Comment

Why is Labour’s Election Strategy Not Working?

17th April 2016

Labour’s strategy in the Scottish Parliament election is clear. It is trying to win back those for the most part relatively left-wing former supporters who voted for independence eighteen months ago and subsequently switched to the SNP. To that end it has put forward plans for markedly higher taxation and spending than those being espoused […]


Will The Tax Debate Move Voters?

6th April 2016

One of the rituals of elections in Scotland nowadays is that at the beginning of the campaign BBC Scotland conducts a poll in which it attempts to establish the popularity or otherwise of the various proposals being put forward by the parties. The results of the exercise conducted (by Ipsos MORI) for this year’s Holyrood […]


Survation on Income Tax, UKIP and IndyRef2

19th February 2016

A new poll by Survation that was reported in the Daily Record both yesterday and today has three findings of note. First, although the principle of increasing income tax by a penny in the pound (as proposed by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats) appears to be relatively popular, there is little sign so far […]


Three Key Pointers from Ipsos MORI

10th February 2016

Today’s latest poll, conducted by Ipsos MORI for STV news, addresses three of the key questions about the future of Scottish politics – the race for second place at Holyrood, the debate about whether the Scottish Parliament should be attempting its new income tax powers in the near future, and the impact that a UK […]


Some Added Spice? TNS BMRB and YouGov Polls

5th February 2016

Just in case anyone was concerned that May’s Scottish Parliament election might prove to be a rather dull affair as the SNP marched to a seemingly inevitable second overall majority, two polls, one released by TNS BMRB yesterday and one by YouGov published in today’s Times, have added some spice to the campaign. Not that […]


Might Scotland Vote to Leave the UK if the UK Votes to Leave the EU?

17th January 2016

One of the points of contention between the two sides of the EU referendum debate is whether a vote to leave the UK would potentially constitute a threat to the future of the Union.  The former Conservative leader, Lord Hague, was accused by those in the Leave camp of peddling a scare story when over […]


Scottish Labour’s Predicament

31st October 2015

Scottish Labour are gathered this weekend in Perth in the hope of kick-starting a revival. The party certainly badly needs to do so. The hole in which it finds itself now is as every bit as deep as the one into which it fell in May when it was all but wiped out in the […]


The SNP’s Dilemma

16th October 2015

One of the key lessons of Scottish politics in the last 12 months is that referendums and parliamentary elections can present a political movement that is capable of garnering around half the vote with very different challenges. In a referendum that movement may well fail to win, as happened to Yes in September last year. […]


Survation Also Show Little Movement to Yes

14th September 2015

As referendum first anniversary fever grows, today sees the publication of yet another poll on how Scots now view the constitutional question. Like the two polls published over the weekend, today’s poll, conducted by Survation for the Daily Mail, asked people how they actually voted in the referendum and the data have been weighted so […]


The Challenge Facing The New Scottish Labour Leader

12th August 2015

Labour’s new Scottish leader is due to be unveiled on Saturday, an announcement that will in effect signal that the holiday season is coming to an end and normal political hostilities will soon begin once more. The announcement will, of course, be made against the backdrop of a divisive UK leadership contest in which the […]


Filter by