On this day in 1328 England recognized Scotland as an Independent Nation by the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton
On this day in 1707 the Acts of Union officially came into effect
Just try not to read too much into the coincidence as it's also David Livingstone's birthday, I presume
© Bruce Hornsby, 1986
Can You Hear Us? 🔊
Scottish Polling Season was open again at the end of April in the perfect window of opportunity provided by the SNP Conference. I guess some pollsters, or some of their sponsors, expected something SNPbaddish or devastatingblowish to come out of it. But it didn't. Which is not a spoiler as you all have already probably read about these polls. Of course the First Minister's address to the Scottish Parliament was also a choice moment for some more polling, provided you could squeeze the polling between it and the opening of the Conference to offer delegates something fresh to talk about. Some made it and some did not.
First came Panelbase polling Westminster, Holyrood, EU Parliament and Independence referendum, fielded 16 to 24 April so before Nicola Sturgeon's address. Then Survation, from 18 to 23 April, also before the address, polling Westminster, an hypothetical EU membership referendum and (sort of) the Independence referendum (more on this later). And finally YouGov who managed to make headlines because of the part about Independence but also polled Westminster, Holyrood, EU Parliament and leaders' popularity. Fielded 24 to 26 April so after the address. With these handy we can at least try and guess the impact of the address and I can already tell you (SPOILER) that it is not bad at all. Understatement.
There is clearly a message in all this polling. One that the SNP have been sending relentlessly for quite a while now: we want to be heard. And preferably be listened to also.
We're The Lucky Ones 🔊
So now we have three full Scottish polls of Westminster voting intentions fielded in quick succession. The dividing line here being the First Minister's address as Panelbase and Survation were in the field before it and YouGov after it. Below are the voting intentions they delivered and seat projections for each individually.
Of course I'm not saying Nicola has the magic powers to switch 2% of the electorate and gain two seats just on the merits of a twenty-minute speech, as it looks more like a gradual improvement over a short period of time. Then you might wonder how come the YouGov has both the highest SNP vote share and the highest SNP lead since the 2017 GE. And reach the conclusion that, magic powers or not, Nicola's address might very well have been something of a confirmatory event, if not an actual turning point. Which is corroborated by other parts of these polls. More on these later. For now let's just have a look at the weighted average of our three polls and what it says about the Scottish electorate's state of mind.
The SNP here are up 4% from 2017 with Labour and the Conservatives both down by some 7%. There is an obvious similarity here to patterns seen in the rest of the UK. Labour and Tories are bleeding out votes from both ends, at first to the LibDems and a revived UKIP, but the changing political landscape of 2019 offers disgruntled voters two new outlets: Change UK and the Brexit Party. The Scottish singularity here is that, amidst all the chaos, the SNP looks basically immune to any earthquake-like realignment. This is supported by the last YouGov poll who crosstabbed current voting intentions with the 2017 votes. We see that the SNP have by far the most faithful electorate and are also the main beneficiaries of transfers from other parties.
As was always the case in Scotland, the New Model Blackshirts on 4% combined are well below their current UK-wide voting intentions which would be about 19%. Not surprisingly most of their votes come from former Tory voters. More surprising, and perhaps an outlier, is 6% of Brexit Party voters coming from the LibDems. Then I guess every part of the UK has its own brand of Stephen Lloyds and this does not invalidate Scotland's status as a strongly pro-European nation. Change UK on 2% are also below their UK-wide voting intentions which would be about 5-6% right now. Scottish Remain voters obviously don't need an alternative pro-European voice as the SNP already fills the position. And more to the point Scottish voters as a whole don't fall for Change UK's odd mix of post-Blairism and reformed One-Nationism when the SNP offers a left-of-center manifesto that fits their expectations much better. So I don't see Change UK gaining much traction in Scotland in the foreseeable future. Unless some or other sitting MP switches to them. If that were ever to happen my tenner is on Ian Murray first and Paul Masterton second as both seem to have some issues with where their respective parties stand. But just a wild guess.
These results and the underlying changes in voting patterns are extremely favourable to the SNP. More fragmented oppositions means that smaller swings than before can switch a fair number of seats. The direct projection credits the SNP with 50 seats, a massive gain of 15 and the biggest projected for any party UK-wide in proportion to their current seats (+43%), except for the LibDems who are projected to more than double their representation overall. Even the worst case scenario would see the SNP gain a net 11 seats (12 gains and 1 loss in this case).
Right now fifteen Scottish seats are projected to change hands. Labour is projected to be once again wiped out except for Ian Murray. Though Murray is probably not as safe he thinks he is or as straight math says, as the projection still reflects the massive 2017 tactical voting which might not be there next time. Tories would lose nine of their 2017 gains, with Alister Jack in Dumfries and Galloway and Andrew Bowie in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine also just inches away from the woodchipper.
Of the sitting SNP MPs only Stephen Gethins in North East Fife would possibly face a serious challenge. But odds are that if LibDems failed to unseat him in 2017 they won't get a second chance even in an area that elected Willie Rennie as their MSP. But as always the lucky outcome rests on one major factor: massive turnout on the SNP side. On top of always taking polls with a pinch of salt even when the bring good news.
Magic Numbers 🔊
YouGov and Panelbase also polled Holyrood voting intentions, the most important part as it holds the key to two of the components of the triple-lock mandate on Independence. Also obviously because if everything goes according to Our Fearless Leader's Master Plan, IndyRef2 will have happened and be won already by the time of the next Holyrood election and this one will by then be literally the only one that matters. Incidentally the Panelbase was in the field just before Nicola's address and the YouGov just after, or did I say that already? Anyway here are the voting intentions from both:
There is nothing really spectacular in these results and they may look just average for the SNP but in fact the odd ways both FPTP and AMS work make them better than you might think at first glance. In fact the YouGov has the best SNP constituency result since March 2017 while both have the best SNP list result since December 2018. Here are the seat projections you get from both taken individually, with the quirks of AMS allowing the Brexit Party to bag two list seats on YouGov's numbers (one in Glasgow and one in North East):
As they did with the Westminster voting intentions, YouGov crosstabbed the Holyrood constituency intentions with actual past votes. Oddly enough not the 2016 Holyrood votes but again the 2017 GE votes. Here too there is a clear pattern anyway. The SNP have the most faithful electorate and benefit the most from transfers from other parties in fact even more so than on the Westminster voting intentions. So much for power-weariness and out-of-touchiness.
YouGov also crosstabbed the constituency voting intentions with the regional list voting intentions and there is something to learn from it, besides 14% of LibDem voters ready to switch to the NeoBlairite-OneNationers Party on the list vote. It's truly beyond me that 13% of SNP voters are still gullible enough to fall for that 'list vote is here for your second choice' cooshite that Greens fed us throughout the 2016 campaign without it having the slightest smitch of veracity. Both Votes SNP, give or take a few, is what got us an SNP majority in 2011. And it was lost in 2016 because Both Votes SNP did not happen that time and by a wide margin, when just a few thousand votes in the proper regions would have given the SNP the two extra list seats needed for a majority. Besides the Little Green Men don't need eleven seats to be 'adequately' represented. Six of them is more than enough already for all the posing, rattling and fussing they stage. So next time again I will fully support Both Votes SNP no matter what.
We already have had two Holyrood polls in quick succession in March and they were confusingly contradictory with one predicting a 69-60 Unionist majority and the other a 72-57 pro-Independence majority. This is not the case with the April polls as both predict a pro-Independence majority, though of a different magnitude: 68-61 for Panelbase and 74-55 for YouGov. Interestingly Panelbase was also the least favourable for the pro-Independence parties in March so there must be some house effect at work here. Anyway what matters is the weighted average of these polls if we want to look at the bigger picture, and then the Scottish Parliament this would deliver:
So here you have it: a seventeen-seat pro-Independence majority with the SNP cruising to a fourth consecutive term. Best part is that Jackie Baillie would at long last lose her Dumbarton seat to the SNP. The other two Labour constituency MPs (Daniel Johnson in Edinburgh Southern, Iain Gray in East Lothian) would survive by less than 1% and YouGov's figures have both woodchipped too. Dire prospects indeed. So just don't ask me why Kezia Dugdale looks so overjoyed now. Maybe it's the prospect of a cushy job at a Tory-co-owned think tank. Or just happy to fulfil the prophecy of her favourite Queen song on her own when Leonardistas would have deselected her anyway. Or could it be that Jenny Gilruth didn't give her too much of an earful over the vile treatment of their dog while Jenny was away at #SNP19?
Losing five MSPs and any serious prospect of ever becoming Scotland's first Conservative First Minister is not much of a comeback gift for Ruth Davidson after a strenuous maternity leave that saw her definitely honing her already considerable skills at telling porkies. Guess Jackson Carlaw got an earful for his shabby handling of the Branch Office and making a weekly ass of himself at FMQs. Then that's what you get when handing over management responsibilities to a poorly potty-trained temp.
By the way did you notice that the poll fielded after Nicola's address is two seats better for the SNP and six seats better for the pro-Independence parties than the one fielded just before? Midas Touch again, really? The plot thickens.
The Last Time 🔊
For the very last European Parliament election in which the UK will take part, unless some shabby version of the Withdrawal Agreement passes Commons in the next two weeks, Scottish voting intentions show a real determination to send a message. So far we have Scottish subsamples from twelve GB-wide polls and two full Scottish polls. However unreliable subsamples of a larger poll may be, they send the same message as the two Scottish polls: the SNP doing extremely well and bagging an unprecedented (for EU elections) 40% of the popular vote or above. Here is what the average of the last five polls says:
What matters of course is what the quirky mechanics of d'Hondt make of such votes. The result is extremely satisfying for the SNP who would end up with an unprecedented three MEPs. They would bag the first two seats outright as their vote share would be more than twice the d'Hondt quota, and then have a clear path to the fourth seat. Only downside is they would miss the sixth and last seat that would go to the Conservatives by almost 30k votes or 2% of all votes cast.
With veteran MEP Ian Hudghton retiring after 21 years of distinguished service including Vice-Presidency of the European Free Alliance Parliamentary group, the SNP had to choose five new candidates. You might remember I strongly supported former MSP Christian Allard being selected at or near the top of the list, and of course I am really happy to see current polling has him glitchlessly elected. Now we still have to consider that Scottish EU polling might be as unreliable now as it was in 2014 when it overestimated the SNP by more than 7% and underestimated the Conservatives by 4%. But if we recalculate the seat allocation on corrected vote shares factoring the same massive errors as in 2014 here is what we get:
Now only the first seat would still be a shoe-in for the SNP as they would miss bagging twice the quota by barely 2k votes. But things would go somewhat better afterwards as the SNP would still finally bag the same three seats, a gain of one from the 2014 results. The SNP's third candidate Aileen Macleod will be elected with a healthy margin in both cases, while fourth candidate and former MP Margaret Ferrier has only a slim chance. You certainly remember I also supported Margaret being in the top three of the list but unfortunately she was voted into fourth place only, so I certainly hope the SNP vote will be at the upper edge of what polls predict so that they finally get four seats. 41% would be goodish but still uncomfortably close. 43% would definitely be better and can't be ruled out with a strong campaign and GOTV drive. Fingers crossed.
By the way, the SNP led by 19% in the poll fielded just before Nicola's address and it rose to 27% in the poll fielded just after. Just sayin'.
Rocket To The Moon 🔊
Shortly before the Scottish Polling Craze we also had the fortnightly issue of Opinium's poll for The Observer, dealing with GE and EU voting intentions and leaders' approval ratings. Which are not a beauty contest but the (supposedly) informed assessment of their performance at their jobs. Until mid-April Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon, Vince Cable and Gerard Batten were tested. The late-April instalment added Heidi Allen and Nigel Farage to the list. But the target of our interest here is of course how people see Nicola Sturgeon. The usual bottom-line to this polling is the Net Approval, as in [ (Strongly approve + Somewhat approve) - (Strongly disapprove + Somewhat disapprove)], leaving the neutrals aside no matter how many there are.
Here is the headline for the late April delivery, with all respondents combined regardless of any specific breakdowns by party affiliation or nation/region. We see that Nicola Sturgeon doesn't fare too badly on -13% Net, much batter anyway than Theresa May on -34% Net and Jeremy Corbyn on -36% Net. Sturgeon usually had the best (or least bad) net rating but newcomers Allen and Farage have somewhat reshuffled the deck. Allen is pretty much still an unknown quantity with 60% neutrals. While Farage is certainly boosted by the Brexit Party's predicted electoral performances which might be construed as evidence he is good at his job.
There are many fascinating insights into leaders' standing in the crosstabs to this polling but I will spare you the gory details that can be found in Opinium's full tables and focus on just two angles: crosstabs with voting intentions showing how leaders are seen by their own voters, crosstabs by nation/region showing how leaders are seen in Scotland. By party first with Nicola scoring a whooping +93% Net among SNP voters. Way ahead of May's +38% among Tory voters or Corbyn's +42% among Labour voters. Only Farage matches it on +90% among Brexit Party voters, again obviously boosted by good electoral prospects just as Nicola is boosted by the SNP's current prospects and boosts them in a perfect virtuous circle.
Finally what is probably the most relevant one: how leaders are seen in Scotland. Nicola's Net +5% might not look like much but all the others have negatives from Allen's mildish -17% to May's revealing -46%. Even Corbyn on -36% does no better in what was once a Labour stronghold than he does in the rest of the UK. Talk about past glories. On a related note Nicola's Net in England ranges from a surprisingly good +13% in London to a not so bad -26% in the Midlands while May's and Corbyn's Nets are about evenly distributed across all English regions in the mid-to-high negative thirties. Even England has a better opinion of Nicola than of their own native leaders.
So don't believe everything you read in the MSM or hear from 'ideologically pure' far-leftists. Nicola's public image is as good as it ever was and it helps both the SNP and the Independence Movement as a whole.
You made this Clan great and you made this Nation bloom
You rose with your people through the New World like a rocket to the Moon
Waiting On The Sun 🔊
Back to the batch of Conference Season polls, only two actually polled Independence serioulsy as only Panelbase and YouGov used the 2014 Referendum question that should be the standard. Survation again used the highly leading and biased question dictated to them by their client Scotland In Union: 'Should Scotland remain in the United Kingdom or leave the United Kingdom?'. This one has already been discredited as the manipulative cooshite it is the first time it was used back in November, and anyway even the disingenuous wording backfired as the April poll shows basically the same result as the November poll (61-39 vs 60-40). It's worth noting that their question about the timing of IndyRef2 also backfired with only 34% definitely ruling it out, 21% supporting it happening during the current Holyrood term, as Nicola Sturgeon announced, and 37% supporting it happening at a later date.
Panelbase delivered 47.3% Yes / 52.7% No and YouGov did better with a stunning 49.4% Yes / 50.6% No once undecideds and non-voters are removed, the best Yes result in comparable polls since March 2017 while Panelbase has roughly the same results as in December when they last asked the same question. The only serious caveat here is that the actual direct result in the YouGov poll was 44-45, with 3% not voting, 7% undecided and 1% refusing to answer. 11% of respondents sitting on the fence is significantly higher than in the late 2018 polls, which had 4-5% undecideds only, or the Panelbase poll which has 6% undecideds and 1% non-voters. Here is the updated trend of IndyRef polling since 2014, confirming the strong shift back towards Yes after a low point in late 2017.
The weighted average of the last two polls shows a marked improvement over the 2014 result with Yes close to 4% up. Factoring in a 2% margin of error, even the worst case scenario has Yes up while the best case scenario now predicts a narrow Yes win. Did I mention already that the poll fielded after Nicola's address has Yes 2% higher than the one fielded before? Magic powers, seriously?
Both polls crosstabbed the referendum voting intentions with the 2017 GE votes. YouGov found that now we have 4% of Conservatives, 38% of Labour and 14% of LibDems who would vote Yes , while Panelbase found 5%, 35% and 30% respectively. Even though we don't have more detailed crosstabs in current polls, and they would result in tinyish sub-subsamples anyway, there is a strong case to be made for the following pattern happening right under our noses: Yes-Remain voters firmly sticking to Yes, Yes-Leave voters only marginally switching to No, No-Remain voters starting to significantly switch to Yes. And hopefully this is just the beginning. Which is probably what Mark Diffley had in mind when he addressed the Progress Scotland fringe event at the SNP Conference: winning it vote by vote, door after door, day after day. We're on the road again there's no stopping us 🔊.
At The End Of The Line 🔊
What we are witnessing right now with a new batch of polls leads to just one conclusion: the SNP doing better than before at every election and the triple-lock mandate on Independence strengthened, and it got even better after Nicola Sturgeon's address to the Scottish Parliament. Whatever Unionists might make up about the SNP being 'out of touch' and there being 'no appetite' for a second Independence referendum, in the real world we see evidence to the exact opposite. Common factor in all polls is the SNP vote share now steadying on about 40% in all polls regardless of what election they poll. I take that as evidence that both the 2015 and the 2017 GEs were outliers in their own way, and that a gradual realignment over the last two years delivered what we see now: the SNP solidly confirmed as the first party and the combined vote for pro-Independence parties close to clearing the symbolic 50% hurdle. All we need then is clearing that hurdle too when the Second Independence Referendum at long last happens.
And now it seems the BBC will expose us to lethal doses of Davidsonisms to celebrate Ruth's Second Coming. Which is true to form just after they didn't see fit to devote any airtime to the SNP Conference. And also kind of ironic as it happens just when Andrew Neil is found guilty of gross journalistic malpractice targeting the SNP during the 2017 GE campaign. Which takes me full circle to where I started: we want to be heard but are they ready to listen?
Cha togar m'fhearg gun dìoladh
© Martin Gillespie, 2018
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