Latest Scottish polls

Anthony Wells

— 1 min read
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Friday and today have seen new voting intention polls for the Scottish Parliamentary elections from Populus and YouGov. Support in the constituency vote stands at:

Populus: CON 13%, LAB 30%, LDEM 18%, SNP 34% YouGov: CON 14%, LAB 30%, LDEM 15%, SNP 37%

And in the regional vote:

Populus: CON 14%, LAB 27%, LDEM 18%, SNP 34% YouGov: CON 13%, LAB 28%, LDEM 13%, SNP 35%

The main difference between the pollsters, much as with Westminister polls, is the level of support for the Liberal Democrats. Both companies show the SNP with a solid lead over Labour of around seven points in the regional vote, and between 4 and 7 points in the constituency vote.

These two polls follow a couple of weeks when we've had to rely upon rather erratic polling from Scottish Opinion and mruk. Mruk managed to find a Labour lead when all other contemporary polls were showing the SNP ahead, while in two polls published just a few days apart Scottish Opinion found a Labour lead of 3 points and an SNP lead of 11 points. Mruk have no track record to judge them by, and there is no way of telling what weightings and adjustments were applied to the figures, neither do we know what weightings Scottish Opinion use, though the evidence from those two polls alone suggests that their results are volatile.

You have to go back to November to find a poll by one of the well known companies (Yougov, ICM, TNS System Three and Populus) that didn't show a SNP lead and I think the picture presented by those pollsters whose methodology we do have the details of is pretty clear: the SNP have a consistent lead going into the Scottish Parliamentary elections and unless there is a change in public sentiment, or a systemic failure of the polls, we can expect the SNP to gain the most votes at the Scottish elections. How that translates into seats is a different matter - most projections suggest the SNP will be the largest party in the next Parliament, but there is no obvious coalition. The Lib Dems have suggested they will not agree to the central plank of the SNP programme, a referendum on Scottish independence, and the SNP would not go into a coalition with the Tories. It is possible that the SNP could emerge as the largest party, but Labour continue in power with the Lib Dems, propped up by the Conservatives.

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