The Conservatives could soon be the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament
There are now just 100 days to go until Scotland votes on the makeup of the new parliament at Holyrood, and the gloomy outlook for Scottish Labour is becoming difficult for its leaders to hide.
According to new polling published over the weekend, the Conservatives are now snapping at the heels of Scottish Labour to become the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament.
The data, compiled by Panelbase for the Sunday Times and Heart FM, puts the SNP on 50 per cent of the vote in the constituency section and 48 per cent for the regional vote.
Scottish Labour have dropped two percentage points to 21 per cent in the constituency vote and are down three points to 19 per cent on the regional list section of the ballot.
The Scottish Conservatives, led by Ruth Davidson, are on 17 per cent for both the constituency and regional list vote, while the Liberal Democrats languish on 6 per cent for the constituency vote and 7 per cent for the regional list section.
The Green Party finds itself on 3 per cent for the constituency and 5 per cent for the regional list section of the ballot paper.
According to the Scotland Votes website, such figures would see the SNP win 74 seats in the new parliament, 4 more than they won in 2011 on a truly historic night.
The Labour Party are, based on these figures, on course to lose 11 of the seats they won in 2011, down to just 26, with the Tories on 20, 5 more than they won in 2011.
The Lib Dems are set to secure 6 seats and the Greens 3.
The Panelbase figures also show that while Nicola Sturgeon remains by far the most popular politician in Scotland, with a net approval rating of +23, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale is performing even worse than her predecessor Jim Murphy, languishing on a net approval rating of -13.
In contrast, Ruth Davidson for the Conservatives has a net approval of -9. Even Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, is ahead of Ms Dugdale with a net approval rating of -12.
Further figures compiled by Rob Ford of Manchester University suggest that Labour are on track to lose all 15 of their consituency seats held at Holyrood.
Based on the most recent polling, Ford calculates that Labour are 11 per cent down on their 2011 levels of support, while the SNP are up 8 per cent. He explained:
“A result in line with these polls would see 13 constituency seats fall to the SNP, while two further seats would be tight races between the SNP and the Conservatives with Labour coming third.
“Labour’s position may be even worse than the aggregate polling suggests, as their safest remaining seats tend to be in areas such as Glasgow and central Scotland, where swings to the SNP in the general election were largest … A constituency wipeout for Scottish Labour in 2016 would complete an extraordinary political collapse for a party which dominated Scotland at all levels just a decade ago.”
Speaking on the Andrew Marr programme yesterday, SNP leader and first minister Nicola Sturgeon could not resist a dig at Labour’s misfortunes, saying she did not think a Labour government was now ‘a credible notion in any sense’.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor at Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
47 Responses to “Has Labour lost Scotland for good?”
RolftheGanger
Answer: Yes.
David Lindsay
Even the Left in Scotland, by no means dominant, has always been far less pro-Labour than in England, with ILP MPs returned after disaffiliation, with large-scale Communist Party activity, with Trotskyists openly elected to councils and to Holyrood, and so on. And Labour was no more founded in the Scotland of whoever you are about to list than it was founded in the Dorset of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Is Dorset the heart and soul of the Labour Movement?
No one thought of Scotland as much of a Labour area at all until the 1960s, at the earliest; in the 1950s, it was regarded by all concerned as more of a Tory stronghold than the Home Counties. The place is still full of Tories, really. It is just that, for the time being, most of them vote SNP.
It was not until 1997 that anyone thought of Scotland as a Labour heartland. In 2015, Labour won precisely one seat there and still managed 231 elsewhere, which would have been more than one third of the House, and more than four times the total of the third party (guess who?), even if it had won no Scottish seats whatever.
The “Labour Scotland” fantasy of Scottish Labourites, Scottish Nationalists and English Tories was blown out of the water in 2015. Scotland now exists as far outside mainstream politics as Northern Ireland does. Arguably, even more so. But unlike Northern Ireland, this is entirely by Scotland’s own choice. Scotland has voted itself into irrelevance.
Scottish Scientist
If Scottish Labour want to win back leadership of Scotland they need 2 things.
1) A new policy on Scottish independence
1.a) expressions of regret of the leadership of Jim Murphy to side with “Better Together”.
1.b) Support for independence or at least neutrality and encouragement – as a parent to a child who wants to follow a particular career – “Well if that’s what you want to do with your life, we, your parents will give you every encouragement and support” – translates as “Well if independence is what the people of Scotland want to vote for in a future referendum, which will we facilitate, we Scottish Labour will give Scots every encouragement and support in voting YES and making a success of it, even if some in Scottish Labour voted NO in the last indy-ref.
2) A solid criticism of SNP failures which are very much like the failures of previous Hollyrood Labour-Lib Dem Scottish Executives. More on that in my next comment.
Tommo
SNP “Tartan Tories” who will say anything for a vote, have got Labour in a spin.
Scottish Scientist
A solid criticism of the SNP government’s record could be along the lines of my reply, quoted below, to SNP Government Finance Secretary John Swinney’s article in yesterday’s “Independent”
Far from keeping “Scotland moving forward”, the SNP government and the £2.6 billion annually allocated to “Justice” spending by Mr Swinney’s budgets in particular, is holding Scotland back, by funding a police state which is running amok, violating the human rights of Scots, obstructing us in our work and duties and crushing efforts to grow the economy.
The economic damage is being done because the police, prosecution and courts have grotesquely incompetent leadership, from the likes of the SNP government’s Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland.
This badly led police state is inflicting serious harm on productive, conscientious citizens, arresting them, stopping them doing their duties and work, seizing their essential equipment, thereby wrecking all they have to offer to society and the economy.
Scots are being arrested for expressing their political viewpoints.
Scotland has political prisoners. I know because I have been one such.
Scotland has always been run as an oppressive police state – at least since the days of UK Prime Minister Thatcher. This is why intellectuals and academics supported a Scottish parliament – in the hope that we Scots might better bring the police state which oppresses us to heel, but none of the Holyrood governments have done so and the SNP are as hapless in police governance as their predecessors.
So Mr Swinney is wrong and unpatriotic for continuing to budget for this destructive gangster, treacherous police state which is depriving Scots of our civil liberties and ruining the Scottish economy and impoverishing the country in the process.
Mr Swinney in allocating £2.6 billion in “no strings” cash for the “Justice” portfolio is budgeting for economic failure and decline. He should hang his head in shame and withdraw his draft budget.
That’s not to say that money should not be spent on keeping those prisoners who are imprisoned decently. But it would be cheaper to release all the political prisoners and let them get back to work.
That is not to criticise legal aid payments for those innocents who are wrongly accused because everyone deserves a fair trial. But it is to say that many wrongful arrests and prosecutions should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.
That is not to say that fire and rescue services (£310 million) are not worth every penny, showing the police up in a very bad light in comparison. The fire and rescue services ARE worth every penny! If the fire service were in any way as incompetent as the police they would be starting as many fires and they were putting fires out!
There is much in Mr Swinney’s budget to support but MSPs are faced with a take it or leave it choice. MSPs will not be allowed to pick and choose which items of Mr Swinney’s budget to support and which to oppose.
MSPs must either vote for or against all of Mr Swinney’s budget.
The only responsible action for Members of the Scottish Parliament to do, is to vote down Mr Swinney’s budget and vote down every budget which proposes to pay excessive amounts of money to this appalling, unreformed, anti-Scottish, unjust police state.
Mr Swinney’s budget is allowing the police state pigs to gorge themselves with their snouts in the public spending trough and any such budget will be the ruin of the Scots.
I think putting our faith in the SNP while the SNP has faith in Mr Swinney’s budgets and Nicola Sturgeon’s Lord Advocates is a huge mistake for Scots to make.
I think the SNP are wrong to keep feeding the police state pigs. That’s what I think.
I’m all for Scottish independence but the feed-the-pigs SNP will be the ruin of us Scots. I cannot recommend a vote for the SNP in May’s Scottish parliament election.
The SNP were good for a Scottish independence referendum – but that’s all they were good for. Enough. Be gone with you.
An ALTERNATIVE BUDGET to save Scots from the police state.
The fault for all of Scotland’s problems lies with certain items in the Justice portfolio of Scottish government spending WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN SLASHED BUT SHOULD BE SLASHED.
Justice – £2,600 million annually
The Justice portfolio has responsibility for the civil and criminal justice systems which include Scotland’s prisons, courts, police, fire and rescue services, the legal aid system and criminal justice social work services.”
SLASH THESE ITEMS FROM THE BUDGET!
Here are some of my suggested cuts from some “Justice” items in the budget.
Scottish Police Authority (SPA) – £1,063 million – Slash this by £663 million, down to £400 million
Police Central Government – £98 million – Slash this by £58 million, down to £40 million
Police and Fire Pensions – £350 million – Slash Police Pensions by £150 million – (no change to Fire Pensions) down to £200 million
Scottish Prison Service – £396 million – Slash this by £196 million down to £200 million
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service – £112 million – Slash this by £82 million down to £30 million
Courts, Judiciary and Scottish Tribunal Service – £40 million – Slash this by £20 million down to £20 million
Scottish Court Service – £87 million – Slash this by £47 million down to £40 million
Total saving – £1216 million
£1.2 BILLION SAVED FROM “JUSTICE” TO SPEND, perhaps on Scotland’s green agenda?
It could be done if there was a political will and the benefits to the economy could be massive for rarely explained reasons.
Budgeting for a bad police state is far more damaging to the Scottish budget than most understand.
It is not merely that an extra £1 spent on the police means £1 less which cannot be spent on schools, hospitals etc.
It actually means a £1 spent on the police arresting an innocent citizen means something like £100 in lost taxes that that citizen cannot now pay because he or she is under arrest, has had their essential equipment seized by police or otherwise is being prevented from doing their work or other duties to society.
So £1 spent on the police means something like £100 less to spend on schools, hospitals etc.
There’s no easy way to know how much is lost in taxes for each person arrested and prevented from paying taxes but the main point to understand is that the economic and fiscal harm to the Scottish economy and budget is far more harmful than simply the money spent on the police state.
It could be that £1,000 million (£1 billion) spent on the police means something like £100,000 million (£100 billion) is lost to the Scottish economy and budget. In other words, Scotland as a country could be much more wealthy than we are now if it were not for police state wrecking.
Cutting the police state down to size would be the making of a modern fair and prosperous Scotland.