Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Next time we're going to party like it's 1987

Stormfront Lite is beside itself with excitement this afternoon about a Populus analysis suggesting that the SNP would lose all but six of its seats at the next UK general election if it found itself tied with both Labour and the Tories on 30% of the popular vote.  (Labour would have thirty seats and the Tories would have eighteen.)  The problem here is not so much that the analysis is wrong (although it might well be - how the votes for each party would be geographically distributed can only be guesswork), but rather that the scenario it's based on is pretty implausible, and therefore not nearly as interesting as is being made out.  Even now, when we have a reasonably tight three-way battle, it looks like the Tories have slipped to third place, and it's very hard to imagine a situation in the foreseeable future in which they'll by vying for the outright lead or even for parity.

Much more likely is that 2017 will prove to be Peak Tory, and that Conservative support in places like the North-East is going to gradually - or perhaps not so gradually - drop back as the realisation hits home that Tory voters were actually voting to help keep a dire Westminster government in power, rather than for the Ruth Davidson Strong Opposition We Said No And We Meant No Party.  If that happens, it's difficult to see how the SNP aren't going to regain seats from the Tories, even if they're locked in a tight battle with Labour nationally - or indeed even if Labour move into a clear lead.  What we could see is a repeat, albeit on a more dramatic scale, of what happened in 1987, when the SNP lost two seats to Labour, but made up for that with three spectacular gains from the Tories.

That translated into a net increase in overall SNP representation - whether we'd be so lucky this time is debatable given that there's much more to lose to Labour than there was three decades ago.  But predictions of one-way traffic against the SNP just don't pass the smell test.  The Tory surge of 2017 may have been much smaller than the SNP surge of 2015, but the two are probably pretty similar in the sense that they were both relatively sudden, were caused by very specific short-term circumstances, and perhaps involved voters who didn't have any real depth of commitment to their new party.  I expect the tide to recede for the Tories at the next general election, and the party ideally-placed to benefit from that is the SNP.  There is no other credible challenger in the vast majority of Tory-held seats.

15 comments:

  1. It is worth remembering that by the next election Brexit will have happened with all of its attendant horrors fully realised and of course both Labour and Tory fully support it.

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    1. Mein Gott the Nat si Forsyth is a prophet of doom and reminds me of the old crone soothe sayer on Up Pompeii. Woe twice woe.
      You nat si fascists want Brexit to fail because you are fooked if it is not. You are not friends of the Scottish. You want to tie your mast to the corrupt EU beaurocracy ya bunch of crawlers. Get it up yer German Lederhosen.

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    2. State of this

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  2. Interesting. Brexit is the most important issue for most, so given that Labour and Tory are totally in favour of it, and it will be an all out, no singel market brexit, then something has to give. The precious UK is on track to become a mini me America, if it isn't already.

    People want to stay in the EU, that makes sense. Having both a Scotland in the UK and in the EU is not an option, so yes it is crunch time.

    As was mentioned on WoS today, the backward UKGov repeal bill will be dangerous for Scotland, so it will be a close call. Interesting times, the britnats will want to hang onto Scotland and take all steps to do so, we must be prepared.
    Hetty

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  3. Making up polls are they? Well this not 1987, they should look at the votes in the 1987 and 2017 seats and notice the difference. If despite the Tories flooding many seats with numerous leaflets and letters and not polling over 30% that inflated balloon will shrink. They hoped to get the bulk of the No vote in the GE and failed.

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  4. It seemed to me that one of the factors in the 2017 General Election, and presumably also in the opinion polls that James analyses for us all, is the question of what people in Scotland are voting for in a GE. At a GE, we are voting for representation and government of the UK as a whole. Despite the great work being done by SNP MPs, it is perhaps clear to many voters that even having 50+ SNP MPs at Westminster does not do a lot for Scotland, because they are constantly outvoted by the Tory/Labour unionist majority. The most direct way for Scottish voters to effect UK policies is to vote Labour or Tory, or even LD as a hedge in a coalition. The situation is quite different in Holyrood elections, where an SNP vote is a vote for a government that pursues policies that match the needs of Scotland (and clearly have a much more able Cabinet team than either of the alternatives).

    I think that this factor was reflected in the 2017 GE televised debates, where Nicola Sturgeon was asked about devolved issues such as education, that had little to do with what a vote for a Westminster MP. I found this really annoying, but its hard to see what questions should have been asked.

    I would appreciate it if other blog readers, or James himself, could comment on the existence of an 'SNP irrelevance' factor in GE 2017.

    Are there polls that show a different level of support for the SNP in terms of Holyrood voting intentions, compared to Westminster intentions? Is opinion poll methodology sensitive enough to tease out such a difference?

    One way of looking at a possible 'SNP irrelevance at Westminster' factor in Scottish voters is that it may signal an implicit recognition that the political game has changed, and that what happens in Edinburgh actually has more impact on our everyday lives than what happens in Westminster.

    Another aspect is that in GE 2017 the Tories in Scotland perhaps chose exactly the right headline - 'no more referendums' - because this attacked the single most important reason for voting SNP in a Scottish constituency. How can SNP handle that attack line if there is another GE soon?

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  5. The debates at the GE were very skewed in as much that it was dominated by a second referendum which the Unionists pushed to the max , considering the Brexit fiasco we were in then , and are still in now , people wanted to deal with one situation at a time , this was reflected in the vote . The other issue was that the Unionists stuck like glue to devolved issues which should have had no place in a UK election ,collectively lambasting the Scottish health service , education , police etc. , all of which are superior to the rest of the UK . However the SNP did not do nearly enough to direct the debate to UK issues , they should have made it clear only UK governance would be discussed in debates . However I know this is very difficult with a biased BBC and MSM deciding they are going to trash you regardless .We will have to see where Brexit takes us and take it into our own hands from there . The SNP should totally concentrate on Scotland , in building our nation ready for independence . Westminster has no relevance to Scotland , our voice will never be listened to there , no matter how many MP's we have there , of every colour !

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    1. Your nation was built because of the Union as were England, Wales and NI.

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    2. State of this.

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    3. "GWC2July 27, 2017 at 10:02 AM"

      "YOUR nation was built because of the Union as were England, Wales and NI."


      Spoken like a True, NON-Scottish Yoon-Troll-Tit.

      What a fecking Plank.

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    4. I see the Civic Nationalism memo missed another recipient.

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    5. Sieg Heil you narrow back nat sis

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  6. David Francis, You fash would take Scotland back to feudalism, whale oil lamps, Bonnie Prince Charlie, reversing the Enlightenment and adoration of the Saints ya old knob up yer kilt.

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    1. Unionism has acquiesced to ethnic nationalism so much, it contends that a rich nation like Scotland is uniquely inept in the world.

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