Scotsman daily bulletin - July 3
Deputy Editor Alan Young and Political Editor Alistair Grant discuss the eve of polling day
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Wednesday. We are almost there,
00:15Alistair Grant, Political Editor. How's it going? Yeah, not too bad, not too bad. Quite
00:20exciting. Evo Poll. We'll soon find out exactly what's going to happen. Indeed, let's have a look
00:26at the front page and then get into it. We splashed today on the election, as you might
00:34expect, and we have one last exclusive poll in our series from Savanta, and that shows that the
00:43support for Labour in Scotland has fallen back by three points. The SNP are now ahead, and when it
00:53comes to seat projections, that has had quite a dramatic effect, which we will speak to Alistair
00:59about in a minute. We picture Andy Murray there at the top of the page after he pulled out of
01:06Wimbledon singles, very sadly. Yes, they still due to play in the doubles with his brother,
01:13and we picture the King at the start of Royal Week in Edinburgh. Plenty more Royal action in
01:20the capital today, but Alistair, it's all about the election, and this poll today is really
01:29interesting when we look back at the previous one, which had Labour and the SNP neck and neck.
01:38Yeah, so we've been doing polls with Savanta throughout the general election campaign,
01:42and that's allowed us to see the trends and the movements between the parties, and I think this
01:46poll is absolutely fascinating. So it's got the SNP on 34% of the vote, that's unchanged from where
01:54they were on the last Savanta poll, but Labour on 31%, that's a drop of three points for Labour,
02:01but I think probably more importantly for Labour, if you go back to Savanta poll that we did in the
02:06middle of June, Labour were on 38%, so that's a drop of seven points for Labour over the last
02:12couple of weeks, and I think it just shows how tight this race is becoming in Scotland between
02:17the SNP and Labour. There's so many seats that are just on a complete knife edge, that are extremely
02:22hard to call. Labour are very confident because their vote is concentrated in the central belt,
02:26so they're confident of picking up a lot of seats on that basis, and it is worth saying there's
02:32probably a degree of expectation management in the sense that, you know, if you'd said a couple
02:36of months ago that Labour would be winning this amount of seats, they would be extremely happy
02:41with that. It's just the fact that the polls have showed it tightening so much that it has become
02:46a kind of, yeah, it's a poll that I think, it probably won't come as a blow to them as such,
02:52but it's a worrying sign. It's not as, they're not as far ahead maybe as they would have hoped,
02:57this race is going to be a lot tighter than they hoped, a lot tighter than, yeah, than maybe we
03:03had expected in the last kind of Savanta poll that we did only a week and a bit ago, so extremely
03:08interesting, and I think, as I say, there's so many seats in play across the central belt,
03:12and this will have a huge impact on that on election night. And interesting as well,
03:18when you talk about Labour's expectation management, I just remember they,
03:232019, they returned one MP, it's quite incredible, but for the SNP, they may actually be
03:32chaired by these findings, which in itself is incredible when you think about how many MPs they
03:37would still be losing. Yeah, exactly, I mean, I'm just having a look at the data here, I mean,
03:42the SNP would return 24 MPs compared to Labour's 22 MPs. We, and a lot of the other, a lot of our
03:48previous polls, a lot of other polls have put Labour ahead on the number of MPs they're projected
03:52to get in Scotland. Labour would be very happy with that as a result come Thursday. They'd be
03:58very happy with anything above 20, to be honest, I think, considering the state of some of the
04:02polls for them. John Curtis as well has had a look at our tables, and he's been giving some of
04:08his commentary, which you should be able to read in full on the Scotsman's website soon, actually,
04:13and he's pointing out that this suggests that the SNP have had some success in persuading
04:18some of those who would vote yes to independence to return to the SNP, and it also suggests the
04:24SNP has made some progress in its battle with Labour over credibility on policy. So, for example,
04:30a fortnight ago, last Savanta poll, 32% chose Labour as the best party to improve healthcare
04:38in Scotland. Only 27% chose the SNP. Now the two parties are tied at 31% apiece. Similarly,
04:46Labour was on 30% when it came to improving education last time, SNP on 26%, whereas now
04:52that position's reversed with Labour on 28% and the SNP on 30%. So you can see how that's kind of
04:58played into what's happened here in terms of the result, but it's extremely interesting, and I
05:03think, you know, the top line for it, away from the SNP kind of moving ahead slightly because
05:08Labour are slipping, is just that it's incredibly tight, and that will be the story of the election
05:14night, you know, keeping an eye on those seats in the central belt that Labour need to win, that
05:18Labour hope to win. Also reports today that Labour are putting resources into seats they would never
05:24consider before, places like Alloway and Grangemouth. So, yeah, there's so many seats
05:29to keep an eye on on election night, and actually people stay tuned to the Scotland's website. I'll
05:33pick out a few seats I think have particularly good stories to tell that people can watch if
05:39they plan to stay up all night on Thursday into Friday. Indeed, look, really tight in Scotland,
05:45really fascinating what's going to happen because it's going to change the political
05:49landscape, not so tight across the rest of the country. However, I think it's fair to say,
05:54especially if you consider the latest MRP poll which came out yesterday.
05:59Yeah, this is a staggering poll, the latest MRP from I think Servation was it, which basically
06:06put a 99% probability on Labour winning more seats than in 1997. So it's just going to be
06:14a huge, if the polls are to be believed, a huge Labour landslide. And some of these MRP polls are
06:19the ones that predicted previous elections. So on a UK wide basis, I think we should take them
06:25extremely seriously. And they are, you know, perhaps indicating what we should expect come
06:30Thursday into Friday morning. I think on Scotland, they're a bit more off. They certainly don't align
06:35with some of the Scotland only polls. I think the one that came out last night had the SNP
06:39on 10 seats, which is obviously very different from what we've got today.
06:42But in terms of the overall UK picture, they are painting this canvas of an absolute
06:49annihilation for the Tories, existential level annihilation. And I think what the Tories do next
06:56in Parliament will be very interesting to look at, particularly if Nigel Farage wins in Clacton,
07:01gets a seat in Westminster, and could potentially pull the party more to the right.
07:06Indeed. Fascinating couple of days ahead. Thanks very much for that, Alistair. You can
07:12see all the very latest, as Alistair mentioned, at Scotsman.com throughout the day. If you can,
07:18do subscribe and you'll be able to read and watch absolutely everything that we do. And if you're
07:23out and about today, please do pick up a copy of the paper. But for me and from Alistair, it's bye
07:29for now.