Labour Deputy Leader, John Prescott in the Sunday Times, 13 th April 1997.
| 'You can't tell all the truth all the time, can you? No. No. Nobody does.' Labour Deputy Leader, John Prescott in the Sunday Times, 13 th April 1997. | |
As stressed by Alan Smart, Head of Current Affairs at STV, the poll is deliberative rather than predictive. It provides a valuable insight into how the opinions of the same group of people have changed in the run up to the General Election, and one year after.
The Scottish 500 poll for Scottish Television, which came on the heels of two System 3 polls suggesting the SNP and Labour were neck and neck, was based on only 401 responses. It reported support for the SNP at 45 per cent, with Labour on 41 per cent, the Scottish Lib Dems on 15 and the Tories on 9 per cent.
Labour immediately dismissed the findings as worthless, the Scottish Tories refused to give it credibility by making a comment, while Scottish Liberal Democrats said it served little purpose.
It was left to the SNP leader, Alex Salmond, to talk up the poll as 'a very encouraging survey which confirms the trend of the polls in recent weeks.'
The Scottish 500 focus group was set up ahead of last year's general election to gauge the mood of Scottish voters. It was sent key campaign literature during the election and had access to leaders of all parties in studio debates.
Polling of the group at that stage proved unrepresentative, indicating a level of support for the SNP that was nine points higher than the eventual election result, while Labour's vote was underestimated by 4.5 percentage points and the Conservative vote was underestimated by 5.5 points.
Mr Salmond resisted claims that the latest poll was worthless. He said 'The only difference they (Scottish 500) have between them and an ordinary opinion poll sample is that they have had a chance to look at everybody's manifestos and talk to the party to party leaders.'
'So I suppose the SNP can take it as something of a complement that given the level of political information they are even more likely to vote SNP than the general population. The polls show it's a close run thing between the SNP and Labour; and it's going to be an exciting contest until next year.
But Scottish Labour said the sample was out of date and completely unscientific. 'This was a small sample on a base compiled over a year ago but the party is not complacent and realises there will be a long and hard campaign ahead,' a spokesman said.
Scottish Tories were rather more underwhelmed, choosing not to comment on the latest findings because they were found floundering at the bottom on 9 per cent.
'We are not interested in commenting on polls at this moment. At this stage in the electoral cycle they cannot be reliable and are of purely academic value,' a spokesman said.
Marilyn MacLaren, a senior Scottish liberal Democrat said the latest research was 'neither particularly helpful, representative nor indicative of anything.'
The former SLD convenor who remains on the party's Scottish executive said that she believed the realisation that a Scottish parliament was on the way may have raised nationalistic sentiments among people but she insisted she could not perceive 'any intense desire at the moment for independence'.
Buoyed by the poll, however, Mr Salmond went on to ridicule the apparent intervention of Chancellor Gordon Brown in trying to restore Labour's fortunes in Scotland and help the Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar.
Mr Salmond dismissed the move as a 'panic tactic'. He added: 'The image of Gordon Brown descending from on high to save Donald Dewar shows Labour in Scotland are a hand-me-down party run by remote control from London.'
Your reporter Jason Allardyce, the Labour Party and unnamed sources label our Scottish 500 survey as 'unscientific' (your report 13 April). This is most certainly not the case, and I suggest it is our critics who seem incapable of distinguishing between a deliberative opinion poll and a predictive one.
As Scottish Television's freely available briefing paper on our Scottish 500 poll and Sunday's Platform programme made clear, our survey should most definitely not be used as a basis to predict the results of next years parliament elections. For this your readers should look to the more familiar predictive newspaper opinion polls.
In January 1997, together with Grampian Television, we recruited a panel of 500 voters to take part in a series of general election programmes. This exercise was entirely scientific, and supervised by John Berridge of Dundee University's politics department.
Of the 401 members of the Scottish 500 we contacted last week (the other 99 not being contactable), 41 per cent told us they had actually voted Labour last year, 32 per cent SNP, 14 per cent Liberal Democrat, and 12 per cent Conservative.
Our sample group is small, but not that small. Unlike predictive polls, which use larger samples of constantly changing people, we were able to compare how the same individuals had actually voted in the 1997 general election with how they intend to vote in the Scottish parliament contest.
Here, amazingly, we found 45 per cent of our sample plans to vote SNP, while only 31 per cent plans to vote Labour.
What does this entirely scientific exercise tell us? Certainly, it does not predict, nor even claim to predict, that the SNP is set for a landslide win in may next year.
What our exercise has measured is how voters who become engaged in the political process, and have access to Scotland's leading politicians and their manifestos have reacted when their views are focused within a specifically Scottish forum.
Alan Smart
Head of Current Affairs
Scottish Television
Cowcaddens, Glasgow
| Party | Labour | Scottish National Party | Conservative | Liberal Democrat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date |  |  |  |  |
| 7 th March 1997 | 44 % | 26 % | 17 % | 11 % |
| 14 th April 1997 | 42 % | 29 % | 13 % | 13 % |
| 28 th April 1997 | 37 % | 30 % | 13 % | 19 % |
| 1 st May 1997 * | 41 % | 32 % | 12 % | 14 % |
| 12 th April 1998 | 31 % | 45 % | 9 % | 15 % |
| Date | Alex Salmond | Donald Dewar | Don't know/Wouldn't say |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 th April 1998 | 47 % | 37 % | 16 % |
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