You should either exclude Scotland or treat it separately.

The contest in Scotland is between SNP and Labour and the press led by The Scotsman are not so much pro-Labour as anti-SNP.

Meanwhile the SNP government aims to impress voters and is dealing with a huge number of neglected issues usually of little relevance or interest to urban populations or the press. Only one of these initiatives can bring them many votes and some are controversial but there are a huge number of such issues.

People get their information from many sources other than the national newspapers, not least industry journals.

4% of people in employment are in the NHS. There must be far more who pass through a hospital in the course of a year. East coast fishing communities are already solidly behind the SNP because of their CFP policy. Even if people have reservations, they credit the SNP with taking a serious interest.

Do you know anyone trained in sales or marketing? If so ask them about bad-mouthing a competitor.

The Labour party in Scotland must have hundreds of members who have sales training, but to the party members and press a political party is more akin to a football team than an organisation bidding for a five-year contract to manage the country. Thus the supporters are more interested in whether their team can attack the opposing team than actually score a goal, and if the team has a bad season, they sack the manager.

33

“partisan”

No more than your assertion that “Labour can win it with just their core support. The tories certainly can’t.”

Core vote, is presumably, those who’ll vote for Party X come what may. In which case, the lowest vote for Labour since Ramsey McDonald has been 1983 (27.6%) vs. the Tories’ 30.7% in 1997. Neither could win with that, and Labour’s is smaller.

“no swing in council and euro”

You should be quite aware of the irrelevance of Euro and council elections to the General Election. If you’re not convinced, I’d point out that the Tories have won every EU election since 1997, where Labour won in 1989 and 1994 during Tory rule. If anything, all these results tell you is who isn’t in power in Westminster right now.

“c) highly questionable” (my point about regional swing)

Firstly, core Labour seats are, by definition, lowest on the Tory target list. They don’t need these to win, much as Labour didn’t need Henley to win in 1997.

Secondly, have you sat down and worked the regional values out, then put it into Martin Baxter’s predictor? I have. I do not make these statements on a whim.

Etc. Etc. I am often partisan, but I find your claim to be some neutral arbiter hollow.