It’s obvious now who is going to win this Westminster general election. It’s going to be won by flag shagging British nationalists. We also know that it won’t be the Tory by flag shagging British nationalists, it will be the Labour by flag shagging British nationalists who have adopted a slew of Tory policies, followed by the Faragiste by flag shagging British nationalists on the frothing hard right. Despite the excited touting of some wildly outlying polls by GB News, Farage’s vanity company calling itself a party Reform Ltd. won’t actually win enough seats to form the official opposition to the Labour juggernaut, but it is likely to make that all important psychological breakthrough of getting Farage, and possibly a handful of his acolytes, elected to Westminster for the first time.
But the rise of the far right in this election is real and concerning. A poll by pollsters BMG published on Thursday evening put the Tories and Reform both on 19% with Labour on 42%, this would give Starmer a majority of over 300 on a minority of the vote. The Tories would be reduced to just 53 and Reform would win 5. However we are getting close to the crossover point where the first past the post system, which penalises the smaller parties would start to allow Farage to pile up seats.
Farage has his eyes set on a larger prize, the attention seeking narcissist is not trying to get into parliament in order to lead a tiny band of extreme right wing eccentrics on the opposition benches. With polls predicting the worst Conservative defeat in the modern democratic era, Farage intends to swoop down on the corpse of the Tory party and devour it. You’ve heard of vulture capitalism, this is vulture politics. Farage wants to transform the ruins of the Tory party into an authoritarian hard right xenophobic anti-immigrant party led by himself.
Farage is thinking about the election after this one when the public is heartily sick of Keir Starmer and his lies about change. He could then be in a position to get the first past the post system work to benefit him and in that election we could see a nakedly far right authoritarian English nationalist party led byFarage contend as the party of the next government. It’s quite possible that Farage’s position will improve even further by polling day in two weeks.
The Tory campaign has been a disaster, and continues to implode. It was already going poorly when Sunak decided it was a good idea to bugger off early from the D-Day commemorations in order to do an interview for ITV which will be remembered solely for the multimillionaire ex public schoolboy’s ham fisted attempt to make out that he understands the deprivations of the poor and low waged in this cost of living crisis his government bears much of the responsibility for because his parents wouldn’t get Sky TV when he was a kid.
The Tory campaign has been notable for the reluctance of cabinet ministers and big names to come out and defend the government, not least because most of those who have not stood down are eyeing up their chances of leading the party after Sunak’s inevitable resignation.
It’s maybe just as well however as those who can be persuaded to crawl out of the woodwork do more harm than good. Everyone talks utter bollocks on a come down from the excesses of the night before, but who the hell in Conservative campaign HQ thought it was a good idea to send Michael Gove out onto breakfast TV on Thursday to tell viewers that he thought it was still possible that the Tories could win on 4 July. Cocaine does make you wildly over confident, but even Gove knows, deep down in that shrivelled block of ice he calls his heart, that no one is buying his snake oil any more.
Chris Skidmore the Conservatives’ former net zero tsar and minister for universities under Theresa May, has defected to Labour, writing in the Guardian that he’ll be voting for Starmer’s party on 4 July because Sunak has been “siding with climate deniers” to politicise the energy transition.
It got worse for Sunak during the BBCQT leaders questions. Sunak got tetchy. He was dying on his arse as the audience shouted “shame, shame on you” when he talked about leaving the ECHR. An awful, out of touch man. Both him and his corrupt party will be decimated in two weeks time and he knows it. He looked lost and beaten.
Meanwhile at CCHQ: “You are in charge of the worst election campaign in history, Tony. Things can’t get any worse.” Tony Lee: “Hold my beer, will you.” Tony Lee is the Tory campaign director who on Thursday was forced to take a leave of absence after allegations were made that either he or his wife Laura Saunders, the Conservative candidate for Bristol North West allegedly placed a bet relating to the timing of the general election.
Saunders becomes the second Tory candidate to be accused using inside knowledge of the date of the election to make a quick buck. Tory MP Craig Williams, a senior aide to the Prime Minister, who is standing for re-election as the MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr in Mid Wales, also reportedly bet £100 on the date of the election just before it was called.
Williams has admitted to placing the bet, calling it an error of judgement, saying: “I put a flutter on the General Election some weeks ago. This has resulted in some routine inquiries and I confirm I will fully co-operate with these. I don’t want it to be a distraction from the campaign. I should have thought through how it looks.”
It’s partygate all over again at CCHQ but with betting instead of booze. It’s likely that the reason Sunak hasn’t taken decisive action over Laura Saunders, Craig Williams and Tony Lee- both Saunders and Williams are still Tory candidates, is because a whole raft of staff at CCHQ also placed bets for a giggle, and now they are all keeching themselves. The Tories have finally found a hill that they can die on, but no one expected it to be William Hill.
Gove popped up again on the evening news to say the behaviour of Saunders, Lee, and the others was “unacceptable” adding, “people shouldn’t be using privileged inside information in this way.” Is that what he told Michael Mone?
The Tories are in freefall and Farage is waiting at the bottom of the electoral cliff to feast on their battered remains. Look beyond 4 July and see what is coming down the road. Scotland needs to get out now and we can start by keeping the dream of independence alive and voting SNP on 4 July. Sure they’re not perfect, but look at the alternative and weep. If we don’t, it will be Scotland’s political corpse that Farage and the other Anglo-British nationalists will be picking over.
I am on holiday next week, we are going to the south of England to visit friends and family and to Cornwall for the launch of the Cornish map of Cornwall. It’s the first time we have got away anywhere since I had the stroke. I will be back a week on Monday – 1 July. I’m sure there will be plenty to keep you occupied in my absence.
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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).
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Wee Ginger Dug 
Enjoy the wee calf, and every success on the launch of the map – I suspect it will generate considerable interest, but FFS don’t mention the Tories… 😉
The SNP are no longer an independence party, they are a hindrance and won’t be getting my vote.
Really. Good Luck seeing any other Indy supporting parties winning any seats in the GE.
Absolutely! Which is why page 1 of the SNP manifesto says this, and nothing else:
“VOTE SNP FOR SCOTLAND TO BECOME AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY.”
Join the 1%. Vote Alba.
We all have one vote. Mine is going to the SNP because they are the only practical sane choice. Anything else is ‘cut one’s own nose off’ student politics.
A hindrance you say.
I say that you’re another fake Independence supporter or are living in cloud cuckoo land and it is YOU and others like you who are the real hindrance to Independence. The Tories are welcome to your vote.
Good for you. Now off you jog.
Have you the tiniest inkling of understanding as to where you, your party and your party leader are in the pecking order of political relevance?
The ancient order of the Fu*ckwits could achieve more votes if they stood for election
Touch a nerve? I’m not in any party, I was an SNP member for 17 years and an ALBA member for 2 years, I left both because neither has a credible plan for independence, unless you think the futility of begging Westminster for another section 30 is a plan. SALVO/Liberation Scot are the folk that have a plan and they are apolitical. Goodnight.
Are they standing in the election?
I don’t see how voting SNP in a GE and being active in SALVO or signing the proclamation are mutually exclusive.
What have the SNP achieved after being given 6 mandates by the Scottish voters? Sweet fa, What’s their plan if not a section 30? Do you know something I don’t?
I still don’t see how supporting both are mutually exclusive. Is the SALVO position now anti-SNP? It didn’t used to be.
alanc51 is NOT a fake Indy supporter, and it does the YES movement no favours at all calling Indy supporters fake, troll, Brirtnat or even unionist just because they have different opinions.
Then he is living in cloud cuckoo land and it is HIM and others like him who are the real hindrance to Independence.
It happens the other way as well – to people who actually support the SNP, or at least don’t criticise them. One well-known poster calls the SNP “Traitors” btl on the National, and on his blog.
So we all waste time spitting at each other, throwing our toys out the pram when we’re contradicted, while the actual Unionists laugh, laugh, laugh.
Yeah, I know, it’s human nature.
The one thing I have never done is to go on to any other Independence blog and tell people I won’t be supporting X, Y or Z because they are a “hindrance” to independence.
That is trolling, no other word for it and no wonder the Unionists laugh.
It was people like you Daniel Defoe was talking about when he infamously said ‘we’ve captured them’ How low do the SNP have to go before you see the light? I was born in England and some so called Scots make me cringe with your subservience to the Nicola party.
Sent from Yahoo Mail. Get the app
The real traitor here is YOU who is trying their best to prevent support for the SNP at the coming election.
That is something that the Unionists are also trying to do because without the SNP there will never be another Independenece referendum no matter what Salvo might tell you.
So from where I’m sitting I see YOU and others like you doing their very best to work hand in glove with the Unionists parties in Westminster to stop the SNP from building support for Independence.
Forcing Westminster to recognise that it is the right of the Scottish people to decide how they wish to be governed is nowhere near enough. The objective has to be to persuade enough sovereign Scots that Independence is right for them, that is the only meaningful objective and that is the SNP’s plan.
What’s yours?
it does the YES movement no favours at all calling Indy supporters fake,
You should tell alanc51 this. That’s what his (?) opening post does.
Enjoy your break. Cornwall will be a treat to visit and I’m sure your map will be a welcome reminder of their Brittonic heritage.
We will certainly have plenty to discuss this week. I’m looking forward to July 5th!
Oh my! Not a good idea to look up Farage, particularly the Urban dictionary.
“The Tories have finally found a hill that they can die on, but no one expected it to be William Hill.”
Superb! LOL
Enjoy your holiday in Cornwall, recharge the batteries since there’s an election week to get into for when you get back.
Cornwall is a beautiful part of the world – just remember the jam goes first if you have any scones, if you put on the cream first they may well end up deporting you back to Scotland!
Or rather deport you across the border into England and tell you to make your own way home (in Cornish). 😉
“if you put on the cream first they may well end up deporting you back to Scotland!”
==========
Or to Devon, more likely .
This comment is pure gold… “The Tories have finally found a hill that they can die on, but no one expected it to be William Hill.”
”The Tory Party is the party of Power”
Paddy Power?
(Other bookies are available)
Actually, it’s British nationalism that’s dying.
If the British Conservative and Unionist party dies, the union dies with it. This should be rather obvious.
Starmer is an English nationalist and so is Farage. Starmer has purged the UK unionists from his party; they were the centre to left pan-UK social democrats; the devolutionists… the Labour that saw the UK as 4 peoples. He’s replace these with centre-right English nationalists in his own mould.
Even if we were dealing with old British Labour, you’d still be dealing with the sister party of the pro-reunification SDLP. The party that facilitated semi-independence for Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland.
Unionists be warming up to dance on the grave of the union. It’s really bemusing to watch.
It’s not the Tories that will break the union. 14 years of them and it’s still hanging on by a thread. Nope, it’s English nationalism in the form of Labour and Reform.
Starmer is already denying Scots in his English lebensraum right to vote, including Labour supporters. All hell is going to break loose when he makes No. 10 with no mandate in Scotland as polls project.
And what could yet be the icing on the Yes cake, he may do so on less votes UK-wide than he got in 2019! That’s where the polls have him currently. Would be truly glorious.
I do hope you’re right. I don’t see how a very low turnout can, in itself, trigger the break-up of the union. Will they not just carry on “as normal”, or will it come about as a result of a lack of mandate over some specific issue?
It completely undermines the result. If Starmer even managed to win on less votes than 2019, it would be totally comical. A farce of epic proportions. ‘Carry on Westminster’.
But of course he’d march on regardless, it’s absolutely key he does, and does so even with the right wing press telling everyone, correctly, he’s no mandate. The democratic reaction would be to acknowledge how the public has totally lost faith in the system, and legislate for a referendum on PR, followed by fresh elections. But that’s never going to happen. He’s a power hungry little English dictator.
So instead Scots will watch a right wing English nationalist Labour government with no mandate in any home nation telling them to ‘shut it jock scum’ etc while it imposes crippling austerity and ruins the economy.
Labour will split at the Scottish and Welsh borders if Starmer takes over as the denier of democracy. Welsh Labour having been saying for some time now that any Scottish / Welsh desire for an iref must be respected by London. Holyrood will pass another bill requesting iref2 from a Starmer government, and Starmer can’t mutter a few words to a camera. He has to do what the Tories did and become them completely, or facilitate the vote.
Now Labour have been body swerving this successfully by not being in government. But soon they will be the hated government denying democracy. Scots need to see this. It’s what finishes the union. FHS, 31% of Labour voters back indy. Labour are f**ked in the next Scottish election if Starmer says no to iref2. It will be them facing complete wipe-out. Tories said no to iref2, and soon they’ll be gone from Scotland for doing so. Starmer does the same, it will happen to Labour too.
Watch Northern Ireland too. A republican victory is possible, and that means prep for a border poll down the line under heavy international pressure, especially if Starmer wants to move the UK towards the EU in any way. If the N. Irish are going back to the EU, why can’t the Scots?
It’s all leading to indy by 2026. If Starmer denies iref2, Holyrood 2026 becomes a defacto iref and that’s that. Will be a new record high turnout, overtaking 2021’s record, as Scots abandon the UK.
Think of the outcome (lowest turnout in history) as a symptom of the diseased and dying UK. One with negative feedback effects for it.
The highest ever turnout for a Holyrood election in 2021 followed by a total collapse in turnout for UK elections is highly symbolic.
“N. Irish are going back to the EU.” Forget the “if” in front of this phrase, it’s already happened, as under the NI Protocol we are EU territory, Britain is treated as a foreign country and there is an Irish Sea border. So your wish has been granted some time ago.
It’s not as such my wish, but the wish of the people in the province. They wished to remain in the EU and to have free movement with it / Ireland as part of the GFA.
What I wish is to see an end to the division of imperial era partitioning in the same way we all celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall. Partitioning invariably brings socio-economic harm, division and violence. The North of Ireland is no exception. However, folks living there must decide what they want for themselves, it’s not up to me.
Also, England / Scotland are foreign countries to N. Ireland and always have been. Hence people in the province are not e.g. all running around in Scotland / England tops with respective flags up right now cheering on respective teams. Ulster Scots is not English, neither is Irish Gaelic. N. Irish law is not English / Scottish law etc etc. The north of Ireland is as foreign to Scotland as France is. Except for e.g. me as I’m part Irish from the north before it was the north.
If Ireland had qualified, you’d have seen lots of Ireland tops / flags I’d imagine. It’s not foreign at all to much of the north.
There were some in Cornwall that wanted Independence, as well as the Devolutionists. I vaguely remember support for Indy rose there during our Indy Ref, perhaps 10%? It’s another country that was asset-stripped by the anglo-saxons over the centuries, same as Wales at the time and later of course, Scotland. Copper, zinc, silver and of course tin. I don’t think there was gold in Cornwall, unlike Wales.
Someone should send Westminster the invoice.
Another pollster showing UK Labour dropping below 40%. Whitestone Insight.
Based on the trend in my PoP, they fell to 40% on average a day ago, down just shy of 5% on their peak the day before the ITV 1:1 debate. Project that forward and low 30’s is readily possible, even less than the local elections. Then you have the fact Tony lost 7% on the day compared to polls. Miliband 3.5%…
Honestly, prepare for unexpected outcomes. Tories look totally screwed, but don’t rule out Labour having a rather bad night too, even if they do still come out tops in England. They are losing votes for now pretty rapidly, and that’s with turnout still low. If folks come out and decide to go for a smaller party, they could start losing seats too. Wee parties make inroads on low turnouts more easily.
Would be funny if Labour fails to win a majority. The pollsters would have so much egg on their faces. Naeb’dy would pay for an MRP poll again!
You may recall comments earlier in the week when Starwars published some sort of “Scottish” Labour manifesto that mostly dealt with matters that were devolved to Holyrood – thus conflating UK elections and policies with those rightly solely dealt with by the Scottish Parliament. We called him out for muddying the waters then – and now we get to do the same with “Welsh” Labour.
Not to be outdone our First Minister (who recently lost a vote of No Confidence in himself, but is now LINO – Leader In Name Only) has put his name to a “Welsh” Labour manifesto for the UK General Election.
Said manifesto includes:
– promises to tackle NHS waiting lists. (Currently the Senedd’s responsibility, not Westminster – and is signally unsuccessful currently by those in charge: “Welsh” Labour Government, of which in a previous incarnation, the current FM was once Health Minister)
– plans to recruit new teachers. (Education is currently devolved to the Senedd. It is not a ‘UK’ matter)
– intention to create a new Border Security Command. (For the UK not Wales)
– Nowhere is there a reference to the great con of HS2 which deprived Wales of ‘Barnett consequentials’ of an ‘England-only’ policy, when not one 1 inch of rail would have been laid in Wales.
– Nowhere is there a promise to increase devolution to Wales (as even Welsh Members of the Senedd* want. *Other than the present FM, of course.)
– Nowhere is there recognition of the need to devolve the Crown Estate (as in Scotland), so another avenue of funding for Wales is refused
All in all – a confused, botched prospectus with Cymru tagged in as an afterthought with proposals which deliberately conflate devolved matters with those which are not.
Welsh Labour launch general election manifesto (nation.cymru)
Do you still believe that Gething, Starwars and Starmer et al. care about our respective countries?
And so it begins.
Oh man I hope this arrogant pathetic little man, a shitstain on the St George’s cross, fails to get a majority and gets less votes than last time.
But still wins. Oh aye; that’s key to independence. the final planet aligning. I want the wee shite tae win and the party of the union, the one that has embodied unionism since universal suffrage – The British Conservative and Unionist party – to completely collapse.
https://archive.is/ocCyd
Starmer: No referendum for Scotland or going back on gender reform bill
The Labour leader categorically ruled out negotiations with the SNP on leaving the UK.
Roll on a hated right-wing English Labour government Scots didn’t vote for. The media can tell us we don’t need independence; we just need to wait for Reform to win and all will be well again as soon as nasty Labour are ousted.
English Starmer planning to overturn policy Scottish Labour voted for. This will not end well for the union. For many Scottish Labour MSPs, GRR was close to their hearts.
Watch Labour split in Scotland before Holyrood 2026. British nationalists vs (former) Scottish unionists plus the secret 30% Yes. Starmer will try to purge the Scots in Scottish Labour the moment he gets into No. 10 and feels the absolute power running through his veins.
ScotNat: We demand democracy.
Britnat: Stop being so divisive.
It’s the DENIAL of democracy that is truly divisive.
You’d think even the Labour party members themselves would have noticed Starmer’s comments on refusal to negotiate with the SNP
What Starmer in effect is saying is that no political party, no democratic will, no popular selection, no preference of anything Scotland want’s will be considered ever while he is in power unless you choose to become a second hand English/British person and join his party then he’ll allow you to sit in his parliament
Maybe even quite near him, Ooh!
I have no interest in negotiations will people like Starmer or any of the British, I support another solution because it’s all the British understand
65 countries can’t be wrong
Starmer’s autocratic nature and rule within Labour is starting to bleed out into Labour’s wider political stance. He won’t speak to democratically elected SNP MPs. He most likely will have little truck with environmentalists and crack down on protests. A raft of his shadow Cabinet had to step down for supporting a ceasefire in Gaza. He has already shown himself intolerant of Labour MPs who support strikes, I think he will be intolerant of the strikers themselves.
While we have all observed how right wing Starmer has become but I’m not sure we have really appreciated how unpleasant that is going to become in day to day life, especially if, as expected, Labour have a massive majority. Once in power Starmer might have to cool his jets for fear of rebels to the left if he had a small majority. However a massive majority comprising of large numbers of new Starmer chosen loyalists will render the remaining left wingers impotent. We are entering uncharted territories. Scotland participating in this zombie walk into the unknown does not bear thinking about.
Progress report.
I was about 50% and maybe more, spoil my ballot as per my gravatar with the SNP seeming to have lost the way on Indy, with “make Scotland Tory-Free” (who cares I want it Westminster-free?) “progressive progressive garbage meaningless virtue signalling doublespeak save the planet bankrupt Scotland”, or “send a stupid pathetic pleading message to Keir Stramer”. What a crock.
But with the page 1 of the manifesto itself, and no mention of pleading for a Section 30 for a temporary transfer, but at least going for a permanent transfer of powers to hold a referendum, perhaps through an opposition bill or 10 minute bill to change the Scotland Act permanently rather than by Order of Council for a one-off which will never happen, it’s now 75%, maybe more.
This is for feedback hopefully. I am still looking for full commitment to “negotiating for Independence”, with that meaning more than just putting out the begging bowl again.
I’ll probably fill in and post my vote next Friday when I get it.
And by the way, yeah, I know such a Bill by SNP MPs has no chance of getting through.
But it adds to the mounting evidence that Scotland is denied the inalienable right to self-determination INTERNALLY in the UK State, so must seek it EXTERNALLY.
If you are Scottish and support your own nation, under the Starmer regime you are not British and therefore do not count
This is how the English created the Scottish cringe
Were you poor? Are you ashamed of your accent? Are you impressed by the word London? Do you believe the Royal family are by birth better than you?
There are a hundred examples of this British water boarding of the Scottish psyche and they’ve used it on every country they ever occupied
Yassum Massa Starmer a’s woiking dem fields boss
Never mind 10 years a slave how about 300, oh and remember, America threw them out of their country too
One more thing, Starmer would never have said what he said if he wasn’t 100% confident of winning the general election in England
If he’d thought the contest might have been close he’d have hummed and hawed and bluffed the answer the same as Milliband and Corbyn before him did, and both of them lost the general election, why? because the Tories and the papers bigged it up that deals might be done with the SNP and the electorate of England doesn’t want Scotland in what they consider to be their parliament
Wake up Scotland
TOT.
Does anyone know how long the ‘yesbikers’ website has been down ????
Sorry should have also asked do we know if any other ‘.scot’ sites are down ????
Seams a bitty odd to me especially today of all days. Or is my paranoia showing again ????
From the GL election campaign by the SNP:
“At this election we are asking you to vote SNP for an independent Scotland. If the SNP wins a majority of Scottish seats, the Scottish Government will be empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK Government to give democratic effect to Scotland becomingan independent country.
It is through the power of democratic pressure that we will secure the right of people in Scotland to decide their future. “
How?
This is like saying can we have a referendum please sir, we have a mandate. That has now failed a few times so how is this new statement any different? Had the party stated that the Union Treaty allows this empowered by the Claim of Right in a plebiscite election where every registered voter was given a written note to inform them in advance that a vote for a majority of independence supporting candidates would end the Union then OK. The need for the written note is to ensure that the unionist media and their Scots supporters cannot say ‘ah didnae ken.’
They need to ask Starmer so Scots can see him say no.
And not the SNP asking, not its MSPs nor MSPs, but the PR elected parliament of Scotland. A full on motion passed by the parliament requesting a Section 30.
This is key. It breaks the union completely and makes a Yes guaranteed in a defacto iref in 2026.
I’d have thought this obvious.
You win independence only by having Scots behind it with no going back. That’s the aim of asking and having Starmer say no. Scots now see that Lab and tory are no different at all in any way, and that they can never get a government they voted for in the UK, only by independence. That and things can never get better in the UK, as when Labour fall in time, it will be Reform (or some grotesque new comb of them and the Tories) that replace them at the helm with the Tories having collapsed.
Also to show the international community that a defacto iref in 2026 was the only way, as every other avenue had been exhausted.
Spot on.
Now there is very, very little doubt that polls are structurally favouring unionists due to silent SNP2019.
Which makes all these results particularly impressive for Starmer. They guy is despised as a politician, and that’s with polling as structurally in favour of him as it can be of late. Just imagine what it would look like if we had representative polls not oversampling Labour…
Aye, the most unpopular incoming PM ever (c), that’s Starmer.
The last planet we need in alignment for independence by 2026 is moving across the horizon to fit into place on independence day.
Right click on image and ‘open in new tab / window’ for a larger version.
Note in the above, the first 3 are 2 way, with the latter 4 having a ‘neutral’ option. In the latter 4, the neutrals have been mainly moving to negative. Some of the most recent points are in that SNP low in May where SNP2019 disengagement / labour oversampling peaked.
The only pollster that gives him still positive ratings is the ‘We heart Labour’ Redfield and Wilton, who see the same UK wide. But even they have to admit Scots are getting turned off Starmer more each day.
Labour will fundamentally lose this election no matter how many seats they might get.
Tony Blair was god-like at the same time for ratings and was actually offering something pretty damn good to Scots – devolution. He lost 7% on final VI polls UK-wide and by 2003 Scots were already taking to the streets to protest against him en masse.
The constitutional shit is flying towards the fan at breakneck speed. Confirmed time of arrival is July 4th.
And to follow on from 2011, here is the similar 2019 case, albeit it the change was from an 8% higher base.
Nothing happened at all until the last couple of weeks when polls suggested the SNP were possibly edging up a bit by a point or so. But then it seems they’d stalled at 42% according the English panel pollsters. But certain to vote levels were going exponential and the rest is history.
We’re at 57% turnout projection for now. When this edges up even a tiny amount, it’s all to SNP, both in Scottish and UK-wide polls.
A rise to 60% could potentially deliver 45% SNP when 68% was what was needed last time. This is because the unionists are much weaker than last time structurally. Their ‘good’ polling is all a product of Yes/SNP2019 disengagement.
The unionists need people to stay at home if they are to make gains while going backwards. A repeat of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election.
So the focus should be on encouraging folks in Scotland to vote. It’s all that’s needed. They are already won over to the cause. They just need to go out and say so.
I note Labour support UK wide is the opposite of SNP in terms of the turnout link. For Labour, when turnout goes up, they lose ground rapidly. Only Corbyn’s left wing agenda managed to buck that trend a little in 2017.
The party of despair, despondency, no hope. Of giving up because nothing’s going to change (poll data is pre-election average for 2024):
‘Labour – winning when you give up hope of change and stay at home!‘
The Alba complainers might do well to remember that if Alex Salmond had had his way in 2014 with his third option of “Devo max” on the ballot paper then even had that option won Scotland would still not be independent
That was the now leader of Alba who says he can do what he didn’t do before when he chickened out and tried for more devolution and Cameron called his bluff
History shows that Alex Salmond was in actual fact the real devolutionist
Tell an Alba that and all you hear is *But but but hate the SNP*
What’s Scotland got? It’s got the lot. From the Herald:
“Glory for the Tartan Army as Scotland fans voted the best at Euro 2024“
Even the best Euro fans.
To put things graphically, the SNP VI vs turnout projection is currently thus:
Past couple of months of UK data and Scottish back to mid 2022 before the drop. Both show the relationship between turnout and SNP that’s been present in Scotland since at least 2011.
At the moment, combining the two trends, if we go from our current 57% TO to just 60%, SNP should get 42% before any Grn +/- Alba tactical. Labour would drop back to 30% or lower as this happened. So 45% for the SNP readily with tactical, and you’d be looking at total Yes party share equalling or topping 2019.
Which is nuts if true, as that means the SNP is far stronger. To command 45% of the vote on 60% turnout rather than 68% is crazy strong. Or rather the unionists are very weak.
Anyway, project forward to a 68% turnout, matching 2019, say because all those silent SNP decide to go for it and come out of the woodwork, well you can see what that could mean, and still without tactical.
The steepness of those trends is actually what’s causing us to see low SNP / the high volatility. Slight variations in response rates – so turnout projection – causes big changes in VI. Error is very large too due to the low turnout numbers.
But if turnout goes back up even a few %, the data say it will be seriously squeaky bum time for the unionists.
In 2019, turnout shot up from 59% to 68% in the week before. If we got a 10% rise, then look at 67% TO…
So don’t give up hope yet. We can still qualify for Europe!
Even just a similar number of silent SNP crawling out of the woodwork at the end like 2019 and it could be a very fun night.
Also, a smaller rise in turnout seeing the SNP go up to even 40% would mean the SNP gets a bigger mandate than Starmer, particularly based on current higher turnout figures for Scotland vs UK. They’d have two bigger mandates as well, one for each parliament.
Labour seem to have dropped to 40% UK-wide, and are losing real voters. If turnout rises UK wide, it should not be to Labour. For two decades now they’ve relied on low turnouts to make gains. Only Corbyn bucked that trend a little.
So Starmer could end up with less votes and less seats per respective electorates than the SNP quite easily.
Just needs a small rise in turnout, ideally either side of the border.
Here we are, or rather we were when panelbase came out (Savanta tables not out last time I looked). A small rise around the time we may have had one in 2019 (-42 days, i.e. when campaigns are beginning) has occurred, raising SNP from pre-election lows, and taking them equal with Labour or thereabouts. A tiny rise in turnout was all that was needed for this. Just 0.5%, hence the high volatility.
Note how we’ve had far more polls this time. this is because the SNP are behind. When they are in trouble, polling is far more frequent. When they are doing well, it’s less common. This is propaganda 101.
So the increasing radio silence here might be positive. However, it’s that final week we need to watch.
Spelling mistakes are all my own!
I’ve noticed that pattern from previous elections. When the SNP are doing badly in the polls it is all over the media. When the SNP goes up, no mention of it in the media.
Anybody sighted their postal vote yet?
yes
Cheers. Mine was waiting when I got home after talking the dog out for a walk. The postie must have been really late today.
I was a bit concerned because they were supposed to go out Wednesday. That’s me done and dusted. Off to pop it in the mailbox.
We haven’t got ours yet. Letter we received said they would be sent out “around the 21st June”. Given the state of the post these days that may be cutting it a bit fine!
Mine arrived yesterday. 🙂
Got mine on Friday. Says ‘use a black pen’, also for the x?
Pencils are used at the polling stations.
I think they scan them into a computer so black ink will be more visible.
Cheers Capella. Already done with black pen as advised on the form for signature and dob.
This is a – munged to spare the blushes – comment btl on an article in the National from someone who should have known better as an ex-SNP member who very possible voted for the SNP manifesto at the conference..
“SNP loyalists seem to forgot 2015 when the SNP got 95% of the seats and 50% of the vote, but it led to absolutely nothing.”
This is wrong, but a meme amongst some who maintain the SNP are not an Independence party anymore.
The 2015 SNP manifesto was “Stronger for Scotland”, and at no point at all did it ask or demand Indy Ref 2 as the first one was only just over. Nor did it demand or ask for Independence, as the result of that ref was NO (for the time being).
Instead it was, and with the campaign itself, a claim that the only way to get Smith implemented was to vote SNP – and half the voters in Scotland supported that and kicked out all bar 1 MP each, of the three disappointing Unionist parties who supported Better Together.
2015 election was NOT about Independence, and anyone who claims it is, is either a fool or dishonest.
Yet nobody apart from me bothers to counter that lie.
Yup, that is a fact. In fact I recall Nicola being quite explicit in TV interviews that the May 2015 was not a re-run of the September referendum.
In 2015, the people of Scotland were respecting the result of the referendum and were not in majority yes yet.
If we vote Yes, they will respect that too. It’s the only people we need to satisfy that Scots want independence; Scots themselves.
Once that happens, there is no stopping it, which is why the Brits are doing everything to stop us voting.
It’s also why a defacto iref in 2026 would work perfectly. But the SNP have got to show Scots, and the world, they’ve tried everything else first.
This is last chance saloon for the unionists. If Starmer also says no, it’s over. If he says yes, it’s probably over too.
A question, but why don’t Scots fans have the same animosity / rivalry with Germany? Or Welsh fans? Or even French fans?
All these fought the 3rd Reich in WWII as well.
England would have lost without the help of us Scots and the rest of the allies. It never stood alone. We stood with it, along with the Free French, Poles etc.
Saying no to iref2 is how it repays us. Did the same to Ireland as thanks for WWI.
https://archive.is/KV3gs
EUR NICKED Moment ‘drunk’ English fan chants ’10 German Bombers’ during arrest in front of Tartan Army
AN England fan was arrested by German cops yards from a British consulate as he sang Ten German Bombers in front of horrified Scots.
The man was wrestled to the ground by two officers close to the office block in Dusseldorf just hours before Three Lions supporters were preparing to watch their team take on Denmark.
Obviously is a subset of the English fan base, but it goes all the way to the top, right to the pundits in the commentary box. Germany are the rival to beat. But for Scots, they’re just any other team, albeit a really good one who generally kick our butts.
What’s funny about this manufactured English German rivalry is that the Germans consider the Dutch to be their biggest rivals, not the English
Most tournaments would rather be without the English in them, not because of how well they play, purely because they’re just so much trouble
22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.”
1990,1996,2010 all losses in tournaments that stick out in England fans minds and they have all come against Germany so you get the focus on and attention of Eng v Ger matches because as an England fan you think that history is going to repeat for its self.
Are you an England fan? I thought you were British? 🙂
Thanks, but it clearly goes beyond football, as the well known English fan song being sung shows. Scots were not singing that in Munich. Germany has kicked our butts way more times than they have England’s. Of that I am sure!
Then there’s the hooligan element. Why does England have a particular problem that does not occur with all the other home nations? What is the cultural difference driving this?
Scotland does have hooligans. The standout ones are British rangers fans who do not have a good reputation, even when they go to England to visit their British brethren! But they don’t support Scotland, so don’t travel with the Tartan Army thankfully. The Tartan Army is naturally dominated by Scots rather than Brits from Scotland. Hence the lack of union jacks!
Maybe that’s the problem? If the union jack wavers are our problem, could it not be they’re England’s too?
Why does England have a particular problem that does not occur with all the other home nations? What is the cultural difference driving this?
England had a big problem with club level hooliganism from the 70s to the mid 90s, which then spilled over when England played – I thought you would of know this seeing you have such an interest in the subject, its well documented. Sadly it took Heysel for real focus to be put on the problem.
Thankfully things are much better now, I would not have an issue with taking my kids to any game in the English premiership these days (aside from the of the fruity language they would hear!) Same could not said when I was growing up in the 80s/90s. Of course there is still a small majority of idiots who give the other fans a bad name but there is zero tolerance now. You cause any sort of trouble you get banned from football stadiums and /or traveling to England matches abroad. To enforce this things like making you report to a police station whilst the game is on and/or taking away your passport during the course of a tournament to stop you traveling can be used. There are still a tiny minority who are more interested in fighting then watching the football – but this is not unique for England fans.
Facepalm.
Go to a foreign land, refuse to learn the language, drink in “English bars” and shop in stores that stock proper tea from Blighty. An obtuse immigrant? Goodness No! An Expat, dontcha know.
🤔
Wherever an Englishman sets his foot shall be forever England
Except sometimes they call it British and Britain these days, got to keep up the pretence dontcha know, what?
And when he dies … there will be part of a foreign field which is forever England.
< boak >
While Starmer tanks, Swinney soars.
Just noticed even ‘We heart Labour’ Redfield and Wilton have him net positive in their first question on this. That’s really something. Labour voters rate him.
Even ‘holding out for Labour’ Savanta cannot stop the movement to him.
My money is now going firmly on an SNP win. Possibly one big enough to have jaws on the floor.
It’s primed tae f**k. If voters turn out, the data says big SNP win. Swinney being well out in front of Starmer is a key indicator here.
Salmond was leaving Gray for dust even when polls said Labour could even win a majority in 2011. It’s because SNP voters were disengaged and so Labour were being oversampled, but these were warming to the SNP.
Remember, the SNP have not hurt the electorate, nor broken promises. They’re not denying Scots the vote. They did not drag Scotland out of the EU. They have not forced austerity on Scots. They’re not sending kids to foodbanks. They’re not deporting migrants to concentration camps, they’re not reducing taxes on the rich. They’re not privatising the NHS by stealth. They’re not forcing students into massive debt. And there is no investigation into their finances*.
So who do you think people will quietly turn out and vote for? It’s not going to be two cheeks of the same union jack erse, that’s for sure.
—
*Only into max 3 individuals, none of which are even being taken to court, even after several years of desperate attempts to find evidence.
There’s always the Nicola Sturgeon ate my Hamster story, they have that in reserve
My green supporting brother in law on whatsapp family group chat.
I really really dislike Starmer with a passion. I’m definitely voting SNP
One thing they’re right about!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c722eezx9n4o
Labour don’t believe the polls – and they don’t want you to either
A private memo from Labour’s campaign chief, Pat McFadden, sent to candidates on Friday says “up to a quarter of voters are yet to make up their minds”.
That is way more than most of the polls suggest when they report on undecided voters, estimated to be around five million people.
But Labour takes into consideration not just the “undecideds” but also, the “uncertains”, which could make up another three million.
These are people who, if asked, tell pollsters that they have chosen which party to back, but when asked how sure they are about their choice, they swither.
By the time you factor in turnout, the estimate at Labour HQ is that there are around seven million or so voters who have not yet made their minds up. The final decisions of that huge number of people will clearly have a massive impact on the eventual outcome.
That’s why, in the next couple of days, as the campaign enters its final phase, Labour HQ will start shifting its message.
McFadden’s memo instructs candidates, in bold type, to tell voters: “Don’t stay at home. Don’t assume anything about the result. Don’t vote for a minor party which will only help the Tories. In this seat the only way to stop the Tory is to vote Labour.”
Labour should not be encouraging people to vote. That will only harm them as the data shows. They do best on low turnouts when people have no hope of change.
Sunday morning coffee facts.
9.4 days = Average time between Scottish polls over 2024 to date of election announcement
3.3 days = Average time between Scottish election campaign polls up to point where crossover was apparently occurring, with Labour’s ‘lead’ over SNP disappearing
9 days = Time since since fieldwork of last reported Scotch poll was conducted
16 days = Time since since fieldwork of last reported reasonably reliable poll with a history to check against in Scotland was conducted (IPSOS).
5 days = Time since unionists started releasing 2 week old ‘latest election’ polls for jock consumption (Yougov).
My PoP trend has UK Labour on less than 41% 5-6 days ago. Forward projection would be 39% now. Extend out to election day and could be as low as 33-34%, i.e. down a but more on the local election outcomes. Should still win though.
Con lead over Reform just 4 points 5-6 days ago. Could be 3 now, and if trends keep up, crossover could occur before election day.
Farage’s party coming second could be a further planet aligning for independence that was rather unexpected. If that happens, and Reform do win more seats than the Tories, then the UK would be over in very short order.
The establishment has kept promising Scots that if they just hold on, the Tories will be kicked out and Labour will return to office, bringing peace and harmony back to the union. If Starmer wins No 10 as expected, the message will have to be that if Scots just suffer a hated Labour government they didn’t vote for a bit longer, then all will be well when the latter is kicked out and Farage becomes PM as head of some Tory-Reform alliance. Tough sell I think.
Aye, it seems to me that this election will see the British conservative and unionist party die, to be replaced by the forces of English nationalism. This will force Labour down that road even further, and that will be that. English nationalism ends the union.
Scotland and Wales. Different countries. London is too ironically. Maybe London should become independent and rejoin the EU too.
Maybe the correlation is that the more migration you have, the more centre-left pro-migration you are?
England has the lowest levels of non-English born (19.6%) of any GB nation, particularly if you removed London (40.7% foreign born), which skews England’s figures somewhat. Scotland (20.6%) and Wales (29.1)% have notably higher levels of migrant populations, yet these are far more migrant friendly and more left wing.
England, excluding London, is 15.5% non English born.
You are much more likely to encounter migrants if you go for a walk in Scotland or Wales than you are in England.
Take my nearest sizable town of Inverurie. Very much rural Scotland. At the school awards ceremony the other night, in addition to lots of English economic migrants, middle eastern and central African names were 10 a penny. A product of a key industry here in the NE of Scotland that keeps England in the life it’s become accustomed to financially. Scotland gets the migrants to work in said industry, England gets the money and moans about the migrants.
Have a lovely wee holiday in Kernow Paul.
Mind and pop in for a McFadden’s pasty in St Just, and a beer in the Star Inn, if you can ☺️
Peat Worrier in great form this morning.
Andrew Tickell: Keir Starmer is soulless and has no dream
https://archive.ph/xEXrj
Good article – loved the BTL comment ”Starmer’s father was a toolmaker -and the tool he made was Starmer !”
Harsh…but funny.
Actually a bit strange that someone can get to 60 and not have favourite books and poems, dreams, imagination. I’m sure those who analyse personality as a profession will understand it but it is beyond my ken.
10% BAME in the south
4% BAME in Scotland.
Back to white, wealthy, middle class men. The paternity.
Scotland’s population is ~20% immigrant ethnic minorities. Anyone who isn’t Scottish in self-identified ethnicity is part of an ethnic minority group in Scotland, whether they’re Irish traveler, English, British (but not Scottish), Polish, Asian whatever. Skin colour matters very little, it’s a sub component of ethnicity. There are white African people and black Scots. White Asians and brown Scots etc.
Scots are an ethnic minority everywhere outside of Scotland, including within the context of the UK. England denies ethnic minorities the same voting rights as English people; not allowing iref2 being case in point. It’s why they say ‘Scotland / the Scots’ are not allowed another iref rather than the ‘North British’. It’s because the refusal is on the grounds of a protected characteristic.
I very much enjoyed BBCs Martin Geissler’s *obsession* with asking Anas Sarwar and Douglas Ross about their *obsession* of talking about the SNPs *obsession* over independence for Scotland, because all of the British nationalist parties and their journalist pals keep repeating that absolutely none of the Scottish electorate have an *obsession* about independence
So why are Anas Sarwar Douglas Ross the BBC and Martin Geissler all *obsessing* about something they claim nobody else is *obsessing* over?
And the answer is because people are interested in independence for Scotland but one of the ways to demonise and denigrate that position is to create the correct sounding adjective to a cause you oppose then play it on incessant repeat, like saying the word *potato* constantly begins to sound like a *potato* is a silly thing to be
If you keep calling a Donkey an Ass, eventually nobody knows the difference, but they still sound silly don’t they
Geissler Sarwar Ross ?
You can bet behind closed doors Starmer will be like ‘Fucking bastard Scots’ and other expletives if the SNP win here. He’s no friend of our people. Another Boris Johnson, but really boring.
Corbyn would not say such a thing by contrast. It’s why he was quite liked and respected here as Labour leader. I did worry Scots might be tempted to ‘come home to Labour’ under him.
Starmer’s economic plan to pay for England hinges on Scotland’s resources, particularly oil / energy.
He will not be nice to our people as he tries to hold on to our national income to fill his English purse.
How many countries filled the English purse before the English were expelled
one island example of breaking free…
‘ECONOMY
Since independence in 1968, Mauritius has developed from a low-income, agriculturally based economy to a middle-income diversified economy with growing industrial, financial, and tourist sectors. For most of the period, annual growth has been in the order of 5% to 6%. This remarkable achievement has been reflected in more equitable income distribution, increased life expectancy, lowered infant mortality, and a much-improved infrastructure. The economy rests on sugar, tourism, textiles and apparel, and financial services, and is expanding into fish processing, information and communications technology, and hospitality and property development.’
In a telephone call to the president of Mauritius Boris Johnson threatened trade starvation if that country kept demanding the UN take action against the UK for return of the Chagos islands
The UN has twice ordered the UK to return the Chagos islands to Mauritius
We all know what bj and the rest of the tories are like, memememe…
It’s all about prestige and empire:
‘ In September 2023, former British prime minister Boris Johnson argued that handing the Chagos to Mauritius would be a “colossal mistake”.[49] In October 2023, a paper by three legal academics with a foreword by Admiral The Lord West of Spithead opposed the transfer of the Chagos to Mauritius and argued such a move would be a “major self-inflicted blow” for the United Kingdom.[50][51]
In December 2023, it was reported that the UK government was planning to discontinue the talks.[2]’
That phone call was one nice counter-productive one: the President is basically as present in Mauritian political consciousness as the late Elizabeth’s viceroys were. Even less for the current one. So he was burning goodwill in order to threaten someone widely seen as a less than powerless figurehead.
Sarwar is a blithering idiot.
He probably didn’t dare commit to a number or a roadmap because as a branch office manager it was outside his pay grade. He would need Starmer’s approval so he just waffled.
I am so looking forward to Labour being the hated right-wing English party that’s denying Scots democracy.
I’ve waited for this moment my entire adult life, because it’s what will deliver independence.
I’d love a journalist to ask Assnas Sarwar’s opinion of Mahatma Gandhi
Has this ‘blithering idiot’ in effect just demonstrated that under a UK Labour government the terms of the Good Friday Agreement regarding when the democratic case to instigate a border poll in NI has been made, will not be – will never be – defined in an objective, practical way by Labour?
Or is Labour simply – shamefully – perfectly willing to treat Scotland differently? Democracy deniers and snake oil salespersons – what a combination!
It’s interviews like this that makes its possible to find Labour even more vile than the Tories when it comes to positions on Scotland’s democratic right to determine its own constitutional future!
Starmer will be hoping Scotland get badly beaten in the Euros tonight.
He wants Scots down and depressed going into the election, not celebrating their country’s achievements on the international stage. Nope that might encourage them to hold their heads high and go out and vote for their country.
Who the f**k would want this person governing Scotland.
Another bit of evidence that the SNP vote is the strongest. From IPSOS over two weeks ago now.
85% of SNP backers are doing so because they back the SNP. Just 11% doing so tactically, to e.g. keep Lab, Lib or Con out. That will be mainly Green and Alba tactical.
Look which is the weakest party. Labour. 1/3 of its supporters were only thinking to back it tactically to e.g. stop the Tories, not because they support it.
That means Labour’s ‘real’ support in this poll is just 24%.
Good news is that Labour tactical don’t need to do that as the polls say Labour are going to romp home. So these can vote for who they really support or stay at home safely. That’s the British media’s message! Did the trick in 2017 for the SNP. They were a shoe in for another stunning victory, so their voters could stay at home…
Many of them stayed at home after Nicola’s famous statement that “the only one talking about independence is Ruth Davidson” and perhaps all those yellow pens with “I’m with Nicola” written on them. Longstanding SNP supporters I spoke to on the doorstep told me that the party had given up on independence and had become a leader-cult outfit. So very different this time. Our job is to get these people to come out and vote.
They’d clearly decided they were wrong on Sturgeon and the dear leader cult thing by 2019.
That’s an incorrect statement taken out of context and you should know it, Nicola Sturgeon was talking about the amount of times Ruth Davidson had been using the word independence as an anti SNP campaign tool, she never at any time said she did not want independence
I think you might remember at the time it became a running joke amongst all SNP supporters that Ruth Davidson had mentioned independence into the hundreds of occasions in the exact same way Douglas Ross uses it but adds on his favourite adjective *obsessed*
Incorrect or not, that’s how a great many SNP voters saw it. The number of times an elector told me while canvassing that “I’m not voting SNP – you’ve given up on independence” after watching Nicola make that statement. So they stayed at home.
Came back out in their droves for her in 2019 and 21.
Yas I know. I worked my socks off in all these campaigns and we were much more focussed on independence in 2019 and 2021.
There was no point in a iref2 a few years after iref1. You’d have got 45.5% or something like that.
Brexit was the game changer, but it only changed the game once it actually occurred. Only now are the electorate starting to see how ruinous it is.
Sturgeon knew it would be a disaster, and hoped Scots would understand that, but not enough did. People need to see for themselves sometimes.
The good news is that Scots respected 2014. They’ll respect it too when they vote Yes in due course.
When and in what context did Nicola Sturgeon make this “famous statement” that you’re talking of?
It was on the television hustings between Nicola, Ruth Davidson and the Labour and Lib Dem leaders. Most of the SNP supporters I canvassed on the doorstep heard it and concluded that the SNP has no longer campaigning for independence.
It was the BBC Scotland hustings 21st May 2017. I remember it clearly because the following few days I was canvassing and squirmed with embarrassment as I got it continually thrown back at me.
This is what was actually said between Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson about Independence in that BBC debate
I also watched highlights of the STV debate and Nicola Sturgeon was attacked from all sides over Independence and spent most of the program defending the right of Scotland’s people to have another referendum.
If you can find the exact quote or something close that you call a “famous statement” please post a link as context matters.
Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39995184
The BBC Scottish leaders debate from 2017 is on Youtube and the exchange on Independence between Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon starts around 23:40 mins in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRGUkOqBF0M
She haunts them from the grave because she terrifies them.
Except she’s not in her grave yet, and could be campaigning for indy once again very soon.
Ended bbadly for us. Where’s a wee og when you need one
All that hard work in qualifying and then to play so negatively in the finals. It was grim to watch. I really didn’t understand why Shankland and Forrest didn’t get more of a chance to play. It all seemed so one dimensional.
The squad minus injuries probably are the pick of what is available but there has to be a better game plan than that.
Scotland always go out in the first round. The difference is we’re qualifying again, like in the run up to when we voted for semi independence in 1997.
If you want to progress to round 2 sometimes, we need independence.
Football is a mix of skill and confidence. Independence provides the latter to a nation.
Scotland used to be confident of its place as Scotland in the union. Then it started questioning that, and we stopped qualifying.
Then support for indy in the platinum standard Scottish Social Attitudes Survey went above 50% in 2019 – even with more devo on offer – and we were back on the international stage.
Apologies in advance for tinfoil hat time…. what if the powers that be said Scotland had to be out of the euros because the fans were just too good for promoting Scotland. Everybody loves them. Seemingly (and I didn’t watch the game) there should have been a penalty for Scotland and it wasn’t given. Couldn’t have Scotland getting through to the next round and the subsequent Tartan Army fanfest for the next couple of weeks, now could we?
It’s only a game. Making money for billionaires. Hungary will go out in the next round. Scotland 5 million people. Smaller countries have less chance. The Law of averages.
You’re quite wrong, it’s not only a game, it’s a reflection of national identity, that’s why these events take place
A country feels good about itself when its sporting figures do well
Andy Murray for example, so much so that England claimed him as British which as we all know is their code for English
Football for me and many other Scots is only a game and the love of it is rammed down people’s throats by the media which irritates me . It does nothing for me. I never watched Andy Murray win at Wimbledon. Liked tennis back in the day with Bjorn Borg won. The way tennis is played now is boring as hell. It pleased me when Andy won but that was it As a teenager I used to like watching Golf on TV but I outgrew that too. Sport does nothing for my identity as a Scots or my political views.
A country feels good about itself when its sporting figures do well
I think it’s rather more the opposite. The players will tend to do better when they are confident of their country’s place in the world. If England wants to win a tournament again, it needs independence. It’s not the confident nation it was in 1966.
Sports have their niche fans. How teams do has no effects on how people vote. Which is why anyone who was hoping Scotland lose in the hope of it having an effect, would be particularly stupid on top of being a pathetic excuse for a person.
I’ve even stopped caring about whether England win because the advent of streaming TV and online news means I no longer have news, music and songs about their exploits forced down my throat.
But the Scotland teams are predominantly Scots. Younger Scots. Many from working class backgrounds. Demographically, the majority will support independence, even if they keep such views to themselves to avoid abuse of them and their families by the British.
So it is their nation being subjugated. They have had their vote taken away from them by England too. They will feel the ups and downs we do too to varying extents. That may be reflected in their confidence at times.
The team we have no is very different to when we were last qualifying. It will not be a unionist team. This has been making it more confident IMO. A nation’s growing confidence reflected in its people.
The last time we qualified, our team was unionist, and happy with that. Literally. The days of Souness, McLeish, McCoist etc… It’s not a Rangers team anymore, particularly now. The men’s and women’s teams today are not the 90 minute patriots of old, but majority yessers.
As yourself. What has happened to your feelings on indy since the UKSC case and Sturgeon getting taken out? Has it gone away or gotten stronger? But you did feel a blow right? Two in a row. Anger, sadness? Maybe some despondency, withdrawl? Belief that maybe the cause has taken a setback?
But you are still Yes right? That never really wavered did it, not deep down? And you will go out and vote for the cause, that much is sure right? And football won’t change that right?
So there you have what other Yes Scots have most likely been thinking too of late. Which is why they’ve not come home to Labour, but continued moving to yes. Also a large chunk went silent.
The team we have is so very different to when we were last qualifying
Denmark, Iceland, Serbia, Portugal ????
Too many part – time patriots who define their nationality only by the teams performance whether it’s Football, Rugby or anything else. Many of my friends are No voters, but are over in Germany cheering on their weekend team. Its the same as traveling to the continent innyour car with an Ecosse sticker next to the crappy yUK one. They want to identify as Scottish but not have to take in the responsibility of being a truly sovereign nation.That’s why there is so much pressure on our nation’s teams. There is few outlets for expressing our national identity. If we were independent and a ” proper ” country the pressure to define ourselves would not be solely down to our athletes. The lack of self confidence, welded into our psyche after 300 years of being the junior partner to a boorish, bullying and arrogant larger neighbour clearly affects our sporting prowess as amply demonstrated by a lack of confidence in front of goal over the last 2 weeks.
Labour’s Wes Streeting on Sky news moments ago said:
“The SNP have admitted they’d prefer a Labour government, so vote Labour in Scotland to stop sending SNP MPs to Westminster just to complain about us”
Yet another blatant lie from the opponents of a panicking Labour party
It seems all the opponents of the SNP just lie and misquote
The SNP MPs at Westminster wanted to ”complain” about the situation in Gaza and the UK weakness in condemning this but YOU ( Mr Streeting and your cowardly Boss ) couldn’t tolerate this so strong-armed The Speaker to undermine the SNP Amendment .
However , IF more Scottish (sic ) Labour MPs are in situ at Westminster you will be guaranteed NO COMPLAINING about ANYTHING the Boss decides !
Democracy Starmer-style !
Labour propaganda beyond belief. Red Tories. ‘Just to complain about us’. Says it all. Total lack of democracy in Scotland.
The clearances, higher unemployment, migration to US, Australia, NZ, Canada.
Oil revenues wasted. Still wasting Scotlands revenues. Hickley Point, HS2, Trident, redundant weaponry, illegal wars. Brexit. Westminster poor, bad policies. The unionist parties are a disgrace.
The masons supporting the monarchy. Being ripped off at every turn. The historical poverty. Westminster lies. Anyone who votes Labour/ unionist will get nothing.They have been warned time and time again.
’Support Scotland team but vote unionist’. Contradicts.
It’s now 17 days since we had some reliable / calibrated polls of Scotland, which appeared to show crossover, in line with UK MRP data.
It’s also 10 days since our two outliers / no track record pollsters did not disagree within MoE with the above undertook feildwork.
As previously noted, in the early campaign, we had a Scottish poll every 3.3 days. Then old polls started being released, followed by British media outlet radio silence.
UK polls too showed a rise, with the SNP going up to possibly 38% from low 30’s as turnout went up a fraction. Then this dropped back and SNP with it a little. This seems to have been a UK-wide thing. Voters began to engage, puked at what Britain is offering, and went back to gardening, golf, the Euros etc. This happened across the UK.
In the past week, the turnout numbers have started going up again UK-wide, and SNP with it once more. This is why I’m optimistic. The two remain correlated.
Also, I have a look at Yes data for Lab 2019 in detail. It did go down in response to Sturgeon’s resignation. I hadn’t noticed, but the UKSC case caused this to spike to 30% as it went up across the board. England really, really angered Scotland there. Well, Yes going up here since the middle of 2023 was it coming back to an even higher value than just after the UKSC case in Labour 2019.
So if the UKSC case really pissed of Labour voters, moving them to indy, and they’re backing Yes at that level again, Yes is likely mid 50’s if you had a representative sample, but you won’t see that in polls unless our silent SNP 2019 engage.
Or just turnout in decent numbers, making for an SNP win. Then the rest of the Yes electorate will absolutely engage as it would be game on again after being game off since Q2 2023.
The unionists really need the SNP to lose this election. They cannot afford an SNP win in Scotland with a Labour win in England. That would be a disaster for them for all the reasons I’ve stated. Heaven help them if the republicans win in the north of Ireland too.
Nats win in Scotland again, Republicans win the north, and the party of the union falls on its sword in Britain plus in the north (DUP). Only one place that kind of result leads to. It’s been a long time coming. Now it could be just 10 days away. Total tinderbox. If not, 2026 beckons, and that’s an even more important date as it’s for national elections, not increasingly irrelevant union ones.
Starmer’s British MPs of course want all Scottish Labour’s money for themselves. That gravy train ticket to the palace on the Thames needs paid for.
https://archive.is/X9ZOW
Labour activists criticise ‘divisive’ candidate ahead of election
Activists in the local branch of one of Scottish Labour’s key election hopefuls have warned that she will “damage” the party if elected to Westminster.
The extraordinary intervention from unhappy members about Kirsteen Sullivan comes less than two weeks before voters go to the polls.
It also comes just days after Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar campaigned with the West Lothian councillor in the Bathgate and Linlithgow seat.
The Herald has been told that the internal battle was sparked by a disagreement on how the local party should spend its funds.
The Linlithgow Constituency Labour Party (CLP) had previously struggled financially but has recently built up a war chest of around £12,000.
According to sources in the local party, Ms Sullivan believed the whole amount should be spent on her campaign, while others wanted to be more cautious and keep some back for future campaigning.
At the CLP’s AGM in January, they say Ms Sullivan effectively organised a coup, with those who had opposed her ousted from their positions as office bearers.
It’s interesting how I’m absolutely sure that, were she still a councillor without Westminster ambitions, Ms. Sullivan would have been first to defend the Linlithgow CLP position of keeping some money aside for other campaigns. Like the locals’ to which she owes her current position.
Still no sign of the tables for that Savanta poll from the 14-18 June. Savanta publish their British poll tables the day after the fieldwork is completed.
Radio silence here too.
The tables for the Savanta MRP poll conducted between the 7-18th June are available. Are you talking about a separate Scotland only poll?
Aye, the scotland one.
I haven’t seen anything either on that poll.
Polling generally seems to have gone quiet. I guess there will be another flurry of them before election day. Maybe the Sundays at the weekend.
The PUBLICATION of polling has gone quiet – I’m fairly sure at this stage it’s a 24 hour operation coupled with media appearances, the good ol’ nudge magic – My take would be the “nudge” ain’t working to the liking of those heralding “Change” so they bury the results…..
We’ve had 18 UK polls conducted on or after the 14th June. In Scotland we’ve had 1, which we’re not allowed to see the tables from, so we don’t even know if it actually exists.
Still, the ‘Labour winning here’ message from the Brits should keep the Labour vote down and encourage Yes voters out to vote SNP.
The ‘Labour winning here’ message of 2011 was likely key to lowering the turnout of Labour 2010 voters, so helping the SNP win a stunning majority, seemingly from out of nowhere.
Polling does not change how people vote. The establishment hope it does, but it doesn’t. The most it can do is drive down the turnout of a party that’s out in front, particularly if that party isn’t actually riding the crest of a popular wave. Which is Labour right now, here and in England.
It therefore serves Yes well to have the media tell Scots Labour are romping home. It would be better to show the SNP taking the lead if that’s occurring. That would encourage unionists out to stop them. As things stand, unionists believe the SNP are a busted flush, just as they did ahead of 2011. I’m good with this.
Totally OT but having heard Ilan Pappé talks before and been impressed by his remarkable grasp on history which led to the establishment of the state of Israel, the one to one interview with Aaron Bastani at Novara media was a no-brainer. Even at 1 and a half hours long, it is remarkably balanced and informed, even shedding light on events on uk politics past and present..
https://youtu.be/Q1Iw2fm58FY
Highly recommended….
Bookmarked. I’ve had his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” in my Audible library for some time now but not had time to listen. Not enough hours in the day!
Well worth watching as a taster before listening to the book, the APAC and Labour Friends of Israel segments are particularly revealing..
Excellent interview – full of insights into the Labour Party and explains a lot about their history.
Thx for posting. 👍
Indeed, and explains in large part why both main parties not only defied public opinion over Gaza, but some would have abused their position to clamp down on demonstrations…
It’s disappointing that the Scottish team are on their way home but not unexpected. I know nothing about football which qualifies me to opine that it was hard luck playing the opening game against the home team.
But the fans certainly impressed their host. Here’s a French journalist saying that the Flower o’ Scotland anthem gave him goose bumps. I believe the Euro commentators in the box took off their headphones so they could listen to it.
They all deserve a great welcome home.
The Tartan army did politics
Now some people don’t like it but it’s nevertheless 100% true that identity is politics, particularly in Scotland since 2014 or the opposition politicians wouldn’t be paying so much attention to worrying over our and their national identities
Take a look at what they ask of you in their desire to make you an identity they made up
They used a Roman word * Briton” made it English and changed it to British, they invented a flag and pretended a colour on it was something to do with Scotland’s national identity because it was blue when in fact their colour is Royal blue and not Pantone blue like the Sky
They then proceeded to brain water board us further by inventing legal documents (passports) that made us unable to travel on any document that had the actual name of Scotland identifying us written on it
All of this was not just an excersise to control Scotland, this was also a propaganda advertising campaign to the world that Scotland did not exist except for a few cartoon shortbread tin dancers and the unarmed fools they used to play bagpipes while walking in front of their troops calling themselves Scotland the brave but were actually saying look how we control Scotland the stupid mugs that we make walk into battles unarmed
Everything the British/English do to Scotland and have ever done is about the control and destruction of our national identity
Are you inferior because your accent is wrong? just a few short years ago you were, and who controlled Scotland politically and educationally? Labour, all we were good for was voting fodder for that party and what did Scotland get in return for all this loyalty?
Flat caps, dirt, dog racing, bookies pubs slums and poverty
The national football team was a highlight of any year when playing against England, and at that time we won some of these encounters and the nation was ecstatic, the whole of Scotland played football, every kid in the hope that one day they would play for the national team and beat England, now we have nobody playing the sport because England beefed itself up to the magnitude of the sun to destroy the world and they still can’t mange it, but their delight is very clear when they win against the nation of Scotland that they impoverished crushed and conquered just so they could beat somebody at least and remind us on a daily basis that they the mighty England won the big one in 1966
The rest of the world cares not a jot but England does
National identity is built on what politicians claim is sporting success, it’s also crushed by the lack of that success by the same people who claim what success is, and those people call it failure
Guess who they are?
Football as success in any sport is like building a ship or a bridge or flying to the moon is considered a success of nations, or PMs Presidents and politicians wouldn’t mention any of it would they
I once checked the win rate in an old Wee Red Book. Up until c 1980s Scotland and England each won 50% of the encounters. Then England cancelled these matches and the game seemed to become very commercial. Scottish players now play for much more money in English teams like Bournemouth. So perhaps the team spirit gets diluted specially with no public broadcaster showing the games.
But hey – I know nothing about football. Just curious about the politics of it all.
Goosebumps from a French journalist should be no surprise, the ‘auld alliance” has never been forgotten, so much so that ‘Marche des Soldats de Robert Bruce’ is a staple of every military band across northern europe, but particularly venerated in France.
The Scots have had a seat reserved in Europe since 1295, it remains open……
And today is the 110th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn 24th June 1314. So appropriate.
In the spirit of Cymro-Scotto amity, it’s also the day when this historic Act was passed by the Senedd – and, although, not yet independence, is a marker on the road to further and better democracy in the ‘home’ nation.
Historic Act aims to strengthen democracy in Wales (nation.cymru)
‘Once-in-a-generation reforms’ that aim to strengthen democracy in Wales have passed into law today (24 June) with the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act gaining Royal Assent.
The landmark legislation, which was passed by a supermajority of Members of the Senedd in May, is intended to ‘create a modern, more effective Welsh Parliament to serve and represent people in Wales’.
Under the new law, the Senedd will gain increased capacity to scrutinise policies, laws, spending plans, and hold the Welsh Government to account.|
Key changes
Key changes to be implemented in time for the 2026 Senedd elections include:
There are also commitments to review the changes brought in by the Act after the 2026 election, and to consider the practical and legislative implications of job-sharing offices related to the Senedd.
[…]
Students of Scottish politics will note these changes have been heralded by the First Minister as ‘once-in-a-generation reforms’.
👏👏👏 Good for the Senedd. A red letter day indeed!
I’m sure you meant 710th anniversary – but no worries. We still won. 🙂
Oops! Maths not my subject either. 😂
Scottish Vote share from FocalData MRP
Con: 13%
Lab :35%
LD: 9%
Reform: 10%
Green:3%
SNP: 29%
Unfortunately that’s almost 3 weeks old. Fieldwork began on the 4th, and would decline exponentially. Most sampled the 4th/5th, down to a handful on the 20th. So it is a picture of the past in a rapidly changing campaign. We know the SNP were level with Labour 3 weeks ago within MoE (+/-3% = 6% max difference between two parties at level pegging).
Also, Focaldata are an outlier for the pack in Scotland, tending to get 2% when most are getting 3%, sometimes 4%. As it’s never been calibrated in Scotland, it’s likely to be in error. To do that, you need to poll a country at least once, then see how well your polls match the final result. You could be wildly out if you’ve not done that. So they are like a thermometer without a scale in terms of statistical use. Their data must be set aside and used only for trends. About 6% added to SNP (0.5% UK-wide) would bring them in line with the pack, including Scottish polls, at that time.
Just 36 people per constituency too, and won’t be properly weighted. MoE would be +/-17% for a Scottish constituency (72k average).
What it does show is Labour falling UK wide and SNP support rising in Scotland. Focaldata were regularly getting 2% SNP, now it’s becoming 3%. This is happening for other pollsters too. So it’s in line for 2-3 weeks ago.
Actually 3rd June, so is up to 3 weeks old. They note the problem here.
#2 Fieldwork is too late
The other potential source of error is our fieldwork dates. Interviewing people from the 3rd June – 20th we will miss the late political movement. This campaign, like 2017, has been a campaign of great “change”. From D-Day, to Nigel Farage’s takeover of the Reform party, and the betting scandal, vote shares for all parties have shown material and real change, even when put through MRP modeling. We are assessing whether to release a final updated model given how steep the fall in the Conservative vote share has been since the campaign beginning where the Government was set to lose in a fashion similar to 1997. They could face the prospect of going well below 100 seats, and towards 70 and face their own 1931 super-defeat.
And 10% Reform, bless the English pollsters. 14% other total under FPTP is for the birds.
Reminds me of the polls predicting a UKIP surge in Scotland in 2015. And Reform doing well ahead of 2019/21 etc.
It’s oversampling of the vocal minority – reform and Lab right now – while the silent majority are undersampled. This vanishes when engagement occurs and turnout starts to go up. This only happened in the very last couple of weeks in 2011 and 2019. Not happened yet this time either in Scotland or England.
I’ve noticed this. SNP voters still Yes, but silent since early 2023. That’s what English punching Scotland twice does. It make people more supportive of indy, but they go quiet.
https://archive.is/xsKUA
‘There’s a lot less sharing’: how news consumption has changed since last UK election
Is this the first post-mainstream-media election? The Guardian asked six volunteers to record their phone screens for three days – and the results provide a glimpse of what news, if any, the British public is consuming as they go to the polls…
…Most notably, compared with elections that took place in the 2010s, people are less willing to share their political views on social media. Conversations about politics are instead taking place in private chat groups on Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Damon De Ionno, of Revealing Reality, who ran the research programme, said this reflected rapid changes in online behaviour since the last general election. “Social media went through a period where it was fun to put stuff out there and it was a lighthearted playground. People are now just much more wary about putting views out there, or stories about themselves.”
Few more UK polls. Turnout desperately low, but seems to be edging up and SNP with it. 2% up for a fraction rise in turnout.
UK TO projection is 53%. Scotland 57% still. No mandates for Starmer yet, and he’s on less votes than 2019 still.
Scottish turnout only shot up in fieldwork 9 days out in 2011/2019. The most recent UK poll is 13 days out main fieldwork-wise.
Without any tactical Grn/Alba, the relationship between turnout and SNP is currently giving:
40% SNP – 59% Turnout
45% SNP – 62% Turnout
50% SNP – 65% Turnout
55% SNP – 68% Turnout
If Rishi Sunak Kier Starmer and all the rest of the British nationalists thought for one second that just saying Scotland will not be allowed to be independent was a for real political position that they actually could enforce why do they bother talking about it so much
Independence can and will be achieved, and the more the opposition say it can’t proves that or they wouldn’t even bother asking for Scotland’s votes for them trying to convince folk to reject Independence
If you control a thing then you can destroy a thing, the opposition are admitting they can’t do either, no matter how hard they try
The vast majority of Scotland football supporters will vote SNP on their return from Germany, these are supporters of the country of Scotland, the opposition know this
Remember when the British nationalists panicked in 2014 and brought Scotland a Daily Record front page that read *The VOW* and we knew it was a lie
Today the British nationalists have panicked once again and the Daily Record has a front page that reads *LABOUR X* with pictures of all the Tories they claim are the baddies and insist that Scotland now votes for their baddies
If Scotland follows the Daily Record’s recommendation and votes Labour the British nationalists will screw us over yet again
Remember folks, the British nationalists have no country of their own, they want ours and they’re ready to take it from us permanently
So in 2019, Brexit were going to get as much as 9% in Scotland. Right up to late campaign, England’s pollsters were telling us they were going to get a least 5-6%.
It was all dung that only a fool or someone desperately deluding themselves would believe. It was simply that the silent majority were disengaged, but the vocal minority were not, so they were being polled. This can never be weighted out.
21 days to go and that mirage vanished as engagement began in earnest. Samples started to better represent the electorate, and they were not voting Brexit. The 9% became the 0.5% as this and tactical kicked in too. The 3-4% Green vanished to 1% as they went SNP. In our last polls before the radio silence in Scotland, neither of these things had yet occurred as fieldwork was still ~25 days out.
You can see why to add 7-8 points to panelbase / Norstat. Structurally, they just get far too low SNP, particularly during times of a disengaged electorate. Their last poll was actually 38% not 39%, that’s an error here in wiki. Anyway, they never saw 45% coming. They got 38, 38, 39, 40, 38… A 10% gap when it was 20%. This is why in their recent poll they were 6-7% lower than Yougov and IPSOS, who you can see did ok and excellently respectively.
In 2019, the turnout shot up in the last 10 days. However, it didn’t all go to SNP, even though they benefitted from it. It went up 11%, and SNP went up 4%. But con got some too, as did lab. SNP got a bit less than half of it.
What’s interesting this time, is that most of the turnout rise, possibly all, is going to the SNP. This might not be a surprise given the Tory collapse and the deep unpopularity of Labour across the UK. That, and the fact for 2 decades now, Labour’s vote has negatively correlated with turnout; they win when people stay at home. In 2019, Con benefitted a lot from the rise too as they were offering change in the form of ‘getting brexit done’. Corbyn offered centre left change so got some votes from it as well. SNP offered indy so got the most. None of the main parties were ‘no change’ in 2019, hence they all got some benefit from the turnout rise. This time, only the SNP offer any real change. And Reform in England. Possibly a bit here too. They could get a few %, helping the SNP win seats.
I compare this election to 2011 and 2019 as both of these showed high levels of disengagement for a year or more ahead of them, with contradictory to comical polling going on as a result, 9% Brexit being case in point again. They also had only very last minute engagement, meaning polling struggle to predict the final outcome. So far, the Scottish electorate has not engaged. In the absence of Scottish polls, I can still see this from UK wide data.
Which is why I caution about using what polling we have to predict the future. The only way for the election to look anything like recent polling, with the SNP and Labour neck and neck, is voters staying at home. That is, as noted, how Labour has been winning for 2 decades, Corbyn the only bit of an exception in 2017.
If voters do stay at home, Labour should be massively rejected by a whopping 2/3 of the Scottish electorate, and that’s with a mass boycott giving the lowest turnout ever as Scots reject Westminster rule. They’ll have cornered a few deckchairs on the titanic because Scots have abandoned these, no longer wishing them. The most unpopular government ever to take office that was overwhelming rejected by Scots denying them their democratic rights. A perfect storm for independence.
SNP making a comeback on polls would be just a cherry on top of the real prize, which is Scots not coming home to Labour. The latter does look to be very much set in stone. The former remains unclear, but there’s no reason at all to believe it won’t happen. Plenty of time for it. As you can see in the graph below, 7 days is a very long time in an election campaign.
If things go exponential once more, then the night could be full of surprises the length of the UK.
We were at 57% turnout projection at t-21 says this time around.
Still no sign of the Savanta Scottish poll tables.
Last one had tables out on the 1st for Fieldwork completed the 28th May, so 3 days later. Previous one to that was out in 2 days.
Our missing poll was supposedly completed on the 18th, which is a week ago now.
This means our last verified Scottish poll was conducted 2 weeks ago. It (Panelbase) had min 36% SNP corrected (+6%) using 2019 results, with the SNP in the lead.
Julian Assange is free and off to sign a plea deal then to Australia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-69145409
Five years in prison for Julian Assange – another glorious chapter in Britain’s fight against injustice – not !
When the overall strategic policy of British political parties is to depress voter engagement in Scotland by continually denying democracy in the hope that Scottish voters becomes so depressed that they refuse to vote at all, is without question the strategy of dictatorship by evil stealthy means
Basically what the UK government of any stripe is saying to the voters of Scotland is “we will never allow Scotland a vote on what it wants to vote about” and the result is what is happening now *voter disengagement”
The British Nationalist political parties are depressing the life out of Scotland in order to maintain their rule over it
I listened to a phone in this very morning to a man from Falkirk who said “I’ve never voted in my life except in 2014 when I voted NO because all the parties are the same”
This is a man who voted against his own country in favour of being ruled by a country he doesn’t want and wouldn’t vote for
This man apart from being a moron is so disillusioned by life in general that he despises everything political yet doesn’t understand that by voting NO in 2014 he compounded his own depression by voting for a UK government that continues to depress him
The latest iteration of the British Nationalist party that looks like winning the general election is the Labour party who offer to change nothing by offering themselves as the only change to the other version of themselves, the Tories
If Scotland does not come out and vote SNP then the continuation of the nothing that the UK parties offer will be ongoing
Don’t be the man from Falkirk, Scotland can’t change anything if we do nothing
Yes, that’s the strategy. However, it does not necessarily work that way.
It appeared to work post 2011, with the relentless barrage of attacks on the Scottish people appearing to cause Yes and SNP to fall back significantly right through to 2014. Even IPSOS was finding this. Folks were shy in telephone polls too. I was saying at the time their appeared to be shy Yes, and I was right.
Scots were not moving away from Yes/SNP, but to these. They were just doing so silently. But then the campaigns began and they started talking openly increasingly. At that point, Yes soared in polls. However, it was not soaring, but had been steadily rising to those levels all along. Polls were just starting to become representative, with turnout levels rising as voters engaged. Silent SNP 2011 stopped being silent again.
People did not decide on indy in a few weeks to months. No, they had been steadily deciding over several to many years. They were also silent 2009-11 as the establishment used their 2010 desperate tactical (which they regretted so much they lied about doing) to hit them over the head with, telling them again and again the 2007 dream was dead, that they were coming home to Labour. They then came out in the final weeks of the 2011 campaign as Gray running into sandwich shops etc gave them growing confidence. From out of nowhere the dream was on again, but it had never gone away, it was all silent SNP confounding the pollsters.
Which is why we need to remember we have 11% regular voters who are still not telling us what they are going to do. They voted SNP last time. Maybe they will come out of the woodwork again, maybe they won’t. They have been silent plenty of times before, only emerging at the last minute, so it could happen once more.
I cannot say it will happen, only not to rule it out as it’s normal, and there’s plenty of time left for it. If it doesn’t, Labour will still become the hated English government that Scots didn’t vote for denying them democracy without any mandate as Westminster is boycotted en masse. That much seems sure. No amount of spin will change this. But fingers crossed for another 2011/2019.
Why does this SNPeee not understand that the Scottish people don’t want to talk about Independence ?
The Labour Party leaders and the Conservative Party leaders all KNOW what we want to hear . That nice Mr Starmer … sorry , SIR Starmer and the equally nice Mr Sarwar and that wee cheery man who makes us all laugh , Mr DRoss , all say that Scottish people don’t care about Independence . They must spend ALL of their time talking to ordinary people as they appear to have their fingers on the pulse of the nation .
I must be the only person who wants Independence but none of them has spoken to me , so that must be why they have not mentioned that only one person in Scotland wants to talk about it .
Hang on a mo ! They haven’t spoken to my wife either , so that makes two and , come to think of it , neither has my sister been asked , nor my next door neighbour …. I’m beginning to think that when these politicians say that they speak for EVERYONE , they might be exaggerating !
Strange that the Scottish Conservative (sic) manifesto mentioned the SNPeee 88 times when surely that party is doomed ! It must have been a misprint . That wee cheery Mr DRoss would not be concerned about the SNPeee as , like Independence , the Scottish people have turned against them . He KNOWS this as he is constantly going round doors asking them – except when he is travelling up and down to Westminster to claim his football expens…his Parliamentary expenses .
SIR Starmer is also spending ALL his time canvassing opinion in Scotland as he knows that without Scottish votes he can’t win the GE as we have 57 seats as opposed to the tiny 543 in England . I didn’t get my Higher Maths so I may be going out on a limb here but … ”Do the Math ” as our American Cousins would say (although I personally DON’T have any ! ) …either SIR Starmer hasn’t got his Maths certificate either or … is he telling a Porkie ?
Structurally the worse polls for the SNP/Yes in quite some time, with heavy unionist oversampling, yet Yes is ~50%.
This is why unionists really don’t want any talk of independence around this election.
If they were really ‘winning here’, they’d want as much talk about independence as possible, so they could relentlessly gloat about how support was falling away was we Scots came home to the right-wing Brexit English nationalism.
But this is not their experience on the doorsteps. It’s why Sarwar is so puzzled about all these SNP who have moved to Labour. He can’t find any when out campaigning. He’s calling on his imaginary new SNP friends that he can’t believe he has to ‘join him on this stage of the journey’.
It’s also why Starmer is very worried, and the final stage of the Labour campaign is to be a switch to desperate pleas for Labour voters not to take the result for granted but get out and vote. This is because only headline VI says they are riding high, everything else says the opposite. Starmer’s ratings are terrible. Party ratings are crap. Just a slightly less smelly turd than the Tories.
Starmer knows if even just some of the Labour vote does stay at home, but turnout projections rise, he’s going to start taking big hits UK-wide. And any coming last minute exponential phase has not started as yet. That decline from peak before the 1:1 debate could end up accelerating. 45% pre-election could easily become 34% like the locals. Would take very little turnout rise to do that if it does not go to Labour. That’s what happens when you start out low; small changes make for big apparent swings.
oh they’re worried all right, sending King Chae and Queen Camila for garden parties at Holyrood on the 2nd and 3rd of July.
Hahaha, I’d imagine that will persuade more to vote SNP
😂😂 very good
They haven’t spoken to me either, or my wife. We have never been polled by anyone and we are both SNP voters. We will be voting SNP at this election so we are probably part of the “silent” 11%.
So aye, now 11 days since the last possible uncalibrated poll in Scotland was surveyed (Savanta). 14 days since the last verified outlier (panelbase/norstat). 18 days since reliable IPSOS showed level pegging on the back of reasonably good Survation MRP showing SNP moving ahead,
Think and fast every 3.3 days to ram ‘SNP losing here’ down our throats until it looked like crossover may be occurring, then silence.
I expect they’ll give us a Redfield and Wilton or panelbase at at some point to show things as still neck and neck, that or another few weeks week old yougov / Focaldata for the same, but we can adjust to understand how things probably look.
Incidentally, that Savanta does look very like a lower end of variance for the SNP. You can see it in the Yes data. In line with other polls, you see Yes rise twice, then drop back sharply. Also in their wobbly VI plot which shows Labour opening a gap, but then this closing. That indicates the drop is likely not real as its out of agreement with the trend, just noise. Likely associated with the disengagement wave that occurred again after the initial rise. So it was probably more another gap closure poll rather than a no change. Quite possible it was more 36% SNP / 35% Lab for a pro-Lab outlier if you were able to establish the mean. However, polling in Scotland is super infrequent, so you can only estimate what it might be from ranges. Plain averaging is statistically meaningless.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/why-new-poll-shows-john-swinney-has-had-little-success-in-restoring-snps-fortunes-as-dark-cloud-hangs-over-party-4672676
The tables might have more clues, such as who was being over/under-sampled, but we’re not getting to see these.
A good analogy for the type of disengagement we saw in Scotland ahead of 2011, 2014 and 2019, is like when Scotland are down 2-0 at the football. You can’t watch anymore so turn it off. But you still desperately want them to win and still plan to support them. The pollsters cease seeing you in the crowd as a result. They just see too many cheering opposition.
There are large scale polls being conducted every day in Scotland but you will never see any of them. They are being carried out on behalf of the political parties including SNP no doubt.
The biggest polls though will be being carried out by the government not only to see if they will survive but to see if their strategy of supressing support for the SNP is working.
Clearly it isn’t and you can see that as the rhetoric rises and the panic sets in. I’m confident that the SNP will still win the majority of seats in Scotland. I’m hopeful that they will win every single the Tory seat remaining and I’m certain that the party who will be the most disappointed on the morning of the 5th July will be “Scottish” Labour.
There’s still everything to play for and no matter the result of this election I’ll still be seeking Independence for Scotland. I’m not alone either.
Ironically, the election is Labour’s to lose. The polls said they took the lead over the SNP and the media has been ramming home MRPs with comically silly numbers (16% other with 10% Reform etc) in Scotland showing Labour winning a stunning 1/3 of the vo….no wait, a rubbish 1/3 of the vote on a dreadfully low turnout.
So if Labour don’t win, it’s not the SNP who went backwards, but them. ‘SNP projected to get less than 20 seats etc, but Swinney has lifted them up like a phoenix from the flames to soar to a majority’… is the narrative that’s being lined up for if it occurs. Like 2011.
Far too many chickens been counted before they’ve hatched IMO, both in Scotland and UK-wide. Even if still neck and neck, the golden rule of leadership ratings has the SNP winning on the day, and it’s very reliable. Was right in 2011 and 2019.
Panel polling has been struggling to get good samples as society changes. This is a growing problem as people worry more about their data. Given the abuse you can get for backing SNP / indy, folks very often don’t want people to know. People have been threatened with their jobs by the brits for backing indy. And now indy folks are being arrested, with this timed with elections.
They’ve always had the problem that their samples are not and never can be representative. They always will be polls of people who are politically engaged and want to be polled, and this needs to be fudge factored to the general public, with methods updated based on how well they call results.
The problem is that this means they don’t represent the voting public, and not only that, but they are more likely to be overly-stuffed with the voters of the party apparently riding high. That has included the SNP in post election honeymoon periods. Recently it’s been Labour. There’s no doubt about this, but we can only say it’s happening, not what exactly will happen if it undoes itself on the day.
The platinum standard in Scotland is the SSAS. Done by academics. Fully random sampling. Not an English pollster out for profit, but the uni of Strathclyde researchers. Clearly not politically motivated and speaks to the whole public, not just those that want to be polled.
It says by 2019 Scots now wanted indy over devo even in a 3 way vote. What followed next was a record turnout for Holyrood on a record signed up electorate delivering a record % for Yes parties. An outright majority of votes for the first time for our parliament. Rubicon crossed.
IPSOS agree well with them. More noise as they are affected by waves of engagement / disengagement too. So gold rather than platinum. If they say crossover has occurred a few weeks ago, it should have. If they say Scots hate Starmer, they do. And that’s what they say.
It is a funny old general election though, if you didn’t have a TV you practically wouldn’t even know there was an election happening
The only literature (if you can call it that) I’ve had so far is the usual load of Liberal Democrat stuff that you get on a regular basis every few weeks at any given normal time of the year
I have had two of exactly the same newspaper type leaflet from the LibDumbs and the usual crappy monthly style stuff from them too. Two from Labour delivered by Royal Mail. Labour seemed to have changed candidate from the leaflet I got about a year ago. I have had a letter and a leaflet from Snp. Nothing from anyone else.
” Two from Labour delivered by Royal Mail.”
Did they use the ‘right’ stamps?
I’ve had three drops from the SNP and one Labour and one Tory leaflet. There are eight candidates and nothing from the other five.
Only the SNP have had street stalls (each Saturday). Other than that, yes, absolutely dead. No excitement no posters in windows or on lampposts, no hustings.
I remember back in 2015 I think we all had street stalls at the same time and the banter was good and the letter box was inundated with leaflets. Nicola visited and the streets were packed. Happy days.
I think all the parties are on a tight budget these days. It is TV and Facebook and that is your lot. Turn out could be very low for a GE.
This is a product of the right-wing media’s culture wars / attempts to stoke up division on top of England’s increasing crackdown on democracy / restriction of Scottish / Welsh / Irish people’s voting rights etc.
It drives movements more underground. People still support their causes, but become reluctant to say to publicly (again) in case they suffer recriminations.
This is why it feels a bit like 2011 all over. It took the election result itself there to briefly show real public feeling before the relentless attacks on Scots began once more and at levels never seen before, shutting them up until the final months ahead of September 2014 when they started talking again.
A Different Bias says that the tories coming fourth at Westminster could possibly happen. So Labour, with Lib Dems in opposition, SNP staying third, and tories basically out. He didn’t go into details, cos he does not like the SNP!
Could this actually happen? Thanks
it won’t happen, the Tories will definitely come 2nd, there’s always been a lot of really selfish bastards out there.
There probably are silent Tory. I mean would you want to admit you are still backing them?
But if you are standard right wing, the plastic labour Tories won’t appeal to you and nor will the nut job racists and loonies of Farage. So unless you are sufficiently socially liberal and in a seat where the orange book libs are in contention, it’s Tory like always, even if nose holding is required.
So I see them coming out better than expected, just as they did in the locals. They matched their national VI here while Labour came out 11% lower.
BMA accuses the BBC Scotland of misrepresenting and misquoting their comments on Scotland’s NHS by not including the relevant parts of their statement in which they mention both Labour and Tory intentions to privatise the NHS
A Tory at the door. Family own half of Deeside. Told an SNP voter. Scarpered.
A Scottish flag on view keeps them away. They find it repellent.
Grim reading for the unionists.
https://archive.is/BNewB
I’ve never felt more disenfranchised’: undecided UK voters mull options
Ian, an IT professional in his 40s from south-west Scotland, has no idea how he will vote in the UK general election in less than two weeks’ time.
“Ultimately, there has been nothing from any of the mainstream parties to make me think that they have done anything to deserve my vote, so I’m undecided,” he said. “Politics in Britain are a complete shambles, no matter which of the home nations you live in.”
Ian was one of many still undecided voters who shared with the Guardian why they could not make up their minds. Large numbers of them are fuelling the concerns of Labour candidates in many areas, despite polls predicting a landslide victory...
…A lack of trust
Scores of people blamed rock-bottom levels of trust in politicians for their indecision.
Concerns over Starmer’s repeated breaking of pledges loomed large in many interviews with respondents who were desperate to see the back of the Conservatives, among them 63-year-old mechanical engineer Mark Goodfellow, from the marginal Conservative seat of North Somerset, which is predicted to be narrowly gained by Labour.
“I have never felt more disenfranchised in my life,” he said. “I’m utterly disillusioned with the Tories after 14 years of chaos and no achievements. But I remain uncertain as to whether I should vote tactically so the Tories can’t win, even though I’m no great fan of Labour and find it difficult to understand what Labour actually will do if elected.”…
Local issues v national issues
Scottish respondents were particularly uncertain whether to prioritise local or national concerns, with many keen to boot the Conservatives from power, but also worried that a Labour landslide would result in Scottish issues being ignored by Westminster, and therefore pondering a vote for the Scottish National party.
One such voter, 46-year-old IT worker and top-rate taxpayer Richard Warburton, from Bathgate and Linlithgow, a seat predicted to narrowly switch from SNP to Labour, said although he thought “the Labour manifesto was great, comprehensive and slick”, he felt “voting for Labour might not be the best result for Scotland”.
“The biggest issue is that, if we get a Labour MP up here, they’ll be under a Labour whip, and that the SNP are a better voice for Scotland,” he said. “I really don’t know what to do.”
Ian seems to be a unionist as he’s talking about Lan/Con/Lib as if he’d readily consider them if they had something on offer.
It’s not like the Guardian would pic an indy supporter for this. Indy parties are offering change. Absolutely nobody could disagree with that. You could not get more change than independence. Likewise, you could not improve democracy in Scotland in more of a greater way. Doing this is the No. 1 reason people support independence in Scotland if you ask them; it’s about Scots no longer being disenfranchised, but instead getting the government they voted for.
And that Scottish response section is very interesting. Richard sounds like an ostensible Labour voter, but is leaning SNP. Starmer and Labour not trusted at all in Scotland, but the need to get rid of the Tories is factor. However, the polls say no need to vote Labour as England is going to put them in No 10. So if you want a party that you can be sure will stand up for Scotland, who’s it gonnae be on the day?
Scots cannot be feeling totally disenfranchised by the mainstream UK parties while be coming home to them at the same time. It’s why polls show this has not happened, and the number of real voters the unionists command appears down on 2019. All shifts since early 2023 have been entirely turnout driven, not swing driven. This applies UK-wide.
If polls are contradictory, making no sense, it’s because they’re not sensible. This applies to all data types. In this case, look for what does make sense in data, and use that to suggest some logical possibilities for what may be going on and what it might point to. That’s not good for the union, less clear for the SNP short term though.
The trick to colonising is to make the people think they are not a colony, that they are an equal partner and can exit whenever they wish.
The truth is revealed, however, when the people ask the coloniser to arrange an exit vote. The coloniser refuses.
Ring any bells, Scotland?
New UK Savanta poll out showing Labour falling below the 40% mark to 39% 3-4 days ago. They had been holding out for Labour, but have joined the growing pack in succumbing.
All due to a slight rise in turnout. People turning out to vote is the sum of all fears for the party of hopeless ‘can’t affect meaningful’ change despair.
No wait, my mistake, they’ve held on on 42%. Wrong table in the tables!
Five more London Met police officers accused of betting on the general election
There are endless questions to be asked that we all know the answers to
England and its whole political pals system is not only busted and broken it’s as corrupted as a plague
Only this morning we read that £multi millions of pounds worth of UK government contracted useless PPI from Covid was destroyed
We the public that paid for all of this have no redress no one accountable no one even sacked from the UK government, they do what the hell they like, make £millions then ask us to vote for them while they insult us to our faces
Go on Scotland vote Labour, you know it makes no sense, these are the same people that brought Scotland Tony Blair War Gordon Brown PPI and the trickle down economics of poverty that we’re still paying for
So go on Scotland, vote Labour and let’s all laugh and watch them do it all again
To be clear, if we had some full Scottish polls right now, I’d not expect them to show some huge SNP lead. I do reckon they’d show the SNP having moved in front though, possibly by sufficient points to say they were in all probability ahead, even with some polls showing them behind (e.g. Panelbase, R&W). I’d also expect with that, we’d still not be seeing any Green to SNP tactical, so a few more points for the SNP possible there.
But this would need quite a few polls to confirm, and it would still be on a low turnout as we have not entered the exponential phase yet if there’s going to be one. If it did go exponential, it could really boost the SNP very suddenly.
Any such move might be super late, even later than 2011 and 2019 as my impression from all data is that there are a lot of people going to make very last minute decisions here. That is what happens when the 2-3 main cheeks are very unpalatable, and is happening across the UK. If turnout goes up, be primed for polls to be totally confounded. If you can’t make your mind up, you go with the heart on the day. And if you desperately want change, you will not go with Lab/Con. That is not change with or without the false smile respectively.
I think there is something of an SNP-Labour battle going on, but remarkably, it may be that this is going on in the unionist world. If movement has been occurring with very little change in turnout, it must be happening amongst more unionist voters while silent 2019 SNP remain disengaged. Given Yes has hit new highs in Labour 2019, rising to exceed the levels it hit with them after England took away their vote in its courts late 2022, this is not implausible.
The gent from Bathgate in the Guardian article is case in point. To me, he’s a Labour thinking SNP. He’s not be so torn otherwise. If Scots were really coming home to Labour, we’d be sitting here looking at high turnout polls with Labour comfortably ahead. Just like we were for the SNP going into the final stretches of 2015, 2016 and 2021 when Scotland came to them openly.
Oh dear, Labour have now suspended a General Election candidate after the Gambling Commission revealed they were being investigated. How could a Labour candidate possibly know that Sunak was going to call an election?
What a mess these parties are in, can’t say I’m sad lol
OK, he didn’t know the date of the election and never had a bet on that. Apparently he bet on the result of the seat he was standing in, it doesn’t say if he bet on himself or the Tories hahahaha
It appears that he bet on HIMSELF LOSING in the GE ! He also gave Starmer a donation of £100,000 when running for the leadership in 2019 – then , purely by chance, is appointed as a Labour candidate in this election .
Starmer has said that this money will be paid back – considering the millions that he has received from many other Tory donors , this will not be missed !
It beggars belief that someone who could afford to give away £100 grand to Kier Starmer would see in any point in betting what could only be pocket change for him on any kind of bet. It doesn’t make any sense but neither does giving Starmer £100K.
He may have insider knowledge that Labour are in real trouble if turnout goes up.
I have suggested people put an affordable punt on Labour getting a lower share of total electorate than 2019 for good reason.
[…] Source […]
So who is winning on the social media sharing? Well Reform, but not per capita. Nope, one party is way out in front of people organically sharing their stuff.
Scotland is just 8.4% of the UK population. SNP a country mile out in front. Leaving Reform for dust. 49% Higher of the ‘surging’ party.
But F**k me, look at compared to Labour.
https://news.sky.com/story/one-political-party-is-dominating-social-media-but-its-not-the-one-spending-the-most-13158236
Labour spending 10 x as much on social media posts as the SNP per respective electorates.
That’s nuts.
#grassroots
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/06/25/politics-is-not-engaging-the-public/
So SNP/Yes are talking. Talking a lot on social media and if you call them up (IPSOS telephone). Busy wee yellae bees.
Just not to English panel pollsters.
Interesting.
Alba busy wee blue bees too. Can expect the same for the Scottish Greens if you could extract them from the UK picture.
UK Tory chatter is also higher than Labour, which is intriguing too. Maybe silent Tory in English polls? It’s happened before!
Why is this not surprising?
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack claims he won over £2,000 betting on date of General Election (yahoo.com)
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack claims he won over £2,000 betting on date of General Election
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has claimed he won more than £2000 betting on a General Election to take place in July.
The Tory, who is standing down at the election, revealed he has made £2100 after betting on June and July dates for the public vote.
In a statement released earlier today, Jack, who represented the Dumfries and Galloway constituency since 2017, said “did not place any bets on the date of the General Election during May”.
He has claimed one of the bets placed on the election was at odds of 25/1. During an interview with the BBC last week he said the comments were “a joke”.
[…]
Why does everything the Tories say and do look like an attempt to throw the election?
They made Johnson and Truss Prime Minister that tells you all you need to know.
The leadership of mainstream parties – i.e. a party able to take political power in the UK – is dire. They are incompetent and greedy and everything they do is aimed at securing their fortunes and the wealth of the people who put them there.
Labour are no better. How did Keir Starmer become leader of the labour Party? By lying and backstabbing any left wing rival in kangaroo court style proceedings, aided by the MSM.
I would argue that this applies to leaders in the US and many EU countries too. Gormless place persons without a clue how to manage a state for the benefit of the majority. Only interested in protecting the interests of the already far too rich. This is what is fuelling popularism in the UK, EU and US.
“From a Jack to a [William] King.” by some Ned.
8 days since the mystery Savanata tables were ready to publish. Still no sign.
12 days since the main Savanata fieldwork was done
15 days since the Panelbase that, if 2019 corrected, would put the SNP on min 36% and ahead of Labour without any Green tactical
19 days since our least reasonably reliable Scottish poll was conducted (IPSOS), with it and others suggesting crossover
What happened to election polls telling us the dream was dead every 3.3 days? The British papers were having so much fun here. Silent SNP has been replaced by silent unionism it seems.
Now coming back to those higher Reform numbers. I am still seeing hints of this alongside hints of Labour retreating here as they are in England.
Remember, in 2015, the rise of UKIP hurt Labour the most. Indirectly, but it still did. The rise of the right favours the right. The proper right, not the plastic right. The rise of UKIP saw Labour lose and Con win.
British unionist Scotland is a microcosm of England. Our British community behaves similarly to their English brethren. Right now Reform is rising at the expense of both Lab and Con UK-wide. Any lib dem rise seems to be petering out. And that might just be happening in the British community in Scotland too.
As Prof C has said previously, Lab have not gained any SNP, it was pretty much all Con 2019 post mini-budget. That’s what pushed them into the low 30’s, with anything over that inflation due to low turnout projections / silent SNP 2019.
But as Reform have entered stage right, so the Tories in Scotland have slipped to record lows, but it seems Labour too now are going down as they are in England. I have straws in the wind here from UK subsamples.
What’s probably going on is what is happening in England, and the same as 2015. Labour has lost much of its left base as it has gone right, and has been relying on right wingers post-mini budget. These are now drifting to Reform as the ticket of change. It may be indirect, such as Lab back to con while a con goes to Reform, but the net effect is the same.
If you look at PoPs, you can see the rise of reform has net come about 50/50 from the two cheeks. This is the elephant in the room.
Which means Reform could turn out to be a nice wee English nationalist helper for the SNP in Scotland. Wouldn’t that be a laugh. The right wing beast that the brits have created comes to bite them here too.
They’re not going to get anything like they will in England here, but taking a few % votes from both Con and Lab in Scotland would be very handy. Could be a little cherry on top of any turnout rise that favours SNP.
That’s the thing here, because the SNP operate independently of the British parties, they are not affected by Reform. The rise of the reform helps them, as does small party tactical, as the small parties which might vote tactical are of course Green and Alba.
Which is why I say prepare for surprises. This one is likely going to produce a lot of these, and so far the data says they won’t be nice for the union.
IPSOS telephone. 5% SNP UK-wide. That’s a biggie. Twice in a row. Adds another 60% SNP in Scotland to the averaging pot. Of course it’s not 60% SNP here, but it’s not 24% when you add a 2% UK-wide in either. Tables:
https://tinyurl.com/3a4zxhz6
Wiki is saying its an MRP, but the tables show just a regular telephone. 21-24 June.
Ipsos telephone have a gold standard record in Scotland. Almost as good as the platinum SSAS.
Ipsos UK telephone polls had 3.8% SNP ahead of 2019, which predicted 45% correctly. SNP are at 3.8% on average today with them. I have not updated with the new number, but it doesn’t change this, just moves the final point along a bit.
Wouldn’t it be funny if IPSOS telephone were right again? They have a stellar track record here.
That recent Scottish poll could well have been January’s again within MoE. There is a clear gulf between telephone and panel polling. Telephone has the far better record in Scotland because it’s a fully random sampling and actively targeting regular people. The total opposite to panel polls which are polls of people who are wanting to be polled at a given moment, so full of the vocal minority at times.
The most recent IPSOS full Scottish 36/36 could have been 39/33 SNP/Lab at the margins of variance, i.e. just like January. Perfectly probable, especially with silent SNP 2019 still so. The slight down-tick in Yes while all others were showing upticks hints it may well have been so. Just Labour at the top of variance, SNP at the bottom.
The poll results make grim reading for Starmer. Ratings are really bad and getting worse. Miliband was doing measurably better ahead of 2015, the last election where UKIP played a role.
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-06/node-1025616-1054331-en-uk.zip
Later!
If you give panel and telephone equal weighting, which is statistically a very sensible approach, you’d have the SNP on 39.4% without Green/Alba tactical about 5 days ago.
Now one random 5% from ISPOS could be written off, but these are maintaining a consistent average of 3.8% or 45% in Scotland.
One type of polling might end up with egg on face anyway! Historically, that’s always been panel polls.
People in Scotland don’t understand that they don’t really want independence from the UK, they want change and that’s Meeeeeeee! says Labour’s branch office manager Anus Starwars
Pakistan still independent is it Anas?
It looks like John Swinney is the only politician not to have placed bets on the general election now that Alex Cole Hamilton admits he has, his betting was different of course because Blah blah blah rules me good person Quaker
Never expected to see this. Julian Assange arrives in Canberra:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-69145409?
So people making up their minds is what’s causing Lab and Con to fall, while Reform and SNP (apparently) rise, even with very little rise in turnout projection so far. That implies actual swing towards the latter two amongst the engaged.
Bodes well for SNP and Reform, as it’s what might be expected to continue to happen as those may change mind numbers keep on reducing. It also hints at what the disengaged will chose to do when they start engaging in that final 10 days.
Labour are now consistently polling at the lowest they’ve been since pre-mini budget, both in IPSOS and the other pollsters.
Starmer is not a white night in shining armour. Nope, he very negative in ratings. -19% NET. That is so bad. Swinney is miles out in front with respect to his electorate.
And it seems it’s Starmer that’s the problem rather than (mainly) English people’s views of Labour as a party. No, they think Labour is ok, it’s Starmer they don’t like.
He may yet cost Labour the election.
Still time to change leader before voting day! 🙂
% Each party could lose if all their may change minders departed / their current VI%
Labour = 8.8% / 42%
Con = 8.4% / 19%
Ref = 4.4% / 15%
To clarify, this means Labour’s 42% is made up of 9% that may change mind on top of 33% that are set on Labour.
Amongst the engaged at least.
Would be compensated for by any movement to them from other parties.
Future chancellor of the exchequer Labour’s Rachel Reeves was unsure of where Whisky which she spelled as *Whiskey” came from as she visited a distillery in Scotland
She claimed the misspelling was the fault of the internet spell check
Never had that spelling problem ever in my life and I’ve got one of those internet thingys, but hey ho, I actually do know where “Whisky” comes from and I’m not even a politician from England that gets a nosebleed travelling north of the wall to the far flung reaches of the country that makes the stuff, and I’m not Rachel Reeves who is going to decide the future economy of my country of Scotland that makes the stuff
I do hope Rachel Reeves gets home safely to the civilisation of the UK of England OK, I guess she’s only used to her Raleigh bicycle with the basket and ding ding bell, she’ll have a driver who knows what a sat nav is though eh
Right, like bloody Wikipedia wouldn’t be able to set her straight about that…or, just a thought, asking her Scottish Labour pals for the Scottish spelling. That might have avoided her the blushes but then I’m not a high-flying politician aiming to decide economic matters.
“Future chancellor of the exchequer Labour’s Rachel Reeves was unsure of where Whisky which she spelled as *Whiskey” came from as she visited a distillery in Scotland”, but could detail every penny lost to the Treasury when Scots finally decide they’ve had enough of these charlatans..
Reeves isn’t an idiot despite the obvious, her “team” probably rehearsed the mistake endlessly until she got it ‘right’… Cue the ‘chippy scots’ argument masking Labour being the second most unpopular political party in the UK
She can’t spell whisky but she can spell £5.6 billion in exports in 2023.
So this is how turnouts are looking. The latest UK poll feildwork was mainly done on the 21st. You can see how there have been marginal rises in turnout projection UK-wide. We stopped getting Scottish polls once it seemed Labour’s lead was disappearing, but I can get info on our turnout numbers from UK-wide polls.
Interestingly, these show lower turnout projections compared to Scottish polls for Scotland. Don’t know why, could be Scots are less interested in being ‘British’ polled than they are Scottish. Would not be a surprise given they see Scottish elections as the most important now.
Either way, we have not entered the exponential phase quite yet. A reminder of this for 2019 in Scotland:
In 2011 it was the same, SNP with a possible 4% average lead at t-7 days, which became 14 points on the day.
Final week stuff! As polls tend to be 4 days behind the times, we may only see that key spike with days to go, assuming it happens and some parties benefit. I can’t say it will, only that it’s a regular feature that often only the very last polls catch, so watch for it.
If it does not, then Labour will fail to get any sort of mandate and you are looking at the lowest turnout in the history of universal suffrage, with them quite possibly getting less votes than their disaster of 2019. If it does go up, data suggest Labour will start losing VI sharply as that small rise from 50% to 53% has cost them up to 5% UK-wide so far.
Ironic that Labour will soon change their campaign to one telling voters not to take the result for granted, but get out to vote! That could possible end up being like handing a gun to the electorate and saying ‘shoot me’.
But maybe if turnout goes up, Labour may gain a bit from that too. I don’t have a crystal ball, only 2 decades of data saying they win when people stay at home.
Here’s a new MRP poll from a company I’ve never heard of before called We Think, This their prediction for Scotland.
One thing I very much doubt from this poll is that Labour will win 3 Tory seats, as I said yesterday I am hopeful that the SNP will win all Tory seats and they will be left with no MP’s in Scotland.
Labour are very very very unlikely to win these Tory seats as they are starting from too far behind and voters wanting rid of the Tories in these constituencies are most likely to switch to the SNP and not Labour in order to get them out. This new company though are talking up Labours chances but I’m not at all surprised at that. Aren’t they all.
https://wethink.report/news-hub/news/we-think-mrp-historical-low-for-the-conservatives/
wethink normally get low SNP in their UK polls compared to the pack, so this appears positive, especially as it will be old now. Will look later.
Aye, so SNP crossing over 3 weeks ago or so according to wethink too. 33/33 Lab/SNP.
Unionist movement apparently as 11% of electorate SNP 2019 still disengaged.
UK wide data are indicating a possible 4 point SNP rise over the past 7-10 days.
It’s coming from a rising certain to vote / turnout, so that pattern continues to hold.
The campaign so far saw a rise in turnout with movement away from Lab and con, but then both movement and TO stalled for the past week or so, with the latter dropping back. Then a new wave began and SNP seem to have gone up possibly 4 points with only a couple of points max rise in turnout.
Labour so far not coming back from less votes than 2019 UK-wide. So far the 2 decade pattern (Corbyn 2017 excepted) of ‘Labour only winning when you stay at home’ is holding too.
Must admit to putting some money on the outcome. If you want to do it, do so now as we may be entering an exponential phase and the bookies will pick it up.
I got some really nice odds on stuff the data says to me is entirely plausible, yet the media is saying is unthinkable, so the bookies are too.
More recent findoutnow for electoral calculus had SNP overtaking Labour on 33 vs 31 10-12 days ago.
So aye, around 2-3 weeks ago, the SNP overtook Labour the data says.
That abruptly stopped Scotland-wide polling by the British media. Every 3 days to silence.
There’s a Scottish poll out at midnight commissioned by Ballot Box Scotland that will be released at the same time by the Herald.
Hope they’ve used a reasonably decent pollster with a reasonable record here. Alone it will be just a lonely stab in the dark even if so.
It will also be a few days old. In a campaign, even the latest polls are old polls.
Such is life in the Scottish polling world. Scrabbling around for data is the norm.
4% SNP uk wide from panelbase norstat. I’ll take that, 5% from IPSOS and a majority already some time ago from we think.
head to head tonight should boost SNP and harm labour like last time.
The 5% from IPSOS is SNP/Plaid Cymru combined.
ok, so 4 then.
aye, it will be based on the last one. Bloody wiki
Hey hey, it is 5%!
Tables are out and in the LTV weighted numbers, its 5(+1)% (Table 4).
Sweet on the back of f’n panelbase norstat 4%.
Yes, I see that now. The tables weren’t available earlier but their “Topline” figures were and it was there that they gave SNP/Plaid a combined 5%.
Even better then so I’ll take that.
We think is ancient. Began 30th may so is 2-3 weeks old. Sweet.
good article on the guardian by Val McDermid
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/26/election-snp-scotland-labour-tories-lib-dems
We all knew this though.
https://archive.is/P7RWV
Scottish Labour MP candidate: We helped Tory campaign in 2019
A LABOUR candidate admitted to helping the Tory campaign at the last election in a bid to defeat the SNP, The National can reveal.
The stunning admission was captured on footage caught by a Ring doorbell, when Labour’s Tauqeer Malik told a voter the party secretly supported the Tories in Aberdeen South in 2019.
The voter, who said he would back the Conservatives’ John Wheeler, was told that Labour deliberately fumbled their 2019 campaign when the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn so as to give the Tory bid a boost.
it is absolutely disgusting. I used to be a Labour voter. If I still was that would make my blood boil. It still upsets me, despite the fact I have moved on.
It would appear that Labour is not going to put up a fight against Farage in Clacton. According to reports on Twitter and in the Guardian the Labour candidate has been told to leave the constituency and support has been withdrawn from the campaign team in the constituency. It appears Labour’s candidate was overshadowing his boss, Starmer.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/26/labour-not-putting-up-a-fight-against-farage-in-clacton
Also from Carol Voderman on Twitter it seems Esther McVey’s husband, a Tory MP/candidate, has placed a bet of£8,000 he will lose his seat.
Because none of the parties can remove the names of badly behaved candidates from the ballot papers in time for the election, if any of these candidates receive enough votes and win they may still enter the house of commons as independents
So they basically can still get away with whatever breach of rules they committed and go on until their parties bring them back in or they’re voted out at the next election
Great job being a candidate for a political party innit, a party can say they’ve sacked a naughty person but that person can still keep their job if the electorate vote for them
This is England UK politics at its best, an example of a system where getting rid of someone is almost impossible for the next five years once they’re in
If that’s true, that’s one hell of a unforced error from Labour. I swear, if you gave the choice to Starmer between sixty years of Labour rule but he’d have to compose with partners and a hundred years in the wilderness, not even to be the Loyal Opposition, but first he’d get two years as an unfettered Prime Minister, that chucklefuck would take the two years.
Snake oil Murray. Spite.
Many lovely lovely election Photo ops of Labour and Tory Party Leaders and assorted sycophants touring around multi-national businesses in search of votes from the Common Man . Not many votes in these establishments I would have thought – why don’t they have a photo-shoot in a Food Bank ?
Reeves and flunky Sarwar sampling WHISKEY . Not many Scottish votes in that one , Rachel . ( Just a thought , but Sarwar needs to have his name emblazoned on his high-viz jaikit , or none of the important Labour Big-wigs from Party HQ will know who he is !)
How many times have we heard Sunak or Starmer claim that what they hear from the voters they speak to on a daily basis is …” blah , blah , blah ..” when they DON’T speak to ANY ordinary voter ; they meet heads of businesses , they meet huddles of party apparatchiks waving party placards valiantly in the background as their leader lies again and again to camera ; they meet journalists who ask ridiculously bland questions and ignore the elephant in the Election –
”NOBODY likes you two TOSSERS – Why ?”
All that build up for nothing. The Herald poll on BBS is a statistical no change outlier looking poll from nearly a week ago. Main fieldwork on 1st June. Another single stab in the dark at a fast moving target from someone with their legs cut off from ages ago now.
And no wonder it’s no change. After rise in certain to vote, this dropped back again and with it SNP shares from around 11 June. It only kicked off it’s upward journey again by the time Survation had collected the bulk of this sample. If you’d wanted an outlier poll, this was perfect timing for fieldwork; wait until people are disengaged again then go for it. Why don’t these idiots watch certain to vote numbers then poll when these peak? That’s how you get the best accuracy.
This means polling on the 21 June is now telling me what I already knew a few days ago. 14 days out during a UK-wide lull is too far out to be useful. Survation UK just saw turnout drop to a 48% turnout low Scotland, hence the 2% UK-wide. Normally Scotland always has higher turnout projection than the UK, but not with survation recently. Ipsos by contrast just got 76% turnout and a 5% uk-wide. The same is causing wild differences in what people get in full Scotland polls, including for MRPs. It’s a scatter gun with someone also poking it randomly just as the trigger is pulled.
Wild differences in response rates are causing huge differences in VI. When the electorate turn off after puking at what’s on offer from the UK, Labour goes up, SNP down. When they engage, the reverse.
And we should be comparing / averaging with the last MRP, not 4 polls ago.
Do that, and we are back to level pegging previously at 34/34 from Survation a couple of weeks ago within variance, and due to a super low turnout again. The result is us back to our SNP don’t do great, but Labour do worse as they get no mandate as 2/3 reject them, even with the mass boycott of Westminster because folks want indy helping them get some deck chairs. SNP come out with a popular mandate for iref2 (2021), Labour without one here or UK-wide.
This remains our outcome unless those certain to vote / turnout numbers go up and we enter a normal exponential phase. These basically always happen, but the changes they create vary. In 2011, it all went to the SNP, so level pegging became a 14 point lead 2 weeks later. In 2019, SNP got 40% of the rise only, taking them from 40.5 to 45. In 2017, the opposite occurred, and a riding high SNP fell back. This was still associated with a rising turnout projection. It was just going more to the unionists as SNP folks decided they were going to win anyway and change could not be affected.
The level pegging is backed up when Survation said imagine it was PR, then Labour’s lead dropped sharply in the same poll, with this going to green. So much of Labour’s support is not real, it’s coming from British community tactical as 11% or more of past regular turnout, all SNP 2019, remain disengaged to the last.
What a waste of a few thousand pounds by the herald. Survation even say to ignore this type of poll in favour of their MRPs, which are far more advanced / reliable with much larger samples. That had an 7 point SNP lead a couple of weeks ago. So unless Survation are saying their MRPs are a waste of client’s money, that’s the number we should go with.
That said, I am starting to revise my thoughts on Reform, with Survation possibly being of some use here. This might just come off, and reform get a decent share here. If so, half will come from Con and half from Labour net, just like in England, both directly and indirectly, as the British community in Scotland behaves like England.
Oh, and without going back to find my comment. I did predict the unionist media would serve us one like this just to try and hold the narrative.
They’ve been polling away like mad every 3 days, and finally got what they wanted for publication. Timed the fieldwork perfectly.
Oh, you can even see the fall back due to the turnout fall back in the MRP seat counts. Might have been Farage entering the fray that had Scots throw up at a future in the UK and disengage again until election day.
Farage enters stage right 3rd June
37,18,15,8 Falls as turnout does
Bottoms out
16,20,29,24 starts to rise again as turnout does, with this taking off after Survation’s main sampling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Seat_projections
But the best bit is this:
New Scottish Independence poll, Survation 21-25 Jun (changes vs 23-27 May): No ~ 49% (nc) Yes ~ 42% (+1) Don’t Know ~ 9% (-1)
Support for the union down again. Alone you’d right it off, but it’s not alone at all, but part of a consistent pattern. Unionists are moving to Yes ahead of this election.
You can see how survation are an outlier here, getting lower Yes than the pack, ergo lower SNP of late. All to do with the make up of their panel.
Savanta have a poll today for the Scotsman, SNP +4 since their last poll to 34% and Labour down -1 and also on 34%
That ties in with the general pattern, as does Survation’s MRP plus that normal poll averaged out.
The reason I picked out Survation earlier is that recently its UK polls are outliers for the SNP on consistent 2%’s. This was caused by a sharp drop in their certain to vote / turnout (TO) numbers after that first SNP rise / TO wave that gave the good MRP.
For a good prediction, you want to be sampling those who are certain to vote, it’s only them that matter. If this number drops, it could be people not planning to vote, however, the data say this isn’t the case. Instead, it says people are engaging and disengaging, just like they did before. When they disengage, volatility occurs, and error rises sharply.
A 58% turnout projection ahead of 2019 became 68% in about 10 days in 2019. 58% was not real so the VI numbers were incorrect, simple as. SNP were 4-5% higher, but you needed the electorate to engage to show this.
We are at 57% turnout projection in Scotland right now, less according to UK-wide polls. Only if the turnout actually is that on the day will current VI numbers pan out; dead heat between Lab and SNP, possibly 8% reform or suchlike. If it goes up at all, even to just 60%, things will in all probability look very different, and to the SNP’s benefit.
So right now we have polls showing 48% turnout in Scotland (Survation UK-wide), then 76% (IPSOS UK), causing 2% and 5% UK share projections, which are vastly different in terms of what that would mean in Scotland. This is all variable engagement. IPSOS are phoning people, Survation sending out emails in the hope Scots will respond. But they stopped again.
It’s the same panel Survation are using for their UK and Scottish polls. So SNP were disengaged again for a while as they watch the footie not politics, and this brought down SNP in their polls. It’s not real change in support. Real change in support is turnout constant but VI changing. That is swing. Turnout controlling VI is not swing.
Still no sign of any tables for Savanta’s Scotland polls, but I bet you the recent SNP rise / Labour fall, is the certain to vote / turnout level going up and with it SNP.
As for UK-wide, the same applies. If it stays at 53% turnout, the polls should look kind of like the result. If this goes up at all, things could look really quite different, and 2 decades of outcomes say this will not be to the advantage of Labour.
Also, this is why it’s pointless to average Scottish poll results. If two polls are showing different turnouts, they are for two different scenarios, so cannot be meaningfully averaged. If all polls showed the same turnout, then you’d be averaging in an attempt to smooth out the standard error variance.
But under 50 and mid 70’s are wildly different scenarios, so becomes statistically meaningless to average.
Which is why I’m plotting SNP share vs turnout projection. This gives you probable outcomes as a function of turnout. It accounts for the key variable at play, which is not swing between Labour and the SNP (that is possibly occurring but in unionist circles only), but turnout. The bigger the turnout, the better the SNP do, like it’s been since 2011.
At face value, Survation are totally contracting themselves, accusing themselves of being wrong. 7% SNP lead (MRP) then 6% Labour lead? Nonsense, that’s miles out of +/-3% MoE. It’s simply electorate engaged, then disengaged at the time of sampling. An apple and a pear.
https://archive.is/zwMlS
Prof Curtice said: “Labour’s lead may have disappeared – largely as a result of a drop in its support rather than because of any revival in the SNP’s popularity.
I will correct him.
Prof Curtice said: “Labour’s lead may have disappeared – largely as a result of a drop in its support (to SNP, with some to Reform) rather than because of any significant revival in the projected turnout of SNP 2019 voters as yet”.
Labour have been losing support. Just like I said. Not in this poll alone, but it’s the general picture here and in England. If you don’t believe me, believe the prof.
However, SNP have yet to make the significant gains that are possible for them if (when?) turnout goes up, and to something that’s just not the lowest in the history of the UK due to a mass boycott as Scots reject Westminster.
It’s the trick he’s missing, and probably because he’s not actually a scientist.
Heavy down-weighting of Yes/SNP in Survation because the sample says correctly how it voted in 2019, but then that it voted 54(+9)% in 2014. This is not a representative sample. It’s lying that it voted Yes. Nonsense in, nonsense out. Survation should not be weighting this out, but asking what’s wrong with their panel.
Yougov UK subsamples have the labour fall too. Lowest since late 2023.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/voting-intention?crossBreak=scotland&period=3m
Yes parties on the rise. 43% Total Green + SNP + Alba.
Tactical not showing as yet. 7% Reform, taken from Lab and Con is increasingly possible I think. Lab losing to everyone but con it seems, here and UK-wide.
Polls just seem all over the place and we’re only a week out from GE.
Let’s assume voter turnout climbs to 59% (still well down on 2019). That’s around 28 million voters. Polls I’ve seen have SNP between 3% and 5%. Let’s assume 3.3% (~0.5% less than what they achieved in 2019 GE, so being cautious).
That’s 924,000 SNP voters (considerably less that GE2019 & GE2015).
If we assume 25,000 votes are required to win a seat (i.e. around 50% – it will likely be less than this due to multi-party split), then SNP could win ~37 seats (i.e. 924,000 / 25,000).
Caveat: Of course, support is not evenly spread across the country but if turnout increases and SNP % share increases, then they would likely win even more seats.
It’s looking very good for SNP to hold onto a majority of Scotland’s WM seats. And that is what we really must do. Failing this it will be wall-to-wall “Peak SNP”, “Indy is bust” from the usual Britnat suspects.
It’s not polling, with a few exceptions, it’s psy-ops, “who buys wins”…
I wouldn’t put it past them.
“Sigh-ops”!
So QAQC shows Survation poll agrees with absolutely nobody, including Survation.
We’ve got 4 from them to play with in the campaign now, a regular, then 2 MRPs, then this latest regular. Their most recent one could not be more at odds with the whole pack, from UK-wide to full Scottish, including historic outliers Savanta, who have just said they wish to re-join the pack.
It’s also way out of kilter with Survation’s own previous polls of the campaign, including the far more robust, big ass sample MRPs. These all show very good consistency.
So unless it’s repeated by other polls, it’s a outlier to be dropped from the series. It does not pass statistical QA/QC as it stands.
I was disappointed with it until Savanta came along and joined everyone else in saying the latest Survation is an outlier, and that the SNP are on the up and possibly taking the lead, not stalled and behind.
How things are looking. If you added in the wild outlier from Survation, the it would be a about -0.6%. Marginal difference.
But we lack polls from e.g. IPSOS, so it’s very panel poll biased, which always underestimate SNP. In 2011, we had a much better balance, with 1 face to face, 2 telephone, and 3 panel pollsters in the mix. The more reliable telephone / face to face pointed the way back then. If we removed the most recent telephone poll in 2011 at the same timeframe, the data would have the same lead of 1 % at t-13 rather than 4%.
Yes, that’s right, the SNP only had a 2 point lead in 2011 up until 2 weeks out, then 4 points to about t-7 days. Hard to believe a statistically negligible 2-4% became 14% in 7 days, but it did when the turnout climbed.
So let’s see what happens this time. Turnout projection remains at a lowest ever 57%, subject to any adjustment should Savanta decide to release their tables. But then when this goes up from lows due to disengagement, it’s always only the in final 7 days.
So today’s polling not bad for the SNP and slightly worrying for Labour now everyone’s disagreeing with Survation, including Survation, and nodding along with Savanta. There is little doubt the SNP have drawn level, the question is will they pull ahead in the final sprint.
Starmer heavily negative and getting worse again in Yougov UK’s leadership ratings.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49862-general-election-2024-tories-at-lowest-favourability-score-with-one-week-to-election
Fallen from recent -13 to -20 as the Labour vote falls.
Why isn’t IPSOS face to face polling being carried out in Scotland if it is known to be more accurate? Or do they not want accurate results in case they show Indie parties in a positive light and doing well? Looks like the whole polling industry is a scam and nothing to do with predicting the actual result.
Quality costs money. IPSOS do poll Scotland by telephone fully random sampling. An office in Edinburgh calls a random sample of Scots (not panel sign ups) and nicely asks their opinion on the election, indy etc. I did get the call once pre-2014.
But this is really expensive and time consuming compared to a panel poll, which is all just an automated bulk email and an online form. Telephone polls need a group of people physically phoning and talking to people for extended lengths of time, and they’re not selling anything, so the cost must be borne by the poll commissioner. It’s STV in Scotland as a rule.
Which is why we get so few telephone polls, even thought they are far more accurate.
The only face to face these days is the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey which is funded by the government. They phone, but then arrange for someone to visit who’s working for the university of Strathclyde to visit. They will be there for a few hours possibly if you waffle on. This is the platinum standard, but takes weeks and needs a big research grant. It say Scots settled on independence by 2019. It does not ask about voting intention, just about attitudes to government, the constitution etc.
Or a pollster with deep pockets – this is the same method that IPSOS used to conduct its MRP
No, that was a panel poll (IPSOS ‘knowledgepanel’). It gives measurably different results to their telephone efforts, at least in Scotland. Hence the low seats they got for the SNP, yet 3..4..5% of the UK total with telephone.
I can only base that on leadership ratings, as they’ve not VI panel polled Scotland, just a few leadership quickies.
You can forget a telephone MRP lol! That would eyewateringly expensive and time consuming.
It’s not even 1000 phone calls for just a normal poll, but as it’s random sampling, it’s 10’s of 1000’s potentially, as you have to first randomly phone up and see if someone at the other end, following questioning, matches a missing demographic on your quota. That or a family member willing to be polled does. If not, you’ve already wasted 5 mins or so just checking this then saying sorry, but you need to hang up and move on.
This is what causes most responses to be the first day of the survey. You fill most of your quota, then you are chasing the ever harder to reach groups, whether its panel or telephone. That’s been SNP 2019 in Scotland recently. Has been other groups in the past, like Labour voters after 2015. They went quiet after that whipping, inflating SNP VI artificially.
I find it really weird that unionists are all excited about the collapse of the conservatives, and their replacement by the far right reform.
Surely if you want the union to survive, the very last thing you should want is the death of the unionists and rise of the far right English nationalists?
Am I missing something here?
It’s English nationalism that’ll finally see the end of the union, not Scottish nationalism.
ok, with 7 days to go, here are my PoP and TO plots.
I estimate SNP, without any Green or Alba tactical, and without any silent SNP 2019 engaged, to be on 37% of a 57% turnout. After an initial wave driving by rising turnout, both this and SNP dropped back. Then a second wave seems to have occurred, bringing both back up again. Savanta caught this, but Survation has been alone in missing it so far.
UK-wide, Labour have dropped to 40%, and are now on less votes that they got in 2019, unless turnout picks up and they get some of that.
There seems to have been something of a second wave of slowdown in England, once again driven by a wee retreat in turnout numbers. But smaller this time and edging up again.
As for what happens next? Well, any exponential turnout rise phase, if it’s going to happen as usual, no matter how big or small, will begin now. One week to go. You need to make your mind up.
So hold tight!
Wikipedia.
Lab down 5. Con down 4.
SNP the highest of the campaign. 3.1% = 37% in Scotland without Green etc tactical.
Just after I posted, ‘2% Techne’ UK, who’ve not given the SNP more than that UK-wide since April, just decided to follow the pack and upped SNP to 3%.
Just Survation (no surprise), Deltapoll and MoC still running with 2’s now. And any 4’s welcome!
Fingers crossed.
Oops, no, its Just Survation and Deltapoll holding out on 2% now.
Your 57.2% in 1918 must surely be an outlier. As huge amounts of the population were
A) casualties
B) still on active service
Universal suffrage had only just been introduced, so yes it’s a historical outlier for reasons around this and what you say I’d imagine. 2001 is the real record low. That’s what New Labour does to hope.
So aye, latest data fits in nicely and says if turnout climbed just 3% to 60% in Scotland, SNP should go into the low 40’s, which is in contention for 45% SNP with some Green / Alba tactical. Any higher and the sky could become the limit.
It looks like they’ve risen from low to upper 30’s on the back of only the most marginal turnout rise. That implies the rise has been more swing to them from unionists rather than silent SNP 2019 entering the fray. This is what Prof C mentioned, i.e. Labour losing ground in Scotland. Since they’ve lost 4 points UK-wide then the same pattern would be expected here. So we might guesstimate that they’re down to low 30’s, having peaked out at about 36% average as turnout hit rock bottom just before the GE campaign / with the collapse of the BHA etc. That’s when New Labour always does well; when people’s hopes and dreams are being dashed. Vultures feeding on the death of hope for change.
You can see from my plot above the pointless futility of trying to picture what’s going on from the occasional rare Scottish poll. And if anyone is trying to sell you Scottish poll only ‘Poll of polls’, then totally ignore such clueless idiocy at best. For these to have any use, you’d need one from all the regular pollsters around the same time. Only that allows you to start averaging, easily sifting out outliers that may have been cherry picked for publication.
Nope, you need lots of data. UK poll SNP share helps here, and you can be sure this isn’t being cherry picked based on SNP share as the focus is England. You need a lot though, as the variance is big, which makes it huge when you are dealing with small SNP shares. But averaging 15+ of these starts to give you trends. Then you can see that Savanta is starting to match up nicely now (turnout numbers up in their panel probably), as did a flurry a few weeks ago before the silence, but the new survation is right out at the extreme end of variance, so probably well outwith the standard 95% confidence interval, = outlier. Even then, as extreme outliers go, it’s showing a rise in this pack too.
The gap between SNP and Lab is easier to do with Scottish only data + UK MRP subsamples as it’s not related to absolute numbers, but differences. Hence I have managed a reasonable averaging here. That showed crossover at least in the past few weeks at some point.
And a reminder that poll margin of error +/-3 %, which means parties on level pegging can show a 6% gap readily, is precision, not accuracy.
So e.g. Panelbase is more top right low accuracy, but with reasonable precision (tends to always get numbers within its own range) case.
IPSOS by contrast is maybe half way between the bottom two. Mid term its bottom left, final week or so it can be bottom right.
Survation recently has been a bit top left! A product of varying engagement by sections of its panel.
Apparently it’s going to be much more complicated to vote than everybody thinks as we read that thousands of postal votes have not arrived through Scottish letter boxes
I did try to warn about this when I encountered it 6 to 8 weeks ago.
Also suggested that if the timing was tight for anyone a proxy vote might be a better option.
The boss tells me that this household posted their votes two days ago.
Got mine last Saturday and posted it back the same day just in case the mail was slow…but yes, changed to a postal during COVID and i think I might change back again. I’m not entirely confident about the post.
And if you do turn up in person, don’t forget to bring your ID … if you have one).
Up to 100k Welsh people may be robbed of their vote because of photo-identity law (nation.cymru)
Up to 100k Welsh people may be robbed of their vote because of photo-identity law
28 Jun 2024 4 minute read
Nearly 100,000 people in Wales face losing the opportunity to participate in the general election because of a “voter suppression” law introduced by the Conservatives.
Individuals attending polling stations will have to produce either a specified photo identification document like a passport or a pre-approved Voter Authority Certificate (VAC).
UK Government figures show that since the July 4 election was called there have been just 57,418 applications for VACs, which can be used at polling stations as proof of identity by people who do not have any of the accepted forms of ID they need to vote.
[…]
Scotland: ‘Coming home to the union’ while moving away from it.
https://tinyurl.com/yzj3y4br
Generally speaking, do you currently have a positive or negative view of politics in Britain?
UK
7% Positive
15% Neutral
75% Negative
Scotland
5% Positive
14% Neutral
80% Negative
Well, this is great polling for the unionists. 5% positive vs 80% negative. Jeezo.
Sarwar jumping to the defence of a Scottish Labour(sic ) candidate who claimed to support the Tories to keep out that SNPEEE !
He didn’t actually mean that , says Sarwar , he was LYING !!!
And that . M’lud , closes the case for the defence !
Labour are lucky the Tories and Reform don’t have two brain cells to rub together otherwise it would be “Liar Starmer, liar Labour” all day, every day.
Another red flag for Survation, is that everyone, including Survation, has been saying that the SNP had gone back in the lead for Holyrood by late May, i.e. crossover absolutely happened here, and with pollsters that don’t exactly favour the SNP. 6 in a row and aye, this is real. SNP winning here again.
https://www.whatscotlandthinks.org/questions/how-would-you-use-your-constituency-vote-in-a-scottish-parliament-election-asked-since-2021-scottish-parliament-election/
Hence the sore thumb nature of their most recent poll in all respects.
Ballot Box Scotland and the Herald threw their money away there it seems. Can’t be helped though really, as outliers just do happen. 5/100 will be so on average. You pay your £5k or so, and take your chance. And the gaussian nature of probability curves mean if you do get an outlier, it can be a really silly one. It might yet turn out to get the poll beamer of the election award. Could already be 10% off in terms of SNP lead over labour. Ooch for the reputation if so.
If wanted a poll of Scotland, it would be IPSOS every time. Even comes with a wee Saltire country of origin flag, unlike Survation’s St. George’s cross / butcher’s apron. However, I expect it might readily be double the price due to being fully random sample direct (telephone) targeting.
Finally the older Savanta polls tables are out, not the latest. No rise in turnout, hence SNP was still showing as low.
Classic sampling issue pattern. Up to 5 days of sending out emails to known 2019 SNP voters on their panel, and they still failed to find enough to make the quota. So SNP 2019 intentions are being invented based on those they managed to get a hold of.
By contrast, Labour voters were only too eager to be polled. 20% too many answered the call, so had to be down-weighted.
These samples are not representative. Just like when unionist were all silent and SNP were polling silly 60%’s sometimes in post-election honeymoons, but in reverse.
Tories quiet too, hence expect they may do a little better UK-wide than polls suggest, even though they, unlike the SNP, are not offering change, and have totally ruined the country.
More from that earlier Savanta where Labour were still in the lead.
All I can say is roll on Starmer in No 10 and so independence!
Given the most recent poll showed crossover, what will this same question show when it comes out? I guess another fair jump in ‘more likely’. Starmer is driving Scots to indy, no doubt about it.
If I was a unionist, I’d be hoping Labour don’t win. But then Labour turkeys are known for voting for Christmas.
If SNP hold E. Dunbartonshire (from LibDems), Lanark & Gordon (from Tories) and Kirkcaldy & Glasgow NW (from Labour), they will have a brilliant night.
SNP most vulnerable seats:
SNP top target seats:
I’m sure Angus will be a safe seat for the SNP, Labour have never been a threat there and the Tories are so unpopular that their vote will go down rather than up.
Hate to be picky but the seat is now called Mid Dunbartonshire because of boundary changes. It will be hard for Snp to hold the seat as Amy Callaghan who was the Mp for the original constituency only had a majority of 149 and the loss of parts of Kirkintilloch due to boundary changes will not help chances of Snp win. I sincerely hope Amy wins as I live there. She is a good constituency Mp. LibDems are Snps biggest rival here and their previous Mp here Jo Swinson was bad enough their current candidate seems to have problems determining reality going by the leaflets I have received which often mention NHS and Education. which as we know are Hollyrood responsibilities not Westminster.
I get the same stuff Eilidh, the Lib Dem woman is totally divorced from reality, coffee mornings bicycle and pearls with a dose of how awful those new folk at no 14 are, and how they’re not our sort at all
We get the same plethora of leaflets up here on a fortnightly basis, the only difference with yesterday’s LibDem ‘Herald’ as they call it was that instead of the local ‘worthy’ it was Ed Davey’s physog on the front. Every issue has emanated from HQ London. As you say, it’s all about how rubbish the SNP is on absolutely everything while quoting figures relating to NHS England etc in the inner pages. Maybe they’re hoping we’re ‘too stupid’ to notice.
Canny believe the UK turnout was still sitting at 53% 7 days out. Starmer’s Labour still on less absolute votes than 2019. Crazy times.
I tentatively think Curtice is behind the times, as UK-wide data is promising. Even that 2% fae whitstone insight the day is nice as it shows Green + SNP well ahead of Labour in Scotland. That’s what’s still driving the remaining SNP 2%’s; high Green in the Scottish sample.
Like everything, any tactical green to SNP is holding out for the last. It vanished as soon as the 2019 campaign began, but this time everything is least minute. It’s not just Scotland, Greens are holding steady at 6% UK wide. Going to go to the wall. People deciding on the day could be super high. That could utterly confound the polls.
Looks like Labour are going to lose seats in Scotland. They had already won 20+ seats recently after all right? If Labour fail to win all these seats, it’s them that will be the big losers from this. I jest not. 40% of the Scots vote on a 68% turnout is need for Labour to claim any sort of ‘coming home’. We are so very far from that.
https://archive.is/LspWl
Sir John Curtice on why the Labour lead over the SNP is disappearing
Following last night’s head-to-head TV leaders’ debate, polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice says Labour has ‘not had a brilliant campaign’.
Disappeared on average, and some time ago now it seems.
Labour’s fall here is not from silent SNP2019, who are still silent. It’s swing from Labour to other parties, mainly SNP.
Ok, tables out and yes, the SNP closing the gap on Labour with Savanta did not come from a rise in turnout. It was swing to the SNP from Labour. Certain to vote levels actually dropped a bit. The average turnout projection edged back a touch.
This is not good news for Labour.
It is a low turnout that was helping Labour, yet this seems to have been unwinding.
So Brian Taylor, pulled out of “retirement” by the BBC, gleefully predicting up to 28 seats for Labour is well off the mark? What a shame.
The BBC even brought back John Beattie who retired a year ago to help out with the BBC *drivetime* Labour campaign or to be more realistic the “SNP Baad” campaign
Every sinew strained for Labour by the British media in Scotland but they’re slipping sliding and dropping downwards the more people hear Anus Starwar’s voice having to be even more fake than his boss Starmer
Keep talking Labour
They had Jim Murphy on the radio during the week. Thought I was going mad!
Who he?
😀
He was the Eggman whooooh
He was also a balloon in a story of mine. I turned him into an ill-fated property developer in another account.
Week old (21 June main fieldwork) total outlier English unknown Redfield and Wilton now finally agreeing that its beloved Labour are losing their lead.
You could not find a pollster that comes out with anything more ridiculously nonsensical, like we totally don’t want Sarwar as FM, but would vote for him to be FM…
England trying to poll Scotland. Bless.
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/scottish-independence-referendum-westminster-voting-intention-26-27-june-2024/
Gap narrows on indy:
SNP rising super fast as Labour falls away. Trends folks. Trends. This is with DKs, and that’s key. Look what is really happening. Labour over-sampled poll and they are standing still. SNP is taking all the DKs, while Con is losing to Reform.
A slight rise in certain to vote, but the SNP rise is mainly coming from the engaged don’t knows, not silent SNP 2019.
Turnout project now 57.5%, but that’s 1 week ago based on this data. So silent SNP contribution is just 1% of the action since the GE campaign began. 1% rise in TO and 5 point rise or so for SNP. I will take that!
How obvious do the BBC in Scotland have to get before the people of Scotland wake right up and see them for what they are?
Tonight BBC Scotland just finished a report with pictures and vox pop interviews on guess what? the Clacton election campaign featuring Nigel Farage, then they give out the names of all the candidates in that contest
Not a single person in Scotland can take part or vote in Clacton on sea because Clacton on sea is an English constituency, English! that’s in the country of England folks, an entirely other country in which the voters of Scotland do not live in or even near, so why in the name of the wee man is BBC Scotland informing us of who in the blazes all the candidates are in an election in which we can take no part
BBC Scotland the 7 local news is broadcast in Scotland only
But hey, Nigel Farage eh, Jeezus H on a bike!!
Has anyone else noticed a distinct lack of “Vote Tory” displays in farmers fields this year? This is the first election that I can remember where I have not seen a single show of support for the Tories in fields around where I live.
If it’s the same around the rest of Scotland then the Tories might do even worse than I had already thought which was that they will lose at least 4 if not all of their seats.
I am now thinking that they could very well be killed by Reform. A few % nationally here is all it would take. upper single figures in the Tory seats and wipeout, mainly to SNP.
Recent polls have Con tanking here too, with Reform enjoying that. English nationalists stabbing the British unionists.
They’ve never been the same since they stopped calling themselves ‘The Ruth Davidson Party’. You reminded me that a few years ago I was passing through a small Highland village in the far north and was confronted by a massive billboard containing her picture in a field by the road. Apart from anything else it looked so completely out of place. Fairly spoiled the scenery and my day out.
I spotted a big cyan sign with Andrew Bowie in big white letter in a field up Deeside.
That was it. No picture. No party. No saying what AB was for. Just a name on a different blue than I expected. Are they hoping to kid Scots that he’s Reform, so he can get a few votes?
Mind you, they elected him last time…
I was down along Galloway yesterday and normally the place is loaded with Britflags but they were few and very far between, but there were more Saltires than I have ever seen before even outside a well kent care home that always flies the Apron hail rain or shine, but was now flying the Saltire, and a very large one at that
New Survation MRP out for the situation…
On the 15th of June or just a little after!
OMG. What is the f**king point of this? Election polling used to be about trying to call the how thing were moving in a rapidly changing election campaign. Now it’s about fangled models to predict what thing possibly were almost 2 weeks ago.
By all means give me an MRP, but can the fieldwork be the past couple of days please?
The 15th of June? For real? I can’t even remember what I was doing back then it was so long ago.
FHS, it has he most unpopular incoming government in the the history of the UK taking the borders and the western isles by storm. This is while Labour are falling behind the SNP in the polls.
I hope this is MRP’s first and last election, because I have money on it’s predictions being found very wanting went the votes are counted.
All mooth and nae breeks.
You just cannot do election campaign polls over 2 or more weeks of sampling with it all heavily front ended. That’s just such a total fail. Much of your sample may have already changed their minds by the time you are half way through FHS.
What is this garbled polling nonsense from a foreign country?
https://archive.is/2dk6D
SNP up but down? Labour soaring but retreating?
Liberal dash of Englandsplaining going on.
What a mess things are in.
Oh, 9 days old too. The theme of this election. Polls as old as possible for Scotland, because the SNP are gaining ground on Labour, and it’s not me saying this, even the outlier pollsters are saying this too know, and that it happened a week or two ago.
I think the numbers contain a huge number of DK’s, otherwise, none of them add up, so are chocolate teapot. Not in whatscotlandthinks either. The previous ancient Yougov is still not there either. Prof C must be busy lining his pockets with English election coverage.
But so many are still undecided.
Of those surveyed in Scotland, 14% have changed how they plan to vote over the past four weeks.
And moved away from Labour to the SNP it seems.
No tables as yet. Expect these to come out after the election or something.
So Sky News getting their excuses in early. With as you say a bit of Englandsplaining the huge down turn in Scotland of the unionist vote. And the (hopeful) SNP control of the Scottish seats at westminster. By calling it a protest vote.
This early, really, they must have all had a bad curry, or was it sea food waiting days to clear customs.
I see Sky News are still peddling that crap about Labour winning in Scotland being indicative of them winning the general election: last I checked, Brown’s Labour handily won in Scotland in 2010 and still lost the election.
Yes, Labour winning in Scotland in a UKGE doesn’t historically bode well for them in Scotland.
I can add 2005 to your 2010. Both Labour ‘victories’ here for the unionist’s parliament where they were overwhelmingly rejected by Scots (6/10 opposition), that led to SNP victories for Scotland’s own national parliament.
Sky are right in that Scots do vote differently for the two, or at least have done. In Scotland, they vote for the parties they really support as there’s no tactical and it’s for their own government.
Sunak is also right in that a Labour government will do irreversible damage to the union within its first 100 days. They put the SNP on the road to majority government last time. This time they will deliver indepedence.
I think the idea that Scotland is a colony and denied self-determination by the UK Government is gaining traction. Scotland being a colony would mean that the governing or potentially governing parties of the UK and those who deny the right to self-determination are – colonialists, who wish to continue the practice of colonialism over Scotland.
That means that the Conservatives, Labour, LibDems and Reform UK are all colonialist parties. A vote for then is a vote to support the continuation of Scotland as a Colony of the UK.
The thing is that NOT voting for a non-colonialist party such as the SNP, Greens, Alba, ISP or Independents4Independence, aids and abets the colonialist parties by not countering any vote for them with an opposing vote for a non-colonialist party.
Anyone who votes for a colonialist party supports Scotland being a colony, but anyone abstaining or spoiling their ballot, or “repurposing their vote” with a spoilt ballot, is also supporting a colonialist party by their actions.
This makes them a colonist. Delighted with Scotland being a colony of the UK, and doing their little bit with their one vote – which they could use to oppose colonialism.
Think carefully how you use your vote.
I’m keeping my avatar for a few days as a reminder of a failed campaign as well.
It would need about 10,000 similarly spoilt ballots in Scotland to be noticeable, doubling the 2019 number. There’s unlikely to be more than 400. But even that low level could give the colonialists a couple of extra seats, the most marginals.
The Unionists would be laugh, laugh, laugh.
Those that spoil their ballot papers probably still stamp their feet at supermarket checkouts demanding sweeties fae their mammies
“get me sweeties or I hate you”
I think they call this the Stuart Campbell manoeuvre, it never fails to lose
Anyone voting Labour unionist will get nothing.
Postal vote forms not received for people going on holiday. When Douglas Alexander organised election.
Last night the BBC had a Newsnight Scottish debate from Glasgow!!
How they managed to get such an audience for Kirsty Quisling to choose questions from had to be seen to be believed.The BBC are now in full anti-SNP mode for this final week of electioneering (and it shows).
We have little chance with these biased ‘debates’ – I can only hope Scots are not taken in by the nonsense.
Panel polling is so cheap and nasty, everyone’s at it now, hence the plethora of new pollsters.
Take Peoplepolling, they have 1% voting for Plaid Cymru in Scotland @Welsh Sion.
Oki doki.
I’ll leave them in the averaging anyway, but FHS, prompting for parties that are not even standing in most home nations, WTF?
Still, nice to know 1% of people in the Midlands / wales are voting SNP! Won’t help much, but appreciated.
That’s how sh*te a lot of all this is. Standards have fallen far in the polling world in pursuit of profit, and we have a whole host of pollsters with no record in Scotland nor UK-wide all giving us their wholly uncalibrated predictions.
We also have pollsters who failed badly in Scotland last time (all but ISPOS), yet did not try to address this. Instead, they did something that should make them even less reliable, namely putting smaller parties on the main prompt. This is what causes high Green / Reform / Alba etc, which never pan out under FPTP. Also renders MRP pointless before you even get to the fact such polls are out of date before the survey is even complete. MRPs are shite, that much is clear now. If they were any good, they’d agree with each other. But instead, we have e.g. Survation telling us its MRPs are wrong while being super accurate at the same time; 3 of them now, all in complete disagreement. These cannot be accurate if they are in complete disagreement as they are. But then with a +/-17% margin of error at a constituency level, it’s rubbish in, rubbish out.
Pollsters in Scotland also got it wrong because they were still using 2014 weighting, IPSOS excepted. That is still happening 1 decade on, and it is skewing numbers as people are lying and saying they voted Yes when they didn’t.
I don’t know what will happen, as for now the electorate is still not engaged. Those certain to vote numbers still show the lowest turnout ever, and UK-wide. If these go up even a few % as people bite the bullet, engage and make their decisions at the very last minute, the polls could be stupidly wrong across the UK.
For now we face a hated Labour government that Scots didn’t vote for with no mandate here nor UK-wide. One which may even get less votes than last time.
The SNP have been on the rise, even Prof C and right wing Sky news concur. The question is will that continue? If they are to win a decent number of seats, a small turnout rise needed. Ideally we go past 60%. That happened in the last few days in previous elections, so I will keep saying not to rule it out this time.
The good news is that SNP share continues to show a perfect correlation with turnout. It goes up, they go up, it retreats, they edge back a little. All the volatility and disagreement between pollsters, even between their own polls, is down to this.
So fingers crossed for a sharp rise in the final days as usual.
You can easily tell when support for the SNP and independence is rising, Alba’s trolls frantically multiply their efforts on every forum to insist the SNP don’t want independence
A very British strategy bought and paid for
Had one of them at the door yesterday despite the SNP poster in the window. Gave him back his leaflet and politely suggested he keep it for someone who might be interested. then the conversation went:-
A) (Alba) Its democracy.
Me) REALLY democracy, reeaally?
A) Yes lets start a dialogue.
Me) Democracy, Dialogue. No democracy would have been for all your vote thieves to stand down and trigger by-elections. That’s democracy. (begin to walk away)
A) You don’t want to have a dialogue when?
Me) Which part of my previous statement did you not understand.
A) Right well lets start a dialogue.
Me) Dialogue requires you to consider and respond to statements made within it. Not simply return to line one of your diatribe when the conversation / debate becomes difficult.
A) Good now we’ve started a dialogue.
Me) Goodbye.
A) you don’t want to have a dialogue then.
Me) Quietly close door and go in search of coffee.
A thing of statistical beauty.
SNP share (without tactical) = 1.7352 × turnout – 63.341
For a turnout of 57.5%, SNP would be 36%. We were there a week ago or so, as per full Scottish polls, with 4% Green and 1-2% Alba on top.
Goes up to 60% and it’s 41% SNP plus tactical and so forth.
So the SNP’s rise from low 30’s (31, 32?) into the upper 30’s has come from 1% silent SNP 2019 reengaging, and the rest (3-5 points) from unionists to date. Hence Labour retreating in Scotland.
10% out of the 68% of the electorate who voted last time, all for the SNP, remain silent.
Now this is interesting. It seem Scots believe the polls, but only about the Tory wipeout. They don’t believe the SNP are going to lose.
From Yougov Scotland, 3-7 June.
How likely or unlikely do you think it is that the candidate representing [the party you intend to vote for] in your constituency at the next election will win?
SNP intenders
70% Likely
15% Unlikely
= +65% NET confident
Lab intenders
58% Likely
20% Unlikely
= +38% NET confident
Lib intenders
41% Likely
41% Unlikely
= 0% NET confident
Con intenders
35% Likely
44% Unlikely
= -9% NET confident
SNP voters may be disengaged, but they don’t seem to be despondent. They have the most belief of all that their candidate will win. That’s very positive if so.
Lab voters notably less confident here quite far behind here, even though polling was supposed to be showing them winning in Scotland. Interesting, as that’s the impression I had from Sarwar, he was seeing great headline VIs, with Labour possibly even getting the most seats in Scotland, but he did not believe SNP voters had come to back his party, even if poll headline VI suggested it. That’s because we know they have not, and he will be finding this on the doorsteps.
It seems he’ll also have been finding SNP who were paying no attention to the campaign / were disengaged, but intended to vote and were far more confident of the SNP winning than he was for Labour.
Tories accept they’re f**ked. Libs figure they’ll at best get a few seats as usual.
Interesting that of those intending to vote SNP, 70% believe their candidate will win which ties in almost exactly with the current percentage of SNP MP’s 43/59 or 73%.
Most people pay the sum total of zero attention to polls. Scots are completely turned off by this British election, just as English people are. If you ask civilians how the polls are, the most they’ll know is that Labour are apparently looking like winning the next election and reform are making inroads with a Tory collapse.
Therefore, if SNP voters are very confident of a win, it’s because their friends, family and colleagues are saying they plan SNP again, with none net having moved to Labour. Which we know is factually true – this has not happened, and the low SNP of late is entirely down down to disengagement leading to very low turnout predictions, albeit it not much lower than 2017-2019 mid term.
And it’s actually a more Labour leaning sample who are confident the SNP are going to win. After all, Labour were ahead in this poll even with the sizable swing to SNP from the last Yougov.
So if engaged SNP intenders are confident even with the media ‘you are screwed, the dream is dead’ barrage, how confident are silent SNP? This data would suggest they are quietly confident.
This is a nice finding anyway, as it suggests SNP voters should go out to vote on the day, and may be joined by silent SNP 2019. If they were feeling they were going to lose, they might be more inclined to not bother.
It’s armed forces day
And Queen Camilla has made a video thanking the British armed forces for protecting “our country”
Not GB, not UK, not even these islands, “our country”
Every piece of propaganda carefully chosen to waterboard your brain into accepting the lie that Britain is a *country*
And that’s without even mentioning the ridiculous status of the woman who said it
I’m impressed by how many medals Charles has won. Bigley impressed I am.
SNP voters need to get out and vote against unionism, because right now the entire media has focused on using Nigel Farage to suck the oxygen out of all politics to try to make us all sleepwalk into not noticing what’s going on
Forget about England and Wales, Scotland can’t do anything about what’s happening in those places, that’s all up to the folks in those countries
We in Scotland must protect ourselves from those who call themselves “The British” you’ll know them when you hear them, they have no country of their own, they just invade everybody else’s and call them their country
Watch for them, they worship a flag that isn’t the flag of any country because they made it up, they display it on buildings and streets in rows of thousands, they have the military emblazon it on armoured vehicles, they march behind it in stone faced loyalty to it and worship their Royal leaders who represent it
Gosh! what could I be describing?
Still getting election leaflets from something called ”The Scottish Labour Party ” !
They clearly are an entity that knows little about Devolution as they whitter on about Labour improving Scottish NHS and Education after this election – and this from a former Unison heid wummin’ and former director of Scotland in Union !
There are people all over the place pretending they’re not voting for this or that candidate because of this or that ridiculous reason
Nobody votes for individual candidates unless they happen to be independent of political leadership, they vote for the party or leader of that party
If they didn’t what would be the point of political parties in the first place where you have a leader who can kick people out for not behaving as they’re told
It’s like saying “I’m not voting for Anas Sarwar because I don’t like him” when in fact Anas Sarwar is in charge of nothing, in the same way Douglas Ross has no authority over anything, it’s their political party leaders who are in charge, the rest are there to either make up the numbers or because they have brains enough to contribute to the party
People buy a car because of the brand name and style, the individual car might be rubbish but you don’t know that until after you’ve been driving it for a while, if it’s good you’re happy, if it’s bad you don’t blame the brand, you blame the car,
Politics is no different
SNP is the brand, so that’s what I drive
Wonder if there will be a slew of polls tomorrow as we lurch into the last few days. A few of the pollsters will be wildly out given the spread of predictions if they don’t have an 11th hour convergence.
Even last minute polls might not catch things. Folks across the UK seem to be holding out to the last. That or they are completely disengaged, having already decided what they want to do.
As noted various times here, about 10% of the total electorate only appeared out of the woodwork in the last few days before 2019. About 40% of these went SNP, taking them from 40.5 to 45%.
In 2011, the last minuters almost all went to SNP, taking them from a 4 point lead over labour to a 14 point one in a matter of days.
This is what gets pollsters; they need these people that they can’t reach but who come out on the day to proportionally vote like the engaged are saying they plan to. If they don’t, the polls will be well off.
Panel polls – which all are bar IPSOS telephone – are not representative samples of the public and never can be. They are samples of people who wish to be polled, whether that’s for the rewards, or because they are presently politically engaged like Labour and Reform voters are, while Con and SNP are not.
But not engaged doesn’t mean won’t vote! And I am pleasantly surprised that Yougov are finding SNP voters by far the most confident they’ll win. Disengaged, but still planning to vote for change maybe… But that could make sense. What’s their to engage with if you are set and not a politics geek? Just get on with the footie and gardening etc. The fact that polls show Scots are the least interested in the debates etc says it all. They have decided what they’re voting and it’s not Lab. We know this. What we don’t know is if they’re going to come out for SNP.
The polls were much better for the SNP ahead of 2017, but I felt sick in my stomach because they were going down as turnout numbers climbed. Silent unionist party voters were emerging. It was gearing up to be their dead cat bounce revenge for 2015.
This time, the raw SNP numbers seemed far worse, yet everything says to me they have not been not what they seem. And the SNP are trending upwards. I would much rather go in trending up from a low, than trending down from lower numbers than you got last time, which is where the SNP were on 42% before they started slipping to below 40% in final polls. So we are not 2017; polls are completely different. We had silent unionists that time, this time it’s silent SNP 2019. What will they do…
O M G !!! Labour have released the Broontosaurus again !
Just when you thought that his keepers had realised that he had as much positive impact on Scottish voters as a reminder of England’s 1966 ‘triumph’ , then some clot wakes him from hibernation and off he trots in his crumpled blue suit and old red tie , wittering away about ”Child Poverty” .
”Child Poverty ” ! How much worse has this become because we are tied to the financial straitjacket that Tory/Labour Westminster imposes on Scotland . And Brown has considerable culpability for this as his actions during the Referendum of 2014 , his lies and his ”Vow” persuaded some that Better Together was not a deal with the devil !
However , the more this relic speaks the more people will be reminded that he was the right-hand man of Bliar and was equally culpable in the Iraq disaster , he was the Chancellor who encouraged Councils of ‘the benefits’ of the ruinous PFI , he was the man who authorised the Banks’ bail out instead of nationalising them after the 2007-8 financial crash … and , good socialist that he was/is (?) , he DIDN’T abolish the obscenity that is the House of Lords because too many Labour stalwarts wanted to get their socialist snouts in the Public Trough !
Betting scandals are all the rage at the moment . I wonder how many good Labour people will be betting on the Broontosaurus being added to the role of dishonour by accepting a peerage from Starmer PM ?
Please confirm: This was common knowledge amongst the Dugger Community for months, wasn’t it?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/29/tory-minister-who-placed-three-bets-on-election-date-in-line-for-sunak-peerage
Sometimes you *do* tend to think you are ahead of the Westminster curve … and *they* think that *we* are the parochial ones.
The Guardian has covered all this in previous articles. First the Boris Johnson list where Alistair Jack was top of the list:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/08/who-has-boris-johnson-nominated-for-peerages
Next was the article where Jack delayed it until after this election.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/17/alister-jack-spares-tories-a-byelection-by-ruling-out-lords-switch
Funny how the Observer appears to have missed the previous reporting and appear now to be claiming a “scoop” lol
… and it being a sister paper of the Guardian an’ aw’ !
Brown can’t get peerage without Blair. Blair is a step too far.
Don’t know, Starmer seems to be very much a Blairite. Would not be surprised. Although perhaps neither are interested. Blair in particular spends a lot of time on international stuff.
They let Mandelson out of his crypt last Sunday too. He was on the Kuenssburg show. I saw no evidence he was seen in direct sunlight though. Bringing out Gordy Broon agan is Labour thinking they are impressing us. It won’t.
Gordon Brown reckons the SNP have got it wrong on child poverty by putting money directly into parents pockets, Gordy Broon says that work must be made to pay
The trouble there is we don’t have any chimneys left to shove the kids up to earn their own money now, or paper rounds, coal deliveries, milk deliveries or the lorries that delivered the ginger
He is ignoring of course that many of the families in receipt of benefits are already in work. I wonder what pressure Labour will put on their new found friends in business to make them pay their workers a decent liveable wage rather than getting the taxpayer to make up the shortfall in pay via benefits while businesses pocket obscene profits.
So still not gone exponential, but then things had not in 2011 or 2019 either by this point in Scotland. 2019 saw the SNP get 4.5% out of that phase, in 2011, their lead went from 4 to 14 points. In less than a week both cases.
Otherwise, it remains Labour failing to get a mandate in Scotland with at best 1/3 of the vote as Scots reject Westminster by mass boycott like the English may also be about to do.
But hey, a week is a long time in politics! Blair went from 50% to 43% in less time ahead of 1997!
2019 SNP with TO reminder for comparison
I see Starmer is going to light the fires of optimism if he wins. Clearly saving himself because the election campaign from Labour has been very much Curb your Enthusiasm
We had the nightmare before Brexit, now we’re getting the nightmare after Brexit
He looks like a cross between a bank manager and a strict head master and sounds in speeches like he is presenting the case for the prosecution . He would not give me the optism to get out of bed in the morning. His charisma left the planet a long time ago.
And in the post debate poll, he came level with Starmer in performance.
Who? I was talking about Starmer.
Just had a car drive down our street and by my house with a loudspeaker message of Vote for muffled sound, muffled sound still no clue of the name – your Alba party candidate. I hope one of them comes to my door. I dinnae think driving by about 20mph will cut it with me or any of the neighbours. No chance I will ever vote for them.
Not too many jobs for children under 16. Population in decline without changes. Labour false promises. Same old, same old.
Brown caused poverty worldwide. Illegal wars, financial fraud, tax evasion. The Royals and the masons. Mass migration. Other countries are paying the price.
Only mainly some older UK polls (main field work 26th, with Deltapoll 27th) out this morning, so no change really to the above; polls are till about 1 week out. However, I now have Labour crossing the 40% Rubicon 3 days ago. This could readily mean 33% when the time comes. If popular Blair could fall 7% on the day due to silent voters, ‘the most unpopular incoming PM to take office’ ((c) UK press) can readily do so.
I see electoral calculus now have the SNP increased yet again to 36% a week ago or so (based on fieldwork times) without any green tactical. They are using UK share from 15+ polls to come up with this, and are saying the likes of Panelbase / Survation Scotland are mince too as a result.
This is still with 10% of the electorate who voted last time – all SNP – yet to make any sort of appearance. Nope, it looks like if they’re going to do this again, it will be only in the last few days / on the day again.
36% would imply the SNP have overtaken Labour by a couple of points a week ago based on Scottish poll data. That and the fact Labour are declining across the UK.*
Under FPTP, even the slightest opening of the gap and/or tactical green would start to see seats going to the SNP. Labour would lose its new heartlands of the borders, western isles and Ochils / Perth (giggles at survation) to them for example.
—-
*If Labour go down in England, they go down here, as it’s primarily brits voting for them now, not Scots, so their vote mirrors patterns in England. As noted in past posts, if you removed the SNP, Greens and Alba from Scottish polls, you’d be forgiven for thinking to you were looking at UK-wide data, albeit from a more Labour region.
The churn in Scotland is mainly between SNP and Green, with turnout controlling the overall level of these, just as British Scotland has its own turnout control. Some Brits do seem to have moved to the Scottish camp recently, lifting the SNP from low 30’s into upper.
British Scotland is showing a desperately low turnout, just like England. It’s just Scottish Scotland has been show low too due to total disinterest in events, although is apparently very confident of winning and not despondent according to yougov. We shall see.
Story from The National about how Labour threatened them with a hefty legal bill if they published information about a senior Labour politician in Scotland. Illustrates how journalists can be silenced and how the People’s Party have plenty of cash for silencing.
How Labour tried to gag The National with pre-election legal threat
https://archive.ph/qVfct
During the Holyrood Salmond enquiry when grilling FFM Nicola Sturgeon Labour’s Jackie Baillie was found to have Roddy Dunlop’s number on the phone that was positioned on the table by her right hand
He’s just the hired gun but interesting that Jackie “deep pockets” Baillie consults the best.
The primary subject of the enquiry hired Dunlop
The message to voters is simple, because the British and their media in Scotland want the SNP finished you will see poll after poll insisting the Labour party is going to win everything from the Earth to the Sun and all will be crushed before their might, they’re moving heaven and earth to make you believe it’s pointless voting because you’re going to lose anyway
Voter suppression is what this is called, remove all hope and you won’t vote
The Great British fear is that you will vote, and you’ll vote SNP, it’s why they do it
The Labour party are employing a tactic called “the Ming vase”, it goes like this…..
The Labour party have been specific on nothing, all the promises of wonderful things are inside the vase they hold tightly to their chest and cannot be broken now to reveal what’s inside, the contents are only to be opened after the election then they will be revealed as containing, you guessed it, nothing
Remember Tony Blair, he still has his vase, Gordon Brown was buried in his
When a politician refuses to tell you how? why? when? it’s because they have nothing to tell you
Sunday Papers’ headlines mostly anti-SNP ( Scottish editions ! ) urging voters to get rid of the SNP Government (??? ) in a UK election , while the people who gave us The Vow are proselytising ( again ) for Labour , but basically inferring that this will see the back of the SNP Government .
This bare-faced deception during this election from the media is nauseating – but then who in their right mind would trust the present iteration of The Press .
The fate of Scotland after this GE will be in the hands of a man who subscribes to the Boris Johnson school of probity .
A man whose Pledges to get to his position as Labour Leader have been discarded as quickly and as often as Scottish Labour Branch managers .
British / English papers be like ‘Scots understand that Westminster and UK elections are different, so they vote differently for these, hence polls showing this, 2010 vs 11 etc!’. Then in the next sentence they be like ‘Scots can be fooled into thinking this is an election where they can oust the SNP from Holyrood!’.
That’s English/Britishsplaining for you.
While we are on the subject of corruption in vulture politics
The billionaires and ‘dark money’ trust funding Scottish politics
https://archive.ph/z0Qv2
Which “Scottish parties”? They are all English, are they not, apart from the SNP?
Tories not doing very well, despite illegal donations.
UK Gov whole accounts. 2021/22.
UK Gov raising £881Billion. Spending £1044Billion.
£259Billion pensions + benefits. £289Billion staff costs?
£47Billion on debt interest.
£49Billion on the military.
UK Gov accounts. Assets £2414Billion
I had a lib dem leaflet with one of those ‘libs winning here’ graphs.
I don’t get this. Are they saying people should vote for the party that’s (not, obviously) ahead rather than the one they like the policies of? What kind of nonsense is that.
This is why all those polls saying Labour were possibly going to win a landslide in 2011 did not result in this, but the opposite. People are not sheep. They vote for the party they like generally. Doesn’t matter jack do do what the polls say about who is ‘winning here’ even if they paid attention to these, which they generally don’t as they’re not political geeks like me.
There are always people influenced by the embarrassment of not voting for the losers, it’s why many people lie following elections as to who they voted for
The world contains many shallow people
The BBC Geissler show raking the bottom of the barrel now by digging up the man who sits on more fenceposts than Labour’s FFM Henry McLiesh, Sir Tom (make me wealthy) Sir Tom Hunter
Sir Tom Hunter is the guy who says he’s open to Scotland being anything it wants to be as long as he doesn’t have to pay anything towards it and doesn’t lose any money too it (I’m a charitable good guy)
Sir Tom Hunter’s words: “Let’s hope Labour will do better” This is while he’s asking you to vote for these clowns, *hope* he says when he flat out knows what Labour are about
But the main thing for Sir Tom Hunter is the union will be safe (even though he’s open to everything Scotland wants) he can take his made in England Kilt and walk to England
If Sir Tom Hunter was any more fake he’d be arrested at the BARRAS for importing himself from China under the shoddy goods act
Tom Hunter going on about the Scottish Weighting, for a clever man he’s not that bright – Scots even higher paid ones get so much more for their taxes than their English counterparts, cost of living is so much cheaper here. As for the PISA tables am sure Prof Robertson gave a good explanation as to why they are crap – Scotland puts the whole range of pupil abilities forward, apparently in England it’s only the top pupils that are counted – says it all really, they selectively choose stats to suit their narrative and most of the time aren’t comparing apples with apples
Just completed a YouGov survey about the election/voting intentions. May be the last one before Thursday
I did one yesterday tacked on to the back of questions on social media usage. Looked like a standard UK one, as no questions about Scottish things.
Labour saying full free movement with Scotland is totally possible post independence.
Folks with a Scottish visa just can’t live and work in England. Simples.
No way Starmer will allow a Scottish visa. The right wing press would string him up with tales of Scotland as the ‘back door way into England’, even when people have applied for a Scottish visa because they want to work in a place that welcomes them, not an inward looking right wing parochial state that doesn’t like migrants.
If Labour thinks it’s ‘won’ Scotland in the election, there will definitely be no chance. This is why Labour actually doing well in Scotland – on a very low turnout – would be very damaging for the union. If the SNP do well, Starmer will be nervous. If Labour get 1/3 of the vote, he’ll be full on Tory anti-Scottish thinking he’s won. Devo will be undermined, no ire2 etc. He’ll even continuously overrule his Scottish labour bods on things that are important to them, including for winning 2026. He will be the new nasty party. All perfect for the Yes ahead of the far more important Holyrood 2026.
Every outcome of this election that could arise based on currently polling is bad for the union, it’s just a question of what type of bad and how bad it is.
Hell, even a 2010 result on a high turnout would be bad based on 2011, and there’s not a single poll suggested that Labour will come anywhere close to that dead cat bounce 14 years ago which propelled the SNP to majority.
https://archive.is/650Dp
John Swinney doubts Labour ‘open to talks on bespoke Scottish visa’
JOHN Swinney has responded to Scottish Labour claiming their UK bosses would be open to negotiations on a bespoke Scottish visa system – saying he has doubts about whether it’s more than empty talk.
The First Minister was asked about comments from Scottish Labour depute leader Jackie Baillie as he appeared on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show.
In an interview with The National’s sister paper The Herald, Baillie had said there could be “discussions” around a separate visa system to address Scotland’s immigration needs.
If Scotland were an independent country there would be no need for fake discussions with any British political party, we’d just get on with being back in the EU and see the return of the thousands of people we lost due to Brexit
Scotland need to be told the facts in a loud voice, the world doesn’t like the UK …….and they don’t like it massively, but Scotland they love
Are you going to believe Jackie Baillie?
we how have SRP polling
So we have had are:
Panel polls (using three different ways of assigning undecideds)
Phone polls
random probability polling
MRP
SRP
all saying roughly the same thing, Labour in the high 30s to low 40s, with the Conservatives in the low to mid 20s (possibly into the high teens). No matter what methods polling companies are using they are getting the same answers.
I still think Reform will under perform the polling by 2-4pp to the benefit of the Conservatives but that seems to be the only positive.
Another ancient poll. The fieldwork began on the 7th June. The final handful stragglers to meet quotas on the 25th. So it’s a snapshot of 2 weeks ago+, which is nominally pointless in an election campaign. Labour have lost 3-4 points since the bulk of this survey was done. Reform have gained similar. Tories have falling a couple, SNP have overtaken Labour in Scotland etc.
What the polls all agree on, is that Labour will get less votes than 2019 unless those certain to vote numbers move before the big day, and they get a share of that rise!
Using final poll certain to vote numbers vs turnouts for the past 3 elections, Labour are currently on 21.5(-0.1)% of the total electorate, down a smidgen on 2019. They have gone back up just a little here, having flirted with 21.3% recently.
Current UK turnout projection = 53.5%, although history says there should be some sort of rise here in the final days as people get their act together and decide they’re going to do something. But they are holding out to the end here it seems.
That said, their graph of undecided voters shows the first SNP wave as folks engaged, puked at the UK, decided SNP, the went back to watching the footie, causing an apparent small SNP retreat, at which point Survation did another MRP which totally disagreed with their previous ones, making a mockery of the approach.
https://jlpartners.co.uk/first-jl-partners-srp-model-shows-labour-on-course-for-a-landslide
Then, recently, you can see the next stage of engagement where SNP pick up again in the past 10 days or so which is quite cool! They are seeing what I am seeing, just like electoral calculus and Britain elects are (both have SNP moving into upper 30’s a week to 10 days ago, but without any tactical green yet).
However, it shows the folly of sampling over several weeks while things are changing so much, including in waves.
Jackie Baillie pronouncing on the possibility , post GE , of a ”separate” Scottish Visa to allow more immigration to Scotland .
Is this the Jackie Baillie who is a close confident of Sir Keir Starmer ( Let’s not be formal , Jackie , just call me Sir ! ) , or the Jackie Baillie who sits in the Shadow Cabinet , or the Jackie Baillie who is the Labour Spokesperson on Migration , or the Jackie Baillie who sits and sneers each week through First Minister’s Questions ?
One suspects that it is the Baillie who is a complete stranger to the actualite.
Number crunching.
Bottom lines were clipped so full image here: