Find Out Found Out?

There’s an interesting post by Ballot Box Scotland that has gone missing from many timelines, including, initially my own. This absence is the result of the Twitter X-odus, which now leaves some people camped on Bluesky/Mastodon (and alternatives) and some stranded on X.

Titled ‘A Plea for Plausible Polling‘ the independent pollster Allan Faulds casts doubt. to put it very mildly, on the methodology used by the company “FindOutNow” to get the results published by the Herald at the weekend.

Fauld’s argument comes into three categories, arguing that the FindOutNow polls just don’t align with any other trends in more established pollsters. They say:

“25% for the SNP would be a record low for them this term …A low share alone isn’t fatal to the poll’s credibility, but it runs counter to both Norstat and Survation findings recently, which have found modest recoveries in SNP shares. Both have found the SNP up 4% from low points in the summer; from 28% in August to 32% in December for Norstat, and from 27% in August to 31% in January for Survation.”

and

“Labour have been doing badly lately, and I wouldn’t actually be shocked by a 15% figure in general…if it wasn’t paired with the SNP doing so poorly, and what is in statistical terms effectively a tie for second place with the Conservatives, Greens and Lib Dems who are all on 13%. Those are much higher figures for the two smaller parties than anyone else has found lately. Although they aren’t unprecedented in this term, I struggle to see both being at that level in the same poll in the current political atmosphere. I also simply don’t buy that we’ve got five parties running that close in support to one another, or that Reform are the smallest of those right now.”

…but it’s the third area where Ballot Box Scotland has real alarm bells at the accuracy of the polling:

“Although I have concerns about much of this poll, it’s a record-setting 7% share for Alba that is most egregious. With pollsters that *don’t* have high-Alba house effects, the party has averaged 2.1% since 2021, peaking at 3%. Norstat, average 4%, peak 5%. FindOutNow, average 5.7%, peak 7%.”

 

BBS writes: “The differences here are huge in relative terms. The bulk of Scottish polling since 2021, by firms including Savanta, Ipsos, YouGov, Opinium and Survation, has averaged out at just 2.1% for Alba, and indeed none of them have found anything higher than 3%. When you consider that margin of error for a standard 1000 sample poll is about 1% at the 3% mark, in statistical terms most pollsters don’t think Alba have advanced at all since 2021, and never have in even a single one of their polls.”

BBS argues that the Alba figures are highly suspect: “…it’s just not credible in context. Alba are leaderless at the moment; they were an Alex Salmond vehicle, and he is gone. The SNP are stabilising; if Alba didn’t gain whilst the SNP are collapsing, why would they now? And Alba can’t or won’t even stand in by-elections in their best areas.”

“This factor alone makes me extremely sceptical of a sudden Alba surge. Bereft of its central figure, controversial and offputting as he was in his latter years, it stretches credibility to suggest that what was functionally the Alex Salmond Party is now on a winning track.”

Ballot Box Scotland makes a strong case for doubting the FindOutNow polling. Newspapers are desperate for some clickbait and this made huge traction for the paper (with a lot of help from John Curtice.)

I think taking on board BBS’s critique it’s fair to say that there are three strong trends here: the SNP stabilising in a post-Sturgeon era; Labour struggling under the failures of the Starmer government; the Union vote being split between Tories and Reform.

Which leaves the question of ALBA.

There is an alternative to the BBS critique of the polls, and that is that the political moment is so wild and fluctuating that new and emergent patterns are coming through that previous pollsters haven’t picked up. To be confirmed that would require the sort of results that FindOutNow have traced here to be replicated, and is, I admit, unlikely.

There is another possible reason for Alba showing higher than ever before figures. Alex Salmond’s premature death has left him in semi-mythological status. Figures I might have previously considered serious have said things like “He’s like Bruce and Wallace now” and it’s certainly true that a code of silence is now enforced around any criticism of him. So it may be that this new found status, and omerta, is more useful for Alba than before.

But, there are problems.

The leadership contest is between Ash Regan and Kenny McAskill.

Ash Regan, famous for her Independence Thermometer, this week claimed her resignation from the SNP brought down Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell.

In a mini podcast she released at the end of January she seemed to claim that she was good at getting publicity for Alba because she’d written a letter to Elon Musk …

“Over the Christmas holiday period with my letter to Elon Musk asking him to bring jobs to Scotland … the UK Prime Minister was forced to come out and respond to Elon Msk over his Christmas holiday period … and I think that story was featured not just on some of the Scottish but the London papers such as the Telegraph and even the New York Times … so it is entirely possible for small parties to create relevance but you have to have that vision … you have to be something I think Alex was … a bit of a disruptor … be prepared to have slightly out of the box ideas …”

 

My interview on This Week in Holyrood.
“I am very focussed on making Alba relevant”
Listen 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/awcERDGgVx

— Ash Regan MSP (@AshReganALBA) January 26, 2025

If Regan might be the logical candidate given that she is the party’s sole MSP, it seems Kenny McAskill is billed as Salmond’s inheritor and has the support of his family (‘Salmond’s sister and niece back MacAskill for Alba leader‘). In not-so-tricky code McAskill announced: “We cannot allow a drift to the right or pursue a populist agenda pushed by wealthy oligarchs.”

But there is a problem.

When McAskill ran for Alloa and Grangemouth he got just 1.5% of the vote, losing out to Eva Comrie, who was an Alba splinter candidate (she got 2.1%).

Alloa and Grangemouth: Labour: 18039 (44.6%, +30.1) SNP: 11917 (29.4%, -23.2) Conservative: 3127 (7.7%, -17.1) Reform UK: 3084 (7.6%, +7.2) Green: 1421 (3.5%,+ 2) Lib Dem: 1151 (2.8%, -2.5) Independent: 881 (2.2%) Alba: 638 (1.6%, new) Workers: 223 (0.6%)

My thoughts are that Ballot Box Scotland is probably right and that this poll is likely to be a rogue poll that is unlikely to be repeated. For Alba to make a genuine breakthrough, I’d have thought two things would have to happen. The first is that the SNP stabilisation falters, the second thing is that a credible and articulate leader emerges for Alba, one that can carry electoral support beyond the party. Neither seems credible.