David Murray, the politics of character and that dodgy Yougov poll

It has been said on a number of occasions recently that Scottish politics is "not the X-Factor". It must come as a great relief to Iain Gray that Simon Cowell is not judging him.  The more substantive message is that personality somehow "doesn't matter".  Let's put it a different way. Does character matter when chosing a leader? Sir David Murray clearly thinks so, and that's why he today has given Alex Salmond his personal endorsement. Why should we be surprised - the quality of people matters in business, so why not in politics? Murray remains a unionist, but believes "Alex makes a fine First Minister and deserves a second term". Character matters greatly. A country in Scotland's unusual constitutional position needs someone strong and confident in charge to make its distinctive voice heard. It is odd that some commentators appear to believe that  someone weak, hestiant and lacking in ambition would be a more appropriate leader for our country....perhaps they don't think much of the country. Clearly David Murray does not fall into that category. He wants the best for Scotland. But it's about policy too. Murray's endorsement totally blows away attempts by the opposition to suggest the SNP is anti-business.  The government now has the backing of big hitters like Murray and Brian Souter as well as those who have benefitted from the small business bonus rates relief scheme and who backed the supermarket tax, which was intended as a fairer deal for small retailers. Working people also benefit - from freezing council tax, safeguarding the NHS budget, moving towards free prescriptions and guaranteeing universal benefits such as free personal care for the elderly. And if the SNP's record in office can persuade a unionist like Murray of our economic competence, it puts us in a much stronger position to persuade sceptics that SNP governments will exercise additional powers responsibly - up to and including independence. How quickly that will happen is hard to predict, but it might be more rapid than we think. As this blog has noted before, we have the historical momentum.

YouGov poll

21-22 February 2011

 

		Constituency				Regional
	Lead	SNP %	Lab %	Con %	LD %	SNP %	Lab %	Con %	LD %	Oth %
Weighted	Lab +9	32	41	15	8	26	40	15	7	12
Unweighted	SNP +13	41	28	18	6	34	26	19	6	16

In other news. A YouGov poll in The Sunday Herald has been rubbished for turning an SNP lead into a Labour one. Amongst actual respondents to the YouGov poll SNP were ahead by 13%, but weighting changed this to Labour being 9% ahead. The poll, which was commissioned by the Greens, weights voters according to their party political preference at the Westminster election. This makes no sense because voting patterns are so different at Holyrood. Indeed YouGov start out from the assumption that Labour has a 38% voter identification compared to 16% for the SNP and adjust their poll accordingly. So judge the findings in that context. It also doubles and sometimes triple counts readers of tabloids such as the Daily Mirror and the Record and its methods have been criticised by other pollsters.  As I understand it the SNP's own polling, based on a far larger sample, shows a very different picture from YouGov as did the recent IPSOS/MORI

See more analysis here at Newsnet Scotland

 

Comments

[Dave McEwan Hill]

Your arguement doesn't cut it, Stu.
To take a poll which showed an SNP lead of thirteen points,as the YouGov poll did, and somehow turn that to a Labour lead of 9 points by "weighting" (tantamount to an allowance to provide any result that suits whoever is paying for it)destroys the validity of the poll completely.
Why ask 1200 people if you then decide that you don't believe what they tell you?
Why use data from last year's GE, on which the Scots apply an entirely different judgement, and suprimpose it on a poll about this year's Scottish election?
We all know polls last year were showing Labour with a lead which carried through from the GE last year.
They are old hat now and do not represent opinions formed around the floundering current Labour pantomine at Holyrood.
Labour's vandalism on the alcohol pricing proposals and the supermarket tax proposal represent seminal moments in Scottish politics. These idiocies established finally in the minds of most sensible and serious minded Scots that Labour in Scotland are not fit to be a government.
In fact, they are not even fit even to be an opposition

[Stu]

Every time YouGov comes out with a poll where the SNP support is low, this curious weighting issue is raised.

Yet when you compare YouGov polling to actual election results, it turns out their weighting is very accurate and, if anything, overstates SNP support and understates Labour support.

Also, if you look at the trend across *ALL* pollsters (all showing a strong Labour lead), it is extremely obvious that the IPSOS/MORI poll showing a strong SNP lead is a rogue.

[Gavin C Barrie]

I find it puzzling, and frustrating when people extol / desire a strong leader. A personality.I want a competent committee/government
The SNP government are a group of sensible, able people. I just hope that the electorate think it through too and compare them to who Labour have to offer.

[douglas clark]

Could I ask you all a question or two?

It seems to me that it is a reasonable question for a pollster to ask:

"How likely are you to vote in the forthcoming election for a Scottish Parliament?"

If you were also saying that you'd never vote, then you should be excluded from the survey. Whatever you said would have no impact whatsoever, except on the turnout figures. You'd be a negative on that.

It is however clearly not the case that how you voted for Westminster is any indicator whatsoever of how you will vote for Hollyrood. Least, that's my premise.

It also seems to me that Alibi at 09:28 (Couldn't posts be numbered Joan?) has a very good point. If you ask a direct question, why do you have to weight it? What's the point? OK, intention to vote maybe.

I would really like some polling organisation to answer what are really simple questions.

[Alibi]

I would have thought that if you ask 1200 people their voting intentions the raw data should give you an approximation of the true figures. By weighting the figures are they not saying something along the lines of "We don't believe our own figures so we're going to distort them to get the answers that we want". I can't grasp why they would think that changing the result from a 13% SNP lead to a 9% Labour lead could be considered a reasonable thing to do.

Opinion polls are used to lead public opinion, not to measure it. Clearly by lying about the results, the MSM hope to influence people.

[Brad Fallon]

I love reading your blog. It give us an in depth information about politics and opinions of some politicians. Keep posting.

[el el]

Quote, "perhaps they don't think much of the Country" ? In reality they don't regard Scotland as a Country, only as a region of a bigger state, Joan.

[Dave McEwan Hill]

The SNP has used the same pollster but does not use the same weightings.
This is in fact a fiddled poll.
YouGov will apologise as it did the last time it did this secure in the knowledge that the Unionist press will continue to use the flawed figures - which has always been the object of the exercise.

[Colin]

It's obviously a misleading way of doing a Holyrood poll, but you should tell that to SNP central office, as they use the same pollster and the same weightings!