Jolly good poll, what?

A Yougov poll in the Sunday Times indicates that the SNP is still on the up in terms of support and that the European election result was a pretty good indication of the direction of travel in public opinion in Scotland. Poll results -

SNP 31%
Lab 28%
Con 17%
Lib 16%

That only leaves 8% for the Greens and any other parties to take up which will be disappointing for them after a decent performance last week. It does, however, show that we're on course to win Edinburgh North and Leith at Westminster - which would be the third time in a row that the SNP has won in a constituency-wide vote here. We were 405 votes ahead in the Additional Member (list) vote in 2007 and increased that to 641 votes in the Euro (different boundaries, with nearly all of the Holyrood seat in the Westminster seat). I'm looking forward to pushing that majority into four figures when the election is called.

Electoral Calculus has us winning North and Leith on those figures - then there's the additional support we've been gaining in the constituency lately, the drop in Labour's vote here, the drifting away of Lib Dem support and the Conservatives returning to former levels with the Greens coming on strong. I'll be keeping a cautious eye on the Greens - they could be fighting it out with Labour for second place if they continue to move forward with the Conservatives some distance behind in fourth and the Lib Dems way off the pace in fifth.

Also interesting was the UK-wide poll in the same story that showed drops in support for both Conservatives and Labour (Cameron's party still maintaining a 16% lead though). What was interesting was that the Lib Dems didn't capitalise at all, their support unchanged - the smaller parties now matching the Lib Dems for support. Could the Greens take out one of the Lib Dem MPs? I take it that they will be making a fairly big deal of the secret meetings between Labour Ministers and airport lobbyists.

"Why from the Lib Dems?" you may ask. News from the European elections around Scotland suggest that their vote is being chewed up by the SNP, by the Conservatives, and by the Greens. They dropped out of contention in the Edinburgh seats they thought they were taking and are in danger of losing Edinburgh West, and that story was repeated around the country.

Up in Aberdeenshire they lost Gordon to us and they lost West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. The SNP took Argyll & Bute, the Conservatives swept them away in the border seats, the SNP won in Danny Alexander's seat - and we won in Jo Swinson's seat.

It looks like being a very interesting Westminster election as Labour lose out and the Lib Dems fade away while the SNP makes the front running. The worry for Labour will be how improved the Conservative performance is and the worry for the Lib Dems will be whether the Greens overtake them and cement that position for the future.