Sunday, April 17, 2011

SNP move into clear lead on both ballots with YouGov

I must admit I've been caught out over the last couple of days misinterpreting the words of John Curtice and Kenny Farquharson, and spotting dark hints of a Labour surge in the polls that weren't actually there (touch wood). I'll have to learn to stop being quite so jumpy - it must be the scars of Glenrothes! This election remains extremely tight with almost three weeks still to go, though. Here are the full figures from tonight's long-awaited YouGov poll -

Constituency vote :

SNP 40% (-)
Labour 37% (-2)
Conservatives 11% (-)
Liberal Democrats 8% (+3)

Regional list vote :

SNP 35% (+3)
Labour 33% (-6)
Conservatives 12% (-)
Liberal Democrats 7% (+2)
Greens 6% (-)


On the seat projections, another minority SNP government would probably be the most likely outcome, although a three-way SNP-Lib Dem-Green coalition would have an overall majority of three seats. And the hypothetical parliamentary majority against an independence referendum would be just 69-60 on these figures, down from 79-50 at present.

Apparently before the campaign started, Labour strategists believed that the leaders' debates would work in their favour - they felt that Gray's poor leadership ratings were partly down to him being little-known, and that being seen on an equal footing with Salmond in the debates would help turn things round. Well, so far that theory doesn't seem to be working out too well - Salmond's personal lead over Gray has actually increased, from 15 points to 25 points. However, that can probably be explained as much by the notorious "hiding from protestors in a sandwich shop" incident as by the debates themselves.

One detail of the Scotland on Sunday report amused me -

"Furthermore, on YouGov's raw figures, unadjusted for likelihood to vote, the two parties remain neck and neck"

Now, weren't we all mocked a few weeks ago when we prayed in aid the unweighted data on the dodgy YouGov poll that showed Labour miles ahead?

4 comments:

  1. Excellent poll results, and, as you indicated elsewhere, a not unpleasant way to be proved wrong in your predictions. I wonder if this is the effect of the "Don't sleep in the Subway" incident.

    It's hard to see that the Labour campaign thought that publicising Gray would have been an advantage. I know that hindsight has 20/20 vision, but surely no one would have thought, regardless of politics, that either on intellectual or on personality issues, Gray would outpace Salmond.

    A propos your last paragraph, one of the things that annoys me most about politicians and their friends in the press (including the BBC) is that they treat voters as if they were morons.

    It might be to their advantage in credibility terms (particularly in what masquerades as a "quality" broadsheet), if they remembered that at least some of us have heads that don't zip up the back and memories that stretch back to before today’s breakfast.

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  2. An end to this dismal drivel - not you or other arguers against neanderthal unionism but the Brit quisling guff - would be a blessed relief as the current dance around the daisies routines are migraine inducing.

    The Americans went to the wire having saw through all the re-cycled "realpolitik" maneuvers during their War of Independence and threw them out. The Congolese, the Kenyans, the peoples of the Indian sub-continent et al did likewise, and we are still complicit in this farce?

    Vote an end to this nonsense and defend the result under the canons of international law.

    Please put them in their place come the May elections and let us move on from this stasis that has fixed us like insects in amber since the contrived Act of Union.

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  3. The British embassies have already prepared us our temporary diplomatic compounds if that is any comfort.

    And CoBRA have planned for the outcome, too.

    Just get on with it?

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