Latest Scottish polls
During the last week or so of the London mayoral election campaign when my attention was elsewhere there were also a couple of Scottish opinion polls, so here's a catch up:
Westminster election
TNS System Three - CON 17%, LAB 39%, LDEM 10%, SNP 31% YouGov - CON 17%, LAB 34%, LDEM 14%, SNP 30%
Scottish Parliament
Constituency vote TNS System Three - CON 12%, LAB 31%, LDEM 11%, SNP 45% YouGov - CON 13%, LAB 31%, LDEM 15%, SNP 36% Scottish Opinion - CON 13%, LAB 33%, LDEM 10%, SNP 40%
Regional Vote TNS System Three - CON 12%, LAB 29%, LDEM 12%, SNP 41% YouGov - CON 13%, LAB 28%, LDEM 13%, SNP 37%
The YouGov poll has a range of other questions apart from voting intention. As one might expect given the high polling ratings for the SNP, there were positive ratings for the Scottish administration (net approval of plus 25) and Alex Salmond as first minister (net satisfaction of plus 20). In contrast Wendy Alexander had a net score for doing a good job of minus 39. The other two party leaders, Annabel Goldie and Nicol Stephen both had notably high don't know ratings (39% and 45% respectively), suggesting people are largely unaware of what they are doing. Of those who did express and opinion, Goldie's ratings were far better than Stephen's (plus 21, as opposed to minus 1).
The Cameron effect doesn't seem to be penetrating north of the border. 13% of respondents said they were more likely to vote Conservative with David Cameron as leader...but 14% said they were less likely. Questions like this aren't perfect, since people may become more positive or negative towards a party because of the actions of the leader or the way he has changed the party, without ascribing the change directly to the leader himself - but the Westminister voting intention figures in the polls back up the finding, showing no significant increase in Tory support in Scotland since the last general election.
YouGov also asked where the blame lay in recent disagreements between Holyrood and Westminster. Respondents were pretty evenly split between thinking the arguments were being deliberated created by Alex Salmond to show London in a bad light and how Scotland would be better off independent (38%) and between blaming the Westminster government for being insensitive to Scotland's needs (35%). The split was identical when respondents were asked if London was bullying the Scottish exective - 35% agreed, 38% disagreed.
On YouGov's normal tracker question on how people would vote in a referendum on Scottish independence 59% said they would support the status quo, with 25% saying they would vote for independence. As we've discussed here before, different ways of asking this question show markedly different results, and YouGov's question which specifies that voting no still retains the Scottish Parliament normally results in less support for independence, but compared to previous YouGov/Telegraph polls using the same wording, the balance of opinion is moving away from independence.
