The detailed figures from YouGov's UK-wide poll in today's Sun have been released, and the Scottish breakdown tends to reinforce the suspicion that the previous subsample from a few days ago is likely to have been somewhat freakish. The SNP leapfrog both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats to return to second place, while Labour slump to a much more plausible 35% share of the vote. Here are the full figures -
Labour 35% (-11)
SNP 26% (+13)
Conservatives 17% (-4)
Liberal Democrats 15% (-2)
Others 7% (+4)
Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted that the figures I quoted last time round were slightly wrong - the Conservatives had been in outright second place on 21%, not joint second with the Liberal Democrats on 17% as I stated!
I'm not quite sure what these figures will do for any lingering fantasies of the SNP being "squashed" at the election, let alone the recurring fiction that it has in some way been demonstrated that Labour's vote is holding up dramatically better in Scotland than elsewhere. In this poll, they are four points down on their 2005 share in Scotland, and five points down in Great Britain as a whole. Such findings have not been untypical over the last few months.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Would a Brown departure assist the SNP?
I once recall a journalist (no idea who it was, or in which paper) delivering the ultimate devastating dismissal of a politician's entire career - "I bet Geoff Hoon thinks he's a great communicator". Well, quite. We're not talking about a heavyweight here, and even with the assistance of (ahem) Patricia Hewitt, logic would seem to dictate that he's unlikely to succeed where James Purnell failed. However, one way or another we appear to finally be into the endgame of almost two years' worth of speculation about the Labour leadership, so it's at least worth pondering the impact Gordon Brown's abrupt departure would have on the outcome of the general election here in Scotland.
In one sense it seems obvious that having a Scottish leader has been a boon for Labour north of of the border, as it was for the Liberal Democrats under Charles Kennedy. Polling consistently shows that Scots hold Brown in a much higher regard than the rest of the UK. This must be having some kind of impact on voting intention figures, and thus, it might be supposed, suppressing the potential strength of the SNP, among others. There can be little doubt that Charles Kennedy's popularity caused particular harm to the SNP in the 2005 Westminster election.
But there's the rub - popularity. The fact that Brown is significantly more liked in Scotland than in England, where he's held in record-breaking low esteem, scarcely makes him "popular in Scotland". A much more impressive Labour leader could easily find themselves more popular than Brown in Scotland, even if they were less popular here than in England and Wales. So, paradoxically, it's theoretically possible that Scottish Labour could find themselves better off - and the SNP by extension worse off - with a change of leadership, especially if the new Prime Minister had momentum behind them that seemed to be taking them (and Labour) to what until recently would have seemed a highly improbable general election triumph.
Just one snag, though. Where is the Labour leader with the personal qualities to actually do that? Until a few weeks ago, I might have concurred with the general consensus that Alan Johnson was the one potential candidate with sufficient charisma, but his poor judgement over the Gary McKinnon extradition (and more to the point his angry defence of that poor judgement) destroyed that illusion once and for all. It, presumably, goes without saying that either Harriet Harman or Ed Balls would be an even greater disaster in Scotland than they would be across the UK as a whole. So who does that leave? David Miliband? Perhaps he's had enough time to recover from his 'Bananaman' moment, but on the whole I'm unconvinced.
So as things stand, my gut feeling is that a change of leadership would not help Labour's fortunes across the UK, and therefore the loss of the 'Scottish leader bonus' would be a blow to the party in Scotland. So, for my money, the SNP should be getting their prayer-mats out and hoping that this plot succeeds, although on past form I'm not holding my breath.
In one sense it seems obvious that having a Scottish leader has been a boon for Labour north of of the border, as it was for the Liberal Democrats under Charles Kennedy. Polling consistently shows that Scots hold Brown in a much higher regard than the rest of the UK. This must be having some kind of impact on voting intention figures, and thus, it might be supposed, suppressing the potential strength of the SNP, among others. There can be little doubt that Charles Kennedy's popularity caused particular harm to the SNP in the 2005 Westminster election.
But there's the rub - popularity. The fact that Brown is significantly more liked in Scotland than in England, where he's held in record-breaking low esteem, scarcely makes him "popular in Scotland". A much more impressive Labour leader could easily find themselves more popular than Brown in Scotland, even if they were less popular here than in England and Wales. So, paradoxically, it's theoretically possible that Scottish Labour could find themselves better off - and the SNP by extension worse off - with a change of leadership, especially if the new Prime Minister had momentum behind them that seemed to be taking them (and Labour) to what until recently would have seemed a highly improbable general election triumph.
Just one snag, though. Where is the Labour leader with the personal qualities to actually do that? Until a few weeks ago, I might have concurred with the general consensus that Alan Johnson was the one potential candidate with sufficient charisma, but his poor judgement over the Gary McKinnon extradition (and more to the point his angry defence of that poor judgement) destroyed that illusion once and for all. It, presumably, goes without saying that either Harriet Harman or Ed Balls would be an even greater disaster in Scotland than they would be across the UK as a whole. So who does that leave? David Miliband? Perhaps he's had enough time to recover from his 'Bananaman' moment, but on the whole I'm unconvinced.
So as things stand, my gut feeling is that a change of leadership would not help Labour's fortunes across the UK, and therefore the loss of the 'Scottish leader bonus' would be a blow to the party in Scotland. So, for my money, the SNP should be getting their prayer-mats out and hoping that this plot succeeds, although on past form I'm not holding my breath.
Monday, January 4, 2010
A con from ConHome
ConservativeHome is at least one political website that doesn't have to worry about its reputation for bias, but it nevertheless surely takes itself sufficiently seriously that it does have cause to worry about its reputation for basic factual accuracy. Or to put it another way, it wouldn't want its partisan spin on a story to be quite so heavy that it goes blatantly and demonstrably way beyond that which the facts will support. How, then, can they justify the following summary of a Scotland on Sunday story in their daily round-up?
"Rejected in his own country - By 54% to 46% Scots say Cameron is better leader than Brown"
Needless to say, 'Scots' say nothing of the sort. The Scotland on Sunday story makes quite plain that the poll sample was restricted to 11 Tory target seats. There can be little doubt that a representative sample of Scotland as a whole would have produced the opposite result, given that the YouGov 'forced choice' question has repeatedly shown that Scots would prefer a Brown-led government to a Cameron-led one. And given that other poll questions regularly demonstrate the deep current unpopularity of both Brown and Labour in Scotland, it goes to show just how irretrievably tainted the Tory brand is in these parts.
"Rejected in his own country - By 54% to 46% Scots say Cameron is better leader than Brown"
Needless to say, 'Scots' say nothing of the sort. The Scotland on Sunday story makes quite plain that the poll sample was restricted to 11 Tory target seats. There can be little doubt that a representative sample of Scotland as a whole would have produced the opposite result, given that the YouGov 'forced choice' question has repeatedly shown that Scots would prefer a Brown-led government to a Cameron-led one. And given that other poll questions regularly demonstrate the deep current unpopularity of both Brown and Labour in Scotland, it goes to show just how irretrievably tainted the Tory brand is in these parts.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Major what-if questions...
Interesting to see Craig Murray pay a back-handed compliment to John Major following his attack on Tony Blair over Iraq. Murray suggests that Major has been the best Prime Minister of his lifetime (ie. going back to the days of Harold Macmillan) - albeit "out of a deeply depressing bunch".
Personally, whenever I think of Major's legacy I find it hard to look past his boneheaded obstinacy over the Scottish constitutional issue. Scottish civil society let off a collective sigh of despair in the early 1990s when the realisation dawned that - by complete chance - we'd been landed with a Prime Minister for whom not budging an inch on Scottish self-government was a genuine personal obsession. For evidence of the latter point, we need look no further than Major's peculiar "The United Kingdom is in danger! Wake up!" speech in the midst of the 1992 election campaign. It's hardly likely that his advisers informed him that such a rallying-call was a big potential vote-winner on either side of the border, so I think we can safely assume he actually meant it. Under his leadership, the party became so instinctively intransigent on the issue that, when in 1993 Ian Lang produced his embarrassingly thin Taking Stock "reforms", an English Tory backbencher rose in clearly genuine anguish to seek reassurance that the Union wasn't being put in jeapordy by a few extra meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee!
But on the substance of the Iraq issue, it's a tantalising thought that under Major's premiership the UK might have taken a different course. Certainly nobody can have any doubt from his repeated angry exchanges with Paddy Ashdown that Major was far more sceptical about the merits of military intervention in the Balkans than his Labour successor. And the UK's shameful lack of initiative throughout the Rwandan genocide is perhaps another clue to Major's instinctive dislike of "adventurism" abroad. However, when it really comes down to it, I simply find it impossible to believe that any Conservative Prime Minister - whatever his instincts were telling him - would not have been joined-at-the-hip with the US over an issue as big as Iraq. Well, perhaps the pro-European Ken Clarke might have had the guts to chart an independent course, but there are very few others.
For a similar reason, my own choice for "best PM since 1958 out of a bad bunch" would have to be Harold Wilson - whatever his many and varied faults, at least he kept the UK firmly out of the Vietnam War. And he saw off a right-wing MI5-inspired coup plot against him - how many PMs can say that?
Personally, whenever I think of Major's legacy I find it hard to look past his boneheaded obstinacy over the Scottish constitutional issue. Scottish civil society let off a collective sigh of despair in the early 1990s when the realisation dawned that - by complete chance - we'd been landed with a Prime Minister for whom not budging an inch on Scottish self-government was a genuine personal obsession. For evidence of the latter point, we need look no further than Major's peculiar "The United Kingdom is in danger! Wake up!" speech in the midst of the 1992 election campaign. It's hardly likely that his advisers informed him that such a rallying-call was a big potential vote-winner on either side of the border, so I think we can safely assume he actually meant it. Under his leadership, the party became so instinctively intransigent on the issue that, when in 1993 Ian Lang produced his embarrassingly thin Taking Stock "reforms", an English Tory backbencher rose in clearly genuine anguish to seek reassurance that the Union wasn't being put in jeapordy by a few extra meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee!
But on the substance of the Iraq issue, it's a tantalising thought that under Major's premiership the UK might have taken a different course. Certainly nobody can have any doubt from his repeated angry exchanges with Paddy Ashdown that Major was far more sceptical about the merits of military intervention in the Balkans than his Labour successor. And the UK's shameful lack of initiative throughout the Rwandan genocide is perhaps another clue to Major's instinctive dislike of "adventurism" abroad. However, when it really comes down to it, I simply find it impossible to believe that any Conservative Prime Minister - whatever his instincts were telling him - would not have been joined-at-the-hip with the US over an issue as big as Iraq. Well, perhaps the pro-European Ken Clarke might have had the guts to chart an independent course, but there are very few others.
For a similar reason, my own choice for "best PM since 1958 out of a bad bunch" would have to be Harold Wilson - whatever his many and varied faults, at least he kept the UK firmly out of the Vietnam War. And he saw off a right-wing MI5-inspired coup plot against him - how many PMs can say that?
A gun's a gun for a' that
Someone suggested to me yesterday that I was in danger of retreating to an "SNP ghetto", but it appears I can rest assured that this blog will never be anything of the sort for as long as a certain Mr. Kevin Baker of Arizona, USA has his way. I had noticed over the last 48 hours a suddenly renewed flurry of traffic from a once-oh-so-familiar source. What could this possibly mean? My best guess was that Kev had featured our little exchange from last Easter on some kind of "review of the year" post. And guess what? I was right! Although I'm intrigued to learn that Kev had apparently "debunked" me back in April. I must have missed that bit - all I noticed at the time was the smoke, mirrors, bluster, and general thuggery.
As a result of the new mention, I've even received a comment on a short post I wrote back in August that had thus far gone shamefully unnoticed by Kevin's groupies. Say what you like about Kevin, but he's extraordinarily generous with these surprise gifts of free internet traffic. So I get this latest one for the New Year - can I have another for my birthday? Or Kev's birthday? How about Burns' Night? Perhaps Kev or Joe Huffman could even delight us all with a new post explaining why A Man's A Man for A' That is really, contrary to superficial appearances, a moving ode to gun rights. If they can do it for fire extinguishers, they can do it for poetry.
As a result of the new mention, I've even received a comment on a short post I wrote back in August that had thus far gone shamefully unnoticed by Kevin's groupies. Say what you like about Kevin, but he's extraordinarily generous with these surprise gifts of free internet traffic. So I get this latest one for the New Year - can I have another for my birthday? Or Kev's birthday? How about Burns' Night? Perhaps Kev or Joe Huffman could even delight us all with a new post explaining why A Man's A Man for A' That is really, contrary to superficial appearances, a moving ode to gun rights. If they can do it for fire extinguishers, they can do it for poetry.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
A (probably) freakish YouGov subsample marks the turn of the decade
The final YouGov poll of the decade produced some truly mad-as-a-bucket-of-frogs figures in its Scottish subsample, with Labour nudging close to 50%, the SNP slumping to fourth place, and the Conservatives somehow clinging onto (joint) second place despite plummeting nine points. Here are the full figures -
Labour 46% (+9)
Liberal Democrats 17% (+9)
Conservatives 17% (-9)
SNP 13% (-11)
Others 3% (-2)
No surprise to see a few leading members of the so-called Tory 'Herd' over at PoliticalBetting.com seize on these numbers, partly to nurse their schoolboy (or in one notable case, schoolgirl) fantasies of the SNP being "squashed" at the general election, and partly to delude themselves that they don't need to take the Labour recovery in the UK-wide headline figures seriously. The argument is that if the narrowing of the Tory lead can be principally explained by a Labour surge in Scotland, it doesn't actually matter, because there are so few Tory target seats north of the border. Curious, though, that Scottish subsamples never seem to be taken quite so seriously by these people when they show, as many have done, the completely opposite story - that Labour's vote has fallen further since 2005 in Scotland than in England. In truth, of course, polls are generally only weighted to the demographics of Great Britain as a whole, and so an oversample of Labour support in Scotland may well be offset by an equivalent undersample in England and Wales.
Talking of PoliticalBetting.com, a belated thankyou to everyone who voted me into (ahem) 27th place in the website's annual 'Poster of the Year' poll. May not sound like much of an accolade, but as an unashamedly left-of centre (not to mention Scot Nat, pro-Europe, pro-PR, anti-fox hunting, climate science accepting) poster on an overwhelmingly right-wing forum, I think I did not too bad! Having now posted there regularly for eighteen months or so, I've finally, finally decided to call it a day. As my fellow former poster Ezio pointed out in a comment here a few weeks ago, there really is very little point in the few remaining left-leaning posters continuing to plug away there, when all it really achieves is to give the site the veneer of remaining the 'broad church' it has now pretty comprehensively ceased to be. I agreed with Ezio at the time, but habits are difficult things to break, and I found myself drifting back. But after yet another round of personal abuse from the 'Herd' yesterday (this time I was a "chauvanistic t*sser"), not to mention the all-too-familiar late-night spat that followed with the most ubiquitous member of the Tory Lady Triumverate when I dared to stick up for myself, I think enough is finally enough. To remove all temptation for me to change my mind this time, I've even removed PB from my blog list here (yes, posting there really has proved that addictive!). I've replaced it with Anthony Wells' UK Polling Report, which is an equally useful resource for up-to-the-minute polling information.
Apart from anything else, I started this blog at roughly the same time as I began posting on PB, and it's sometimes wistfully occurred to me that if I'd spent as much time posting here as I have there (and making cameos on other sites such as Rachel Lucas) I could really have built up this blog by now. Ironically in saying that, I've somewhat lost my appetite for political blogging in recent weeks, but with a general election now firmly in the offing, perhaps that's only temporary. In the meantime, Happy New Decade to all - and I give you fair warning, the Eurovision season is already underway!
Labour 46% (+9)
Liberal Democrats 17% (+9)
Conservatives 17% (-9)
SNP 13% (-11)
Others 3% (-2)
No surprise to see a few leading members of the so-called Tory 'Herd' over at PoliticalBetting.com seize on these numbers, partly to nurse their schoolboy (or in one notable case, schoolgirl) fantasies of the SNP being "squashed" at the general election, and partly to delude themselves that they don't need to take the Labour recovery in the UK-wide headline figures seriously. The argument is that if the narrowing of the Tory lead can be principally explained by a Labour surge in Scotland, it doesn't actually matter, because there are so few Tory target seats north of the border. Curious, though, that Scottish subsamples never seem to be taken quite so seriously by these people when they show, as many have done, the completely opposite story - that Labour's vote has fallen further since 2005 in Scotland than in England. In truth, of course, polls are generally only weighted to the demographics of Great Britain as a whole, and so an oversample of Labour support in Scotland may well be offset by an equivalent undersample in England and Wales.
Talking of PoliticalBetting.com, a belated thankyou to everyone who voted me into (ahem) 27th place in the website's annual 'Poster of the Year' poll. May not sound like much of an accolade, but as an unashamedly left-of centre (not to mention Scot Nat, pro-Europe, pro-PR, anti-fox hunting, climate science accepting) poster on an overwhelmingly right-wing forum, I think I did not too bad! Having now posted there regularly for eighteen months or so, I've finally, finally decided to call it a day. As my fellow former poster Ezio pointed out in a comment here a few weeks ago, there really is very little point in the few remaining left-leaning posters continuing to plug away there, when all it really achieves is to give the site the veneer of remaining the 'broad church' it has now pretty comprehensively ceased to be. I agreed with Ezio at the time, but habits are difficult things to break, and I found myself drifting back. But after yet another round of personal abuse from the 'Herd' yesterday (this time I was a "chauvanistic t*sser"), not to mention the all-too-familiar late-night spat that followed with the most ubiquitous member of the Tory Lady Triumverate when I dared to stick up for myself, I think enough is finally enough. To remove all temptation for me to change my mind this time, I've even removed PB from my blog list here (yes, posting there really has proved that addictive!). I've replaced it with Anthony Wells' UK Polling Report, which is an equally useful resource for up-to-the-minute polling information.
Apart from anything else, I started this blog at roughly the same time as I began posting on PB, and it's sometimes wistfully occurred to me that if I'd spent as much time posting here as I have there (and making cameos on other sites such as Rachel Lucas) I could really have built up this blog by now. Ironically in saying that, I've somewhat lost my appetite for political blogging in recent weeks, but with a general election now firmly in the offing, perhaps that's only temporary. In the meantime, Happy New Decade to all - and I give you fair warning, the Eurovision season is already underway!
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