And now it's all over ...

SNP Manifesto at a glance
Originally uploaded by Ewan McIntosh.

Wow. In the rainy aftermath of the Scottish election there's time to think, to read the papers and the blogs, to realise how different life feels. I hope Ewan's cool with my use of his wordle, because it - and the manifesto it sums up - says it all: it's about Scotland, and it's all positive.

I love an election. I love it when the lampposts bloom with placards and you find George Galloway orating in the middle of Buchanan Street when really you're looking for your lunch. But this election did more, didn't it? And when Kelvin Mackenzie opined on last night's BBC News that the sooner we held a referendum - and let him and his fellow-English off the hook of having to prop us up - the better, I no longer felt the kind of impotent rage that the Thatcher years engendered. Suddenly the people running my country are recognisably the kind of people I know - and I like that feeling.

Things have been looking up for the past eleven years, and this election set the seal on it. Here's to the next five years, and to an exciting future.

Bottom of the class

Well, well. That cross says it all - wrong, wrong, wrong. Scotland's election is a shambles - missing postal ballot papers, fog-bound helicopters, electronic counting - and confused voters. It's the last of these I despair about. The radio this morning is full of people wondering why this confusion has arisen, people assuring us that while they personally have "a modicum of common sense" they nevertheless made "a pig's ear" of their ballot paper.

Sorry, chaps, but anyone who has worked in a state school for as many years as I have could have told them it'd be a disaster. Two papers? Colour-coded? We're well on the way. Crosses on one paper and numbers on the other - as many as you like up to six, but if you only want to put one please don't put a cross? Aye, right. We had a charming lady doing her best - and her best was pretty impressive - to make sure that all the punters passing her were at least asked if they knew what they were doing. Her explanation was clear - but actually quite complicated, in an irritating sort of way. We listened, asked a question, and went on our way. And yes, we did it right and our votes will be counted 'cos we didn't fold the paper.

But here's the rub. Most people don't listen. They glaze over after the first sentence. I know - I spent 30 years of my life watching them, and their children. They don't listen and they can't really read. Single words, yes. Whole sentences, with alternatives? Forget it. Lost already. And then stick them in a wee cubicle where they canny ask their neighbour? Think of the exams which are about to suck in our huddled masses of first-time voters next time round. The poorer pupils will finish a two-hour exam in half an hour and then stretch and scratch their bellies (male) or fiddle with their hair (female, usually). Not because they're so bright they've scooshed through the paper, but because they've switched off in despair/boredom/dawning awareness.

In every class of 30 pupils, there would be up to five of them who would mess up any form you gave them - whether it was the title page for their English folio or a plan of the classroom in which to put their name at the correct desk symbol. There would be three who forgot to use block capitals and two who put the current date for their date of birth. And they'd do it in ink, and there was never the right colour of tippex to do an invisible correction. These people are the ones who spoiled their ballot papers unwittingly. We shouldn't be spending a fortune on an enquiry, or worrying about the system of allocation of parliamentary seats. We should spend it on smaller classes and more effective teaching.

But hey! George W. was elected by what sounded like spoiled ballot papers - and look how much he managed to achieve.

Bitter laughter is allowed.

Update: Shortly after writing the above, I learned that a friend of mine drove all the way from Inverness to vote, arriving triumphantly at the polling station in Dunoon at 9.55pm. "Sorry, you're too late" he was told. Apparently the polling agents had set their clock "a few minutes early" - and they were sticking to it. Democracy in Argyll is obviously in A Bad Way.