Did Brown bottle it?

ScottishToryBoy learns that Scottish Labour are briefing the press that Brown bottled it yesterday at Prime Ministers Questions as a line had been agreed.

Does Scottish Labour think Wendy stands a better chance of hanging on than Gordon?

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%.

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.

Peter Duncan Selected in D&G

Word reaches Scottish Tory Boy that Peter Duncan, the former MP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, has been selected to again fight the Dumfries and Galloway Westminster seat.

Russell Brown is the sitting Labour MP and he has a majority of 2,922. However, it must be noted that last time around Peter Duncan got an unbelievable 18,002 votes, enough to have won any other Westminster seat. Perhaps an indication of just how strong the Labour machine is in Dumfries.

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.