Latest Scottish polls
During the last week or so of the London mayoral election campaign when my attention was elsewhere there were also a couple of Scottish opinion polls, so here’s a catch up:
Westminster election
TNS System Three – CON 17%, LAB 39%, LDEM 10%, SNP 31%
YouGov – CON 17%, LAB 34%, LDEM 14%, SNP 30%
Scottish Parliament
Constituency vote
TNS System Three – CON 12%, LAB 31%, LDEM 11%, SNP 45%
YouGov – CON 13%, LAB 31%, LDEM 15%, SNP 36%
Scottish Opinion – CON 13%, LAB 33%, LDEM 10%, SNP 40%
Regional Vote
TNS System Three – CON 12%, LAB 29%, LDEM 12%, SNP 41%
YouGov – CON 13%, LAB 28%, LDEM 13%, SNP 37%
The YouGov poll has a range of other questions apart from voting intention. As one might expect given the high polling ratings for the SNP, there were positive ratings for the Scottish administration (net approval of plus 25) and Alex Salmond as first minister (net satisfaction of plus 20). In contrast Wendy Alexander had a net score for doing a good job of minus 39. The other two party leaders, Annabel Goldie and Nicol Stephen both had notably high don’t know ratings (39% and 45% respectively), suggesting people are largely unaware of what they are doing. Of those who did express and opinion, Goldie’s ratings were far better than Stephen’s (plus 21, as opposed to minus 1).
The Cameron effect doesn’t seem to be penetrating north of the border. 13% of respondents said they were more likely to vote Conservative with David Cameron as leader…but 14% said they were less likely. Questions like this aren’t perfect, since people may become more positive or negative towards a party because of the actions of the leader or the way he has changed the party, without ascribing the change directly to the leader himself – but the Westminister voting intention figures in the polls back up the finding, showing no significant increase in Tory support in Scotland since the last general election.
YouGov also asked where the blame lay in recent disagreements between Holyrood and Westminster. Respondents were pretty evenly split between thinking the arguments were being deliberated created by Alex Salmond to show London in a bad light and how Scotland would be better off independent (38%) and between blaming the Westminster government for being insensitive to Scotland’s needs (35%). The split was identical when respondents were asked if London was bullying the Scottish exective – 35% agreed, 38% disagreed.
On YouGov’s normal tracker question on how people would vote in a referendum on Scottish independence 59% said they would support the status quo, with 25% saying they would vote for independence. As we’ve discussed here before, different ways of asking this question show markedly different results, and YouGov’s question which specifies that voting no still retains the Scottish Parliament normally results in less support for independence, but compared to previous YouGov/Telegraph polls using the same wording, the balance of opinion is moving away from independence.
Filed under: Scotland
North Briton:
If your conclusion is dependent on your comparison it is unsound because the reasons for the Green and Socialist parties losing seats were non-recurring, specific to 2007, and not related to the rising popularity of the SNP.
Someone in one of the two Socialist parties had committed perjury, but we didn’t know who.
“Alex Salmond for First Minister” unfairly damaged the Greens and won’t be allowed next time.
The SNP wern’t rising in popularity so much as they have since the election. An inept Labour campaign was losing support and some party had to pick up the votes.
Not the Conservatives (the Party of Thatcher) and not the LibDems (Labour’s angry little helpers) so what’s left?
Given these circumstances, the SNP should take a quiet moment off from congratulating themselves on their success to ask if they should in fact have done a lot better.
Peter?
I got a reply to-day from one of my Conservative MSP’s
“In answer to your questions, we are not preparing to operate in an independent Scotland because recent polls show that the majority of voters in Scotland do not want Scotland to be independent.
The Scottish Conservatives are the staunchest supporters of the Union and that is why we do not plan to adopt independence for tactical reasons. The SNP wants to break-up Britain. Scottish Labour is not fit for purpose and is not fit for opposition in the Scottish Parliament. At Westminster, if Gordon Brown cannot be trusted to stand up for Scotland, then how can he be trusted to stand up for Britain?
Thankfully, for all the millions of Scots who believe in a strong and prosperous Scotland within a strong and prosperous United Kingdom, Conservatives north and south of the border will not let them down.
Finally I am not aware of any discussions within the Conservative party of organising on the Bavarian model.”
It’s about time they did discuss it, in my view.
The first point draws attention to separate poll issue. It’s some time since people are were asked “Do you think independence will happen within ….. years.”
Those who expect it will happen soon are far more numerous than those that actually want it. Maybe there are some pessimists among the SNP too.
“In answer to your questions, we are not preparing to operate in an independent Scotland”
Does that mean that if Scots vote “Yes” in 2010, the Scottish Tories will disband?
There’s a vote winner for the SNP.
Peter.
John B Dick
Not sure I agree. Surely the reason the SNP and Greens did so well in 2003 was because the SNP, under Swinney, did not look a realistic alternative to Labour, so the voters cast around and had a bit of fun. Under Salmond that changed and the anti-Labour voters (or at least a good chunk of them) coalesced around the SNP to get Labour out. The Tories and LibDems held on to their core vote and that was about it – the SSP and Greens don’t really have a core vote so they got squashed.
For the General Election the Tories under Cameron will certainly seem credible in way that the party under Howard and Hague did not. This is bound to resonate in some traditional Tory-voting parts of Scotland such as the two constituencies I highlighted. I suspect that the animosity many Scots felt towards the Tory party is quietly, and unnoticed, fading now as Thatcher becomes an evermore distant memory – and this trend may spring a few surprises in 2010.
The left has left and it may be some time before it is back. Look no further than the obvious for the reason.
Greens are elected entirely on list votes. “AS for FM” is somthing Greens would have voted for in the parliament. We do not elect a president, but this trick worked.
I grant you that DC may seem a better prospect than recent Conservative leaders, but he’s not that much better. Most of the class-based protestant respectable one-nation Conservative voters that formerly returned many Conservative MP’s in Scottish seats are dead.
The rest do not think they have left the Conservative party. They think the Conservative party has left them.
If the party appeared to be identified with the values of the Kirk, integrity, modesty, courtesy, Christian Charity, the brotherhood of man, a duty to serve the community, then they might be interested.
These people are repelled by the idea of rationing health care, or quality health care, through privatisation. Prior to 1947, their parents and grandparents gave generously, willingly and even sacrificially to provide health services for the poor. That is why the Scottish NHS has more money to-day under the Barnett formula. The Presbyterian imperative of education for all is unquestioned. Above all, these better off people took seriously and maybe even literally, the text in Matthew 25:34-46.
As it is, Westminster Conservatives are identified with Oxbridge debating games, selfishness, greed, stinginess to those who have served the country in war, attempting to bribe voters with their own money,English Nationalism and rabid free-market fundamentalism.
It’s not DC. It’s the Conservative party that is unpopular. He does himself no good by apeing Blair’s image. That superficiality of style over substance is a turn off for the kind of people who used to vote Conservative in Scotland. It may appeal to some, but not the people you refer to.
That is, I think, the biggest flaw in your analysis. You mention three Conservative and two SNP leaders as if their personalities were the only thing that mattered. During the entire period, politics was dominated by the leader of yet another party whose success has persuaded the chattering classes to accept this view.
It may be relevant for the southern urban English C2’s who voted for Thatcher. These are people with little education, beer bellies, genital rings and tattoos (the men have them too) whose interests are television soaps sport and reality shows. They vote as they would on pop idol or big brother: for a strong personality, Thatcher or Blair, but not Major. Their natural home is the BNP, but they don’t vote for losers.
The boring respectable middle-class Edinburgh burgher, Church of Scotland elder and golf or bowling club member who was once the core of Conservative support no longer identifies with the Westminster party, but he respects Annabel Goldie and most of her team. They are the remnant of a different Conservative party which is now forgotten in England.
Another reason why Conservatives should do the Bavarian thing.
Peter Cairns:
I have looked up the Act of Union as I said, and though I am no lawyer it looks a though it would have to be repealed before Scotland could become independence. Here’s the first clause:
“I. That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England shall upon the first day of May next ensuing the date hereof and forever after be United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”
It’s the words ‘forever after’ that suggests that repealing the whole Act would be necessary. As an aside, that would also mean that a Catholic could ascend the throne. Incidentally, what’s the SNP position on the monarchy? In the event of independence would we still have the same monarch, as we did before the Union, or would you get rid of Her Maj as well?
Sorry. In the first para I meant ‘independent’ of course.
Pete,
Sort of, so what… The treaty can say what it likes but if Scotland votes for independence the UK will just have to live with it unless it wants to do a Serbia.
On the Monarchy, the Queen ( and her successors) will remain head of state until the people of Scotland decide to change it, which is exactly the situation in the UK.
Peter.
Existing statute can be amended as well as repealed, plus single clauses of Acts can be repealed. There is also implied repeal – if a subsequent law contradicts an existing law, the later law takes precedence (though there is case law suggesting this may not be the case with major parts of the constitution).
Article 1 of the Act of Union has, of course, been superceded anyway, since the Kingdom was not forever after known as Great-Britain. Articles V, XIII and X to XV of the Act were repealed in 1867, Clauses VI and VII were partially repealed in 1948, and so on… the Act can and has been chopped and changed.
The bar on catholics acceeding to the throne is separately enshrined in the Act of Settlement 1700.
Well apart from a couple of exceptions above – i seem to be the only one who sees a Tory comeback on a big scale in Scotland by 2010.
Yes i was correct with England and Wales (as mentioned above) which was finally proved after many derisory comments towrds me. Those voices have now receded – it is interesting that now i have forecast a big Tory comeback in Scotland a new batch of “non believers” have appeared.
The SNP has reached it’s maximum support in Scotland – Labour are doomed in Scotland as they are in the rest of the UK , BY 2010 the 2 main parties will be the SNP & the Conservative Unionists – what is left of the broken Labour party and the Liberals will pick up the remaining votes.
Because of the current Labour government and the SNP the Scots have been unfairly split on the subject of independence – the anti independence group know that the only way to stop this train before it’s too late for Scotland is to turn to the only party that truly believes in a united United Kingdom.
That will make Scotland a real 2 party state with the left leaning pro independence group with the SNP and the anti independence voting Tory – wait and see – cut and paste PETER !!
Oh incidently PETER CAIRNS – if i was in the SNP right now i would be dreading a Tory government in Westminster – because they will be in power for a long long time (maybe even as long as the last one) – so any chance of Scottish independence will well and truly be put on the back burner !!
Which means that sensible Scots can rest easy in their beds for a long time in the knowledge that their countries name won’t be changed from the Kingdom of Scotland to The Peoples Republic of Scotland .
I agree with Mike Richardson that the Tory vote in Scotland is likely to be up at the next Westminster election but this will be a sideshow to the real event in Scotland.
It has been my experience that a majority of Scots favour independence “in principle” and regard their primary loyalty as being to Scotland, not the UK.
The most profound objection made by the element of that majority who did not intend to vote for independence was great concern that Scotland would not be economically viable, and that, among other issues, they would be damaging the prospects of their children if they voted for independence.
The confirmation in yesterday’s BBC Scotland investigation (ridiculously not shown in England) that there is at least as much oil left in the North Sea as has already been extracted together with its greatly increased value is going to shatter the union.
With the credibility of the SNP much boosted by their performance at Holyrood, I strongly suggest that the SNP may well win over half the Scottish seats at the next Westminster election (under FPTP this requires about 40% of the vote for the SNP).
Mike,
Problem is that your prediction for the UK was and still is fundamentally wrong.
You made a prediction on the basis of what you thought would happen and indeed wanted to happen and it didn’t. what transpired is that something else happened that gave the same result.
It’s like betting on a horse you think will win because it’s fastest and it winning because the other three horses ahead of it all fall at the last fence. You still win the bet but by luck not judgement.
It had too parts the headline votes and the underlying hypothesis. The figure is close but the reason all wrong.
Your contention has always been that the British people would see through the policies of the left and turn back to the Tories and Thatcherite policies.
That hasn’t happened. Instead people have tired of labour and have decided to switch not because the Tories offer the radical alternative that you advocated, but because Cameron is offering the same middle ground policies as Blair in a similar way, and that by triangulating for a decade labour now offer nothing different.
It’s a bit like someone saying it will rain this weekend when you have a BBQ. If it rains he was right, but if his reasoning was that BBQ’s make it rain they were talking rubbish, and quite frankly most of your diatribes about Labour and the British seeing the light have been just that.
Anthony,
Where did you learn all that about statutes and treaties? I thought you had a life.
Peter.
Mike:
“now i have forecast a big Tory comeback in Scotland”
This forecast is based on reasoning that there is a Tory comeback in England, no sign of it happening in Scotland now, so it must be due to happen in the near future.
The rest of us think that the reason why it has not happened yet in Scotland is because there is no surge in enthusiasm for Conservative policies in Scotland, or even in England; elections are lost, not won; Labour is doing badly and some other party has to benefit.
In different parts of Scotland all three opposition parties stand to benefit,(though the LibDem gains will be offset by losses elsewhere).
“The SNP has reached it’s maximum support in Scotland”
There is some truth in this, but not the simplistic way you mean it. Not only is there no sudden damascene conversion of thousands of voters to Conservative values and policies in England, there is likewise no reason why the SNP’s well rehearsed arguments for independence should, equally suddenly, and at the same time as the supposed Conservative surge in England, have become more persuasive than in the last 20, 30,…50 years.
There is no surge in support for the SNP or for Independence.
There is undeniably a collapse in Labour support and even on FPTP, though regionally) two parties to choose from both of which are less repellent to the former Labour voter than “The party of Thatcher.” There is also an as yet slight, but steadily increasing consolidation of SNP support as the new SNP Government demonstrates that it can deliver – in Christian Schmidt’s words – “bog-standard, non-ideological ‘good governance’ (and some smaller gimmicks).”
It’s such a refreshing change. Especially since it’s been lacking in the last 20 years and, so far as Scottish issues and sensibilities are concerned, 50, (to my knowledge) probably 300 years.
If the SNP manage to keep it up – and it won’t be for lack of trying – and if we continue with an unreformed disgrace of a parliament in Westminster sooner or later support for the SNP will firm up and independence is inevitable.
If you don’t want that, then reform of the FPTP tradition-bound, and confrontational UK parliament with its Stalinist control of MP’s by party leaders; secrecy and the abuse of patronage and the Royal prerogative by the PM, is exactly what you need.
The model of the Scottish Parliament and its Founding Principles shows you how to do it as Donald Dewar told me it would more than half a century ago.
40% – 60% of the sort of MP’s who sit down to pee would help too.
That would have provided the better governance Scotland has missed out on. England hasn’t been well served either of course, but Scotland can just walk away from the problem, we even have that better parliament already there. The English will have to take on the much more difficult task of fixing the mess that is left.
We’ve got a modern functional new one, England is stuck with the old broken one.
It’s too late now to prevent independence. It could have been otherwise.
Tom Robinson:
I have no reason the believe that the economic argument (on either side) is as salient as you imagine.
It is an argument against independence used in Scotland by the Unionist parties, which causes them a consistency problem England. It may be accepted as fact in England, but Scots know that the data is unreliable, those who promote the economic argument (on either side) partisan and either stupid or disingenuous and that the truth is unknowable. I therefore doubt if new economic evidence pointing in favour of independence will have much effect, either on voter opinion or on party rhetoric.
If the truth is unknowable, and dependent on a host of assumptions as to how things will be divided, still more dodgy data isn’t going to make much difference.
When people say that they are concerned that an independent Scotland would not be viable, they don’t necessarily mean that they are sure that it would be. They are certain there are risks,and they are risk-averse.
That isn’t going to change just because the risk is now perceived to be of being slightly better off, it is still a risk to be taken on inadequate, incomplete and unreliable information. Only of there was a high probability of being a lot better off, or a lot worse off would that influence the risk-averse person.
The SNP will not win over half the seats in Scotland. In some seats they are in 4th place and could double their vote and still not even come second. It is clear that Labour will lose many votes, but in Glasgow their majorities are so huge it will make no difference.
For the same reason that I argued with Mike that there will be no massive Conservative gains, there will be only a modest increase in SNP seats: there is a choice of three parties for the dissatisfied ex-Labour voter. Labour losses will be dispersed, and break differently in different regions.
LibDem support may fall in Scotland because they have been seen as too close to Labour in the SP, but in the places where they are not far behind Labour and the SNP a poor third or fourth, they could easily gain a as many seats as they lose to the SNP elsewhere.
Sean Fear has shown how rural LibDem (and Con) seats in SW England are less vulnerable to national swings than others with larger majorities elsewhere, and many of the existing LiDem constituencies are similar.
The SNP vote will be up, that’s certain, but where they are already in third or fourth place, and where the Labour majority is large, or where there is a sitting LibDem in a highland rural constituency or a Conservative challenger in the South there will be no SNP gain in seats. Their 14 target seats is the upper limit.
Maybe after five years of Conservative government encouraging English nationalsts, too confused or stupid to see the difference between England and Britain, and doing foolish things like forcing “clean” nuclear power on Scotland, then the SNP could win half the seats in Scotland, but not now. Independence could not be far away if the SNP had a majority of the Scottish MP’s – but we may be independent before 2015 anyway.
John,
I pretty much agree with most of what you say with one exception.
Although as I’ve said before I am not that comfortable with oil dominating the debate I think the fact that Labour is unpopular coupled with higher fuel prices and increased Government revenues from the North sea might marginally boost the SNP as the choice of the protesting ex Labour voter.
Like the 10p tax ban It has the capacity to upset Labour supporters more than the government suspects.
Peter.
John B Dick:
‘less repellent to the former Labour voter than “The party of Thatcher.”’
While I accept that this is not necessarily your own view, I wonder if you or anyone else could explain something that has baffled me for many years – to whit, the visceral hatred that Margaret Thatcher’s name seems to evoke in some people.
She did quite a lot for working people, such as allowing council tenants to buy their own homes; giving the opportunity for even those with little spare capital to buy shares in the once-nationalised industries, and so on.
I know that the hard line on the miners’ strike was unpopular with some, but the pits were at the time uneconomic, and the alternative to standing up to the unions was either a 3-day week (as under Ted Heath) or another Winter of Discontent (as under Callaghan). Surely both of these were in recent memory when she stood up to the miners?
Am I missing something?
Anthony: I haven’t read the Act of Settlement, but the Act of Union also still includes a clause about Catholics (or anyone marrying a Catholic) being barred from the succession despite it’s many amendments. I thought that as Independence for Scotland contradicts Clause I (i.e. the main one) of the Act, that it would have to be repealed. As I say, I’m no lawyer, so am open to correction.
Peter Cairns: Certainly Scotland could just go ahead, but surely the UK government would still be bound by the Act, and would therefore have to object to things like Scotland’s separate membership of the EU and the UN. Would the EU rather lose Scotland or the rest of the UK? I’m just curious, not trying to start a row. How many countries would recognise Scotland if the Act of Union were not repealed?
Pete,
Your missing quite a lot.
A lot of working people bought there homes, but not the poorest. The better off bought the better homes at a discount, while those on lower incomes often in homes that no one would want to buy were left behind.
Now given that they had paid rent all those years some kind of discount was merited but given that you could get a discount after only 3 years tenancy and that it started at a third, and quickly reached 60% a lot of the poorest with long tenancies still couldn’t buy while better off people with short tenancies could.
It was popular but it wasn’t exactly fair.
In addition Council receipts were less than the outstanding debt so as houses were lost the debt burden on the remaining tenants rose as did rents, meaning that those who couldn’t buy could kind themselves with a higher percentage of their income going in housing costs that better off people who had bought.
The follow on was a lot more people in the private market while the rules on debt made building social housing a non starter. So the private sector took the lead role in housing building to the market not for need. Those at the bottom went increasingly unprovided for while everyone else saw demand outsrip supply and prices climb.
I am not saying that RTB lead to what’s happening today but it is a factor.
It’s a bit like getting mugged by three skint yobs for thirty quid, at the end of the incident more people are better off, they’ve got one of your tenners each, but it doesn’t make up for getting your head kicked in.
Another thing is the English system of being able to choose your school. That has been popular with those who have the means to drive their kids there every morning, but for the single mum with no car who need to be on the till at Tescos by 9.30 It’s the local school no matter how bad.
We also have the nonsense of kids in buses driving past each other at tax payers expense as the past schools close to their homes to go to the other side of town. Like RTB ( right to buy) the costs aren’t principally borne by the beneficiaries.
Privatisation is another one. For a start selling something everyone has already paid for to those with money is hardly fair.
By all means give everyone a share and let them keep them or sell them, like the building societies did, but a lot of people had an issue with having to buy something they already owned.
Again those who benefited were those who had money and when the utilities went private the poorest who hadn’t the money to buy shares soon found they were getting the worst tariffs.
As to the miners and a three day week that’s just swallowing the TINA ( there is no alternative) line.
It’s like people who say if it wasn’t for the US we would all be speaking German. Wrong, if it hadn’t happened as it did it would have been different, but we can’t say that it would have been any particular outcome. Germany managed the decline of it’s coal mining industry in a slower less damaging way than Thatcher.
Again we closed the loss making pits, but the tax payer picked up the redundancy and benefits check for a generation and we left whole communities as basket cases for years. We also then launched the “Dash for Gas” which 20 years on has made us as vulnerable to Putin as Scargill.
I am not saying that everything that Thatcher did was bad, but much of it was for political advantage more than national benefit. although like most leaders she probably saw them as one and the same. Equally in retrospect the execution was poor, with most economist now believing that we could have achieved the same with unemployment peaking at 2m and lower interest rates, inflation and shallower recession.
What Scots have stuck with is a sense that they got a poor deal and from that they have focused not on the benefits but the unfairness of Thatcherism. One of the most popular sketches of the time was the Spitting Image one where Thatcher referred to Scotland as “The Testing Ground”. It was popular because for many it struck a cord.
Where Scotland fits in this is that up here we had a perception that we got a disproportionate amount of the pain, more heavy industry closed and lower incomes meant homes and shares weren’t bought as much, while getting fewer of the benefits. Add that to the fact that the Tories had so few MP’s and we developed a strong felling that these things were “Good done for us” but “Bad done to us”.
You can argue whether that is fair or merited on the part of Scots and the Tories, but as is appropriate for a polling site that largely deals with public perception, few would disagree with the fact that it is in part how many Scots see it.
As to the treaty issue, The Uk would just bin it. Treaties are in the end just bits of paper that people abide by when it suits them. Once it’s no longer in their interest to abide by them then simply ignore them.
Regardless of what the Treaty of Union says if the UK thought that Scotland in the EU was a good idea it would back it. Equally if it wanted an excuse to make trouble it could wheel it out.
We get this kind of legalistic argument all the time usually to scare people about independence, but in the event real politick will take over.
It’s like UK ministers saying an Independent Scotland might not be able to defend itself because Britain might not sell it weapons or give it it’s share of UK assets. The fact is everybody knows there would be a line of manufactures only to happy to have Scotland buy their stuff and UK ministers and companies would be fighting to beat the head of the line.
Peter.
John B Dick:
You highlight the following as being Tory voters in England:
“It may be relevant for the southern urban English C2’s who voted for Thatcher. These are people with little education, beer bellies, genital rings and tattoos (the men have them too) whose interests are television soaps sport and reality shows. They vote as they would on pop idol or big brother: for a strong personality, Thatcher or Blair, but not Major. Their natural home is the BNP, but they don’t vote for losers.”
I think this description is rather pejorative, if you don’t mind my saying so. But you go on to suggest, I think, that it is the lack of such voters in Scotland that explain why the Tories don’t do well. I suggest that, in fact, there are probably just as many C2s in Scotland as England, and the problem for the Tories is that they have swung behind the SNP who are effective at appealing to their grievances.
Peter Cairns:
Thanks for the lucid new perspective on several points I had never really been clear about. I’m still not convinced that it’s rational for Mrs Thatcher to be the target of raw hate, when we have had several PMs who have been at least as unpopular, but not hated to the same extent. Still the fact is that quite a lot of people do feel that way, and the electorate as a whole have longer memories than politicians usually give them credit for.
This being so, I would have to agree with those who say that a Tory recovery in Scotland will probably be limited in extent. It will be interesting to see if the SNP are the main beneficiary of anti-Labour sentiment, or whether the Liberals will do better than most people seem to expect.
NorthBritain:
I didn’t say all Tory voters were like that, but without these people Margaret Thatcher would never have become prime minister. They voted for Tony Blair (or though that they did because they don’t all live in his constituency. They didn’t vote for John Major (wimp, underpants)and won’t vote for Gordon Brown (ditherer).
I would in all seriousness urge on any SNP or EU politician that it would be a worthwhile use of parliamentary expenses to observe this sector of the population and hear their views. I can tell you where to go.
In Corralejo there is a bar called the Talk of the Town where you can, from the street, look down into a semi basement just as you would as if observing animals in a zoo and see English tourists, drinking their beer in pints and paying for it in pounds while they watch neighbours, play pub quizzes and watch football.
There are C2’s in Scotland, “urban” many of them are not, and they never supported Margaret Thatcher’s government. Many of them have deserted Labour for the SNP. There may be fewer of such voters in Scotland but it is not they who have deserted the Conservatives but the middle class.
If you think the SNP is effective at appealing to their greivances, then perhaps you should ask why, and why Conservatives are not. I do not myself think that the SNP is notably effective in this or that Scottish urban C2’s have any specific greivances that are not shared by rural middle class, and if there are any such it is not obvious to me that the SNP are either making a greater effort or are more successful in adressing these greivances.
Peter’s latest posting gives you an indication of why Scotland did not support the last Conservative governments, but that is not the issue. The West of Scotland working class have not withdrawn support from the Conservatives, others have.
Scotland is the only part of the UK, and the Conservatives the only party of which it can be said to have ever garnered more than 50% of the popular vote in a general election.
It is the dominance of free market fundamentalists and English nationalists within the party which has destroyed the Conservative party in Scotland by promoting values that were repellent to the decent respectable middle-class one-nation Conservatives who saw it as their duty to vote for and – more important -work for the party, as a service to the community and not for what they could get out of it.
I knew one man, a widower in a large house, who had a housekeeper with three underemployed adult sons living at home in a council house. He received an unlooked-for benefit in the poll tax while his housekeeper’s family paid more and, though a lifetime Conservative,felt ashamed to have voted for them.
What Peter says is fair enough as far as it goes, but, fundamentally it is not about issues, it is about values, Conservative values of the past, not the present. “The problem for the (Scottish) Tories” is the Conservative party, not the C2 voters they never had. There are indeed those who have a “visceral hatred that Margaret Thatcher’s name seems to evoke.” None have more justification than the few loyal members of the party in Scotland.
That is why they should re-brand and adopt the Bavarian model. The parliament of an independent Scotland needs them to represent a section of the electorate that no-one else will and PR will secure them their due place.
Pete Banks:
“Would the EU rather lose Scotland or the rest of the UK?”
I know what the few EU citizens of six or more countries whom I know personally think.
Is there some way we can find out about what a few more of them think?
The EU may not limited options if a roUK government wishes to leave the EU.