As people who follow me on Twitter will be aware, I've become increasingly jittery about what upcoming polls will show, both for independence and perhaps more to the point for the SNP - just weeks before a crucial election. There comes a point where the self-inflicted wounds are severe or prolonged enough that you kind of feel like they're bound to have some kind of effect on the polls. But we'll have to wait and see - polls often produce counterintuitive results, most obviously the wacky resilience of the Conservative Party in the GB-wide polls in spite of Boris Johnson's catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic. So if we're very, very lucky, it's not totally impossible that the SNP and Yes will sail through this difficult period relatively unscathed - although I'm certainly not going to predict that.
Needless to say, there have been no full-scale Scottish polls since Joanna Cherry's sacking, and there have only been two GB-wide polls carried out in their entirety since then - one from YouGov and one from Redfield & Wilton Strategies (a name that always makes me think of Ever Decreasing Circles). Here are the Scottish subsamples...
YouGov (2nd-3rd February): SNP 53%, Conservatives 23%, Labour 16%, Greens 4%, Liberal Democrats 3%
Redfield & Wilton Strategies (8th February): SNP 43%, Labour 23%, Conservatives 22%, Liberal Democrats 7%, Plaid Cymru 3%, Reform UK 1%
Of course individual subsamples aren't particularly meaningful for all sorts of reasons, although in the absence of any other evidence I always think they're worth keeping at least half an eye on for early warning signs of any dramatic change in the political weather. YouGov's subsamples can generally be taken a bit more seriously than those from other firms because they seem to be correctly structured and weighted - although the downside in this case is that the YouGov poll (which is excellent for the SNP) was conducted just after the sacking, and if anything the situation inside the SNP has worsened since then.
I've no idea why Plaid Cymru are polling at 3% in Redfield & Wilton's Scottish subsample - it might be an error in the datasets (possibly the Greens' figures placed in the Plaid row), but if it's for real, those votes can perhaps be taken as interchangeable with the SNP's, in which case the numbers are a touch better than they look at first glance.
So nothing too alarming as of yet - but as I said the other day, if the SNP leadership aren't going to directly undo the mistakes of recent days, they're going to have to find an alternative way of restoring enthusiasm to the membership and the wider Yes movement in the run-up to the election. We mustn't repeat the errors of 2017 (and to some extent 2016) by demotivating SNP activists and leaving Yessers with nothing concrete to vote for. We need some really credible specifics about how and when a vote on independence will occur if an SNP majority is secured in the spring.
There is no alternative to the SNP at the moment for anyone Indy-oriented.
ReplyDeleteThe factionism in play now doesn't seem to interest MSM or even unionist blogs let alone real people.
I feel guilty I am enjoying it. I think that's because I feel close enough to have a valid view. (love her or hate her, Nicola has made good from an inauspicious start in Dreghorn)
My heart is with Craig Murray et al but my head is with Nicola.
Hope we can get over the line and start on saving and rebuilding our country.
"...wacky resilience of the Conservative Party in the GB-wide polls..."
ReplyDeleteIt's called English nationalism and it's on the increase.
My experience is that most of the major critics of the SNP are not even in the SNP. IfS for example.
ReplyDeleteOften they are England based unionist party voters like Wings.
A rebel being put on the back benches hardly constitutes a 'great purge' never mind an SNP 'civil war' ((c) BBC & unionism). Hell, she even just got elected to the NEC. So much for Stalinism in the party. Or it being a cult for that matter. Clearly neither.
Certainly, I don't see any civil war; just debate (heated at times) with the usual rebels. Perfectly healthy. Of course the unionist press will give anyone SNP - former or current - loads of airtime. Jim Sillars used to be their darling. Now they love Salmond and Cherry.
As for GRA, as a 'transphobic woke transfan c**t who needs to get over his prejudice while stopping putting people's daughters in danger from the trans pedo army', I figure any reform will end up sensible enough. Certainly naff all to do with indy. Anyone linking the two clearly has a union jack agenda.
Same for the Salmond thing. If someone is not constantly reminding folk 7/9 of the complainers in court were on the whitehall payroll with leslie evans - whitehall's woman in Scotland - as their boss is not an indy voter, that's for sure.
Incidentally, why is Cherry writing for the English right-wing New Labour 'New Statesman'? I thought that was for the 'Blairite infiltrators in the SNP'? It's not exactly a popular read in the Yes heartlands.
It's not that I really care, but it's kinda funny in the circumstances.
'Of course the unionist press will give anyone SNP who is critical of the party...'
Delete"A rebel being put on the back benches hardly constitutes a 'great purge'"
DeleteBut of course what very much *does* constitute a Great Purge is almost 10% of the entire parliamentary party - all people with broadly similar views - being removed from the frontbench simultaneously.
Would that be the front bench of an 'irrelevant' parliament? Someone else's parliament?
DeleteWill this reduce the power of those concerned to influence Scottish policy? Do they have less of a vote within the SNP?
I believe it won't make an ounce of difference?
Incidentally, do the front bench in London get more salary? If so, I'd fire them all. :-)
And to be clear James, I'm not in any camp here, other than the devil's advocate's at least. Hence I get attacked by both 'sides'. I hope that's obvious.
DeleteI've always found that serves me well enough.
As for indy... Scots are saying they are now ready for indy. Sturgeon has campaigned for their right to decide since 2014 even though the former were saying they were not ready to undo their previous decision. Now they are saying they are, they will expect her / the SNP to give them that choice. Her hour is coming, and if she doesn't deliver quickly, she'll be gone.
That's what will be her downfall imo, if she has one coming soon.
Will not affect indy; it's far bigger than any single politician or party.
There is too much talent in the SNP to believe beheading one kills the party.
It's a pity Cherry didn't stand for Holyrood. If she really is a future leader, then she should make every effort to be elected to there, for our MPs could be leaving Westminster within a matter of months.
"Would that be the front bench of an 'irrelevant' parliament?"
DeleteWhen have I ever called it that?
"If she really is a future leader"
Doubtless her explicit statement today that she does not want to be leader and is unsure whether her future even lies in politics is all part of her cunning plan to become leader.
Smearer Skier (liar since 2014) keeps posting "7/9 complainers in court were on the Whitehall payroll"
DeleteNow as most of the disproved accusations took place many years ago were they all on the Whitehall payroll at the time of offences or at the time of the trial or at the present time.
I have asked you this before Skier and you ran away. What's your answer! Or do you really not have a clue?
Doubtless her explicit statement today that she does not want to be leader and is unsure whether her future even lies in politics is all part of her cunning plan to become leader.
DeletePity, she'd have been a good candidate.
This just reinforces my point. If cherry isn't interested in reaching leadership / Scottish cabinet ranks, there is no motive for any sort of 'purge' of her, ergo, she was not purged. Jeez. You don't purge popular people saying they are not interested in threatening anyone, while describing their own current position as irrelevant.
So this does seem to be at most keeping the troops in line, which is right and proper. You should avoid publicly challenge the leader unless you plan to stand against them. It's like footie players attacking the managers strategy on tv before the match. do that and the manager will drop you.
I think the disquiet runs pretty deep in the SNP, and rightly so, because these are important issues: a former leader, integrity, decently, truth, justice, the cause of independence itself.
DeleteEven at the height of the Blair/Brown feud it was actually difficult to name more than a handful of rebels against Blair as late as 2006.
Whereas now there is both seniority and numbers among those concerned about the direction of the leadership: Alex Neil. Kenny McAskil, Angus McNeil, Joanna Cherry, Joanne McAlpine, Christopher McEleny, are the ones I am aware of. There are no doubt others. Rebels only usually emerge when the coup is assured. People only rushed to Brown after Blair was toppled. These sorts of figures coming out already as dissatisfied with Sturgeon’s leadership, while still at the height of her strength, suggests to me a very broad and deep level of discontent in the party.
Smearer Skier (liar since 2014) - no answer to my question - you haven't a clue have you.
DeleteYou haven't asked any question.
DeleteI'll ask you one though...
Are you withholding key evidence in the Salmond case, persecuting him, or do you not know anything of importance?
So, you think 95% of SNP MPs/MSPs are happy enough with the direction of the party? That's before we add in councilors...
DeleteSeems to me Sturgeon is pretty safe.
If Sturgeon enters an illegal war then loses loads of seats in the coming election, I would then foresee moves to depose her.
Join a coup to oust a popular leader and the public will get rid of you at the next opportunity.
I'm not making any judgement on the arguments here, just saying that if you don't want to be part of a team, but want to openly attack it and its manager in public, then the honorable thing is to do that from the benches. If you don't, the manager will put you there. It isn't 'civil war', just regular politics.
If you don't like the way your team is playing, you discuss it in the dress room and during training sessions. Not in front of the opposition and fans.
Smearer Skier (liar since 2014) says I haven't asked him a question about his oft repeated 7/9 are UK civil servants and the other 2 are SNP. What a liar. I have asked you the question multiple times the latest being 9.57pm above.
DeleteSmearer Skier - LIAR!
I am not withholding key evidence - there you go answered for you. It doesn't mean I am not aware of key information that many others are but you appear to be wholly in the dark. Nae pals Smearer.
Another question for you why do you not put the same question to James Kelly? Ask him if he is withholding info from the police and is a criminal. You won't because you are a coward and a charlatan.
There was another Yougov poll conducted after the one mentioned in the article but the voting intentions has not been made to the general public so it would have been a private. Perhaps the poll did not give No a lead.
ReplyDeleteStuart Campbell commissioned a Panelbase poll but did not release the other questions results. Perhaps the voting intentions were either not asked but there was more than the two questions in the poll but have been kept private.
Don’t forget Labour were ahead in the polls at the start of the 2011 election, and lost by a landslide.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Sturgeon wouldn’t mind losing some seats in the election, and then resigning with dignity? And handing over to someone from her wing of the party.
2011 was so 2011. 2021 is 2021 with Brexit, Johnson, COVID. The Salmond saga is not the one item that non-political voters are that interest in. Quite a lot of posters here live in a twitter/blog bubble/echo chamber.
DeleteAll it took was the Subway incident to sink Labour and Iain Gray in 2011.
DeleteI don’t think SNP could likely lose from this position, but they could go backwards, which would be as bad as a defeat in narrative terms, and ample excuse for unionists to form a grand coalition.
We have a poll. Another poll with Yes ahead.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1359642757405507584
Should Scotland be an independent country?
DeleteYes: 53% (-4)
No: 47% (+4)
+/- vs. 8-13 Dec
Fieldwork: 4-9 February 2021
Sample size: 1,002
It is a ComRes poll for the Scotsman. No figures of party support of the front page but says SNP set for a majority at Holyrood.
DeleteI realise that I'm deep in "apocryphal country" here, and my sample size is tiny, but I just don't see any sign among my undecided friends (I've spoken to seven of them over the weekend) that they are aware of the "turmoil" in the SNP. Of course I don't raise the issue with them, but I would have expected at least one of them to mention something. Of those who mentioned Sturgeon, they were still admiring her honest, down to earth handling of covid, and, unlike covid-19 itself, everyone knows someone who has been vaccinated (two of the have been vaccinated themselves).
ReplyDeleteAs I said, my comments are apocryphal, and my "sample size" is Toney, but perhaps we "independence fanatics" are too immersed in the "bubble". Presumably we will get a better idea, once a few more polls are published, and the we will have a better idea?
PS. One of my friends was only vaguely aware of who Joanna Cherry was this weekend....
Alex someone was on the telly who didn't realise there was a south pole as it wasn't featured in any holiday brochures. That comment is of the same value as your comment - none.
DeleteIt doesn't mean that there is not a South Pole .
IFS, this person who was on the telly, who didn't realise there was a South Pole? Were they banned from voting? Even if your ridiculous "ad absurdum" argument was factual, it is irrelevant. Because you live in the bubble, and know exactly who Joanna Cherry is, that means you get an extra vote, does it?
DeleteThe point I am making, is that the general public don't seem to have the same obsessive fascination with internal SNP politics, and while you may sneer at someone's "lack of political knowledge", it doesn't mean that YOUR vote is worth more than theirs.
Now, as I said, my comments are based on a very small number of people, but they are among the really important people. You and I aren't important. We are going to vote yes, come hell or high water, but, unless we pay attention to what folk OUTSIDE the bubble are saying and thinking, we will end up going in ever decreasing circles, until we disappear up our own arses, obsessing about incidental stuff that has naff all to do with independence.
You, along with quite a lot of people in the yes movement, are a political snob, who thinks that their views on the "important issues" are vital, when, in reality, the important issues hardly impinge on the general electorates consciousness, and won't affect the result of either the election or the referendum.
Start talking to folk who aren't confirmed yes voters. You might be surprised at what you learn.
Alex - The problem with your analysis is that it is all about getting people to agree to vote yes is that there is absolutely nothing in what you say will deliver the means for them to vote yes. The important people NOW are the politicians who can deliver the means for them to vote. I don't trust the current SNP leadership to deliver anything.
Delete" or the referendum". You say. When will this happen? I remember Sturgeon saying there would be a referendum back in 2017.
Carrying out criminal actions is not internal SNP politics. Corrupting the Scottish Government is not internal politics.
Where do I say I get a double vote or anything like that - you are just making up stuff. I am not in a political party nor in any political bubble - quite the reverse.
You Alex do not know me so pack it in with your nonsense personal comments.
IFS, you and I will never agree on this issue. From way back, right back in the days when Winnie Ewing was making history, the possibility of independence depended on Scottish people voting for it, and nothing else.
DeleteWhether it was back in the days before Holyrood, when Labour thought that devolution would put an end to the rise of the SNP, right up to today, when it looks like a majority of Scots want independence, this has never been about the politicians, or what the politicians are doing to each other in Westminster or Holyrood. It has always been about numbers.
The SNP is the political bus, taking us to our destination. When we get to the destination, it won't matter a tinker's cuss what the bus looks like - ALL that will matter, is how many people alight from the bus. If the numbers are great enough, then Plan A, B, X,Y, or Z will NOT be important, and it won't matter what Doris Johnson says or does.
THAT'S why I was harping on about the value of your "knowledgeable" vote, versus the "ignorant" vote of the mythical guy who doesn't know about the South Pole.
We in the "yesser bubble" obsess about trivialities. If Sturgeon asks for a section 30, the ONLY thing that matters, is how many people she's representing when she asks. Doris's answer will only be relevant if the numbers she is representing aren't firmly in the majority. If those numbers ARE in the majority, then it doesn't matter what Doris says.
I apologise for calling you a political snob. That was harsh. Nevertheless, I think you ARE "in the bubble", and talking to folk outside the bubble might make you realise that we ARE on the cusp........
*tiny
ReplyDelete'Mistakes' and doing the decent thing and removing from the frontbench two people who openly contribute to and support a hate campaign. Riiiight. SNP bad.
ReplyDeleteMost people are only aware of Nicola Sturgeon being responsible for pretty much everything the government does and says, apart from the occasional bad news when she punts out someone else. She is the minister for everything. There is no-one else. She has her own TV show on BBC Scotland, and Scotland BBC most days. And has done for a year.
ReplyDeleteThe results of any election are a given.
Welcome to the pretense that there is democratic politics in Scotland.
This blogger has been as guilty as pretty much everyone else of any note for bringing this upon us. That includes the Scottish Sun, BBC Scotland, ITV Scotland, the Daily Record, the National, and the Glasgow Herald, etc. They all sound like they will piss their pants if they incur the wrath of Sturgeon and her Scottish machine.
Scotland is at the point where people think it's fine for the Leader to be on TV for an hour most days immediately prior to her re-election.
In reality, it's really weird. Similar to current day Poland, but Morawiecki doesn't get on TV so much.
It even goes as far as Nicola Sturgeon telling the Nation in ITV 6pm news that stabbing people to death is bad. It's PR gone mega.
ReplyDelete