SNP landslide predicted
The polls have closed. The exhausted candidates and their campaign teams have done all they can. They’ll fret and wonder if they’ve done enough. Could we have chapped more doors? Delivered more leaflets? Attended more events? It’s too late now – the polls have closed, and the voters have made their minds up.
The people have spoken – but what have they said?
It’s been a campaign that’s had little of the excitement of the referendum or even recent elections. The TV debates told us little that we didn’t already know, the stage-managed photo opportunities calls were all to predictable (save for Willie Rennie’s unfortunate farmyard incident, of course).
The SNP has played a canny game. Nothing too radical. Steady as you go, don’t frighten the horses. Safe. Dependable. Reliable. Over recent years, the party of government. There’s been one solitary slip during the campaign – remarkable only in that you would have thought the astute party managers would have seen this potential banana skin a mile off: Nicola Sturgeon appearing on the front of The Sun, the newspaper which perpetrated lies about Liverpool fans on the very week the Hillsborough families were completely exonerated of any blame. For a politician so savvy and sure-footed, quite an error of judgement. A self-inflicted wound, but seemingly no lasting damage and try as they might the other parties have struggled to dent this air of invincibility.
Opposition attacks on a range of SNP policies: local government funding, taxation, education, the controversial named person legislation, the NHS and of course the thorny issue of a second referendum, have all hit home … yet have made barely a blip in the opinion polls. The SNP seems untouchable.
Since the SNP’s Scottish landslide at the last Westminster elections the party has consistently dominated all the polls. Yes, there have been minor variations, but every polling organisation predicts a big SNP win. Can they achieve what the ‘experts’ said couldn’t be done under this voting system and win another overall majority? The pollsters certainly think so – and the bookies make them 1/20 ON to do it. Some pundits have even talked of a ‘clean sweep’ of all 73 constituency seats.
An average of polls conducted since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader shows the SNP on 54.6% of the vote in the constituency ballot, compared to 21.4% for Labour, 14.6% for the Tories, 5.2% for the Lib Dems with the others on 4.4%.
On the list section of the ballot, the same poll of polls has the SNP average just under 50%, Labour 21.5%, the Tories 14%, followed by the Greens (6.4%), the Lib Dems on 5.6%, UKIP at 2% with the RISE coalition polling below 1%.
If this swing was consistent across the country – and that’s a very big IF – the SNP would indeed achieve an incredible outright victory with 74 MSPs. This scenario would see the SNP win 70 of the 73 constituency seats, the Conservatives hold two, the Lib Dems one and the Labour Party, for so long the dominant force in Scottish politics, winning no constituencies at all!
I can’t see it.
The latest YouGov poll conducted earlier this week appears closer to the mark:
Constituency ballot :
SNP 48% (-2)
Labour 22% (+1)
Conservatives 19% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (+2)
Regional list ballot :
SNP 41% (-4)
Conservatives 20% (+2)
Labour 19% (n/c)
Greens 9% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)
UKIP 4% (+1)
The big questions tonight:
It’s been an election dominated by the leaders’ personalities – Team Ruth, I’m with Nicola, etc. – despite every party saying they would be campaigning on ‘the issues’! It’s almost certain that we’ll witness the coronation of Queen Nic, but will the SNP achieve the magic number of 65 MSPs to give them an absolute majority once again?
Is the race for second really as close as the media is making out? Can the Tories really challenge Labour for second place to become the main opposition party at Holyrood?
Can Labour hold on to traditional seats like Northern & Leith that have been Labour fiefdoms for generations? Popular local parliamentarian Malcolm Chisholm has gone, but Labour will hope that the personal vote and goodwill enjoyed by Malcolm Chisholm will at least give them a fighting chance of retaining the seat.
And further afield can former leader Iain Gray hold on to East Lothian, where he defends a wafer-thin majority of just 150? Or has the public really fallen out of love with Labour forever? The recent PPP school closures in Edinburgh hasn’t helped the Labour cause and the row over anti-Semitism couldn’t have blown up at a worse time, either …
Can the LibDems capitalise on disenchantment with the sitting SNP MP and retake Edinburgh Western? They’ve thrown a lot of resources at this seat – but has the electorate forgiven them for their tryst with the Tories? Prominent MP Alistair Carmichael’s conduct over the ‘Frenchgate’ affair can’t have helped, and the question remains: are the Lib Dems relevant any more?
Ruth Davidson has fought a spirited and energetic campaign and has clearly enjoyed the limelight. She may well be a really decent person and an able politician – but she’s also the leader of a Tory party that is still hated by many Scots. People have long memories: the Miners Strike, the Poll Tax and more recently the attacks on welfare benefits. Will Ruth prove to be the acceptable face of Scottish Conservatism?
Can the Greens breakthrough once again? The ‘smaller’ parties found themselves squeezed out in 2007 and were kept in the shadows by the SNP juggernaut last time round. It seems such a long time ago now that the Greens had seven MSPs (it was 2003 – 07): can they reach or even surpass that high-water mark once again?
And of the others? The RISE coalition is languishing in the polls but will attract the vote of some disillusioned Labour voters, and don’t discount UKIP. The ‘experts’ dismissed their chances of success in Scotland at the last Euro elections and were left looking rather silly. Despite a commonly held belief that most Scots are pro-Europe, it’s also clear that we’re not all pro-EU. What a boost it would be for OUT campaigners if UKIP were to spring a surprise at Holyrood and snatch a list seat.
So lots of questions, but what’s going to happen? No-one really knows. The pollsters can predict, but they don’t know. Think back to as recently as the last Westminster election, when pollsters were confidently predicting a hung parliament and the chattering classes were pontificating over likely coalition deals. The actual result? An emphatic Tory victory. Pollsters DO get it wrong.
What happens next is up to you, the voter.
The people have spoken – and just what they’ve said will become clear over the coming hours …
THE 2011 RESULT
SNP 69 (53 constituency MSPs, 16 list MSPs)
LAB 37 (15, 22)
CON 15 (3, 12)
LIB 5 (2, 3)
OTHERS 3 (Greens (2) and Margo MacDonald (Independent)
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