YouGov, along with our media partners Scotland on Sunday, have been running regular tracker polls for the last couple of months, including polling a proper sample in Scotland. Most pundits take the view that you have to look at several polls to get a real picture of the situation, so having this much information is great for those of us wanting to work out what the Scottish political map will look like come the General Election polling day hangover.
See here for a link to the latest polling information from Scotland on Sunday.
Adding a wee twist is YouGov’s recent change to their sampling and weighting methods to factor in a more realistic picture of SNP support as it has settled down since the 2007 Scottish election. The March 17 poll was the first to use the new method, and they have helpfully recalculated the polls from February until then so we can see the difference: a slight diminishing of the Labour lead and a corresponding increase in the SNP share.
In terms of how this changes the predicted results, the trusty ScotlandVotes seat calculator tells us it makes Ochil and South Perthshire a pretty certain bet for the SNP’s Annabelle Ewing to win from Labour incumbent Gordon Banks. It quashes the suggestion of Labour gains from the Liberal Democrats in East Dunbartonshire and Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey from a couple of recent polls under the old weighting, and points to a more solid basis for Conservative predictions of success in Edinburgh South and in Dumfries and Galloway. So, the change in Labour support is having a positive effect on seat predictions for all the other parties, even though the poll numbers for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are not altered by the recalculation.
No matter which calculation method is used, the polls still point to just a handful of seats changing hands in Scotland. We a re currently looking at a softer landing for Labour in Scotland than elsewhere across the UK. This would include winning back their two by-election losses since 2005 in Dunfermline and West Fife and in Glasgow East, according to these polls. The Conservatives add just one seat to their current meagre tally, as do the SNP, with both gains coming at the expense of the Labour Party – though as mentioned, the SNP lose their Glasgow East by-election gain. The Liberal Democrats also lose a by-election gain back to Labour, and retain the 11 seats they won in 2005. Local factors may, though, mean more drama on election night than the polls predict, so the all night swingometer-fest may still be worth the Friday morning bleary eyes.
ScotlandVotes of course works on a uniform swing, so of course we could see different results in the two by-election seats or perhaps seats like Livingston where maybe the expenses crisis could play a bigger part.
A couple of the recent polls have also included questions on voting intentions for Holyrood. The figures indicate that Labour would become the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, though YouGov’s sampling and weighting changes make the margin less comfortable for them. At this point in the electoral cycle, with the SNP Government at what should be its mid-term nadir and the media focus firmly on the UK-wide parties in the run-up to the Westminster election, it should come as little surprise that Labour are doing relatively better. The hint of growth in support for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for Holyrood should be seen in the same context. Over a year away, the Holyrood election results have never been less predictable, with any number of potential storms in the air which could buffet any party’s ratings one way or another. The first of these will be the imminent UK General Election, and there will be scant time for the parties to sit back and take stock in the aftermath before needing to resume momentum towards the next big election in May 2011.
