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”
Leon Wolfeson
You keep ignoring the fact it wasn’t just the UK, as you call for …what…. nuking London? Makes sense, from your perspective.
Are you a gold bug? And right, you want to impoverish people *today*.
Thomtids
My own view, was that Europe was playing international financial warfare and the end-game was to suck a vast amount of money out of the International money market because China refused to turn her foreign earnings into Euros as well as Dollars.
It was a game of Chicken that Brown and his mate Balls, and Europe, lost because they didn’t factor in that RBS would be so exposed to American debt. In the end Europe had to blink and ANB had to be saved by sacrificing RBS ( British money) in order to save the Euro.
Nothing to do with Gold, that is so last Century. It’s now all about funding public sector debt.
Seeing that China is effectively funding the IMF, I hope you like rice because that’s all we’re going to be fed by them in due course.
Leon Wolfeson
No, that’s YOUR plan for the people of this country, no more and no less. Rather than pay tax.
(Your silly little inventions as to what happened, which is quite clear…)
Leon Wolfeson
They get to disrupt discussion.
Tim Morrison
Wee Millibland is not going to be forgiven easily by many in Scotland for making common cause with the Tories. Clips on YouTube showed him not understanding what voters were saying to him. The intervention of the Southern MPs on the Glasgow walk of shame at least added to the gaiety of nations. On the bright side, Johan Lamont at last can go where she a no one recognises her.