. 

How many people have made their vote public for Angela Constance though? An impressive 151 declared voters online.

Stewart Hosie

Stewart Hosie wins yet again, with the highest sentiment score, admittedly from a lower sample than Keith Brown, Stewart gains a sentiment score of 65, only marginally more favourable than Keith Brown.

How many publicly declared votes does he have though? 37.

So who will win?

Ultimately that’s up to the SNP membership but combining a number of factors, social media predicts it for Keith Brown. Going from the positive sentiment score, the larger support base online and success across all channels – if social media is to be trusted Keith Brown will be the Depute Leader of the SNP come 10am on Friday 14 November.

“It feels like a cup final,” said Stewart Kirkpatrick, Yes Scotland’s Head of Digital but there was no crowing behind the fact: if anything, the Hibernian supporter knew exactly what that could mean.

But at 9pm last Thursday, when Scotland Votes was invited to spend the last hour of the #indyref campaign with Yes Scotland at their Glasgow HQ, it was still all to play for, to continue the football metaphor.

Yes Scotland Digital Team working to the wire

In fact, there were more than one game going on. Just as there was still information being shared online urging people to vote Yes and fighting other rumours (“none of the polling stations have closed early so let’s not be sharing that,” critiqued Gail Lythgoe), there was a battle going on against David Cameron to be the largest UK political page on Facebook.

“We’re 200 Likes away from overtaking him on Facebook,” pointed out Kevin Gilmartin “and some people may think that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but it’s a statement, it shows that in two years people can become a large movement and come together in hope. It’s a very symbolic statement.”

But there were even smaller personal gains people had hoped for. “I set myself a goal of 5,000 followers on Twitter through the campaign and then I set for 6,000 so I could reach more people about Yes,” said Lythgoe inbetween answering calls from people with late voting queries.

Just yards away, there may have been hundreds partying in George Square but for Kirkpatrick and his team of Gilmartin, Lythgoe, Peter Dempsie and Stewart Bremner, there was no party, just the soft glow from iMacs onto their concentrating brows, looking at the data, finding what combination of hard data and emotion could lead to undecideds and No’s turning to Yes voters.

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