Ruth Davidson SHUDDERS as support for independence increases to 47% in long-awaited Survation poll

We're getting a bit closer to solving the mystery of the elusive full-scale Scottish poll from Survation - it turns out it was commissioned by the Record.  Given that publication's virulently anti-SNP, pro-Labour and anti-independence stance, it's intriguing that the first detail they've chosen to reveal is not Holyrood or Westminster voting intention, but as David Clegg himself puts it, "Indyref 2 voting intention".  He's probably correct to anticipate Indyref 2 on these numbers, which suggest support for independence is higher than at the 2014 referendum, and is within just three percentage points of victory.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 47% (+1)
No 53% (-1)

The percentage changes I've listed above assume this is an online Survation poll, which it probably is.  If that's right, it's the second consecutive increase in support for Yes, which has bounced back from the low of 43% recorded just after the general election in June.  If by any chance it's a telephone poll, the recovery for Yes is even more dramatic, because the last Survation phone poll was conducted just before the June election, and had Yes on only 39%.

An indyref is much more likely to take place in 2019 or 2020 than next year

First things first: a Survation-Watch update.  Stuart Dickson has spotted an article in the Sunday Post about a Scottish poll conducted by Survation between the 27th and 30th of November.  It was commissioned by an organisation called 38 Degrees and asks whether EU powers over devolved areas should be transferred direct to Holyrood after Brexit (as would happen automatically if it wasn't for the UK government's power grab in the Great Repeal Bill).  The results are predictable, albeit devastating for the UK government - almost two-thirds of the Scottish public want the powers to go to Edinburgh, not London.

The poll looks for all the world like a bolt-on question added to a full-scale poll commissioned by a different client.  So it looks like Survation have carried out the Scottish poll they promised - but so far the voting intention results are nowhere to be seen.  Maybe those will still appear over the coming hours or days - and if they don't, there'll be the tantalising possibility that maybe, just maybe, the client is holding them back due to disappointment with the numbers.  Something like that happened a couple of months ago, as you may recall.

What did turn up last night was a UK-wide Survation voting intention poll, which caused a sensation because it puts Labour in overall majority territory for the first time in years.  The Scottish subsample shows the following: SNP 34%, Labour 29%, Conservatives 23%, UKIP 8%, Liberal Democrats 7%.  That's not to be sniffed at - any sort of SNP lead in a poll that puts Labour on 45% at UK level is pretty good going.  Across all firms, twenty-five of the last twenty-seven subsamples have shown the SNP in first place.

To turn to a different subject, this month's issue of iScot magazine features Peter A Bell and myself making entirely opposite points about the timing of the second independence referendum, and doing so with equal confidence.  For reasons that I find hard to pin down, Peter is certain that the referendum will be held in September 2018, whereas I think a 2018 referendum is close enough to being impossible as makes no difference - although of course I do firmly believe that it should (and probably will) be held before the current mandate expires in May 2021.  Yesterday, Peter claimed that Nicola Sturgeon had dropped a heavy hint that 2018 was going to be The Year in remarks to the SNP National Council.  Others disputed that she had done any such thing, and I'm not surprised, because I'm baffled as to how Peter thinks a 2018 referendum is even feasible in practical terms.

If the UK government were prepared to pass a Section 30 order without fuss upon request, then of course holding a snap referendum at almost any time would be a trivial matter.  But all the indications are that they intend to persevere with the "now is not the time" tactic for a few years, which means any vote in 2018 would have to be of the consultative variety, held without Westminster's permission.  That makes it harder to do on a tight timetable, because the following steps would have to be followed -

1) Nicola Sturgeon would need to allow ample time for a renewed Section 30 request to be considered, in order to demonstrate that she isn't just going through the motions in making it.  She'll want to establish in the public mind that she bent over backwards to reach an agreement, and wasn't hellbent on going it alone.

2) She'll then need time to explain to the public why an "unauthorised" consultative referendum has become necessary - not least because the media will point out she's changed her own mind on that subject.

3) The Scottish Parliament will then need to go through the process of legislating for a referendum, which from a legal perspective will not necessarily be that easy.  The Presiding Officer's legal advisers will have to be satisfied that the proposal is within the parliament's current powers, which will require very careful wording.  If that is achieved, it'll still be important that the SNP are not seen to railroad such controversial legislation through parliament - there'll have to be proper time for reflection and debate.

4) There may then be legal challenges to overcome.

5) Last but not least, Ms Sturgeon will need to allow an appropriate length of time for the campaign proper.  I don't think anyone would want a campaign anything like as long as the one that preceded the 2014 vote - but any attempt to cram it into a few short weeks would look like a cynical tactic and might backfire badly.

I would suggest the last realistic date for a 2018 referendum is late October - anything beyond that would lead to concerns about the weather.  (Alex Salmond initially proposed that the first indyref should be held on St Andrew's Day 2010, but fate proved that wasn't such a great idea - there was heavy snow and traffic chaos on that day.)  So basically we're talking about a little under eleven months from now.  If Ms Sturgeon got the ball rolling right now or very soon, there might be just about enough time.  But that clearly isn't going to happen.  There'll be no announcement this side of Christmas, and probably not until well into the New Year.  That means the 2018 option will be effectively timed out, and we'll be looking at a probable date of 2019 or 2020.  I'm not at all downhearted by that, because it wasn't very long ago that siren voices within the SNP were seemingly trying to use the general election result as an excuse to "park" any talk of a referendum until beyond the 2021 election.  They now appear to have comprehensively lost the internal debate.

Does the near-impossibility of a 2018 vote mean that the referendum will be held after Britain officially leaves the European Union?  Quite possibly, yes.  Is that sub-optimal?  In my opinion, absolutely.  But if we wanted a September 2018 referendum, the time for making that case was during the summer.  It seems to me we lost that particular battle, but won the wider war to keep a pre-2021 vote firmly on course.  Speaking personally, I'm more than satisfied with that outcome.

Never make predictions, especially about the future

Just a quick note to let you know I have a new article in the December issue of iScot, pondering whether it's even worth the bother of making political predictions for 2018, given how difficult it's proved recently to forecast election results and other major developments even a few hours in advance.  If you're not a subscriber to the print edition of iScot, you can see a preview of the article on Twitter HERE, and a digital copy of the magazine can be purchased HERE.

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Still no sign of the full-scale Scottish poll from Survation that we were told would arrive this week - so unless the timing has slipped, it's probably for one of the Sunday papers, which means we ought to hear about it tonight.  It'll be the first full Scottish poll for almost two months, so it's best to be braced for the possibility that there may have been a significant change since the huge SNP leads of September and October.  That said, the Scottish subsamples from GB-wide polls are still mostly telling a good news story.  The latest is from Ipsos-Mori and shows the following: SNP 45%, Labour 24%, Conservatives 17%, UKIP 6%, BNP 3%, Liberal Democrats 2%, Greens 1%.  Bear in mind the sample size was extremely small, even by the normal standard of subsamples.  Across all firms, twenty-four of the last twenty-six subsamples have put the SNP in first place.

"So you don't think minor roadworks are a news story? Are you nuts, or just a member of the SNP?"

Earlier this evening, STV News asked an engineering expert about the repairs on the Queensferry Crossing, and his firm verdict was that they just weren't a major issue.  That was rather inconvenient, given the almighty song and dance the media have been making about the subject, and the STV reporter's follow-up question was nothing short of astonishing -

"You're not a member of the SNP or anything like that?"

That sort of question is just not asked.  When you have some economic expert from the "independent and respected" Institute for Fiscal Studies on TV to cast a critical eye over Labour's tax plans, you don't demand to know whether they're privately a Tory sympathiser (even though in most cases they probably are).  I'd suggest that STV either have to apologise for this episode, or regard it as a precedent that must be followed for all future interviews of experts, including experts who are making points that are favourable to unionist parties. 

Somebody suggested on Twitter that the reporter might have been trying to be helpful - ie. he knew the expert was non-partisan and was just trying to emphasise that fact for anyone who might be sceptical.  But by asking the question and broadcasting it, the clear implication was that incredulity is the natural reaction, and that it's somehow amazing that an expert with no political agenda would dare to disagree with unionist parties' claims that minor roadworks on a bridge are the end of civilisation as we know it.  It also implies that if the expert had been a member of the SNP, his insight would have been rendered worthless.

The next time an SNP politician is given a hostile grilling on STV, it's hard to see how there can be any complaint if they choose the optimal moment to ask the interviewer: "You don't have any links with the Labour party, do you?"

*  *  *

We were told to expect a full-scale Scottish poll from Survation at some point this week, but there's no sign of it yet as far as I can see.  There was a GB-wide ICM poll a few days ago, though, and the Scottish subsample showed the following: SNP 38%, Conservatives 32%, Labour 25%, Greens 3%, UKIP 2%, Liberal Democrats 1%.  Across all polling firms, twenty-three of the last twenty-five subsamples have shown the SNP in the lead.

Yeah, about that "double-standard" thing...

You may not be aware of this unless you're active on political Twitter, but there's been a heated spat over the last few days about a Yes East Kilbride event that took place last Thursday.  David Hooks (aka PoliticsScot) was on the panel, and had spoken in advance about what a big step it was for him to give a presentation in front of an audience, something he had never done before.  As you'd expect, there was enormous support and appreciation for him putting himself out there and conquering his fears in aid of the Yes movement...or at least there was until a bunch of radical left zealots came along and told him he was a disgrace for having been part of a "manel" (a thoroughly dehumanising word for all-male panel), and that he should have refused to participate unless there had been female speakers.  The organisers pointed out they had approached seventeen women, but every single one had declined to take part in the event.  The response from the radical left?  The event should have been cancelled.

Not surprisingly, David was extremely upset, and I can't say I blame him.  In his shoes, I'd have felt hurt and betrayed.  You do something way outside your comfort zone, you do it for no reward, you travel at your own expense...and then you're told that you should have just stayed at home because your presence on that panel was offensive.  Nothing to do with the content of what you said - just who you are, your anatomy, made you offensive, and everyone would have been much better off if you hadn't been there.  Do the people who come out with this sort of stuff have even an ounce of human empathy?  Are they not aware of how directing cruel comments of that sort to someone at a moment of vulnerability can reinforce phobias or a general lack of confidence, and thus cause a lifetime of harm?  Or do they know exactly what they're doing and just don't care, because the individual in question happens to be a man?

As for the notion that the event should have been completely called off, or that financial inducements should have been offered to potential female speakers until at least one agreed, it's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry.  Local Yes groups are not the BBC - if they can't organise events on a shoestring budget, they can't organise events at all.  They can do their level best to achieve diversity, but they've got a right to expect that their level best should be considered good enough.  In any case, just how many boxes are they expected to tick before the zealots say it's OK for an event to go ahead?  On a panel of five, should at least one person always be gay or bisexual?  Should at least one person always be transgender?  Should at least one person always be a citizen of another EU country?  Should at least one person always be non-white?  Should at least one person always be a wheelchair user?  Should there always be at least one person with autism?  If it's not possible to achieve all of these things all of the time, should no events ever take place?  Should Yes campaigning cease completely?  This is absolute lunacy.

The controversy reached the pages of the Herald today with an article by Shona Craven suggesting that the real issue is that male Yes activists somehow have an inbuilt funding advantage and are subject to less nastiness than their female counterparts, and that women therefore shouldn't really be asked to put themselves forward for panels without monetary compensation.  Here's the key paragraph, which has since been quoted approvingly by the radical left's self-appointed "enforcer" James McEnaney -

"Women in the movement who are prominent in the media – especially if they refuse to toe a pro-SNP line – are regularly accused of using the 2014 referendum to carve out nice little careers for themselves. There's a suggestion this is at best grubby and unseemly, and at worst a cynical ploy by scheming, opportunistic women who refuse to wheesht for indy like good girls. Meanwhile, prominent Yes men rake in thousands via crowdfunding campaigns and are defended to the hilt, even when their behaviour causes embarrassment to the movement as a whole. There is a glaring double standard here, and women notice it."

You don't need me to point out that most of that is based on a false premise.  I would guess that "women are regularly accused of using the 2014 referendum to carve out nice little careers for themselves" is at least partly a reference to GA Ponsonby, who has indeed regularly made that criticism of women like Angela Haggerty - but the snag is that he's also regularly made an identical criticism of men like Loki.  It's never been an attack based on gender, but rather on his personal belief that for certain individuals of both genders, career advancement within the mainstream media comes before the best interests of the Yes movement.  If gender equality means anything, it surely means that women are individuals with the capacity to make free choices and that criticising a specific woman's actions is not synonymous with hating women.

By the same token, it's deeply disingenuous for Shona to imply that only "Yes men" have raked in thousands via crowdfunders for alternative media websites.  CommonSpace is edited by a woman, has many female columnists and reporters, and is generously funded by donations from Yes supporters.  Bella is edited by a man, but its fundraisers have benefitted both male and female writers.  NewsShaft had a mixed gender team when it ran its very successful fundraisers.

What interests me most, though, is this bit:  "There is a glaring double standard here, and women notice it."

Well, I'm a bloke, and I've noticed a glaring double-standard in all this.  Here it is in pictorial form -

That was posted only a few weeks ago by one of the people who argued that the Yes East Kilbride event should have been cancelled if no female panellist could be found to take part, and that it was the responsibility of the male panellists to pull out if the organisers refused to cancel.  So what does she do when faced with an all-female panel?  Does she demand cancellation?  Does she pressurise the panellists to withdraw?  Does she argue that financial inducements should have been offered until at least one man agreed to attend?

Nope, she punches the air in delight.

And, yes, we all know what the excuse is - all-female panels are good because they're a blow against the patriarchy, and all-male panels are bad because they reinforce the patriarchy.  But that's Orwellian doublethink, pure and simple.  It uses ideological blind faith to deligitimise discussion of a blatant contradiction that everyone knows can't be justified in any rational way.

Put it this way - even if you think that positive discrimination is still needed to advance gender equality, there will surely come a point when the goal has been broadly achieved and these double standards can no longer be defended.  At that point, either the celebration of all-female panels will have to be accompanied by the celebration of "manels" - or both all-male and all-female panels will have to be shunned.  Which is it to be?

Nick Robinson: you don't even have to set traps for him

The myriad of ways in which BBC Today presenter Nick Robinson has just mutilated his own credibility by writing an article for the Mail on Sunday are so obvious that they barely need to be stated, but let's just run through some of them anyway.

* Two weeks ago, Robinson argued that the problem with The Alex Salmond Show was not that the programme itself would contain "Kremlin propaganda", but rather that it would lend credibility to the propaganda found elsewhere on the RT channel.  It's therefore reasonable to conclude that Robinson always pauses to think deeply about the credibility he might be lending to the output of any media organisation he associates with, and that he's decided he's more than happy to give his personal stamp of approval to the Mail's demonisation of immigrants, relentless body-shaming of women, and sexualisation of girls under the age of consent (among the many other delightful things we know and love about that publication).  At the very least, it's clear that he simply doesn't think these things are important enough to compel him to withhold credibility from them.

* It's a statement of the obvious that the Mail has a political agenda, and tries to shape the news as much as report it.  If Robinson thinks a politician should have nothing to do with a propaganda media outlet, what does it say about him as a public service broadcaster with a duty of complete impartiality that he has freely chosen to associate with the right-wing, British nationalist political platform of the Mail?

* In contrast to Alex Salmond, who has total editorial control over his RT programme, it's clear that Robinson was content to cede a degree of editorial control over the presentation of his article to the Mail.  Indeed, it's pretty much impossible to write a newspaper article without doing that.   The Mail have taken advantage of that with, for example, a strategically-placed and carefully captioned photo of Alex Salmond that emphasises the ways in which Robinson's piece is in tune with the newspaper's own familiar anti-SNP (and indeed anti-Scottish) propaganda.  It's tantamount to saying "You see?  It's not just us.  The neutral BBC think it as well."  Robinson has given them full licence to use his status for their own ends.

* Much of Robinson's article relies on innuendo rather than fact, which is something he would never tolerate in respect of criticisms of either himself or the BBC.  For instance, he thinks it's enough to simply pose the question: why did Radio Sputnik set up a base in Edinburgh of all places?  Well, there could be many possible answers to that question, only one of which is "because breaking up the United Kingdom is a clearly-defined and overriding objective of Russian-funded broadcasting".  An alternative explanation is that Radio Sputnik and RT are both seeking niche ways of expanding their reach in a crowded market, and have identified the energy of the pro-independence alternative media in Scotland as an obvious gap in that market.  (Ironically, they wouldn't even have had the opportunity if it hadn't been for the failure of the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media to give the pro-independence side a fair crack of the whip.)  By the same token, there are many possible answers to the question: "what can we read into an extraordinarily misleading report by Nick Robinson on prime-time BBC News just before the indyref claiming that Alex Salmond didn't answer a question that he clearly did answer, and at great length?"  It's not compulsory to jump to the conspiracy theory conclusion, and Robinson clearly finds it offensive when people do.  If he wants them to stop, I'd suggest he should practice what he preaches.

* Two months ago, Robinson used his Reith Lecture to argue that the BBC needed to combat a loss of trust on social media by advertising its own impartiality proudly.  So does he really think a BBC presenter siding with a right-wing British nationalist newspaper against Alex Salmond, and doing so in the most brazenly hypocritical way imaginable, will help to win back that trust on social media?  Or will it, just conceivably, cause people to fall about laughing?  Or, indeed, to become extremely angry, because it confirms all of their worst fears?  Answers on a postcard, folks...

Extraordinary Perth by-election result illustrates the limitations of anti-SNP tactical voting

In my post on Thursday night, I pointed out three remarkable things about the Perth City South by-election result: a) that, on first preference votes, the SNP had moved from second place into first, b) that the SNP share of the vote had increased by 6.4%, and c) that there was a slight swing from Tory to SNP.  Well, here's a fourth remarkable thing.  In spite of the surge they enjoyed, the SNP still 'only' took 32.1% of the first preference vote, and almost all of the remaining two-thirds of votes were cast for unionist parties.  Given the perception of a unionist bloc vote that wants to stop the SNP at all costs, you'd therefore expect the SNP to have suffered a lopsided defeat once the lower preferences of eliminated unionist candidates were redistributed.  But that simply didn't happen.  Even after several rounds of redistributions, the SNP were still agonisingly close to winning the seat - they were only beaten by 154 votes.

The simplest way of demonstrating what happened is to look at how the Lib Dems' votes transferred once it became a straight contest between SNP and Tory.  Apart from a very small number of votes that had been transferred from the Greens at an earlier stage, almost all of these Lib Dem votes can reasonably be described as 'unionist party votes'.

Liberal Democrat transfers :

Non-transferable 44.4%
Conservatives 35.7%
SNP 19.8%

So almost two-thirds of this supposed unionist bloc failed to express a clear preference for the Tories over the SNP, and almost one-fifth actually expressed a preference for the SNP over the Tories.  Obviously the high number of non-transferable votes can be partly explained by unfamiliarity with the voting system, but nevertheless, even among those Lib Dem voters who did use their lower preferences, more than one-third backed the SNP.  The fact that more Lib Dems broke for the Tories than for the SNP explains why the Tories managed to squeak a victory - but unless the original first preference result had been extremely tight, that wouldn't have been enough to swing the balance.  You're not going to see the Tories overcome first preference deficits of 8% or 10% on this pattern of transfers.

I'd suggest all of this could pose a problem for the Tories at the next Westminster general election.  Assuming the 29% of the national vote they managed this year proves to be 'Peak Tory' (and there are many reasons for thinking it probably will), they're going to be looking to buck the trend in seats they already hold by appealing to Labour and Lib Dem supporters to cast an anti-SNP tactical vote.  It may be that not enough people are going to be receptive to that message - and the problem could get a lot worse if the Tory government goes on to become anything like as actively disliked in the north-east and the south as the Major government was in the 1990s.  I'm increasingly optimistic that the SNP can win back at least some seats from the Tories, whenever the election is held.

In SNP-Labour battleground seats, it's obviously a very different story, because most Tory supporters are for the moment obsessed enough with the constitution to think Labour are preferable to the SNP.  But for how much longer will that be the case?  Richard Leonard's elevation to leader could prove to be something of a watershed for unionist tactical voting, because Tory supporters will no longer be able to tell themselves that Scottish Labour is more centrist than the Corbyn-controlled UK party, and thus 'safer' to vote for.

We know that Labour are going to take every opportunity at the next election to peddle the fiction that voters need to abandon the SNP for Labour if they want to see a non-Tory government.  Well, Tory supporters are going to hear that message as well, and some of them may even start to convince themselves that a tactical vote for the SNP could be the most practical way of preventing a Corbyn administration.  At the very least, they may become more conflicted about whether the SNP or Corbyn is the greater and more immediate threat, which could lead them to simply revert to a non-tactical vote for their own first-choice party.

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After the SNP's 'curate's egg' performance in by-elections this week, I was hoping that the two new Scottish subsamples from YouGov would offer some clues as to what the state of play really is, but in fact they've just muddied the waters even further, because they're completely contradictory.

YouGov (a): Labour 36%, SNP 33%, Conservatives 22%, Liberal Democrats 5%, Greens 3%, BNP 1%, UKIP 1%

YouGov (b): SNP 38%, Conservatives 25%, Labour 24%, Liberal Democrats 7%, UKIP 2%, Greens 1%

So we have the first YouGov subsample since the summer to put Labour in the lead...and then the first YouGov subsample since the general election to put Labour as low as third.  Across all polling firms, twenty-two of the last twenty-four subsamples have shown an SNP lead - but the two that didn't have both been published within the last week.  Make of that what you will.

SNP vote surges in Perth by-election - but it's a tougher night in Rutherglen

It's already clear from gossip on Twitter that Labour have won the Rutherglen by-election.  That's a disappointing result for the SNP, who comfortably won the popular vote in the ward back in May, so clearly there has been a significant swing to Labour.  It's the third time over recent months that the SNP's performance in a west-central Scotland by-election has fallen well short of what the opinion polls would lead us to expect.  The obvious means of explaining that away would be to point to dismally low turnout - although it's not immediately clear why that would favour Labour so much (in contrast to the Tories, whose supporters are well known for flocking to the polls in low turnout contests).

All we know about the Perth South by-election so far comes from Pete Wishart, who says it's a two-horse race, with the SNP as one of the two horses.  My guess would be some sort of Tory victory, but we'll see.

UPDATE: I'll double-check the figures when I get a chance, but this appears to be the result from Rutherglen -

Labour 38.5% (+7.5) 
SNP 27.4% (-12.0)
Liberal Democrats 18.2% (+8.9)
Conservatives 12.1% (-4.2)
Greens 2.9% (-1.1)
UKIP 0.9% (n/a)

If true, there's no way of putting a positive gloss on that - it represents almost a 10% swing to Labour since May, and if extrapolated across the country would point to a clear Labour lead.  That obviously seems highly unlikely based on opinion poll evidence, so perhaps Labour are doing much better in some geographical pockets than in others, or perhaps they were simply better organised than the SNP in a low turnout by-election.  (Only about one-quarter of eligible voters took part.)

The only good thing is that the media, with their customary cluelessness about the quirks of STV by-elections, will report this in one-dimensional fashion as a Labour hold - which technically is what it is, but that doesn't tell the real story of Labour overtaking the SNP in the ward.

UPDATE II: As I suspected, the Tories have won Perth City South.  However, this one is much better news, because the SNP actually 'won' the by-election on first preference votes - an improvement from their second place in the ward in May.  The Tories only took the seat after the lower preferences of eliminated unionist candidates were redistributed.

The full result doesn't appear to be available online yet. Ruth Davidson seems to be suggesting that the Tories took 31% of the first preference vote - which would mean that the SNP must have done at least as well as that, pointing to an increase in the SNP vote of 5% (or more) since May.  A highly creditable result by any standards.

In the case of Perth, the media's cluelessness about STV by-elections will not work in the SNP's favour.  The result will be reported as a "Conservative hold", but the real story is the SNP jumping from second place to first (on first preference votes, that is), the Tories jumping from third place to second, and the Lib Dems slumping from first place to third. 

UPDATE III: According to Pete Wishart, this is the full result on first preferences -

SNP 32.1% (+6.4)
Conservatives 31.2% (+6.0)
Liberal Democrats 28.8% (-5.9)
Labour 5.7% (-0.7)
Greens 1.8% (-1.3)

Leaving aside the annoying fact that there's going to be a Tory rather than an SNP councillor, this is a cracking result for the SNP - it really is.  It looks like both the SNP and the Tories have been flattered by the drop in Lib Dem support (presumably caused by a popular Lib Dem councillor not being on the ballot paper this time), but even allowing for that, there has been a slight swing from Tory to SNP - which is not really what you'd expect given the greater tendency of Tory supporters to make it to the polls in local by-elections.  It's not a disastrous result for Ruth Davidson, and she'll obviously spin the 'victory' for all she's worth, but privately she must be less than thrilled with yet another second place finish in Perth.

There's also a reality check for Labour here - they may have done extremely well in Rutherglen, but it could be that they're being squeezed in traditional SNP-Tory battlegrounds.

For the fame, not the many

Just a quick note to let you know that I have a new article at the TalkRadio website about Kezia Dugdale's ill-advised decision to take part in I'm a Celebrity.  You can read it HERE.

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It was statistically inevitable that the SNP's extraordinary run of being ahead in twenty-one consecutive subsamples would eventually be brought to an end, and it finally happened earlier this week with the publication of Kantar's first poll since the general election.  It's a weird poll all round - not only are the Tories several points ahead across Britain (a finding that is completely out of line with what all other firms have been showing for the last two months), but there's also a substantial Tory lead in the Scottish subsample.  As this is the most recent poll to be conducted, we can't completely exclude the possibility that it's picking up something new, but it's probably more likely that it'll prove to be a freakish result.  I'd be a little more concerned if the Scottish subsample had put Labour substantially ahead, but a Tory surge in Scotland just doesn't have the smell of truth at the moment.

Bizarrely, Kantar appear to be unaware of the change in Scottish Labour leadership.  According to their datasets, one of the voting intention options they offered to respondents in Scotland was "Labour party (led by Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Kezia Dugdale in Scotland)".

*  *  *

We should get more of a clue of the state of public opinion overnight, because there are two important local by-elections in Scotland today - one in Perth City South, and one in Rutherglen Central & North.  On paper, the SNP should have a decent chance of gaining the seat in Rutherglen, because they topped the poll in the ward in May, with an 8% margin over Labour.  However, the ward is in one of the six parliamentary constituencies that Labour gained in the general election, and the arithmetic also looks very similar to a seat that the SNP failed to win in a Glasgow by-election a couple of months ago.  In practice I'd say Labour are slight favourites - which obviously means it would be a huge psychological boost if the SNP were to pull it off.

The Perth contest looks much tougher for the SNP - they were nine points behind the Lib Dems (of all parties) back in May.  Although it's perfectly possible the Lib Dem vote will prove to be soft, you'd think those people would be more likely to break for the Tories rather than the SNP.  But you never know - Pete Wishart famously defied gravity in Perth at the general election, so let's hope history repeats itself.

If by any chance you live in either ward, don't forget to vote over the next few hours!

David Leask makes serious allegation against Ofcom - but does he have any evidence?

Because I'm now blocked on Twitter by the Herald's legendary David "Let's Block Everybody" Leask (as a result of just one polite interaction with him), it's harder for me to keep up with developments concerning his increasingly paranoid obsession with a 30-minute weekly TV show on Freeview.  Someone mentioned yesterday that he now believes The Alex Salmond Show is the "defining story of our age", which seemed a bit too unhinged to be plausible, so I naturally assumed it was a quote that had been taken wildly out of context for comic effect.  But, remarkably, it wasn't.

David Leask: Scotland's reputation 'damaged' by Alex Salmond's Russian TV show

Fenner: Absolutely pathetic that this is still being discussed.

David Leask: It's the defining story of our age. Are you with Trump, Brexit & Putin lie machines or with, among others, the SNP who oppose them. Your choice.

Jim Gibson: It's "the defining story of our age". Yes! Leask actually did write those words. Forget Brexit, Cataluña, Trump, child slavery, refugees, wars, the Middle East, climate change, Greggs sausage rolls. Forget all of them! The Alex Salmond Show defines our age.

Lyn/SNP member: I am much more interested in Theresa May's relationships with Duterte, Salman, Erdogan and Netanyahu. As we break away from the EU these partnerships will tighten. May herself is no fan of democracy or human rights. She is in office. Salmond is not.

David Leask: So you're an SNP member. Why do you think the party boycotts RT?

Lyn/SNP member: I am. I can't answer that. I haven't spoken to the party about RT. So you're a journalist. Why wait until Salmond has his own show before jumping on the bandwagon? Others sat before him including Corbyn. Why is RT AVAILABLE in UK? Who sanctioned it?

David Leask: People who want to make sure the BBC isn't jammed in Russia. You still haven't explained why you oppose the SNP on this. But alas inn (sic) guessing you're not gonna. Best.

Now let's just hit the rewind button for a moment, and treat the first sentence of that final tweet with the seriousness it warrants. Leask's response to the question "Who allows RT to broadcast in the UK?' was "People who want to make sure the BBC isn't jammed in Russia". For the avoidance of doubt, the "people" he is referring to are collectively known as Ofcom - the regulatory body that gave RT a licence to broadcast in this country and so far have not revoked it.  The only reasonable way of interpreting his words is as an allegation that Ofcom ignored their legal duties, and awarded a licence to a broadcaster that did not meet the very strict criteria laid down.  Furthermore, Leask is alleging that Ofcom broke the rules for political reasons (ie. to prevent retaliatory action against the BBC in Russia).  There may even be a hint in there that they took the decision under external political pressure.

If those allegations turned out to be true, it would be a bombshell that would undoubtedly lead to the resignation of Ofcom's management.  Which begs the obvious question: why hasn't Leask written in the Herald about this outrageous Ofcom scandal?  He would of course require evidence before going into print with it, but doubtless he wouldn't have made such an extraordinary claim in the first place unless he had plenty of proof.

(That said, he does now routinely imply that anyone who speaks in support of Alex Salmond must be in the pay of the Kremlin, and is perhaps even Russian themselves.  He's also in the past advanced a crackpot conspiracy theory that Wings Over Scotland and Wee Ginger Dug were set up by dark forces to discredit the independence movement.  So perhaps he isn't quite as much of a stickler for evidence as you might expect from someone of his profession.  In case you're wondering how on earth two immensely popular pro-independence websites are supposed to have discredited the movement, he appeared to mean that they hadn't shown sufficient deference to the mainstream media, which as we all know is the sole determinant of credibility.)

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You might remember that a couple of months ago, there was a discussion on this blog about whether it was reasonable for the media to say that Angela Merkel had "won" the German federal election, given that she had only roughly one-third of the seats in the Bundestag, and that if she remained as Chancellor that would be a decision of other parties, not of the voters.  It was argued by some that yes, it was reasonable, because voters had delivered a result that everyone knew would result in a fourth term for Merkel.  That theory went out of the window yesterday when the FDP pulled the plug on three-way coalition talks with Merkel's party and the Greens, meaning there is no longer any viable majority coalition available to Merkel.  Germany thus reverts to the raw arithmetic the voters actually delivered in September, which won't in itself be sufficient to sustain Merkel for a fourth term.  And yet the BBC reiterated today that Merkel "won" the election.  So here's my customary question - if that non-victory (33% of the votes and 35% of the seats) must be described as a "win", what possible excuse is there for not acknowledging that the SNP won the general election in Scotland with their superior 37% of the vote and 59% of the seats?

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I was surprised earlier today by a number of angry reactions I received when I made what I thought was a pretty obvious point on Twitter - that while I admired Richard Leonard's honesty, it was likely that his admission that he supports England against Scotland at football would be quoted back at him a million times.  One point that a few people made was "he's English, so why is this surprising."  Well, is he English?  Or is he someone with a more complex identity because he's lived in Scotland for longer than he lived in the country of his birth?  Presumably that was one of the points the question about football was intended to illuminate, and I'm not sure that's totally unreasonable.  Imagine the reaction if a New Zealand party leader said they weren't supporting the All Blacks against the Springboks, for example.  In Australia, political leaders aren't even allowed to have dual nationality - the implication being that wherever you originally come from, seeking political office means that you're a fully paid-up member of Team Australia now.  I personally think that takes it way too far, but it's scarcely an uncommon attitude.  How long would a US presidential candidate of any national origin last if they didn't show sufficient American patriotism?

As frivolous as it seems to many, it's become one of the ritual duties of political leaders to speak on behalf of those they represent by offering encouragement and congratulations/commiserations to national sporting teams.  I think that may prove to be a little awkward for Leonard in certain circumstances, because the media won't be shy about reminding their readers and viewers that he's an England supporter.  However, as I said - good for him.  I think it reflects well on him that he answered the question honestly, even though there may be a political cost.

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The Scottish subsample from the latest Britain-wide Opinium poll: SNP 38%, Labour 30%, Conservatives 29%, Greens 3%.  This is the twenty-first subsample in a row, across all firms, to put the SNP ahead.