SCOT goes POP!: 2024-12-29

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

It's unlikely I'll have a vote in the Alba leadership election, but the way things are shaping up, I suspect I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for Kenny MacAskill from a distance

Welcome to the transition between 2024 and 2025 - it's already 2025 in Australia, New Zealand, Korea and quite a few other countries. Unless the Alba Party's Appeals Committee takes a more enlightened attitude than I've encountered thus far, I'd imagine the coming year will see me being forced (and quite early on, in fact) to find a new political home in a different party. That means I'm unlikely to have a vote in the Alba leadership election, which is also just around the corner. If the media is to be believed, that election will boil down to a contest between Kenny MacAskill and Ash Regan, but crucially with Chris McEleny functioning as Ms Regan's éminence grise. The ideological and personality fissures between the two camps have fascinatingly exploded into public view over the last 24 hours with a series of remarkably blunt tweets from Mr MacAskill -

Whilst the office of head of state requires to be respected there are office holders who hold views or conduct themselves in ways that are unacceptable. Working with them where required is essential but cosying up to them most certainly isn’t.
— Kenny MacAskill (@KennyMacAskill) December 30, 2024

Some recent social media comments bright this old tune to mind. pic.twitter.com/ePduUzC0Xm
— Kenny MacAskill (@KennyMacAskill) December 30, 2024

Mmmh probably the most research he’s done in the last 6 months. https://t.co/5xhKK0Wm4w
— Kenny MacAskill (@KennyMacAskill) December 30, 2024

Chasing the reform vote rather than acknowledging legitimate fears but defending values and beliefs which are sacrosanct.
It’ll be MAGA on his hat next. https://t.co/EBV3Bh5tvd
— Kenny MacAskill (@KennyMacAskill) December 30, 2024

Says Reform boy! https://t.co/mHVjPjJUUH
— Kenny MacAskill (@KennyMacAskill) December 30, 2024

The war machine. It’ll be Israel and trident next https://t.co/kLLhI2uMyx
— Kenny MacAskill (@KennyMacAskill) December 30, 2024

These tweets are examples of Mr MacAskill doing what Yvonne Ridley would call "not holding his water", ie. bringing a rift out into the open, rather than conveniently letting people plot against him in private without any response. I must say I very much approve of his new approach. What he's saying doesn't really require a lot of interpreting - he's criticising the people in the top reaches of Alba (including the McEleny/Regan axis) who have been paying homage to Elon Musk, a man whose politics are no longer ambiguous or subtle in any way - he just seeks out the far-right option in every country and throws his weight 100% behind it.

Mr MacAskill is also laying down a marker that his own vision for Alba is that of a classically left-wing party, in contrast to the McEleny vision of a populist Frankenstein's monster which draws ideas from both the right-wing and the left-wing. The latter is not necessarily fascism but it certainly describes how fascism started in Italy a century ago.

If that's the faultline, I don't think there can be much doubt that I'd want Mr MacAskill to come out on top, even if I'm no longer in the party when the election is held. Don't get me wrong - a win for Mr MacAskill will not solve all of Alba's problems, many of which are very deep-seated and to do with cliquishness and an authoritarian culture. But at least from an ideological and policy point of view, it looks like it would be a step in the right direction. What's more, if Mr MacAskill does stand, my gut feeling is that he'll probably defeat Ash Regan - although as the ultimate machine politician Chris McEleny will doubtless try just about anything to seal the deal for Ms Regan.

Some readers may remember that when Jeffrey Archer was selected as the Tory candidate for London mayor, the BBC journalist Michael Crick contacted the then Tory leader William Hague and basically said "look, I know this isn't the done thing for a journalist, but these are extraordinary circumstances and I really do feel honour-bound to let you know that on the basis of information at my disposal, I know for sure that Archer isn't a fit and proper person to hold major political office, and it would be in the overwhelming public interest for you to replace him as the candidate". Hague didn't heed that warning and lived to bitterly regret it.

Let me put it this way for any Alba members who may be reading this: if you had seen Chris McEleny operating in private in the way that I and others have done, I have little doubt that you would reach exactly the same conclusion that I have - that he is not an appropriate person to put in control of any political party. I have no idea why Ash Regan seems to have been foolish enough to go into an alliance with him, but now that she has, it is without doubt in the best interests of the Alba party that someone other than her should become leader. Feel free to heed that advice or to ignore it, but I can promise you it is meant absolutely sincerely - and remember I am very close to having no skin in this particular game anyway.

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Monday, December 30, 2024

A challenge for Scot Goes Pop readers: can anyone establish whether Chris McEleny is being truthful in his claim?

My Twitter exchange with Robert Reid (about his false implication that several different polling firms are all showing Alba on course for Holyrood seats) dragged on for a bit, and eventually Chris McEleny made a really quite strange interjection. Technically, this does not breach his well-established policy of never replying to me, because he nominally addressed his reply to Mr Reid.

"The same pollster had Alba Party at around 2% in April this year (depending on turnout) so this is a 4 point increase in a 7 month period."

What he's saying here is that there was a Find Out Now poll in April 2024 showing Alba on 2% of the Holyrood list vote, meaning there has been a 4% increase since then. I have tried to verify that claim, but I have drawn a blank. I'd have to say the claim appears to be untrue. The two most comprehensive lists of polls (on Wikipedia and John Curtice's What Scotland Thinks sites) do not list any previous Find Out Now polls of Holyrood voting intentions, or at least not in the period since the May 2021 election. There's also no sign of an independence poll having been conducted by Find Out Now in April 2024. I also checked Find Out Now's blog, which is where they usually release data tables, and no Scottish poll is mentioned in April 2024.

I'm reluctant to accuse Mr McEleny of knowingly saying something that isn't true, so if any Scot Goes Pop reader can spot something that I've overlooked, please let me know. I suppose it's possible Mr McEleny is talking about a poll that was privately commissioned by the Alba Party but never released. If that's the case, I'd suggest the onus is now on him to belatedly release it.

Ignore the silly propaganda from the Alba HQ man - if a "clear polling trend is developing", it's that Alba are on course for zero seats in 2026

In spite of my ongoing Kafkaesque experiences with the Alba Party, I won't be churlish - the new Find Out Now poll is decent for them, putting them on 6% of the list vote and a projected three list seats. However, as far as I can see, Find Out Now have no track record of polling Holyrood voting intentions, so there's no baseline to measure from, meaning it's not possible to say whether there's any sort of upward trend for Alba. It may just be that Find Out Now are like Norstat and will produce higher Alba numbers than other firms due to a 'house effect'.

One thing I am sure of, however, is that this tweet from Alba HQ man Robert Reid is just very silly propaganda -

"Great to see yet another polling company projecting ALBA are set to break through in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2026

Still a lot of work to do but a clear trend is developing"

My question was "'Yet another'? Who are the others?!". Reid replied by claiming that the recent Norstat poll showed Alba on course for one seat, but that's based on an unofficial projection done by the Green activist Allan Faulds for his own website. The Norstat poll was commissioned by the Sunday Times, who asked Professor John Curtice to calculate an official seats projection - and his projection for Alba was zero seats.

In any case, the words "yet another" clearly imply that lots of polling companies, not just one or two, are showing Alba on course for seats. Well, let's see, shall we? Here is what the most recent poll from each firm shows for Alba -

Norstat: 5% of the list vote, zero seats.

Survation: 3% of the list vote, zero seats.

Opinium: Seemingly didn't even offer Alba as an option.

Redfield & Wilton: 1% of the list vote, zero seats.

Savanta: Seemingly didn't even offer Alba as an option.

YouGov: 2% of the list vote, zero seats.

Ipsos: 1% of the list vote, zero seats.

Far from being "yet another" polling company showing Alba on course for seats, it turns out that Find Out Now are in fact the only polling company to be doing so. If a "clear trend is developing", it's that Alba are on course to win no seats at all.

In my several years as an Alba member, I lost count of the number of times the leadership cited bogus evidence that the party was on the brink of that ever-elusive electoral breakthrough, and Reid's propaganda tweet is, I'm afraid, just the latest example.

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Astounding poll could be scene-setter for renewed SNP dominance in 2025, with pro-independence parties now projected to win 56% of seats at the next Holyrood election

The Holyrood and Westminster voting intention numbers from the new Find Out Now poll for The National have been released, and I have an analysis piece in The National which you can read HERE.

From a pro-independence point of view the numbers are nothing short of stupendous. The pro-indy parties are projected to win 72 seats in the next Scottish Parliament, which is not only a very comfortable majority, it's also exactly the same number that was won at the 2021 election when all in the garden was rosy. If you'd asked back in July, you'd have got very, very long odds against a poll like this appearing within this calendar year, and the fact that it has done (albeit with only a couple of days to spare) is testament to just how catastrophic Keir Starmer's first few months in power have been.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 35%

Labour 19%

Conservatives 15%

Reform UK 11%

Liberal Democrats 9%

Greens 7%

Alba 2%

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 26%

Labour 17%

Conservatives 14%

Greens 13%

Reform UK 11%

Liberal Democrats 10%

Alba 6%

Seats projection: SNP 54, Labour 19, Conservatives 16, Greens 15, Liberal Democrats 12, Reform UK 10, Alba 3

PRO-INDEPENDENCE PARTIES: 72 SEATS

ANTI-INDEPENDENCE PARTIES: 57 SEATS

PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY OF 15 SEATS

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election:

SNP 34%

Labour 20%

Reform UK 15%

Conservatives 14%

Liberal Democrats 9%

Greens 6%

Seats projection: SNP 41, Labour 8, Liberal Democrats 5, Conservatives 3

The Westminster numbers continue the theme of things reverting to how they were before, because the seats projection is strikingly similar to the SNP landslide victory of 2019, albeit Labour would retain more of a foothold than they had in that election.

It has to be said, though, that the phenomenal pro-indy seat numbers are being run up on relatively modest SNP vote shares. How is that proving possible? Well, the Greens are doing a lot of the heavy lifting at the Scottish Parliament - their projected 15 seats would be easily their all-time high, and would put them only just behind both Labour and the Tories. A significant amount of the bumper Green support seems to come direct from people who might otherwise be voting SNP, with 17.8% of SNP voters from this year's general election saying they will vote Green on the Holyrood list.

But of course the Greens are playing no role at all in the projected pro-indy majority in Westminster seats - that's purely down to the wonders of the first-past-the-post electoral system. The SNP's Westminster vote has only recovered by four percentage points since July, but that's more than enough for a huge landslide victory when the unionist vote is as nicely split as it currently is.

The Reform surge is now working firmly in the SNP's favour in both parliaments. Farage's party is eating into the support of unionist parties far more than into SNP support. Just 2% of the SNP's general election voters would now vote Reform in a Westminster vote, compared to 11.5% of Labour voters and 18.7% of Tory voters. That differential obviously boosts the number of SNP seats in a first-past-the-post Westminster election, but actually to a lesser extent the same effect is felt at Holyrood. If Reform help the SNP to win Holyrood constituency seats, that is not always going to be fully offset by compensatory seats for unionist parties on the list.

One thing that may frustrate the SNP is the limited success they're having in winning voters back direct from Labour. A remarkable 45% of people who voted Labour in July say they would not do so again in another general election, but only 9.8% would now vote SNP. The biggest single beneficiaries are actually Reform UK, who take 11.5% of Labour votes.

Would it be dreadfully unkind of me to point out that on the 3rd of December, Stuart Campbell said -

"We’re going to call this one early: there is zero prospect of a pro-indy majority after the next Holyrood election. None. Barring a nuclear war or an alien invasion or some equally implausible revolutionary event, it’s simply not happening"

- and that two polls have been published in the month since, both pointing to a pro-indy majority after the next Holyrood election? Campbell's dwindling band of defenders assure us that he "always gets the big calls right", but that must be in some alternate universe in which these last two opinion polls never happened, where Joe Biden never became US President, where Humza Yousaf never became First Minister, and most of all where Kezia Dugdale lost that court case.

I mean, it's fine to get predictions wrong - we all do from time to time. But when you claim total infallibility, and when in reality you're just saying anything that will drain the morale of what is supposedly "your own side", I don't think it's unreasonable to hold you to account when you're as badly caught out as you have been in this case. There may or may not be a pro-indy majority after 2026, but the idea that it's an impossibility now looks ludicrous beyond words.

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Sunday, December 29, 2024

Find Out Now! Find Out How? Find Out MOP MY BROW! Another pro-independence majority in compelling end-of-year poll

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Find Out Now / Sunday National, 17th-24th December 2024)

Yes 52% (-)

No 48% (-)

Obviously no poll showing an outright Yes lead can ever be considered disappointing, but there is one negative point here - there's been more or less no rise in the Yes vote since the previous Find Out Now poll in October. (I say 'more or less', because if rounded to one decimal place, the Yes vote has increased slightly from 51.8% to 52.3%.) That means this poll does not really corroborate the trend in the recent Norstat poll showing a big jump for Yes, thus leaving open the possibility the Norstat poll could yet end up looking like an outlier. That said, even at around the time of the previous Find Out Now poll, Norstat had Yes at 50%, which was an unusually high figure for that firm.

There's also a "settled will" klaxon to be sounded, because Find Out Now have been polling on independence for years, and all but one of their polls have shown a clear Yes lead. So if the Find Out Now methodology is broadly correct, the goal of a "sustained" Yes lead that the SNP sometimes talk about is not some kind of imagined future - it's what we already have in the here and now.

A hypothetical question in the poll asking how respondents would vote on independence if Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister shows a whopping Yes lead of 60% to 40%. As has been well rehearsed recently, hypothetical questions do not necessarily produce reliable results, but I think this particular one may be in a slightly different category. Unlike Brexit, a Reform UK government wouldn't fade from view. Voters would be seeing Prime Minister Farage on their TV screens every day. The reminders would be endless, so it's entirely possible that a massive Yes surge would happen for real.

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