Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Is the WRITING on the WALL for Retoxified Ruth? New SHOCK YouGov data suggests Scottish Tory DREAMS could be SHATTERED

You might remember that at the weekend, I mentioned that Scottish data from the YouGov projection model had been revealed on Twitter, and it showed voting intentions of : SNP 42%, Conservatives 26%, Labour 25%.  The reaction of our resident Tory troll Aldo was "Not a poll.  Nothing to see here."  Well, here's the bad news, Aldo - a full-scale Scottish poll was released by YouGov today, and it shows almost identical figures.

Scottish voting intentions for the UK general election (YouGov) :

SNP 41% (-1)
Conservatives 26% (-3)
Labour 25% (+6)
Liberal Democrats 6% (n/c)
Greens 1% (-1)

Regardless of whether the projection model is technically "not a poll", the GB-wide voting intention numbers it's been producing are strikingly similar to YouGov's regular polling, so it's no great surprise to discover that the same is true in Scotland.  Nevertheless, it's still very reassuring to see more evidence that the Scottish Tories haven't been immune to the slump suffered by their colleagues in England and Wales.

On the face of it, this poll suggests that the SNP's support has been extraordinarily stable throughout the campaign.  The first YouGov poll after Theresa May called the election put the SNP on 41%, the second put them on 42%, and today's puts them back to 41%.  That looks very much like trivial fluctuation caused by margin of error noise.  However, we shouldn't forget that both Panelbase and Survation have reported a modest SNP dip as Labour have recovered, so it's possible that the margin of error is actually masking a similar SNP dip in the YouGov poll.  Labour have a slight lead among 18-24 year olds, and it's hard to believe a surge like that could happen without harming the SNP's overall vote at least a bit (unless it's been offset by the SNP regaining some votes direct from the Tories).  But you'd be a brave person to look at the evidence we have so far and conclude that Labour's recovery has harmed the SNP more than the Tories.  On balance, it looks like the opposite may be true - today's 15% gap between SNP and Tory is the joint-biggest that any of the familiar online pollsters have reported during the campaign in a conventional poll.

The first question that formed in my mind when I saw today's poll was "what were the fieldwork dates?"  Yesterday's update of the projection model gave the distinct impression that SNP support may have slipped very recently, which obviously meant that a poll with older fieldwork wouldn't offer much reassurance.  It turns out that it was conducted between Thursday and yesterday, so quite a bit of it was before the Corbyn v May Question Time special, and also before the tragedy in London.  However, the fears raised by the projection model have eased for the time being anyway, because the central figures in today's update show the SNP bouncing back from 42 to 46 seats.  Perhaps even more significantly, the SNP's floor (the minimum number of seats they'd be expected to win within a 95% confidence interval) has jumped back up from 17 to 32.  That implies the gap between SNP and Labour in the popular vote has widened - although whether that's because of strengthening SNP support or Labour slippage is hard to say (short of obsessively checking the projected percentages from all of the individual constituencies, which I haven't been doing).

There doesn't appear to have been Labour slippage south of the border, though.  The updated projection shows the lowest number of Tory seats to date, and suggests for the first time that the SNP and Labour in combination would outnumber the Tories in a hung parliament.

UK-wide seats projection (YouGov) :

Conservatives 304
Labour 266
SNP 46
Liberal Democrats 12
Plaid Cymru 2
Greens 1
"Others" 2
Northern Ireland Parties 18

HUNG PARLIAMENT : Conservatives short by 22, Labour short by 60

On those figures (which may well be in the realms of fantasy, but who can say for sure?) it's unlikely that either a Tory or Labour government would be viable in the long-term - instead there would effectively be a caretaker government until a new election could be called, probably in the autumn.  But it's interesting to speculate who would lead that caretaker government.  Strictly speaking, it really ought to be Jeremy Corbyn - by constitutional convention, the Queen is supposed to appoint a Prime Minister who can command a majority in the House, and if the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Greens and SDLP all clearly signalled that they preferred Corbyn to May, it would leave Corbyn with the stronger case.  But you could be sure that the Tories would be claiming that the largest single party should automatically get the nod if an opposition alliance can't muster an absolute majority, and you might well see right-wing Labour MPs sabotaging Corbyn by publicly agreeing with that line of argument (echoing the extraordinary behaviour of Tom Harris immediately after the 2010 election).

24 comments:

  1. Be interesting to see how accurate this is on Friday morning and Aldo the Bluekipper reacts on Friday. Aldo who is sceptical on HYS looking forward to his comments as he says "tick tock"

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Opinium Final poll just released .. Scottish subset 200 voters. SNP 49 Tories 27 Labour 17 LD 5.. This pollster tends to be more Tory friendly so I take the split between Tory and Labour with a large grain of salt.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Was there not an independence poll today as well?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. that can't be right. figs don't add up to 100.

      Delete
    2. Presumably DKs are included. So 56/44 without them.

      Delete
  5. Lets see what happens on the 8th of June I do not take in what happens with the polls that's if they are right all the best for the SNP

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is fascinating. Opinion Polls are utterly unreliable. They tell us that the brain dead Theresa May will win by a huge margin, they tell us that we are in a 'hung parliament' position, or that Labour will win it on their own.

    Frankly, there is only one vote that counts. Vote SNP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're at the wrong website if you completely reject opinion polls.

      Delete
  7. Of course, you could argue that a stable government could be created for rUK if the SNP members become abstentionists - like Sinn Fein - and demand immediate Dominion status for Scotland.
    "It gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire … but the freedom to achieve it."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. On the other hand, we could engage in taking Theresa May down, as the clearly idiotic premier she is. I doubt, a lot, that she represents 'firm and stable' your mileage may vary, but that just makes you a bit daft, in my eyes.

      'Theresa May' and 'idiot' in the same sentence makes a lot of sense to me.

      Cutting Police numbers in the face of a threat?

      Check.

      Allowing known terrorists in and out of the country?

      Check.

      The woman is a nutcase. Voting for her is crazy.

      Best wishes

      Delete
  8. AnonymousJune 6, 2017 at 7:42 PM,

    Of course, you could argue otherwise.

    Have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Slight snag.

    Also indicates massive tactical voting among unionist voters. 41% of 2015 Lib Dems say they're voting Tory this time
    Could be crucial in places like Gordon where 32% voted LD against Salmond in 2015.

    Devil is in the detail, don't forget Tories got 25% vote share at the locals and topped the poll across the whole of Eastern Scotland. FPTP and all that

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 41% of nothing is still not much.

      Delete
    2. Left-wing Libs voting hard-right Tory. Moral compass from a Poundshop cracker.

      Delete
  10. I think the most interesting thing, if numbers similar to this were to be replicated on Thursday, is that you could end up with a Labour UK Government which, thanks to EVEL, cannot govern England.

    What would happen if Labour form a government while the Tories have a majority of English seats? Would they appoint a Health Secretary who couldn't get healthcare legislation passed? Or would there be a Tory English government for those matters which only they can legislate for? You could end up with a UK government and English government both based in the one parliament. EVEL could yet be the straw that breaks the back of the UK.

    ReplyDelete
  11. God NO! I'm sick of elections. They made their bed, the bast@rds should lie in it. We didn't need or want this election. For God's sake give us a break. Nothing 'til IRef2 in 2019 please, pretty please.

    ReplyDelete
  12. will the last poll be wed night or thur morn

    thx

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hey can anyone address the topic of exit polls?
    I seem to remember the one in 92 being misleading.... When major surprised many by winning.
    Was there any special reasons why that poll was "wrong" and can we expect the one on Thursday night to be fairly close to the truth?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tonight's Survation Scottish table looks interesting. SNP mid 40,s and Labour mid 30,s and Tories on 11

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And ICM has SNP49% Tory27% and Labour in mid teens in theirs. Interesting

      Delete
  15. Kipper Theresa and her westminster bubble incompetentsJune 7, 2017 at 12:00 AM

    CCHQ and the tory tabloids are in full-blown panic mode now.

    Hilarious stuff. Even more hilarious watching the westminster bubble twits trying to deny it. PMSL! :D

    ReplyDelete