Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Polls all round. ICM’s monthly Scottish poll ahead of the May elections has constituency voting intentions of
CON 16%(+3), LAB 29%(-2), LDEM 16%(-1), SNP 34%(+1) and regional voting intentions of CON 15%(+1), LAB 28%(+1), LDEM 17%(nc), SNP 32%(-1). Using Weber Shandwick’s swingometer this would leave the SNP and the largest party and the current Labour/Lib Dem ruling coalition unable to form a majority alone.
For all you you keep begging for one in my comments section, the BBC carries an ICM poll in Wales – the first Welsh voting intention poll for some years. Unfortunately, while they appear to have asked voting intention questions, since they report that the Labour vote would rise by 7% were Tony Blair to resign, they are nowhere to be found in the article itself. We’ll have to wait for ICM to provide the tables on their website. The poll found that half of respondents were unaware that there even were elections in May, and only 40% said they intended to vote. Only 43% of respondents were able to name Rhodhi Morgan, with the other party leaders in Wales having name recognitions in single figures.
Finally, MORI have conducted a opinion poll in Northern Ireland. Current voting intention stands at DUP 25%, Sinn Fein 22%, SDLP 20%, UUP 16%, Alliance 9% and Greens 3%, PUP 1%, Conservatives 1%, UK Unionists 1%. This represents a huge drop in the Ulster Unionist vote, and a large advance for the Alliance (though historically polls in Northern Ireland have tended to over-represent the level of support for moderate parties and underestimate that for the extremes). Interestingly, if there has been a shift from the Ulster Unionists to the Alliance then the balance between parties designated as nationalist and those designated as unionist will be very close indeed.
Tories picking up a little in Scotland, has the Cameron effect finally arrived? This would secure a couple of Tory marginals, at least one from SNP attack.
SNP clearly holding their lead. Does anyone know how much movement there has been in Scottish opinion in the two previous elections from polls at two months out to polling day?
It’s very interesting that in Wales it looks like Labour would do better without Blair, whereas in England the reverse is probably true. Unfortunately for Labour, Blair will probably resign just after the May elections, which means they’ll get the worst of all worlds.
Not a Lawyer,
The breakdown actually shows the Tories losing a seat, with the Greens the biggest losers, as they drop below 6%. As with now the Tories get almost all there seats from the list.
Take a look at the Scottish swingometer…
http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/936
Peter.
A couple of things re. the NI Poll. Firstly, a key issue in the past has been turnout amongst certain demographic groups. One particular key group is the so-called “Garden centre prod” – liberal unionists, middle class home owners (hence the garden centre motif) and pro-power sharing – didn’t turn out last time and really hurt the UUP.
Secondly, the question of reliability. As mentioned, the “nice” Alliance tends to be well represented in opinion polls. Historically, I think this can also be said of all the “extreme” parties – people have said UUP and voted DUP, SDLP and voted Sinn Fein. Of course, whether saying you are going to vote for these parties now has the same social stigma as it did a number of years ago is open to question. The other thing I would be interested to know is what the return rate on data gathering was. Certainly collecting academic sociological data in NI is very hard, as people tend not to reply to survey enquiries, as, for obvious reasons, personal information in a society with a history of political and sectarian violence is closely guarded.
Thanks Peter, I was thinking of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, but you are probably right.
As between SNP and Labour, ICM are showing little movement from the previous poll. I think that is interesting given the Labour campaign which strikes me as an all out assault on the SNP and not much else.
I also think this is an election where the polls will influence outcome. I think if the polls show no Labour recovery soonish the general expectation of a Labour defeat will grow and demoralise a party so used to winning in Scotland.
Where is the recent youguv poll commissioned by the SNP. why keep it under wraps?
NaL,
Labour seems to be shock, it tried the “Your Doomed”, approach and it didn’t work, largely i think because the government lacks credibility when it issues dire warnings, post Iraq.
Secondly as with Blairs decision to offer a referendum on the EU constitution and the Euro, a referendum effectively neutralises Independence as a make our break issue, in the same way it killed the Tory “Save the Pound” campaign.
We have developed a fairly sophisticated electorate, and as with south of the border the SNP has tapped into a real mood of “It’s time for a change”.
Labour keep saying they want it to be about Education and the economy, but on education they have brought in Student fees and PFI schools both of which are pretty unpopular.
As to the economy, the BBc caries a story today (2nd March) that 900,000 Scots live in poverty, including 240,000 children, thats nearly one in five of the population and one in four of the children, hardly the kind of statistic a party in power for eight years wants to be defending.
Worse still for Labour the percentage in poverty gets close to 505 in their own heartland seats in areas controlled for a generation by Labour Councils.
Under PR for local government in May, it’s conceivable on current polls thatthey might not be the biggest party in local government, and thatwill deprive Labour in Scotland, of a lot of power, influence prestige, and ultimately cash.
A lot of people in the SNP are already talking about the referendum as ifit is a done deal but also about the real chance of breaking labours political monoply in Scotland for the first time in half a century.
Peter.
I’m a bit surprised the Scottish poll leaves only 8% of the list vote for SSP, the Greens, Solidarity and independent candidates. Here in Glasgow, I’ve so far only received election material from the SSP, so they’re definitely out there fighting. If the small parties do better than currently indicated, I wonder which of the larger parties the votes will come from.
In 2003 polld went up and down quite a bit before the election, probably because of the war. In 1999 they were quite stable in the last few months.
What puzzles me most is the Green share of the vote. In 2003 System 3 got it more or less right, while everyone else thought the Greens might even lose their sole seat.
Just assuming the Greens would get 8% (and thus 10-ish seats), where would they come from?
Let’s all calm down a little – no-one in the real world truly starts focussing on how they’re going to vote in May elections (at least in ones they regard as having a serious impact on their lives) until after Easter…
I understand that the MORI poll was conducted only in Greater Belfast, Belfast City, and Londonderry. I don’t know if MORI have simply recorded the figures for those areas, or attempted to extrapolate changes in vote share to the whole of Northern Ireland, but it would suggest the poll is of limited value.
A vote of 12% for the Alliance and Greens is way above anything those two parties have got in any recent NI election. Such support as they have would certainly be concentrated in the pleasanter suburbs and satellite towns of Belfast.
I’d have thought a vote of c.7% would be much more plausible for those two parties, and a combined vote of 46-47% for the DUP and UUP would be much more likely than the 41% recorded by this poll.
Peter,
Are the SNP still expected to take GUN after their vote collapsed in Dumfries & Galloway in 2005? Was it, in your opinion, simply an en masse tactical switch to Labour or more representative of a genuine fall in SNP support in SW Scotland?
The fact that the old boundaries are still operating for the Scottish Parliament election is very confusing and quite ridiculous. It means people who stopped voting tactically in a seat like Dumfries and Galloway will have to go back to voting tactically this year (for example, voting SNP instead of Labour), only to switch back again for the UK election in 2009 or 2010.
I’d suggest you treat the NI MORI data with caution. Sample size at just 1,000 across all constituencies and apparently only over 50% stated Party voting intentions. Therefore sub-groups are tiny. Plus not all the parties are running in all constituencies. The Conservatives are contesting 9 constituencies so the 1% indicating they’ll vote for us are likely to be in our key constituencies of North Down and Strangford. Anecdotal evidence and our own polling indicates there’s a strong swing to us in these constituencies.
A Conservative win in North Down would be nice, but I think we’re starting from too low a base to pull it off this time. Winning a few council seats should be a possibility though.
I’m a tad confused, but I thought none of the 3 main parties contested any NI seats. I thought instead the Tories were semi-aligned with the UUP and Labour semi-aligned with the SDLP but that there were no actual Labour or Conservative in NI.
Have the Conservatives always contested seats in NI then?
Still no Wales data?
Philip
Conservatives have organised in Ni since 1989ish.
The UUP is a tribal Protestant unionist party – only a minority of whom would be Conservative inclined.
Their only MP – Lady Sylvia Hermon boasts of how often she votes with Labour.
Labour dont contest elections – and are being persued through the courts for their discrimination
Paul D,
I am not sure about GUN (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale), but the feedback from both Dunfermline and Moray, was that people were looking to punish labour (a typical By-election anti-government vote, enhanced by Iraq).
In Dunfermline there is actually a fair bit of evidence that the SNP and Libdems were neck and neck two weeks out.
Partly due to some fairly poor tactics on the SNP’s part ( putting out an anti Charles kennedy leaflet when there was a lot of public sympathy and good will towards him) and the typical LibDem tactic of saying different things in different parts of the same constituency, people decided the LibDems were the ones who could beat Labour.
So I think FPTP tactical voting is alive and well, so it may be a feature in GUN.
The problem is where as the SNP vote has risen far faster than the Tory one, which despite recent rises is still more or less where it was in 2003, it has probably been mostly from labour and that was under 4,500 in 2003 (Compared to over 11,000 for the tories and SNP).
Given that that suggests a large amount of existing tactical voting I am not sure where the 1,500 votes the SNP need will come from, as the LibDems got less than 2,000.
Look down the road at Dumfries where labour were 1,000 ahead of the tories (12,800 to 11,700), burt the SNP under 4,000 and the LibDems under 2,500. Same story in both I think, people voting tactically to keep the Tories out.
A fairly likely outcome would be SNP gain GUM, Tory gain Dumfries and Labour the loser, but the list evening it all out.
Peter.
Philip , Yes the Conservatives have usually contested a few seats in NI , they contested 3 seats at the lasr GE polling a grand total of 2,718 votes . Some years ago the Liberals also fought seats in NI but now they are allied to Alliance .
The Brentwood byelection was a LibDem gain from Conservative by the way .
Philip – the Ulster Unionists were once upon a time the Northern Ireland arm of the Conservative party. They were part of the National Union (the voluntary part of the Conservative party) and Ulster Unionist MPs took the Conservative whip and, in one case (Robin Chichester-Clark) served as ministers in Conservative governments.
In 1972 the Westminister link was broken when Stormont was prorogued (the exception being Stratton Mills, who resigned from the Ulster Unionists rather than the Conservatives… but then went on to join the Alliance), although the Ulster Unionists remained affiliated to the National Union until 1985 and the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Only after that did the Conservative party start organising in Northern Ireland.
The only time the Conservatives have come close to getting a Parliamentary seat in NI is 1992, when they came second in North Down with 32% of the vote to James Kilfedder’s 43%.
Peter:
Re: Galloway and Upper Nithsdale.
I think the Conservatives will hold this seat.
It’s worth noting that the SNP vote collapsed in the 2005 General Election when the seat was subsumed into the new Dumfries & Galloway constituency. Many will have transferred to Labour but the Tory vote up as well though not enough for Peter Duncan to win.
The SNP would have to win all these back and more to win – but in the context of a sitting Labour MP and Tory MSP, Alex Fergusson. The latter is so confident of holding the seat that he has not put himself for the Tory regional list despite being first on the list last time round. The Tory organisation is also, reputedly, very strong on the ground.
As for Dumfries, if Labour do as badly as the polls suggest, then there is a good chance of a Tory gain. However the Labour vote in Dumfries town has remained stubbornly solid in the last few elections so they may hang on.
Alant,
But the SNP vote may have collapsed for exactly the reasons I said, namey that itwas never the SNP vote but actually the anti Tory one.
What may have happened at westminster was people switching to the “who can beat the Tories” candidate, and that is unlikely to be the SNP at Westminster.
This time it is clearly the SNP who hold that position in GUN as in 2003 so i expect people to vote in a similar way. However, like I said, I am not sure if their are enough votes fot rthe SNP to gain.
If we assume uniform swing, and that it’s mostly labour to SNP. then the SNP are up about 9% and Labour down about 4%. adding 9% to the SNPs 11,000 in 2003 would give them over 12,000, whcih even ifthe Tories rose by 2% would probably just make it an SNP gain.
However, a 5% drop in Labours 4,500, is less that 250 votes so thats all the SNP might expect to get. Even adding more and a smaller swing from the LibDems, I just can’t see where the 1,000 votes will come from.
Havingsaid that we have had the emergence of the “First Vote for First Minister”, “Alex salmond for First Minister” campaign, and that might well become a key factor for the floating voter.
Given that pretty much everyone knows it will be Alex or Jack the lad, it could be a particularly hard campaign for the tories to challenege or address.
Anthony,
What is the polling evidence to suggestthat the Salmond for FM will work.
Peter.
Still no data tables for the ICM Wales poll
The problem with the Scottish polls and the otherwise excellent Weber Shandwick electoral calculator in particular is that they do not really show us what will happen in several marginal seats for example the three vulnerable Labour seats-Dumfries,Stirling and Eastwood in which the Tories not SNP are the main challengers. Only in Perth and Tweeddale do the Tories seem to have a chance of gaining seats from the other parties but the polls are uninformative there too. And although Labour are on the defensive everywhere surely nine out of ten Glasgow seats are rock solid-that’s a terrific base to start from. I’d say this election is still Labour’s to lose. Nick
Peter,
Where do you get a requirement of 1000 from? Both “scotlandvotes” and the BBC site give the Conservative majority at 99
The tories had a good showing at North Down in 1992, but collapsed at the 95 by election. The candidate was Dr Lawrence Kennedy.
With regard to the Scottish election, Labour would still hold more seats than the SNP on the same vote share.
I think the poll is underestimating the greens.
Paul, Yeah your right I must have miised it and when i did a quick check read it as 990 not 99. In this case then i could well see the SNP take it, but I’d by the same bet go for the Tories getting Dumfries.
Peter.
On UNS the SNP probably SHOULD win back GUN – though I suppose the question is – if they are already being ‘propped up’ tactically in the seat, is there much more for them to squeeze? I guess we’ll find out in May
On GUN, it strikes me that the SNP candidate will be very strongly motivated to win this seat as he is only fourth on the SNP list for the region and so would probably not be re-elected other than by winning the constituency seat (he is currently a list MSP).
I expect a narrow SNP gain.
The full details of the ICM Wales and Scotland polls are on the ICM website . Re the Welsh poll there is very strangely no direct voting question . Every person seems to have been asked the qwuestios if TB is not PM qwould you be more likely to vote Lab/Con/Plaid/LibDem with the result that net positives exceed net negatives by 10% which is clearly impossible .
Silly, silly, silly. The reason, incidentally, for this attempt to measure something that could be measured far more easily using two voting intention questions is presumably that the BBC’s producer guidelines mean that special permission is required for the BBC to commission any poll that measures voting intention:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/politics/commissioningop.shtml
Seems silly to go through all that trouble of doing a poll, and not asking a voting intention question.
How will the STV system for the Scottish council elections work? Is it possible that a particular candidate or party could get a large number of votes but not win any/many seats due to 2nd/3rd choices all going elsewhere?
Paul,
it’s open list STV in wards of three or four, with most of the parties only puttingup one candidate in each ward so that they don’t split the vote, as with open list candidates from the same party are competing against each other.
If no one reaches the quota (electorate/ number of candidates +1))+1, then the lowerst score on first choice is eliminated and their second preferences redistributed. If someone makes the quota then i think their second preferences are redistributed.
I am not 100% sure of the process to be honest, but as it’s all goimg to be done electronicly it will hopefully go okay.
It’s a bit like a car, you don’t have to know how it works, to drive one.
Peter.
The Australians have used STV for decades to elect their senate, and transferable constituency votes for their house of representatives. With 95% turnout too (Voting is compulsory). Its complicated, but its never stopped them.
Looking at the data set for the ICM poll Scotland, I see that for Glasgow, the SNP has a handsome lead over Labour in the constituency poll. How can this be? Does this mean a Labour collapse there and in West and Central Scotland which show something similar. It really is quite striking.
Am I missing something?
not a lawyer , the individual regional figures are based on samples too small to be meaningful .The Glasgow sample was 67 for example so M of E would be 10% or more . The previous ICM poll had Labour well in the lead in Glasgow but again the sample was only 70 and equally meaningless .
Thanks Peter,
I was just intrigued at the prospect of Candidate A getting 49% of the vote but missing out by being 4th choice and one of candidates B,C, D mopping up the 51% on transfers
The NI MORI poll – MORI have since stated that of 1004 people questioned only 530 answered the party support question. Strange accents from call centres in Dublin and Edinburgh probably (ahem) didn’t help the poll.
The 9% for Alliance is, frankly, mad. 16% for UUP equates to the May 05 result, while the DUP’s 25% is a fall of 8% from May 05. As for the 1% for the NI ‘Conservatives’ … seems like that ‘breakthrough’ for these ‘Tories’ in NI politics is going to have to await yet another election.
I see that Ming has come out in Wales and said that PR is a core principle, and that the “Spokesperson” has been sacked.
Put another way, the rank and file have gone ballistic and the leadership have had to beat a haste retreat behind a verbal smokescreen.
Peter.
I can believe that the the Greens may find it difficult to get their message across; that they may lose a few votes/seats, but if I am to believe that they will be practically wiped out at a time when the largest party is expected to lose many votes I would need corroboration and some reason why they had become much less popular in the last four years.
They may well benefit from anti-trident and tactical second votes especially from former labour voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for any of the other parties for different reasons. A modest rise in their support is as likely as the predicted result.
John B,
The haven’t ,the wipeout can come because they are near a “Vote Threshold”.
Most of Scotlands regions have about 15 seats, and on the formula Threshold=100/(seats+1), that makes the threshold about 6-7% in each region.
Therefore if the Greens get 7% across the country they will get 7 seats, one in each electoral region. However, if they drop just 1% to 6%, they will drop below the threshold and get no list seats at all.
Harsh but true, for an all list party.
Similarly the holy grail for the Tories who are in some ways as lsit depended is 18% which in theory should get them over the twenty mark.
The Libdems can break twenty on less than 18% because of their strong FPTP performance in places like the Highlands & Islands.
Peter.
The added complication is that the effective threshold in each region depends on the number of overhang / surplus seats won in that region.
At the last election the Greens got a seat with 5.2% in the northeast (constituency winners well distributed, no overhang seats) but failed to win a seat with 5.6 in the west region (8 out nine constituency seats won by Lab, theoretic entitlement was only 6).
This year round, a few Labour losses in the west (Paisley N/S, Dumbarton) could deliver an extra Green seat even if their result goes down a bit, while in the northeast a couple of SNP gains could lead to a Green loss even with a stable or marginally increased vote.
I just completed a YouGov survey on Scottish opinion on Trident.
By the style and type of question, I’d guess it was commissioned by my own party the SNP, although it could be a Newspaper.
Given that I suspect it will give the result the SNP expects, ie Scots are strongly anti Trident renewal, I expect we will see the results appearing towards the end of the week.
Peter.
Today’s Hootsman report some results from the private poll recently conducted by the SNP:
SNP 46 seats
Labour 40 seats
Liberals 23 seats
Tories 17 seats
which leaves 3 for the rest. Six seat is a bigger advantage than shown in any of the other polls. The LD and Tory results are similar to the ICM polls over the last few months, but not to the yougov, which had the LD’s at 14-18. (I think the SNP poll was a yougov one.) Would be interesting to see the % result for the Greens, whether it is 5% or lower.
Not sure if it’s the same thing, but the Scottish edition of the Times had some supposed figures from a YouGov poll. They were wrong I’m afraid.
Anthony,
I only had a brief look at the times, but I didn’t see it mention YouGov.
It talked about the SNP doing there own poll and being ahead of Labour everywhere but the Borders and Lothians, ( even Glasgow…..).
Given the Yougov samplwe size i doubt that you can quote regional figures for Scotland with any degree of accuracy, so it may well just be internal polling based on the SNP’s own call centre activity or canvassing.
The SNP have a spring conference comming up so we will probably get news there, if it is official, but to be honest i doubt it.
Even reading between the lines the figures actually aren’t that different from what the scottish election predictor gives.
The other big story is that the SNP are planning to announce setting the replacement for the council tax nationallly at 3%, on all three tax bands (ie 10%=3%, 22%+3%, and 40%=3%), as opposed to letting Councils set there own.
Given that it’s quite a change mid campaign it will be interesting to see what the press and public make of it.
Time for Alex to earn his money, although to be honest I think he more than does that now.
Peter.
Found this interesting article in the Scottish Left review.
http://www.scottishleftreview.org/index.php?action=article&docid=362
Quite a good breakdown.
Peter.
Re Times/You Gov seats predictions.
The Times story fell apart quite quickly. It appears that it was simply an SNP prediction of the seats that they would get based on the previous Scotsman ICM poll. They didn’t like the Scotsman predictions for seats and did their own. There’s huge suspicion about the SNP not releasing the YouGov voting intentions figures that they received in mid-Feb. Many now suspect that they were poor for the SNP and this ‘leaked memo’ was created to try to spin the non-release. Looks even more suspicious now given that the SNP do not ask about voting intention in their latest You Gov survey. They have always published the voting intention figures so why not now?
Storm,
if you are refering to the survey I mentioned, I am not 100% sure it was from the SNP. and if it was it was clearly designed to get a ” Scotland hates Trident” result with which to beat Labour during this campaign.
And just who are the many who are speculating this. It could be that the one issue that hit home was the Labour attack on Local income tax
[Although the Average familiy on Average wages line, relied on it being a houshold with two people earning £25,000 each in a band D home, when in actual fact only 17% of scots households fall in to that catagory which is hardly average, especially as the ONS puts average Scottish household income at less than £30,000]
As the SNP has just announced what amounts to a four year council tax freeze, 2 years capped and then 2 years with 3% tax set nationally, it may well be that the party has decided to lance the one boil that labour had created.
Peter.
As much as I enjoy reading the Scottish Left Review, the article mentioned by Peter Cairns is very poor, as the numbers of for required swing seem all incorrect – check the Scottish Parliament’s website, or alba.org.uk for the correct figures.
I also don’t think a straight cut off to declare constituencies with a swing below 15% (or whatever) is sensible. Most commentators see Gordon as competitive despite the SNP being a long way off (and rightfully so in my view). But there are many other local issues:
In Argyll & Bute the SNP are in 3rd place 15.5% behind the Libs, but they won the list vote in that constituency in 2003.
In Coatbridge & Chryston and Airdrie & Shotts look very save Labour, with the SNP 35% in each case, but are the two constituencies around Monklands Hospital.
In Dumbarton the local Labour council has just completely disintegrated.
And all of these are in regions where Labour or the Liberals would certainly not compensated for its constituency loss by a list seat.
Conversely, I would guess Edinburgh Central is quite safe for Labour. In 2003 the Greens won the constituency vote, it includes the University where a Green MSP was elected Rector last year and the local constituency Labour MSP is know to be quite an environmentalist.
Similarly in Fife Central Labour suffered huge losses in 2003 because of the McLeish effect, so I doubt they go down much again this year.
The SNP have just released data from their latest YouGov poll and it’s pretty much a “Scotland Hates Blair” poll. I am not sure ifit is the one that mentioned trident or not, but it’s clearly been commissioned on the basis of asking questions that you already know the answers too.
Peter.
Peter
Was voting intention on 3 May a question in this most recent Yougov poll for the SNP?
Re Times/YouGov predictions
What a bizarre episode ! As a long time Times reader I have never come across such a misleading headline. I live in Scotland and thus have some feel for the public mood here. Labour are massively unpopular but the old doubts about the SNP are resurfacing whilst the Tories are seen by their own people as clueless and the hard left have made themselves look ridiculous with the Tommy Sheriden business. Apart from the Greens who seem to be on the wane that just leaves the Lib Dems and I suspect that middle class Scots will switch to them come May3 and no I am not a supporter of that party but it is my prediction.
NaL,
Nope it was purely Trident as I recall, but as I said, I am not even sure it was SNP, although it had the feel of a poll where they knew the answers they wanted which is normally a good indication that it’s political.
Nick,
Would that be the LibDems who have propped up labour as part of the executive and who have had a series of dodgy expenses stories over the last few years.
We won’t really have a real feel for it till April but all the indications are that the Libdems are going to see themselves get four or five new seats on a modest 2% or 3% swing.
Having said that since June 05 they have been as high as 22% and 23% in the two votes and as low as 14% and 11%. They hit 21% and 22% back almost two years ago when John Swinney was still leader when the SNP was on 22% and 23% and Labour on 40% and 37%.
They hit their low of 14% and 11% at the tail end of last year and the start of this, so even though they seem to have recovered a bit with the last polls around 17% and 17%, there isn’t much evidence of a LibDem surge.
As I have said elsewhere, I think they are now to associated with Labour, and people are starting to see it in terms of Salmond v MaConnell and Labour v SNP, so I’d expect if anything the Libdems to get squeezed a bit partly through tactical voting.
What will be interesting in Libdem seats is if Labour voters vote LibDem to beat the SNP or switch straight to SNP.
Equally interesting will be how LibDem and Tory voters vote, will it be to prop up Labour to save the union and coalition, or with the SNP to boot out Labour in Westminster and Holyrood.
Peter.
If I were a Scottish Tory unionist (and only one of those three is right), I think I’d be tempted to vote SNP to kick out Labour, knowing that I could still vote No in a future referendum.
SNP YouGov
The stories in the papers today about how unpopular TB is in Scotland and how unwelcome Trident is are from the SNP’s YouGov survey in mid-March. they didn’t ask voting intention in that survey. But they did in the mid Feb survey and never relaesed the results, even though tyhey did release some of the questions and answers, like should McConnell and Salmond have a head to head debate.
Its still suspicious that the mid Feb voting intentions weren’t given to the media even though the SNP have done for all previous surveys.
Phillip Thompson:
“If I were a Scottish Tory unionist (and only one of those three is right), I think I’d be tempted to vote SNP to kick out Labour, knowing that I could still vote No in a future referendum.”
In my case, two out of three, but for any unionist flirting with the idea of voting SNP to give Labour a bloody nose there is a real danger that a stong SNP showing builds up momentum that your potential “no” vote in a future referndum will not stop.
Even the PM has cottoned on to this with his impassioned article in the Telegraph this week. Only snag for him is that he could not bring himself to state the obvious conclusion.
In Scotland there are effectively four parties from which the next Holyrood administration will be formed.
One is separtist, three are unionist (of which one is a bit wobbly).
Two are in the current coalition, two are not.
Both parties in the current coalition are (nominally) unionist.
So, if one is unhappy with he current administration, but is not in favour of independance, then by definition, one should vote for the unionist party which is not part of the current coalition.
There are votes from the heart, and votes from the head. How many Scots will ponder long enough to allow their heads to steer their cross into the blue box against the traditional pull of their hearts ?
Paul H-J
Scottish Tory election slogan -
“Close your eyes, grit your teeth, hold your nose and vote Conservative”?
The interesting thing is, I think that Conservativism in Scotland will get stronger in an independent Scotland, than the present dependent Scotland.
But either the SNP or the Tories are the opposition, and at the moment its the SNP. The idea that you can never vote for the opposition because of a potential referendum is nonsense, unless you’re going to have a permanent government which is totally undemocratic.
I wonder if Northern Ireland has been polled on Scottish independence and whether, in the aftermath, they would still like Ulster to be unified to just England or maybe unified to Scotland or even Ulster independence?
Nicholas,
I think Northern ireland breaks down in to two. Part of the United Kingdom, or part of a United Ireland. Those who want the united Kingdom to remain oppose scottish independence, and those who want a United Ireland probably support it.
I doubt there is any enthusiasim in either camp for a United Scotland and Ulster, nor is there any in Scotland. Oddly enough although I suspect many unionists would rather have an Independeant Ulster than a United Ireland, I doubt that many republicans would prefer an Independant Ulster to the UK.
I would be interested in Irish ( north and south) and Welsh views on Scottish Independence, but then I would be interested in any oppinion polls world wide on the issue.
I know the BBC regularly ( well annually) does a survey of world oppinion, and it would be interesting if they included a question on Scottish Independence in that.
Peter.
Peter,
In all honesty I suspect that a worldwide poll on Scottish independence would yield a majority for “don’t know” or possibly “don’t care” with the USA voting overwhelmingly for “where’s Scotland?”
Paul D.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but that doesn’t make it less worthwhile.
Even polls that look like they tell us what we already know, are worthwhile because they can both confirm suspicions and sometimes tell us things we didn’t suspect.
Peter.
Peter get real – Northern Ireland doesn’t give a damn about Scotland. The majority of my (’unionist at home’) cousins from the province have looked objectively at the situation decided their new home cities – Dundee, Aberdeen and Paisley get a poor deal and all intend to vote for the SNP. Not on ideological grounds but due to the better economic situation Scotland would enjoy following independence.
Peter Cairns Says:
The [Greens] haven’t ,the wipeout can come because they are near a “Vote Threshold”.
Sure it can happen, I just don’t believe it can have happened without a cause which is known, and without that corroboration I wouldn’t rely on the poll for the degree of accuracy required.
1% doesn’t seem much, but its a big percentage of their previous vote.
The loss would also have to be evenly spread for a wipe-out to occur, and it is likely that in some regions [Highland?] regional environmental issues or the performace of individual MSP’s will result in local losses or gains.
SSP/Sol are in a similar situation. Their total vote (and number of seats) will be less than previously, but that does not exclude the possibility that both groups might still win seats. Some of their net loss in votes may go to the Greens.
Labour may offset its losses by two gains from independents, but will there be other sucessful independents?
My guess is that, although Labour will be the largest loser and SNP will overtake them, the net changes will be somewhat less than predicted.