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Holyrood '16 polls and predictions

Crùbag

By Crùbag
in The Politics Forum

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Antlion

Antlion

Posted
Posted

I've a feeling the "neck-and-neck" Labour and Tory polling will go the way of the 2015 polling versus results. It might be that enough old guard Labourites will shuffle down to the ballot boxes on polling day and keep Labour in second place.

Could we actually be witnessing the birth of the "shy Labour voter" in Scotland and Scottish polling?

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Antlion

Antlion

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I'd rather we were witnessing the death of the party tbh

If today proves anything it's that the dead in Scotland sometimes just won't accept they're dead. Oh well, an apt replacement for the Walking Dead on a Sunday!

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invergowrie arab

invergowrie arab

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This is outstanding. The next two weeks are really going to see Kezia being monstered from the Tories. She will be away by the Friday morning.

An opposition attacking the SNP from the right waving the Union Jack plays to the strengths of the SNP perfectly.

Certainly when I'm out and about on the doors the shy Tories seem to have found their voice.

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Dunning1874

Dunning1874

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Surely there's going to come a point where Labour just have to persist with whoever the Leader is regardless of how bad a hammering they take? They can't keep changing to more and more incompetent leaders after every single election - that's only going to accelerate their death spiral, with no long-term strategy to reverse it.

 

Okay, Dugdale's out of her depth but does anyone really believe that replacing her with Anas Sarwar in May then replacing him with Jenny Marra after the 2017 local elections and so on is actually going to achieve anything?

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TonMan

TonMan

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Surely there's going to come a point where Labour just have to persist with whoever the Leader is regardless of how bad a hammering they take? They can't keep changing to more and more incompetent leaders after every single election - that's only going to accelerate their death spiral, with no long-term strategy to reverse it.

 

Okay, Dugdale's out of her depth but does anyone really believe that replacing her with Anas Sarwar in May then replacing him with Jenny Marra after the 2017 local elections and so on is actually going to achieve anything?

 

Not sure what approach they should take. I'd agree with you that constantly replacing the leader can't be overly helpful, but the problem with Dugdale is that she's hopelessly incompetent to the point where I'm not sure any good will come from the party with her in charge. Her interviews during the 2015 election showed that she just didn't seem to get it, with her constant criticism of the SNP above all else, and even now I don't think she really knows how to reverse the trend at all.

 

Still, they're going to struggle to find anyone competent. The problem for them is that most of the Holyrood batch is hopeless, but any decent, competent politician from the old Westminster bunch has the taint of having already lost their seat, and will look like they've been sent up by the Westminster bunch to tell the Scottish crowd what to do, a la Murphy. No win situation for them that's come from years of assuming Scotland would just vote for whoever Labour put up.

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Fotbawmad

Fotbawmad

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The long term problem Labour have up here is that most of the young talent is joining the SNP. When in the past they would have joined Labour. However, this will create problems down the line for the SNP when careerist elements inevitably start slipping into the parliamentary party. SLAB must secede from the main party. No matter what damage it does to itself in the short to medium term, because it's too easy for the SNP to get one over SLAB by saying it's just a branch of Labour. Personally, I feel sorry for Dugdale. She's been put in a situation no one should be in at that stage of their political career, and it's not like she's talented or even has potential to be anything special.

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Antlion

Antlion

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The long term problem Labour have up here is that most of the young talent is joining the SNP. When in the past they would have joined Labour. However, this will create problems down the line for the SNP when careerist elements inevitably start slipping into the parliamentary party. SLAB must secede from the main party. No matter what damage it does to itself in the short to medium term, because it's too easy for the SNP to get one over SLAB by saying it's just a branch of Labour. Personally, I feel sorry for Dugdale. She's been put in a situation no one should be in at that stage of their political career, and it's not like she's talented or even has potential to be anything special.

She knows how to say "no thanks" (all too well) but she decided to take the money and play the gig. f**k her - she deserves every bit of stick and humiliation she gets.

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Benjamin_Nevis

Benjamin_Nevis

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I feel sorry for Dugdale. She's been put in a situation no one should be in at that stage of their political career, and it's not like she's talented or even has potential to be anything special.

I don't. No one forced her to run for SLab leader. She's nothing more than a whiny, utterly inept soundbite machine.

I have zero sympathy for her or for her soon-to-be-dead Branch Office.

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Colkitto

Colkitto

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I personally believe Dugdale will survive as leader even in defeat. Whether she stays or goes will depend on the severity of the defeat.

 

I know this sounds ludicrous, but if Labour lose all constituency seats she will still cling on. If she leads her party to 3rd place behind the Tories she would have to resign.

 

She's totally out her depth as leader and perhaps took the leadership too soon. Why she thought it a good idea to take over the reigns of the party after the disastrous Westminster elections is baffling. What did she think was going to happen in 2016 elections?

What should have happened is either Ken McIntosh or Jabba Bailie should have taken over from Murphy and took one for the team in the Holyrood election.

Then Dugdale could have taken over after the inevitable heavy defeat. She would have had a free run to build her and her party's reputation over the next 5 years. 

Instead, she will be head of her party in the next Parliament (If she survives) that under her leadership as Deputy & Leader, Labour will have suffered two of the most humiliating defeats in their history. That just smacks of inexperience and tactical ineptitude on her part.

 

But of course it's not just down to the leader. Labour seem to be heading for extinction and nobody knows what to do about it.

I'm waiting for London Labour to cut off funding and force an autonomous Labour party in Scotland on them. If they keep funding them with no return of 40 odd Scottish Labour MP's then they will start to think why bother?  

 

Labour in Scotland's only chance of survival is to back independence - but will they?

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TonMan

TonMan

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The long term problem Labour have up here is that most of the young talent is joining the SNP. When in the past they would have joined Labour. However, this will create problems down the line for the SNP when careerist elements inevitably start slipping into the parliamentary party. SLAB must secede from the main party. No matter what damage it does to itself in the short to medium term, because it's too easy for the SNP to get one over SLAB by saying it's just a branch of Labour. Personally, I feel sorry for Dugdale. She's been put in a situation no one should be in at that stage of their political career, and it's not like she's talented or even has potential to be anything special.

 

Aye, it's true that they're losing out on potential members. Younger, left-leaning people are a lot more likely to vote for independence and as a result that makes Labour a fairly unattractive option for them. Their hardline stance on independence has meant that nearly half the electorate are incredibly unlikely to vote for them. Some still will, but a lot will be put off by the way Labour reacted to Yes voters and SNP supporters, since both were viewed with contempt.

 

I don't feel overly sorry for her though. Not a bad person, but she had no need to run for leader if she didn't want it and was generally awful in the lead-up to the 2015 election when she still insisted Labour would recover and didn't seem to acknowledge anything they'd done wrong.

 

I personally believe Dugdale will survive as leader even in defeat. Whether she stays or goes will depend on the severity of the defeat.

 

I know this sounds ludicrous, but if Labour lose all constituency seats she will still cling on. If she leads her party to 3rd place behind the Tories she would have to resign.

 

She's totally out her depth as leader and perhaps took the leadership too soon. Why she thought it a good idea to take over the reigns of the party after the disastrous Westminster elections is baffling. What did she think was going to happen in 2016 elections?

What should have happened is either Ken McIntosh or Jabba Bailie should have taken over from Murphy and took one for the team in the Holyrood election.

Then Dugdale could have taken over after the inevitable heavy defeat. She would have had a free run to build her and her party's reputation over the next 5 years. 

Instead, she will be head of her party in the next Parliament (If she survives) that under her leadership as Deputy & Leader, Labour will have suffered two of the most humiliating defeats in their history. That just smacks of inexperience and tactical ineptitude on her part.

 

But of course it's not just down to the leader. Labour seem to be heading for extinction and nobody knows what to do about it.

I'm waiting for London Labour to cut off funding and force an autonomous Labour party in Scotland on them. If they keep funding them with no return of 40 odd Scottish Labour MP's then they will start to think why bother?  

 

Labour in Scotland's only chance of survival is to back independence - but will they?

 

Problem is, this won't really help them. The socialist leaning independence supporters either support SNP or Greens, and the rest will generally go SNP. There's already been people saying that there are a lot of similarities in ideology/political position between the SNP and Labour. If Labour back independence, they're pretty much eliminating any other reason for people to vote for them unless they try to become an outright socialist party. That won't happen though, because a lot of their MSP's wouldn't back changes like that since it might not align with their views.

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Fide

Fide

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I don't. No one forced her to run for SLab leader. She's nothing more than a whiny, utterly inept soundbite machine.

I have zero sympathy for her or for her soon-to-be-dead Branch Office.

 

Nail on head.

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Fide

Fide

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Posted

This chap seems to be the Tory version of KevtheDee

 

  2. OMG @theSNP going on about STUPID environmental targets when we have mass unemployment, homelessness & poverty in Scotland #SP16 #snpOUT
 
 
  2. Scotland has become a sheep farm, lots of sheep voting @theSNP trusting a party that has let Scotland down with LIES VOTE @ScotTories #SP16
 
 
 
  2. @snp voters off to vote, the rest of us have a brain VOTE @ScotTories #SP16pic.twitter.com/Hkd2A5UcDR
  3. CgTi-u3W8AAezwc.jpg
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