Better Nation

41 Comments (and one trackback)

• #1 by douglas clark on April 24, 2011 - 1:55 am

  

  Dear Jeff,

  What has happened to your web site? Before we can discuss the fact that an SNP / Green coalition could be dynamite.

  • #2 by Jeff on April 24, 2011 - 8:45 am

    

    Why, what’s wrong with it? Both sites seem fine to me. Have you tried switching it off and on again? 😉

• #3 by Doug Daniel on April 24, 2011 - 3:49 am

  

  52 FPTP seats? Labour only getting 20 FPTP seats? I will be absolutely amazed if this actually happens on 5th May. I just can’t see it though – I’ll have to spend Sunday figuring out which seats could realistically be taken by the SNP, because it just doesn’t seem plausible that every FPTP seat (barring that one Lib Dem seat) is won by either SNP or Labour.

  As for the departing Labour figures, it seems a shame that of all the useless Labour MSPs who are staring into the abyss, a certain Mr R. Baker is not among them. He’s the perfect argument for STV, really. The next leader from that lot? Well whoever it is, they’d be advised to ensure Labour do the soul searching they should have done four years ago. Hopefully their next leader will either be someone with the ability to lead Labour more maturely than they have been over the past four years so we can get some constructive opposition for once; or it’ll be Richard Baker, leading to an absolute wipeout for Labour in 2016. Baker versus Salmond at FMQs every week, that’d be hilarious.

  As for the Greens, the BBC and STV really don’t have a leg to stand on based on these polls. But to be honest, I don’t care about any of this stuff – I’m excited at an independence referendum now being so near I can almost touch it.

  • #4 by Jeff on April 24, 2011 - 8:44 am

    

    Yes, I don’t think there is a seat predictor that takes into account incumbency factor. Given how crazy some of these FPTP projections are, I might have a stab at it some time this week.

    And I can perfectly understand the prospect of an imminent indepedence referendum being a much bigger deal than Patrick in the debates. Can you imagine a snap referendum and Iain Gray being the primary defender of the union against a rampant Salmond? You folks are so close it’s really quite incredible.

    • #5 by Aidan Skinner on April 25, 2011 - 8:26 pm

      

      A snap referendum? I can only presume you’ve become giddy with the poll leads, it would be hugely undemocratic and there’d be an almighty fuss – particularly given the iffy legal situation. Is there even a worked out plan for how to separate?

      I would quite like to have a referendum though, if only to settle the issue for a generation or so. I’m pretty confident Scotland would vote no by quite a ways.

      • #6 by Doug Daniel on April 25, 2011 - 9:47 pm

        

        Eh? What’s undemocratic about a party in government taking forward one of their manifesto promises? Especially when done with the backing of a majority of elected members?

        Incidentally, I can’t imagine a snap referendum taking place. I would imagine maybe two or three years into the parliament, so the SNP has a chance to get a few more proposals through first – minimum pricing and the likes. It might even be kept back until the Scotland Bill is nearing completion, so that the failures of it underline the need for Scotland to just go ahead and take control of its own destiny, rather than waiting on Westminster to drip feed things down to us.

        As for the plan for the workings behind independence, I imagine that’s one of the things that would be sorted out officially in the run up to such a referendum, but the SNP more than likely have a pretty good idea of the ins and outs already – it’s not like they only announced support for Scottish independence in the run up to the election.

        • #7 by Aidan Skinner on April 26, 2011 - 11:01 am

          

          No, it’s not new but the practicalities of it have never been spelled out AFAIK and it’s not exactly a simple or straight forward undertaking.

      • #8 by The Burd on April 26, 2011 - 12:19 am

        

        If the SNP wins, they have 5 years. And good politics suggests you bounce on the back of your high ratings to push through bad stuff you want folk to have forgotten about in 5 years time – councils do it all the time – and use the bounce to win other difficult stuff too. Like an independence referendum.

        If Labour loses next week, they will be rock bottom, infighting etc – as is the way when loss results sadly – which would be another reason why the SNP should go early on a referendum

        • #9 by Malc on April 26, 2011 - 7:39 am

          

          Also if there is a majority in parliament FOR a referendum (and I’m not sold that’s quite certain yet, but if there is) how can you argue that it is undemocratic?

          • #10 by Aidan Skinner on April 26, 2011 - 10:53 am

            

            it’s the snapness of it I’d have a problem with – a few months isn’t long enough to properly prepare campaigns, build machinery, work through arguments and so on.

            Particularly not immediately after a previous election when activists will be worn out, party bank accounts will have been emptied and donors pockets plundered. An issue as important as independence shouldn’t be won “on the bounce”.

            Fair enough put the referendum bill through quickly, but holding the actual poll within a few months would be exceedingly low politics.

• #11 by rullko on April 24, 2011 - 4:17 am

  

  Signed the petition. The SoS projection actually has the Greens surpassing the Lib Dems on seats, btw.

  • #12 by Jeff on April 24, 2011 - 8:40 am

    

    Good stuff! Yes, there seem to be a few different seat breakdowns out there. It all comes out in the wash I suppose and the important thing is Greens going up and Lib Dems/Tories going down which I believe will benefit Parliament, irrespective of where SNP/Labour land in terms of seats.

    • #13 by jim jepps on April 24, 2011 - 2:25 pm

      

      I was trying to work out where the different figures come from and so was looking at the yougov pdf. Greens are on 7% when adjusted for likelihood to vote and 8% before adjusting (ahead of Lib Dems).

      I guess it’s legit to cite either figure although the 7% would be the one to use when thinking about seat breakdowns etc.

      I do wonder with these polls whether there are people who are going to vote lib dem but are too ashamed to tell a pollster that… I guess we’ll see in 11 days!!!!!!

• #14 by Caron on April 24, 2011 - 8:03 am

  

  You are stirring it up there, Jeff. What I’m seeing from you is chickens being counted before they are hatched. Remember we were at 30% in several polls a couple of weeks out from the election.

  I think the Lib Dems will do better than expected, the SNP worse and, despite their hideous campaign, Labour are good at getting enough of their vote out on the day.

  Counting chickens can lead to faces dripping with egg yolk – and we know that your crystal ball is temperamental at best.

  • #15 by Jeff on April 24, 2011 - 8:37 am

    

    Not at all stirring it up Caron. Are you suggesting that I created this poll or fabricated the seat breakdown just to wind up Lib Dems? I suspect you’re being a bit over-sensitive.

    I wouldn’t go talking about eggs on chin so brazenly either – have you signed that petition to get Patrick Harvie into the debates? If not why not? And speaking of chicken, why is it that the scrambled Lib Dems only ever talk about local policing? Is it because they are getting rightly thrashed on every other issue? The Lib Dems were on 30% and then got squeezed out by a two horse race; given that you are approaching being Scotland’s 5th biggest party, I would only expect your 8% to go down rather than up.

    It was Chicken Little that flapped around thinking the sky was about to fall on its head and, funny enough, your party looks a little chicken and about to suffer the same fate too.

    Here’s a prediction for you, egg on chin or not – Edinburgh will be a Lib Dem free zone after May 6th.

• #16 by JS on April 24, 2011 - 8:43 am

  

  As a Labour supporter, I look at that lot and think we are dead for a generation. No-one there that can lead Labour in the Scottish Parliament at all. Especially not against Salmond or Sturgeon if she takes over.

  It would be between Johann Lamont, Richard Baker, Tom McCabe with Ken MacIntosh being deluded enough to think he could win – although another deluded one in the shape of Charlie Gordon isn’t on your list?.

  Would have be Tom mccabe on the basis of experience but even that doesn’t bode well.

  • #17 by Jeff on April 24, 2011 - 8:47 am

    

    I agree, and was even going to suggest Tom McCabe in the post but decided it wasn’t my place. There really isn’t a Jed Bartlett in there that I can see. Or even a Salmond for that matter…

• #18 by Welshguy on April 24, 2011 - 9:28 am

  

  “if your name was on the above list would you be pulling your weight to win constituency votes for your party?”

  I always think that is one of the worst aspects of the Additional Member system. It’s even worse in Wales, where candidates can’t stand for both a list seat and a constituency. You end up in situations where X candidate needs Y and Z in their own party to lose in order for him/her to win. While STV encourages candidates within one party to compete for support, it does so in a way that doesn’t damage the party’s overall campaign.

• #19 by Richard on April 24, 2011 - 9:35 am

  

  Geoff please do have a go at making a seat by seat breakdown based on local factors and this poll it would be very interesting. You guys are doing great stuff in this election

• #20 by mav on April 24, 2011 - 9:48 am

  

  jeff,

  I’d agree with some of the criticisms being made above. I think its generally dangerous to take a national poll and assume a uniform national swing. The chances are the SNP are getting larger swings to them where they have sitting SNP MSP’s, and less in seats where they were 3rd/4th.

  Food for thought – according to one od the comments on anthony wells excellent blog, the poll last week only polled ONE person in Orkney. A poll of around 1000 should poll 14/15 from each constituency.

  • #21 by mav on April 24, 2011 - 9:05 pm

    

    Just to add to this, the full data is here

    http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Scotland/politicaltrend_spomapr11votingtables_21-04-11.pdf
    One person in Orkney (Lib Dem), 3 in Shetland (2 lib dem, 1 labour).
    This was fed into the numbers to give “Lib Dem seats down by over half (and Tavish out on his ear), “.

    Now its obviously daft to say that from the subsample above ( a poll of 1), that Tavish Scott will lose out. Just as to use them to predict a thumping win for Tavish would also be wrong. (I’ve chosen this example deliberately because its a LibDem seat, and I don’t give two hoots). But I think it also highlights the dangers of trying to predict individual seats using Uniform swing. You may get the overall result close-ish, but to go into more detail opens you up to hyperbole.

    • #22 by Jeff on April 24, 2011 - 9:29 pm

      

      I wasn’t saying Tavish would lose his seat, I was saying that the Lib Dems losing so many seats would result in Tavish getting the heave ho.

      On the polling, fine if Orkney and Shetland are held but there is an inherent suggestion that Lib Dems would lose a regional seat if they held onto these two. That’s the point of d’hondt.

      I also don’t think that this poll having 1 or 2 or even 0 people from Orkney is all that revelant, it’s not an amalgam of 73 mini constituency polls but a national snapshot and I make no secret of the limitations of applying a national poll to constituencies. But is there really no link between the level of mainland disillusionment with Lib Dems and any Ork/Shet disillusionment? And, again, even if there isn’t, the numbers come out in the wash with the constituency/list allocations anyway.

      • #23 by mav on April 24, 2011 - 11:30 pm

        

        As you say, it all comes out in the wash with the seat allocations. I just don’t like extrapolating individual seats from the data. As I say, I picked Orkney because it seemed a daft example. I still read what you wrote as a prediction that Tavish would lose his job, and I see a comment below where Malc effectively quotes you as saying that.

        I’ve a hunch you don’t like going through the seats like this either. You initially didn’t publish a list of Labour seats that would fall, and you’ve held back from publishing a list of SNP gains under your projections based on current polls and I’m sure you have your reasons there too.

        I can’t help but think back a year, where Labour looked set to lose across the board and yet nothing changed. If the polls are right, the SNP will make ground, but it may be the lists that do it for them. Doubling the majority in Salmond and Swinneys constituencies won’t do anything. And if the SNP do need the lists, then doesn’t that knock other parties down – eg the Greens?

        Don’t get me wrong, I found the region by region series interesting, and I know you did the same there too. But it was interesting because it set out the dynamics at play, in each area. If I was a sunday broadsheet commisioning editor, I’d have been in touch, (I’m not!).

• #24 by Ezio on April 24, 2011 - 10:29 am

  

  Again, I feel like a cynical twat for not signing the ‘Get Patrick in the Debate’ petition, so I feel the need to explain why I can’t sign.

  Debates are gamechangers. Things are going shockingly well for the SNP right now. Patrick is quite good at the whole debating thing and with the general “Oh, who’s THAT guy? He’s new and exciting (and snappily dressed)” feeling from the general non-political public, he’d be well set to add a few % points to his total.

  And the Labour vote, if these polls are correct, has surely fallen to as low as it’s going to get, meaning that any increase in Green support would come at the expense of the SNP.

  PS – Making mischief here, but has anyone thought that rather than ‘adding’ Patrick to the debates, he should simply replace Tavish Scott? 😀

  • #25 by Anon on April 24, 2011 - 4:48 pm

    

    WRT your PS – Would anyone notice?

    • #26 by Doug Daniel on April 25, 2011 - 9:50 pm

      

      Yes – they’d suddenly realise there was a fourth person in the debate, rather than just Salmond, Gouldie and Gray.

• #27 by douglas clark on April 24, 2011 - 11:15 am

  

  Yup, switching off and on again worked 🙂

  This has to be a positive outcome from a Green point of view too. Whilst I agree with Ezio that Patrick Harvie could take a few votes away from the SNP he is just as likely to take votes fleeing from Labour. So the idea that Labour has hit rock bottom yet is not supported by the evidence so far, touch wood.

  This poll shows a direct switch of circa 5% from Labour to the SNP.

  If that is true, then Labour voters are looking for any port in a storm.

  I’m away to sign the petition.

• #28 by Indy on April 24, 2011 - 12:01 pm

  

  I have to say I haven’t really got my head round any of this yet. I always thought we would win – but that it would be very tight. I was just hoping that it would be more than one seat in it! A win of this magnitude would be amazing.

  You can never predict the electorate and sometimes it’s hard to work out what people are thinking. But if I had to guess, I would say that the group-logic behind this swing is to give the SNP enough of a mandate to get the job done over the next 5 years. It’s not an endorsement of independence, it’s not uncritical support. If the election result works out in line with these polls I think we have to take it as the voters saying OK we are going to give you the power over the next 5 years to actuallu make some progress fon your objectives but don’t push it. That does not mean that we can’t have an independence referendum – but first things first.

• #29 by Dubbieside on April 24, 2011 - 1:32 pm

  

  Indy

  I think you are right on the money here.

  I see this as support for a job well done, so far, with the emphasis on so far.

  What the next five years is all about, assuming the polls are correct, is to continue the drive to improve our country and its prospects.

  I disagree with Jeff about the timing of the referendum, to me that should be held during the fourth year and run along the lines of “this is what we have achieved with the financial equivalent of both hands tied up our backs, just think what we can achieve with independence”

  If we loss, thats democracy, but I do not think it would weaken the desire of the Scottish people for the best government possible to drive Scotlands potential forward. There is only one candidate for that.

• #30 by The Burd on April 24, 2011 - 2:22 pm

  

  I’ll do the incumbency/local factors break down if youse want?

  We have to be careful with these polls – how they are being reported is skewing it all slightly. And I think there are dangers for the SNP of over-expectation. If they “only” win 52-55 seats with Labour coming a very close second, is that nearly a loss?

  But like Doug, the thought of a referendum being tantalisingly close is remarkable…

  Douglas you are right this is only a 5% switch – is that actually enough to win some of those FPTP seats in the central belt? No.

  And one final point – to all who scoffed at my earlier predictions of Jackie Baillie losing her seat, and of Margaret Smith falling in Edinburgh, I say: Who’s the poll mammy noo?!

  • #31 by Malc on April 24, 2011 - 4:11 pm

    

    To quote the eminently quotable (and, perhaps according to Jeff, soon to be unemployed) Tavish Scott: “The only poll that matters is on May 5th”…

  • #32 by Colin on April 24, 2011 - 4:50 pm

    

    Being able to vote in Edinburgh Western I’m going to try and make sure that happens.

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• #33 by Gavin Hamilton on April 24, 2011 - 10:09 pm

  

  Enjoying the schadenfreude at the LibDems expense.

  There seem to a few people getting a wee bit over excited.

  For the record Labour are drab, dreary and oh so uninspiring at the Holyrood level!

  While its a tough sell at this election I’m hoping that the LibDems manage to maintain a decent bloc at this election – that would be good for Scottish politics.

  And I’m hoping the SNP do better than Labour, but not too well, that would not be the best for Scotland.

  And I’m wondering if those tempted by Green fingers on May 6 have a) worked out the diff between voting the Greens and liking Greenpeace and b) whether the Greens are currently a Green party who have moved leftward or are they a v Left group who have a splash of Green?

  I have no comment on the Tories other than nice pair of Tartan Trews 🙂

• #34 by Ezio on April 25, 2011 - 12:21 am

  

  In response to the cynical attempt of James on twitter to try and paint me as some sort of ‘voice of the SNP’ on the debate issue, I’d like to point out I’m not a member of the SNP and I’ll simply be voting for them for as long as they can prove they are the best party to govern Scotland.

  • #35 by James on April 25, 2011 - 9:09 am

    

    I did say “apparently”. And I’m sure there are others who feel the same way.

• #36 by Julie on April 25, 2011 - 12:48 am

  

  Frank McAveety is someone I could see as minister material; as for the rest, I don’t really know. Really what’s happened to Labour is what has happened to all the other parties; the able ones have gone to Westminster and left the B team behind in Scotland. The SNP cabinet are head and shoulders above the others and unless the other parties tackle this, they’re going to be out of power in Scotland for a very long time.

  • #37 by John Ruddy on April 25, 2011 - 10:07 am

    

    Talking of all the able people leaving Holyrood and going to Westminster, can someone remind what happened to Alex Salmond between 2001 and 2007?

  • #38 by Jeff on April 25, 2011 - 12:51 pm

    

    Obvious regrettable headline(s) to one side, I’d agree with you there Julie, good shout. He has an easy nature and I suspect a can-do attitude that would encourage a working togetherness across the Parliament as a whole. Yes, if Labour do get in, I’d be keen to see Frank in the Cabinet.

• #39 by NoOffenceAlan on April 25, 2011 - 11:25 am

  

  One other statistic from the YouGov poll:
  “Absolutely certain to vote” – 67%.
  I’ll believe that when I see it.

• #40 by Indy on April 25, 2011 - 11:58 am

  

  People are descending into non-points here such as whether Labour put their B team in Holyrood and keep their A team for Westminster. Focusing on individuals is not the point.The other partiescan only tackle this when they start to become really Scottish parties instead of just putting the word Scottish before their names and start to look at things from a Scottish perspective rather than a Westminster one. I am quite sure that there are many hundreds of active members of the Labour Party who know this. Hopefully we will see some fundamental changes once the election is over.

  • #41 by Doug Daniel on April 25, 2011 - 10:05 pm

    

    Good point, Indy. If the SNP do achieve the once unthinkable and get an actual working majority of MSPs, then the other parties need to ask themselves why this has happened. Is it because the whole country has suddenly realised independence is the way forward; or is it because people see that the SNP are the only party that treats Holyrood as an end in itself rather than a mere stepping stone on the career ladder for wannabe MPs, and are the only party who want to form a government in Holyrood to govern Scotland, rather than to get it right up the party of government in Westminster?

    Until the unionist parties stop treating Holyrood as a sideshow to the “real deal” in Westminster, they’ll continue to lose votes. In the meantime, the parties who treat Holyrood with respect – the SNP, Greens and the likes – will benefit.

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