Comments on: Are Labour really ahead in Glasgow East?

By: ROGER

ROGER — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:48:59 +0000

Now that the james purnell plan of making every one on benefit clean the graffiti & pick up little has been made public, everyone will do the decent thing & switch to SNP.
And Of course Glasgow is going to be one of the trial areas.
The next thing this government will do is making all on benfits wear the yellow star.

By: Scottish Roundup » Blog Archive » The Battle For Baillieston (oh, and rest of Glasgow East as well)

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:25:47 +0000

[...] an ICM opinion poll giving Labour a double-digit lead. Or did it? ASWaS, Mike Smithson and Anthony Wells line up to scrutinise the [...]

By: James

James — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:48:00 +0000

I’m convinced that the reported 2005 votes are partly “how I wish I’d voted” rather than clear recollection. Not only did the sample under-report as 2005 Liberals (which is weird with a AB bias), but they over-reported as 2005 SNP voters.

The subsequent PSO poll predicts final shares pretty close to the ComRes unweighted sample, incidentally.

By: hard pressed TQY

hard pressed TQY — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:08:19 +0000

Common sense would suggest that the broad thrust of the poll would be accurate. Large levels of benfeit dependency is constituencies like Glasgow East mean that the population will naturally be disposed towards Labour. With housing paid for and local taxes paid for as well as other benefits available they will support statist parties like Labour without fear of the consequential tax increaes that they won’t have to pay. The only thing that could possibly throw the contest into doubt would be the extent to which Labour or the SNP are able to mobiize their supporters. Labour will only lose if their supporters lack the commitment to vote.

By: Alex Porter

Alex Porter — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:14:41 +0000

The problem with your reasoning Anthony is that the swing already happened. The difference between the 2005 general and the 2007 Holyrood election saw the SNP achieving a seismic shift in voting preference in Scotland. That process has continued since the SNP took government.

In England there is a relationship between a seat and how people voted in the last election, in Scotland there is very little. Things have changed here dramatically!

That said Labour could still hold on here because there are some seats which are half stuck in a time warp…