GB-wide voting intentions (Find Out Now, 22nd January 2025):
Reform UK 26% (+1)
Conservatives 23% (-2)
Labour 22% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 12% (-)
Greens 10% (-)
SNP 3% (-)
Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
This poll is a landmark in other ways too. 26% seems to be a post-rebrand high watermark for Reform, not just with Find Out Now but with any firm. 22% is the lowest vote share Labour has recorded with any polling firm since the general election, and although I'm not going to trawl through records going back to the 1940s, I would imagine it must be pretty close to an all-time low for them, or at least a post-Second World War low.
There's also a Techne poll which has Labour clinging on to a one-point lead, with the Tories and Reform in joint second. However, that's not much comfort for Keir Starmer, because Labour's 25% in that poll is a post-election low with Techne, while Reform are on an all-time high of 24% with the firm. So although polling firms disagree with each other about which party is in the lead, the trend looks clear - Labour are still drifting downwards and Reform are still climbing upwards. I wouldn't like to place any bets on just how much lower Labour are capable of going.
26% is not a country that wants Farage to be PM.
ReplyDeleteYou're seeing a distrust writ large.
Well, by that logic Britain wasn't a country that voted for Keir Starmer as PM, because Starmer only took 33% of the vote. The voting system is the voting system.
DeleteWell yeah you're right, and?
DeleteIt's not a country that wants any of them.
"Well yeah you're right, and?"
DeleteAnd full stop. Nothing else to be said. In a first-past-the-post system, a country that puts Reform UK in first place is a country that wants Reform UK's leader as Prime Minister.
No one cares about the philosophical question of whether England "wants" Farage to be PM. On these numbers, it's what they're going to get, and it's what Scotland's going to get too, despite quite unambiguously not wanting it by any possible interpretation of the numbers
DeleteAnd wait to see what the Rudakubana sentencing aftermath is going to do to Reform's score.
ReplyDeleteRealistically though if we remove wishful thinking is there a path to independence today you see being implemented before the next UK General Election?
ReplyDeleteLike we lived through Boris Johnson becoming PM being an outlandish threat that will never happen, it becoming a reality, him doing everything that was predicted, him leaving office in disgrace... but all of it didn't change anything.
Even Boris Johnson didn't remove us from the European Convention on Human Rights. Farage has said he'll do it in the first hundred days.
DeleteNote to mention scrapping the NHS. And to think about 15% of the Scottish electorate would vote for these charlatans.
DeleteYeah but similarly to Boris there is a "it will never happen" attitude atm. Despite what the polls are saying many will just say the prospect of Farage becoming PM is a scare story... right up until it becomes a reality.
DeleteAs ever it’s the combined Tory + Reform vote share that is terrifying. Virtually half of GB wants one of Badenoch or Farage in charge. Destroys your faith in half of humanity. Woe betide us if they form a pact.
ReplyDeleteHave been talking to some family and friends in Engerlandshire and many of them voted Labour last time purely to get the Tories out and in the hope that Starmer would clean up politics and actually listen to voters.
ReplyDeleteNone of that has happened, according to them - and they are now totally pissed-off with politics in general and want to give the whole status-quo 'system' a boot in the baws.
They are seriously thinking of voting Reform, to do just that.......and most of them are middle-to-high earners with good jobs and tertiary education behind them.
I posted ( either on here or twitter, can't remember ) months ago, that Farage would be the next PM and I stand by my prediction.
Scotland should be VERY afraid.
What terrifies the majority of Scots is the nonsense of independence somehow happening one day.
DeleteOf course, that would explain why there's a clear majority in favour of independence in the most recent polls.
DeleteDavid and anon - what a couple of cheery souls. I bet they both have built escape tunnels from their houses. Armageddon and the apocalypse.They make a fine couple do David and anon.
DeleteWhy would that happen in England but not in Scotland?
DeleteVoters in Scotland voted Labour in the last General Election for most of the same reasons & it wasn't just the Tories they were fed up with. There's also a strong desire here to give the whole status-quo 'system' a 'boot in the baws'.
It's a difficult argument to make considering how long they've been in power that the SNP don't represent the status-quo.
Not surprised in the slightest Aberdeenshire and England's hire populated by the same folk.
DeletePity our own can't afford houses. Believe they only take English fivers in Tomintoul there days
"Why would that happen in England but not in Scotland?"
DeleteWishing hard enough doesn't make Scotland a clone of England, Anon. The difference between the two countries is clear from opinion pols - Reform's support in Scotland is running at roughly half of what they have in England. "But it shouldn't be like that!" Well, I'm afraid it is.
That England and Scotland are basically politically identical is the most fundamental tenet of centrist Unionism. The insanity of the last decade hasn't allowed them to give up on it, so nothing will. It's a psychological need at this point
DeleteIt would be interesting if someone in Scotland stopped the knee-jerk and addressed Reform's policies? A complete mind-blank mmmmmh! is where they are coming from. This is the party that won a UK EU election and successfully released the UK from the EU. They are set to be the third party in the Holyrood parliament. Blank-faced moronic disengagement gets nowhere good even if you don't like them because.
ReplyDelete"successfully released the UK from the EU"
DeleteNo they didn't. Even leaving aside the loaded language, it was the Tories that did that. UKIP played a role but the Brexit Party took zero seats in the 2019 general election.
No James, you are wrong: The Tory party were in favour of remaining in the EU and campaigned on remaining in the EU. Of course there were exceptions, as there were in the SNP, but that was neither party's policy.
DeleteAt the end of the day, welcome to a 51% / 49% referendum result.
DeleteNow you know how the losing 49% will feel in a gigantic constitutional change.
Delete"The Tory party were in favour of remaining in the EU"
DeleteMy friend, you need to read the 2019 Tory manifesto with a bit more care. In fact a lot more care.
The brexit referendum was in 2016. The Campaign was in 2015/16.
DeleteI'm not trying to do anything apart from learning from history James.
DeleteThen start by reading the 2019 Tory manifesto, in which the Tory party committed themselves to Brexit. They won on that manifesto and then delivered Brexit.
DeleteAs far as I can remember the Lib Dems and the SNP thought that the result was fundamentally unacceptable, but Labour and the Conservatives felt that they had to unfortunately wield to the proletariat much to there disgust, resulting in damaging parliamentary discombobulation. It is something real that hovers about another Scottish independence referendum without resounding support one way or the other.
DeleteStop it James. As you know David Referendums Cameron campaigned against leaving the EU. The rest was trying to vaguely get in line with the 51%.
DeleteStop correcting your factual inaccuracies, you mean? The only party in power throughout the entire Brexit process was the Tory party. UKIP never had more than a few seats. The Brexit Party never had any seats.
DeleteThe Tory party delivered the referendum.
Farage did not.
The Tory party delivered Brexit.
Farage did not.
Full stop, end of story.
And the Brexit vote came about despite all the other party's being against it. If only Scottish nationalism had the same drive. But we have a bald accountant in a suit. Possibly for the next decade.
ReplyDeleteBrexit had the support of a large part of the media and the tacit support of the BBC. And the added pressure of anti immigration hate stirred by the media. Independence is constantly attacked in our media.
DeleteWhy the need to make snide reference to his personal appearance? Says much about you and nothing about J S.
DeleteIf you want to be some kind of half-assed revolutionary party, it's probably best if you don't have to run the NHS.
ReplyDeleteHere is a thing.. Reform UK are still in their own words "professionalising" their set up and getting their systems in place.
ReplyDeleteThey have not started actively (full on) campainging yet in Scotland. They have stated that they are going to make their presence felt at the next Scot Gov election in 2026. These polls could very well change further in Reforms favour.
In some way it makes sense for them.. they can use the 2026 cooncil elections as a test bed.
I write simplistically as this seems to be required here on this blog.
In the meantime you have David Frances and a few others sharing a brain cell. This blog and others have a strong left wing element ( James for example by his own admission).. Socialism does not work!
Can you not see that there are about 1/3 of the SNP membership that hold traditional conservative values? These are the folk that may swing to reform. It won't take many to change the make up of the local coooncil in Edinburgh.
Sturgeon / Swinney ( he has had a hand in all the cover ups and redaction etc) have totally stuffed the SNP as a party. They have hollowed out the core of hard working activists.. destroyed it financially.. where has the branch money gone also?) Your average Scot can smell and now see the shite (Neil Grey being the latest) and now Swinney has to turn this around.
Reform have made no real effort as yet in Scotland. But what will happen when they start to make a serious effort. Scots are crying out for an alternative! Both Labour and the SNP have failed us.
Ask.. what's stopping the average voter from saying.. I'll just give Reform a try! I'l bet there are few here that have actually read their prospectus! Have a go.. some may resonate with you but you can keep that your own private secret!
This blog and the BTL commentators tend to be left leaning with a good smattering of anti semetism (from the BTL folk) thrown in. It's not a good look! In fact it is appalling.. and most Scots can smell antisemitism from a mile off! We can smell anti Catholic sentiment.. so we can also smell Antisemetism and we don't like it!
In summary indy people you are stuffed and unless you grow up and smell the coffee .. Indy is over.
To close. David Frances and the like.. stop spanking your bishop as in the long run it will be bad for your political aspirations not least. Mind you I do love that manley stance ( Dave Frances) some of you write in... it gets me " rared up" down below..
To get indy we need to start thinking rapidly about we are going to make life better for people that do a hard days graft.
Pandering to the woke, certain Islamic idealogy does not work. This diversity stuff does not work either.
"Nats" comprise of the left and the right! To even get close to Indy you have a lot of work to do. But many are all (Nats) like rats fighting in a sack when 1/3 of SNP members hold conservative views. God forgive but they are the deplorables.. but required to get over the 50 + 1 mark.
You have an element that want Scotland for Scots.. they may be referring to white Scots but as Humza has pointed out (he has his own Tarten by the way) this white thing is a bit of an issue.. or not? It all smells a bit iffy!
Mind you to finish on a high. I love clocking in here and posting from time to time..as it's a great laugh. Sometimes its good to laugh about serious subjects!
To finish. Most folk and I admire James' fortitude in standing up to bullies. No matter how the political future pans out people like James are essential to our democracy.
All the best to James, the hard work he puts in on the stats and mostly the BTL comentators.
To comment on my own last post.. bad form I know..
DeleteThe sketch which some of you stallworts will remember where they are picking the football team at skool.. good guy / wank..
For all BTL posters.. what team do you would get picked for!
No rush to decide.. if in doubt contact Stuart Campbell he will set you straight!
Soooooo many words, when all the Anon Tit is really saying is 'I am a Right Wing Fuckwit who loves Farage the Frog and Reform, because they are also Right Wing Fuckwits.'
DeleteUnfortunately, we Scots hate his type of Right Wing Slime and have kept it OUT of power for the past 65 years in Scotland.
NO sign of that changing anytime soon, pal.
Get used to being kicked in the teeth once again.
Now.......Away and yank yer wee chain in a darkened room, sonny.
You have VERY obviously had a lot of practice.
Also an important fact to consider: When the status quo feels like shit no one feels motivated to vote in an election to keep things as they are.
DeleteAt present the SNP aren't pushing independence and realistically very few believe a referendum will happen any time in the foreseeable future... so If you believe change won't happen in the next Parliament under the SNP and you're desperate for change what will the masses do?
Right now due to Labour shooting themselves in the foot the SNP may be seen as the best of a bad bunch but if Reform campaigns properly and uses the right rhetoric to target that strong dissatisfaction with all the main political parties there's a lot of potential there.
Soft fascist Anon at 1.01am: I've been pretty tolerant of you over the last few weeks, not least because it's harder to delete a very long comment containing two or three offensive sentences, but if you keep making these bogus allegations of anti-semitism, I will start deleting your comments. There is nothing anti-semitic about calling genocide by its proper name.
DeleteTo be clear and for the avoidance of doubt. I am not suggesting that James Kelly is antisemetic in any way. In fact Isreal has some of the most accommodating gay rights laws for example. Can we discuss that?
DeleteHowever I and I’m sure James will agree that it is fair for me to take a different view on Islam and the events in Palestine. Just because James says it is genocide does no mean it is true!
James rather than shoot the messenger re Reform why don’t you address the reasons for their increasing popularity?
You are now a mover and shaker in the SNP here is your chance to shape policy!
I suspect I detect a *slight* touch of sarcasm there, but I'll answer your question seriously anyway, even though I suspect you won't like the answer.
DeleteIf Reform look like any sort of threat to the SNP's coalition of support going into next year's election, I think the SNP should run a relentless series of high-profile ads pointing out that Reform will dismantle the NHS. That message is likely to resonate because it's true. Working class voters are only backing Reform at present because they don't understand what sort of party it is. They might like the immigrant-bashing but they won't like a lot of the rest of the programme.
The anon at 1.01 and several times thereafter is a snide nasty wee right winger. I think you should leave his posts up to let people know what they are voting for if they vote reform.
DeleteAnon 1.01 You ask , what's stopping the average voter giving Reform a try? Intelligence perhaps, or decency,? Or a love for Scotland?
DeleteAnon at 2.16am - if it’s not a genocide in Gaza then it is mass indiscriminate murder. Either way it is not acceptable.
DeleteDavid Frances you have a great master of yon nuance. You are a nae jobby suffering kind of Chuchter…. Yon spell checker is ripping the pish at my end… canny dae Scot’s.
ReplyDeleteDinny worry about that Farage bloke having a cogent argument. Stick it tae them buddy!
Ye huv tae remember that maste Scot’s are are thick / glaekit. Folk like you who give it straight tae th”opunters are just what we need to get indy over the line.
Keep it up pal.and thanks for your advice.. gorgeous.
Farage has a cogent argument? Aye, for the benefit of his bank account. The milk shakes are on Nigel !
DeleteThe problem is that Starmer doesn't smile but is insincere with it. Badenoch is just inconsequential for want of a better word. Davey is a bit of a lad but his party still hasn't recovered from Clegg. The Greens are too serious, sorry, no idea who the leader is now.
ReplyDeleteWhich leaves Farage who is always smiling or laughing, and gets a kind of automatic sympathy vote because of his looks.
The problem is nobody trusts politicians any more, nor parties, so it comes down to as I've said before - if you were locked into a pub, which leader would be the biggest laugh to help pass the time?
It's a theory, it's mine maybe, and in this stupid UK with its rapidly shrinking economy and total lack of brain cells in government or opposition, it's as good as any.
Meanwhile, I don't think any news program pointed out that with the red weather time between 10 and 5, the high tides were roughly 7 and 7 on the Clyde for instance, which means at no time in the red time zone was it high tide. If it had been it would have been a whole lot worse on the coast. It wasn't so much white water as a weird solid white ridge - something I've never seen before. Put that on a high tide and voila.
You are trotting out the Daily Mail “They are all as bad” line. It is a lie used to normalise the appalling actions of the tories over a fourteen year period and you are one of the useful idiots spreading their lies for them. Well done you.
DeleteUnlike you I never read the Daily Mail. But it doesn't make you a bad person.
DeleteThe Daily Heil ? It tends to make it's 'readers' froth at the mouth. And the Express is even worse.
DeleteYou don’t need to read it to trot out their message for them. It is a poorer reflection on you that you actually claim to have come up with the same mantra independently of them. Although we know you didn’t . You need to try to think things through before posting.
Delete"It tends to make it's 'readers' froth at the mouth."
DeleteI see what you mean. Doesn't make him or her a bad person though :-)
"It tends to make it's 'readers' froth at the mouth."
DeleteI see what you mean. It doesn't make him or her a bad person though :-)
When asked 'do Reform voters have legitimate concerns?', the answer has to be a whole lot better than 'aaaargh!'
ReplyDeleteHow about: We hate you! You should be ASHAMED of yourselves! You don't deserve Kamala. You should vote for TRUMP!
DeleteThat ought to work…
So that's how we're to pick a candidate up for election - if they're good company in a pub ? Okay....
DeleteCorrection: it's "Duh !".
DeleteEnglish people and their British political parties never think of Scots as being British until they want our votes, once they have them we go back to being Scots again
ReplyDeleteThe British don't want us, they just want access to us when they need us to justify their decisions over us, like a cash card or hire car
Scots to them are not British until voting day or a war
We are drunken Jocks lazy Welsh taffs or thick Irish paddies before and after every British election, our problem is the amount of stupidity that remains in the amount of Scots who don't seem to understand this
11.20am. It’s Jimbo again. Jimbo who likes to claim Scots are stupid but has been proving he is stupid by believing Nicola will deliver independence.
DeleteIFS on Reform UK proposals -
ReplyDelete'Carl Emmerson, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “Reform UK proposes tax cuts that it estimates would cost nearly £90 billion per year, and spending increases of £50 billion per year. It claims that it would pay for these through £150 billion per year of reductions in other spending, covering public services, debt interest and working-age benefits.
This would represent a big cut to the size of the state. Regardless of the pros and cons of shrinking the state, or of any of their specific measures, the package as a whole is problematic. Spending reductions would save less than stated, and the tax cuts would cost more than stated, by a margin of tens of billions of pounds per year. Meanwhile the spending increases would cost more than stated if they are to achieve their objectives.
A reduction in tax of £90 billion a year, while sizeable, would still see tax revenues higher as a share of the economy than in 2019–20. But in reality the package of tax cuts proposed would, if and when fully implemented, cost tens of billions of pounds a year more than that. For example, Reform UK plans to cut the rate of corporation tax from 25% to 20% immediately, and then to 15% in year 3 of the parliament. The manifesto costing of £18 billion a year over the course of the next parliament for all its business tax cuts is less than half of what official estimates suggest the long-run cost of just this cut in the corporation tax rate to 15% would be.
Of the proposed spending increases, the largest is for the NHS (£17 billion per year). However, this would not be nearly enough to meet Reform’s incredibly ambitious commitment to eliminate waiting lists within two years. Eliminating the waiting list entirely is a feat that has not been achieved in the history of the NHS and seems near impossible within two years.
The cost-saving measures would save less than set out. There is a respectable argument for changing the extent to which the Bank of England pays interest to commercial banks, and indeed some other central banks don’t pay interest on all the reserves they hold. But whether a good idea or not, it would raise a lot less than £35 billion per year. Reform also propose to reduce “wasteful” spending by £50 billion per year across all government departments, quangos and commissions. But saving this sum would require much more than a crackdown on waste; IT WOULD ALMOST CERTAINLY REQUIRE SUBSTANTIAL CUTS TO THE QUANTITY OR QUALITY OF PUBLIC SERVICES.
Even with the extremely optimistic assumptions about how much economic growth would increase, the sums in this manifesto do not add up. Whilst Reform’s manifesto gives a clear sense of priority, a government could only implement parts of this package, or would need to find other ways to help pay for it, which would mean losers not specified.”
Public Services would be SHREDDED by Farage.
I'd love to see if Nigel Farage's company could crash Britain's economy as much as Truss's party did.
DeleteAmazing. David Francis can post a comment that is informative and does not contain personal abuse or coarse language. Is that really you David?
DeleteYou should have a go at doing the same.
DeleteAnon at 8.14pm - I already do unlike you trying to be an Alec Lomax tribute act with your snidey one liner.
DeleteAccording to the Herald headline: "Alex Salmond's sister and niece back Kenny MacAskill for Alba leader ".
ReplyDeleteWhich is what you'd expect. And also according to MacAskill:
"'Moira Salmond and her lawyers have a clear desire to continue court action'"
It looks like MacAskill is the "continuity candidate".
It is no great surprise that Labour continue to tumble.
ReplyDeleteReeves announced at Davos, that she is watering down the proposed restrictions on Non Doms by giving them a transition period and a tax-cut to help them move their assets/wealth to the UK.
She says she 'must listen to the Non Dom community' - as opposed to the 3.5 Million WASPI Women who she kicked in the teeth and then told them to shut up.
Amazing again. David posts again and it is useful and informative and more surprisingly does not contain any personal abuse or coarse language.
DeleteFascism flourishes when democrats fail to offer credible solutions to system wide crises.
ReplyDeleteThat's what happened in the 1920s and '30s and it's what is happening now as neoliberal capitalism pumps the life out of the majority to continually enrich the few at the top.
Labour used to offer bits of mild regulation of capital to enable it to be a 'B team' when disgust at the Tories overflowed. Now Starmer and Reeves try to ingratiate themselves by becoming what their party was supposed to ( ever so politely) oppose. So disgust at them has been much faster.
Scotland's tragedy is that the SNP has opted for an equivalent strategy of ingratiation with the British state. Alba has opted to become just another sad sect.
Our prospects for democracy and social inclusivity are poor in my view. Farage is just a self serving spiv leaning to the 'lounge bar' type of quasi fascism.
James and others stick to inadequate political parties because it's true that major changes come through parties in government.
Not impossible but for me we have a better, slim chance by trying to recreate a muscular, non party, independence movement to which parties might be forced to pay attention to be elected.
There's certainly no guarantee that such a strategy can succeed.
It seems to me however to be less unlikely than a 'road to Damascus' type experience for Starmer and Reeves or Swinney, Flynn and Forbes.
A non-party indy movement? Who appoints the leaders?
Delete