UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[bore]

I think the number of voters who believe May's proclaimed reasoning is her actual reasoning can be counted on one hand. Although I think the effect of such blatant self interest will only be to lower her popularity but not the number of votes, given the state of the opposition.

[bore]

Given that the Tories have pulled into a solid second place in the high 20's in Scotland.

What are the chances of the Tories winning seats of the SNP? How many?

This election might become a disaster for LAB in Scotland.  The might be pushed to a weak third place since all the anti-SNP tactical voting will most likely end up with CON which is for now the stronger of CON and LAB.

We've fallen so far recently that comparatively it wouldn't really be a disaster. If Labour can hold Edinburgh South then it will be a great night for us. What we'll judge the year on is how well we do in the council elections in May.

[bore]

Given that the Tories have pulled into a solid second place in the high 20's in Scotland.

What are the chances of the Tories winning seats of the SNP? How many?

This election might become a disaster for LAB in Scotland.  The might be pushed to a weak third place since all the anti-SNP tactical voting will most likely end up with CON which is for now the stronger of CON and LAB.

We've fallen so far recently that comparatively it wouldn't really be a disaster. If Labour can hold Edinburgh South then it will be a great night for us. What we'll judge the year on is how well we do in the council elections in May.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Edinburgh South fall to the Tories. The council elections will give a good indication of how Scotland will vote in June though.

At the moment I'm inclined to think that, barring an even bigger deterioration in the Labour vote nationally, we'll hold on to it. Murray is a very prominent figure locally, and is loudly anti brexit and anti independence, which lines up well with the electorate, the local labour party is one of a handful in scotland that is actually effective (I think it has over a 1000 members), the seat is worse than the corresponding holyrood seat for the tories because it also includes a lot of council estates in the south of the city (Moredun, The Inch, Gracemount etc) and the tories and the SNP will find it very hard to squeeze, in either direction, the labour vote given the result in both 2015 and 2016. It also strikes me as unlikely, in an election that will be fought on brexit, for the tories to gain a seat which was about 80% remain.

But, 3 way marginals are always unpredictable, so I could be wrong.

[bore]

This election might become a disaster for LAB in Scotland.  The might be pushed to a weak third place since all the anti-SNP tactical voting will most likely end up with CON which is for now the stronger of CON and LAB.

We've fallen so far recently that comparatively it wouldn't really be a disaster. If Labour can hold Edinburgh South then it will be a great night for us. What we'll judge the year on is how well we do in the council elections in May.

Sure it terms of seats 2015 is near rock bottom for LAB. I was thinking for the humiliation of LAB of falling behind CON in terms of vote share by a significant margin which will be exaggerated by anti-SNP tactical voting. 

I expect that to happen, yeah. Maybe the last few years have just immunised me against electoral humiliation

[bore]

Tories now trumpeting the 'Coalition of Chaos' line again. Either their private polling is showing a closer election than the public polling or they are worried about being hurt by low turnout.

Ftr, there was a report a few weeks ago of Tory private polling showing that about 25 seats could be lost to the Lib Dems.

Semi paradoxically, to get a landslide the tories need to convince the electorate that it's close, and for the election to be (relatively, labour will still lose a lot of seats) close, the electorate needs to be convinced that it will be a landslide.

[bore]

Who exactly is still voting Labour in Scotland?

Me and my 89 year old gran, who's voting labour because "her father always did" (in fairness, as he was a miner, although he'd obviously vote UKIP now, she's probably right)

[bore]

Who exactly is still voting Labour in Scotland?

Me and my 89 year old gran, who's voting labour because "her father always did" (in fairness, as he was a miner, although he'd obviously vote UKIP now, she's probably right)

Are you saying this sarcastically or?

I wish I were.

[bore]

I see the Conservatives winning and holding their majority. However, I don't know if they'll keep their super majority, that remains to be seen.

In Britain it's actually called the 'rather smashing majority, old chap'. Do your research.

Yeah, a super majority refers to the parliaments where the favourite alcoholic drink of a majority of MPs from Scotland is Tennent's Super.

[bore]

Are terrible inaccurate constituency polls not going to be a feature of this race? I really enjoyed them in 2015 as they allowed me to talk about individual constituencies and pretend I had a clue as to what was going on there

My Gran who lives in Bury South, but just over the border from Bury North, got a phone call from pollsters asking her about Bury North, so they still happen, but I imagine it was just an internal.

[bore]

For my constituency of Edinburgh South we have:

Alan Beal (Liberal Democrat)
Jim Eadie (SNP)
Ian Murray (Labour)
Stephanie Smith (Conservative)

Ian Murray is the incumbent, notable for being the only Labour MP to survive 2015, Jim Eadie was the MSP for the related but distinct scottish parliament seat of Edinburgh Southern (which does not have the council estates in the south of the city that Edinburgh South has, so is consequently better for the tories than Edinburgh South and worse for Labour and the SNP) from 2011 to 2016 when he lost his seat to (again, notably) Labour. Stephanie Smith is a councillor for Liberton/Gilmerton (the part that is in South but not Southern) and Alan Beal is, as far as I can tell, some dude.

I'll be voting for Murray, and am cautiously optimistic, given our performance in the council elections and murray's position in the sweet spot of the constituency of being both against independence and brexit, of a hold. In fact, I'd go as far to say that this could be one of the only constituencies  in the whole country where labour increase their majority.

[bore]

Possibly the weirdest development in British politics over the last few years, and there is a lot of competition, is the recasting of David Miliband as the reincarnation of Jesus, Lincoln and Martin Luther King all rolled up into one, rather than the nice but wet blanket charisma vacumn that he actually was.

[bore]

I wonder whether all this new momentum for Labour could start having any impact in Scotland and start moving unionist votes back to Labour from the Tories in which case Labour could pick up half a dozen Scottish seats. Just wondering

Scottish Labour have deep, deep problems and I don't see this changing things for them.  Labour's traditional appeal wasn't to "unionist voters" but to your traditional working class voters and they've mostly gone to the SNP at this point - it honestly wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of those voters didn't actually support independence - my Mum is doing this at this point: just totally alienated by Scottish Labour only ever talking about "A SECOND REFERENDUM" and not the issues, which the SNP surprisingly do.  There's also the fact that the Tories are rising and you might have the whole "the SNP are bad and we aren't fond of them, but at least they aren't the Tories" thing going on.

I only see two Labour seats in Scotland in any remotely realistic scenario: I think that they'll hold onto Edinburgh South and have a small chance in East Lothian - past that, I see nothing.  The old heartland seats in the west are all SNP by huge margins now, and I can't see them getting anywhere near the swing they'd need even if they closed the gap.

Aren't Edinburgh North and Leith and Renfrewshire East closer than East Lothian though? Or do local issues make those harder for Labour?

Labour, against all expectations, held East Lothian in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016 (and with an increased majority!) , and only lost one council seat and maintained largest party status at the council elections this month. So it's become clear over the last 2 years that Labour remain fundamentally strong in East Lothian, and it's being targeted accordingly.

Whereas Labour did relatively well in East Renfrewshire and Edinburgh North and Leith in 2015, they were standing popular, prominent incumbents. But since then, in the Holyrood and council elections we've fallen back in both seats substantially. In particular East Renfrewshire was, before 1997, a pretty solid conservative seat, and over the last few years the tories have re emerged, so Labour are no longer the obvious, or even a possible choice for unionist tactical voters. For instance in 2016 the Tories gained Eastwood, the scottish parliament seat that is broadly similar to East Renfrewshire, albeit Eastwood is better for the tories, as East Renfrewshire also contains areas like Barrhead and Neilston. Nevertheless, without a high profile incumbent (Jim Murphy was the leader of Scottish Labour when he lost east renfrewshire), with the Tories having become the largest party in the seat at Holyrood and at the locals, Labour have pretty much no chance in the seat, although they seem to be running a spirited campaign.

Edinburgh North and Leith is fundamentally better for Labour than East Renfrewshire, and it has quite a bit in common with Edinburgh South, so a victory wouldn't be completely shocking, but recent results, combined with the loss of incumbency, show far less resilience among the labour vote than East Lothian, so it's a less likely gain.

[bore]

I wonder whether all this new momentum for Labour could start having any impact in Scotland and start moving unionist votes back to Labour from the Tories in which case Labour could pick up half a dozen Scottish seats. Just wondering

 just totally alienated by Scottish Labour only ever talking about "A SECOND REFERENDUM" and not the issues, which the SNP surprisingly do.  There's also the fact that the Tories are rising and you might have the whole "the SNP are bad and we aren't fond of them, but at least they aren't the Tories" thing going on.

The irony is that I have heard many Scottish Labour activists say they're the only party that doesn't drone on about independence; with the SNP+the tories being the ones who play it as a trump card

ICA is right that in terms of public, official, campaigning the SNP pretty much never mention independence. Of course, they don't have to. Everyone knows that they want another referendum and they want independence. And in 2015 and 2016 they had the support of pretty much every Yes voter, and it's pretty clear that these voters didn't switch en masse to the SNP simply because they loved their new education policies. If they want to get a landslide, like in 2015, though, they need to win over a few no voters as well, which is why they don't talk about independence, because otherwise they'll scare these voters off. But it is a bit rich for them to complain about others campaigning on the constitution when most of their voters are motivated by it too.

I get ICA's mum's frustration with Labour as well. I hate constitutional politics, and I hate that it is how we decide our votes now. But unfortunately the Scottish population don't, or at least don't hate it enough to not vote on it. We tried to run our 2016 campaign on moving on from the referendum and more spending on healthcare, but we got thrashed, and, worse, the tories, by running their campaign entirely against independence, surged. So the party made the decision that if it wanted to remain relevant in Scottish politics it had to have a strong position on the constitution, and it had to talk about it. It's unfortunate that that's the world is, but that is the way it is.

[bore]

No evidence that giant polls are any better tbh.

True, it need not be. But 1/2K polls are usually meaningless. Most of this small sample size polls would even pass the 95% CL. With giant polls, you have a much larger sample size to analyze geographical, age wise pattern & so on. That is impossible in a smaller poll.

The last survation poll had a 50 odd sample size, that is meaningless & you have literally no idea from that ! For country wise issues, having 8-10K etc is pretty decent, perhaps 50K isn't needed (unless you want individual seat wise data which is hard even with 50K)!

Apart from the fact that crosstabs aren't worth much for small polls, this is pretty much all wrong.

A 1000 sample poll has a margin of error of about +/- 3%, assuming that the sample is representative, which is more than enough to predict the results of the general election, roughly speaking. Because the decrease in the margin of error is logarithmic, there is not that much advantage to be had from having a sample much larger than this, unless you poll the whole country.

This is only true, however, if the sample is representative in the first place, which is the hard part of polling, and is just as much as an issue for 50,000 sample polls as it is for 1,000 polls. (Especially for yougov, as their samples are self selecting)