Better Nation

38 Comments

• #1 by Commenter on July 23, 2012 - 4:45 pm

  

  It’s so strange to see a post from James, dedicated to needling the ‘Nats’. 😉

  • #2 by James on July 23, 2012 - 4:55 pm

    

    Thanks for moving the debate on. Next one like this gets dinged.

• #3 by R.G. Bargie on July 23, 2012 - 5:13 pm

  

  What “shambles” over equal marriage was this, then? Despite some hysterical over-reactions, there has in fact been NO delay other than to a timetable which existed only in the minds of some observers, never in any official Scottish Government statement.

  Don’t see the point in distracting from a valid observation about this opinion poll by crowbarring in a totally needless and factually inaccurate dig. If the Scottish Government backs away from the equal-marriage bill, I’ll join you on the streets attacking them for it. But so far, it has done nothing whatsoever to justify that accusation.

  Look forward to this being “dinged”.

  • #4 by James on July 23, 2012 - 5:20 pm

    

    On both of the last two Wednesdays SNP spads briefed the press that a yea or nay was about to be forthcoming. They couldn’t manage it either time. Even one of the party’s Holyrood staff tweeted that it was a “fucking cockup”. If you don’t see the line about checking with reserved legislation as a last minute attempt to square the vile impulses of Brian Souter and the Cardinals with Nicola Sturgeon’s modern tolerant values I think you’re in denial. Also, it’s not just me. The media, which people read/watch/listen to, all described it as a fiasco.

    Would you have accepted a line of the form: “even after the most recent announcement on equal marriage, universally derided in the media as cack-handed”?

    • #5 by R.G. Bargie on July 23, 2012 - 5:25 pm

      

      Scottish media in anti-SNP spin shock. Stop the presses!

      I see no legitimate grounds to mention it at all in the context of the subject of the post. All you’ve done is detract from your point in order to push an agenda that has no merit anyway.

      You seem awfully angry that the Scottish Government might even momentarily contemplate taking on board the results of a consultation process which – the media you’re now such a fan of has uniformly told us – came out overwhelmingly against equal marriage. That’s an odd thing for a democrat to be furious about.

      For clarity, I hope they DO ignore it and believe they will. But your outrage is hard to rationalise.

      • #6 by James on July 23, 2012 - 5:34 pm

        

        Do you remember almost every paper other than the Record and the Sunday Mail coming out for the SNP in May 2011? Also, they were meant to be consulting on the practicalities only, not the principle, which Ministers said they supported. I don’t think the consultation numbers should be taken seriously, given the bad section of the churches drummed up petitions, any more than I think Ministers should listen to the Yoonyonisht nonsense they’ll have gotten in from the independence referendum consultation.

        If you don’t think it’s impressive to be up in the polls a week after what was reported as a shambles, fine, perhaps you should aspire to my levels of Positivity™.

        • #7 by R.G. Bargie on July 23, 2012 - 5:44 pm

          

          I think it’s enormously positive to be up in the polls in the middle of the Great 12-Month Festival Of Britishness. I don’t think the absolute non-story of the alleged “delay” to the equal-marriage proposals would have made a blind bit of difference either way.

          I think you vastly overestimate the degree to which the colossal majority of ordinary voters who are neither gay-rights activists nor religious fundamentalists cares about it. Polls show a majority in favour but not a very big one, opinion is fairly evenly split, so it’s unlikely that even a big development would make a lot of difference to voting intentions, let alone something that *hasn’t actually happened at all*, certainly not outside of the Holyrood village.

          • #8 by James on July 23, 2012 - 6:04 pm

            

            I know the people I’m friends with are much more concerned about equality here than the average, but I’ve heard a lot of anger about it on FB and at social gatherings. It’s a lot more accessible to people than the details of the cuts. Sample from last night: “I still want Scotland to be independent, but only if it’s not the SNP running it, or at least not Salmond”. A straw in the wind, no more.

• #9 by R.G. Bargie on July 23, 2012 - 5:20 pm

  

  With regard to the actual point, though, don’t you find it a little bizarre to take results in which the SNP gets MORE of the vote, in both sections, than it did in 2011, yet produce an outcome in which it gets FEWER seats?

  Based purely on things we know to have actually happened, the Scotland Votes “predictor” seems clearly to be a tad wonky, no? So perhaps it’s not THAT crazy of the SNP to use another one, even if it would probably have been wise to show their working. Putting out a release saying “We’re now polling MORE votes, but somehow FEWER seats” would have been pretty self-evidently silly.

  • #10 by James on July 23, 2012 - 5:22 pm

    

    I agree it’s odd, although the detailed maps show how it happened (Tories losing constituencies to the SNP, Labour up more in the regionals), but that doesn’t explain the Lib Dem/Green oddity in their numbers. They didn’t have to include a seat prediction, anyway. But the headline had to say “more seats than..” to keep Angus happy, one assumes.

  • #11 by No_Offence_Alan on July 23, 2012 - 5:51 pm

    

    Here’s an example how this could happen:
    Suppose in 2011, the SNP got 41% of the list vote (and 10 seats) in a region, and the Greens got 4% (and 0 seats). The SNP would be entitled to their 10th seat in the region before the Greens get 1.
    Now the poll suggests figures of 43% and 6%. Now the Greens are entitled to a seat well before the SNP get their 10th and so the Greens gain a seat at the expense of the SNP.
    Remember the SNP won a majority on less than 50% of the vote, so this is still a movement towards proprtionality.

    • #12 by James on July 23, 2012 - 6:09 pm

      

      A very clear explanation, thank you.

    • #13 by R.G. Bargie on July 23, 2012 - 6:15 pm

      

      Fair enough, though I’m not sure it’s possible to say that as a definite without knowing the actual voting figures including the other parties. Maybe it is, I don’t know enough about AMS to argue.

      (Clearly if it’s only a theoretical possibility rather than a certainty, though, the SNP aren’t going to bias predictions against themselves in their own press release…)

      • #14 by James on July 23, 2012 - 6:20 pm

        

        They didn’t need to include seat projections at all – the voting share was good enough, I reckon, especially when the alternative is something as hand-wavey as this. And yes, that certainly is how AMS works. Just look at the numbers for the North-east, the region referred to there.

        • #15 by R.G. Bargie on July 23, 2012 - 6:25 pm

          

          Didn’t the North-East region in 2011 show something happening that *wasn’t* supposed to be possible under AMS? (The SNP picking up an extra regional seat despite a clean sweep of constituencies or something along those lines.)

          • #16 by Doug Daniel on July 23, 2012 - 6:52 pm

            

            Aye, we basically “broke” the system. One of the many reasons why the North East is the best region of Scotland.

          • #17 by James on July 23, 2012 - 8:44 pm

            

            People thought it wasn’t possible, but of course it is. If a party gets all the constituency and list votes in a region (reductio I know) they’ll win all the constituency and list seats too.

            The explanation wasn’t quite as clear as I’d thought. I read what I wanted to read. Here’s how I’d edit it:

            “Suppose in 2011, the SNP got 41% of the list vote (and 10 constituency seats) in a region, and the Greens got 4% (and 0 seats). The SNP would be entitled to a list seat in the region before the Greens get 1.
            Now the poll suggests figures of 43% and 6%. Now the Greens are entitled to a seat well before the SNP get their 10th and so the Greens gain a seat at the expense of the SNP.”

            The basic thing to remember is that AMS tries to be proportional but fails, notably at the level the SNP got last time and around the 4-5% mark. A small increase in the Green vote can get us into the area where proportionality starts to kick in. And a small increase for Labour on the lists would make a noticeable difference to them.

            • #18 by Doug Daniel on July 23, 2012 - 9:57 pm

              

              “Now the Greens are entitled to a seat well before the SNP get their 10th and so the Greens gain a seat at the expense of the SNP.”

              You mean 11th (since they’ve already got their 10 constituency seats:P)

              *Goes off to read Pedant’s Corner in Private Eye*

              Personally, I think it would be good if we moved to the Sainte-Laguë method. Needless to say, Sweden uses it, thus providing all the proof we require that it’s the best method.

              • #19 by James on July 24, 2012 - 11:31 am

                

                You’re right as usual 😉

• #20 by R.G. Bargie on July 23, 2012 - 5:31 pm

  

  “although the detailed maps show how it happened (Tories losing constituencies to the SNP, Labour up more in the regionals)”

  That doesn’t show where the SNP *lost* seats, though. Its regional vote increased by the same amount that Labour’s did, 2%, so why would it have lost more seats than it gained in the FPTP section?

• #21 by Barbarian on July 23, 2012 - 6:09 pm

  

  Now let’s see what the latest polling is for independence. But perhaps Nicola will refuse to publish the results……..

  • #22 by James on July 23, 2012 - 6:15 pm

    

    To be fair, as I always am, they did also publish those. Neatly illustrates how much of the supposed devo-max enthusiasm correlates to don’t know, if it’s accurate.

    Three options:
    Independence: 30%
    More devolution: 29%
    Status Quo: 28%

    Straight yes-no.
    Yes: 36%
    No: 45%
    Don’t Know: 20%

    • #23 by Aidan on July 24, 2012 - 11:44 am

      

      I particularly loved the way this was “independence ahead!”

• #24 by Doug Daniel on July 23, 2012 - 6:49 pm

  

  I wonder if the two things – the SNP coming up with different seat projections and them taking an extra day or so to publish anything – explain each other? What I mean is, could it simply be that the reason for not publishing a statement instantly was because they were doing a proper analysis of the figures, rather than just chucking them into ScotlandVotes like any of us would do?

  Lib Dems on 3 seats, for example. Assuming they’d still get the Orkney and Shetland constituency seats, that’s saying they’d get just one regional seat in the whole of Scotland. I wonder if perhaps the SNP’s numbers bods have looked at how such a spreading of the vote would truly work, and come to the conclusion that, in the instance of the Lib Dems, their South of Scotland showing has been squeezed as much as it can be already, and that in the North East, the Greens are unlikely to have caught up with the Lib Dems yet? Just things like that which you just can’t really programme into a computational model (well, unless you have rules that certain seats will never fall, or something).

  That’s not to say the SNP’s figures are actually correct – but they seem a bit more plausible than the bigger-percentage-equals-less-seats result!

  • #25 by Daniel J on July 23, 2012 - 8:33 pm

    

    So what you’re basically saying in the end there is.. perhaps they thought they’d change the results based on what they think. Hmm scientific

    As No_Offence_Alan showed further up the NE is a good example of how the SNP could gain votes and lose the additional list MSP due to a small Green increase.

• #26 by Teri Forsyth on July 23, 2012 - 7:52 pm

  

  Panelbase did polls for the Sunday Times and the Sun newspapers during the 2011 Holyrood elections. I took part in this survey. This time they have chosen a group of people who will take part in polls for them every couple of months from now till the 2014 referendum which they feel should give them a clear picture of how voters might change their opinions over that time.

• #27 by R Pollock on July 23, 2012 - 8:21 pm

  

  First thought is who the inferno are Panelbase?

  Really impressive SNP figures. To get 45% ish is something else. I mean the Labour vote is actually holding out quite well but the magnitude of that SNP vote is unbelievable.

  I think the Labour heartlands maybe aren’t enough anymore for Labour. It’s all very well weighing the votes in pockets around the country but a truly geographical, national party is a real struggle for them.

  I wasn’t around on the twittersphere, political websphere during the election in 2011 however I must say I thought the Green vote was very disappointing. I see no reason why their vote should not have increased quite dramatically with nobody really voting Lib Dem and really low Labour vote enthusiasm. I quite like the Greens and, although I think they’ve made huge progress, I think they’re playing well below capacity at present – which is good for them – but what’s stopping them? I don’t think 6% is close to fulfilling potential. They have a good leader. Thoughts?

• #28 by Richard Laird on July 23, 2012 - 9:16 pm

  

  Being the geek that I am, I’ve put these polling figures into the prediction model I use and it have me:

  SNP: 68;
  Lab: 38;
  Con: 14;
  Grn: 5;
  LD: 3; and
  Ind: 1.

  It just goes to show how imperfect a science polling predictions is. When D’Hondt reduces the gap between parties to a decimal point of a percentage, a slightly variation in methodology can produce a different outcome.

  For the record, I had the SNP making a net gain of one seat in West Scotland and a net loss of one seat in Mid Scotland & Fife and in North-East Scotland. The solitary LibDem list seat was in the North-East.

• #29 by Matthew L on July 23, 2012 - 10:05 pm

  

  Couple of points I’d like to make here.

  I’m always wary of using a poll to make exact seat predictions and especially in a 5 party AMS system. I’ve not been able to find the sample size for this poll but I’d guess it’s your standard 1000 which will have an error of about 3%, potentially more depending on how many “don’t know”‘s there were factored out of the headline voting intention. That 3% margin could have a very big impact on who gets what seats. Also, polling isn’t an exact science, a lot of the time pollsters get to a good methodology through trial and error. This being a panelbase it should carry less weight than a TNS or an Ipsos poll as these two companies have a proven track record in polling holyrood voting intentions.

  What it is fair to conclude from this poll is that if an election was called tomorrow the SNP would win, and this is as James noted earlier despite the equal marriage omnishambles. I think this is because Labour still haven’t really done anything. Salmond remains popular and Labour have made no attempt as yet to convince voters to back them again. There was a good John Curtice paper on Holyrood politics becoming about “valence” issues and as long as that is the case the party with the leader seen as most competent will be the likely victor.

  That said though the Labour strategy at the moment seems to be, win the referendum and then watch the SNP descend into civil war. The flip side of that being, they lose the referendum in which case the SNP will likely be coronated so perhaps Labour shouldn’t be worried by polls just yet as there strategy is long term and there won’t be an election in the short term.

  • #30 by James on July 24, 2012 - 11:30 am

    

    I agree on margins of error, especially (as I tried to point out above) with regard to the 4-7% area and at the upper end. Ideally we’d be getting enough polls to do a poll-of-polls, but that’s a fantasy.

    That’s an odd strategy, though. Sit politics out and hope the referendum fails, which I don’t think it would if the SNP hadn’t adopted such an odd mix of no-change and pure hand of cack. I’d recommend some positive policies of the form “here’s how we could be more left and more popular than the SNP using existing powers”. But it’s been a while since Labour’s had a clear ambition to do anything in particular with the powers other than hold them, unfortunately.

  • #31 by Doug Daniel on July 24, 2012 - 4:25 pm

    

    Labour strategy is completely failing the electorate, that’s all there is to it, really. Here’s a choice quote from one of Ian Smart’s recent blogs, describing the difference between the Tories and Labour:

    “Essentially, the Tories just want to save the Union. We do as well, but we have a further objective and that is in destroying the SNP.”

    I’m amazed to see a prominent Labourite actually putting that out in black and white. It’s what nationalists have been saying for years, but no one from Labour has actually admitted it. So if we ever want to see Labour making a considered case for the union, trying to put forward ideas of how Scotland’s social democratic ambitions can be best served under the union, we can forget it – it’s all about a reactionary, unthinking love of the union, and trying to destroy another party. After all, why bother trying to raise your own game when you can just take out your opponent and win by default?

    And that, in a nutshell, is why the SNP are ahead, despite negative headlines and any possible public perception (try saying that out loud without spitting on your monitor) of mucking a few things up.

• #32 by MekQuarrie on July 24, 2012 - 11:22 am

  

  Not a bad article. When I saw the explanation of the release headlines, it made me laugh. It could easily have read “status quo in top three of voters choices”.
  The reason the release was on Monday and not Sunday, was to get an extra day out of the story (in my opinion)…

• #33 by Cath on July 24, 2012 - 11:46 am

  

  “the Labour strategy at the moment seems to be, win the referendum and then watch the SNP descend into civil war. ”

  If that is the strategy, it’s a very odd one. The desire for independence or much more devolution is not going to go away. Rather, over the next 2 years it will harden as campaigners start to really think it can happen, and plan for a post-indy country. There is huge energy within the pro-indy campaign. Meanwhile the “no” campaign is reliant mostly on people who are scared of change, or have a knee-jerk status quo or not too much risk attitude. There is far less passion and conviction in that debate.

  So if the referendum is lost, and all 3 Westminster parties are still offering nothing substantial, Labour is not going to suddenly bounce in popularity. Where do they think all those people desperate for change will go?

  If anything, the SNP is more likely to split following a Yes vote, as the reason for them will have disappeared, and members and voters can then drift off to whichever political party suits them best. As an independence supporter, I currently don’t feel there’s any other party than the SNP I could join or vote for. If we get a no vote, I’ll feel the same, except more anti-Labour for having denied us any kind of change at all. In an independent Scotland, OTOH, I’d hope we’d have a re-invogorated, genuinely Scottish Labour, Tory etc.

• #34 by An Duine Gruamach on July 24, 2012 - 12:13 pm

  

  I can but wonder if this means that most people don’t really care much either way about gay marriage…

• #35 by Davy on July 25, 2012 - 8:08 am

  

  For No6 someone says “do you remember almost every paper other than the Record and the sunday mail coming out for the SNP May 2011? “.

  Well I dont ???? apart from the Sun jumping on the bandwagon when it saw how the polls were going, every other News Paper and broadcasting media were absolutly against the SNP. In fact much the same as they are just now. So I dont get why you can say that ?

  • #36 by James on July 25, 2012 - 10:06 am

    

    Just wrong. They went even further than I said and declared the whole of 2011 to be the Year Of Alex Salmond. It’s on NewsNetScotland so I suspect you’ll agree it must be true.

• #37 by Nik on July 25, 2012 - 1:13 pm

  

  No, James. Davy isn’t wrong. The media here are completely biased against the SNP. The only reason these outlets endorsed the SNP for the Holyrood Election in 2011 was due to the state of the opposition.

  • #38 by Doug Daniel on July 25, 2012 - 1:46 pm

    

    In general, that’s true. But James specifically said they came out for the SNP in May 2011, which they did since, as you say, they recognised the state of the opposition and realised they’d be backing the wrong horse for the second election in a row if they endorsed Labour. He didn’t say the remained SNP cheerleaders after that, though!

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