Monday, December 4, 2017

Ruth Davidson faces "utter humiliation" at next election as Scottish Tories slump to third place in landmark Survation poll

Scottish voting intentions for next Westminster general election (Survation):

SNP 37% (-2)
Labour 28% (+2)
Conservatives 25% (-1)

Note that the percentage changes listed above are from the last Survation poll a couple of months ago, rather than from the general election result itself.  The SNP's vote share is unchanged since the general election, while the Tories have slipped four points.  Curiously, Labour haven't taken much advantage of that - they're only up a statistically insignificant one point since June.  No word yet on the Lib Dems' showing in the poll as far as I can see.

Across all firms, this is the fourth full-scale Scottish poll since the general election, and it's the first of the four that hasn't been unalloyed good news for the SNP - ie. it's the first that hasn't shown the SNP with a higher vote share than they achieved at the election.  However, in my view it remains truly remarkable that the SNP's vote isn't down since the election. The momentum seemed to be totally against them during the summer, and yet the ship has since been steadied and they now enjoy a slightly greater lead over the second placed party than they did in June - albeit the identity of the second placed party has changed.  The most satisfying point is that there has been a net swing of 2% from Tory to SNP since the election, which ought to put the SNP in line for modest gains from the Tories if there were to be a hypothetical election tomorrow.

Scottish Parliament voting intentions

Constituency vote:

SNP 39% (-3)

Regional vote:

SNP 33% (+2)

Yup, that's literally all we have on the Holyrood voting intentions in the poll so far - the Record haven't bothered to mention the figures for any other party!  They do note that the SNP and Greens wouldn't have an overall majority between them based on the poll, but that's a statement of the obvious and isn't a change from the last set of Survation numbers.  It's reassuring at least that the SNP's list vote has bounced back from the unusually low 31% in the last poll.

John Curtice is quoted in the Record piece making the vitally important point that although the SNP now face much stiffer competition at both Westminster and Holyrood than was the case a year or two ago, that change in the political weather hasn't been accompanied by a drop in support for independence - far from it.  As we saw last night, Yes support in the Survation poll is back up to 47%, an improvement of some four points since the post-election poll from the same firm in June.  It strikes me that a minority of people within the SNP were determined to learn the wrong lesson from the general election result - they thought the party had talked about independence too much, but it seems far more likely that the opposite is true.  Quite plainly independence is significantly more popular at the moment than even the SNP, so it's hard to see what the harm would be in campaigning on independence more vigorously.  Remember that holding the first referendum in 2014 was the key to unlocking vast support for the SNP from ex-Labour voters who might not otherwise have ever made the jump. The recollection of that lesson now that the dust has settled on the general election may explain why the SNP leadership seem much more bullish about a pre-2021 referendum than they were a few months ago.

UPDATE: Survation have confirmed the full figures from the poll, which are as follows...

Westminster voting intention:

SNP 37% (-2)
Labour 28% (+2)
Conservatives 25% (-1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (n/c)

Scottish Parliament constituency voting intention:

SNP 39% (-3)
Labour 25% (n/c)
Conservatives 24% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 8% (+1)

Scottish Parliament regional list voting intention:

SNP 33% (+2)
Labour 25% (n/c)
Conservatives 22% (+1)
Greens 8% (-1)
Liberal Democrats 8% (-2)
UKIP 3% (n/c)

No wonder the Record didn't want to say too much about the Holyrood figures, because it turns out that Labour's support is absolutely static - putting the wild claims that Labour have made great strides under Richard Leonard in a somewhat different perspective.  It's perfectly possible the party haven't made any real progress on the Westminster front either - their 2% boost could easily just be a margin of error illusion.

11 comments:

  1. I cant wait! Its not as if she will be any good at 'Strictly'with a gait like hers

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  2. That seems low for Labour in the current climate.

    Any comment on this from Stephen Bush, James? In particular this bit: "even in the event that Labour were to gain no votes directly from the Scottish nationalists, a 5.4 per cent swing from Tory to Labour north of the border would add an extra 14 seats to the Labour tally." Is a Tory-Lab swing of that extent really probable? Could so many who voted for the right-wing ultra-unionist Ruth party really switch to the Corbynistas?

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  3. At Holyrood, the SNP lead on 39 per cent for constituency voting intentions, followed by Labour on 25 per cent and the Tories on 24 per cent, while the list votes see the SNP on 33 per cent, Labour 25 per cent and the Tories on 22 per cent.

    68% would vote remain.

    - The Scotsman

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    Replies
    1. Where is that 350 million A WEEK to the NHS ? How about 350 pounds? How about a quick wank on break?

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  4. Both the last Holyrood and WM elections looked very much like high Unionist water marks for the Tories. The only way was down.

    This side of Independence they don't have a scooby of getting into power at Holyrood as nobody will go into coalition with them. With 30% their absolute highest possible vote, unless there is mass abstention or WM bans the SNP and Greens or something.

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  5. The small Conservative bubble has burst and it is encouraging to see both support for Indy and the EU rising. 68% for EU Remain is pretty definitive.

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  6. According to the National Yes support is up to 47% but they don't say what the Don't Knows were. We cannot tell where we are really without knowing how the DK's are as well. They are the most likely to vote Yes as well.

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  7. I doubt there is another democratic country in the world where a Party of Government with so many representatives and members, and is part of a movement that is 47% of the population has virtually no positive coverage by the newspapers and TV in that country.
    I don't just mean achievements or policies but origins, aspirations, intellectual basis.
    Two things come out of that, the first is that the newspapers and TV, although they have Scottish in their titles, are not representative of that country because they don't even try to inform the No voters of the dangers facing the whole of Scotland.
    The second, despite all of that the SNP after 10 years thrives and Yes grows.
    As an aside,looking at the high % of No votes among the old I wonder if they realise they depend on the younger.

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  8. Tables out:

    http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Final_Tables_Daily_Record.xlsx

    Note: both the Daily Record article, and Survation themselves in their Twitter feed, seem to have mis-reported the SNP finding as 37%, but the table (Table 4) clearly says 36%.

    http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scottish-labours-second-chance-party-11634950

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  9. On statistical significance: even changes of 2, 3 or 4% are unlikely to be statistically significant, in a sample of 1,000 participants.

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