Earlier this evening I received the results of the new crowdfunded Scot Goes Pop poll, which has once again been conducted by Panelbase, a firm which is a member of (and follows the rules of) the British Polling Council. As time is a bit short to get very much out tonight, I'm just going to give you a little appetiser for now, and I thought I'd begin with first preference voting intentions for next year's local council elections. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware this is the first proper voting intention poll for that set of elections from any polling firm, which makes the results particularly interesting.
Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll (a representative sample of 1001 over-16s in Scotland was interviewed by Panelbase between 20th and 26th October 2021)
Scottish local council elections first preference voting intentions:
Conservatives 22%
Labour 21%
Liberal Democrats 6%
Greens 4%
Alba 2%
Based on what has happened in previous years, the SNP's high vote share should perhaps be treated with caution - they often tend to do a bit less well than expected in local elections. Presumably that's partly because of the widespread intervention of independent candidates, and partly because of local factors, including the personal popularity of individual Tory and Labour councillors. I seem to recall John Curtice confidently predicting, at a very late stage, that the SNP would take around 40% of the vote in the 2017 local elections, which he thought would be a somewhat underwhelming result. In fact they only took 32%, which was unchanged from five years previously. So, yes, if this new poll can be taken at face value, the SNP would be making an enormous 13% jump, which would undoubtedly win them a huge number of new councillors, and would probably see them seize outright majority control of certain councils - in spite of the STV voting system making that incredibly hard to achieve.
The Tories' share of the vote is three points down on what they achieved in 2017, while Labour are a trivial one point up, and the Lib Dems an equally trivial one point down. The health warning that has to be put on the Greens' 4% share is that they traditionally haven't stood in all that many wards, so a significant proportion of the electorate may not even have the chance to vote for them.
As for Alba's 2% showing, that can be viewed in a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty sort of way. (Of course I have to declare a special interest at this point, because I'm an Alba member and was recently elected to the party's National Executive Committee.) As a completely 'new entry' Alba may be satisfied that they're actually registering support and are not all that far behind longer established parties like the Greens and the Lib Dems. On 2% there clearly needs to be a degree of realism about their prospects next May, but they start with the big advantage of already having a significant number of incumbent councillors. Capitalising on those people's personal vote and getting some or all of them re-elected is far from an impossible goal, even on a relatively modest share of the national vote. And if that's achieved, priceless electoral credibility will follow.
It's worth noting, incidentally, that the three pro-independence parties in combination have 51% of the popular vote.
The poll also asked a second voting intention question about the local elections. Because a preferential voting system will be used, in which voters can rank as many or as few candidates as they like, the poll asked respondents to list all of the parties they will be giving a preference to. The results on that question will be of particular interest to Alba, who have never stood in an STV election before, and therefore have no idea how many transfers they can expect from other pro-indy parties. I'll be releasing those results in a future blogpost.
FUNDRAISER: If you think it's a good thing that not all public opinion polls are commissioned by anti-independence clients, please consider donating to the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser - that will ensure that I'm not out of pocket for running this new poll, and will also allow me to commission another poll over the coming months. To donate, please click HERE, or to read about why it's so important for the pro-independence movement to occasionally crowdfund our own polls, click HERE.
Interesting stuff. Donation on its way, James, you've put in a lot of hard work.
ReplyDeleteI just can't bring myself to vote SNP at all anymore. Where should I put them on ranked list? Along with the other yoons I just don't want to up-rate any of them.
ReplyDeleteMad Malkie a WGD Numpty who I have commented about before reports on WGD that the National newspaper (or as some would say the SNP fanzine) have banned him from commenting. Malkie is, of course, allowed to spew out his crap on WGD even though I fail to see how his deranged rantings comply with Kavanaghs policy of not commenting unless it helps independence. It would appear to Kavanagh that mad Malkie's rantings about Salmond working for Putin is ok. Surprisingly a WGD numpty Capella disagrees with him and just as I think there has been a rare outbreak of common sense on WGD the numpty Grizebard goes on to state that he thinks Putin is secretly financing the Alba party.
ReplyDeleteBest use some of the crowdfunded money James to get yourself a Russian style fur hat or alternatively ask Salmond for one from the supply that Putin has obviously given him for party members. That small indulgence will be nothing compared to getting a new house that Grizebard helped fund for Kavanagh.
What is next for these Numpties? - what about a claim that your NEC meetings are secretly held in Moscow and Putin pays for Business Class flights to Moscow, 5 star hotels and a couple of grand in Roubles as spending money.
What a bunch of clowns on WGD.
I thought I would tune in and see what Blackford had to say about the Budget Statement. He made a lot of very valid points. Pity that a lot of MPs stood up and left before he could speak and most of the time Johnston and Sunak ignored him. But worse of all was where were the missing SNP MPs. I doubt half of them were there. If you cannae get your own MPs to turn up why should anyone else.
ReplyDeleteOther than getting money from Westminster to put in to the SNP bank account ( note to Grizebard: unlike your smear about Putin and Alba the SNP gets funded directly from its supposed enemy Westminster) what have Sturgeon's SNP MPs ever achieved at Westminster.
I'll be voting Alba in future council elections, UK GE and Scottish Parliament election. SNP no more. SNP can stuff their Both Votes SNP.
ReplyDeleteAlison Thewliss SNP MP on the news complaining about the Tories ignoring the devolution settlement. Well what the hell do you expect - they are Tories who never wanted a Scottish Parliament. That's all the SNP do - moan moan moan. Action by the SNP - forget it - a bunch of devolutionalists that will never deliver independence. Too busy working on their expenses claims.
Nasty WGD numpty Dr Jim states you have rounded up the Alba figure from 0.2% to 2%. Once again an example of - if Alba is so insignificant why bother with pathetic jibes like that. Fanatical Sturgeonites like nasty Jim clearly are worried.
ReplyDeleteThe SNP will lose voters in droves once it becomes crystal clear what Sturgeon and her gang truly are and they will be looking for a party that actually wants independence. That is Alba not the devolutionalist (Unionist) SNP.
If Dr Jim (who is Dr Jim?) did say that, I'm not quite sure what he's talking about, given that the only people who have seen the datasets so far are Panelbase and myself. But I can assure him that Alba are indeed on 2%, not 0.2%. That's a somewhat random allegation by any standards.
DeleteJames, it's just another example of the bitter nonsense the WGD numpties come up with re Alba. He clearly wanted it to be 0.2% not 2% and hence the cheap jibe at your integrity. The only political party in Scotland (apart from the SNP) they never attack is the Greens - funny that.
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