General election outcome

On the drive into work through the dark and the rain I listened to the radio and heard our fearless leader sounding very pleased with himself. When I originally moved to Scotland from Massachusetts I had thought of it as moving to the European Union; I looked for jobs in Britain mostly so that my children could attend English-speaking schools. (I was also tempted by Paris until I compared salaries to rents.) It is easier for me to leave the UK if we are leaving the EU anyway.

In this election our seat returned to its less marginal prior state suggesting to me that many Remain voters backed the SNP given how we were told that, a vote for the SNP is a vote to escape Brexit and Westminster chaos. Still, the SNP's success falls reassuringly short of obligating Ruth Davidson to swim naked in a loch. As expected Nicola Sturgeon is already framing the result as a mandate for another Scottish independence referendum which I don't expect her to get; the SNP will be able to continue blaming others for their own failings.

This would seem to be the end for Jeremy Corbyn's and Jo Swinson's leadership for now though I wonder if Labour will remain more pre-Blairite for a while yet. Whatever happens on that side, with England and Wales going so strongly Conservative and Scotland so strongly SNP I would guess that the country will remain very polarized despite the comfortable majority in the House of Commons.