Warm toilet seats.

I won't go over old ground by talking about the Ashcroft poll that came out earlier this week, except to say; while the prognosis for Labour and the Lib Dems in Scotland looks bad - we shouldn't sit back. I'm not talking about activists from all those incredibly worthy organisations like Women for Independence, Business For Scotland or National Collective (to name but a very few) because they'll be doing their thing regardless - they don't need to be told.

Don't panic, everything is fine - 'Scottish' Labour have deployed Hypnosquirrel

Its us I'm talking about. We need to be out there boring the pants of friends, family and neighbours - well hopefully not boring them but certainly bringing up the subject of the General Election and who they might be awarding their vote to.

With most of the Scottish media doing its best impression of a party political broadcast for 'Scottish' Labour, we need to do our best to remind our peers, pals and co-workers just how astonishingly crap they are.

Look in to those eyes, you can't resist...

Is it safe to discount the Tories in Scotland? I'll stick my neck out and say yes - they're still marginalised in Scotland. The Lib Dem's on the other hand may elicit in those who previously voted for them a pity-vote. We've all got a soft spot for Charles Kennedy - the Liberal Democrat's answer to Party Boy - but we must stand firm against wishy washy emotive voting. If you feel yourself wavering in the polling booth, remember that Danny Alexander is a Lib Dem and uses your money to cart his wife and kids around the country - he's also simpering, Tory-enabling git.

Not around the eyes...

In Scotland, the problem has always been with trust - for years the SNP have been portrayed as chancers, usurpers and lightweights. Westminster pulls around its narrow, sloppy shoulders a thick cloak of effrontery - that a party might challenge the British State's hegemony - its treated as risible and the UK Press - grasping cheerleaders of the establishment - stands by ready to parrot the Union mantra of the day.

You are feeling sleeeeeepy...

Its not all about the SNP of course, if it makes any one feel better, they are a conduit (one that happens to be not bad - but not perfect either - in government) to something better. Imagine a Labour party that actually works for Scotland instead of enabling the London Head Office to gain votes in constituencies in the south of England? Imagine a Tory party ready to do its best for business' based in Scotland instead of the City of London? And imagine Liberal Democrats working hard for - ummm... Doing its best to - erm... Fighting hard for - something?

Could these poll results mean enough people in Scotland have finally realised the problem isn't left, right or middle; or capitalism, socialism or libertarianism - it's the union? Not to put too fine a point on it: its fucked.

Your eyelids are getting heavy...

As the latest EVEL turd shat out by the Tories via William Hague lands on the floor of various Westminster meeting rooms with a wet plap - any attempts to limit Scottish MP's voting in the house of commons is going to be fraught with problems - the Smith Commission's output was only ever going to be useful as scrap paper for primary school kids to doodle on, and even then - only if they did one-sided print runs.

Vote Labour and buy me some nuts...

Or does Scotland still suffer hopelessly and terminally from Warm Toilet Seat Syndrome? I know what you're thinking - what exactly is WTSS - well I'll tell you. You know when you're faced with the incontrovertible actuality that you need to go for a 'sit down', but you are far away from facilities offering optimum comfort and peace of mind? Which is a particularly verbose way of saying, you need to go to the toilet and the only available option is to use a public convenience - forgive my delicate Victorian sensibilities... You find a moderately clean looking cubicle suitably equipped with a door that locks, an adequate supply of toilet paper and no holes drilled in the walls in suspicious places.

You remove/decouple/unlatch (delete applicable) clothing as required and hover gently over the toilet seat - only to find on contact that it is disconcertingly warm. This is traditional Westminster voting in microcosm. As you cast an exasperated vote for the usual party - you are simultaneously repulsed and comforted. Equally; as you sit there - waiting for your bowels to evacuate - its nice that the toilet seat is warm, but the thought that it was made so by the arse of a perfect stranger whose personal habits you know nothing about, doesn't bear thinking about.

Soooo veeeery Sleeeeepy...

I'm not for a minute suggesting that if Scotland was an independent country, we'd all be able to defecate comfortably using brand new toilet seats or that if a toilet seat had been pre-warmed, some sort of notice - a Post It note for example - would be affixed to the wall describing the essence of the backside that took the chill off it.

I think what I'm trying to say is, perhaps we've reached a tipping point in Scotland. None of the London based parties are trusted any more - voters are no longer content to cast their vote based on the old two-and-a-half party system. They realise old voting habits offer little else but cold comfort because once the vote is in, their hopes and aspirations are flushed down the bog the next time their newly (re)appointed MP sits down on their pre-warmed (by an unpaid intern) luxury toilet seat (purchased with parliamentary expenses) for a dump.

LOOK INTO THE EYES...

For what it's worth, I'm still not sure the voting intentions as shown in Ashcroft's poll would necessarily equate to a Yes Vote if one took place tomorrow - my suspicion is, that while people are fed up with Westminster politics, enough of them still prefer a warm toilet seat - which is why ordinary folk like you and me need to re-initiate the kind of momentum that existed during the independence referendum.

Although I wouldn't use that warm toilet seat analogy - its terrible.