SNP schools propaganda – some more evidence

Well, my post earlier today on the SNP’s insidious School Election Campaign Pack 2016 has certainly provoked a response on Twitter. Most of it has been supportive, which means that nationalists either haven’t noticed it or have and are staying silent because they recognise what the party has done is a bit dodgy. Two correspondents in particular have passed me further information that has allowed what for me is me an unusually prompt follow-up. I don’t know if they’d want a name check so I’ll just thank them anonymously.

The first tit-bit is a tweet this morning from the SNP’s chief executive:

You will observe that, inevitably, he has appended his party’s current favourite hashtag to the tweet – #BothVotesSNP.

It only confirms what the party is up to but by way of response perhaps I could just say

Keep yer mitts off the kidz Pete. It don’t look cool when old guys try and get down and dirty wiv dem. Know what I mean bro?

… or something. I suspect all but the most hardened SNP youth groupies will be embarrassed for old man Murrell. The better hashtag might have been #cringe.

It’s a shame that the sensible youngsters of Aberdeenshire, and more especially their education authority, seem to have got to the ballot box before him and, I would guess, before the insidious propaganda pack was uploaded to the SNP website.

Because Aberdeenshire has already held a ‘schools election’ for their 17 academies. The results were out yesterday. You can read all about the exercise here. And there are quite a few tweets about it on their Twitter feed at @Aberdeenshire.

As it happens I used to work for Aberdeenshire council although I have no contact with the organisation now. I am 100% confident that this was a mock election that was carried out precisely as it should have been – as an exercise in civic education and democracy. I recognise the name of their (real) elections co-ordinator and from some of the photos online possibly even some of the ballot boxes from the long gone days when I use to ‘do the count’ (as a humble polling clerk I hasten to add).

Aberdeenshire of course covers what for a long time was the SNP’s North East of Scotland heartland before they began their march into the central belt and just about everywhere else. It was long the stomping ground of Alex Salmond – still is, unfortunately – and like the rest of the North East returned a slate of MPs that was entirely SNP at last year’s Westminster general election. And we know (don’t we?) that young people are so much more pro-separation than oldies like me.

So here’s the Aberdeenshire schools election result:

SNP, 8 out of 25 seats. Not quite a rout or #BothVotesSNP. Makes you think dunnit it bro?