Scotland on Sunday

There's a great piece on the front page of the Scotland on Sunday today by Eddie Barnes, the political editor.

Its questioning whether a batch of MSPs should have won as their majority is in fact less than the number of spoilt ballot papers for the particular seat.

It then goes on to list the MSPs in questions but misses one very important one out - the First Minister, Alex Salmond.

I was heavily involved in Nora Radcliffes campaign last year, Nora was the sitting MSP for Gordon that Alex Salmond decided he would take on for the election, part of the Gordon seat took in a tiny piece of Alex's Westminster seat.

I recall on the night of the count in Aberdeen that his majority of 2000+ was far outweighed by the 3000+ spoilt papers and the Returning Officer flatly refused to allow us to go through them by hand, although the electoral guidelines clearly stated this was allowed.

I will have to see what the figures are that have only just been released, one year later - unlike London Elects, who have already released all of the figures from this months Mayoral and GLA elections - but based on the figures on the night he was not set in concrete.

The Scotland on Sunday queries why none of the major parties queried the figures at the time, as showed above, we did for the Gordon seat, but were told no manual checks were to be done.

Was Nora Radcliffe of an incredible victory against Alex Salmond?

I know what I think!
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