YET again a set of local elections has served up a curate’s egg for the SNP – the results have been very good in some parts of the country and mildly disappointing in others.
But the crucial difference between now and five years ago is that, on this occasion, the good results have sufficiently outweighed the bad to ensure that Nicola Sturgeon can point to unambiguous net progress in terms of both vote share and seats. That progress is modest, and it falls short of opinion poll projections, but that shouldn’t be any great surprise given the past history in local elections of the SNP proving unable to quite match their poll ratings.
