Rather infuriatingly, and for the second time in a row, Scotland on Sunday have made reference to a new full-scale Scottish YouGov poll on their website, without (as far as I can see) revealing the voting intention figures. However, judging from the commentary the SNP seem to be behind the Liberal Democrats. There's much better news, though, in a TNS-BMRB poll for the Scottish Mail on Sunday that puts the Nationalists in second place by a full seven points -
Labour 44%
SNP 23%
Liberal Democrats 16%
Conservatives 13%
We've become almost desensitised to the catastrophic figures for the Scottish Tories, but it remains the case that we could easily be just one week away from the utterly unprecedented situation of the UK party of government languishing in fourth place in Scotland, both in terms of votes and seats. That'll suddenly seem hugely significant if and when it comes to pass, even if it doesn't quite yet.
Much seems to be made in the reporting of this poll of Salmond having lower personal ratings than Brown, Clegg or Cameron. However, this seems considerably less important once you discover that the question actually asked was "which leader has impressed you most during the General Election campaign?". You can only admire the brazenness of the unionist media at moments like this. They move heaven and earth to ensure Salmond is barely seen during the campaign, and on the very rare occasions that he is seen, they ensure that he's certainly not given the same status as the 'national UK' leaders. Then they innocently ask the public if they've heard as much from Salmond as from the other three guys. The public ponders this for a moment, and says "actually, no...right enough, we haven't".
"Salmond campaign flops!" the unionist media triumphantly screams.
I don't trust YouGov polls but that figure of 44% for Labour is scary.
ReplyDeleteAfter 13 years of Labour Government, Iraq, Afghanistan, expensive PFI deals, the database state and ID cards, the economic crash which Brown watched happen, the very strange personality of Brown himself, Purcell, corruption in West-Central Scotland and the fact that the London economic boom never really reached the Labour constituencies in Scotland and Scots still vote Labour in huge numbers.
Even if you discount the SNP there are two other unionist parties to go for who look like they will be in power in a hung parliament and Scots can avoid the Conservatives by voting Lib-Dem.
Maybe there's a hallucinogen in the Daily Record ink.
If Labour are above 40% in Scotland on Thursday, I'll be very surprised.
ReplyDeleteSadly though, I wouldn't be all that surprised if the Lib Dems were ahead of the SNP. Which really hammers home what a disgrace these 'debates' have been.
the SNP can still win more votes than the Lib Dems
ReplyDeleteIt seems the YouGov poll is Lab 37%, Lib Dem 22%, SNP 20%, Con 17%. So at least (as Anon says) second place is still up for grabs for the SNP. There's also the question of which pollster is the most accurate - in spite of their revision a few weeks ago, YouGov still seem to be producing lower figures than some other pollsters.
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