Is Labour Back in the Game in Scotland?

Following a week which saw the shock announcement from Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, that she plans to stand down, polling out this week appears to suggest that Labour’s hopes that this might make its path back to Downing Street easier may be coming true.

According to a poll by YouGov for the Scottish Election Study carried out just before Ms Sturgeon made her announcement,  among all those Scots questioned aged 18 and over, when it comes to voting intentions for a UK General Election, 29% said they would vote SNP, down 2 points since November last year. Scottish Labour meanwhile were in second place, on 27%, up 4 points.

With those who said they would not vote, did not know how they would vote or refused to say taken out, the results put Scottish Labour on 35.4%, just behind the SNP on 38.2%.

To make matters worse for the SNP, 48% of those polled now believe Scotland is heading in the wrong direction, compared to 29% saying it is going in the right direction.

When it comes to independence, 48% would oppose Scotland becoming an independent country, with 40% saying they would support it.

93% of those questioned said that the SNP led Government at Holyrood was doing a bad job, compared to just 1% who said it was doing a good one.

Meanwhile, polling by Savanta for The Scotsman carried out after the First Minister announced her resignation also shows a slight narrowing of the gap between the SNP and Scottish Labour.  When it comes to voting intentions for Westminster, it puts the SNP on 42%, down 1 point since December, with Labour up 2 points on 32%.

The data also shows that  among SNP voters, the Scottish Finance and Economy Secretary, Kate Forbes is the preferred candidate to replace Nicola Sturgeon. According to the poll 18% would prefer her to take over as leader, followed by 14% who would prefer the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary, Angus Robertson.  7% said they would want the Scottish Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf to become the next leader, with 15% preferring someone else. Interestingly however, 34% of SNP voters said they did not know who they wanted to replace Nicola Sturgeon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buyers Regret Over Brexit?

This week marked five years since the UK voted to leave the European Union, a decision which has shaken British politics in a way that few would have foreseen. To mark the occasion, Savanta ComRes this week published polling suggesting that if the referendum were held today, remain would just win, with 51% of respondents saying they would vote to stay in the EU compared to 49% who would vote to leave. The poll shows that there would be little switching from either side, with 6% of those who voted remain in 2016 saying they would not vote to leave, and 7% of those who originally voted to leave saying they would now vote remain. Savanta ComRes go on to say: “That means the Remain edge in this poll comes from those who did not vote in 2016, with this group being more than twice as likely to vote for Remain (71%) than Leave (29%).” The poll found however that if the public were asked instead to choose between joining the EU or not, 51% would vote not to become a member, whilst 49% w...
Read more

Can Labour Look Forward to a Decade in Power?

Speaking at the start of the year the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, spoke of a "decade of national renewal" being the "central, defining purpose" of a future Labour government. Fast forward to today, and for those now in Government the question will be whether the election results can give Labour any confidence at the prospect of a decade in power. Some might conclude that it is absurd to be asking this question, given Labour’s 172 seat majority in the Commons. That is just 7 short of the majority New Labour secured in 1997 which ushered in 13 years of Labour rule. However, dig deeper, and the reality is that Labour’s victory is thin. According to the election results Labour won on Thursday having secured around 9.7 million votes, equivalent to 33.7% of the votes cast. To set that into context, according to House of Commons Library data , that compares to the 13.5 million votes (43.2% vote share) Labour got in 1997. What is more, the total number of ...
Read more

Rishi’s Ratings Sink

Rishi Sunak has registered his weakest favourability ratings since becoming Prime Minister according to new polling by Ipsos Mori. It reports that whilst the Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, has a net favourability score of -7, Rishi Sunak’s has sunk to -19. With Boris Johnson continuing to breathe down Rishi Sunak’s neck, Ipsos goes on to note: “More than half of 2019 Conservative voters are favourable to Johnson (55%) while 49% say the same for Sunak. Overall, among 2019 Conservative voters, Johnson scores +29 while Sunak scores +23.   However, Johnson’s lead owes more to falling ratings for Mr Sunak rather than improving ratings for the former PM.” Looking at the parties as a whole, Labour has a net favourability rating of +2 with the Conservatives on -29. When it coms to Brexit, 55% of respondents told Ipsos that leaving the EU had had a negative impact on the country, with just 21% saying it had been positive. It continues: “If we subtract the proportion saying Brexit has...
Read more