:00:12. > :00:20.everywhere, have given women a Tonight on Newsnight Scotland,
:00:20. > :00:30.remember this? I heard another room at! We have one another election! -
:00:30. > :00:32.
:00:32. > :00:39.The report has been written. We can exclusively reveal coot the new
:00:39. > :00:48.party of the working classes. Why voter profiles are a thing of the
:00:48. > :00:54.past. We have had a couple of months to pass the results. Now we
:00:54. > :00:59.have the full result of that political of -- our people. The
:00:59. > :01:05.research examined Botha attitudes before and after polling day. The
:01:05. > :01:09.political wisdom is out of date. Among his findings, the SNP won
:01:09. > :01:12.more working-class support than Labour, but people were voting for
:01:12. > :01:22.nationalism for reasons other than independence. The full report will
:01:22. > :01:29.
:01:29. > :01:35.be released tomorrow, but we have We already know how Scotland voted,
:01:35. > :01:43.but now we know why. Just six weeks after Scotland went to the polls,
:01:44. > :01:49.we now know why the SNP won such a historic victory. This attacks
:01:49. > :01:58.basically the full run of staff. This was the work of the University
:01:58. > :02:04.of Strathclyde -- Strathclyde and University of Essex. They
:02:04. > :02:11.interviewed people before and after the polls. One piece of the new
:02:11. > :02:18.commercial wisdom is wrong. Eight myth developed that the Lib Dem
:02:18. > :02:24.vote collapsed and it went to the SNP. In reality, it is a lot more
:02:24. > :02:31.complex. A lot more was going on beneath the surface. Just under a
:02:31. > :02:35.third of Labour voters from 2010 voted for the SNP in this election,
:02:35. > :02:42.and half the Liberal Democrat went -- boat went to the SNP. The other
:02:42. > :02:51.half went to the Labour Party. It wasn't a straight switch from the
:02:51. > :02:57.Lib Dems to the SNP. The old rules no longer applied. In the past, an
:02:57. > :03:01.SNP Botha was typically male. But now the gender gap has changed.
:03:01. > :03:07.Once, Scotland's Roman Catholics Once, Scotland's Roman Catholics
:03:07. > :03:13.were more likely to vote Labour, but now, the SNP have won the
:03:13. > :03:23.biggest chunk of the vote. They also won the biggest amount of no
:03:23. > :03:29.
:03:29. > :03:31.themselves as working class, the SNP were ahead of Labour. Now the
:03:31. > :03:36.SNP were ahead of Labour. Now the SNP can claim that they are the
:03:36. > :03:42.voice of the Scottish working class. We used to think of very particular
:03:42. > :03:48.classes of people. You cannot say that so much now. Now we have to
:03:48. > :03:53.say that they are general trends, but they are breaking apart, so we
:03:53. > :03:59.find things like working-class voters when more for the SNP than
:03:59. > :04:05.Labour. We found that younger voters went for the SNP. It did
:04:05. > :04:11.well among women voters. Another example of this is how people did
:04:11. > :04:17.or didn't vote according to national identity. As you would
:04:18. > :04:21.expect, the SNP won the biggest shares of boats amount -- among
:04:21. > :04:26.people who said they were more Scottish than British. But at the
:04:26. > :04:30.Scottish than British. But at the other end of the spectrum, the SNP
:04:30. > :04:34.still won more than 20 % of the vote. What was the attraction for
:04:34. > :04:39.vote. What was the attraction for them? To the numbers tell us that
:04:39. > :04:46.the SNP was a very competent government, and that is very
:04:46. > :04:53.unusual. 52 % of people said that the SNP, the incumbent government,
:04:53. > :05:00.the SNP, the incumbent government, were doing a very good job. I then
:05:00. > :05:10.they subtracted the good marks from the bad marks to get an overall
:05:10. > :05:16.
:05:16. > :05:22.and the breaking of the SNP government? Like the election, no
:05:22. > :05:26.contest. Plus 36 %. In that statistic, more than any other,
:05:26. > :05:31.statistic, more than any other, there is the reason for the SNP's
:05:31. > :05:36.triumph. The voters rated the SNP a highly for being United, capable of
:05:36. > :05:40.strong government, and in touch with ordinary people. Bake are seen
:05:40. > :05:45.to have run a positive campaign, and Alex Salmond was the most
:05:45. > :05:48.popular leader, but it was not a one-man band. The SNP as a whole
:05:48. > :05:52.was more popular than he was. What was more popular than he was. What
:05:52. > :05:57.does this mean for Scotland's future? All voters were asked about
:05:57. > :06:07.the constitutional issue. Just over a quarter back independence. --
:06:07. > :06:09.
:06:10. > :06:15.But any attempts to extrapolate these findings is have a does --
:06:15. > :06:22.hazardous. What he does not tell us is what is going to happen in the
:06:22. > :06:26.European election or the referendum. The electorate distinguishes but
:06:26. > :06:30.Tween choosing a government and the options for the constitution. They
:06:30. > :06:34.may be able to win another election, but it does not suggest that they
:06:34. > :06:39.would be able to win a referendum in three or four years' time.
:06:39. > :06:46.future is unwritten, but right now, in the context of Holyrood, the SNP
:06:46. > :06:56.is the National Party of Scotland. We have a plethora of guests this
:06:56. > :06:59.
:06:59. > :07:06.evening. We have two of the authors of the report, and we also have the
:07:06. > :07:13.former SNP adviser UN Crawford. We also have John McTiernan, the
:07:14. > :07:20.former Labour adviser. Thank you for coming in. This desk is getting
:07:20. > :07:22.untidy, because every page of this report is fascinating. What do you
:07:22. > :07:28.think are the most significant points from the research you have
:07:28. > :07:32.done? I would pick up to make things. The point that Ken made in
:07:32. > :07:35.the report about the competence gap. There was a perception that
:07:35. > :07:41.Labour's performance in on the route will be rated better than
:07:41. > :07:45.their performance in Westminster. What is very clear is that the
:07:45. > :07:51.electorate would not have done -- the Electric thought that Labour
:07:52. > :07:58.would not have done as good a job in Holyrood. The other point is
:07:58. > :08:03.that how the SNP support came across the board. For example, a
:08:03. > :08:08.significant proportion of people who voted Conservative in 2010 went
:08:08. > :08:13.on to support the SNP in 2000 the 11th. That is as strong a statement
:08:13. > :08:18.of the across the board thing as you can get. Why do you think that
:08:18. > :08:25.happened? For example, with the urban spread we have now? We have
:08:25. > :08:31.the women's boat, women are not voting for the SNP. That has now
:08:31. > :08:41.closer to a two or three. Difference. -- a two or three point
:08:41. > :08:45.
:08:45. > :08:51.That has turned around, and what actually happened was that the
:08:51. > :08:57.curtain was unveiled and the true picture emerged, and the SNP fought
:08:57. > :09:02.a four-year campaign, although they weren't seeking votes Compton's 3 -
:09:02. > :09:12.- con just before a four year campaign. They set out with a
:09:12. > :09:16.strategy to govern competently. The others hoped that they would not --
:09:16. > :09:23.they would hate the nationalists as much as they did. There was only
:09:23. > :09:32.one party that was seriously talking about how they were going
:09:32. > :09:36.to govern. The Tories were not seen as a factor. If the SNP governs
:09:36. > :09:41.well for four years, the Labour party ignores it, the SNP then
:09:41. > :09:47.talks about governing during the election campaign. The result of
:09:47. > :09:54.the election is not that shocking. When we looked at what was said on
:09:55. > :10:00.the constitutional issue, it may have possibly been a different
:10:00. > :10:10.answer. By except that people were not predicting that. 42 % were
:10:10. > :10:11.
:10:11. > :10:15.saying no difference. Something is happening here in Scotland. I think
:10:15. > :10:23.that is the dominant factor of Scottish politics. People will
:10:23. > :10:30.happily vote Labour in a national it -- in a Westminster election,
:10:30. > :10:33.and SNP in a Scottish election. It does not tell us anything about the
:10:33. > :10:38.underlying shift in the constitutional settlement feeling.
:10:39. > :10:43.There is a concern about domestic issues like education or health or
:10:43. > :10:48.law and order, and two out of three of those, the SNP were quite behind
:10:48. > :10:51.in terms of public opinion, so the next five years may be more about
:10:51. > :10:56.the domestic issues rather than the constitution, because we see the
:10:56. > :10:59.equilibrium that we are in. When you look at the block vote that has
:11:00. > :11:03.gone to the SNP, none of the parties now can say that they can
:11:03. > :11:08.depend on the core vote. Certainly for Labour, all of those
:11:08. > :11:11.traditional areas that you would have associated with Labour,
:11:11. > :11:17.whoever stood for them, you can no longer make back calculation. How
:11:18. > :11:22.will that affect future campaigns, including the referendum campaign?
:11:22. > :11:29.Labour got absolutely smashed in this campaign, and the SNP won a
:11:29. > :11:33.thumping majority. It is not surprising that they won in every
:11:33. > :11:43.little category. That is what happens in a landslide. Why did
:11:43. > :11:43.
:11:43. > :11:51.that happen? Why did so many people... What do they get right
:11:51. > :11:57.and what do they get wrong? They had a clear vision of the future of
:11:57. > :12:05.Scotland. Labour did not. Labour ran a narrow target campaign, and
:12:05. > :12:12.narrow target campaigns are not going to be a populist policy like
:12:12. > :12:21.Alex Salmond's policies. The scale of the victory is the biggest
:12:21. > :12:25.problem that the SNP has. They have voter's right across Scotland. Some
:12:25. > :12:32.of them may have problems with law and order policies. There is going
:12:32. > :12:39.to be a time when the focus goes on to what is happening in our schools
:12:39. > :12:43.and jails, or where people are leaving with shorter sentences? In
:12:43. > :12:46.that sense, I expect a couple of years of focusing on what you are
:12:46. > :12:51.going to do with your majority, and you are seeing that come out
:12:51. > :12:55.already with the spat with the Supreme Court. I think when we
:12:55. > :12:58.return to domestic politics, we will see something interesting and
:12:58. > :13:02.urgent -- emerging. The constitution of -- constitutional
:13:02. > :13:06.issue is not shifting below this. When you look at the block vote, in
:13:06. > :13:13.American politics, this targeting of the block vote is very
:13:13. > :13:23.successful. Do you think something has been learned from America?
:13:23. > :13:23.
:13:23. > :13:27.we saw the campaign, it was certain that parties, particularly the SNP,
:13:27. > :13:35.looked at targeted campaigns at specific demographics. They had the
:13:35. > :13:41.iPhone apps to get different people to bring out the vote. One of the
:13:41. > :13:46.things that we see here is that the SNP did a very good job holding on
:13:46. > :13:53.to their voters, and people lose their baby supported the party.
:13:53. > :13:57.When we asked what people supported, the SNP held on to 70 % of the
:13:57. > :14:04.people who said a priest who voted for the SNP. That his head and
:14:04. > :14:08.shoulders above the other parties. Labour held on to about 40 %. Lib
:14:08. > :14:13.Dems 30 %. The SNP not only managed to broaden, but they also managed
:14:13. > :14:19.to hold on to their core, which is very important. A how difficult
:14:19. > :14:25.would it be to hold on to that? What will they campaigned so this -
:14:25. > :14:29.- campaign strategy be? He is quite heroic in his support of Labour,
:14:29. > :14:35.but when we look back to 2003, which was a disappointing result
:14:35. > :14:40.for the SNP, at that election, when you look back now, the SNP took
:14:40. > :14:44.urban seats for the first time from Labour in head-to-head contests in
:14:44. > :14:53.Dundee and Aberdeen. They held on to those areas. What is interesting
:14:53. > :14:58.about that, in areas where the SNP are seen as credible, it tends to
:14:58. > :15:03.hold onto those seats. I think it is wishful thinking to think that
:15:03. > :15:07.the SNP has a huge majority, it has beaten Labour in Glasgow and
:15:07. > :15:14.Edinburgh and Aberdeen and Dundee - - Dundee. That is a problem for
:15:14. > :15:19.Labour. Of the Tote is not spread across the country. They used to
:15:19. > :15:23.have to -- he used to be able to sweep up seat in western Scotland.
:15:23. > :15:28.It is going on about SNP policies and education and criminal justice.
:15:28. > :15:38.I don't think they have learnt many lessons as to where things went
:15:38. > :15:40.
:15:40. > :15:49.Are looking at the ideological convergence of the parties'
:15:49. > :15:54.policies, very similar indeed mind of the boat tiers, -- the voters,
:15:54. > :15:59.and the campaign of valuations, who had the most positive campaign,
:15:59. > :16:03.much better than the Labour campaign, for example, how
:16:03. > :16:09.important will that be in the longer term? Can the SNP maintain
:16:09. > :16:12.and build on that? It will be important. There is some truth in
:16:12. > :16:17.what John was saying. There is any easy come, easy go feel about these
:16:18. > :16:22.results, your reputation for competence can go quickly with one
:16:22. > :16:26.or two crushing blows. It makes it very difficult to predict the
:16:26. > :16:30.future, but we can say with confidence that if the SNP are
:16:30. > :16:36.loses its reputation for competence it will come a cropper at the polls,
:16:36. > :16:39.but predicting that is difficult. There seems to be a cost of being
:16:39. > :16:44.an office, eventually enough things go wrong when the electorate will
:16:44. > :16:49.turn against you. But my suspicion is that a lot of what is being said
:16:49. > :16:52.by Labour now, you would have thought after 2007, give them time
:16:52. > :16:59.in office, let's see things go wrong and things will turn back in
:16:59. > :17:03.our direction. Things went dramatically the other way between
:17:03. > :17:07.2007 and 2011, which delivers a boost to the image of the SNP that
:17:07. > :17:11.we were talking about, they were seen as better in every respect
:17:11. > :17:15.that a political party can be seen. There are not these big policy
:17:15. > :17:20.differences now. Other than the constitution there is near
:17:20. > :17:25.unanimity on almost every point. Looking at the leader of valuations,
:17:25. > :17:33.that comes up. If the policies are similar, let's see the leadership
:17:33. > :17:37.of valuations. In your one, the SNP was more popular than Alex Salmond.
:17:37. > :17:40.Given the commentary before the election, lots of the commentary
:17:40. > :17:46.was that Alex Salmond was playing along the party, but in fact the
:17:46. > :17:51.party is somewhat more popular than he is -- Alex Salmond was playing
:17:51. > :17:56.along the party. The Labour Party was significantly more popular than
:17:56. > :18:01.its leader, but Annabel Goldie was consistently -- substantially more
:18:01. > :18:05.parts -- popular than the Conservative Party. And Thai fish
:18:05. > :18:15.stock as well. What does this mean, the fluidity
:18:15. > :18:15.
:18:15. > :18:24.in voting? Scotland is entering the territory
:18:24. > :18:31.that England ended in the 18 80s -- that England entered in the 1980s.
:18:31. > :18:34.The party needs to do the same kind of rethinking that New Labour did
:18:34. > :18:41.with Blair and Brown. There is no way forward by going back to the
:18:41. > :18:46.past, the failed tactics of 2007, 2011. The party needs a fundamental
:18:46. > :18:50.change in the way it addresses the public, talks about politics and
:18:50. > :18:55.talks about Scotland. But the Labour Party has been there before
:18:55. > :19:01.in the UK, this is like a similar defeat of the one that Michael Foot
:19:01. > :19:05.received in 1983 which led to the rethinking of the Labour Party, one
:19:05. > :19:10.of the most successful periods in Labour Party history. All politics
:19:10. > :19:17.has to be fought for, you have a very promiscuous electorate, one
:19:17. > :19:24.that is willing in one year to give a million votes to the Labour Party,
:19:24. > :19:32.43% voted Labour, within a year, 43% will vote for the SNP. But some
:19:32. > :19:39.fundamental questions there has not been a shift. They are very similar
:19:39. > :19:43.in terms of their views of independence. In some sense we are
:19:43. > :19:48.entering... Scotland has finally entering modern politics with very
:19:48. > :19:53.mobile voters, meaning that every political party is kept on their
:19:53. > :19:58.toes. Chris? Building on what he said, one thing the Labour Party
:19:58. > :20:03.needs to realise as it moves forwards is there is a very
:20:03. > :20:06.different party structure in terms of support amongst the electorate.
:20:06. > :20:11.If we talk about the national UK love for buses the National
:20:11. > :20:16.Scotland level, we embed the Den experiment in the survey to ask, if
:20:16. > :20:20.you think about the UK, politics at Westminster, what party which you
:20:20. > :20:25.say you support? And which party would you say you supported at
:20:25. > :20:29.Harley rude? Labour supporters somewhat higher if they are talking
:20:29. > :20:34.about UK level, but talking about the Scottish love of it is very
:20:34. > :20:42.much the case that SNP support goes up dramatically -- talking about
:20:42. > :20:45.the Scottish level. Parties have to keep in mind that the party's
:20:45. > :20:54.support structure is different in Scotland than in the general
:20:54. > :21:00.elections. If we look at the sense of the Scottish public... The sense
:21:00. > :21:03.they have about Scottish interests in general, how closely the various
:21:03. > :21:10.parties look after Scottish interests, the SNP is way ahead on
:21:10. > :21:14.that one, it has managed to make that connection in the voters'
:21:14. > :21:19.minds. How effective do you think we would be at managing cuts from
:21:19. > :21:27.Westminster? Way ahead again. And the overall performance evaluations,
:21:27. > :21:35.this plus 36 for the SNP was -12 for Labour had they been in
:21:35. > :21:40.government, and -48 for the UK government coalition. Do you it --
:21:40. > :21:45.accept the idea that we have a promiscuous electorate, or do you
:21:46. > :21:51.think people are making quite subtle comparisons and quite
:21:51. > :21:57.detailed comparisons? There is a clear differential in this election
:21:57. > :22:00.compared with last year. The SNP does better in Scottish Parliament
:22:00. > :22:04.elections than in Westminster elections. Of the various lights
:22:04. > :22:07.you have alluded to, the one I thought was particularly
:22:07. > :22:10.interesting and must be particularly alarming for Labour is
:22:10. > :22:15.that at the start of the campaign the Labour Party effectively said
:22:15. > :22:19.we are not overly interested in governing Scotland, but Scotland
:22:19. > :22:24.can be a pressure group. Ed Miliband came to Scotland and said,
:22:24. > :22:27.we can start a fight back against the Tories. They put all that
:22:27. > :22:33.effort into saying, vote for us, and the Electric said, we do not
:22:33. > :22:37.think you will be very good. -- and the electorate said, we do not
:22:37. > :22:42.think you will be very good. If you think about the old orthodoxies
:22:42. > :22:47.being gone, do you think there is something now but voting patterns
:22:47. > :22:52.in Scotland, the mould has been broken permanently? Casting forward,
:22:52. > :22:56.what do you think it will be like? There is the element of a cycle in
:22:56. > :23:00.that the more the voters seem promiscuous and willing to cross
:23:00. > :23:07.these social boundaries, though less incentive there is for parties
:23:07. > :23:10.to target voters in a kind of social way. For example, Labour
:23:10. > :23:14.built New Labour and ordered to appeal across class boundaries. You
:23:14. > :23:18.would never hear them talking about class. It as a result they will
:23:18. > :23:22.lose a lot of working-class support because they are no longer saying
:23:22. > :23:28.you are the natural supporters Flores, the constituency we are
:23:28. > :23:31.catering for. I think this process of the alignment will continue, the
:23:31. > :23:37.incentive for the parties to reverse it is not that.
:23:37. > :23:42.Thank you all very much indeed. A quick look at tomorrow's papers,
:23:42. > :23:46.Scotland has been killed by three services says the chief-executive
:23:46. > :23:50.of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. He says universal
:23:50. > :23:57.benefits should be aimed at the much midi -- most needy.
:23:57. > :24:07.The Times and the F T both talk about the IMF tying brigade to a
:24:07. > :24:12.
:24:12. > :24:15.bail out pledges. Gordon is back It will stay pretty showery for the
:24:15. > :24:19.rest of the week, positively wet across northern parts of the UK
:24:19. > :24:24.through the day. Parts of Scotland in particular will have fairly
:24:24. > :24:28.persistent rain keeping things rather cool. Further south, some
:24:28. > :24:32.sunshine with heavy and possibly thundery showers across northern
:24:33. > :24:38.England. Fewer showers further south, Wimbledon will probably get
:24:39. > :24:44.away with it, a largely dry day with sunshine. Some showers across
:24:44. > :24:53.south-west England and Wales, but because there will be a breeze, the
:24:53. > :24:57.showers should not last too long. Not too warm, 14 or 15 degrees. Not
:24:57. > :25:02.much warmer for Northern Ireland, maybe some drier spells but further
:25:02. > :25:06.downpours possible. For Scotland, looking thoroughly wet across many
:25:06. > :25:11.areas. Away from the far north, we will keep brightness going. No
:25:11. > :25:15.prospect of things trying dramatically in the next few days.
:25:15. > :25:20.Wednesday looks a showery across northern parts of the UK. More
:25:20. > :25:24.showers further south, more chance of interruptions at Wimbledon by
:25:24. > :25:28.the middle of the week. This is the picture on Wednesday, starting off
:25:28. > :25:32.bright across south-eastern areas but the showers will move in from