A new UK-wide Angus Reid poll is out showing Labour in the lead - a fact which makes the Scottish subsample all the more startling...
SNP 37% (+14)
Labour 37% (-10)
Conservatives 13% (-1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (-6)
If these figures are even close to accurate, they would be spectacular for the SNP, because of course the party's Westminster performance tends to lag significantly behind its Holyrood vote. It is of course a subsample rather than a full-scale poll, so it has to be treated with great caution - but all the same, Angus Reid subsamples do seem to be in a special category in this respect. My general impression in the run-up to the general election was that the firm's Scottish numbers were much more stable than those produced by other pollsters, leading me to wonder if they were properly weighting the figures for each 'region' independently of each other.
Either way, it's an extremely small sample size, with a huge margin of error. But like the most recent full-scale Scottish poll from YouGov, it's another straw in the wind suggesting that declining popularity for the coalition does not automatically play into Labour's hands in Scotland. Which is just as well, given that it seems reasonable to suppose that the Tories will be taking an even greater hit between now and May.
To be honest I'm inclined to be dubious about a poll that gives a + of 14% on the last similar poll.
ReplyDeleteBut it's an interesting and really cheering thought nonetheless....
As you say the margin for error will be huge on a Scottish sub-sample, but it won't be THAT far out, so I'm thinking that we can be cheered.... just not THAT cheered!!
You're bang on when you point out that the Tories, and I would have thought their junior partners, are likely to take a very big hit when the VAT goes up, petrol and gas rises start being felt, and the job losses start.
Ouch!