Wings Over Scotland

As part of our latest Panelbase poll, we wanted to explore the so-called “2017 Scenario” hinted at by new SNP leader and First Minister-elect Nicola Sturgeon, whereby the Tories control the UK parliament, the SNP have another majority at Holyrood, and the UK holds a referendum on the EU where England/the rUK votes to leave and Scotland votes to stay in.

To that end, we asked two key questions. Our findings are below.

Read the rest of this entry →

We try to deploy the money that generous readers send us during our fundraisers very carefully, so we were annoyed last week when we commissioned a new opinion poll from Panelbase with a few thousand quid left over from the Wee Blue Book campaign, only to have every other pollster and his dog release the results of their own surveys the very next day.

So sadly (for us) the following figures won’t have quite the dramatic impact that they might have commanded otherwise, but they’re still pretty interesting, particularly in the context of how they relate to the findings from Ipsos MORI, YouGov and others.

(Our poll also covered some ground that nobody else has done, but to add excitement and build a little suspense we’ll save that for a wee bit later on today.)

Let’s get to it, then.

Read the rest of this entry →

Earlier today we published an email from Daily Record editor Murray Foote about “The Vow”. In it he referred to an editorial published in the paper on 8 September, attacking the “confused” and “shambolic” position of the three Unionist parties on further devolution to Scotland in the event of a No vote.

The infamous “Vow” was their response. When publishing it on 16 September, two days before the referendum, the Record announced on its front page that “NOW VOTERS CAN MAKE AN INFORMED CHOICE”, thereby implying that “The Vow” had delivered what the 8 September editorial had demanded.

Readers can judge for themselves.

Read the rest of this entry →

Disappointingly, we haven’t received a reply from Daily Record editor Murray Foote to our email yesterday inquiring into the provenance of “The Vow”.

However, an alert reader who wrote to him yesterday did. You can read it below.

Read the rest of this entry →

A couple of things we’ve sent off this morning in relation to this.

Read the rest of this entry →

Below is a letter from the editor of the Daily Record sent to a Wings reader yesterday (and, we presume, to many others). We thought you might find it interesting.

Read the rest of this entry →

Just for fun, we thought you might like to see a list of the Scottish Labour MPs, MSPs and MEPs who are eligible to nominate a candidate for the leadership and deputy leadership positions, but have declined to endorse anyone for either.

If you wouldn’t, don’t look below, whatever you do.

Read the rest of this entry →

We thought you might be interested to see some of the working of this post from yesterday. Of the 2.4m votes cast in Scotland in the 2010 UK general election, not far short of a million – if a recent YouGov poll is to be believed – are currently likely to be cast for different parties in 2015. And it’s intriguing to see where they’ll go.

Read the rest of this entry →

Keen followers of Scottish politics, and in particular Scottish Labour, have in recent days found themselves experiencing something of a deja vu overload. Leadership contender Jim Murphy has been all over the media recycling apologies and pledges of reform dating back up to seven years from previous leaders.

But this morning readers could be forgiven for finding themselves a little confused.

Read the rest of this entry →

Wendy Alexander, 2007:

“It is a journey that I am determined will end with Scottish Labour back in power at Holyrood.

To get there we must win back the trust of the Scottish people. And to win that trust we must listen to them and show that we have listened to them by reforming our party.

We will not stand by and let the SNP fail the people of Scotland by ducking their real responsibilities of government because of their obsession with independence.

That is our job and we will do it to the best of our ability. But we will not be aggressive for the sake of it. We will be constructive in opposition, and we will give credit where it is due.”

So: listen, reform, don’t just bash the Nats. Got it. How hard can it be?

Read the rest of this entry →

Some SNP supporters have – rightly, in this site’s view – called for calm and caution over this week’s opinion polls, showing the Nats at stratospheric support levels and, supposedly, on course to win either 54 or 47 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats next May. Given the huge gaps that the SNP would have to close in order to take each individual seat, those numbers seem extremely optimistic to anyone familiar with First Past The Post, even given Scottish Labour’s ongoing implosion.

So rather than rely on dodgy uniform-swing predictors, we thought we’d try something a bit simpler but also more scientific and likely to come up with a believable result.

Read the rest of this entry →

There’ll be some more psephology coming up on Wings next week, readers, so we thought we’d get prepared by having a delve around in the inner workings of this week’s YouGov findings and seeing if we could find a few interesting nuggets.

Read the rest of this entry →