Scotland - The Battle for Second

The Financial Times has raised the fascinating (if somewhat terrifying) prospect of the Tories beating the SNP into second place in the upcoming election. I know regular commenter Dubbieside is fiercely disbelieving of such a scenario, and he may well be right to dismiss it out of hand, but I shall persevere nonetheless in my entertaining of the prospect.

In the 2001 and 2005 General Elections the SNP beat the Tories by 3.8% and 1.9% of the vote respectively, slender margins in anyone’s book. It would be a reasonable opening expectation to assume that a similar margin would hold for 2010. Indeed, if we were to use the trend for these figures, the expectation would be that the SNP and the Tories would be in a dead heat for second place on 15.3%. That suggestion may raise red hot fury with SNP activists but you can’t argue with cold, hard statistics I’m afraid.

So what has come to pass since those days? Well, the SNP, with Alex Salmond back at the helm, has swept to power at Holyrood and is making a more than satisfactory job of running the country as most, many of them grudgingly, would surely agree. The party dominates the headlines, not always for the better, but everyone is talking about them and most Scottish voters would have to at least consider giving them their vote which may not necessarily have been the case back in ’05. On policy issues, the SNP has saved local hospitals, abolished bridge tolls, scrapped prescription fees, moved away from the detested PFI and ended tuition costs at universities. Solid delivery of popular policies which saw the opposition on the ropes for years.

On the back of these successes and because the SNP has streaked out ahead of the Tories in the Scottish Parliament elections (beating them in 2007 by a margin of 17.2% in the regional vote), there seems to be an assumption that they will do precisely the same thing in May 2010.

However, one cannot simply focus on the strides made by one side of the divide without considering the other.

David Cameron’s Conservatives are, on the face of it, a different breed entirely to Michael Howard’s. The main themes of the 2005 election were immigration and the Iraq War, not policies that would endear the Scottish public to the Tories. The issues today are reducing spending, localising schools (albeit a devolved policy) and funding soldiers in Afghanistan more adequately. Add to this that 5 more years have passed since the electorally-toxic Poll Tax and the Tories are, in Scots’ minds, more worthy of a vote this time around. The 20% barrier may well be broken for the first time since, well, a very long time.

It is difficult to accept, but the SNP is dismissed in many Scottish minds as a bit-part player in Westminster elections in the same way as the Tories are dismissed in Holyrood elections, given the unlikelihood of either party forming any part of the Government in the respective Parliaments.

Given how possible (and still just about probable) it is that Cameron will be the next Prime Minister, Tory voters have much more of a motivating factor to get out there and vote. The SNP, arguably, will be just as motivated as 2005 given the ceiling limit on how successful they can be in such elections.

So what do the polls say? Well, precious little I’m afraid. Last weekend’s Sunday Times poll had the Tories ahead of the SNP by 4% but with a paltry sample size of 139. The Scottish slice of the Sun poll a few weeks ago had the SNP and the Tories neck-and-neck but the supposed sample size of 500+ has been thoroughly rubbished by those of an SNP bent. I certainly haven’t found any detail to support this supposed data.

Will the Tories overhaul the SNP at the next election? It’s very unlikely but with the SNP’s charge that Prime Minister Cameron would have no mandate north of the border ruined if they do, it is imperative for the Nationalists that they don’t.