Scots are set to go to the polls in an election dominated by national issues and the cost-of-living crisis.
Parties north of the border have urged voters to “send a message” to the Governments in Westminster and Holyrood with their votes.
The cost-of-living crisis, prompted by an increase in fuel bills, national insurance contributions and inflation, has been top of the agenda for Scotland’s parties throughout the campaign.
But it is the impact of the Prime Minister that could overshadow the chances of the Conservatives.
Boris Johnson, along with Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his wife Carrie Johnson, was given a police fine after a party in Downing Street at the height of the pandemic.
Paired with the resignation of MP Neil Parish on Wednesday, after he admitted watching porn in the House of Commons, the situation at Westminster has dominated much of the campaign.
Nicola Sturgeon on the campaign trail
The Scottish Tories have also seen a downturn in fortunes in the polls over the past few months, dropping to third behind Scottish Labour in surveys done for Westminster, Holyrood and local council votes.
Polls open on Thursday at 7am and close at 10pm.
While overnight counts have been the norm, Scotland’s counting will take place on Friday, with final results expected in the early evening.
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) will be the electoral system employed during voting, where Scots will be asked to rank their preferred candidates by number, with one being the most preferred.
In the counting process, a formula is used to calculate the representatives elected to each ward in Scotland’s 32 local authority areas.
Despite the expectation that counting will be complete by Friday evening, the overall control of councils will not be known for some time.
The STV system rarely, if ever, provides an overall majority for any one party, meaning parties will be forced to run councils as a minority administration or enter into formal coalitions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel