What a telling label! It describes perfectly the plight of the self-acclaimed winners in Scotland, the SNP. And it masks the reality that the Tories have taken one huge stride towards rendering them powerless in June. Overall the SNP lost one council and 7 seats, hardly a triumph; and with Labour losing 4 councils and 133 seats, even more councils require coalitions to control their agendas. So keep digging, Nicola; that hole is acquiring catastrophic proportions.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Janus: In most Scottish councils the SNP did not actually fare well, whatever Wee Nippy squeals. Although they did increase seats in some councils, they often lost seats and Labour’s implosion had more to do with their ranking than anything else. The Tories were the only ones with any claim to success.
I rather like no overall control. It stops ludicrous excesses on either side.
Both Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire have been this way for years, seems to function better than most.
Interestingly the libraries and parks all seem to be funded still just fine and the garbage gets picked up without the usual bin man stories so prevalent elsewhere.
Mulling this further-
I don’t think the politicians realise quite how much people vote tactically these days. I for one, being a good fascist, would have voted Plaid in the local elections. They are far more interested in the community, keeping it decent environmentally, less prone to welcome incomers of any variety or colour and generally are very parochial, which tends to be a good thing for the locality. They are pretty left wing nationalist but they do a better job than the conservatives locally. and don’t toady to Westminster so I would have held my nose and voted for them.. However, in the upcoming national election I would have set aside my UKIP tendencies and voted conservative, as they are half way down the road so to speak. Should they not deliver a satisfactory Brexit I would instantly go back to UKIP to get the job done.
So I can quite understand why people vote SNP, it may well be the same locally there as in Wales. It will be interesting to see if the General election follows the same pattern, rather suspect that it will not. I see that one’s views on one’s own area and one’s national views may differ quite widely. I can’t be the only person who thinks like that.
Back to NOC, yes, very common here too, the result of prop rep. Bad though at national level. Too much power for the likes of the LimpDims.
CO: The first Salmond government was largely okay. There was no overall control at Holyrood so he had to proceed carefully. The SNP, at that time, were relatively disciplined and on-message. There were some excellent Scottish Labour MPs, MSPs and councillors but much of the party developed a revolting sense of entitlement that was matched only by their lack of discipline, sleaze in Glasgow and inability to focus. They had governed Scotland as a virtual fiefdom for generations and thought that this would be the way it would continue for all eternity. By 2012 the SNP hadn’t run Scotland into the ground and Labour continued its decline. Salmond, on the strength of his first go, was returned as first minister after the SNP won an outright majority. Scots Labour still didn’t grasp how perilous their situation actually was. By 2015, it was too late Labour were wiped off the electoral map in Scotland. The problem is that the SNP aren’t very competent. After Indyref was defeated and they lost their majority at Holyrood, they’ve completely lost the plot. Labour haven’t regained theirs.
Janus: in Rheinland-Pfalz the state government comprises a coalition of the Social Democrats, Greens and Hunnish Limp Dims.
janus, I agree, NOC works at the local level very well but not nationally.
There are also a few NOC councils in England, as the English Regions used to be known, and a healthy scattering of independent or non-aligned councillors. I concur with other cherished readers that NOC councils are, in general, better placed to run things on a local level but coalitions nationally are an unmitigated disaster.
OZ