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Gray’s Killing Fields boasts don’t affect poll-pot as SNP holds phnom-penh-al lead

May 1

Posted by Jeff in Holyrood | 8 Comments

It is the last Sunday before the election, a key date in any campaign, and it was clear from my sojourn from Stirling to Edinburgh who the momentum is with. It is written in the giant Salmond-fronted ‘together we can make Scotland better’ posters near the train station, the headlines of numerous newspapers backing the SNP at WH Smith, the free Scottish Sunday Express at the top of Waverley Station (paid for by the SNP) and the placards of every party except Labour all the way down Leith Walk.

I am just another Scot going about his day and Labour’s arguments to be the next Government haven’t pricked my consciousness with 5 days to polling. No wonder the polls are so heavily in the SNP’s favour.

Speaking of which, the main poll out today is as follows:

YouGov (SoS)
SNP – 42%/35%
Labour – 34%/33%
Con – 12%/12%
LD – 7%/6%
Green – -/7%

I have run these numbers through the model but, in order to build-in an arbitrary incumbency factor, I have decided to fix the following constituencies as Labour holds: East Kilbride, Dumbarton, Cumbernauld & Kilsyth and Airdrie & Shotts; and keep Orkney, North East Fife and Edinburgh Western as Lib Dem holds and keep Edinburgh Pentlands and Ayr as Tory holds.

This gives a seat breakdown as follows:

SNP – 34/19 = 53
Labour – 32/16 = 48
Conservative – 3/12 = 15
Greens -0/6 = 6
Lib Dems – 4/2 = 6
Margo – 1

(Note that I am keeping the flat assumption that the Socialists and George Galloway will not win any seats, which may not be accurate at all. Note also that it is the SNP who take the 7th regional seat in each of Central, Glasgow and the West so it’d be the Nats who lost out if you were to start adding on seats for the Socialists)

So, this is yet another poll where the balance of power is held strictly by the Conservatives, based on the twin assumption that:

(1) the SNP and Labour will not be able to find a way to work together
(2) the Greens, Lib Dems and Margo will involve too many stakeholders to function sufficiently well as a distinct group (a coalition of the frilly?)

That would leave devolved Scotland as business as usual to all intents and purposes – a minority SNP Government, the Conservatives providing support at budget time and the rest of the parties free to rant and rave as much as they please. A tripling of the Green vote would see Patrick Harvie get more airtime at FMQs and, if there’s any justice, a spot in the leader debates for 2016 (I’m ready to give up on the petition, regrettably!)

So, 5 days to go and not much change from a week ago. Iain Gray has failed to find the chink in the SNP armour, or rather Salmond’s armour, and a new strategy, the strategy that Labour should have started the campaign with, will not be forthcoming in the timescales available. That said, I find it fascinating that Labour are actually up from 2007 on both the constituency and regional vote. I am agog that such a negative campaign, a campaign that really has treated the public with contempt, has in a way been rewarded. Former Tory and Lib Dem voters are clearly rallying around the SNP to push them back into power and the tactical voting considerations that that brings should throw up some shocks in certain constituencies.

Seats with large blocks of Tory/Lib Dems votes that amounted to third place in 2007 include: Aberdeen Central, Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley, Clackmanannshire & Dunblane, Clydebank & Milngavie, Cowdenbeath, Cunninghame North, East Lothian (11,800 Tory/LD 3rd/4th votes out of 31,000 in total), Edinburgh Eastern, Edinburgh Northern & Leith, Paisley and Stirling. Tactical voting can work both ways of course but I wouldn’t be too surprised if there were some pro-SNP shocks in the above constituencies, going by what the polls are saying with Lib Dems and Tories breaking for Salmond.

The only outstanding from where I am sitting is the likelihood of an SNP/Green coalition that doesn’t need Lib Dem input. From an SNP perspective, the key question is whether it can win those seats that I fixed as holds and those mentioned above aswell as the real attention-grabbers of Glasgow Cathcart, East Lothian, Clydebank & Milngavie, Cunninghame South, Edinburgh Central, Edinburgh Northern & Leith and Renfrewshire North. The SNP really does need to be knocking on the door of 60 seats if an SNP/Green coalition could work and that is a tall order for a party that looked like it was making up the numbers just several weeks ago.

For the Greens, I would say the maximum it would dare dream of winning is 9 seats: 2 in Lothians and 1 elsewhere. To get to that stage, from the six above, the party would have to beat Labour to a seat in North East (currently 600 votes short), beat the SNP to a seat in the West (currently 200 votes short) and beat both the SNP and Labour to a seat in Central (currently 1,200 votes short). Not easy with the election being sold as a two-horse race.

However, the Greens are only 1,600 votes away from a second MSP in Glasgow so there are reasons for optimism.

All in all, as someone wishing the Greens and the SNP the best from the sidelines, I’m as happy as I could be with a five days and a couple of leader debates to go. Bring it on, as they say.

Election round up: Never mind the parties, what about their voters?

Apr 30

Posted by The Burd in Elections, Parties | 12 Comments

How do you round up when there’s nothing to round up?  I mean, they might as well not have bothered this week.

It’s beginning to feel like Groundhog Day: every morning the meeja are summoned to some inane photo opportunity in some poor unsuspecting town; the respective machines reel off constant announcements and statements (go visit the Steamie to see how relentless they are); news programmes dutifully report the day’s headlines and if they’re really lucky, a gaffe.  And then everyone goes leafleting, canvassing, to hustings and meetings and then they do it all again the next day.  Yep, so far, so dull.

What happened this week?  More polls showed a super soaraway lead for the SNP;  a relaunch for Labour put Salmond, the SNP and independence firmly in its sights;  Annabel presented a ridiculous caricature of herself, if this is possible, in a hairnet eating teacakes;  Iain Gray failed to fight Salmond in the Asda aisles;  and Hadrians wall was breached as UK leaders and big hitters headed north to shore up the faltering Labour and Lib Dem campaigns, and Mr and Mrs Salmond went to London to see the Queen and that wedding;  shock, horror there was a wumman in charge of the country and the sky didn’t fall in.

Dear voter, hang tight, the end is in sight. Here’s hoping for a rip-roaring grand finale with two leaders’ debates this Sunday on the BBC and then on Tuesday at STV.  Please inspire us with a gripping toe-to-toe discourse on the key policies and issues.

So that’s the parties;  what about the voters?  Who is actually voting for whom in this election and what does that say about, well, anything?

Using the IPSOS-Mori poll because it has the most detail in terms of voter disaggregation, there are few surprising variations on what we might expect.

If you intend to vote SNP on 5 May, you are most likely to be male, aged 35 -54, working full time, born in Scotland and living in a rural area, in the least deprived communities.  However, the SNP can also expect a considerable vote from pensioners, though amongst younger age groups, its vote is pretty evenly split between those having children and those not.

Given that Labour and the SNP are fighting it out for the centre ground, they might also be tussling over the same voters?  Actually, no.  Labour voters are more likely to be female, under 35, working part time, living with children in a council or housing association house in the most deprived areas in cities or towns.  Interestingly, their voters are just as likely to come from other parts of the UK or indeed, beyond, as from Scotland.

What does this tell us?  That Labour is holding onto its traditional voter ground, is resonating with the “squeezed middle” but needs to do more to secure the aspirational vote.  It is clear that this vote still sits largely with the SNP.  And despite big efforts, the SNP is still toiling to appeal to women and urban voters.  This matters: if the SNP’s projected lead turns into seats, expect Scotland to turn largely yellow all across the North and South of Scotland, but the central belt will stay stubbornly red.  One other interesting demographic is how few people (according to this poll but probably backed up by experience) born outwith Scotland intend to vote SNP:  the party’s civic nationalist messages do not appear to be getting through.

Perhaps the most significant development is the switch of the all-important pensioner vote, which has been mirrored in the polls throughout this election and which I blogged on previously.  Given older people’s propensity to actually go and vote, these are the voters likely to have a huge bearing on the overall result.  And the shift would appear to be just reward for the SNP Government’s overt woo-ing with a range of pensioner-friendly policies.

What of the other parties?  Conservative voters are most likely to be female, retired, without children, born elsewhere in the UK and living in the most affluent areas in rural communities.  Little surprise there then, but note that their main challengers for this vote are the SNP (who are winning it hands down).

The Lib Dems’ vote is most likely to be younger (25 -34), have no children, own their home, and again live in the most affluent areas of rural communities.

Do you see the pattern?  It seems to support the headline findings which show that the SNP is taking votes from both these parties.  And it also shows the danger of believing the national polls in terms of how big the SNP’s lead over Labour actually is.  Unless and until the SNP is winning votes from Labour in urban constituencies, few seats in the central belt will change hands.

Effectively, the SNP is in the lead because it is taking votes away from the Tories and Lib Dems in largely rural seats, which is also supported by IPSOS-Mori’s findings on the regional vote.  These suggest more Tory and Lib Dem constituency voters intend to vote SNP on the list vote than for Labour.

It all points to two things.  First, that we are likely to have a big urban-rural divide in terms of election outcome.  How that will play out in Holyrood and government remains to be seen.  Secondly, Labour has indeed got its campaign strategy wrong.  Its lagging behind the SNP has less to do with losing the national battle (though this has undoubtedly had an impact), and more to do with mistaking this election – as veteran political journalist Angus McLeod deftly pointed out – as a core vote one, when it has actually been a switcher election.

Finally, what of the Scottish Greens?  Well, the party enjoys pretty even support across all the demographics, though its vote is more likely to be urban, living in the least deprived areas and most likely to have been born outwith the UK.  Everything else is pretty marginal: while having a universal appeal across age groups, gender and employment status might suit the egalitarian spirit of the Greens and their need to pick up regional votes from all types of voters, one wonders what might happen if it targeted more heavily towards particular groups and communities?

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A solution for the Royal Family

Apr 29

Posted by Jeff in Holyrood | 36 Comments

Watching the Royal Wedding unfold, I must confess to being in a state of flux. The day has been tremendous, a really special date for Britain and, at a human level, watching people that you think you know celebrating a momentous day can only be enjoyable unless you have the hardest of hearts.

However, from a theoretical standpoint, I just can’t shake the notion that the very idea of a ‘Royal Family’ is wrong, the concept of people working hard to make ends meet and paying taxes to have a family live amidst such pomp and ceremony is, well, bonkers, surely?

So how can we square the circle? How can we keep the history, the tradition, the lineage and the good parts of the Royal Family while consigning the outdated and thoroughly unmodern aspects of royalty to the history books? Well, there might be a way.

We could turn the Royal Family into a publicly listed company, float it on the London Stock Exchange and ensure that the finance it requires to sustain itself is raised privately rather than through the taxpayer. A controlling 51% stake could remain with the British state but 49% of shares in the Royal Family could be put out on the open market where Brits, Americans, Aussies, Europeans and whoever would lap them up. Instead of dividends, shareholders could receive invites to state functions, private dinners or even high tea with specific individulas in the Family. If anyone wanted to use the Royal Family then they could pay a recharge, the entity itself would be up for hire as it were and, if today is anything to go by (global audience of 2bn) demand would always exceed supply.

Britain could move into the modern world by ending the notion of being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth and the Royal Family would be seen to be earning its keep. British ‘subjects’ could rejoice in their representatives with renewed fervour and for those that are really taken by the Royal Family, they can literally buy into the institution.

Anyway, just an idea, but back to Wills and Catherine in their open topped carriage now. A great day for a great couple and a great Great Britain.

Has anyone said anything interesting yet?

Apr 28

Posted by Malc in Holyrood | 24 Comments

The future for Malc...

I can’t be the only one who is just feeling a bit… well, unenthusiastic about the Scottish Parliamentary campaign thus far.  I know.  I’m never the most enthusiastic when it comes to our political parties (I always expect far too much from them) so perhaps its just me at my Victor Meldrew best.  But this campaign has just failed to inspire me.  Thus far, that is.

I don’t want this to be a full-on moan, but there are some things I have noticed in the way the campaign has gone.

Usually when a party has been in government they’ve had to defend their record from attacks from their opposition… but not this time.  And this is despite the fact that, as a minority government, the SNP haven’t been able to deliver on everything they promised in 2007.  And yet, they’ve had a largely free-ride to remind the electorate what they’ve done so far and make a few more promises to boot.  They’ve also kept it largely positive thus far, focusing mostly on themselves and the strengths of their team.  But its the latter element that is slightly concerning when it comes to policy.  Yes the team of Salmond, Sturgeon, Swinney, MacAskill, Russell and Lochhead (not to mention Crawford et al.) is impressive – and, in my eyes, considerably more impressive than the alternative – but the people are only as good as the policies, which we haven’t heard that much about.  Sure, the big ticket items – the Council Tax freeze, the keeping fees free, keeping the 1,000 police officers – they’ve been happy to trumpet, but the main message has been “if you like our team, vote again for Alex Salmond for First Minister”.

Contrast that with Labour – the supposed government-in-waiting.  They spent the whole of the previous parliamentary term picking fights with what the SNP wanted to deliver… then when the starting gun went for the election, they adopted many of these same policies in their manifesto.  They decided that their campaign shouldn’t focus on the election in question and instead re-fight last year’s UK election (which was successful for them) and the 1980s battles with the Tories (which weren’t).  When they realised that folk didn’t like that negative message, they turned their fire on the SNP, calling Salmond “dangerous”.  Other than the SNP’s policies in Labour colours, the discredited knife/ prison policy and the increasingly negative (and in some cases, vitriolic) critiques of the SNP, I don’t know that much about what Labour are about – and I really don’t know what they’d do in government.

The media have made this an SNP-Labour fight, but the Tories have managed to look distinctive on certain issues.  Or perhaps that “distinctive” should be “controversial”.  Taking 14 year olds who don’t want to be in school out of school and putting them into apprenticeships has been billed as the Tories forcing children into work.  Which tells you what the campaign has been like really.  On the face of it, that’s an accurate description of the policy – but scratch the surface a bit, and think it through a bit… maybe it makes a bit more sense than you first think.  By all means, disagree with it if you don’t think its a good idea – but lets have less of the hyperbole.  Its not putting kids into work – its letting them have a choice about what is good for their future.  Anyway – that’s a distinctive Tory policy.  They’ve also claimed responsibility for freezing the council tax, town centre regeneration funds and 1,000 new police officers and since the SNP needed their votes to deliver these things, I suppose that’s fair cop.  But what are they proposing for now?  Apparent from the apprenticeships thing… I really don’t know.

And then there’s the Lib Dems.  They’ve taken a different tact from the other parties and made their campaign about one issue: stopping the amalgamation of Scotland’s police forces into one force.  They even made their PEB about it.  Tavish is driving a car with the slogan “Save our Police” around Scotland for two days to hammer home the message.  If people know one thing about the Lib Dems in this campaign, its that they want to “Save our Police”.  Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, since knowing more about them means equating them with the coalition) that’s about it.  They’ve talked so much about the police issue that even my Gran knows that’s what they stand for (not that it helps – she won’t vote for them!).  But neither my Gran nor anyone else knows anything else they would do in the next Scottish Parliamentary term if they are in a position of influence.  I could mention the Scottish Water thing – but even then I only know about that because I watched their campaign launch.  Since then its been police, police, police.  Just think about that – a liberal campaign focused on justice.  For me, they need to make the next week about something else – partly so we know a bit more about them and partly so we don’t get bored.

The Greens… well, Scottish media have decided this campaign is about the SNP & Labour and given the Tories and Lib Dems their necessary airtime but largely ignored the Greens.  Which is a shame for several reasons, not least because they are actually saying things which are radically different from the other parties.  They want to keep tuition fees free – and pay for it with a rise in tax.  They want to stop the cuts – again paid for by an increase in tax.  And they want to insulate every home in Scotland.  Three clear objectives which set the party out as distinct.  But again, I’ve heard little about the policies (mainly because the Greens have mostly been counted out of political debate).

So – next Thursday you can vote for a party with a great team to run Scotland.  Or a party who will simply criticise everyone else without saying what they’ll do better.  Or a party who (apparently) want to force children into work.  Or a party who want to “Save out Police” and nothing else.  Or for a party who the media have decided don’t really count.

Any of those choices sound appealing?  I don’t know, maybe I’m just being cynical (never!) but I’d like to have a bit more than soundbites and personalities to go on when I go to vote next week.  Since none of the campaign thus far has focused on it, can we have a final week that focuses on policy please?  I won’t hold my breath.

Looking back – and looking forwards

Apr 28

Posted by Guest Blog in Holyrood | 22 Comments

A guest post today from Alex Neil, Minister for Housing and Communities in the latter part of the 2007-11 Parliamentary term and the SNP’s candidate for Airdrie & Shotts in the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentary election.

Alex Salmond’s SNP Government has proved over the last four years that it delivers for the people of Scotland. Despite being a minority government and having massive spending cuts imposed on it by Westminster the SNP has achieved 84 out of 94 of its 2007 election promises.

The SNP Government has been a progressive government with fairness and social justice sitting alongside economic growth and employment as our top priorities.

The Council Tax has been frozen for four years, helping many families who aren’t on large incomes and who previously struggled to pay the 60% increases in council tax which had taken place during the first eight years of the Scottish Parliament. Labour’s destructive plans to close the Monklands and Ayr Accident and Emergency units were overturned. Tuition fees for our university students have been abolished, making it easier for children from families with modest incomes to be able to go to university. Prescription charges have also been abolished, benefiting 600,000 modest income families. We have also put an extra 1000 police on the beat, resulting in a 32 year low for recorded crime in Scotland.  And locally, in Airdrie and Shotts, we have delivered the new Airdrie-Bathgate line on budget and on time, and we are building the new Airdrie Health Centre.

If re-elected we will keep the council tax freeze for another five years, pending the introduction of a fairer system of local government finance in the 2016 parliament based on the ability to pay. We will keep the free bus passes for pensioners and the disabled intact – we fundamentally disagree with the Liberal Democrat and some Labour politicians’ position that these benefits should be curtailed. We will ring-fence the National Health Service budget in Scotland. Given the level of inflation in the NHS we need every penny we can use to improve it and ensure that it gets the level of investment needed to provide for those who are sick and disabled. We will also introduce new measures to further reduce crime rates, including an expansion of the highly successful schemes designed to engage young people in diversionary activity and prevent them from getting involved in crime.

Both locally and nationally our top priority will be to bring new jobs and industry to the area. I have always held the view that high levels of employment and low levels of unemployment are a pre-requisite to maximising the success of any economy and creating not just a wealthier but a happier society.

As Alex Salmond rightly says the opportunities from the renewable energy sector alone has the potential to create thousands of high quality jobs in Scotland. We also have huge potential in other sectors such as the biosciences. If we had control over our own natural resources then we could do even more to create the levels of investment in Scotland which could get our people back to work. That is why for me the independence referendum is key, as I believe that with sovereign power over our own country Scotland can become one of the most prosperous and fairest nations on the planet.