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Wednesday 4 February 2015

Cruising for a bruising

Today sees the publication of the results of the latest poll by Lord Ashcroft, which shows that both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are on course to crash and burn in Scotland in the General Election.  On the evidence of this poll, people like Douglas Alexander and Danny Alexander are slated to lose their seats and by a considerable margin.

The polling was done in constituencies that either voted Yes or showed strong support for Yes in the referendum, so results showing a large swing towards voting SNP should not really be a surprise.  However, it does show that many of the Labour heartlands are likely to be lost to the SNP, and this will not help the apparent panic in the Labour ranks in Scotland.

Why do I think Labour is panicking?  Because they have reverted to the tactic which they think won them the referendum - wheel out Gordon Brown and get him to promise more powers for the Scottish government.  It might have been a sound move were it to have happened closer to the election.  My personal opinion is that last time, the tactic worked by giving soft yesses an out - 'I can vote no and it will be OK as we'll get more powers anyway'.  See how well that worked out.  This time, however, people can see the consequences of the last vow (the feeble Smith Commission outcome) and can extrapolate for themselves the likely outcome of this one.

The SNP have no room to be complacent though.  A similar poll taken in No supporting constituencies might provide very different results, and I would be interested to see such a poll.

Meantime, expect to see more flailing around by Labour in Scotland, as they try to find the magic bullet that will kill off support for their mortal enemies, the SNP.

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