Swinney facing challenge from the ‘undecideds’ – Daily Business

SNP leader John Swinney could yet find a major obstacle to his hopes of returning to Bute House – the 40% of undecided voters who may prove the pollsters wrong and cause an upset.

The number of voters yet to make up their mind is a potential banana skin for Mr Swinney who remains well ahead in the polls, but only among those who have declared which party they will support.

Sir John Curtice, the Strathclyde university pollster, said last week that the likelihood of another leader moving into Bute House was “less than 1%”.

However, with four in ten voters undecided, Labour and Reform fancy their chances of at least severely denting Mr Swinney’s hopes of a majority of seats.

New polling today by Survation confirms the SNP is on course to remain the largest party, although it is projected to fall short of securing an outright majority.

The SNP continues to lead on both ballots, polling at 38% on the constituency vote and 29% on the regional list, placing the party clearly ahead of its rivals.

Reform UK and Scottish Labour are closely matched behind the SNP, with Reform polling at 20% on the constituency vote and 19% on the list, compared to Labour’s 18% and 17%.

The Conservatives sit further back on 12% on both ballots. As in previous elections, the Greens record most of their support on the list (12%) rather than in constituencies (2%) given they are only contesting six constituency seats, while the Liberal Democrats poll at around one in ten voters across both ballots.

Based on this single poll, Diffley Partnership modelling projects the SNP on 62 seats (three short of a majority), Reform 19, Labour 17, Green 12, Conservative 11, Liberal Democrats 8.

Scott Edgar, the partnership’s senior research manager, said: “This polling suggests a complex and finely balanced contest.

“While the SNP remain clearly ahead and on course to be the largest party, albeit short of an overall majority, support for the other parties is broadly dispersed.

“If these figures were repeated on polling day, Scotland would be heading towards a fragmented parliament, meaning relatively small shifts in support between now and next Thursday could have a significant impact on the final distribution of seats.”

Questioned at a presentation in Edinburgh, he admitted that the scale of undecideds could be crucial and that there was no indication as to whether or not they would be inclined to vote at all.

Meantime the parties are not facing up to the tough budget pressures that will curtail their promises to either cut taxes or spend more on public services, according to a research institute.

The SNP and the Scottish Green Party put further expansion of the state at the centre of their manifestos, with plans to deliver more free services and cap prices.

Reform UK and the Conservatives want to cut taxes in order to stimulate the economy, while Labour and Liberal Democrats sit somewhere between these extremes.

David Phillips, head of devolved and local government finance at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “Unfortunately, while differing in their visions, the major parties share a common shortcoming: a lack of realism regarding just how tough the fiscal challenges facing the next Scottish Government are.

“The combination of a slowdown in increases in UK government funding, growing demands and costs for health and social care and devolved benefits, and a hangover from some bad budgeting habits of the last Scottish Government, will mean a Scottish budget under significant pressure.

“Neither expansions of the Scottish welfare state without commensurate tax rises, nor definite tax cuts without similarly definite reductions in spending, are fiscally credible. In reality, there would need to be difficult decisions elsewhere in the Scottish budget to square the circle.”

He added: “One can have sympathy with the situation Scotland’s political parties face. Politics is easier when fiscal conditions allow for spending increases or tax cuts without such difficult choices elsewhere in the budget.

“Voters, already unhappy after years of only slow economic growth, a rising cost of living, and public services that have failed to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, may not warm to a dose of cold, hard fiscal reality.

“But the next Scottish Government will have to face up to it. And as the current UK government has found out, not preparing the public for difficult choices prior to an election can come back to bite you when the electoral dust has settled.”