Michael Ratner, President of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, 17 th March 2003.
| 'Even Reagan fitted into a relatively conventional politics on some level, but these guys have a warmongering and messianic view, and a vindictiveness that is destroying the consensus that the world has been operating on since the end of the second world war.' Michael Ratner, President of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, 17 th March 2003. | |
MOST Scots still don't think it was right for Tony Blair and George Bush to wage war on Iraq, a Sunday Mail poll reveals today.
Forty-four per cent said the war was wrong despite apparent coalition successes.
But only one in three said it would affect the way they vote at the Holyrood elections on May 1.
Labour feared an anti-war backlash but our Scottish Opinion poll, conducted from Thursday to yesterday, showed they still have a 10 per cent lead over the SNP.
An earlier System Three survey had claimed the Nationalists were leading.
Our poll shows a sharp dip in support for the Scottish Socialist Party, whose leader Tommy Sheridan last week compared our servicemen to the Nazis tried for war crimes.
Sheridan had claimed the SSP were on course to take up to 10 seats but it now looks as if he will remain his party's only MSP.
In the main vote, Sheridan's party stayed at five per cent compared to our March poll but in the vital list vote they slumped from 11 per cent to just four.
Jim Wallace's Lib Dems are sitting at 15 and 23 in the first and second vote respectively.
And the Tories are languishing on 13 and six per cent.
Translating those figures into seats, our results show Labour staying on 55 MSPs with the SNP gaining one member to go to 36.
The Lib Dems would add two MSPs to return 19 while the Tories slump by four to 15.
Robin Harper's Green Party could pick up another list member according to our figures while independent MSP Dennis Canavan would be returned once again.
Dr Peter Lynch, of Stirling University, said Labour would take comfort from our poll.
But he said they still had the difficult task of getting their voters out during an unpopular war.
He said: "In 1999, around a quarter of Labour's core voters stayed at home. To retain 55 MSPs, they have to ensure that doesn't happen again or else they could poll five to six per cent less in the first vote than these results.
"The fact that two-thirds of voters say they won't vote on the war may be comforting for Labour in one way.
"But that means if things go badly for them at the polls, then it will be down to the issues and they won't be able to blame the war."
A Labour Party spokesman said yesterday: "In the weeks to come, we are confident that voters will start to focus on the cost of the SNP's divorce from the UK and on Labour's commitment to more teachers, more nurses and more police officers."
SNP campaign manager Nicola Sturgeon said our poll was proof that an election victory is within her party's grasp. She said: "I don't believe that we are 10 points behind Labour on the first vote.
"But I do agree that we are slightly ahead of them on the second.
"This poll shows the election is still wide open."
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