Iain Dale posted a piece earlier in the week about the Scottish opinion poll showing the SNP on 48%, Labour on 32 % and the others nowhere. he used this poll to justify an argument that Labour are unlikely to call a snap election. There was no link to the poll and despite comments asking whether the poll related to Holyrood or Westminster voting intention no reply forthcoming.
The poll was carried out by Scottish Opinion, not one of your usual political pollsters, for the Scottish Daily Mail. The poll asked how people would vote in a Holyrood election, but declined to specify whether this was for the constituency or the list (or both – given that many people split their vote). To take any conclusions from such a poll is dangerous – particularly when voting for Holyrood has not followed the Wesminster pattern, given the differing constituency boundaries and issues at play in a Westminster election. To draw any conclusions is more dangerous when the UK Polling report treats Scottish Opinion surveys with caution noting “we don’t have details of their methodology and during the campaign for the Scottish Parliament they managed to produce some wildly volatile figures, presenting polls showing a 3 point Labour lead and 12 point SNP lead within weeks of each other.”
I attempted to post something to this effect yesterday in the comments on Mr Dale’s site (without reference to the UK Polling report which I found this morning) but for some reason although later comments of others have appeared elsewhere on his site my comments have not. Still don’t let the facts get in the way of a good Tory.
ETA 19:30 Mr Dale posted a comment to this earlier today (just unscreened) and has assured me that he did not delete my comment on his piece. Looks like that’s another perceptive and witty comment that’s gone into the ether – like unsaved LJ entries.
I lost patience with Dale over the Lawrence vs Boris episode, he seems to have retreated to the Tory bunker.
I can assure you that your comment was not deleted by me. I actually think the likelihood of an early election is increasing with every passing day, The poll you refer to turns out to have been one where people were asked about Holyrood voting intentions, rather than Westminster. However, I’m told that Labour’s private polling is none too encouraging.
Iain Dale http://iaindale.blogspot.com
My apologies. I’ll edit the original post to reflect this. My own thinking is that Brown is unlikely to go early because he will not wish to run the risk of being the shortest-lived PM of modern times but I think the Scottish polling is neutral on this. Scottish politics may have something of Quebec about it in the short to medium term.
We can but hope that after their defeat in the next election that the Tories follow the lead of their Canadian counterparts and completely implode (of course the right came back but it was fun to watch whilst it lasted).
A Poll with no paper trail, dubious methodology and wildly volatile results? Its either Florida or and English Referee at the World Cup.
Mr Poll was on Five Live the otehr night bantering with Stan Collymore. I wish he’d referee again so the media ban can be reintroduced for him (could the same apply to that Elleray bloke too?).