Verdicts

The verdict

People who never watch the BBC would still pay under the proposed internet levy, and that objection carried the room: voters rejected the charge by a wide margin. The sharpest No argument was not about the BBC’s programmes but about making broadband, an everyday necessity, its collection point.

The verdict

“Turn the most transformative technology any of us will ever see into a political football” was one of the chamber’s sharpest warnings; No won by about two to one, with distrust of government carrying more weight than calls for public control.

The verdict

A No voter called it “Damaging companies destroys jobs”; voters here backed a bank windfall tax anyway, with the sharpest-rated argument belonging to the side that lost.

The verdict

No scraped through, but the room’s most respected arguments came from voters defending the alliance: one called it “More stable than our enemies.” The near-even split left little sense of a settled verdict.

The verdict

“People will have kids when their lives are stable and secure” was the argument the floor rated highest — and the one that put housing and wages ahead of smartphones.

The verdict

Yes prevailed, but the strongest case for abolition came with a boundary: “It should not be abolished retrospectively.” The room backed change more readily than it backed undoing lives already built under the rules.

The verdict

“Voters, not rules, should decide when an MP should stand down”: No won, with the chamber’s strongest case resting on the ballot box and experience rather than a clock on parliamentary service.

The verdict

The vote for a referendum on rejoining was also, in many of its strongest voices, a vote against rejoining at all: Yes won decisively, but the floor’s leading argument was that no government should be allowed to reverse the Brexit decision without asking again. The highest-respected Yes arguments made the case through symmetry and consent: “Out by referendum,in by referendum,” as one put it. Others warned that bypassing voters would make any return look like “an illegitimate coup”; for them, the point was not to endorse rejoining but to insist that a decision of this scale could not be settled by manifesto or parliamentary manoeuvre alone. The No side’s most respected voice cut across the question’s terms: “No referendum. No manifesto. No going back.” That was a case against reopening the issue, not simply for leaving the choice to MPs. Another No voter allowed that a further vote “with the truth, the gains and losses clearly defined may be worth doing” — a rare opening towards the very mechanism the question proposed. The debate was less a contest over whether rejoining would be good than over who could authorise it. Some Yes voters said the 2016 decision bound governments until the public said otherwise; others insisted that successive governments had failed to deliver Brexit, and that another referendum would only prolong the argument. The room’s most-valued position was clear on the process, even where its destination was not. That is the vote’s constitutional message: a manifesto may state a direction, but for these voters it cannot close the question.

The verdict

The chamber voted No, with the strongest voices warning that relief could be captured by Hamas; the smaller Yes case answered with an appeal to keep civilians alive, whatever the politics.

The verdict

A vote about young people’s influence became, for many, a proxy fight over votes at 16: Yes won narrowly, while the chamber’s most-respected argument warned, “We will all need help” if that change came.

The verdict

Sunday shopping’s proposed freedom won narrowly, but the floor’s most respected single argument came from a No voter wondering whether Yes supporters had ever worked retail. The split vote came with a sharper question than convenience alone: who gets to choose when shops open, and who has to staff them?

The verdict

“An incredibly bad deal” was the chamber’s dominant verdict: Yes won by more than three to one, with the strongest-respected argument warning that the arrangement could weaken control of a strategic asset.

The verdict

No carried the vote decisively, while the floor’s most-respected argument asked a blunt question: “has any socialist state been a success ever”. The Yes case was less a defence of one model than a plea to rebalance the economy.

The verdict

The floor’s strongest Yes argument called DEI “a poisonous ideology”; the argument it rated highest helped carry a decisive vote for treating minority-only public internships as unlawful discrimination. But the No voices were not defending exclusion so much as warning that open competition can preserve old barriers.

The verdict

“Practice what you preach” was the strongest Yes case, and it carried the vote: a demand for disclosure framed less as curiosity about private finances than as scrutiny of public power.

The verdict

A familiar match-day ritual was put to a test and the room chose caution: No won. The strongest voices were not simply defending the law; they were arguing that a family day out and a hard-won change in football culture were worth protecting.

The verdict

Holyrood’s right to debate independence found a defence here, but not enough to overcome the charge that it should be governing instead: No won decisively. The room’s most respected voices were less interested in the constitutional destination than in what MSPs were doing with their time.

The verdict

A narrow Yes majority backed the claim that borrowed money is a real business cost, not taxable profit: the floor’s strongest-rated argument said landlords should be taxed on “their genuine economic profit”.

The verdict

The argument for protection was that royal birth creates a public obligation; the answer voters gave was that stepping away from royal duties also means stepping away from the public bill. No prevailed by almost three to one, with the chamber’s most-respected Yes case conceding that what the family expects may not be what voters consider adequate.

The verdict

The “far-left” label, voters here argued, is more conspicuous by its absence than by its overuse: No won, and the floor’s most-respected voices said the media reach for its mirror-image far more readily.

The verdict

The centre won approval, but the room’s most-respected warnings came from those who feared it would police dissent: the case for defence had to share the floor with deep suspicion of the state.

The verdict

“Powerless” was the word one of the floor’s most-respected critics used, and No won decisively. Yet the argument was not simply that the UN does nothing: even its opponents acknowledged the value of the aid it delivers.

The verdict

A Yes majority backed extending the guidelines, but the floor’s most-respected voices were No voters arguing that no religion should have special protection: “There should be no blasphemy laws for any religions.”

The verdict

Long-term residents, not an open-ended invitation to arm anyone who arrives, became the dividing line in a decisive Yes vote. The floor’s best-rated case made service a reciprocal duty; its sharpest No voices saw a security risk.