The Scottish subsample from this week’s YouGov poll amused me immensely, obviously it is a sign that disillusionment with the SNP is such that people are now are moving over to a party that doesn’t even stand in Scotland subsamples of 143 are inherently unreliable and only people who don’t understand polling or betting rely on them.

Researching the polling in Scotland, proper polls not subsamples, I noticed some things that really does deserve comment.

• The last time a party other than the SNP led a Scottish Westminster voting intention poll was in June 2014.
• The last time a party other than the SNP led the constituency part of a Holyrood voting intention poll was in August 2014.
• The last time a party other than the SNP led the regional part of a Holyrood voting intention poll was also in August 2014.

This means for the entirety of Nicola Sturgeon’s tenure so far as the leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland her party have never been behind in the polls which quite frankly is astonishing for a party which has been in power for over 14 years at Holyrood. Scottish Labour has been through five leaders and the UK has had three different Prime Ministers since the last time the SNP were behind in the polls.

The only period of polling I can think of that rivals this SNP hegemony is the near eight year period between January 1993 and September 2000 when Labour led every GB wide opinion poll. Whatever Sturgeon and the SNP are doing it seems the Scots cannot get enough of it.

Although there’s one polling metric the wider Yes movement isn’t leading in which gives the Unionists succour which is quite the paradox for all concerned. But based on the Holyrood and Westminster polls the SNP are going to dominate Scotland for the foreseeable future.

TSE