Wales warms to self-government

I (slightly wearily) had a look at the ICM website tonight on the off-chance that the detailed breakdown of their latest poll might have been made available a bit earlier than usual. No luck, needless to say. But I'm glad I looked, because what I did find instead was the details of a survey that was carried out a couple of weeks ago for BBC Wales on the subject of the future of the devolution settlement. Remarkably - and it has to be said, somewhat misguidedly - there are twice as many people in Wales who feel that the Welsh Assembly has the most influence over their country as those who (more realistically) think that Westminster still calls the most important shots. But perhaps more to the point, when asked which tier of government should hold the most influence, 64% said the Assembly and only 19% opted for Westminster. So much for the Welsh being more reluctant devolutionists than the Scots.

And when questioned about specifically how much power the Assembly should hold, 58% wanted more powers than there are at present - including no fewer than 15% who favoured outright independence.

Identifiably encouraging

David Maddox had a blog post on the Steamie earlier about party identification in Scotland, suggesting it was good news for Labour that they still led the SNP by 32% to 'just' 25% on this measure. His argument is based on the fact that this a healthier position than Labour currently enjoys on Holyrood voting intention. Although Maddox has a reputation for being an occasionally over-zealous Nat-basher, I don't think he was necessarily in propaganda mode here. However, given that the party identification figures don't change according to which tier of government people happen to be voting for at any given moment, it's hard to understand why he only applies this logic to Holyrood elections. With the SNP starting from a 21-point deficit at the last Westminster election, the fact that they are now only 7% behind Labour on party identification is hugely encouraging for the general election next year. And to be fair, Maddox helps prove this point in a later post linking to a chart that demonstrates the changing face of party identification in Scotland over the last few years - and confirms a significant closing of the gap between Labour and the SNP since June 2005.

SNP up eight points in Ipsos-Mori 'northern region' sub-sample

It seems slightly beside the point to return to discussing sub-samples of UK polls when we've just had a rare full-scale Scottish survey, but for the sake of completeness, here are the latest numbers from Ipsos-Mori. As it happens, they're unusually favourable for the SNP. The figures are based on all those certain to vote (I've excluded undecideds which for some reason isn't done in the published table) and is for the 'northern region', covering the whole of Scotland and northern England.

Conservatives 35% (-3)
Labour 35% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 13% (-4)
SNP 13% (+8)
Others 4% (-1)

Intriguingly the UK-wide figures show Labour narrowing the gap on the Tories markedly. That could perhaps offer a partial explanation of Labour's unexpected upswing in the YouGov Scottish poll at the weekend. Brown Bounce III?

The dream has died. Time to face facts - the SNP must now disband.

Until quite recently there was a feeling among many nationalists that this really was their moment. The Scottish government appeared to be very popular, Alex Salmond in particular being massively preferred as First Minister to all the varied potential alternatives. And, while it was far from clear whether an independence referendum bill could pass through parliament in this session, the SNP's seemingly commanding position made a second term in office all but inevitable, offering them another bite at the referendum cherry. By which time, the conventional wisdom went, the SNP would have built up their credibility still further, thus increasing the likelihood of a 'Yes' vote.

A cruel illusion.

On Sunday 15th March, a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times put an end to these childish fantasies forever. The numbers for the SNP were utterly devastating, leaving no realistic chance whatsoever of recovery even in the distant future. The collapse had occurred in every single aspect of voting preference - for the Scottish Parliament constituency ballot, support for the party had slumped from 33% at the 2007 Holyrood election to a dismal 35% today. On the list vote, support had similarly fallen from 31% to 32%. On the Westminster vote, support for the SNP had nosedived from 18% at the last election to a pathetic 27%. While for the European Parliament vote, support had plummeted from 20% in the last election to a frankly laughable 29% now.

Of course, there seems to be something in the nationalist mindset that leads us to clutch at straws, even in the face of such overwhelming evidence that the party is facing certain meltdown. A few misguided people pointed to the irrelevant detail that the SNP are still ahead on the constituency ballot, and only two points behind on the list. Some weirdly tried to suggest that the above figures showed an increase rather than a decrease in the SNP's support (shows you the desperate state of education in an SNP-run Scotland). Some resorted to the tired old argument that you can't draw too many conclusions from a single poll, especially not one that is - due to the standard margin of error of 3% - what the Americans would call a statistical tie on both ballots.

But thankfully we have Scotland's second most virile Alpha Male (affectionately known throughout the land as AM2 to distinguish him from the nation's undisputed leading Alpha Male Frank McAvennie) to force us to confront the cold, hard truth. This opinion poll is quite simply game over. In our heart of hearts, we all know it. Alex Salmond might as well just enjoy the dregs of his fleeting spell in office, for the return to power of the dream team of Iain Gray and Tavish Scott on a wave of public euphoria is now, quite simply, a scientifically proven certainty.

Facing such a hopeless future, Alex Salmond would be well-advised to take a leaf out of David Owen's book - and in so doing show some maturity by finally acknowledging the glorious unionist future Scotland is about to embark on - by simply proposing the party's immediate dissolution. What is there to gain by fighting on?

Just when I wasn't looking...

Oh dear. There was me busily speculating last night about what a full-scale Scottish poll might show, and I had rather spectacularly failed to notice that one had just been published under my nose! I suppose in one sense my instinct was right, as Labour remains ahead in Westminster voting intention (the gap is a little larger than I might have thought but not enormous) while the SNP retains a lead in the Holyrood constituency vote (albeit a narrow one). The surprise - and what the Sunday Times are delightedly, not to say utterly hysterically, crowing about - is Labour's lead in the list vote, which rather unusually places Labour ahead in the (always utterly meaningless) seat 'projection'.

There really is nothing for the SNP to panic about here - the party's raw percentages remain very high. As Alex Salmond pointed out this morning, on this poll their support has increased since the 2007 Holyrood election, and indeed they've led many recent opinion polls on lower percentages than this. So what we're left with is the mystery of an apparent massive Labour surge in Scotland at the expense of the Tories, at a time when the precise reverse is happening everywhere else in the UK. I'm not going to fall into the AM2 trap of saying that because the numbers seem implausible to me they must be wrong, but it will be intriguing to see if the next poll (if we're lucky enough to get one inside the next few months) corroborates these rather startling findings. Or to put it another way - I'm not convinced, but I stand ready to be proved wrong.

On one point I'm more confident, though - the European election figures from the poll (suggesting a Labour lead of seven points) can be discounted as fairly meaningless at this stage. The turnout for the European poll is typically so low that almost anything could happen - and that could be to the benefit of Labour (as in 2004) or to the SNP (as in 1999 and 1994).

YouGov sub-sample : Labour regains lead

In the Scottish sub-sample of the latest YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, Labour have returned to a seven-point lead over the SNP. However the SNP themselves have slipped only one point, with much of Labour's advance coming at the expense of the Conservatives, who are down six points to 15%. Here are the full figures -

Labour 39% (+7)
SNP 32% (-1)
Conservatives 15% (-6)
Liberal Democrats 9% (+1)
Others 5% (-1)

The general conclusion I draw from the recent sub-samples (with their inherent huge margin of error) is that a full-scale Scottish poll would probably show quite a close race between Labour and the SNP, hence the continual swapping between the two for first place. My hunch is that Labour would still have the slight edge - but remember we're talking solely about Westminster voting intentions here. On past form, it seems highly likely that the SNP retain a comfortable lead in the Holyrood voting intention.

Who's the novice?

Former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell yesterday lambasted Alex Salmond for daring to meet Hillary Clinton (a meeting to which Ms Clinton must presumably have consented as well?), on the grounds that "this is no time for a novice" in international affairs. I can't really better the instant retort from the SNP that Sir Menzies was showing himself up as a "pompous ass" but two fairly obvious observations do occur to me. Firstly, whether or not this is any time for a novice, it's certainly no time for any self-respecting opposition politician to be proudly quoting, of all people, Gordon Brown! No surprise, of course, given the unmistakable way that he allowed his friendship with Brown to shape his decision-making during his spell as leader (not least at the time of the 2007 Holyrood election).

Second observation - although a few years older, Sir Menzies has in fact been a parliamentarian for exactly the same length of time as Alex Salmond. They were both first elected to Westminster in June 1987. Salmond has now been a government minister (holding a position that is at least the equivalent of cabinet rank in the UK government) for very nearly a full two years. Sir Menzies' ministerial experience consists of...well, quite. So on what grounds does he feel so secure in dismissing Salmond as the 'novice'? Does he deem his own participation in the Commonwealth Games as some kind of "international experience"?

SNP gain seat from Labour in Dundee by-election

I feel slightly fraudulent billing the Maryfield result as a 'gain' given that it's one of those strange situations that sometimes crop up in STV by-elections where the party that 'gained' had actually been ahead last time anyway. However, all I have to do is remind myself of the Labour spin the last time they 'gained' a seat in similar circumstances, and all my qualms melt away! There was in any case a small pro-SNP swing in Maryfield (about 1.4% by my rough calculation), and given that the swing is measured from the very high base of May 2007, this is another little straw in the wind suggesting that the SNP might just be doing very well nationally. The result on the final count -

SNP 1747
Labour 1189

Incidentally, I keep trying to think of a fairer way of filling vacancies under an STV system, but I can't think of anything remotely satisfactory. I suppose it's just a quirk of an otherwise good system that has to be endured.

Populus sub-sample : Labour recovery, but SNP still well ahead

As you might recall, last month's Populus sub-sample for Scotland showed Labour (rather improbably) languishing in third place with just 19% of the vote. In this month's breakdown released today, they have staged an eight-point recovery - but this is notably not at the expense of the SNP who have also slightly improved their position. Meanwhile the Tories have tumbled from second to fourth place. Here are the full figures -

SNP 43% (+1)
Labour 27% (+8)
Liberal Democrats 18% (+3)
Conservatives 11% (-9)
Others 2% (-2)

As ever, it's worth bearing in mind that the fluctuations in the figures are often due to the massive margin of error in sub-samples, rather than any real change of public opinion.

Unacknowledged victims

I mentioned this point on Twitter the other night - why do the media and politicians insist on treating the term 'domestic violence' as if it was interchangeable with 'violence against women'? In fact, more than that - as if it was interchangeable with 'violence against women committed by men'? There is a school of thought that women are in fact just as prone to violence within intimate relationships as men are (the level of violence among lesbian couples is sometimes cited as evidence, for instance), but even if this was to be dismissed as a fringe view, surely no-one would seriously deny that women sometimes commit acts of violence against a male partner?

Perhaps a useful analogy would be the military - women are for the most part now fully integrated into the armed forces. In spite of this the vast majority of those who fight and die for their country are still men. And yet the media and politicians would never dare gloss over the courage of the relatively small percentage of women involved - the typical phrase is "our brave men and women". So why treat male domestic violence victims as if they don't exist - or more to the point, as if their suffering doesn't matter enough to be even acknowledged?