4th March 2022
One of the signs of spring north of the border is the advent of the Scottish party conference season. The pandemic, of course, disrupted all of that, but today sees the opening of the first of three in-person Scottish party conferences, the first such clutch of gatherings since lockdown restrictions were initially introduced almost exactly […]
26th November 2021
The SNP meet (virtually) again this weekend for their second conference in three months. But have the polls changed significantly since the party’s previous conference in September, just before the seventh anniversary of the 2014 independence referendum? There is little sign of any erosion of the party’s dominance of vote intentions. Three polls of vote […]
7th October 2021
Last month marked the seventh anniversary of the independence referendum held on 18 September 2014. Earlier in the month there was an online SNP conference – though the party is planning another one at the end of November! – while just before the month began the SNP and the Greens concluded a deal that saw […]
19th May 2021
The constitutional question now dominates Scottish politics. And on the answer to that question the country is both evenly divided and sharply polarised. This is the key lesson of the 2021 Scottish parliament election. For once the polls had a good election. The average standing of the parties in the final polls were all nearly […]
11th April 2021
The election campaign has been put on hold for a few days as a mark of respect for the Duke of Edinburgh, whose death was announced on Friday. On Monday politicians of all parties will come together at Holyrood (and at Westminster) to express their condolences. But where will the parties and leaders find themselves […]
29th March 2021
As many commentators have pointed out, the newly founded Alba Party is facing a major hurdle in having in Alex Salmond a leader who is very unpopular with many people in Scotland. But does this mean that the party definitely has no chance of winning a noticeable number of list seats in the upcoming Scottish […]
19th March 2021
One thing is clear: support for the SNP and for independence is now consistently lower in the polls than it was at the beginning of the year. In the last half dozen polls support for Yes (after leaving aside Don’t Knows) has averaged 49%, with No narrowly ahead on 51%. This represents a five-point fall […]
27th November 2020
The SNP, whose virtual conference takes places this weekend, could hardly be in finer fettle. Its leader, Nicola Sturgeon, is as popular as she has been any point since taking over the reins six years ago – primarily because of voters’ positive evaluations of her handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Polls of voting intention for […]
20th November 2020
At first glance the Scottish Conservatives, who are meeting in virtual conference this weekend, can look forward to next year’s Scottish Parliament election with a fair degree of confidence. In polls conducted since September, the party has averaged 20% on the constituency vote and 19% on the regional vote. That is somewhat down on the […]
20th October 2020
The last week or so has seen the publication of three further polls of attitudes towards Scotland’s constitutional status. Two of them, from Ipsos MORI (for STV News) and from Savanta ComRes, continued the gradual trickle of polls this year of how people would vote in another independence referendum. The third, from Survation (for the […]
Explore the What UK Thinks website. Non-partisan information on UK attitudes to the EU before and since the EU Referendum.
