Desperate Dugdale ducks for cover as latest polls reveal the Scottish people's message to Labour is simple and stark : "Exterminate! Exterminate! EX-TER-MI-NAAAAAATE!!!!!!"

Apologies for the three days of radio silence, during which we've had a couple of new Holyrood polls with slightly conflicting messages.  The TNS poll shows the SNP slipping down to comfortably their lowest share of the vote on both ballots since the UK general election one year ago.  It is, of course, the TNS figures that have been most commonly prayed in aid by the "tactical voting on the list" lobby in recent months, so the new poll vindicates the caution that many of us have been applying.  It looks like TNS may simply be converging with other firms that have never reported quite such an inflated SNP lead, because the new Ipsos-Mori poll still has the SNP very much within the firm's normal range (at least on the constituency ballot).

Constituency ballot (TNS) :

SNP 52% (-4)
Labour 22% (+1)
Conservatives 17% (+2)
Liberal Democrats 7% (+1)

Regional list ballot (TNS) :

SNP 45% (-2)
Labour 22% (+1)
Conservatives 18% (+3)
Greens 8% (n/c)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-1)

Constituency ballot (Ipsos-Mori) :

SNP 51% (-2)
Labour 19% (-1)
Conservatives 18% (+2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (n/c)

Regional list ballot (Ipsos-Mori) :

SNP 45% (-4)
Conservatives 19% (+4)
Labour 17% (-2)
Greens 10% (+4)
Liberal Democrats 7% (-1)

The fact that TNS still have Labour ahead of the Tories by a decent margin shouldn't necessarily lessen any sense of panic in the Dugdale bunker over the Ipsos-Mori findings.  The bulk of the TNS fieldwork was conducted before the Ipsos-Mori poll got underway, so it's possible that Ipsos-Mori are detecting a relatively recent swing to the Tories.  A more comforting thought for Labour is that Ipsos-Mori's constituency findings may be a better guide than the list findings to how the party is likely to fare on the all-important list ballot.  We know that constituency polling has tended to be more accurate than list polling over the years, and that a minority of poll respondents tend to misinterpret the question about list voting as if they're being asked for some kind of second preference vote.  To believe that Ipsos-Mori are exactly right about Labour being in second place in the constituencies but not on the list, you'd have to think that Labour voters are more likely to drift off to the Greens on the list than Tory voters are to drift off to UKIP or wherever, and I can't see any compelling evidence for that being the case.  That said, even if Ipsos-Mori's constituency numbers are the better guide, the race for second place suddenly looks like a virtual coin toss - unless of course the Tories are being flattered in this poll because of methodological issues or normal sampling variation.

Explanatory note : As a fond tribute to the mainstream media's restrained take on the GERS report, Scot Goes Pop headlines will feature 50% bonus hysteria for an indefinite period.