Thursday, January 15, 2015

Fewer people in Scotland think Ed Miliband would make the best Prime Minister than in any other region of Britain

Today's Scottish subsample from YouGov continues to show an entirely familiar picture : SNP 44%, Labour 28%, Conservatives 12%, UKIP 7%, Greens 4%, Liberal Democrats 4%.  As usual, respondents who say that the SNP is the party they most closely identify with have been sharply downweighted, albeit not by quite as much as yesterday.

The most interesting finding is in relation to one of the supplementary questions.  There is considerable regional variation across Britain on the subject of whether Ed Miliband would make the best Prime Minister, albeit not quite the variation you might expect if you believe the myth that Scotland is simply a "Labour heartland on holiday"...

Percentage of respondents who think Ed Miliband would make the best Prime Minister -

London : 18%
South (excluding London) : 14%
English Midlands and Wales : 23%
North of England : 26%
Scotland : 13%

So insisting that this election is a "straight choice between Ed Miliband and David Cameron" may not be the most promising strategy for Labour in Scotland - the overwhelming majority of people here (65%) want neither of them.

It looks like RevStu has a new full-scale Scottish poll in the pipeline, probably from Panelbase.  So as the intensely irritating Wolf Blitzer would say : "We're going to be watching this one VERY closely.  Standby."

13 comments:

  1. Who would want any of the current Westminster offerings?

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    1. 61% Of the Scottish sample said 'Don't know'. There wasn't a 'none of the above' option...

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    2. I was one of the 61% (upgrading from 45%)

      John Bell

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  2. What did Cameron get?

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  3. With the Rev setting up a new Panelbase, and bearing in mind Murphy's "I am not a Unionist", perhaps a good social attitudes question would be, for identified NO voters: "Do you object to being called a Unionist because you voted NO?".

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  4. There is a GB poll by Ipsos MORI for the London Evening Standard out this afternoon. Small sub-sample size (<100) because it was a standard 1,000 poll across GB. I think the SNP were down compared to the last poll, but were still about 10 points ahead in the sub-sample.

    Wings has released a social attitudes finding from his poll, that opposition to votes for 16 year olds is much less in Scotland than GB as a whole. Fairly understandable given party policy and the experience of the referendum. Not clear if there are any voting intention figures in the poll.

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    1. I'm guessing there probably isn't - if there had been VI figures they would probably have been released first. I'll never understand the opposition to votes at 16 - but then I don't understand the support for judicial murder either. People are just weird. (In my humble opinion.)

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    2. Stuart has told me that there is VI in the poll, but it will be released by someone else (presumably a newspaper) first.

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  5. Adding MORI (to Yougov, populus, Ashcroft and opinium) to SS's Jan PoP so far for UK:

    33.2% Con
    32.8% Lab
    14.4% UKIP
    8.0% Lib
    6.2% Green

    Tories in the lead. Unless we have a run of corrective polls, then it looks like UKIP may be losing to Con while Labour lose to Green.

    As I've said before, if the Tories take the lead, then a vote for Labour in Scotland becomes even more pointless. Needs to be SNP.

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  6. Red Ed will not be mentioned by the BBC and other Unionist media in Scotland.
    Scottish voters will be bombarded with a vote for "Socialist Saviour Jim i'm not a unionist" message.

    PS.
    I hope your job is safe Scottish Skier.

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  7. @Jute

    Thanks but I'm fine. Our SME has, well, lets call it an 'oil stabilisation fund' which would allow it to operate for a year with no income at all. Also, somewhat perversely, as we are in the business of saving folks money on production costs, when the price is low we can actually end up with a little more work (2009 was something of a boom year for us). Hell, when it's $110/barrel, why call that Skier guy with his fancy low dosage inhibitors and stuff - just chuck 50% MEG at it.

    Anyway, anger is growing at the UK government over there utter mishandling of the industry, both historically, and now. They better show the NE those 'broad shoulders' quickly or the Tories and Libs (who have a decent vote in those areas) could lose more votes to the SNP.

    Certainly, the current situation, while temporary, highlights how badly managed the industry us under Westminster control.

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