Humza Yousaf has been Scotland’s First Minister for 5 days and it looks as though he’s not going to get a honeymoon. Two polls this week have shown the SNP vote falling and Labour surging while Lib Dems look as though we will gain and, in Alex Cole-Hamilton’s catchphrase of the moment, “be part of what’s next”
A Savanta poll published on Friday put us on 7 seats, giving us and Labour 49 seats between us. Between 2007 and 2011, the SNP minority government had just 47 MSPs.
This is the:
– Best poll for Labour or any opposition party
– Worst for SNP
– Only SNP seat projection below 50 in my modelsince the 2016 Holyrood election. https://t.co/uyULcI2pBd
— Ballot Box Scotland (@BallotBoxScot) March 31, 2023
This weekend, a Sunday Times/Pnaelbase poll showed a slightly different outcome, but still a significant drop for the SNP.
Projecting Panelbase 28 – 30 Mar into seats (changes vs 7 – 10 Mar / vs 2021 election):
SNP ~ 47 (-4 / -17)
Labour ~ 38 (+4 / +16)
Conservative ~ 25 (+4 / -6)
Green ~ 10 (-5 /+2)
Lib Dem ~ 5 (-3 / +1)
Alba ~ 4 (+4 / +4)(Projection caveats: https://t.co/f88QQRwMpz) pic.twitter.com/49L1xxF4bE
— Ballot Box Scotland (@BallotBoxScot) April 1, 2023
Humza Yousaf’s win by the cursed ratio of 52% to 48% means that the divisions opened up by a febrile campaign will be more difficult to heal. The refusal of Kate Forbes to take the post of Rural Affairs Secretary, a role which would have put her on a collision course with the Greens over the introduction of controversial Highly Protected Marine Areas leaves her as a powerful rallying point on the back benches.
Unforced errors such as abolishing the job of Social Security Minister, sending its previous holder Ben Macpherson to the backbenches, have also raised concerns. It seems ridiculous to have a Minister for Independence and not one to be over the transfer of disability benefits to the new Scottish Social Security Agency.
The commentary on Yousaf’s debut at First Minister’s Questions was not positive. In fact, the Herald’s Tom Gordon was brutal:
The banks of schoolkids flagged visibly, hating their teachers, hating democracy.
It was like detention without end. Oh, think of the children!
On and on Mr Yousaf went, clubbing his audience with the cliches of Nicola Sturgeon and the charm of Alex Salmond in a lift.
Rarely has a debut felt so stale.
Sometimes the end of the world doesn’t seem half bad.
John Crace in the Guardian was only marginally kinder:
But FMQs ought to have been an opportunity for Yousaf to make his mark. Not just to reach out to the far corners of the SNP but also to Scotland. To spread his vision for the country. What he planned to do differently. Instead we got a reprise of all Sturgeon’s old hits. Close your eyes and it could have been Nicola herself. Only she would have delivered it with more charisma, more conviction. Yousaf was more of a gabbled AI ChatGPT programme.
The SNP has been a formidable election winning machine for 16 years now so it would be unwise to predict their downfall quite yet. However, the departure of their former Chief Executive leaves the party at an organisational and political crossroads. Their parliamentarians, used to being pretty tightly controlled all that time, have had a taste of freedom during the leadership election and the closeness of the result means it’s going to be difficult for Yousaf to put that genie back in the bottle.
Alex Cole-Hamilton set out the Lib Dem stall this week when he stood for First Minister:
We have to put the people first. Liberal Democrats understand what matters to them because we asked them, door by door and street by street, in the villages and towns of Scotland. They want to know when they will get that hip replacement. They want to know why their kid has been left behind in school or is left waiting for mental health treatment. They want to know why they have to live in a cold home. They are looking to this chamber for the answer and that is why I am in politics. It is what keeps me awake at night.
Liberal Democrats would cut waiting times and abandon the SNP paradigm of social care. We would deliver an emergency insulation programme that would make every home warm, while slashing our carbon emissions. We would strive to make our classrooms into inviting places to work and to learn by always paying our teachers what they are worth, tackling violence in our schools and scrapping national testing. Liberal Democrats are, by nature, solutions focused. We are crackling with policy ideas and, my goodness, do we not need some of those right now?
The recent by-election success for us in Corstrophine/Murrayfield shows that our campaign machine is working well. We need to get out and knock on more doors across Scotland and build the relationships with voters that will give us the best chance to getting back to the sort of influence we used to hold at Holyrood.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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17 Comments
I’m sceptical of the specific numbers, and there’s a long way to go until the next Holyrood election etc., but there’s a clear trend of dwindling support for the SNP, which started in the months before Sturgeon stood down, which was accelerated during the fractious leadership campaign. I’d say that if Humza can steady the ship then he’ll get a bit of bounce back, but I think he’s going to struggle to steady the ship – at least not properly.
Ruling the SNP with an iron grip worked for Sturgeon for a while, but couldn’t last forever, and a lot of people who no longer wish to “Wheesht for Indy”. I’d argue that a lot currently claiming they’d vote Alba will return to voting SNP come an election, but disillusionment means some will stay at home, and some now see the SNP in the same way many saw Scottish Labour ten years ago – entitled and full of careerists who need brought down a peg or two.
The SNP has clearly been damaged by their leadership contest. The big issue, in my mind, is whether those deserting the SNP will now be willing to vote for Unionist Parties or will merely transfer their support to another pro-independence Party. This matters as if even a few percent switch to the Alba Party at the next Scottish election, they could then start winning list seats which the SNP don’t currently win anyway, making it more difficult for a Unionist coalition to reach a majority. The recent Panelbase option poll suggests this may be happening with it projecting Alba as willing 4 MSPs on 5% of the list vote. Winning 6% could easily achieve 8 MSPs (one from each region).
If the SNP is still polling this poorly in 2 months I will believe there has been a permantbshift in voting behaviour.
Can somebody please translate “abandon the SNP paradigm of social care” into English?
I think SNP and Lib Dems should be Scotland’s two biggest parties. Alba and this version of Labour being big winners while Tories remain third biggest isn’t good for Scotland, so a lot of work still for Lib Dems to do.
There’s a lot of tactical voting in Scotland, so the shift in the polls putting Labour comfortably ahead of the Conservatives will have a knock-on effect, and we’ll have a Westminster election before the next Holyrood one, which will also inform tactics.
There are currently a number of SNP/Conservative marginals and some people who would rather vote for ourselves or Labour will vote SNP to keep the Conservatives out, while others will vote Conservative to keep the SNP out. Many hate both, but will vote to keep out the one they see as the biggest threat. There are opportunities for us when that stalemate ends.
Alba might look like they are doing well in polls, but they won’t pick up any seats at the next Westminster election. They are to the SNP what UKIP were to the Tories. If the Greens weren’t already established as the tactical list vote alternative to over-represent the nationalist voice at Holyrood, Alba might have more luck. But it’s interesting to note the Green vote also seems to be suffering. IMO people who stopped voting Labour out of frustration now see the SNP/Greens as more in need of an electoral bloody nose.
Given the party’s historic strengths in Scotland, we should be asking why we we are still bumping along the bottom with Alba, behind the Greens.
@ Mel
As a student of electoral systems I find the Scottish parliament an interesting beast. By going the AMS route (NZ and Germany call it mixed member proportional) but ignoring the overhang (ie making sure no party has more MSPs than its party vote warrants) there is the option that Salmond tried exploiting. By voting SNP for constituency and Alba/Green for party the 40% of indy supporting Scots can get well over 60% of MSPs. I don’t understand why this situation was allowed to exist, why it hasn’t been exploited more and why nobody (including the media) is bothered? Incidentally, proportionality is also reduced by breaking the country into areas for the party vote.
You pose an interesting question Russell. One I’ve pondered before, and the best I could come up with was to recognise that AMS is flawed. It’s a FPTP system at heart, a system that is expected to be disproportionate, so needs tinkering with after the event.
In Scotland 57% of seats are by constituency vote. In a multi-party system it’s possible to win a lot more seats under FPTP than you deserve by vote share. The SNP won 85% of constituency seats with <50% of the vote. If there were a single Scotland list, then the SNP wouldn't get any top-ups, but it's possible in some regions. Meanwhile a legally separate party can mop up on the list vote if their voters support the SNP in the constituency vote, and SNP voters use their list vote for that other party that always backs them up.
The Greens have been pushing that angle for several elections now, as have many SNP supporters and nationalism first campaigners. Alba tried to get in on the action, but the Greens got there first.
It's harder to game the result if the proportion of constituency seats is lower, or when the parties are genuinely distinct, or the biggest party is less dominant in constituencies. I also think having FPTP only elections for Westminster keeps people locked into the 'least worst option' voting patterns.
Fiona
Thanks for entering the debate. I live in London so, for me, the Scottish Parliament is just another election for my intellectual (electoral systems) amusement. If I was living in Scotland it would be a lot more. According to the Electoral Reform Society the terms AMS (additional member system) and MMP (mixed member proportional) are interchangeable but in reality it seems that AMS (by not dealing with the overhang) is not proportional, whereas MMP (does, and) is. I think that by adopting the overhanging AMS system Scotland has done a great diservice to the campaign for fairer votes in the UK because people think it’s proportional when it’s clearly anything but. To understand how PR should work (well, at least MMP but I’m biased towards MMP) then you need to see what NZ and Germany do.
I think it had good intentions, but it was ultimately accepted as a compromise because Labour thought they’d be the ones benefiting from the FPTP bit, and at that time no-one was expecting that Scotland would be divided along a binary, constitutional divide.
Instead Labour have been punished by it, and it would be interesting to see if they’d push to make Holyrood more proportional, or if they’ll hold out in the hope of benefiting from over-representation again in the future.
If we are sticking with AMS I’d keep regional lists, but an extra candidate from each list would help, and have a further Scotland-wide list so it’s 50:50 constituency and list.
(STV is still better)
I know that STV is the preferred PR system but to me MMP (AMS but deal with overhang) is better as it a) keeps the constituency MP, b) is more proportional if STV is used with regions (like NI) and c) easier to explain. Assuming you think STV is better than MMP I interested in understanding why. Thanks .
@Russell
I have no doubt that STV is the best system available. These are my reasons:
1) completely eliminates tactical voting. (AMS and MMP still force some voters to consider whether a vote for a very small party may be wasted whereas votes for very small parties get transferred to next preferences)
2) maintains link with local constituencies but also means most voters in that constituency feel represented by at least one of the representatives
3) weakens party control over who gets elected. If more than one candidate from the party in an area, the voters get to make the choice. (AMS and systems with a Party List element allow Parties too much power.)
Against this, the main weakness is that if names are arranged alphabetically, the first named candidate from any party has a huge advantage over next listed candidate from that party…but this could be fixed by having ballot papers with names ordered randomly.
@Russell
“keeps the constituency MP”
If you had a problem which merited taking up with an MP, would you prefer to take it up with an MP with political views in line with your own? Or would you willingly put up with an MP of diametrically opposing views to deal with your problem properly?
MMP as used in Germany in particular and in NZ is better than STV at least for the House of Commons. The system in Germany with full compensation ie with overhangs and levelling seats is relatively simple for the voters to understand and use eg the voters can easily see how people and parties have been elected at a glance whereas with STV that is much more difficult.
In contrast to STV, the constituencies in MMP will be both geographically smaller and have smaller electorates within them thus preserving a stronger local link. This is good for all areas of the country but particularly so for semi rural and rural parts where the constituency link has most relevance. Also, MMP gives each voter a distinct and explicit party vote this will aid holding parties especially smaller junior coalition partners to account by the electorate.
I think STV is best reserved for a reformed upper house. It could be the ideal system for that with its emphasis on the election of individuals rather than parties.
There are only two faults with MMP in Germany and they are that it uses closed party lists instead of completely open or partially open ones and it can be argued the threshold of 5 percent is a bit too high. Indeed, a reduction to 3 percent is argued for by a party there.
On Wikipedia there is an article on electoral systems where electoral system experts were asked to rank their favourite systems. MMP took the top spot followed by STV.
@nonconform
Good question. I honestly don’t think it would bother me asking for assistance from an MP of a party I didn’t vote for.
My reasons for preferring STV are many, but Mel gives a good summary. The removal of the tactical aspect has become ever more important to me. Not just because I want the votes themselves to be fair, but I am fed up of election campaigns being obsessed with the polls, and seeing people spend more time trying to work out how to maximise their vote, or in arguments about which candidate to support in a particular constituency than discussing actual policies.
I suppose it depends on what is meant by being able to see how people or parties get elected, but IMO STV makes it more transparent. It’s easy enough to graph the vote transfers, so you can see how people voted, and how that contributed towards the eventual winners. Those winners will also see whose votes they picked up, or how those voting for them would have transferred their votes. If there are two candidates from the same party, but with different philosophies on a particular point then STV lets voters express that preference.
You can argue that list systems give people a choice of representative, so that’s not a specific advantage to STV, but it’s an advantage over FPTP, and so long as there is a FPTP element it can give the impression that one representative is the proper representative.
I’m not quite sure how this post came to be about electoral systems: maybe it’s a natural topic for Lib Dems.
I agree with Mel Borthwaite and Fiona about the advantages of STV. My main objection to list systems is the power they give to political parties, and therefore take away from electors, over candidate selection. Theoretical this could be solved by having “primaries” for party members to select and order candidates for the list. But this would over complicate the system so is probably not worthwhile.
My guilty secret, from a Lib Dem point of view, is the thought that the pre 1948 UK system of 2 member constituencies with FPTP had some merits. It retained the the constituency link and gave voter the chance to split their vote between 2 parties. For example if in a two member conetituency I could cast 1 vote for a
Conservative and 1 vote for a Liberal candidate which I can’t do under STV.