Day of despair for Douglas Ross as the Tories go backwards in Aberdeen by-election, and are on course to lose TWELVE SEATS in next year's Holyrood vote

I didn't get round to updating my post about the Survation poll yesterday, so for the sake of completeness here are the party political voting intention numbers, with more good news for the SNP and the Yes movement.

Scottish voting intentions for Westminster: 

SNP 52% (+1) 

Labour 20% (-1) 

Conservatives 18% (-2) 

Liberal Democrats 8% (+2) 

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 54% (+1) 

Conservatives 19% (-1) 

Labour 18% (-) 

Liberal Democrats 8% (+1) 

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 43% (+2) 

Labour 19% (+1) 

Conservatives 17% (-1) 

Greens 10% (-) 

Liberal Democrats 7% (-1) 

Brexit Party 2% (-) 

UKIP 1% (-) 

Holyrood seats projection (with changes from 2016 result): SNP 69 (+6), Labour 25 (+1), Conservatives 19 (-12), Greens 11 (+5), Liberal Democrats 5 (n/c)

For anyone who still doubts that the list vote is generally the more important ballot, please note that the Tories are in second place in the constituency ballot, Labour are in second place in the list ballot, and that translates firmly into Labour being in second place in the seats projection.  The exact reverse occurred in 2016 - Labour clung onto second place in the constituencies, but were pushed into third place in terms of seats due to what happened on the list.  

The phenomenon of the Tories' status as the largest opposition party being seriously threatened should perhaps be seen as a 'house effect' of Survation's methodology, because the last Survation poll showed something similar, but other firms have not corroborated those findings in the meantime.  That said, there's no doubt that the Tories are now performing much more poorly than at the peak of the revival under Ruth Davidson.  The new leader Douglas Ross must take his share of the blame for that, because the position seems to have worsened slightly since he took over, and that's coincided with dire personal ratings for him being reported in a couple of polls.

The situation the Tories now find themselves in is arguably reminiscent of where the SNP were just after they elected John Swinney as leader twenty years ago.  They had it all worked out - Alex Salmond, for all his qualities, had supposedly been too abrasive to make the ultimate breakthrough, whereas John Swinney was more like a friendly older brother, impossible to dislike, a bit of a reassuring bank manager figure in the mould of John Smith.  There was just one snag - the voters didn't react to him in the way they were supposed to react, and polls consistently showed that he commanded less confidence than all three of the other main party leaders.  The SNP weren't deterred - they thought the public just hadn't had enough of a chance to get to know Swinney, and he would become popular with time.  But after four years they finally had to admit to themselves that the dial wasn't moving, resulting in the unexpected comeback for Alex Salmond that changed Scottish politics forever.

Same story with Douglas Ross - the public are supposed to like him, but the public haven't read the script provided for them, and my suspicion is they won't change their minds.  How long will it take for the penny to drop?

More evidence that the tide has gone out on the Conservatives can be found in the result of the Kincorth, Nigg & Cove by-election, which although a routine SNP hold, showed a swing of approximately 4% from Tory to SNP.

Kincorth, Nigg & Cove by-election result (first preferences):

SNP 47.4% (+6.7) 

Conservatives 20.2% (-1.3) 

Labour 12.2% (-5.3) 

Independent - Finlayson 10.5% (-0.4)

Liberal Democrats 3.6% (-1.6)