Updated 0930

But System 3 shows a different picture

A YouGov poll of Scottish voters in Scotland on Sunday today has with changes from a similar poll north of the border in June – LAB 33 (-4), SNP 20 (-2), LD 20 (+4), CON 19 (+2). The paper calculates that, on a uniform swing, that of Scotland’s 59 seats Labour would get 37, the Lib Dems 13, the SNP 6 and the Conservatives 3.

So even with less than a third of the Scottish votes in the YouGov survey Labour would get the lion’s share of the seats.

UPDATE: But another Scottish poll this morning, by System 3 for the Sunday Herald, paints a very different picture. It has LAB 42%: SNP 22%: CON 16%: LD 16%.

So the split between the telephone interview pollsters and the internet surveys that we saw last week on the Great Britain polls has been repeated in Scotland. On a uniform swing System 3 would give Labout 43 seats, the Lib Dems 9 and 6 for SNP. The Tories would not have a single seat.

At the 2001 General Election in Scotand the votes divided LAB 43.3: SNP 20.1: LD 16.3: CON 15.6.

YouGov have a good record in Scotland and at the May 2003 Scottish Parliament elections they over-estimated Labour by just 1.4% and underestimated the Tories by 0.6%.

One final week survey by a major telephone interview pollster put the Tories on 10% against the 16.6% that was actually achieved. The worked out at a “loss” of two out of five. The other two interviewer-based pollsters, recorded 12% – thus “missing” more than 1 Tory in 4.

IG Index have the SNP at 5.5-6 seats while Spreadfair have the party at 5.5-5.9.

© Mike Smithson 2005