A return to the new business as usual
Polls usually contain a mixture of news for political parties and their leaders; a policy announcement that has gone down well may be offset by a slump in personal ratings for the leader; or an increase in support among young voters which is offset by a fall on an issue of key importance to voters.
Rarely have I seen such a polarising poll; one that contains unalloyed good news for one party and doom and gloom for their main rival.
And when the good news is all for the party that has been in government for over eight years and whose support seems to grow with each year then you know something unusual is happening.
Of course polls are snapshots of opinion at a particular moment in time and opinions can and do change. But with eight months to go before the Holyrood elections it is no exaggeration to say that something remarkable has to happen to prevent the SNP bandwagon claiming a consecutive overall majority. If anything, their support has grown, albeit modestly, over the course of the year, standing at 50% or more for both the constituency and regional list elements of the poll.
Further, on the key battleground issues that we know are vital for voters in deciding who to support, the SNP has a strong lead, seemingly not suffering from any of the recent negative headlines concerning education standards and Police Scotland. Not long ago, issues like the NHS and schools were the bedrock of Labour’s support in Scotland. Now Labour polls at little over a third of the SNP’s support on these issues.
Then there is the constitutional question, which is likely to feature heavily in next year’s campaign. Of course ‘Yes’ supporters will want to see the 53% support in this survey backed up by a series of polls with healthy leads before being at all confident of winning an actual vote. And views may obviously change significantly if and when a second referendum is announced. Nonetheless, as with other areas covered in the poll, the SNP does seem to have the wind in its sails on this issue.
For Labour it is hard at this stage to find any crumb of comfort. It is not simply that support for the party is low overall but there are no pockets of the population among whom it is above the 30% support the party registers among 16-24 year olds, and even then it is 23 points behind the SNP among this group.
Labour wants next year’s election to be about the SNP’s record in government since 2007, hoping it can highlight perceived deficiencies in this regard. But it trails by such a significant margin on these key issues that it looks tough to see how Kezia Dugdale can achieve what Jim Murphy failed to achieve before the general election this year.
And if Labour believes the election of Jeremy Corbyn, if it happens, will herald a revival in their fortunes then the poll suggests this may be wishful thinking. Of course any revival may depend on what Corbyn says and does, especially on the constitutional issue, but for now it appears that the public are not waiting to flock back to a Corbyn-led Labour party.
