Just for comparison,

Ken, and now Boris, dominate the local media (TV, radio and print) in London, and with a population greater than Scotland’s, the comparison is valid.

Nonetheless, when Ken lost to Boris last year, it was in spite of his leadership and track record and not because of it. He certainly did not invite his party leader to help his campaign.

I don’t doubt that in 2012 when Boris come up for re-election, he will need to display all his personal charms as he will be fighting a mid-term backlash.

Having said that, the SNP has one added advantage. Since they will never be in government at Westminster, Salmond and Sturgeon (sounds a fishy pair to me) will never have to contend with defending their party’s record at UK level.

From my vantage point I cannot really be sure but I am told that the Scottish Parliament dominates political coverage in the Scottish media and therefore your admittedly interesting analogy with a large Council cannot hold good.

No Council I can think of is in that position except perhaps the ill fated Hatton led Liverpool in the 1980s.

Therefore I think we can assume that the SNP Government is being judged on its merits. We can also allow for the facts that Labour are in the doghouse while the Tories will take another generation to re-connect with the Scots. That leaves the Liberals.

The Lib Dems are totally opportunistic and widely disliked by polticos across the spectrum but that doesn’t stop them conning some of the people some of the time elsewhere. What stops them in Scotland?

And why do the SNP shrug off the negative publicity from a deeply hostile press corps?

I think it comes down to leadership and if anyone has the recent ratings from ICM for Salmond and perhaps Sturgeon I would dearly like to see them.

Salmond and Sturgeon are the ideal combination – much stronger together than as individuals. He is the bright but likeable bloke. She is the thoroughly modern young women. Between them just about everybody can see something to admire.

Compare Salmond and Sturgeon with Brown and Harman or Cameron and Osborne – get the point!

No offence taken since you did cause me to review my impression of the breadth of the SNP position. I can see that SNP will indeed be first/second in all but a handful of Scottish seats. The most interesting aspect of this is that the exceptions are of two very different kinds.

On the one hand we have two LD/Con seats – Borders and Fife NE, one of which is marginal, the other not (as yet). These contrast with two other historically LD/Con contests which are now 3-way contests which SNP may well win (Argyll & Gordon).

On the other, we have two Lab/LD/Con 3-way marginals where the SNP are currently fourth, but may not be that far behind the pack. It may well be that come polling day these turn out as close 4-way marginals, and SNP may not necessarily be 4th (though I doubt that they can muscle their way up to second, still less win).

As to why the SNP are doing so well at present, I think there are a range of factors in play, the most important of which is that the SNP are simply not the Labour party. One could ask why Con and LD have not benefited to the same extent, but I think it is true to say that the SNP are now seen as the principal alternative to Labour in Scotland, hence they have benefitted most.

When we talk about “mid-term blues” this has historically been in relation to a poorer performance by the governong party in local elections 2-3 years into their period of office. But that has also always been by way of reference to the government at Westminster.

It may be that despite being in (minority) government at Holyrood, the SNP have not suffered from “mid-term blues” because the electorate are not looking primarily at Holyrood, but at Westminster, when venting their spleen.

In a way, their position is not that disimilar to a large Council held by the opposition. In some cases the opposition has only taken control because they are not the government, in others, they have been the “natural” party of control in that area. Either way, they do not suffer a reaction in their own mid-term. Look for example at the Metropolitan counties in the 1980s.

This is not to denigrate Holyrood, but a simple question of hierarchy.

As to what implications this has for future elections, I suspect that the response may be markedly different as between Holyrood and Westminster.

Indeed, Salmond may be a trifle concerned that Brown is going to hang on to the bitter end. I am sure that he would much prefer to fight the 2011 Holyrood election in the context of a national Tory government 18-24 months into fiscal austerity (aka public spending cuts) than one which has just delivered its first non-emergency budget.

You are not as out of touch as I thought.

You are correct and I wrong about the number of local authority areas where the SNP came third – it was one (Borders) not two as I thought.

However I think I have the main point which is that with a Euro total of 26 firsts – 5 seconds and one third the SNP will be challanging in just about every seat around Scotland come the election.

There will be exceptions but not many on current form.

I am still searching for a definitive expanation as to why this should be so. I can see the reasons for Labour weakness but why should the SNP in mid term
be in record breaking form?

Your comments about SNP targeting of LD votes is interesting – and reinforces the point I was making earlier about the variety of scenarios applicable. As an aside, SNP progress in areas like this makes it easier for Cons to take LD seats. You couldn’t organise such a campaign in St Andrews could you ?

As you note, Borders is an area wher Lab are clearly out of contention, and there is little of their vote left to be squeezed. This will become progressively true across the Highlands, Grampian and Tayside, with Labour support confined to the main cities.

We will undoubtedly see a large number of 3-way marginals in Scotland, and the SNP will be among those 3 in almost all – possible exceptions being Edinburgh S and Aberdeen S – though these could become 4-way marginals as Inverness was in 1987-92.

Indeed, it may well be the case that 3-way marginals are more common in Scotland at the next election than the traditional two-party marginal with others a long way behind. There will also be a large number of seats where one party is way out in front despite being on under 40% purely because 2-3 parties are vying with each other in the 17-24% range.

This of course will make it even harder to predict outcomes based on share in Scotland wide polls !

Interesting analysis. In passing, you mention the Borders being the only area where we in the SNP are third.

We were however only 5% behind the Lib Dems (18.5% to 23.5%) and Labour were on just 6.4%. This in an area which had in past years delivered more than 45% (and often more than 50%) to the Lib Dems and where in 2004 we came 5th in the Euros (behind UKIP and Labour, in Roxburgh and Berwickshire at least).

Hence, even here in the Borders, we have made genuine progress. If we had been better placed on postals, where we have been guilty of letting the Tories and LDs steal a march, I am sure we would have been pushing for second place. If the SNP nationally starts to target the Lib Dem vote (to win in places like Gordon, Argyll and Inverness), we will benefit from that in a way that knocking Labour can’t help us, as they are squeezed to the max here.

So, we are working on it, but whereas in some areas it is a two horse race, we are fighting both the Tories and Lib Dems in what both would regard as heartlands. However, we believe we now may have more members then the LDs, so watch this space. At least now we are firmly part of the three horse race, rather than on the sidelines.

All the best.

In principle, I would agree with you, but….

Whilst I understand the theory, in practice the divergence between the two sets of boundaries means that even if we could accurately transpose the 2007 results to the Westminster boundaries it does not follow that all voters would have voted the same way for Westminster.

We can of course strip out tactical voting by using the regional rather than constituency vote from 2007. I would even go so far as to say that that would be a better base-line than the Euro vote last month.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the 2010 (assuming it is May 2010) result would be a pretty good guide to the likely outcome for 2011 Holyrood results ? (Though we still have a mapping issue and no way of discounting any tactical voting which may occur.)

A combination of a percieved failure by Labour nationally and dissapointment with Westminster in general could well mean that what we have seen clearly for the first decade of devolution, Scots voting differently for westminster and Holyrood, might be changing.

If this was the case Holyrood constituency seat results might be a better guide for Westminster next year that the last general election.

Peter.

If you reread my daft posts carefully you may find that my key point is that due to regional variations it is difficult for any poll with a smallish sample to properly reflect the highly regionalised support for either Cons or LDs in Scotland. Moreover, while a national poll may well be able to pick up relative support for Lab and SNP wihin a reasonable margin of error, this of itself does not give us the confidence to predict the outcome in terms of seats.

In other words, it may well be that the result were there a Holyrood election this week would be in the region of Lab 30 and SNP 39%, both +/- 2%, but I believe that the figures for Con or LD are both understated in this poll, the Con figure possibly by as much as 5% (This is after all a Holyrood poll not a Westminster one, otherwise I believe the Con figure may be higher still).

Even were all four figures accurate within 3% either way for share of vote across Scotland, I don’t think one can simply take the figures for the last Holyrood election in 2007 and adjust the share of the vote in each seat up/down to arrive at a projected result.

As to out of touch, I must admit I had not really looked at how broadly based the SNP performance was in June. Clearly the SNP is now close to being in the position in which Lab used to be as a contender for almost every Scottish seat. (Incidentally, as far as I can tell, Borders is the only council area where SNP came third, 5% behind LD and 12% behind Cons).

However, that does not detract from my point about the fragmented nature of the battleground, inasmuch that whereas SNP was first or second in all but Borders Council areas, the “other” party in first / second place was Con in 9 Councils, LD in 4, and Lab in the remainder. There were also a handful of areas where three parties were close, and one where all four were bunched.

In addition, the Council areas do not translate directly to Westminster (or Holyrood) seats. To take one obvious example, Edinburgh with 5/6 seats, was tight between all four parties. That does not mean that the 17-21% for each party is evenly distributed across all seats, and it follows that each party may be stronger in some seats and weaker in others. Indeed, it is theoretically possible for SNP to win the most votes across Edinburgh at the next GE but still emerge with no seats precisely because its vote is evenly distributed.

The SNP dominance in recent elections / polls has come primarily at the expense of Labour. The reasons for that are fairly clear.

However, if you look again at the detailed results from 4th June, you will find that in those areas where Lab has already fallen out of contention, the SNP position is not materially improved upon the results from the 2007 Holyrood elections.

I am not decrying from Salmond’s performance as a leader, and I don’t doubt that being in government (even a minority one) acts as a spur to improved identity and assists with organisation.

FWIW, I believe that the order of the four parties at the next GE in terms of votes will be the same as on 4th June, and I doubt that the share of vote (after some redistribution of others) will be that much different either.

Quite how that pans out in terms of seats won/lost is however an open question. In the central belt where it is a straight Lab/SNP battle, the SNP will need to be significantly further ahead of Lab in total votes in order to win many seats simply because the Lab vote will be concentrated in this area while the SNP votes will be spread across the country.

How did ICM compare Salmond, Brown and Cameron?

Did they do similar ratings for the Scottish Party leaders?

Is this the real explanation?