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Salmond in poll position as the SNP enjoys The Big Mo

Apr 17

Posted by Jeff in Elections, Holyrood | 103 Comments

The big news in the Sunday papers, and what may well prove to be the game-changing moment of the campaign, is that the SNP has moved ahead of Labour in both the constituency and regional section of the polls.

The figures are:

SNP – 40%/35%
Labour – 37%/33%
Conservatives – 11%/12%
Lib Dems – 8%/7%
Greens – -/6%

In terms of seats (and using the same methodology from my half of #SP11 Regionwatch) I make that to be (constituency/regional):

SNP – 33/21 = 54
Labour – 37/12 = 49
Conservatives – 1/13 = 14 (only FPTP seat being Ettrick, Roxburgh & Berwickshire, a 1,334 majority over SNP)
Lib Dems – 2/4 = 6 (majorities of only 711 and 1,164 in Orkney and Shetland respectively, both from the SNP)
Greens – 0/5 = 5 (2 in Lothians, 1 in Glasgow, 1 in H&I and 1 in MS&F)
Margo – 0/1 (my base assumption is that Margo will be comfortably re-elected)

Key FPTP wins for the SNP would include: Aberdeen Central (maj of 829 over Labour), Almond Valley (maj of 664 over Labour), Ayr (maj of 129 over Labour), Cunninghame North (maj of 572 over Labour), Edinburgh Pentlands (maj of 340 over Labour), Glasgow Southside (maj of 453 over Labour), Linlithgow (maj of 413 over Labour) and Stirling (maj of 150 over Labour)

That’s not to mention Airdrie & Shotts (SNP 165 votes short), Clydesdale (SNP 657 votes short), Edinburgh Eastern (SNP 16 votes short of Labour), Glasgow Kelvin (SNP 759 votes short of Labour)

A 5 seat winning margin may seem strong but there are more tight victories in my model for the SNP than there is for Labour so if Labour close the gap over the next few weeks and if a few of the above FPTP wins for the Nats are reversed then where does that leave us?

Well, keeping only Glasgow Southside as SNP gains or holds in the first list there and moving Aberdeen Central, Almond Valley, Ayr etc back to current incumbents, while keeping everything else in the model from this poll fixed, then the result becomes:

SNP – 52 (26/26)
Labour – 52 (42/10)
Conservatives – 13 (3/10)
Lib Dems – 7 (2/5)
Greens – 4 (0/4)
Margo – 1

So, neck and neck between Labour and the SNP with the Conservatives intriguingly holding the balance of power. The above also highlights the advantages for Greens in voting tactically for the SNP in many regions, finishing now with 4 seats rather than 5 (losing the 2nd Lothians MSP) whereas the Lib Dems conversely move up to 7 from 6 (picking up a second list MSP in North East).

However, this is not to take away from a remarkable achievement from the SNP, borne out of two main strategies

(1) – pitch the second vote as a vote for who should be First Minister (which it isn’t, this is a parliamentary election, not a Presidential one)
(2) – sell Salmond (and this poll only include 30%-50% of the impact of the SNP manifesto launch and Salmond’s impressive BBC Question Time performance as the fieldwork was Wednesday to Friday)

So, it’s a stellar result for the Nats at just the right time and that momentum is growing. The SNP were 8/1 to win most seats at the start of the year when Labour were streets ahead in the polls, the SNP were 3/1 to win most seats on the evening of the STV debates and today those odds are only 5/4. Being the official odds on favourites for Holyrood 2011 surely beckons and what then for Iain Gray?

SNP voters can now effectively be split into two, there is the ~25%-30% baseload SNP voter that has stuck with the party for at least the majority of the past four years, willing to back the party if asked by a pollster. Then there are the recent converts, the Scots who intend to vote SNP today but would have voted for another party months or even weeks ago.

The key question for me now is not so much what has changed but what would have to change over the next few weeks for those voters to go back from whence they came, and let’s assume that that is back to Labour.

Wheeling out Gordon Brown, as will be the case this month, will not make much of a difference, the election isn’t about independence so attacking the SNP on that score isn’t an option and on policies such as apprenticeships, free education, renewable energy and council tax freezes, Labour policies are more to do with damage limitation than outdoing the SNP in any way. So I really do think Scottish Labour’s options for victory are closing to a point that inevitability around a May 5th defeat isn’t far off.

The only potential fix that a clearly panicked Labour group may go with is to push even harder the clearly flawed message of ‘Tories at Westminster means you need Labour to protect you’. The fear-mongering, the negativity that has cost them before, most notably in 2007, might be enough to scare a few former loyal supporters back into line but it would be desperate stuff. Furthermore, if we really are past the tipping point, then such a negative message could only serve to increase the SNP majority as individual voter behavious becomes a group phenomenon. This ‘now that the Tories are in power’ mantra is a message that Labour has chosen to put at the front of its manifesto and it is linked to many of the key quotes in the press recently. It may come to symbolise the next stage of this campaign but I personally can’t see it working as the mesage is getting mixed.

At the end of the day, voters want to know what they’re getting from who they vote for and the SNP message is clear – five year Council Tax freeze, no nuclear power and a drive towards 100% renewable electrical power by 2020. Easy to understand and easy to digest. The same is largely true of the Greens (public transport a higher priority, raise revenue to offset cuts, no Forth Road bridge) and Lib Dems and Tories.

Labour’s key themes seem to be a focus on cancer waiting times, facing up to David Cameron and a two year freeze on Council Tax. It just doesn’t gel right somehow and, crucially, it doesn’t seem enough to get those lost votes back.

Alex Salmond and his team may well be joyously sliding down the electoral mountain over the next few weeks and, for once, the most important poll may not be the next one, or the one after that or even the one on May 5th. To all intents and purposes, it may prove to be this one if it turns out that the next time Labour lead in a Holyrood poll on either the constituency or regional vote is some way far off in the distance.

And finally, tactical voting considerations – this poll predicts a clean sweep of 10 FPTP constituencies for the SNP in the North East, a region where my model predicts 4 Labour lists MSPs and 0 Green MSPs. Even with 9 FPTP constituencies for the SNP there seems little chance of the party winning a list MSP. Is it worth SNP voters considering voting tactically for a fellow anti-nuclear party? Have the Nats finally found what Glasgow is to Labour and will it have the savvy to use that local opportunity to full advantage?

Election round up – follow the leader

Apr 16

Posted by The Burd in Elections, Holyrood, Parties | 8 Comments

Four weeks down, three to go.  There is light at the end of the tunnel, or at least polling booth.

A good way to get a sense of what seats the parties are targeting and how the campaigns are going is by playing follow the leader.  Anyone who remembers the 2007 election might recall that Alex Salmond spent rather a lot of time campaigning in Stirling, Alloa, Kilmarnock, Glenrothes and even the Western Isles.  That’s because the SNP’s canvass returns were telling them that these seats were shifting.  And while SNP wins came as a surprise to many, reading the leadership travel runes in the campaign definitely gave signs of real hope.

So where have the four main party leaders (and other leading party figures) been on their travels this week and can we glean anything meaningful from their journeys?

Since last Saturday, SNP leading lights have visited Renfrewshire, Glasgow Southside, Dundee, North East Fife, Glasgow again, Stirling and er, Liverpool.

Labour has been to Edinburgh, East Kilbride, Stirling, Ochil, Edinburgh Eastern, Aberdeen and Dunfermline.

The Conservatives have visited Falkirk, Perth, Cunninghame North, East Lothian, Edinburgh and Ayr, while the Liberal Democrats have been to Glasgow, Argyll and Bute, Midlothian South, Aberdeenshire East, Fife and Midlothian South (again).

I do hope they are all choosing to offset their carbon emissions….

These are probably not all the destinations covered.  No doubt Ed Miliband and Iain Gray called in at Dundee on the way from Aberdeen to Dunfermline today.  And the SNP leader’s trip to Renfrewshire probably shoehorned in as many of the seats in that area as possible.

But overall, it seems that Labour and the SNP are already targeting in terms of expending leadership energy and giving a boost to local campaigns.  Both appear to be trying to shore up marginals they hold, such as the SNP’s Dundee seats and Labour’s Aberdeen Central.  But their voter identification data would appear to indicate that seats like Stirling and Edinburgh Eastern are currently on a knife edge. 

Interestingly, the SNP reckons it is gaining more of the soft Lib Dem vote, hence the parachute into North East Fife.  The burdz not sure if this isn’t just a bit of mischief making, given that it hasn’t yet featured on the Lib Dem leadership’s radar.  Time will tell.  If we see Salmond in seats like Caithness, Aberdeen South and Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch then the Lib Dems can really start worrying.

At the moment, they seem determined to throw everything but the kitchen sink at Midlothian South in a bid to keep Jeremy Purvis at Holyrood.  In fact, if  Tavish spends any more time here, he might just qualify for a vote himself.   They do not seem to have written off Dunfermline West just yet and the amount of focus on Argyll and Bute suggests they think they have a chance of retaking this seat.

As for the Conservatives, it is hard to see what strategy is being deployed, other than keeping Annabel busy.  Falkirk?  Cunninghame North?  Nope, can’t see the point at all.  Though spending time in East Lothian and giving Derek Brownlee plenty of media airtime suggests they are worried about him retaining a seat through the South of Scotland list (as all we experts have already predicted!)

Despite the campaign being half way through and the very tight position at the top of the polls for the SNP and Labour, it is hard to discern a clear pattern.  Expect their focus to narrow in the remaining three weeks to the absolutely key marginals.  Watch carefully and as with 2007, by following the leader all the way to the finish line, you might just be able to spot which candidates have been abandoned as lost causes, which seats might spring a surprise result, and ultimately, who is going to win the election.

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SNP launches manifesto

Apr 14

Posted by Jeff in Elections | 41 Comments

A full picture of the battle of ideas amongst the Holyrood parties is beginning to emerge with the SNP manifesto launched today.

I have not had a chance to read through it but the headline item appears to be the pledge to freeze council tax for five years, ‘beating’ Labour’s pledge by three years. The promise appears to be an extension of the narrative of this campaign so far – how much can one party promise with dwindling moneys in the bank.

Freezing Council Tax was initially supposed to be a short-term precursor to Local Income Tax but, as I predicted earlier this week, Local Income Tax does not seem to have made the cut for this manifesto – too tricky, too icky. Seemingly, a problem delayed is a problem solved for this campaign.

The rest of the manifesto seems very appealing, exciting even – 100% renewables by 2020, 130,000 low carbon jobs, early cancer detection, £50m for a national football academy (taken from the BBC report as Scotsman rather bizarrely has an “SNP rattled after Labour capitalises on anti-Tory fears” article rather than a more substantial take on the SNP’s pledges. I wonder who the publication will be backing).

The SNP giveaways are well judged but they are predicated on a shortfall in spending on a bridge that hasn’t been built yet. That doesn’t seem to be the firmest terrain to make promises on, though I suspect most voters won’t consider this when they come to deciding who to vote for.

The key consideration that I expect will be made is whether to back the SNP’s five year freeze on Council tax or Labour’s two year freeze. It’s no contest really so isn’t it lucky for Salmond that he got to release his manifesto later than Gray did!

Iain Gray is in a very sticky situation – he cannot attack the SNP for freezing the tax for five years while he has frozen it for two so what possible argument can be made for his policy in the debates to come? Labour’s chickens are coming to roost here in stealing SNP policies rather than fully forming their own.

Once again the ball is in Iain Gray’s court and once again he has to deal with a mess of his own making.

I’ve not even read their manifesto but it looks like upper hand to the SNP so far today.

The once in a lifetime deferendum

Apr 13

Posted by Jeff in Elections | 29 Comments

The election campaign is bumping along quite nicely so far and there is still 3 weeks to go for issues to be drawn out and debated, not to mention a few manifestos still to be published (SNP tomorrow, Greens several days hence).

The main battlegrounds thus far have included local taxation, minimum pricing and policing but one policy that has been conspicuous by its absence is independence. Indeed, it is the pro-UK parties that are making the most noise around this issue, warning voters of a broken up Britain that their main rivals, the SNP, seem surprisingly nonplussed about.

The expected logic from the outset of the last session was that competent Nationalist Government coupled with a Parliamentary defeat for a Referendum Bill would see Salmond campaigning hard on ‘the Scottish people being denied their sovereign say on the future of our great nation’, or something else similarly overblown.

It hasn’t happened and we are left with the Jim Sillars of the independence movement flying the flag for separation. How has this come to pass? Why does the SNP PEB ask what the Scottish Government has done for us and not what you can achieve for your country? I appreciate that many Scots misundertand the N in SNP to the party’s electoral disadvantage but it has snapped back the other way quite dramatically.

There are reasons why of course: the Referendum Bill never did get voted on, let alone down, the economy went haywire, Scottish confidence freefalled and polling figures for independence sank as a result. This, as far as I can see, shouldn’t dim the SNP’s appetite for independence so why is the party immersing itself in the snug embrace of devolved Scotland and what is the strategy for the coming term?

Well, the answer to the first question is simple – suppressing its independence aims is the only way for the SNP to win this coming election. This contest is about preaching to the converted and a recent poll has shown that the NHS, policing and free university education are Scotland’s top priorities, while independence (and an extra Forth Road Bridge) are seen as irrelevant.

So, what can we expect during the next parliamentary term on independence? Nothing referendum-related unless there is an SNP/Green coalition as the other parties can, quite reasonably, claim there is little mandate for the barely discussed issue.

Perhaps a bedding in of Calman and a hope that Coalition rule from London will drop independence into Scotland’s lap is sufficient for the SNP over the next five years but one would expect that, for a party whose stated objective is independence, it might want to talk about it in some detail and make its case once in a while.

On the representation of women at Holyrood

Apr 12

Posted by Malc in Elections, Holyrood | 23 Comments

After I wrote this post rounding up our “Region Watch” series, I copped a bit of flak on Twitter for my projections of female representation at Holyrood after May’s election.  Apparently I was too positive.  I actually spotted I’d made a mistake, and the numbers we projected would make 47 female MSPs and not 46 (as I said in the post).  Which would make me even more positive.  Cue even more scepticism I imagine.  So I thought I’d delve into the numbers a bit more.  Obviously, this is subject to the usual caveats surrounding opinion polls – so keep that in mind.

First, a bit of background.

In 1999, there were 48 female MSPs (37.2%).  That rose to 51 (39.5%) in 2003 before taking a dramatic tumble to 43 – 33.3% – in 2007.  With the passing of the SNP’s Bashir Ahmad – the only (EDIT ethnic-minority) “non-white” MSP Holyrood has seen – and his replacement as an MSP by Anne McLaughlin, the total at Holyrood’s dissolution stood at 44 (34.1%).  For more analysis and division by party, see this article in Scottish Affairs (pdf).  50% of the seats at Holyrood is, for the sake of clarity, 65.

And so to 2011.  The Guardian reports that only 28% of all candidates for the election in May will be women which, according to both The Hansard Society and the Centre for Women and Democracy, means there will be fewer women elected to Holyrood than in 2007.  And yet, from our analysis (and by our, I mean Jeff and I – James and Kate should be exonerated from any of the following – though Kate ran numbers previously and ended up with 43) we have a rise – a small one, but a rise nonetheless – in female representation, from the 43 women elected in 2007 to 47 now.

Here’s where we’ve projected them to come from:

Highlands & Islands (3)
0 constituencies – which isn’t a surprise, since most have never had a female MP never mind a female MSP
3 list MSPs: Rhoda Grant (Lab – seat #2), Eleanor Scott (Grn – #4) and Mary Scanlon (Con – #5)

North-East Scotland (5)
1 constituency: Shona Robison (SNP – Dundee City East)
4 list: Jenny Marra(Lab – #3) Nanette Milne (Con -#4) Lesley McMahon (Lab – #5) Maureen Watt (SNP – #6)

Lothian (8)
3 constituencies: Sarah Boyack (Lab – Edin Central), Margaret Smith (LD – Edin West), Mary Mulligan (Lab – Linlithgow)
5 list: Fiona Hyslop (SNP #2) Shirley-Anne Somerville (SNP #3) Alison Johnstone (Grn #4) Margo MacDonald (Ind #5) Angela Constance (SNP #6)

Mid-Scotland & Fife (7)
4 constituencies: Helen Eadie (Lab – Cowdenbeath), Marlyn Livingstone (Lab – Kircaldy), Tricia Marwick (SNP – Mid-Fife & Glenrothes), Roseanna Cunningham (SNP – Perthshire South & Kinross-shire)
3 list: Elizabeth Smith (Con #2) Claire Baker (Lab #4) Annabelle Ewing (SNP #7)

West Scotland (4)
2 constituencies: Irene Oldfather (Lab – Cunninghame South), Jackie Baillie (Lab – Dumbarton)
2 list: Annabel Goldie (Con #2) Fiona McLeod (SNP #5)

Central Scotland (7)
3 constituencies: Elaine Smith (Lab – Coatbridge & Chryston), Cathy Craigie (Lab – Cumbernauld & Kilsyth), Cathy Peattie (Lab – Falkirk East)
4 list: Linda Fabiani (SNP #2) Margaret Mitchell (Con #3) Siobhan McMahon (Lab #5) Christina McKelvie (SNP #6)

South Scotland (7)
3 constituencies: Karen Gillon (Lab - Clydesdale), Gillian Dykes (Con – Dumfriesshire), Christine Grahame (SNP – Tweeddale & Lauderdale)
4 list: Aileen Campbell (SNP #1), Elaine Murray (Lab #2), Claudia Beamish (Lab #5), Joan McAlpine (SNP #6)

Glasgow (6)
4 constituencies: Pauline McNeill (Lab – Kelvin), Patricia Ferguson (Lab – Maryhill & Springburn), Johann Lamont (Lab – Pollock), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP – Southside)
2 list: Sandra White (SNP #3) Ruth Davidson (Con #4)

That makes 47 – and you can see the regional variations above without the need for me to point out the glaringly obvious bias in favour of male MSPs in H&I and West.  Its perhaps not fair to single them out, since no region has a particularly good record here.  The exception is perhaps Lothian, where 50% of the MSPs returned in our analysis would be women (and see below for potential increase).

Of course there could be more or there could be fewer than I’ve outlined above.  A lot of the list seats (where the majority of the female candidates are) depend on the outcome of some marginal seats – and the outcome of those depends entirely on how people vote on the day.  Here’s a few that might have an impact:

Western Isles – Jeff projected Donald Crichton would win this for Labour over the SNP’s Alasdair Allan.  I think he’s wrong – but in the final party mark-up, it doesn’t matter, since Labour would take a list seat at the SNP’s expense.  But on gender, it does, since next on Labour’s list is a woman – Linda Stewart – which would add one to the tally above.

Aberdeenshire South & North Kincardine – I went for John Sleigh of the Lib Dems here, but if the SNP’s Maureen Watt can win it, that’d free up a list seat for the Lib Dems – which would go to Alison McInnes.  Add one more (for best case scenario).

Almond Valley – If Angela Constance won here (or, less likely but still plausible, if Shirley-Anne Somerville won in Edinburgh Northern & Leith) she would beat out a male Labour candidate.  Labour would likely win a list seat, replacing their male constituency winner with a female list MSP (Kezia Dugdale).

Airdrie & Shotts – Alex Neil was projected to pick this up for the SNP, but if Karen Whitefield held on, Alex Neil would be returned on the list, with Labour losing a list seat held by a male.  So there’s potential here for a net female gain as well.

If all four of those go against our projections, then we could be looking at 51 female MSPs, taking us back up to 2003 levels (which, granted, is still only 39.5% of the seats).  However, I can find one example of it going the other way:

South of Scotland – Two female candidates fighting out Dumfriesshire, which is notionally Conservative.  If they hold on (as we currently project) then Gillian Dykes is the constituency MSP and her opponent, Elaine Murray, is returned on the list.  If the positions are reversed in Dumfriesshire, the Conservatives do win the list seat to compensate for their constituency loss, but the seat is taken not by Gillian Dykes but by Derek Brownlee – which would mean a net -1 for women at Holyrood.

It is a complex business working this out, and fine margins exist everywhere.  With the exceptions of Sarah Boyack, whose constituency is notionally Lib Dem, Nicola Sturgeon (notionally Labour seat), Christine Grahame, who has notionally inherited the seat from the Lib Dems, and the aforementioned Dumfriesshire seat, most of the seats which currently have female MSPs are relatively safe.  Thus I expect most of those will be returned to Holyrood – which means it all comes down to the list as to whether more or fewer female MSPs than 2007 are returned.

While this is nowhere near the parity expected of the “new politics” in 1999 (where has that disappeared to, by the way?) nor anything to get excited about, I’m more optimistic than the Guardian and others about the outcome in this respect.  And I never thought the words “Malc” and “optimistic” actually went in the same sentence.