Jeremy's Den: Cutting The Branch

I feel a bit like we're being sort of an abusive boyfriend.
Going: you can't leave us. You leave us, you've got nothing, love.
(Jimmy Carr on Scottish Independence, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

We’ve been together with Scotland for 300 years

If we broke up, it’s like your nanna and grandad breaking up

What’s the point? Just shuffle along towards the end

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

Before we move to the heart of the matter and look at the latest batch of Scottish polls, let's examine first what should have remained a side issue, but has been turned into a key issue by some both within and outwith the SNP, usually with extremely conflicting views. You surely know already what I'm referring to here: gender politics, or identity politics, just use the description you like best. And of course its proposed legal consequential: reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 including unsupervised and unchallenged gender self-identification. You already know where I stand here and this is definitely not about my own opinion, but where Scottish public opinion stands. To the best of my knowledge, support and opposition to the SNP's GRA reform has been surveyed twice so far. First in October 2019 by Panelbase on behalf of Bathman... oops... sorry... Wings Over Scotland, and the wording of the question can be described as strongly biased to elicit the strongest opposition. Then in February this year by Savanta Comres as part as their Scottish Tracker for The Scotsman, with a wording you might consider halfway between neutral and biased towards supporting the reform. In both cases, my hunch is that the explicit or implicit bias failed to have a massive effect and probably just boosted the 'neutral' tier of the answers. Both polls explicitly mentioned access to single-sex spaces, which is one of the key issues for opponents of the reform, and probably the most sensitive for the general population. But it has been at the core of feminist opposition right from the start and triggered the most passionate reactions, so I doubt even painting it in the most negative way would seriously influence the outcome, simply because most people already feel strongly about it one way or the other. So now bear with me for a moment as I score a massive own goal with those results. First the headline results from the general population, crosstabbed with the usual basic demographics.

Savanta Comres used a straightforward five-tier scale from 'strongly oppose' to 'strongly support'. Panelbase used a 0-10 scale which I mapped as: 0-1 = strongly oppose, 2-3 = somewhat oppose, 4-5-6 = neutral, 7-8 = somewhat support, 9-10 = strongly support. And here you have it: support for the GRA reform has increased during the sixteen months between the two polls. Most noticeably among the Zoomers and Millennials, which comes as a surprise only if you haven't been paying attention, or stayed off social media since Tony Blair resigned. And I honestly don't feel even a wee smitch bad for being at odds with the majority of my own generation. More surprisingly, support has also increased faster than average among women. I guess you can pin that one on the younger lasses who have only an approximate knowledge of what the fight for women's rights was all about. And, before you even think of saying it, this is not a sexist remark. Just stating the obvious fact that sometimes people take some situations for granted, and fail to identify what might be a threat to hard-earned rights. Like a Deliveroo biker agreeing to be labelled 'self-employed' and then whining he can't get union protection when they deny him sick pay. Which is definitely the kind of sentence that makes me sound like an old fart, but never mind. More relevantly, Savanta Comres crosstabbed the question with political affiliation, based on votes at the December 2019 general election.

So SNP voters massively support GRA reform and self-id, significantly more than any other political tribe in Scotland. Though 'Other' here includes anything from UKIP to Green voters, and you would probably find a similar level of support, if not higher, if Green voters were counted separately. Also note that the quadrant of the political compass from which the SNP are most likely to draw extra voters, if any, the Labour electorate, is also highly supportive of GRA and self-id. And, though we lack crosstabs on that, the part of the Labour electorate most likely to switch to the SNP, young pro-Indy Labour voters, are certainly more supportive than the average Labour voter. And quite likely more supportive than the average SNP voter too, if we infer that from the basic demographic crosstabs of the general population. It definitely sounds like a lot of people are totally ignoring the SNP's antics on this issue, no matter where they may lead, and have totally bought the soundbite that we must "keep our eyes on the prize". That is Independence, which might not be such a sure prospect as we wanted to think it was six months ago, but we'll have more on that later. So, if gender politics are not a vote killer and might even be a vote gainer, we have to look elsewhere for an explanation of the SNP's current woes. And we all know where to look, don't we? If there's a lesson to be learned from the ongoing farce, it's that those who told us to suck it up and wheesht for Indy should have applied that to themselves first. And not waited for a Panelbase poll that says 29% of Scots are less likely to vote for the SNP now, and only 14% are more likely. It's too late to say 'Oops!' now, because you just realised that all this time you've been cutting the branch you're sitting on. Be seeing you after the election, lads.

Scottish Independence was a big story

Part of me thought it would be a tremendous idea

Telling my kids that we’re going abroad and then taking them to Dunfermline

(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

The only person who stood their ground the entire time was Nicola Sturgeon

She’s amazing. She came out in Parliament and she said:

“I’m not going to go back on what I said because some think it was awful at the time”

“And that wouldn’t be the sort of person I am”

That’s what we need in this country: a good Scottish woman

(Aisling Bea on the EU referendum, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2016)

Another key factor in the election will be Nicola Sturgeon's own favourability ratings, because you can't escape the quasi-presidential component of parliamentary elections under the Westminster System which, like it or not, is the template for the governance of Scotland. A lot hinges on how much you trust the winning party's leader and, in Nicola's case, you might say how much faith you have in her. Because, like it or not again, there is a cult element about her. Which is not an isolated case, there is one about Boris Johnson too, there was one about Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Blair and Alex Salmond too before that. Just to make it clear, I definitely do not mean that in a derogatory sense, just as an acknowledgment of a pretty common phenomenon in highly personalised politics. And in that respect, Nicola Sturgeon has succeeded way beyond what anyone possibly thought possible when she became First Minister in 2014. Two major pollsters, Opinium and Redfield & Wilton, have surveyed Nicola's ratings continuously since the beginning of 2020. Both phrase the question as approving or disapproving of her performance in her job, which obviously strongly reduces the 'beauty contest' bias you always have in that sort of survey. And the overall result is quite stunning.

To cut the long story short, Nicola Sturgeon has a higher level of approval among British public opinion than the leaders of the three main English parties. Better than Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer or Ed Davey. She's even the only one of the four major leaders with a net positive rating continuously from late March 2020 to early March 2021. Just bear in mind these figures include Welsh and British voters, so you can't rule out some ambiguity in what 'approve' actually means for them. Maybe some approve her for fumbling the case for Independence, and why wouldn't they? Then what matters more is what Scots think of Nicola's performance, which has to be a mix of her as First Minister and her as leader of the SNP. And it's really good too, except for an unexpected twist at the end. In Redfield & Wilton's first March poll, Nicola got a net -2% in Scotland, her first net negative since the beginning of the Covid crisis, while she still enjoyed a net +4% overall. So, for one fleeting moment, she was more popular in England than in Scotland. Don't ask me why, it's all in the numbers and numbers don't lie, do they? That is, until they do. And anyway Nicola was back to a net +11% in Scotland in the second March poll, which is definitely not as spectacular as in the past, while dipping to +2% overall. Which is her worst result with the general UK population since April 2020. Not that I want to pour salt and vinegar in the wounds, but Nicola's popularity has definitely suffered some serious blows in the last two or three weeks, as the trends of her assessment by Scottish voters show.

Nicola rose to world-beating levels of approval roughly when the Covid crisis became an everyday reality and the First Great Lockdown started. She then enjoyed the same kind of Pandemic Honeymoon as Boris Johnson, with both peaking at a net positive of 44%, GB-wide for him and in Scotland for her. But all good things must end someday, and it has happened to Nicola while Boris saw a slight improvement in England recently. Boris's rating dropped sharply, as did the Conservatives' voting intentions, after Dominic Cummings's Trip To Durham, and his inconsistencies in dealing with the pandemic hurt him for many months until the vaccine rollout saved his ass. Nicola did not face the same challenges as the only remotely comparable situation, that involving Catherine Calderwood, was dealt with swiftly and decisively, and thusly quickly vanished from the front pages. For a long period Nicola enjoyed a strong net positive with Scottish voters, in the high 30s to mid 40s. It then fell to mid to high 20s after the summer break last year, probably a result of Covid fatigue and not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel to the sunlit uplands. Paradoxically, Nicola often had a higher net positive in the rest of the UK than in Scotland during that period. And the vaccine rollout, which was eventually as successful in Scotland as in England, an even a wee smitch better according to official statistics, did not see here skyrocket to higher levels of approval. Obviously other events had an effect here, from the SNP's infighting to the handling of the Holyrood investigation into the Alex Salmond case. There are also some hints of discontent among SNP voters, even if the overall trend remains spectacularly stellar over most of the last fifteen months.

That last item is probably what Nicola should be fashed about most these days. For an extraordinary length of time, there has been nobody disapproving of Nicola in the party's ranks, just a wee smitch of 'neutral'. And when there was a wee hint of disapproval, it was probably just Kenny MacAskill having a bad day. So we had statistical evidence of what Unionists and disgruntled Yessers called The Cult. But these milk-and-honey days are over for Nicola. Her support among SNP voters dropped by an amazing 19% in the first two March polls, from a net +88% to 'only' +69%. And we're talking about a leader whose net approval rating varied from +65% to +99% over the last fifteen months, so we're definitely at the lower end of the spectrum here. If any English party leader had seen his popularity with his own voters drop in such a way, he would be out on the street in his Union Jack shorts begging for his bus fare home, while the party would be busy anointing the next disposable Chosen One. It can't happen in Scotland, we Scots are more civilised, and did invent The Modern Civilisation As We Know It, did we not? Anyway it's quite obvious Nicola will not be impeached, as the Greens will be available to vote down any motion of no confidence. But she should definitely sit back and reflect about the true reasons why her net positive among SNP voters is now 30% lower than at its peak last year. And she definitely can't expect to make up for this with the Green voters, who are mostly neutral about the way she handles her job, whatever level of support their party is likely to offer in their unmistakeably opportunistic way. Just wait and see what the next approval polls have to say.

Every time Nicola Sturgeon speaks, it’s amazing

I feel like she’s on the top of a hill with all kilt and no knickers

Just going “you can take the piss, you can grab our pussies”

“But you’ll never take our freedom”

(Aisling Bea, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2016)

The weird thing in the Scottish referendum was they went for a "yes or no" vote

Instead of an "aye or git tae fuck, ya schemey bampot prick" vote

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

So let's see first what has happened on the IndyRef2 front. Remember that, only two weeks ago, we were basking in the glory of 23 successive polls predicting a Yes victory, with just one showing a minuscule No lead. Just let that sink in: TWENTY FUCKING THREE against ONE. I would have taken those odds any day on any issue. Then it all went tits up. Forget the fake poll in The Scotsman, which they readily admitted did not comply with British Polling Council guidelines and thusly was basically crap. But they ran it anyway as it made for cheap click bait fitting the Unionist 'SNP fail' narrative. Shame on them. Unsurprisingly this poll has since been discarded by all serious aggregators. But it's still up there on Wikipedia, with only a minimal footnote warning unsuspecting casual readers that it's just crap. Then we also have had four real polls showing a steep decline in Yes voting intentions, even if the No lead remains within the margin of error in all cases. Bur even this can't hide the basic fact that we reached of peak 58% for Yes not so long ago, and that we're far from this now. And the trendlines of Independence voting intentions definitely look quite depressing.

This month's snapshot, based on the last four polls, definitely paints a doom-and-gloomy picture. Make fun of Ruth Davidson recycling her 2016 jibe that we are 'past peak Nat' all you want, but there's some somber warning in it as the Yes vote definitely went downhill throughout 2017, and certainly more significantly than Baroness Davidson ever anticipated. And you could squarely pin the blame for this on the SNP and the totally unprofessional way in which they conducted the 2017 general election campaign. I remember the Scottish Leaders' Debate ahead of that election and how Ruth Davidson attacked Independence with all guns blazing in the first 20 seconds of her opening statement. And how Nicola Sturgeon did not even mention the word itself until 26 minutes into the debate, while letting herself be cornered into answering questions about reserved matters that were totally irrelevant to a general election. Just to remind everyone that Nicola is not always a brilliant campaigner. Of course you may argue that we now start from a better position than in 2012 just after the Edinburgh Agreement. Surely trailing by 2% is better than trailing by 30%, and we know how the actual campaign cut the No lead by two thirds. But just look back at the Independence polls after the 2017 election, and how the No vote rose to a double digit lead for most of the end of 2017 and all along 2018. We did not see a Yes majority again until August 2019 and it was just a one-off. The tide turned for good only in June 2020 and now it's turned the other way again. So the current snapshot might just be a warning that things can only get worse before they get better.

Don't be naive, or misled by some interpretations of what is going on, or not, within the English Government. Now is the time for them to 'allow' a second Independence referendum. Not because it would be democratically impossible to refuse it, as the mantra goes, but because odds are they would win it. That's what I call their 'Québec strategy'. Then they could tell us "You've just had your second 'once in a generation' opportunity and you fucked it up again. So now it's 'once in a lifetime'. Be seeing you in 2100". They could even play their hand more mischievously, by imposing a three-way question including the Devo Max option, that only a minority of Scots support. But it would snatch a few percentage points off the Yes vote, allowing oven-ready PR about how a majority of Scots favour the Precious Union in one incarnation or the other. Just consider there is something fishy happening out there when even Tory dinosaur Jacob Rees-Mogg floats the idea that the English Government can't oppose IndyRef2 forever. And even if the next batch of polls are more favourable, we should never underestimate the SNP's proven uncanny ability to totally fuck it up even when dealt the best of hands. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is something we have seen before, haven't we?

One of the things I like about it is they’d have to change the Union Jack

They’d have to get a new flag for England, Wales and Northern Ireland

And I suggest a frog on a motorbike

(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

I had a brief nap during Election Night and the man I was staying with woke me up

And he was in tears because Jim Murphy had lost his seat

(Jon Richardson, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2015)

We have also had a poll of Scottish voting intentions for the next general election earlier this month, from the usually reliable YouGov. But I have my doubts about this specific poll because its regional crosstabs show an almost even distribution of votes for all parties across all regions. It totally contradicts not just the findings of all previous polls that publish regional crosstabs, but also the reality of the subnational voting patterns in all elections over the last 10 years. Even when injecting the over and under-performances from YouGov's poll into my model, the result of the projection is still counter-intuitively closer than expected to an uniform swing projection you can get from Electoral Calculus or Election Polling. It actually protects Conservative seats in the North East while leaving their Border seats in the danger zone, quite the opposite of what we usually get. It would even project Labour gaining back Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill because of a rather implausibly high over-performance, 16% above their national average, in Central Scotland. It's quite clear from other polls that Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath or East Lothian would be much likelier Labour gains on a bad day for the SNP, especially as sitting MPs Neale Hanvey and Kenny MacAskill are not part of SNP HQ's Ninth Circle and could face either attempts at deselection from the gendercultist clique, or minimal tepid support from the party's election machine.

There are other counter-intuitive results when using YouGov's regional crosstabs here. The Conservatives would be within shouting distance of gaining back Gordon, and Labour would have decent odds in two more Central seats: Airdrie and Shotts, Motherwell and Wishaw. Which does sound implausible, but that is what the numbers say. And numbers never lie, or do they? Now some of my readers might still think Westminster polls are irrelevant because Scotland will be independent by the time of the next general election. Provided first there is no snap election, and I wouldn't wager even a fiver on that. Then just remember the 2014 timetable: actual independence only 18 months after a successful referendum, meaning the next one would have to take place in November 2022 at the latest. And I don't see that actually happening, even if further IndyRef2 polling showing a 'No' lead would be the perfect background for a massive gamble by the English Government. It would also require the Scottish Government strongly pushing for it, which I also consider an unlikely occurrence for a variety of reasons. One of which being that some sitting SNP MPs do enjoy the snug job and salary, and need some more years to accrue a 'decent' pension. Hasta la dolce vita, Baby!

North Korea said that would be good if Scotland go independent

And that they’ll back them, which is worrying, innit?

It’s like Oscar Pistorius telling you to be more impulsive

(Rob Beckett, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

The divorce analogy is still going on though, cos it is….

It’s the couple who decided to stay together at the last minute and now they hate each other

The next morning: “No, we’re not better together”

And that’s the funny thing that’s going on in Scotland now

Cos there’s lots of Labour voters going over to the SNP

And it kind of feels inevitable that it will happen at some point in time

(Krishnan Guru-Murthy, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

And now on to the pièce de résistance, the Scottish Parliament polls. We've had three of them this month. One each from Panelbase, YouGov and Savanta Comres. Before I dissect them any further, remember we're just under two months away from the election, and the SNP have indulged in a totally reinvented exercise in internal democracy. Which was clearly one step beyond the Leninist democratic centralism we have come to know and love under Nicola Sturgeon. This time was more like elections in China: vote till you boak but your betters have already chosen the winner, as a comparison between the real results of the list selections and the official lists of candidates show. Not sure this will help the "Both Votes SNP" message getting through, quite sure of the opposite effect actually. Back to our recent polls, Panelbase still don't offer regional crosstabs, which means you start with votes for all parties evenly spread across all regions. And YouGov's crosstabs are, just like their Commons poll, suspiciously close to an even distribution too. So even my reworked algorithms (more on this below in the closing section) deliver something quite close to an uniform swing projection in both cases. Then the Savanta Comres poll shows under and over-performances that look exaggerated in some cases, but that's what the correction mechanisms in my algorithms are here for (again, more on that later). Below is what my model makes of these three polls individually. Just notice that the YouGov poll is clearly off the trend shown by the other two, and even its headline voting intentions might be something of an outlier.

Now you can be delusional, or bask in wishful thinking, whichever you like best, and even some SNP MPs are not immune to that. All you have to do is make a fuss about the YouGov poll and say "Look at this one and how good it is", and totally pretend the other two polls just don't exist. Or you can do a reality check and realise all the reasons why the YouGov poll, just like its Westminster polling companion, walks and quacks like a flawed outlier. There's another option, just for Unionists, that is to loudly claim the Savanta Comres Scottish Tracker is the only one that matters because it's the most recent one. But we all know that, if there's a truth out there, which you are welcome to disagree with, it must be somewhere in between these confusing results. So just have a look at what the weighted average of the three polls says about voting intentions, and what my model makes of that. Which is again quite close to uniform swing as larger samples tend to iron out the outliers, and even more so when two thirds of your source material is already quite close to uniform swing. You might want to think it's not that bad as we still have a majority of seats for the SNP. Only the very last poll does not, and the weighted average is three seats down on the "Peak SNP" we had in mid-February. It's even six seats down if you consider the uniform swing projections instead. So nothing to write home about, and we can all hope this will be a wake-up alarm bell for SNP HQ, and they won't put it on snooze. They will soon be able at last to campaign full time when Holyrood goes into recess, and focus on the election instead of indulging in unnecessary distractions. Fingers crossed, then.

Notice we have two polls now predicting one or two independent MSP, even if the weighted average erases them. The most likely one might be Andy Wightman in Highlands and Islands, and the runner-up Martin Keatings in Mid-Scotland and Fife. Or not, as the alt-Yes vote will probably be split between several lists who will bag an impressive 117 votes each. Alt-Yessers have inherited these so appallingly Scottish traits of being both tribal and feral, which is one sure recipe to achieve fuck all. If they just sat back and took a deep breath, they would realise the obvious: their only chance at bagging a couple of seats is to unite all under one banner and stand as joint lists in every region. Thusly they would have a remote chance at propelling both Andy Wightman and Martin Keatings to Holyrood and be a thorn in the SNP's arse for the next five years. But unfortunately for them, many of this lot have been potty-trained in politics as SNP or Labour members, and all they remember from these days is how to fuck up a golden opportunity. Something in which both parties have proven expertise. Then it is not outwith the realm of plausibility that enough potential SNP voters will find the alt-Yessers better value for votes than the Greens and allow them to sneak in through the back door. Stranger things have happened, and at least Martin Keatings deserves it, in acknowledgment of the excellent work he has done with the People's Action On Section 30. Then maybe Andy Wightman does not really deserve another term after all, for having been the SNP's useful idiot during Holyrood's Salmond inquiry. Just saying.

Better Together is a terrible slogan for the break-up of a marriage, innit?

It’s like sleeping in separate beds but you’re just doing it for the kids

(Rob Beckett, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

It was like 300 years we’ve sort of been together with Scotland

And that’s going to be a big breakup, innit?

Imagine, like, sorting the DVDs out

I’ve only been married two weeks and the DVD situation is well out of hand

(Rob Beckett, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

Now bear with me for a wee while as I update you on the fine tuning of my model. I told you last time I had revamped it to inject the over and under-performances shown by the regional crosstabs. Then I had a bad feeling about the results and sought a second opinion. Mine, actually. Until that lightbulb moment when I realised injecting the raw overs and unders from current polls was a double whammy as you already have overs and unders in the 2016 results, and that was like counting them twice. And the right approach was not to inject the current overs and unders in the model, but just the difference between today's overs and unders and those that were already there in 2016. Let's say current polling shows the SNP overperforming by 4% and Labour by 6% in Glasgow, and you think it's fine. But both overperformed there by 6% in 2016, so it's actually a wee swing from the SNP to Labour. Which does not matter in Glasgow as the SNP are so far ahead in all constituencies that it would take much more than this for Labour to gain back any. The flaw in the original reengineering was more visible in the South. Let's say today's poll says the SNP are underperforming by 7% and the Conservatives overperforming by 12% Doon In Doon. And that spells doom as it would swing a couple of seats to the Tories. But the SNP already underperformed by 6% and the Conservatives overperformed by 11% there in 2016. So today's poll is more like "no real change" and says no seats would change hands. So I altered all the formulas to inject only the differences between today's overs and unders and 2016's, instead of the raw values, and replayed all the polls conducted in 2021 accordingly, so here's what we get now.

The results are less shockingly bad for the SNP than they were, or could have been, in the early not-too-well-ironed version. But they remain slightly less favourable than what you get from a projection on uniform national swing. Which you can do yourself using the Scottish Parliament Swingometer page on the Electoral Polling site. Or you can rely on Ballot Box Scotland, who have their own methodology, which is neither mine nor full reliance on uniform national swing. Just bear in mind the values may differ but the trends won't, as everybody relies on the exact same pool of polls. My approach may amplify the warning signs from unfavourable polls, but that doesn't mean the warning signs aren't there. Just as being paranoid does not mean there's nobody out there to get you. So there's little comfort to be gained from the uniform swing projections, as they too reflect the recent decline in the SNP's voting intentions. And any method would also reflect the impact of better polls, which we all can only hope will happen as SNP HQ up their game, preferably in time for the election to not be a massive setback.

Whatever colour your glasses are, you can't escape the conclusion that something is going fucking wrong here. Especially if you agree with my diagnosis that the last YouGov poll walks and quacks like an outlier, so that the Panelbase and Savanta Comres polls might definitely be closer to the harsh truth. So 'tis is the time of the year when we reach that point where the Twittersphere goes Mount Etna with finger-pointing. I won't play the blame game here or plead both-sidesism, that's not what I do. Let's just say that one of the sides in the SNP bar brawl had much more leverage on shaping the narrative and public opinion's reactions, and totally fucked it up. Not naming names, but you know who you are. And if you don't, you're dafter than I thought. Let's just hope it won't end up with us proving that the chindi have taken over, and we really deserve to be colonised by wankers and ruled by effete arseholes. The saddest part here is that the election might be decided in the very last couple of days by something of a coin toss. Will enough people just say "fuck it, I've had enough of the SNP's dunderwhelps fucking it up as they go" to make 2017 look like a good year in comparison? Or will Douglas Ross prove enough of a jobbernowl to rally the Yesser troops around the Saltire and propel the SNP past the magic 65? Your guess is as good as mine.

The biggest missed opportunity was for England

Because there was a point during the campaigning

When Cameron, Clegg, Farage and Miliband were all in Scotland

Which was our opportunity for a snap election on independence

Put an armed guard up at the border and keep the pricks up there for a while

You can have them now, you deal with them for a bit

(Jon Richardson, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2014)

Jeremy's Den

14/03/2021

Cutting The Branch

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