Sometimes the answer you get…

…isn’t the one that you are after and this is certainly the case with a parliamentary answer recently received by Lothians List Lord George Foulkes. You see, as well as trying to get Alex ‘big eck’ Salmond to go a walk with him (no, I don’t know why either) it seems Foulkesy has spent considerable time trying to come up with parliamentary questions to try and expose that the police recruitment promised in the budget was not going to happen this year.

Alas, his Lordship has been foiled by…er…the fact that there will be extra bobbies on the beat thanks in no small part to the Scottish Conservative Party who pushed the dastardly SNP on police numbers intent on not allowing the SNP to drop that election pledge of theirs.

S3W-13839 - George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab) (Date Lodged Tuesday, June 03, 2008): To ask the Scottish Executive how many police officers are projected to (a) qualify from police college and (b) retire from the police service in 2008 and 2009.

Answered by Kenny MacAskill (Wednesday, June 11, 2008): Based on inputs from forces the Scottish Police College estimates that it will train in excess of 1,500 new officers in 2008-09. Figures for 2009-10 are not available. Details of the number of officers eligible to retire from the police service in 2008 and 2009 are not held centrally.

Estimates are that 508 police officers will retire in 2008/9, giving a potential net gain of 1000 officers.

More good news from YouGov

As per usual these days, the latest YouGov poll makes for good reading for the Scottish Conservative party and for the Conservative party as a whole putting the party on 23% - which is just above the average of 22.2% that the Scottish Conservatives are polling in YouGov polls.

The voting intentions of the sample polled are below:

Lab - 30%
SNP - 28%
Con - 23%
LD - 16%

When it comes to how well Gordon Brown is doing as Prime Minister, 26% thought he was doing very or fairly well whilst 70% thought he was doing very or fairly badly giving him a net approval rating of -44%.

As for the next Prime Minister, 57% believed that David Cameron was doing very or fairly well compared to just 35% who thought he was doing very or fairly badly giving him a net approval rating in Scotland on +22% - a lead over the current PM of 66%!

People in Scotland have constantly been told by commentators that there is no Cameron bounce in Scotland and that a Conservative Government would be one without a Scottish mandate. Well, it seems that the Scottish Conservatives are up a third in the polls since 2005 – in line with the Party nationally - and now we see that Cameron is far more popular that the current Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Labour's worst poll rating of all time

Further grim reading for the Labour Party in today’s press. Not only were they greeted with headlines such as “No way back for Wendy” and “Losing his (Gordon Brown) grip on Scotland” but the latest YouGov poll has Labour at its lowest poll rating of all time. The new poll, conducted by YouGov for the Sun Newspaper, has Labour trailing a massive 26 points behind the Tories who are on 49%. Is it all bad news for Gordon Brown? Well, apparently not as asked if voters would back Labour under a different leader, all of the suggested alternatives have a minus net reading – still safe then Gordon!

But what does the poll mean in Scotland. Well, the poll broken down by Scottish figures has Labour on 26%, the Tories on 21%, Lib Dems on 13% and the SNP on 32%. Before going further – this is the third YouGov poll since April that has the Scottish Conservatives on more than 20%. If this was the result in Scotland the next time round Labour would lose Scotland with the SNP taking 23 seats compared to Labours 21 with the Tories taking seven seats – including Alistair Darling’s Edinburgh South West – and the Lib Dems taking 8 seats – down 3 since 2005. The big winners from this latest poll are the SNP who comfortably meet their target of 20 seats whilst at the same time making a very impressive gain of 17 seats. Labour are the big losers down a whopping 20 seats since 2005 with the Tories picking up six seats of which five are from Labour – Edinburgh South, Edinburgh South West, Dumfries and Galloway, Stirling and Renfrewshire East – and one from the Liberal Democrats – Berwickshire Roxburgh and Selkirkshire.

Who are the big hitters from Labour that would lose? Other than Alistair Darling the biggest name that would lose their seat according to this poll is Des Brown. Others include Michael Connarty, Nigel Griffiths, Gavin Strang and Anne Moffat. The Liberal Democrats would also lose Danny Alexander and Shadow Shadow secretary of state for Scotland Michael Moore.

Vision

I came across an SNP leaflet titled Vision and contains the following little survey:

Do you think?...

Scotland should…

1 Be able to decide to bring our troops home from Iraq?
2 Be like Ireland and have a voice and votes in the European Union?
3 Be given the choice over Scotland’s future in a referendum?
4 Be like New Zealand and introduce a decent pension to drive down pensioner poverty?
5 Be like Norway and invest a share of our oil revenues in a fund to benefit future generations?

If you answered YES to one or move above, perhaps you should find out more about the SNP and our ambitions for the future of Scotland.

Interesting….. I think Wendy may have answered YES to question three just the other day. No?

The Daily Telegraph YouGov poll - 30 April 2008

Some of you may have seen the latest YouGov poll in today’s Daily Telegraph, which unfortunately isn’t on the online edition.

I thought I would break it down into what the opinion poll means to each party. First up….

The SNP

The Nats are up on their Holyrood result from 2007. Then they got 33% on the Constituency vote and 31 on the regional list vote, now they are at 36% and 37% respectively. They are also up in terms of Westminster voting as well, rising from their 18% in 2005 to 30% now. 43% of respondents also believe Salmond would make the best first minister while 53% are satisfied with his performance as First Minister with only 26% being satisfied with Gordon Brown’s performance as Prime Minister. John Swinney is also doing well as Finance Secretary, 34% believing that he is doing a good job in comparison to 22% who think he is doing a bad job.

Labour

Oh dear… Labour are down 1% in both the Constituency vote and the Regional List vote. At Westminster level the party are down 6% from their 2005 general election result of 40% and only 11% of respondents believe Wendy Alexander would make the best First Minister. Also, 21% think Wendy is doing a good job in comparison to 60% believing she has done a bad one. Also, only 26% are satisfied with Brown’s performance as Prime Minister whilst 63% are dissatisfied with his performance as PM.

Scottish Conservatives

Down in terms of Scottish Parliament votes but as with the figures for the Lib Dems they are not in line with any other polls. We are up 1% at Westminster level and this is only going to increase when voters are presented with a “Only David Cameron can get rid of Gordon Brown” and as I showed last week 44% of people in Scotland think David Cameron is doing a good job whilst 43% think Gordon Brown is doing a good job.

Our 17% is markedly higher than the 14% YouGov gave us in August and, according to Electoral Calculus this would give us 2 Westminster seats -DCT and D&G - and put us very close in a batch of others such as Argyll, Edinburgh South and Roxburgh Berwickshire and Selkirkshire - and closing in on WAK and East Renfrewshire.

In the individual performances section which rates the performances of John Swinney – as Finance Secretary – and Wendy, Annabel and Nicol Stephen as leaders of their party Annabel fairs the best with 41% believing that she is doing a good job with only 20% thinking that she is doing a bad one.

Lib Dems

The Lib Dems are down slightly on their Constituency vote, 15% now compared to 16% in 2007. Their regional vote is slightly better up 2% on what they got in 2007. Doing less grand at Westminster where they are down 9% from 2005 – a figure that is fairly consistent with other polls. On the individual performance section the Libs will be pleased as 27% of people believe Nicol is doing a good job – which is six points more than Wendy. He also has a whopping 32% less people thinking he’s doing a bad job.

Overall

By all the stuff you’d reckon the Nats would be happy with the poll huh? Well, probably not actually. Support for independence, if a referendum was held, is at 19%, down 4% from April 2007 whilst support for the parliament staying is it is up 9 points to 34% with support for giving the parliament greater powers remaining exactly the same as it was in April 2007 – 38%.

58% of respondents also believe that the Executive is able to operate effectively with the powers it has and can have the best of both worlds by remaining in the UK. It is interesting to note that more people think that the rows between Holyrood and Westminster are essentially Salmond’s fault – with 38% thinking that, as opposed to those believing them to be Westminster’s – 35%.

Ridiculous predictions

Some ridiculous predictions - Pele predicting that Columbia would win the 1994 World Cup – they went out in the group stages, Graham Taylor predicting that England would win the 1992 European Championships – they returned from Sweden without winning a game. A certain woman predicting in 1974 that, in her lifetime, a woman would never be prime minister, the woman in questions is of course Margaret Thatcher who became Prime Minister five years later. Much more recently I’ve seen on blogger predicting that Alex Fergusson would lose Galloway and Upper Nithsdale due to it being number one on the SNP target list – didn’t happen though eh Jeff?

Anyway, the point of this post you ask. Well, just when I thought Jeff over at SNP tactical voter had stopped making ridiculous predictions, he’s surprised me. Wait for it….the SNP to win Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale. As dumb predictions go, this is pretty dumb.

Let’s look at the facts. The Dumfries Westminster seat (which prior to 2005 took in rural Dumfries) has never had an SNP member of Parliament. From 1963 until the wipeout of 1997 the seat was a Conservative seat held for the majority of that time by the late Sir Hector Munro. In the 2005 election, the first election after the creation of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (DCT) the Tories piped Labour to the seat taking 36% of the vote compared to Labours 32.3%. One of the main reasons the Tories won that seat was due to the selection of then South of Scotland MSP David Mundell as the candidate. Mundell has spent the six years since first being elected as a List MSP for the area shadowing Constituency MSP Elaine Murray and his years of hard work paid of in winning the seat.

So, for the Nats you’d expect them to select a local hard working candidate, right? Well…wrong. Whilst the last time the party selected serial candidate Andrew Wood (who is now a Councillor) they have selected a virtual unknown in Aileen Orr – who stood in Roxburgh and Berwickshire in the last Holyrood Elections finishing a distant third.

I think back to the drawing board with this prediction Jeff.

Salmond as Head of State?!?

As we approach the first anniversary of the SNP becoming the Scottish Government, the SNP had their Spring Conference, or as Annabel Goldie described it “spring love fest.”

As well as speeches presumably dedicated to how great the Nats think they are and how big and bad those nasty monsters at Westminster are there were also leaflets like the one that can be viewed here.

It seems a new newsletter, titled “Vision” was launched at the weekend. What struck me immediately was the mocked up £20.00 note on the front with who-else but Salmond on it as though he was the head of state! Does anyone else think this demonstrate the arrogance of Salmond (he was asked on a BBC podcast why is he so smug) or at the very least the immaturity of some of his team - imagine the outcry we put Annabel Goldie or David Cameron on a note or if something though, for some reason, to put Wendy Alexander on a mocked up banknote?

Does this mean that the SNP have secretly abandoned their plans for the Queen to continue as Head of State in an Independent Scotland and Mr Salmond wants to be our President?

YouGov/Sunday Times Survey

I’ve just received some quite interesting results from a YouGov/Sunday Times Westminster voting intentions opinion poll which are not good news for Gordon Brown and Labour.

Some quite interesting findings, for example 47% of women are likely to vote Conservative compared to 27% who will vote Labour whilst in the male category 42% are likely to vote Conservative compared to 29% who are going to vote for Labour. When it comes to age range the results are rather positive for the Conservatives as they defeat Labour 43% to 28% in the 18-34 year olds, 39%-34% in the 35 to 54 years category whilst comfortably defeating Labour, 50% to 22%, in the over 55 category.

The region section is broken down into five areas; London, Rest of South, Midlands/Wales, North and Scotland. Of these five areas Labour only wins two – Scotland and the North but only just edge the North by 1%. As expected the Conservatives win comfortably in the South – 52% to 23%. The Party also do very well in London winning 48% to 31% whilst also crushing Labour in the Midlands/Wales area 50% to 21%. Although Labour wins the result for the sample in Scotland is quite positive for the Conservatives. This is quite consistent to recent polls which have the Conservatives between 17% and 21% in Scotland.

A rough breakdown of seats in Scotland would have Labour on around 30, the Lib Dems on ten or thereabouts, the Nats on around 15 whilst the Tories would be on 4 or so.

The poll is also quite positive regarding the performance thus far of David Cameron. Across the whole of the UK 44% of people think he is doing fairly well as Conservative leader as opposed to 26% of people who think Gordon Brown is doing fairly well as Prime Minister. Also, only 11% of people think Cameron is doing very badly compared to 28% who think Gordon Brown is doing very badly. In Scotland 43% of people think Gordon Brown is doing fairly well and 29% think he is doing fairly badly. When it comes to David Cameron 44% of Scots think he is doing fairly well with 27% thinking he is doing fairly badly with more people thinking Gordon Brown is doing very badly – 19% - than think David Cameron is doing very badly – 12%.

A Nat Tory coalition…..at Westminster?!

No no, I’ve not lost my mind I’ve merely had a wee look at this website here. I haven’t read Iain Dale’s cracking blog for quite some time but stumbled across this post this morning in which Iain talks of the chances of a Tory/Nat coalition at Westminster.

There’s a wee piece in today’s Scottish Daily Express, which unfortunately is not online, in which the Nats fancy there chances of picking up an amazing 27 seats – primarily from, in their words, the beleaguered Labour Party. Now, I’ve only met Angus Robertson once or twice (he does still say hello when he passes me) and I have to say that he is quite an impressive figure. I do however doubt the number he predicts. The Electoral Calculus site predicts the SNP will win ten seats which is impressive enough and a jump of four from their current base.

Scotland wide the Electoral Calculus site predicts the following:

Conservative 2 (+1)
Labour 40 (-1)
Lib Dem 7 (-4)
SNP 10 (+4)

Of course there are issues that would have to be resolved if the Nats and Tories were to form a coalition – issues I think everyone knows – but as Iain Dale points out the Nats do not see the Tories as “the devil incarnate” anymore. The Sunday Times poll, which the Express picks up on, shows the SNP 7 points ahead of Labour and 19 points up on their 2005 election performance. Many in Labour must increasingly be becoming aware of the fact that their days in Government are numbered…

Long live the Lib/Lab pact

It certainly appears that even though they are no longer in Government, the only deal going on in Scottish Politics is the one between the Fib Dems and Labour.

Three different bloggers have picked up on the voting records of the Lib Dems, myself, Tartan Hero and Calum Cashley, showing that the Lib Dems have voted with Labour more than any other party has voted with another, sort of showing that there is no deal between the Nats and the Tories.

Anyway, on the politics show this morning the topic of the chat was obviously Donorgate with a panel of Bill Aitken, from the Tories, and Roseanna Cunningham from the SNP. But what's this, no Lib Dem on to criticise the donations scandal that is likely to bring a premature end to a fairly short lived leadership for Ms Alexander. Anyone any ideas why there was no Fib Dem on the show?

Nat and Tory Local Government Coalitions possible

Following on from this post earlier on, it seems that the SNP's long term ban on working with the Conservatives at local government level has been overturned. The Beeb is reporting that the National Council passed a motion allowing Nat Councillors to form Coalitions with other parties.

While the Lib Dems continue to grumble over a "back room deal"...

An SNP spokesman said: "The motion as amended simply reflects the realities of Scottish local government post the introduction of the single transferable vote."

"It doesn't apply to national politics and the parliament, where we are absolutely delighted with the success of the minority SNP Government and we have no plans to change that."

Tartan Hero has a rather interesting post on whether or not the Tories will do a deal with the Nats, and where, and it can be viewed here.

It is not expected to pave the way for any kind of coalition deal at Holyrood.

Those are the words in the BBC report of the fact that today the SNP Councillors will put a motion to the SNP National Council calling for them to be able to work with any political party. The SNP had put a ban on working with the Conservative Party following the poll tax but today it is very likely that such a ban will be lifted. Of course, as the headline suggests, "It is not expected to pave the way for any kind of coalition deal at Holyrood" even though the Fib Dems, Tavish Scott and Mike Rumbles in particular, and Labour seem to think some sort of deal between the Tories and the SNP has taken place.

Height of irony being accused of making deals by the most opportunistic political party in the land.

Alex Salmond ditches election pledge

The Herald covers it here. This was one of the big talking points of business in Parliament yesterday with the Tories having a go at the Nats in both Conservative Party business in the morning as well as in FMQs.

Right to buy

It appears that the SNP Government want to do away with one of the most iconic aspects of Thatcherism, the right to buy.

Wendy's Conference Speech

I just watched Wendy Alexander's conference speech, it can be viewed here.

Bit of an anti-climax really. She didn't really say much at all how she would solve the problem that her party is now in, all she did was compare the SNP and the Conservative Party, all a tad baffling really.

Apparently, "In their desperate attempts to play to English nationalism, the Tories will attack our prime minister simply for being a Scot."

Wonderful stuff Wendy, wonderful.

My favourite snippet has to be: Ms Alexander claimed the people of Scotland had not lost faith in Labour's values, but wondered whether the party had lost sight of how to put them into practice.

"The Scottish National Party were the beneficiaries of that disillusionment," she said.

Seems the Scottish Labour party is still struggling to come to terms with not being the governing party at Holyrood.

Labour Shambles

I have to admit to finding this story by Paul Hutcheon in today's Sunday Herald absolutely hilarious. Wendy's spin doctor doesn't seem to be enjoying his job, MSPs are unhappy at being overlooked although frankly I can't think of anyone that's useful that's been overlooked and finally Labour still seem bitter about Mays result and are not at all coping well being in opposition.

The SNP must be rubbing their hands in glee over this news.

Little evidence war cost Labour

That's certainly what the BBC is reporting following a study by a number of Universities into why Labour lost the last Holyrood Election.

Researchers at Strathclyde found that it was Labours weaknesses on domestic issues. The SNP enjoyed a lead over Labour on issues such as Education, Health, Crime and Transport with Labour enjoying a slight lead on the economy.

According to Dr Johns from Strathclyde University, "On balance, voters were rather negative about Labour's performance and fairly optimistic about that of the SNP.

"Indeed, it does seem that a key element of the SNP's success was projecting a positive image."

One of the most interesting parts of the study carried out by academics from Strathclyde, Shefield and Lancashire was that: Support for independence fell compared with 2003, but the Nationalists were able to attract a third of those who backed more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Quite an interesting point especially considering most Nats on the blogosphere believe that the support for Independence is massive in Scotland.

Wendy's debut

Seems Miss Alexander's first First Ministers Questions as leader of the Labour Parliamentary group did not go as well as she'd hoped. Turns out that whoever had advised her that the Nats were going to means test the central heating for pensioners programme got their facts wrong and left Wendy looking a little daft.

Although she probed Salmond four times with essentially the same question and got the same answer every time, it didn't even click that maybe she'd gotten the wrong end of the stick. Turns out in the Health and Sport committee, Stewart Maxwell didn't say that the programme would be means tested.

Ooops.

***UPDATE***

Seems Alan Cochrane over at the Telegraph has some nice things to say about Goldie's performance while Ian Bell in the Herald sketch is less than complimentary about Wendy's performance.

Another pledge bites the dust

Following on from last week where the Nats dropped pledge after pledge, it seems that another one has bitten the dust this weekend.

The Daily Mirror is reporting that Salmond has dropped his pledge to impose a tax on every nuclear warhead brought into Scotland even though the 'Trident Toll' at £1million a weapon would have raised £85million.

When announced the pledge was dismissed as a "stupid gimmick" by opponents and now it's been dropped.

One failed promise after another.

Nat MSP stands down

Word from a hack source is that a Nat Lothians list MSP has today resigned his position....

Anyone got any ideas?

Update: It's Stefan Tymkewycz that has resigned.