The front and back of the envelope I received with my Ayr Constituency and South Scotland Region poll card today.
Photo ID is NOT required for Scottish parliamentary or local council elections.
Why does this matter?
There is official UK research and analysis, including from the Electoral Commission in May 2023, showing that photo ID requirements create disproportionate barriers for certain disadvantaged groups, leading to reduced voting participation among them. This includes lower rates of acceptable photo ID ownership, lower awareness of the rules, higher rates of being turned away at polling stations, and self-reported deterrence from voting.
Why does this matter more for the SNP?
Opinion polls repeatedly show a higher percentage of those unemployed, in insecure and in ‘routine’ (unskilled labouring) roles vote SNP than vote for the other parties. For example in the most recent YouGov poll on 18th February 2026, 33% of this group would vote SNP but only 8% would vote Conservative or Labour (1).
https://scottishelections.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SES_SCOOP_Results_Feb26.xls
The Ipsos poll on 25 February 2026, using the older Social grades AB to DE, had 48% of group DE [unskilled, temporary, unemployed] supporting the SNP , 8% for the Cons and only 7% for Labour.
This is a serious error by, at least, South Ayrshire Council. Let me know if your constituency has anything similar.
Talking-up Scotland 
a serious error or a deliberate attempt to confuse voters, given it is not a uk parliamentary general election how will the council rectify their error?
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hmmm
utter incompetence or a deliberate attempt to reduce turn-out in SNP heavy groups???
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This a UK parliamentary delivery envelope. Mine arrived today stating that it was for a “Scottish Parliamentary Election – 7 May 2026”.
either someone is sending out the wrong envelopes, which I’m guessing would be illegal, or someone is telling porkies.
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‘which I’m guessing would be illegal, or someone is telling porkies’. Or both…
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My brother and sister-in-law, who live in South Ayrshire, also got one of these UK election envelopes with their Scottish election polling cards.
It seems it’s the council tax department who are either using up excess stationery supplies or being mischievous. Council tax notice arrived from the same source on the same day.
We wait to see what happens over here in Fife.
But will voters really be putting off going to vote by the back of an envelope which they may not even read on its way to the (recycling) bin?
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Our Fife Council envelopes arrived today and they are not using UK Parliament envelopes.
Seems to be South Ayrshire only?
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This is such a serious error that the letter to voters should be re-issued with additional clarification and assurance. Not enough to allow voting without asking for ID at the polling station on the day.
From the Electoral Commission website: ‘Voters in Scotland will not need to show photo ID at Scottish Parliament elections or at council elections.’
Source – https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/voter-id
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Unlikely that this is an error.
More likely that economies have been made and a ukgov contractor was used. Who either knowingly or uncaringly used up cheap British envelopes for the mail shots.
Either way if I was on the contract team I would expect a health discount.
To support the advertising required to correct their error.
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Here is a wee contradiction. I have been a postal voter for a long time. I just sign within the space indicated. So, any photo ID could not be confirmed by the recipient.
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Take a photo of the ballot paper before posting
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Talking of voting……..
BBC Website.
Scotland main page.
The 3rd story updated 1 hour ago but is now the 5th Story.
(It is going down soon to be gone from the page)
“Reform UK suspends Scotland candidate over financial allegations”
(See same page and the story “Man convicted of keeping wolf-dog hybrids in back garden” that was the 2nd article one hour ago and now it still is the 2nd article).
Scottish Politics page
No mention of this story.
However on their website on the Scottish politics page they have these three articles on Reform UK. (from yesterday).
Top article “Reform vows to cut Scottish income tax below UK rate”
4th article “Reform UK’s Scottish manifesto pledges analysed”
6th Article “Reform UK want two Holyrood terms to turbocharge Scotland’s economy”
But no room for Reform UK #BAD news it seems on the Scottish Politics page ?
UK (English) Politics page
The suspension story of their candidate in Scotland is the 9th article (it was the 6th article 15 minutes ago so it is going down soon to be gone from that page also).
So basically these Reform UK candidates were only announced yesterday and already one has ben suspended .
But only suspended by Reform UK after it was highlighted by newspapers.
Yet last year Thomas Kerr told Conoor Gillies of SKY News that for the candidates for the Scottish elections “The vetting procedure that we put in place as a party is absolutely vigorous“.
Really ?
So what of this #BAD Reform UK story and the updates applied to it on the BBC website.
“Reform UK has suspended one of its candidates for May’s Holyrood election less than a day after they were announced”
“Questions had been raised about Dundee City West candidate Stuart Niven, after newspapers reported that he was disqualified as a company director”
“The party said had been suspended pending an investigation into allegations around his financial conduct”
Plus an update:
“Offord also told BBC Radio Scotland that he was aware of controversial comments made on social media by some candidates”
He said: “We are not stopping people from standing for Reform just because they might have said something fruity in the past”.
“The Daily Record reported that Senga Beresford, Reform candidate for Galloway and West Dumfries, supported Tommy Robinson in his effort to hold a huge “patriotic rally” in London in 2024 and called for Muslims to be deported”
(As did their another of their candidate’s in Scotland Faten Hameed , in a SKY News report last year where she said “For illegal immigration yes, yes, put them in camps and deport them if they don’t really , um shouldn’t be here”).
“Lord Offord said , (in respect to Senga Beresford), it was “done in a former life before she was a member of Reform”
“We have to not take offence at every moment in time.”
A “former life” ?
Just like Offord’s former life as a Tory Peer we, the public, are all supposed to forget and so forgive , as if him moving party or any Reform UK individual standing as a candidate for them is then something that absolves everything and anything #BAD they have said and done in the past.
However I am sure for Offord that the past can be revisited and used against other parties and their candidates.
Other newspapers also noted that Linda Holt , another candidate , called former First Minister Humza Yousaf a “grandstanding Islamist moron” and said “he’s not British”.
Also another one of their candidate’s Rachael Wright, from Auchterarder, spread (fake) rumours about asylum seekers moving into a former school in Perthshire.
Offord’s reaction to this: “We have brought in 80% of candidates who are not politicians, they are real people with real lives who said real things in a past life”
“This was said before she was a candidate and she wasn’t even a member of the party at this time”
“We have all made comments in the past but the problem with this modern world is everything is written down and remembered”
“We need to be more realistic about the fact real people say real things. Now she is a candidate she will be held to higher standards.”
So then what was Reform UK’s “rigorous vetting process” that Thomas Kerr insisted was being done………what would it take for a potential candidate to be considered as being unsuitable for Reform UK ?
I urge you to read Philip Sims analysis of this article where he observes that:
“Built in the “straight talking” image of Nigel Farage, Reform has always been a party comfortable with saying things that others might hesitate to voice. If that causes controversy – as it frequently does – then it gets people talking about the issues they want to discuss”.
Also:
“Other parties know this, but are quite happy to play along by piling in with criticism – because they like the idea of Reform as a sort of bogeyman to encourage their supporters out to vote”
“So this kind of row over contentious comments is likely to be a pretty familiar one over the seven weeks building up to the election”.
Pity then that both he, Sim, and his employers the BBC were not as tolerant, understanding, supportive and as magnanimous with all of their reporting upon the SNP , as a party, as a Scottish government and also with individual SNP politicians , where mostly the BBC articles and analysis of stories on the BBC Scotland pages are largely a constant feeding frenzy all under the banner of #SNPBAD.
Let’s also note that Faten Hameed is also one of their candidates (previously she stood for both Labour and the Tories) as is Audrey Dempsey also one of their candidates for May, she who was previously a Labour Councillor, who was then suspended by them and so she was an Independent prior to joining Reform UK, she told Connor Gillies last year in the SKY News report that “Asylum seekers were bringing Sharia Law to the streets of Glasgow”.
These are not serious candidates worthy of our Scottish parliament but it seems many of them are the dregs of society , who seem to hold the most despicable opinions that incite hate and division……….so then they are a perfect fit for Reform UK.
Liz S
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‘Said something fruity’, says Offord. That means extremely sexist or racist and fascist…hate filled comments against people, othering people that they hate and hope to use for their own personal financial gain. I won’t say what I would like to, it wouldn’t be nice.
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Indeed ArtyHetty
So as branch office manager of Reform UK . Offord , assumes he gets to decide what the public should disregard in respect to historical #BAD comments and past incidents via various candidates for his party in the Scottish elections.
That is not how it works though is it ?
Surely it is the public who are the ones who get to decide whether they care about this, so it’s up to us as to whether we all now want to regard these historical comments and incidents, via these candidates, as still being relevant , offensive, unacceptable and perhaps even also as an insight into who these people, as candidates, really are and so then also what and who they, as people and candidates, truly represent and so support.
There is nothing worse than a (pretend) politician (Offord) assuming that he has the right to state or rather dictate what we the public should and should not consider as important when voting for a candidate.
Offord wants the public to be “realistic” and expects us to believe that now, as candidates, their Reform UK candidates, will be “held to higher standards” when he states that “We need to be more realistic about the fact real people say real things. Now she is a candidate she will be held to higher standards.”
Sorry but “Higher standards” and Reform UK , that seems as if we are talking polar opposites here.
What is that quote that says:
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time“.
Well I think that , considering what some of these various candidates have previously done and said , that then is a good piece of advice to stick with as opposed to all of the flannel and weak logic as offered up by Offord, who is still at this point, someone who is unelected by the public…..as he also was when he was formerly a Tory peer and a part of the Tory Scottish Office…..
See the Blue Sky account for ‘Reform party UK exposed’ to see the various Reform UK Councillor suspensions , resignations and even the odd one reverting back to the Tory party in England….on top of all of the other messes connected to Reform UK…….get your friends, colleagues and family members to have a look as well……at what is all of the news no one within the UK is getting where they are , via most of the MSM.
(Also check out the Parody Nigel Farage account on Blue Sky, as that is funny and informative too).
Let’s try to burst Farage’s, Offord’s and wee Kerr’s bubble….they all think that they are going to be big winners in May……..in Scotland.
But if truth did leak out in respect to Reform UK, that is in what most of the MSM refuse to divulge, then and only then would we only see that the worst kind of people, as in those cut from the same cloth as Reform UK, all of the right wing political agitators seeking chaos and major disruption and also some of those Tory supporters and voters , seen by us as being the usual suspects, who often moan about the Scottish parliament and so want to see it being abolished and so reverting back to WM rule…..would then be the only ones who would still vote for Reform UK in Scotland.
As in vote against Scotland and not for Scotland…….
(BTW Reform UK are also losing Councillors who defected to them from the Tory party to the new party that is called Restore Britain, Rupert Lowe’s new party…..it is very hard to keep up with all of the political musical chairs that seem to clearly show the sheer lack of loyalty, belief and political direction from some these people ……and that makes a complete sham of democracy).
Liz S
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“Man convicted of keeping wolf-dog hybrids in back garden” is now the 3rd article on the BBC’s main Scotland page so it’s only went down one place since yesterday as an article.
However “Reform UK suspends Scotland candidate over financial allegations” is now the 8th article on that page so it has now gone down a further 3 places.
Also as a story about a political party it is still not on their Scottish Politics page , as for some reason the BBC did not either want to make it a Scottish political story or they did not see it as one…..correction they did see it as a political story, as they put it on the UK (English) Politics page.
BTW they, the BBC, had room for this story as the 3rd article on the Scottish ‘politics’ page “Mould alert over damp wall panels at new Aberdeen hospital”……as they just love to politicise the NHS in Scotland, but if it, as a situation, had happened in England, it would not have been added onto the main UK (English) politics page, but instead it would have been likely to have been added onto the respective English local page on their BBC website.
BTW on that subject of the Aberdeen hospital MSM Monitor posted this comment yesterday:
“More NHSBad propaganda from BBC BritNat. This isn’t a new hospital, it’s still under construction. Mouldy plasterboard was found and replaced. It happens. BBC BritNat is trying to create an ‘infection’ narrative about Scotland’s hospitals in the run up to the Holyrood election. That’s all this is. Read the article and all the buzzwords and factoids reveal it”
The BBC still adopting the ‘anybody but the SNP’ strategy in what they, the BBC, choose to politicise and also choose not to politicise.
Clearly the #BAD Reform UK story in Scotland is one that they , the BBC in Scotland, are choosing not to politicise……
I guess for the BBC every seat that is not an SNP seat won after May is the best case scenario for the BBC……….even if seats are won by a rotten pretend party like Reform UK…….
In fact that, for the BBC, would just be fine and dandy as a situation, hence their minimising the #BAD connected to this story on Reform UK in Scotland (in what is a familiar trend in the UK with Reform UK candidates being suspended pre and post their elections due to a previous #BAD history that was connected to them, which then surely contradicts Offord’s weak argument on his Scottish candidates histories of #BADNESS).
I mean Malcolm Offord , like most of the other current ex Tory and now Reform UK pretend politicians , well are they not all really still just Tories , as in Tories who have now found a more extreme version of the Tory party (Reform UK that is actually a business and not a political party) , that then suits their more extreme views, as in views that they hope will also be, for some of them like Offord, most lucrative (based on Reform UK’s intentions to cut Tax and also in respect to their plans for business deregulation, all to benefit mostly the wealthy and also big business).
Who would vote for Reform UK in May other than all of those voters in Scotland who always vote for #BAD parties to ensure that Scotland is kept down within the UK , plus those other voters who seem to be ignorant of fact and are also slaves to fake news as broadcast and published by the rogue media such as MSM and also the new(ish) rogue media GB News aka the Reform UK news channel.
I do hope that despite the BBC’s best efforts on behalf of Reform UK in Scotland that they, Reform UK, do not win as many seats as the pollsters are predicting just now………I did also note that Thomas Kerr, as I always knew he would, is also standing for our parliament in May.
#NotShocked
Ambition does that to Tories , as in Tories who are pretending to not still be Tories.
Liz S
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Talking Politics…….
Imagine my surprise when I (very) recently saw Tulip Siddiq in the HOC’s making remarks……where they , in the BBC parliament programme, noted her as still being a Labour MP ?
But was she not convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 taka in Bangladesh in a anti corruption investigation ?
Yes she was.
However it turns out that the Labour Party stated that it would not recognise the judgment nor subject her to party disciplinary action due to the conviction.
The BBC reported online that “In December 2025, she was found guilty of influencing her aunt to use “her special power” to secure a plot of land in the outskirts of the capital Dhaka”.
What is really strange is that although the Labour party now say that they “do not recognise the judgment against her in Bangladesh” the BBC wrote on their website that “she was forced to step down as a UK Treasury minister in January 2025 following questions about links to her aunt, including her use of properties in London linked to her aunt’s allies”.
So why not reinstate her to her previous Ministerial post if these allegations and the subsequent conviction are all bogus ?
Sir Keir Starmer’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus said “it was “regrettable” that Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt”.
The UK Journalist Gabriel Pogrund focused on the following key points:
“Siddiq lived for free in a North London property that was gifted to her family by an ally of her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh who was ousted following allegations of massive corruption”
“He reported that a flat owned by Siddiq was gifted via an offshore Panama Papers trust”
“Pogrund highlighted that Siddiq previously lived in a Hampstead property purchased by a British Virgin Islands (BVI) firm owned by two Bangladeshi businessmen linked to the Awami League party”
“Pogrund highlighted contradictions in her narrative regarding her links to the Bangladeshi government”.
“Pogrund’s investigations led to calls for the Prime Minister to address the allegations, as Siddiq had been appointed as an anti-corruption minister”.
So then why not reappoint her to her previous position if she is not guilty of anything , that is according to the Labour party that she is now still a member of ?
Can I use this as yet another example where , had this been an SNP MSP and someone who was a member of the Scottish government in this same situation , then would the same outcome have been seen as being acceptable as an outcome , for both the media and also for the Labour party here in Scotland and at their HQ……..as in where that SNP Minister was then still a member of the SNP representing them as a Scottish MSP ?
I think we all know the answer to that one.
Rules for UK parties and then it seems different rules for the SNP.
As when it comes to the SNP and any over promoted and concocted scandal , it seems that the only recourse that is acceptable to the MSM and to all of the opposition parties, especially the Labour party, is one where the SNP Minister must be made to resign, resign , resign , or alternatively be sacked and then have the party whip removed.
(Based on the sourced available information, the Labour Party whip has never been removed from Tulip Siddiq).
Liz S
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2% Muslims in Scotland. 2% Black.
The Scottish population. 5 million from the 1900’s and before. Dipped under 5million -1950’s. War dead? The population has only risen since Devolution 2000. 5.4million. Better Gov.
Scotland the least densely populated in the world, Westminster Parliament decisions. The Jacobite Rebellion, 1715, 1745, The betrayal of the Treaty of Union. The Clearances. Scottish migrants had to emigrate. US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand to prosper, because of Westminster policies. Illegally taking Scottish revenues and resources. Keeping it secret under the Official Secrets Act. Universal suffrage 1928. People could vote. Scotland outvoted 10 to 1.: Depression. 2nd WW.
Banking crash 2008. Illegal wars 2002. Ten years. Still suffering. US been at war since 2nd WW. Korea, Vietnam. Iraq, Middle East. Churchill took all Persian Oil. Put the PM in jail. Israel. Balfour Agreement. Lord Balfour. 1917. Russian Revolution 1917
Higher unemployment in Scotland. Scotland was not treated equally. (Treaty of Union) betrayal. Thatcher unemployment in Scotland 15%” In NI 20%. Only place unemployment was under 10% was London S/E. North/South divide. Thatcher funded unemployment with secret Oil & Gas funds. Funded the fraudulent bankers who fund the Tory Party. Interest rates 17%. Ponzi scheme.
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