I’m a Philadelphian (who absolutely loves British politics though), so pardon my ignorance. Even with the vote shares listed above, wouldn’t Labour-Lib-Dems still have more votes than the SNP?

The recent YouGov poll breaks down the Scottish respondents as follows: SNP 35%, Labour 27%, Conservatives 18% and LibDems 13%. That would be for a general election tomorrow - interestingly different from the Scottish Parliament findings.

Joe - they would, but the vote share is largely immaterial. If the SNP manage to form the next executive and call a referendum on Scottish independence, voting for or against independence won’t necessarily line up with voting SNP or otherwise.

Andy D - be careful of looking at the regional figures in YouGov’s tables for GB polls. They aren’t based on government regions, but on ITV television regions. Specifically, remember that Borders TV covers part of Scotland…but also Cumbria, and the London television region actually covers a large chunk of the home counties.

Joe - any coalition formed by Labour and Lib Dems after the election (assuming SNP is largest Party) would be deeply unpoular! In fact so unpoular I fear what the reaction might be!

Labour has this weekend has been calling for an anti SNP vote on Thurday! So it is possible that this poll has over estimated the Labour vote! They are in a hysterical panic in Scotland! Labours own polling is suggesting the loss of far more than 10 seats!

Iain

This sounds promising. Is it going with a winner issue?

If the canvas returns that are being talked about by my friends involved in the election campaign, from both Labour and SNP, are anything like the reality of the situation the Labour Party is in for a horrible night on Thursday.

There appears to be concern in Labour ranks about seats that would be considered “rock solid”.

I understand that they fear they may even lose control of Glasgow Council, which has been controlled by Labour for as long as I can remember

Glasgow has been Labour-controlled since early 70’s, I think (1972-ish).

But nationally, labour have not lost an election in 50 years (European, Westminster, Holyrood or overall council) apart from a marginal hiccup at the 1979 Euros.

This has the greens on five seat as opposed to ten seats in the last Yougov poll which had the prompt for all the parties.

I have a feeling that on the list the greens will do better than this poll shows, possibly at the expense of the LibDems and SNP, although it will varry from region to region.

Ther Sunday Herald has the full figures as

Constituency; SNP 38%, Lab 30%, LibDem 15%, Con 12%, others 4%.

Regional List; SNP 32%, Lab 27%, LibDem 12%, Con 14%, Greens 6% SSp 2%, Solidarity 3% others4%

In WS this gives.

Lab 41 (-9), SNP 47 (+20), Con 17 (-1), LibDem 17 (0) Green 5 (-2) SSP 1 (-5) Ind 1 (-2) Others 0 (-1).

Effectively everyone losing seats but the SNP. The herald predicts Labour on 40 not 41 and the tories and Libdems both on 18 not 17, with no independants.

AsI am predicting the Greens to out perform on this poll, I am going to stick my neck out early and barring a last minute “event” go for.

Lab 39, SNP 46, LibDem 16, Con 17, Solidarity 1 (TS), Green 9, Ind 1(M McD).

I’d love to see Labour one or two lower and the SNP hit fifty and the Greens ten, but I don’t see it happening.

Peter.

Jack

I have heard the same as Martin! Also heard the same from Lib Dem contacts!
My Lib Dem contacts have been saying that they will lose seats to the SNP as well but balance that off with those that they will pick up from Labour! So no advance on thier 2003 result! Also Greens eating into thier regional vote in particular!
There is a growing consensus that Labour could lose up to 20 seats! There has also been a seismic shift in the Scottish press today. With both the Herald and the Scotland On Sunday endorsing Alex Salmond and the SNP - I speculate that the political commentators in the press have also been hearing what Martin and I have been hearing!
From what I hear from Tory contacts - yes I speak to even Tories! Well they are apparently trenching themselves around McCletchie in Pentlands! They expect to lose Galloway and expect SNP to hold Perth comfortably!
Also consensus on possible turn out at 58 to 62% - significantly higher than last time! A calculated guess based on canvas returns!
However Thursday is still along way off but general consensus is that Labour cant pull this one around! Not now! Consensus is that there is a mood for change!

Oh I forgot to add - Labours regional vote is appearing really soft and opinion pollsters are way off here!

The Yougov “superpoll” published today appears to have been sampled before the poll in Friday’s Telegraph. If you put the last 3 Yougov polls in chronological order, the SNP vote creeps up: 37, 38, 39% All within the margin of error, or course, but maybe worth mentioning nonetheless.

Hopefully we’ll get an ICM poll from The Scotsman this week, to see if another reliable pollster is getting the same figures.

Both the Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday ( effectively the Scotsman on Sunday) have come out and backed the SNP to form a government, in SoS’s case through gritted teeth.

Neither are ringing endorsements but with the executive one of the biggest advertisers in Scotland they know which way the wind is blowing which side there bread is buttered and any other metaphor you care to mention.

Peter.

[…] Really? Nicol Stephen is currently ruling out a coalition unless the SNP block their plans for an independence referendum. And the latest, largest, poll, puts an SNP-Lib Dem coalition at having a majority of 1. Hardly a strong administration then - that suggests that for the Lib Dems to agree to it, their price would have to be rather high indeed. […]

Nicol Stephen is having his strings pulled by Ming The Merciless! Ming is gambling on being in coalition with Broon at Westminster after next Brit Election and that Broon will give him the keys of the Foreign Office - his real political ambition!
Imagine that for a scenario! Brown and Campbell, conspiring to keep the Tories out of government in England!It is a possible scenario!
The Lib Dems hope for an anti -Tory coalition especially as Labour under Brown will probably be unelectable on its own!
In Scotland the Lib Dems are unlikely to advance on thier 2003 performance! They picked the wrong leader in Nicol Stephen!

Lots of ifs in this but ……..

if the rumours are really true that the Labour vote is collapsing and
if it breaks as expected
and
if the SNP end up with 50-55 seats

there may be an outside chance of an SNP/ Greens administration and the LibDems being frozen out.

I know .. a lot of ifs but it would be a nice slapdown to the LibDems who have managed to annoy a lot of people with their attempts to distance themselves from everything the last executive did.

Anthony,

any idea when we will see the full tables forSunday’s 1,900 poll.

The Herald today is saying that it shows an 8% swing to the SNP for local council votes.

I am particularly interested in where it may indicate party support will switch between list and FPTP, as well as Council.

Peter.

These results are similar to what I have predicted. The SNP will get around 45 seats, Labour around 40, Conservatives 18 and Lib-Dems 17.

The Conservatives will miss a lot of their targets; instead of losing ground in Perth they will stay stagnant and the SNP will gain at the expense of Labour. I think that Pentlands will remain a Tory seat and so will Ayr but the most realistic chance of a Tory constituency gain in my opinion would be Eastwood from Labour. I would say Tweedale may fall from the Lib-Dems but I am not as sure.

I dont think anyone can predict what is going to happen locally with STV! I know that in my own council district there is one political candidate (SNP) and the other 8 are independents but 5 of them are actually Tories! 4 candidates will be elected to serve on council!However I will not be voting for any of the independents seeking to return to the council - they have done a very bad job and deserve to get kicked out but it seems I will not be able to get rid of them! They have formed an independents coalition!
In more political seats how people vote 1,2,3,4,5 etc is just as unpredictable!
It could also be a farce when the count comes and many people dont list any other prefernces as seems likely.I know that I am tempted to just vote for onew candidate and maybe a second preference and no other!
I admit I do not like STV as a means of voting, I find something undemocratic and repellent about it! It is an invitation to negative voting! Our democracy is sick enough already!
However it will be nightmare for political pundits to make predictions on!

I have had a report tonight from one of my Lib Dem contacts, they are very worried about SNP on constituency votes and the Greens on the regional lists! They are confident of picking up seats from Labour meltdown. But that they will be down on thier 2003 performance in votes and seats overall!
In fact in last place behind the Tories!But I think they are depressed!
They are grumbling about Nicols performance in campaign and on TV debates! General agreement amongst thier activists that he has performed the worst of all the Party leaders!

There has been an odd feeling since Sunday in Scotland, that it’s all over bar the shouting.

I hope it doesn’t effect turnout with people thinking that they can just sit at home. The parties are still going at it hammer and tongs, but the public I think just want it over.

If I am right it could actually alter the result from the poll predictions. SNP voters might stay at home as they think it’s in the bag and it be closer, or Labour voters stay at home or switch and the SNP to back a winner and the SNP could have an even bigger lead.

We’ve had the most amazing summer weather over the last month that people are more interested in their gardens than the election. It makes canvassing easy for me.

People are out and about rather than behind closed doors, they tend to be in a good friendly mood when you stop to chat and as the SNP is doing well and there is a real mood for change, most of the time you get a positive response. Oh and I’ve lost 8lbs in the last month, apparently one of the SNP council candidates on Skye is claiming to have lost almost 2 stone, just from a month trudging round in the sunshine.

It’s a lot different from cold wet October nights when Blair was on a high and the SNP faltering.

I am fast thinking a campaign for fixed terme for Westminster and elections in mid June should be the way forward.

Peter.

With regard to the STV; Australia has had it for ever and I think it is a far more edmocratic than FPTP which magnifies the winner’s result. Why do I like it, simply with FPTP the person who is liked by the most people wins even though the majority may loathe that person. (in a 10 candidate seat a winner could emerge with 10% of the vote plus 1 even though all the other candidates reject that view). With STV you actually get the most liked person AND you can vote for minor parties (say, ’save local hospital candidate’) to indicate a concern which main parties should be picking up more. But you know damn well well it’s how you rank the bigger boys which actually matter. So you learn how to vote for the party you want most and at the same time you learn it’s important to put last the party you despise. In effect STV gives you two votes; one for your party and one against the party you reject. That’s why it’s fairer…

It’s neck and neck now (or so says today’s Scotsman/ICM poll):

List: Lab 29%, SNP 30%, Con 13%, LDs 16%, Greens 4%
Constituencies: Lab 32%, SNP 34%, Con 13%, LDs 16%.

Seats: Lab 42, SNP 43, Con 17, LDs 23, Green 1, other 3 (Tommy, Margo, Jean Turner)

But is it really neck and neck?

For example, the Scotsman says the prediction assumes that of the 20% ‘don’t knows’, the overwhelming majority are ex-Labour voters, of which about 1/2 will return. Without this correction, the SNP lead would be 4% (list) and 7%, much more in line with YouGov.

It also states that the SNP is privately delighted, as this poll will keep its activists motivated. Well, I bet they wouldn’t be delighted if they believed the figures!

The poll also predicts turnout will be up to 58%. But in that case, then Labour would have to gain more than 100,000 list votes (on top the 560,000) they had last time just to stand still, and I’d find such a massive increase in the Labour vote quite implausible.

PS Weren’t there Scottish Opinion and Populous polls last week? Anyone got the numbers?

Greenspousse,

It also seems to have the Greens back down at around 3%, which is below YouGov particularly when they are named as they will be on the first Ballot.

Also the actual list paper won’t carry SNP but “Alex Salmond for first Minister” and at the top as it comes first alphabetically.

I said in an earlier post that there had been a change since sunday and this might reflect it. I just hope we don’t have the worst of all possible outcomes, ie

A wounded Jack McConnell returned when people wanted Alex Salmond leading a bruised labour Party in bed with libDems they hate, propt up by tory votes to get the budget through.

That would be four years of political torture remenisant of the last days of the major government.

Peter.

In the Saturday Scottish Times the Lib Dems said they would NOT form an anti-SNP coalition with Labour if the SNP get the largest share of the vote. The Lib Dem line seems to be that the wishes of the voters should be respected and that the party with the largest share should have the opportunity to try and form a government.

The greens have said they will not form coalition with any party that is pro-nuclear power (and especially not with any pro-Trident party) so that rules out a red-green coalition but leaves the door open for a SNP-Green pact. A solely Labour-Conservative coalition is pretty unlikely (imagine how it would go down in Glasgow!).

Unless the polls are wrong in the way they were in the ‘92 General Election, it looks like the SNP will form a minority government with support from the Lib Dems on issues such as a local income tax to replace council tax. However, it is unlikely that a full SNP-Lib Dem coalition will be formed - the Lib Dems are against getting rid of Trident and don’t want a vote on Independence and these are two of the SNPs main policies. For other policies (such as Trident) we can expect Lib Dem-Labour-Conservative agreements.

To Greenpousse!

I doubt if it is really close! ICM poll is not credible! Indeed the latest yougov poll shows SNP with a 6% lead! Yougov have at least some credibility from last general election to back them up! ICM does not!
Also noted your figure of 100,000 votes for labour to stand still on the projected turn out! That is not credible either! I have heard predicted turn out predictions of 58 to 62 % coming from political activists within SNP and Lib Dems. But Tory activists suggesting it will be a slow as 55%. Only Labour suggesting that it could be higher than 62%. Only if it is a fine day and it does not rain as it often likely to do in Scotland!
There are several reasons to suggest why ICM poll is not believable but I will not repeat them all here!
The most obvious reason is that this is a deeply unpoular Labour govt! A deeply unpopular govt does not get 100,000 extra votes - not unless there is a large scale fruad in operation! No a deeply unpopular regime falls in what might be called mid term elections!

One of my friends pointed out that there has been a record
number of postal and proxy vote applications in Scotland! This is not being scrutinised in Scotland the way it is being scrutinisd in several places in England!
The Scotsman is as you know is a poisonously and rabidly anti SNP publication! I think that Thursday will show that ICM as utterly discredited itself as a polling organisation because of this association!
Thier figures just dont add up and defy common sense! Not least as you cant assume that the dont knows are going to vote one way or another or that they will vote at all! It only compounds any errors or in this case the scale of manipulation attempted! All the other polling organisation cant be wrong! Odds are that ICM is way of the mark! I believe that Thursday will demonstrate that!

To Peter!

Whatever happens! Happens! I just do not believe ICM poll! I would be very surprised and a little angry if I wake up on Friday morning and find that nothing has changed!
That would not be democracy working - but an elected tyrrany! I believe that Labours domination of Scotland is coming to an end!
It is a different political landscape from 1992!

So after all the polls ,the predictions and the thousands of words NOBODY really knows what will happen tonight. Tomorrow with the benefit of hindsight pundits will tell us that it was obvious all along (to them) who would win and who would lose . Perhaps they will say that if the Lib Dems fall short of expectations it will not be unconnected to the performance of Nicol Stephen-by far the weakest of the party leaders. Having taken a 1-0 lead in the home leg they may conclude that the SNP opted for blanket defence in the away leg but timidity may have cost them the result in extra time. The Tories for whom Annabel Goldie has been a surprise success may be said to have failed because they are beyond recovery and could’nt field a full side and if Labour lose? It will all be blamed on Blair, Brown, Iraq, cash for honours all the usual suspects. Me? I fancy a score draw and a replay in September. Don’t drink too much coffee tonight guys -all that caffeine is not good for you!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=RKXY1W4YCHJRTQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/05/03/npoll03.xml

for the Yougov poll reported in today’s telegraph. SNP are back on course…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/03/npoll103.xmlfor an even more cogent analysis…

Why have the other papers not picked this up??

Key point for me from the late Yougov polling is the 9% list for greens and the fact that only just over half of Libdems will stick with them for the regional vote, and that a quarter may well vote Green.

as i have said before, polls put the LibDems between 17 and 23, and the greens between 4 and 9 seats, the same seat spread. On polls that have the greens as others they tend to get low score, down as low as 3%.

These results point more towards Libdem 18, Green 8 than Libdem 22, Greens 3.

My prediction from the 29th April was,

Lab 39, SNP 46, LibDem 16, Con 17, Solidarity 1 (TS), Green 9, Ind 1(M McD).

It could have closed by a seat or so, (40 labour 45 SNP, 17 LibDem, 8 Green.

But I think i’ll stick with my prediction.

Oh and as to the crucial Highland four member ward of”Dingwall and Seaforth” , I am going to go for Peter Cairns the SNP candidate in the top four out of eight ……..

Peter.

Note that YouGov, excluding don’t knows, has a lead for the SNP of 6% (constituency) and 5%(list), which is actually very similar from ICM’s result of 7% (constituency) and 4%(list) if don’t knows are excluded.

The headline ICM result was based on assigning most the don’t knows back to Labour. The simple question is, whose method is correct? ICM say their method is based on experience, but my guess is that while their method might be correct in low-swing elections (UK 2001, 2005), it isn’t necessarily in high-swing elections (UK1997, this one). So my money is on YouGov.

As to the Greens, we still don’t know if ICM prompted the Greens. But given how YouGov changed when they started prompting the Greens, I would guess ICM does not, and that thus the YouGov figures are more accurate.

Alternatively, this comment is just wishful thinking.

Sounds fun-and a long night. Why don’t we hold elections on the wekend like the rest of the world?

Superb. And in 15 years time Blair’s legacy will be Iraq and the breakup of the UK (unless the Conservatives embrace change and go for a real federal Uk like most of the rest of the world).

Well my prediction was well out,

Labour got it’s vote out on the night, and the Greens/LibDems split just didn’t happen. It seems that the SNP v Labour contest squeezed everyone.

The voting fiasco didn’t help, as a lot of people spoilt the Regional vote by putting an “x” in more than one box, that particularly seems to have hurt the greens and if they lost even 10% of the 150,000 spoilt ballots it will have cost them seats.

It looks like we could have what I said earlier the worst possible out come,

“A wounded Jack McConnell returned when people wanted Alex Salmond leading a bruised labour Party in bed with libDems they hate, propt up by tory votes to get the budget through”.

One thing I did get right was that I got elected……..

Peter.

Maybe just as well that I didn’t post my prediction as it was even more out than Peter Cairns’. How did that happen? And, oh, ICM’s last poll seem to have been pretty close.