This is interesting. I’ve made the point on the SluggerReport that even reliable national polling will be mediated by ground war efforts by various parties. However FPTP may allow the SNP to take almost all the spoils in Scotland:
The latest and final Ipsos MORI poll for STV News puts support for Nicola Sturgeon’s party at 54%, up by two percentage points on the last poll, with Labour trailing on 20%, down from 24%.
Support for the Conservatives has increased by five points to 17% while the Liberal Democrats are on 5%, up one point, the Greens are on 2%, down by two points, Ukip are polling at 1%, with support for other parties also at 1%.
Using these figures, the Electoral Calculus website predicts that the SNP would take all 59 seats in Scotland.
Ipsos MORI questioned 1,071 people between April 22 and 27 on how they would vote if the election was tomorrow.
It is the latest poll to show a record level of support for nationalists after a survey by TNS published on Monday put the SNP on 54%.
It recorded support for Labour at 22%, the Tories at 13%, Lib Dems at 6% and the Greens and Ukip both on 2%.
The mere reporting of these polls may of course help shape the outcome. The MORI MD had this to say:
Looking at all polls public and in progress I have to say Conservatives edging ahead now, esp given Scottish situation
— Ben Page, Ipsos MORI (@benatipsosmori) April 29, 2015
The swing of course is exaggerated if you measure back to the 2010 Westminster election, but it’s a less dramatic upswing if you look at 2011 Scottish Parliamentary Election, with the SNP on 45.4% and Labour on 31.7%.
It’s something to conjure with, if nothing more. With such a mass desertion of the Scottish left to nationalism, the old SNP nostrum that UK Labour has never needed Scottish seats to make up a government could be tested to breaking point.
If the Tory ‘fear the SNP’ line does its work in England we could be looking at an SNP leader in a numerically powerful place in Westminster, but with no one but the Tories to do business with. In other words, no business to
Having a Tory baddie to poke into ever more blind anti Scotland words and actions is always useful. It might also – in the shorter term – save them the slow [if apocalypic] poisoning that Neal Ascherton recently warned them of…
But it could also afford Labour an opportunity of pinning the dampening weather on their own defenestration of political power, and a sudden and general lurch to the political right…
Interesting times ahead…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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