A clear and candid poll.....

I wasn't entirely happy with my guess-timation on the second vote for my predictions and finally, on the train back to Sydney today (somewhere around Woy Woy) I had a brainwave.

Now, much like those shampoo adverts, here comes the science:

The polling information available via ICM etc only gives the national picture for how SNP, Labour etc are doing. The recent poll from ICM gave the following results in the regional vote

SNP 0.32
Labour 0.28
Lib Dems 0.17
Tory 0.15
Greens 0.06
Socialist 0.02

These overall figures do not show the split by region which is all important for Holyrood elections as there will be a higher proportion of Labour votes in Glasgow compared to Highlands and Islands. Similarly, there will be a higher proportion of SNP votes in the North East compared to the South. Etc, etc, etc...

So, with this in mind, I took the 2003 figures and used these to ascertain the split by region for each party's total vote. Using the same national turnout rate for 2007, it was then possible to turn the ICM polling data into total number of votes and then spread these votes across the country using 2003 trends. No guess-timation on my part and therefore no bias or unnecessary caution.

So using the First Past the Post results that I documented here, a fairly reliable set of regional results can be predicted.

This now gives -

Overall Seats

Labour 43
SNP 42
Tory 16
Lib Dem 20
Greens 4
SSP/Solidarity 1 (Tommy Sheridan)
Margo McDonald
Jean Turner
John Swinburne

First past the post
Labour 38
SNP 21
Lib Dem 10
Tory 3
Jean Turner 1

Regional Vote

Labour 5
SNP 21
Lib Dem 10
Tory 13
Greens 4
SSP 0
Solidarity 1
Margo 1
John Swinburne 1


You may not agree with some of the first past the post results, but I like to think that this is the most clear and reliable set of predicted numbers for this May that exist at the current time. I never understood how some national polls were able to convert their figures into seats without taking into consideration individual seats and indivudual regions. At least here you can walk through my correct or incorrect thought process.

Even if my Labour-dominated FPTP results don't reflect the fact that SNP are ahead in the national polls at the moment.