Could the SNP get a majority?!

As Chris alluded to the other day there has been a pretty interesting poll on the Scottish Election out this week. It was from Ipsos MORI and it shows an impressive 10 point lead for the Scottish National Party with just two weeks left until polling day. Running that through the Scotland-Votes seat calculator leaves the SNP just a couple of seats short of an overall majority:

	Const.	+/-	Regional	+/-	Scotland-Votes
SNP	45	+8	42	+7	63
Labour	34	-2	32	-1	43
Conservatives	10	-3	10	-3	11
Liberal Democrats	9	-1	8	2	7
Greens	-	-	6	nc	4
Independent	-	-	-	-	1

*Changes are from Ipsos MORI's poll from 14^th February.

Before SNP supporters get ahead of themselves this poll should come with a caveat. MORI's previous poll in February showed a narrow SNP lead when all the other pollsters had Labour ahead. Given that YouGov have recently shown a SNP lead it seems quite clear that Labour have fallen behind but one suspects the gap is not quite so large. Regardless, with a fortnight to go the Scottish Nationalists find themselves in a position they could have only have dreamt of a couple of months ago.

Alex Salmond's party definitely have the momentum in this campaign and it's hard to see what Labour can do to stop it. An ICM poll in March asking who is the preferred First Minster indicated that Salmond winning the personality contest hands down, with Labour's Iain Gray lagging way back in third behind the Conservative leader Annabel Goldie. In addition, it seems that Labour's decision to focus their campaign on the Westminster coalition is falling flat. At best they have given the SNP free reign to champion their achievements in Government, at worst they are tacitly admitting the Salmond's minority administration hasn't done a lot wrong.

Although I'm not sure this is entirely applicable to a devolved legislature, it is often said that Oppositions do not win elections - Government's lose them. As the SNP Government does not give off the impression it is on its last legs, Labour's commanding lead in the polls at the turn of the year looked set to prove that adage wrong. However, it is also noted that an Opposition can quite easily lose an election, and it seems that is what Iain Gray's party are set to do.

 

Quick Note; we are currently hoping to get our Scottish Forecast ready for next Bank Holiday Weekend.