Local government, London Mayoral and Scottish Parliamentary elections on 6th May

[Emrys]

4. Scottish Parliament elections

No point in repeating what I posted here and in the posts below it: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1088&pid=20377

We now have the first Scottish polling since Alex Salmond launched his new list-only Alba Party, with fieldwork having been done in the days after the launch:

Link to tweet

Politics for Scotland
@PoliticsForScot

🚨 New Scottish Parliament poll, Survation 29 - 30 Mar (changes vs 11 - 18 Mar):

Constituency:
SNP - 49% (-1)
Con - 21% (nc)
Lab - 20% (nc)
LD - 9% (+1)

List:
SNP - 37% (-2)
Lab - 19% (-1)
Con - 18% (-1)
Grn - 11% (nc)
LD - 8% (+1)
Alba - 3% (+3)

Demographic breakdown:



Usual caveats about margins of error apply, but more so because the sample was less than 1,000. Survation has generally had a house effect of tending conservative on its Scottish polling.

The 3% for Alba would likely mean they take no seats at all, but may have unpredictable effects for the SNP and Greens on the list (conversely, they may improve turnout for the SNP marginally among those, a relatively small minority, who were dissillusioned enough to envisage not voting for them this time, but may be persuaded to turn out and vote SNP at constituency and Alba at list level).

This is going to be a difficult election to poll because of ongoing COVID restrictions, which will affect canvassing and possibly turnout. The franchise has also been extended to include 16-year-olds (the SNP enjoy around 70% support among 16-24-year-olds) and foreign citizens who are permanently resident, so there won't be any turnout weighting for them based on historical performance. It's as well to bear this in mind for any Scottish polling during this election.

Alba isn't the only minor party standing. Some constituencies have 20 or more candidates. Since most of them are unionist and in some cases a few hundred votes one way or another in a constituency or region could be decisive without figuring significantly in a national poll, it makes the situation even harder to read.

There's also a Kantar whole-UK poll, though Scottish sub-samples in national polls can be unreliable:

The poll, published today by Kantar UK, found that a massive 7% of voters across the whole of the UK would vote SNP in a General Election.

Estimates from the Office for National Statistics suggest that around 8.2% of the UK’s population lives in Scotland, meaning a 7% result would be an absolute landslide and is likely outwith the realms of possibility.

However, this represents a 3% increase on Kantar’s February poll, which found 4% support for the SNP. The firm’s January poll also found 4% support for the SNP across the UK.

Pollster Mark McGeoghegan said this 3% increase represented a “statistically significant” change in position for Nicola Sturgeon’s party, adding that the margin of error at 7% is around 1.5 points.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19205432.kantar-poll-puts-snp-7-per-cent-uk-vote-going-holyrood-election/

This at least shows no detectable negative effect for the SNP and Sturgeon from the months of Holyrood enquiries around the Salmond affair and attendant, sometimes blanket, bad publicity.

Salmond's performances in his media appearances so far haven't been impressive. He was roasted at the beginning and end of his BBC Radio 4 morning news interview earlier this week about his refusal to apologize to the women involved in his court case for behaviour that may not have been found illegal, but was at least, by his own admission, unacceptable. It's utterly predictable that questions like that will dog him throughout his campaign, and it's surprising that someone who's been seen in the past as a grand strategist doesn't have better prepared answers other than the fact he won two court cases and it's "time to move on".