Wings Over Scotland | Echoes of history

The Sunday National’s front page today elicited a sigh of “So what?” from most.

We’ve already GOT a “pro-indy” majority at Holyrood and have done for the last 10 years, for all it’s been worth. But there was a paragraph in the article that at least raised an eyebrow.

Because, y’know, that doesn’t seem very likely.

The Greens trailed in a very distant 4th in the seat in 2021, despite a relatively well-known candidate (the current Presiding Officer, in fact), and since they’d likely need at least a 300% jump in their vote to stand a chance – something not suggested by any polling anywhere – we’re not quite sure how the analysis has come to that rather startling conclusion.

(It would seem to us somewhat more feasible that Reform could cannibalise the collapsing Tory and Labour votes to emerge as the main challenger, though they’d still be quite an outside bet in the unusually affluent seat.)

But something rang a bell as we read those lines. And then we remembered.

In 2016, an “analysis” from Cutbot, a company run by poisonous and creepy Scottish Greens activist James Mackenzie, had also predicted the Greens capturing the seat from the SNP. The reality proved somewhat different.

Alison Johnstone came a distant 4th again, but her 4,644 votes were enough to let Ruth Davidson sneak through and pip the SNP candidate by 610, with almost twice as many votes as the Cutbot analysis had predicted. We wonder what ever became of Alison Dickie.

The predictions (which were widely covered by a gullible Scottish media) are still worth a chuckle almost a decade later. Cutbot’s website no longer exists and its Twitter account last tweeted just three weeks after the 2016 election. So we’re not sure what it is about Edinburgh Central that appears to disrupt people’s brainwaves.

If anyone thinks the analysts have got it right this time, though, we’re happy to accept any wagers made by readers who think Lorna Slater will capture the seat in three months’ time. Just let us know how much you want to bet in the comments.