First Holyrood poll for ages.

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The Sunday Times has a post-Budget YouGov poll commissioned by the SNP. The Holyrood numbers look like this: 

Constituency: SNP 38%, Labour 32%, Tory 13%, Liberal 12% 
Regional: SNP 34%, Labour 28%, Tory 15%, Liberal 11%, Green 6%, SSP 4%

An election with these numbers would give roughly the following result, with Margo representing the rounding error:
SNP 47 (n/c), Labour 44 (-2), Tories 18 (+1), Liberals 13 (-3), Green 5 (+3), SSP 2 (+2)

Polling should, as always, only be seen as a bit of fun. Election campaigns matter, and clearly there isn't going to be an election this year. Having said that, some of those seat numbers look a bit unlikely to me. I'd have expected the SNP higher at Labour's expense, perhaps the Tories a bit higher and the Liberals down a bit more, and surely no-one thinks Colin Fox and his merry band are on the verge of getting back into Parliament.

As far as we're concerned, I'd certainly take the prospect of picking up more seats than anyone else, and the softness of the Liberals' position makes that seem at least possible. 

The favourable/unfavourable also got printed, which didn't exactly look good for us, but it's absolutely what I'd expect with so many SNP members rating us negatively just now - there are more of them, after all.

Beyond that, the Steamie claims to have the full list of questions - apparently a Labour activist was polled - and the Nats appear to be holding on to one of them, as follows. 

As you may be aware the SNP government's budget bill was voted down this week. Alex Salmond has threatened to resign as first minister if it is voted down again and has suggested there may have to be a new election for the Scottish parliament. If the budget bill is voted down again and Alex Salmond resigns as First Minister would you prefer:
a. to have the chance to vote in a new election for the Scottish parliament to determine which party runs the Scottish government
b. to leave it to the political parties to decide themselves whether Alex Salmond, Labour leader Iain Gray, Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott or Conservative leader Annabel Goldie should lead the Scottish government?
c. to have chance to vote in a new election for the Scottish parliament?
d. to let political parties decide themselves which party should run Scottish government?
e. Don't know

If a question like this was asked, the results are either being held back for use later in the week, or they may be locked in the safe forever if the numbers don't suit the Nats. What's particularly odd, though, is that answers a & c are identical, and so too are b & d. I smell a rat.

However interesting this is, it'll be a lot more relevant for the longer term to see the next poll, the one conducted after the Budget passes. 

Edit: There were two errors I took from elsewhere: the poll wasn't Nat-commissioned, and the extra question on the Steamie was clearly unreliable. Apologies for taking what appears to be second-hand spin at face value.

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This page was published on February 1, 2009 10:59 AM.

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