 | 'A Progressive Scottish Opinion survey in the Scottish Daily Mail put support for the nationalist party on 48 per cent, ahead of Labour on 32 per cent.' ePolitix.com, 10 th August 2007. |  |
| 'A Progressive Scottish Opinion survey in the Scottish Daily Mail put support for the nationalist party on 48 per cent, ahead of Labour on 32 per cent.' ePolitix.com, 10 th August 2007. | |
SNP Business Manager Angus Robertson MP has commented on the sensational poll in the Daily Mail by Progressive Scottish Opinion which puts the SNP at 48% to 32% for Labour and also shows 40% of the public are satisfied with the new SNP Government with only 12% unfavourable.
Commenting Mr Roberstson said:
"These are sensational figures, showing SNP support up 15 points since the election - and clearly there is no 'Brown bounce' in Scotland. The poll underlines the success of the SNP government in delivering our programme for the first 100 days at a pace that has left the opposition parties gasping, and unable to keep up.
"This is the highest opinion poll rating we have ever recorded.
"The SNP has build credibility and competence in government, and that is reflected in the satisfaction figures running at over three-to-one in favour. No previous Scottish government has build up such a solid platform of support in its first 100 days.
"Support for independence depends on how you ask the question - with as many polls in favour as against - and the important thing now is that we will lead a national conversation on Scotland's constitutional future which will galvanise further support."
ENDS
Notes for Editors:
The results from Progressive Scottish Opinion are:
If a Holyrood election was held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?
SNP 48%
Labour 32%
Tories 8%
Lib Dems 8%
Greens 2%
SSP 2%
How satisfied are you with the SNP's performance to date?
Very satisfied 10%
Quite satisfied 30%
Neither 25%
Quite dissatisfied 7%
Very dissatisfied 5%
Unsure/don't know 23%
The SNP has welcomed a new opinion poll which shows growing public support for the party.
A Progressive Scottish Opinion survey in the Scottish Daily Mail put support for the nationalist party on 48 per cent, ahead of Labour on 32 per cent.
The Scottish Conservatives polled eight per cent, as did the Liberal Democrats.
The survey also found that while 31 per cent of people approve of Scottish independence, some 49 per cent are against the move while 20 per cent don't know or are undecided.
A spokesman for the the SNP said the figures were "sensational", with support up 15 points since the Holyrood elections.
"The poll underlines the success of the SNP government in delivering our programme for the first 100 days, at a pace that has left the opposition parties gasping and unable to keep up," he added.
"This is the highest opinion poll rating we have ever recorded.
"The SNP has built credibility and competence in government, and that is reflected in the satisfaction figures running at over three-to-one in favour.
"No previous Scottish government has built up such a solid platform of support in its first 100 days."
Less than a third of people want Scotland to become independent despite growing support for the SNP, a new poll claimed.
While almost half of those questioned backed the Nationalists, the survey showed only 31% were in favour of independence.
That is down from January, when 51% of people questioned were backed independence.
The Daily Mail poll showed 49% were against independence, while 20% were classed as being "unsure".
A total of 1,012 adults across the country were questioned for the study, which was carried out by Progressive Scottish Opinion between July 31 and August 7.
The results were revealed as the Nationalist administration prepares to publish its White Paper on independence next week.
While the study showed a drop in support for independence, it found increased support for the SNP, with almost half of those questioned backing the Nationalists.
The poll also revealed that 10% of people were "very satisfied" with the new Nationalist administration, while 30% were "quite satisfied". Only 7% of people said they were "quite dissatisfied" with the SNP Executive and just 5% were "very dissatisfied".
An SNP spokesman hailed the results and said: "This is a sensational poll which shows the SNP at its highest ever opinion poll rating. It illustrates how the SNP has built credibility and competence in government.
Reacting to the drop in support for independence, the spokesman said: "On independence it depends on how the question is asked with as many polls in favour as against.
A NEW opinion poll has suggested Scots are moving further away from the idea of independence while support for the SNP is growing.
The Scotland-wide survey shows approval for independence has fallen from 51 per cent in January to 31 per cent this month.
At the same time, support for the SNP is now at 48 per cent - 15 per cent more than what they achieved at Holyrood elections three months ago.
The poll of 1012 adults across Scotland, carried out by Progressive Scottish Opinion, shows support for the SNP in the Lothian and Borders is among the lowest in the Scotland at 30 per cent.
Fife is the area most in favour of independence, with 43 per cent support.
Plans for an independence referendum are to be spelled out in a white paper published by the party next week.
However it emerged today that the finer details of how an independent Scotland would work in reality may not be revealed until after an independence referendum.
The Scottish Independence Convention, an SNP think tank, has recommended that issues such as whether Scotland would apply to join the EU and NATO if it was independent should not be part of any debate about a referendum.
Professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said the poll suggested that voters were happy with the SNP but not comfortable with the idea of separating from the UK.
He was reported as saying: "Mr Salmond and his colleagues have got off to a good start in convincing the public the SNP can provide good government.
"But, contrary to the SNP's hopes, demonstrating that the party can govern is evidently doing nothing to persuade Scots of the case for independence.
"Rather, it may be persuading Scots that devolution can, in fact, be made to work effectively in Scotland's interests after all.
The survey, which asked if the election was tomorrow which party would be your first choice, shows Labour still on its election footing of 32 per cent of the vote but both the Tories and Lib Dems losing votes to the nationalists. The SNP government is committed to introducing a bill paving the way for a referendum but it does not have the support of enough MSPs from other parties to secure its passage through parliament.
Last month plans for an independence petition were unveiled as part of a bid to force MSPs to agree to a referendum.
However, next week's white paper on independence is likely to face fierce opposition from the SNP's Holyrood rivals.
An SNP spokesman said: "These are sensational figures, showing SNP support up 15 points since the election - and clearly there is no 'Brown bounce' in Scotland.
"The SNP has built credibility and competence in government and that is reflected in the satisfaction figures running at over three to one in favour.
"No previous Scottish government has built up such a solid platform of support in its first 100 days.
"Support for independence depends on how you ask the question - with as many polls in favour as against - and the important thing now is that we lead a national conversation on Scotland's constitutional future, which will galvanise further support."
SNP leaders are celebrating their best-ever poll result, after the party took a 16-point lead over Labour.
The poll, by Scottish Opinion, put the SNP on 48 per cent with Labour on 32 per cent - a huge lead only three months after the parties had been separated by just one percentage point and seat in the Scottish elections.
The findings show how well Alex Salmond, the First Minister, and his team have done in government since the elections, winning over many people who did not vote for the SNP in May.
But one disappointment for Mr Salmond will be the poor response given to the idea of independence in the poll.
Researchers found only 31 per cent in favour of independence, with 49 per cent against and 20 per cent undecided - a significant drop in support since the elections.
It appears many Scots like the way Mr Salmond is running the country and, because of that, do not want even to contemplate changing the system of government yet again.
The poll also spelled bad news for the other parties. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats were down on 8 per cent, with the Greens and the Scottish Socialists even further back on 2 per cent.
Support for the SNP has been consistently ahead of Labour for almost a year in Scotland, but the Nationalists have never managed to open up a lead of more than a few points - until now.
Yesterday's poll suggests that the SNP has managed to secure the favourable backing of many Scots because of the party's achievements in government in only three months.
An SNP spokesman described the figures as "sensational" and claimed there was obviously no "Brown bounce" in Scotland following the chancellor's elevation to the premiership in London. He said: "This is the highest opinion poll rating we have ever recorded. The SNP has built credibility and competence in government, and that is reflected in the satisfaction figures running at over three-to-one in favour.
"No previous Scottish government has built up such a solid platform of support in its first 100 days."
And he defended the low rating for independence in the poll by stating: "Support for independence depends on how you ask the question - with as many polls in favour as against - and the important thing now is that we will lead a national conversation on Scotland's constitutional future which will galvanise further support."
The First Minister will publish his bill for a referendum on independence next week and although he stands little chance of success with that legislation, he now knows he has the backing of large numbers of Scots for the rest of the work of his government.
Of particular comfort to the SNP leadership is the new government's satisfaction rating, as reflected in the poll.
A total of 40 per cent said they were satisfied (10 per cent very satisfied, 30 per cent quite satisfied) with the government's performance to date, with only 12 per cent dissatisfied (7 per cent quite dissatisfied, 5 per cent very dissatisfied).
Professor John Curtice, a poll expert from Strathclyde University, said: "Mr Salmond and his colleagues have got off to a good start in convincing the public the SNP can provide good government.
"But, contrary to the SNP's hopes, demonstrating that the party can govern is evidently doing nothing to persuade Scots of the case for independence.
"Rather, it may be persuading Scots that devolution can, in fact, be made to work effectively in Scotland's interests after all."
Labour MP David Cairns described the independence findings as a "massive embarrassment to Alex Salmond" just before he publishes his independence referendum bill.
Mr Cairns said: "Only a few months ago voters in Scotland rejected independence. Breaking up Britain would be a risky leap in the dark and not in Scotland's interests."
FEWER BACK INDEPENDENCE
ALEX Salmond will next week publish his bill for a referendum on Scottish independence, aware that support for a breakaway from the UK has been falling for almost a year.
Last October, a Scotsman ICM poll found 51 per cent in favour of separation, 35 per cent against and 10 per cent "don't knows". Another Scotsman ICM poll, just before May's election, found support for independence had fallen to 35 per cent, with 55 per cent against and 10 per cent undecided.
Yesterday's poll reflects the same sort of result, with only 31 per cent in favour and 49 per cent against.
Good ratings for the first 80 days of the SNP-led administration at Holyrood yesterday boosted the party's long-term poll prospects.
However, the success may also have blunted the appeal of independence, days before Alex Salmond publishes his home rule referendum plans.
A poll published yesterday shows that the SNP's rule in Scotland enjoys a 40% satisfaction rating, including 10% who are "very satisfied", against only 12% who are dissatisfied, suggesting Alex Salmond has got off to a good start, even with the supporters of other parties.
Asked how they would vote if there were an election tomorrow, 48% of Scots said they would give their "first choice" to the SNP, up from 33% who backed the party with their constituency votes last May 3. It is hard to project the number of seats the party could win on that basis, but it could be an outright majority.
A significant finding of the Progressive Opinion poll - questioning 1012 people between July 31 and August 7 - was that the Labour vote appears to be holding up well, remaining at 32%.
It is the Tories and LibDems who appear to have given ground. Tories are down from their election performance of 17% to only 8%, while Lib- Dems are down from 16% in May to 8% also.
The SNP spin on the Labour figures, however, was that Scots are not giving the new Prime Minister the "Brown bounce" he is enjoying in UK-wide polling.
The more worrying news for the SNP is that support for independence is not rising in line with support for the party.
Asked if they would approve or disapprove of Scotland becoming independent, the poll found the electorate would be 31% against, 49% in favour, with 20% unsure. When asked last January how they would vote in an independence referendum, 51% was in favour, 36% against with 14% unsure.
Polling evidence on the question of independence has fluctuated widely, often depending on the question asked.
It will become more relevant next week, when Mr Salmond publishes a white paper setting out his plans for Scotland to become independent. That will include a draft bill, though it is not expected to be put to Parliament yet, and plans for a referendum.
The proposal is intended to be the start of a "national conversation" about Scotland's future. The SNP knows it has only 50 MSP votes in favour of a referendum, and the others strongly opposed. This most recent poll shows it also has a long way to go if it is to secure public support.
It may find that the success of the Salmond administration in registering positive ratings and polling support is undermining the case for independence. The danger for the independence cause is that an SNP administration that is thought to be effective and successful could show that the devolved powers already at Holyrood are sufficient.
An SNP spokesman said: "The poll underlines the success of the SNP government in delivering our programme at a pace that has left the opposition parties gasping."
Next week, Alex Salmond, First Minister, will offer for our consideration a white paper on his plans, or hopes, for a constitutional referendum. By most yardsticks, it sounds a curious sort of gambit. It counts as a promise kept, and few will argue with that. But it is also, in both senses, a paper exercise. We will not be voting on independence any time soon.
Salmond, though, has had no difficulty honouring his pledge. How could he do otherwise? The "SNP duck independence issue" headlines would have followed swiftly. Party natives would have grown restive. And the sense that a principle had been traded for power would have been inescapable.
It's an odd affair, nevertheless. The SNP has formed a minority administration for a couple of simple reasons. One has to do with an old political problem: too few friends; or rather, too few Unionist parties prepared to give aid, comfort, or the appearance of aid and comfort, to the enemy. The second reason involves brutal reality: the Nationalists are, indeed, a minority, albeit the biggest we have, and have yet to persuade better than one-third of voters to support them.
Salmond is more relaxed about all of this than might have been predicted. Why punt a white paper preparing the way (you hope) for a referendum you cannot (as you well know) hope to win? Who seeks defeat, promise or no promise? Clearly, this is not the First Minister's cheery view of the world.
The white paper, he tells us, is intended only to launch "a national conversation". This is not Devolution II: the Final Showdown, or anything like it. Who is so churlish as to refuse a chat? More to the point, who is so lacking in the courage of their Unionist convictions as to refuse a friendly debate? Eck the Knife has a friendly grin, and teeth, as the song said, like razors.
The white paper still sounds like a waste of time, for all that, especially if you take (with tongs and rubber gloves) the Scottish Daily Mail. Yesterday, that newspaper was trumpeting glad tidings. "Scots reject independence" its front page said in big, extra-bold serif. As ever with the Forgers' Gazette, this wasn't quite the truth, not unless 31% of Scots had been disenfranchised.
What the paper meant to say was that support for independence had fallen from a historic high of 51% in a January poll to 31%, close to the historical norm. The point was well-made, nevertheless. Salmond's well-reviewed and sometimes ingenious leadership during his first 100 days has given his party a thumping lead over Labour. Since the elections, the latter has stuck fast on 32%. The Nationalists have climbed from 33% to 48%. Yet support for independence has shrivelled. What's gone wrong, or is it right?
Progressive Scottish Opinion questioned 1012 adults across the country during the first week of August. Unless there was something very strange about the methodology - and I have no reason to think so - that's a robust, more-than-adequate sample. It cannot be easily rebutted, either, by an otherwise delighted SNP claiming that responses towards independence depend on how you ask the question. The Mail said it asked only whether members of its sample approve or disapprove "of Scotland becoming independent". Clear enough, surely?
Voters are fickle: you don't need a poll to prove it. If the election result was anything to go by, even allowing for the complexities of the voting system and a fiasco on the day, large numbers of January's 51% had thought again before May, far less before August. It may be that a majority do not want, and will never want, what the Mail terms separatism. Yet it could also be that we are witnessing one of the larger ironies of recent times.
Is the evident success of a Nationalist administration stifling support for independence? Do voters want no more from their government than energy, competence and a willingness - second nature to Salmond - to speak for Scotland? But isn't that just devolution working, finally, as devolution was supposed to work? And is Salmond content with that? Some people on his own side, nominally at least, fear that he is.
I disagree. First, there is the fact of minority government. It can't be wished away. As we have seen in the broadcasting debate, Salmond's administration may style itself a government, but it is forced to operate as a mandated pressure group. The same will be true, in spades, when the talk turns to oil and gas revenues, or to any attempt to seek more power for Holyrood. Salmond can insist, cajole or beseech, but he will only succeed if he persuades. He knows it, too. He also knows that there is more than one way to skin a constitution. His real task is somehow to make public perceptions of the Scottish interest and of independence cohere. Running a minority administration, he must therefore explore an important distinction made by the great Tom Nairn.
You can have de jure independence, as Tom called it, the old tear-up-the-treaty, seat-at-the-UN variety, if a majority can ever be persuaded to take that step. But you can also have de facto independence, with power repatriated steadily, bit by bit, to Edinburgh, and leave aside the formalities. That kind may, in fact, reflect the realities of the modern world. It won't scare too many horses, either. Salmond, I'm convinced, wants the de jure variety still, but he'll settle for the de facto sort if he must. Given his situation, his best bet is to view the latter as a route to the former. That certainly renders him a gradualist, as some have sneered, but he is a gradualist in a hurry. The more arguments there are about Scotland's place within the United Kingdom, whether in broadcasting or defence policy, the better.
Still, the fact that support for independence has yet again fallen away (the Mail's poll replicates previous findings down the years) should trouble the First Minister. The approval ratings for his executive are better than excellent. Gordon Brown's arrival in Downing Street has done nothing whatever for Labour (the Prime Minister should also be troubled). But if voters have taken to the SNP to such an extent, why do 69% still refuse what the SNP is selling?
Salmond, I think, must calculate in the following manner. He lacks support for the Nationalist end-game, but there are any number of moves on the board of which that 48% would, conceivably, approve. In that sense the white paper will be part of a national conversation, if such language is to your taste, but it will also count as part of a larger propaganda exercise. Trust and reliability are, as ever, key words for the SNP. They represent honourable ends in themselves, but they are not the only ends in view.
None of which means that Salmond would be delighted to hold a referendum tomorrow. He would deny that, of course, just as he would deny that minority government would have been his first choice. He has turned the problem to his advantage. Now he must turn his advantage into an instrument of persuasion.
It is doubtful if Alex Salmond will be very disappointed by the latest opinion poll that shows that while public approval for both him personally and his administration is rising, support for independence has fallen. In fact I don't think he'll be disappointed one little bit.
The approval rating for separation, independence, the break-up of the United Kingdom - call it what you will - bobs up and down like a yo-yo. The latest survey, by Progressive Scottish Opinion, suggests that only 31% of Scots want divorce from the UK, compared with a 51% showing by the same pollsters in January.
What is heartening for Mr Salmond and his party is that the tactics they had devised for government are working and working well... so far.
Independence can wait. With his first 100 days still not notched up, all that Mr Salmond and team wanted to show by this stage is that they can run an efficient administration, that their ministers are competent, hard working and on top of the issues that matter to the ordinary man and woman in the street. It's not that they've abandoned their separatist goal; far from it - this week will see the publication of their long-awaited and heavily trailed White Paper on Independence.
It will serve several purposes. It will show Mr Salmond's more die-hard supporters that he's not been seduced by the trappings of devolved power.
Much more importantly, it will also seek to argue the case for a referendum on the issue. Thus far the three main unionist parties - Labour, Tories and Liberal Democrats - have set their faces resolutely against a referendum, pointing out that although the SNP emerged as the largest party at Holyrood after the May elections, two-thirds of voters opted for the parties that support the maintenance of the United Kingdom in its present form.
Mr Salmond's ace in the hole, however, is that a succession of opinion polls during the elections three months ago showed that there was widespread support for such a referendum, even among ardent unionists.
And he is certain to try and tempt the other parties to agree to a nationwide vote by adding a question in his referendum about more powers for the Scottish Parliament. Or he might, in what is expected to be billed his "Conversation with Scotland", offer a new Scottish Constitutional Convention, similar to that which set up the Scottish Parliament eight years ago, to discuss the more powers option.
The Lib Dems want Holyrood to have more powers and were the first to request a recall of the convention, with the result that they are going to be mightily tempted by Mr Salmond's offers next week. Insisting that they resist, however, will be their deputy leader and number one Nat hater, Tavish Scott. It will be interesting to see whether Mr Salmond can reach beyond Mr Scott to the Lib Dem grassroots.
The Tories, too, hum and haw about support for more powers but it really is time they decided to draw a line in the sand and stopped playing Mr Salmond's game.
Labour came badly out of the latest opinion poll, with the Nats' one-point lead in May stretching to 16% (48%-32%), but they won't be too disturbed because of the simple fact that it was all about Holyrood voting intentions, where the Nats always score higher than in surveys about Westminster.
But they must ask themselves if they really needed to desert the battlefield as comprehensively as they have this summer. They haven't laid a glove on Mr Salmond and his team and, frankly, for most of the last three months it's looked as if they haven't really been trying. Jack McConnell's resignation as Labour leader has been hinted at for weeks and it really can't come soon enough if the party's fortunes are to revive.
For instance, will anyone take him seriously in the coming days when he leads - as we must assume he must - his party's assault on the White Paper? Scotland's main opposition party appears to have ground to a standstill.
WHILE political opinion polls should always come with a health warning, the Progressive Scottish Opinion survey published yesterday, which shows growing support for the SNP at the same time as a massive swing against independence, exposes the complexity of the new order in Scotland.
The fundamentalists in the SNP, who have always argued that devolution is not the stepping-stone to separation the gradualists claimed it would be, might feel vindicated but even they might be surprised that the latest position could be as a result of the early success of their leader. Alex Salmond's flying start is recognised by nearly half of the sample, with 48 per cent saying they would vote SNP if an election was held now, and such support could embolden his Executive to drive through more decisions that otherwise might meet stiff opposition in parliament. After all, the last thing Labour needs is to create a crisis which leads to the collapse of the administration and a landslide victory for the SNP in the ensuing election which would put Labour further into the wilderness.
But it also poses a dilemma for the SNP and the plan to hold an independence referendum. In January this year the same poll found only 36 per cent disapproved of independence, yet now that figure has grown to 49 per cent, with those unsure climbing six points to 20 per cent. That means that the number who approve of independence in this poll has dropped from what was always an debatable figure of 51 per cent to 31 per cent, which given the May election result still seems on the high side.
While much depends on the wording of any referendum question, it would seem that the more successful Mr Salmond is as First Minister the less likely Scots are to want to go the whole hog to separation. It may well be that Mr Salmond has already become part of the status quo and that could store up trouble for him within his own party. Certainly his declaration that the Queen should remain head of state under independence - and his apparently very cordial relationship with Her Majesty - will drive a wedge between him and the strong republican wing of the party.
What this survey suggests is that most Scottish people want a First Minister who will stand up for Scotland but, give or take a tweak or two with Holyrood's powers, are happy for the Union to continue.
Many on the right want a referendum to go ahead in the knowledge that defeat will kill off the issue for decades, but maybe that's also the way Mr Salmond feels in his quieter moments.
He can say in public that he wants to win a referendum and take Scotland its own way, but maybe deep down he feels no need to take the country into uncharted waters. He is developing the office of First Minister, changing the shape of devolution, has a relationship of mutual respect with Gordon Brown and accepts the value of the monarchy. Maybe that's just the way he wants it to stay.
Forget Brown's bounce and watch the Salmond leap. The First Minister of Scotland is approaching his 100th day in office with the kind of ratings which might make Gordon Brown jealous. According to a poll published last week, the SNP is now 16 points ahead of Labour (48 to 32) and its leader is setting a cracking pace in his first attempt at running a government.
He and the Prime Minister in London have not squabbled, as conflict suits neither for now: Brown does not want the English fed a story of warfare in his own supposed fiefdom, even if it is that no longer, and Alex Salmond has to persuade Scots he can run a sensible, grown-up administration if eventually he is to secure his life's aim of full independence.
By instinct Salmond is a social democrat who favours low business taxation and high personal taxes to pay for a peculiarly Scottish model of public sector munificence. However, he has spotted the monumental mess Labour had made of the basic business of governing (David Cameron take note). He has set about slimming down the endless departments and clearing the lines of communication between the long list of agencies which spend money like Highland spring water. Hard-pressed English taxpayers hoping for any of the subsidy to be returned back across the border in the form of a rebate will, sadly, be disappointed. He has plenty of plans to go on spending, but, he says, to better effect than incompetent Labour managed. We shall see.
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When I talked to Salmond in Edinburgh he was relishing his rather brilliant start and preparing to publish a white paper on the constitution this week. Officials, still for the moment technically part of the UK civil service, have helped draft a consultative document which will lay out the options for more powers for the Scottish parliament and even independence. Salmond does not have the votes in the Holyrood parliament to secure a referendum on such matters so his game has to be a canny one: govern Scotland calmly and efficiently for four years, thus proving his good intentions. If he can thrash Labour at the next devolved elections, after that he must calculate he has his chance to break up the United Kingdom.
One usually brooding but now quite bouncy figure will be watching the publication of next week's white paper in Edinburgh with interest from his bolt-hole in North Queensferry, Fife. The Prime Minister has had his study in his Scottish home set up as a "virtual" Number 10, a command and control centre with computers plugged into the Number 10 system and all he needs to run the country from his "holiday". He will, with his fixation on micro-managing the affairs of his tribe, devote some time to securing the post of Scottish Labour leader in Holyrood for Wendy Alexander, sister of Overseas Development Secretary Douglas. She is the Prime Minister's prime hope for rebuilding Labour north of the border and avoiding a significant loss of Scottish Labour seats at Westminster. She is young, technocratic and bright but lacks the skills required to communicate with ordinary voters. Salmond is licking his lips.
The serious trouble in his own back yard is far from being Brown's only problem, even if one could be forgiven for thinking that all is as well as it could possibly be in the best of all possible worlds. Rather, it will never be any better for Brown than at this moment. An autumn of potential discontent lies ahead.
The market turmoil of the last week will feel distant, for now, to many floating voters. It is happening a long way away after the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage sector. They ask: don't markets always go up and down? Is it real money at stake? The impact on investor confidence, on the ability of companies to borrow to grow and ultimately on the holdings of pension funds will hit home in time. The taps are being turned off in a great global credit squeeze; down river are British voters who will find life getting that bit harder quite soon.
In different circumstances, Brown would have an easy answer to this: a bit of a boost for government spending. Only a hard-line monetarist would deny the usefulness of injecting a bit of extra cash into the public sector to jolly the economy along through turbulence. Right now, he cannot do this. In October there will be a tough Comprehensive Spending Review, when the Government lays out its spending plans. After his largesse with other people's money following the 2001 election, when spending rocketed from £367 billion then to £555 billion this year, supplies are running low. Elsewhere, he has so many off-balance sheet commitments due to initiatives such as PFI that the total liability is headed for £1 trillion. In short, the Government wasted wagonloads of cash, and now has to rein in spending.
In these circumstances, how comforting is it to contemplate the following? The average unsecured debt for a Briton is now £10,300, UK consumer debt at the end of July stood at £1.3 trillion and our housing market is starting to wobble. If this is our honeymoon with Gordon, then heaven help us when he gets us home.
Abroad, he is being clever but not entirely straight when it comes to withdrawal from Iraq. Our mission has failed and, rather than leave, we wait, taking casualties every week, so that the Government can disengage but not in such a way that causes a public row with the Americans.
And on the small subject of Europe he has a date in his diary which he cannot shift, creating difficulties if he holds the mid-October general election his team are now considering. On October 18th, in front of cameras and surrounded by the fanatics who want this decisive next stage of European integration so much, he will sign away yet more British sovereignty without the referendum Labour promised in its 2005 manifesto. The denial of such a simple promise is not the best backdrop against which to go to the country.
Still, understandably the public enjoys the contrast with the Blair era. The pundits failed to anticipate the distaste now felt for the vulgarity of those years. It is this which gives Brown his best hope of keeping his act of mass hypnosis going.
The greatest threat to David Cameron is a growing perception that he exists in the past tense, that he "blew it". This is highly dangerous, although not yet fatal. Madly, the Tories are encouraging the public to write off their chances: in six weeks they have swapped wild over-confidence for an unwarranted deep depression. When the Tory leader returns from Brittany there is a chance to shake this view before it settles as collective wisdom in voters' minds. There is still an appetite for a clearly stated alternative to the Brown world view.
The new Prime Minister is best-placed to understand the problems facing the UK, said 51 per cent of those questioned in an Ipsos Mori poll published yesterday. Of course he should understand by now: Brown was the brains behind the creation of a fair few of the most serious problems now confronting the country. He needs an election tomorrow, never mind October. While Cameron's problems are severe, we should not forget that Brown is in just as much of a race against time as his rival.
The Scottish Labour leader, Jack McConnell, is expected to confirm he is standing down tomorrow, more than three months after narrowly losing the Scottish election to Alex Salmond's nationalist party.
Mr McConnell, who had until then served as Scotland's first minister for more than five years in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, is expected to announce his resignation in Edinburgh - the most senior casualty of the Scottish National party's victory on May 3 by a single seat.
Although widely anticipated, there had been speculation that he may delay his departure, but the Labour party is anxious to mount a concerted attack on Mr Salmond's administration when the Scottish parliament resumes in early September.
The SNP's popularity has surged in a recent opinion poll, which put it at 48%, up 15 points, while Labour's standing remained unchanged at 32%, and Mr McConnell's party has been widely seen as having had a lacklustre summer.
Wendy Alexander, 44, the sister of the international development secretary, Douglas Alexander, and an ally of Gordon Brown, is likely to be elected unopposed as the new party leader. She has refused publicly to comment on her candidacy, but colleagues confirm privately that Ms Alexander plans to stand.
A former special advisor to the late Donald Dewar, the secretary of state for Scotland who introduced devolution and led the Holyrood parliament from 1999 until his death in 2000, Ms Alexander had been a minister under Mr McConnell but resigned after a series of disputes with the then first minister.
There is a very good reason why Gordon Brown will hesitate, and may finally balk, at calling a snap election. It's the state of his own backyard.
The divided politics of Britain could not be more dramatically revealed than by the latest opinion poll in Scotland. It suggests that Labour is now 16 points behind the Scottish National Party; the single percentage point that separated them at the election in May has been swamped by a psephological tsunami; it renders almost meaningless the recent UK polls that give Labour a 12-point lead over the Tories, because in Scotland the party is struggling to keep its head above water.
Yet Mr Brown needs most, if not all, of those 39 Labour-held seats at Westminster if he is to win. On present evidence he might not get them. What on earth has happened?
The answer may be dispiriting for the Prime Minister, but it is good news for anyone interested in the democratic process: politics has got a lot more interesting. Whereas in England Mr Brown has been enjoying his bounce, in Scotland Alex Salmond has leapt. Yesterday, the First Minister of what he is pleased to call the Scottish 'Government' (he doesn't use the word Executive any more) published a White Paper setting out his proposals for a referendum on independence. It proposed a national 'conversation' the Scots word would be 'flyting,' the nearest thing we get to an animated disagreement aimed at converting the doubters and winning more powers for the Scottish Parliament.
Next week Mr Salmond celebrates 100 days in power. These two events are intimately connected. Both show evidence of overweening self-confidence. For a leader who is attempting to shore up a minority government and facing an opposition united in hostility towards almost all his flagship policies, Mr Salmond demonstrates a sang-froid that is positively Napoleonic.
He has handled matters inside and outside the Scottish Parliament with great skill and unexpected diplomacy. He has deployed words such as 'consensus,' and phrases such as 'common purpose.' He has flattered his opponents (his flirtation with the matronly Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, is almost embarrassing to watch) and he has played well to the chattering classes (known in Scotland, more familiarly, as the 'blethering' classes).
Last week, for instance, he summoned a selected audience from the media world to announce plans to take greater control of broadcasting. Most would have been sceptical at best about the idea, but by the end, entranced by his vision of a culturally liberated nation, they were eating out of his hand.
He has accepted, without rancour, the odd defeat in Parliament, while at the same time introducing some fairly radical changes that either require no vote at Holyrood, or command widespread support abolishing bridge tolls, reducing ferry charges, doing away with prescription charges for the chronically sick and cancelling graduate endowment taxes for students. All of these have the added advantage of emphasising, subtlely, the differences between Scotland and England. At the same time, Mr Salmond has spoken up with great eloquence for the national interest on trips abroad, and been photographed shaking hands in statesmanlike style with his opposite numbers such as Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness and even Mr Brown.
Almost imperceptibly, he has moved his tanks on to the centre ground which was once considered Labour's by right; and though he has failed so far to convert Scots voters to the discreet charms of independence, there is growing evidence that they are pleased with what he has achieved. They like his style, they think he talks a good game, and they no longer have to be ashamed of the performance of the Scottish Parliament. If he goes on like this, they might well begin to look more kindly on his ideas for a referendum on Scotland's future. Some at least of his opponents argue that if it is to be done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, from the Right, and David Martin, MEP, from the Left, believe that the sooner a referendum is held, the sooner we can all be put out of our agony.
But Mr Salmond like Mr Brown has more to prove before he has made his case with the majority of the Scottish electorate. He needs to govern Scotland, not just seduce it. He has four years ahead of him to demonstrate whether he can turn round a slow-moving economy, tackle the country's appalling health statistics, improve schools, maintain higher education standards and deliver all those mundane manifesto commitments that all governments, sooner or later, have to do. Until then, the jury will remain out.
The success of the Nationalist cause so far contains an important political message, one that was articulated more than 200 years ago by Edmund Burke. 'A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation,' he wrote. He meant the French Revolution, of course, but it applies as well to events rather closer to home. The opposition parties in Scotland now find themselves saddled with a fatal image that of defenders of the status quo and they have begun to realise that this is not a popular cause. Mr Salmond, by contrast, is able to offer the prospect of change. It need not, he argues, be threatening change, indeed it can progress gently and gradually towards a goal that will be good for the nation, good for our economy and good even for our souls. Burke also wrote: 'Ambition can creep as well soar.' In the case of Scotland right now we have independence creep. No wonder Mr Brown is staying his hand.
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