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Two polls, a campaign launch, a long awaited change on council tax policy and a party conference happening this weekend makes for a slightly busier week than usual in Scottish politics.
It started with two opinion polls. It is remarkable after 9 years of government the polls are only getting stronger for the SNP with between 54-60% on the constituency vote. Labour continues to languish at around 20% and the much vaunted Tory revival is nowhere to be seen.
The TNS poll actually put them down 4% on their last one to 13%. Putting these numbers into Weber Shandwick’s ScotlandVotes seat predictor translates to between 70-80 seats for the nationalists. If replicated on the 5 May, it will see them increasing their majority in a parliament designed to prevent one. Labour would be a distant second, but perhaps most interesting is UKIP which from the Survation poll would get 7 seats – one more than the Lib Dems. We’ve written about this possibility over on our blog where we speculate that a focus on the EU Referendum could give the only party supporting Brexit in Scotland a sizeable boost.
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The First Minister used a speech in London on Monday to urge David Cameron to make a positive case for remaining in the EU – not a “miserable, negative, fear-based” campaign. A fear based campaign-project fear you say? Sounds familiar. It isn’t at all surprising to people in Scotland that the same arguments used in the Independence referendum are appearing again. What is perhaps surprising is the glee to which the Leave campaign has adopted the language to attack Remain. The parallels are striking: questioning the role of the civil service, positive vs negative, talking Britain down, pooling and sharing. Just wait till they start trying to organise who participates in debates (I’m having flashbacks).
After a 9 year Council tax freeze and a past manifesto commitment to scrapping it all together the SNP announced on Wednesday some reforms which would see higher bands pay more with the money earmarked for education. Opposition parties and other groups have attacked it as “tinkering around the edges”. Looking at the other tax debate in Scotland – on the Scottish Rate of Income Tax – where most people want the status quo perhaps tinkering is the extent of change they’d accept.
The Scottish Conservatives begin their party conference today at the home of Scottish Rugby, Murrayfield. Like the national rugby team, there have been flickers of life of late within the Tory ranks. Yes there is potential but up against the political equivalent of the All Blacks in the SNP, the result is a foregone conclusion.
The PMs ‘one party state’ line which is being trailed today feels a bit tired. People like the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon and know that Scotland’s a democracy. Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives may pick up some support given their strong position on the Union, coupled with Scottish Labour’s well documented woes. At this point though, it doesn’t look like they have convinced enough people who voted SNP at the general election to rally to their cause. And the PM rolling out the same old tunes this weekend probably won’t help matters.
Finally, everyone wants a piece of the Trump action, probably largely down to his direct Scottish heritage. Recently he’s been simultaneously banned and courted by various parties in Government in Scotland. Our digital colleague Thom Watt wrote here on why the Donald could do with some Scottish pollsters if he’s to make sure he gets the nod for the GOP later this year.