The SNP look set to emerge from its first 100 days in office as a greatly strengthened electoral force according to the results of a new poll by the Scottish Daily Mail.
If a Holyrood election was held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?
SNP 48%
Labour 32%
Tories 8%
Lib Dems 8%
Greens 2%
SSP 2%(figures from 1820.org.uk)
Mike Smithson cites these numbers as one reason Gordon Brown may avoid a 2007 election:
A rising SNP vote, a sort of honeymoon bounce for the new first minister, Alex Salmond, might produce Labour losses north of the border which together with the boundary changes in England could make achieving the 66 majority target quite challenging. (politicalbetting.com)
The only downside of the figures for the SNP is that the percentage of Scots supporting independence has fallen to 31 per cent, from 51 per cent in January.
Ian Bell has a neat summary of the situation facing Alex Salmond:
Salmond can insist, cajole or beseech, but he
will only succeed if he persuades. He knows it, too. He also knows that
there is more than one way to skin a constitution. His real task is
somehow to make public perceptions of the Scottish interest and of
independence cohere. Running a minority administration, he must
therefore explore an important distinction made by the great Tom Nairn.You can have de jure independence, as Tom called it, the old
tear-up-the-treaty, seat-at-the-UN variety, if a majority can ever be
persuaded to take that step. But you can also have de facto
independence, with power repatriated steadily, bit by bit, to
Edinburgh, and leave aside the formalities. That kind may, in fact,
reflect the realities of the modern world. It won’t scare too many
horses, either. Salmond, I’m convinced, wants the de jure variety
still, but he’ll settle for the de facto sort if he must. Given his
situation, his best bet is to view the latter as a route to the former. (The Herald)
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