What's behind the SNP lead in the polls?

[Granny Danger]

With less than a fortnight to go all the polls suggest Scotland will return 45+ MPs; this would have been ridiculed just a few months ago. What are the main factors that have led to this?

For me:

1. Labour's involvement in Better Together - many entrenched SLab voters found it hard to comprehend their elected politicians standing side by side with the Tories.

2. The collapse of the LibDems as a possible alternate - self explanatory I think.

3. Sturgeon - I don't like the fact that individual leaders are so influential in modern politics but it cannot be denied that she has superseded most expectations and is delivering the party's message expertly.

4. Realisation that Scottish Labour has been complacent for a long time and took folk for granted.

5. Murphy as the champion of Scottish Labour - people don't like him, people don't trust him.

What are the other issues? Are they simple or complex? Is there one over riding factor?

[Gaz]

The SNP have been a thoroughly competent government in Scotland at Holyrood.

Sturgeon is a far more likeable figure than Salmond. I'm a fan of Salmond but can understand why people don't like him. She hasn't put a foot wrong.

[Mr Bairn]

With less than a fortnight to go all the polls suggest Scotland will return 45+ MPs; this would have been ridiculed just a few months ago. What are the main factors that have led to this?

For me:

1. Labour's involvement in Better Together - many entrenched SLab voters found it hard to comprehend their elected politicians standing side by side with the Tories.

2. The collapse of the LibDems as a possible alternate - self explanatory I think.

3. Sturgeon - I don't like the fact that individual leaders are so influential in modern politics but it cannot be denied that she has superseded most expectations and is delivering the party's message expertly.

4. Realisation that Scottish Labour has been complacent for a long time and took folk for granted.

5. Murphy as the champion of Scottish Labour - people don't like him, people don't trust him.

What are the other issues? Are they simple or complex? Is there one over riding factor?

1. I wouldn't say it's anything to do with Labour supporting the union per se but more a hardening of the Yes vote. None of the 45 will be going back to Labour and plenty No voters will vote SNP to get more powers

2. Correct. In the 2011 elections Labour's share of the vote barely moved but the SNP pretty much hoovered up the entire Lib Dem vote

3. Correct, I know plenty people that would never vote for Alex Salmond but really like Sturgeon

4. Agreed

5. I don't think Murphy has caused any more people to go Yellow than Lamont/Gray did. The truth is SLab need a bottom up revolution.

[Colkitto]

Quite simply people want change. The electorate are politically aware and know all the promises from the referendum have now turned into lies.

The SNP are showing they can govern well and have Scotland's interests at heart.

[FuzzyAffro]

The referendum is the main reason, seeing that the UK parties do not have Scotland's best interests at heart and only the SNP do.

[invergowrie arab]

SNP factors:

Competent party of government

Positive message about what Scotland can be, giving people a vision and aspiration

Yes campaign created a movement that goes way beyond party politics but which party politics will benefit from

Sturgeon an absolute class above any other politician in the UK but is a uniting character

indyref reinvigorating politics with a return to public meetings, the political chat in the pub or office, saying you werent interested in poitics or wilfull ignorance no longer an option

Labour factors:

over stretched themselves reaching out to middle England and the City of London whilst thinking the Labour myth would never be challenged in the heartlands

Murphy being an utter p***k but a long line of utter uselessnes, mediocraty and doom mongering naysayers

Labour, in no small part to the likes of Murphy and Alexander, cutting ties with their wider social movement to cosy up to middle England leaving with no activist base

Others:

Utter collapse of Lib Dems

social media. the idea that as lie can run round the world before the truth has its boots on is no longer true

[Sergeant Wilson]

Labour are shite.

[WaffenThinMint]

Simply a tipping point. Like the Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland discovered the hard way, you can get away with being a shower of self-interested gobshites for so long, maybe even for the half a century you can keep your constituency in a time warp like some Hammer Horror version of Beamish, but you can't get away with it forever.

Eventually enough successive generations come along - perhaps ones in households that have never known regular guaranteed employment - and who decide they're sick of themselves & those they know being stuck in a River City meets Groundhog Day existence enough to do something about it.

Plus when you have the likes of this controlling how people's rates are being spent (& he is far from an aberration throughout the Lowlands), even the most disinterested person with politics comes to their senses and starts to care long enough to go to the polling station & vote for whoever looks best placed to keep one of their kind out of Parliament.

[FuzzyAffro]

Simply a tipping point. Like the Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland discovered the hard way, you can get away with being a shower of self-interested gobshites for so long, maybe even for the half a century you can keep your constituency in a time warp like some Hammer Horror version of Beamish, but you can't get away with it forever.

Eventually enough successive generations come along - perhaps ones in households that have never known regular guaranteed employment - and who decide they're sick of themselves & those they know being stuck in a River City meets Groundhog Day existence enough to do something about it.

Plus when you have the likes of this controlling how people's rates are being spent (& he is far from an aberration throughout the Lowlands), even the most disinterested person with politics comes to their senses and starts to care long enough to go to the polling station & vote for whoever looks best placed to keep one of their kind out of Parliament.

You're a great poster, read quite a few posts of yours and thought fucking fantastic post.

[Jacksgranda]

Labour are shite.

Thanks, Karen

[welshbairn]

Labour are shite.

You're a great poster, read quite a few posts of yours and thought fucking fantastic post.

[ForzaDundee]

The inevitable demise of the nation state due to globalisation.

Economic prosperity is now more linked to knowledge and information which is increasingly defined in global terms. The confidence and intelligence of a large slice of the population has led to a new way of thinking which makes the notion of large powerful nation states obsolete.

[John Lambies Doos]

Hope

[Granny Danger]

The inevitable demise of the nation state due to globalisation.

Economic prosperity is now more linked to knowledge and information which is increasingly defined in global terms. The confidence and intelligence of a large slice of the population has led to a new way of thinking which makes the notion of large powerful nation states obsolete.

You'd be amazed how many people have given me that exact same reply when I've asked them why they are voting SNP in this election.

[AyrExile]

support behind the snp is like a cult/movement rather than that of a political party. Although voter turnout for the general election will be far lower than the referendum a much higher number percentage of SNP voters will make the effort. What their offering is different to the other parties also and there is a lot of voter disillusionment with politicians currently.

[Pete's Frontier]

This is a woman that's party has produced no costed data, has a £10bn black hole she can't explain away and has no answer to, wants to tax and spend and chase all the money out of Scotland. Anyone with any education, prosperity and basic economic understanding wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

[ForzaDundee]

This is a woman that's party has produced no costed data, has a £10bn black hole she can't explain away and has no answer to, wants to tax and spend and chase all the money out of Scotland. Anyone with any education, prosperity and basic economic understanding wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

You are an idiot.

[supermik]

Thicko icoming here.

Is Sturgeon standing in the general election? If she is then can she still be in the Scottish Parliament?

Its just that I don't know if you can be a member of both and fulfill all the responsibilities that both require.

like I said, I'm not too bright when it comes to politics. I'm only bothered about local things and whether or not my bins get emptied and the street outside is swept from time to time.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

With less than a fortnight to go all the polls suggest Scotland will return 45+ MPs; this would have been ridiculed just a few months ago. What are the main factors that have led to this?

For me:

1. Labour's involvement in Better Together - many entrenched SLab voters found it hard to comprehend their elected politicians standing side by side with the Tories.

2. The collapse of the LibDems as a possible alternate - self explanatory I think.

3. Sturgeon - I don't like the fact that individual leaders are so influential in modern politics but it cannot be denied that she has superseded most expectations and is delivering the party's message expertly.

4. Realisation that Scottish Labour has been complacent for a long time and took folk for granted.

5. Murphy as the champion of Scottish Labour - people don't like him, people don't trust him.

What are the other issues? Are they simple or complex? Is there one over riding factor?

1. Totally agree - how anyone could think sharing a platform, especially this one, with their political rivals could end well passes all understanding

2. Yep. Payback for their craven subservience and broken promises.

3. Wholly agree that personality-led politics is undesirable, but in that context she is a real find. Having the right policies to communicate helps, mind.

4. This has been bubbling for years, and point 1. above finally broke the dam and let the disillusion flow.

5. I know I'm outside of this, but Murphy appears no better or worse than many career politicians - that is, a soul-less, principle-free wánker who would sell his first-born as long as it kept him in the public eye.

I think the over-riding feeling from Scotland (and increasingly though to a much lesser extent down here) is a running-out of patience with the so-called "only choices", and a wilingness to give the alternative a chance.

[Pete's Frontier]

You are an idiot.

A Che Guevara dick rider calling me an idiot? Eh, the idiot Che cap is all yours.