Labour would be forgiven for reaching for the paracetamol this morning.
Labour would be forgiven for reaching for the paracetamol this morning
The Labour Party is facing a further headache following new polling that has revealed that the SNP are now ahead of the party in voting intentions for both Holyrood and Westminster.
According to new data collected by Survation and commissioned by the SNP, asked how they would vote in the constituency vote for the Scottish Parliament, when the undecided are taken out, the SNP now lead Labour by 15 per cent, with the nationalists on 42 per cent (down 3 per cent on the 2011 election results) whilst Labour are on 27 per cent (down 5 per cent).
On the regional list vote, again, the SNP lead Labour with the Scots Nats on 37 per cent (-7 per cent), and Labour on 27 per cent (+1 per cent).
Labour will however be most concerned about the figures on voting intentions for Westminster where the SNP now lead Labour on 34 per cent (+14 per cent from 2010) whilst Labour are on 32 per cent (-10 per cent). This represents a 12 per cent swing from the SNP to Labour which George Eaton in the New Statesman has argued would be “deadly” for Ed Miliband if it were to be reflected in the election next year.
Interestingly, on Westminster voting intentions, the Conservatives north of the border, according to the poll, now stand on 18 per cent, up 1 per cent from 2010, a reflection of the good campaign that Ruth Davidson is widely believed to have had during the independence referendum as leader of the Scottish Conservatives.
It could be that this is a rogue poll, but none the less, a combination of the SNP’s membership trebling since the independence referendum and the boost the party will undoubtedly get with Nicola Sturgeon taking the leadership in November now makes it look highly likely that the nationalists will successfully take some seats from Labour next May on the mantra of holding the UK parties ‘feet to the fire’ when it comes to further powers being devolved to Holyrood.
Given Labour’s continued reliance on its rump of Scottish Labour MPs, such news will have many at Labour HQ worried about the rapid erosion in its once heartland seats.
This is compounded by a similar pattern emerging in Wales where Roger Scully, Professor of Political Science in the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, has noted that Welsh Labour has seen a considerable decline in support over the past 18-24 months. As he has explained:
“In the four polls conducted in 2012, Labour’s general election vote share was always at or above 50 per cent. Both the last two have had it below 40 per cent.”
The polling comes following what was widely believed to have been a lacklustre performance from Ed Miliband in his speech to the party conference last week with the icing on the difficult to swallow cake being today’s YouGov poll putting the Conservatives ahead of Labour on UK wide voting intentions.
And for information, YouGov have also revealed that more people would want to go for a drink with Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Theresa May than Ed Miliband.
Labour would be forgiven for wanting to grab for the paracetamol this morning.
81 Responses to “Labour’s headaches get worse”
RolftheGanger
Lord Ashcrofts exit poll – 27% of No voters would have voted Yes.
Impact? A 70% Yes vote.
So my estimate was slightly low.
See the Scotsman’s findings on the two thirds demanding FFA
The Union won a temporary reprieve. That is all.
Give it three years – max.
rollo_tommasi
The fact is you were NEVER held any signifigant lead in all the 70+ commisioned polls. Even that rogue Youguv poll was within the margin of error. What happened to all your secret polls showing the YES campaign soaring lead? utter drivel.
As for another referendum in 3 years its never going to happen mate. Just crumbs of hope offered to the nationalist ants to keep them interested and to keep that cash cow plodding on. The Quebec seperatists said exactly the same thing after losing by a far smaller margin. 27 years later its still not happened they are now almost completely politically dead in the water.
Face facts you and the nats got well and truly humped.
Leon Wolfeson
No, you just don’t like democracy. There’s a difference.
And yada yada your right wanted even less protection, and it was a global issue. There’s plenty to blame Labour for which they actually *did*, and of course you’re ignoring much of the deregulation happened under Thatcher.
rtozier2011
The New Statesman article is based on very poor arithmetic by Peter Kellner, who has said that the SNP would gain 19 Labour seats with a swing of 8%. This is untrue – to gain that many Labour seats they’d need a swing of 15%. On a 12% swing they’d gain 7.
Thomtids
Let’s deal with your bizarre series of “facts”.
‘Much of the deregulation happened under Thatcher”. It doesn’t much matter what regulations there are if you appoint a “Watchdog” that is kept under lock and key and slumbers whilst the behaviour it is there to prevent is permitted to run amok.
“It was a global issue”. No it wasn’t, it was specifically the problem for those Countries financing their borrowing with fresh borrowing. Countries like Canada, which runs a sensible public financial policy, was unaffected.
“You don’t like democracy”. It isn’t “democracy” for two loonies called Balls and Brown in cahoots with the American money Gurus to create an entirely false market in worthless financial instruments and fund unaffordable public expenditure that was not going to be voluntarily assumed by the population, ending up impoverishing our grandchildren.
Democracy is the right to hold those responsible for that sort of behaviour to account.