Wings Over Scotland

This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.

The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.

It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.

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Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.

(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)

And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.

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With Reform now pretty consistently miles in front in polling for the next UK election, logically this is brilliant news for the Scottish independence movement, isn’t it?

So can anyone explain why the SNP is so desperate to stop them?

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There’s a post on the superwoke poll-analysis account Ballot Box Scotland today bemoaning the lack of interest in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election from polling companies, and presenting it as some sort of anti-Scottish conspiracy.

The real reason nobody’s very interested, of course, is that as things stand the election is an obvious foregone conclusion in which the party that’s been in power for the previous 19 years will stay in power for another five, and nothing will change.

The only minor intrigue around the election is to be found at the edges and is only of real interest to politics nerds, but since we ARE politics nerds we may as well take a look at it.

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This is actually pretty serious.

Because, y’know, you can call us old-fashioned purists or sticklers or whatever if you like, but government ministers probably shouldn’t openly lie in prepared statements to the High Court in order to pervert the course of justice.

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As recently as this weekend, the Scottish Government claimed that it has “made clear it accepts the Supreme Court ruling [in For Women Scotland] and is taking forward the detailed work necessary”.

But as with so much the Scottish Government says, it’s a barefaced lie.

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We thought we should keep track of all the issues with the Peggie tribunal judgment, now that Sandie Peggie has officially announced her intention to appeal it.

Because this story has some distance left to run.

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According to a new poll, fewer than a third of SNP voters even think independence is in the top three priorities facing Scotland.

It’s only five points ahead of immigration in fourth place, and seven ahead of housing. So it’s hardly surprising that the SNP aren’t bothering themselves about it. Their own support, like the party, is very comfortable with the way things are.

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The first and most important thing to note about yesterday’s judgment in the Sandie Peggie tribunal is that it’s a very big victory. The tribunal found that Sandie Peggie was gravely and heinously harassed by her employer through no fault of her own, and she’ll be entitled to substantial compensation as a result.

It also ruled, repeatedly and unequivocally, that Dr “Beth” Upton (who’s referred to in the judgment as “the second respondent”) is a man.

After that, it lost its mind.

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On 5 April 2021, I sent a short and simple Freedom Of Information (FOI) request to the Scottish Government asking for:

“All written evidence to James Hamilton’s QC investigation into the FM under the ministerial code. This includes evidence from the FM, her chief of staff Liz Lloyd and any other individuals within the Scottish Government who have submitted evidence.”

Over four and a half years later, because of the government’s pathological aversion to transparency and accountability, we’re still not there.

But we’re inching closer.

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For several years now, this site has recorded how the SNP’s continued existence is now entirely dependent on UK state funding. The party would simply go bust without Westminster money. And how precarious a position that puts it in is sharply illustrated by the latest release of donations income from the Electoral Commission.

In a 12-month period running up to the last UK general election, the UK state gave the SNP a little over £1.3 million.

In the corresponding period for the last year, after the party was reduced to just nine seats, that figure plunged to just over £0.4 million, a drop of over £0.9 million.

And that’s money the SNP can’t afford to lose.

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For lack of anything more interesting to write about, we thought we might do a monthly rundown of polling in the leadup to next year’s Holyrood election, with seat projections from a neutral source, in the shape of the newish Devolved Elections website.

And very quickly, things got a bit weird.

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