20/06/2011 Newsnight Scotland

everywhere, have given women a Tonight on Newsnight Scotland,

remember this? I heard another room at! We have one another election! -

The report has been written. We can exclusively reveal coot the new

party of the working classes. Why voter profiles are a thing of the

past. We have had a couple of months to pass the results. Now we

have the full result of that political of -- our people. The

research examined Botha attitudes before and after polling day. The

political wisdom is out of date. Among his findings, the SNP won

more working-class support than Labour, but people were voting for

nationalism for reasons other than independence. The full report will

be released tomorrow, but we have We already know how Scotland voted,

but now we know why. Just six weeks after Scotland went to the polls,

we now know why the SNP won such a historic victory. This attacks

basically the full run of staff. This was the work of the University

of Strathclyde -- Strathclyde and University of Essex. They

interviewed people before and after the polls. One piece of the new

commercial wisdom is wrong. Eight myth developed that the Lib Dem

vote collapsed and it went to the SNP. In reality, it is a lot more

complex. A lot more was going on beneath the surface. Just under a

third of Labour voters from 2010 voted for the SNP in this election,

and half the Liberal Democrat went -- boat went to the SNP. The other

half went to the Labour Party. It wasn't a straight switch from the

Lib Dems to the SNP. The old rules no longer applied. In the past, an

SNP Botha was typically male. But now the gender gap has changed.

Once, Scotland's Roman Catholics Once, Scotland's Roman Catholics

were more likely to vote Labour, but now, the SNP have won the

biggest chunk of the vote. They also won the biggest amount of no

themselves as working class, the SNP were ahead of Labour. Now the

SNP were ahead of Labour. Now the SNP can claim that they are the

voice of the Scottish working class. We used to think of very particular

classes of people. You cannot say that so much now. Now we have to

say that they are general trends, but they are breaking apart, so we

find things like working-class voters when more for the SNP than

Labour. We found that younger voters went for the SNP. It did

well among women voters. Another example of this is how people did

or didn't vote according to national identity. As you would

expect, the SNP won the biggest shares of boats amount -- among

people who said they were more Scottish than British. But at the

Scottish than British. But at the other end of the spectrum, the SNP

still won more than 20 % of the vote. What was the attraction for

vote. What was the attraction for them? To the numbers tell us that

the SNP was a very competent government, and that is very

unusual. 52 % of people said that the SNP, the incumbent government,

the SNP, the incumbent government, were doing a very good job. I then

they subtracted the good marks from the bad marks to get an overall

and the breaking of the SNP government? Like the election, no

contest. Plus 36 %. In that statistic, more than any other,

statistic, more than any other, there is the reason for the SNP's

triumph. The voters rated the SNP a highly for being United, capable of

strong government, and in touch with ordinary people. Bake are seen

to have run a positive campaign, and Alex Salmond was the most

popular leader, but it was not a one-man band. The SNP as a whole

was more popular than he was. What was more popular than he was. What

does this mean for Scotland's future? All voters were asked about

the constitutional issue. Just over a quarter back independence. --

But any attempts to extrapolate these findings is have a does --

hazardous. What he does not tell us is what is going to happen in the

European election or the referendum. The electorate distinguishes but

Tween choosing a government and the options for the constitution. They

may be able to win another election, but it does not suggest that they

would be able to win a referendum in three or four years' time.

future is unwritten, but right now, in the context of Holyrood, the SNP

is the National Party of Scotland. We have a plethora of guests this

evening. We have two of the authors of the report, and we also have the

former SNP adviser UN Crawford. We also have John McTiernan, the

former Labour adviser. Thank you for coming in. This desk is getting

untidy, because every page of this report is fascinating. What do you

think are the most significant points from the research you have

done? I would pick up to make things. The point that Ken made in

the report about the competence gap. There was a perception that

Labour's performance in on the route will be rated better than

their performance in Westminster. What is very clear is that the

electorate would not have done -- the Electric thought that Labour

would not have done as good a job in Holyrood. The other point is

that how the SNP support came across the board. For example, a

significant proportion of people who voted Conservative in 2010 went

on to support the SNP in 2000 the 11th. That is as strong a statement

of the across the board thing as you can get. Why do you think that

happened? For example, with the urban spread we have now? We have

the women's boat, women are not voting for the SNP. That has now

closer to a two or three. Difference. -- a two or three point

That has turned around, and what actually happened was that the

curtain was unveiled and the true picture emerged, and the SNP fought

a four-year campaign, although they weren't seeking votes Compton's 3 -

- con just before a four year campaign. They set out with a

strategy to govern competently. The others hoped that they would not --

they would hate the nationalists as much as they did. There was only

one party that was seriously talking about how they were going

to govern. The Tories were not seen as a factor. If the SNP governs

well for four years, the Labour party ignores it, the SNP then

talks about governing during the election campaign. The result of

the election is not that shocking. When we looked at what was said on

the constitutional issue, it may have possibly been a different

answer. By except that people were not predicting that. 42 % were

saying no difference. Something is happening here in Scotland. I think

that is the dominant factor of Scottish politics. People will

happily vote Labour in a national it -- in a Westminster election,

and SNP in a Scottish election. It does not tell us anything about the

underlying shift in the constitutional settlement feeling.

There is a concern about domestic issues like education or health or

law and order, and two out of three of those, the SNP were quite behind

in terms of public opinion, so the next five years may be more about

the domestic issues rather than the constitution, because we see the

equilibrium that we are in. When you look at the block vote that has

gone to the SNP, none of the parties now can say that they can

depend on the core vote. Certainly for Labour, all of those

traditional areas that you would have associated with Labour,

whoever stood for them, you can no longer make back calculation. How

will that affect future campaigns, including the referendum campaign?

Labour got absolutely smashed in this campaign, and the SNP won a

thumping majority. It is not surprising that they won in every

little category. That is what happens in a landslide. Why did

that happen? Why did so many people... What do they get right

and what do they get wrong? They had a clear vision of the future of

Scotland. Labour did not. Labour ran a narrow target campaign, and

narrow target campaigns are not going to be a populist policy like

Alex Salmond's policies. The scale of the victory is the biggest

problem that the SNP has. They have voter's right across Scotland. Some

of them may have problems with law and order policies. There is going

to be a time when the focus goes on to what is happening in our schools

and jails, or where people are leaving with shorter sentences? In

that sense, I expect a couple of years of focusing on what you are

going to do with your majority, and you are seeing that come out

already with the spat with the Supreme Court. I think when we

return to domestic politics, we will see something interesting and

urgent -- emerging. The constitution of -- constitutional

issue is not shifting below this. When you look at the block vote, in

American politics, this targeting of the block vote is very

successful. Do you think something has been learned from America?

we saw the campaign, it was certain that parties, particularly the SNP,

looked at targeted campaigns at specific demographics. They had the

iPhone apps to get different people to bring out the vote. One of the

things that we see here is that the SNP did a very good job holding on

to their voters, and people lose their baby supported the party.

When we asked what people supported, the SNP held on to 70 % of the

people who said a priest who voted for the SNP. That his head and

shoulders above the other parties. Labour held on to about 40 %. Lib

Dems 30 %. The SNP not only managed to broaden, but they also managed

to hold on to their core, which is very important. A how difficult

would it be to hold on to that? What will they campaigned so this -

- campaign strategy be? He is quite heroic in his support of Labour,

but when we look back to 2003, which was a disappointing result

for the SNP, at that election, when you look back now, the SNP took

urban seats for the first time from Labour in head-to-head contests in

Dundee and Aberdeen. They held on to those areas. What is interesting

about that, in areas where the SNP are seen as credible, it tends to

hold onto those seats. I think it is wishful thinking to think that

the SNP has a huge majority, it has beaten Labour in Glasgow and

Edinburgh and Aberdeen and Dundee - - Dundee. That is a problem for

Labour. Of the Tote is not spread across the country. They used to

have to -- he used to be able to sweep up seat in western Scotland.

It is going on about SNP policies and education and criminal justice.

I don't think they have learnt many lessons as to where things went

Are looking at the ideological convergence of the parties'

policies, very similar indeed mind of the boat tiers, -- the voters,

and the campaign of valuations, who had the most positive campaign,

much better than the Labour campaign, for example, how

important will that be in the longer term? Can the SNP maintain

and build on that? It will be important. There is some truth in

what John was saying. There is any easy come, easy go feel about these

results, your reputation for competence can go quickly with one

or two crushing blows. It makes it very difficult to predict the

future, but we can say with confidence that if the SNP are

loses its reputation for competence it will come a cropper at the polls,

but predicting that is difficult. There seems to be a cost of being

an office, eventually enough things go wrong when the electorate will

turn against you. But my suspicion is that a lot of what is being said

by Labour now, you would have thought after 2007, give them time

in office, let's see things go wrong and things will turn back in

our direction. Things went dramatically the other way between

2007 and 2011, which delivers a boost to the image of the SNP that

we were talking about, they were seen as better in every respect

that a political party can be seen. There are not these big policy

differences now. Other than the constitution there is near

unanimity on almost every point. Looking at the leader of valuations,

that comes up. If the policies are similar, let's see the leadership

of valuations. In your one, the SNP was more popular than Alex Salmond.

Given the commentary before the election, lots of the commentary

was that Alex Salmond was playing along the party, but in fact the

party is somewhat more popular than he is -- Alex Salmond was playing

along the party. The Labour Party was significantly more popular than

its leader, but Annabel Goldie was consistently -- substantially more

parts -- popular than the Conservative Party. And Thai fish

stock as well. What does this mean, the fluidity

in voting? Scotland is entering the territory

that England ended in the 18 80s -- that England entered in the 1980s.

The party needs to do the same kind of rethinking that New Labour did

with Blair and Brown. There is no way forward by going back to the

past, the failed tactics of 2007, 2011. The party needs a fundamental

change in the way it addresses the public, talks about politics and

talks about Scotland. But the Labour Party has been there before

in the UK, this is like a similar defeat of the one that Michael Foot

received in 1983 which led to the rethinking of the Labour Party, one

of the most successful periods in Labour Party history. All politics

has to be fought for, you have a very promiscuous electorate, one

that is willing in one year to give a million votes to the Labour Party,

43% voted Labour, within a year, 43% will vote for the SNP. But some

fundamental questions there has not been a shift. They are very similar

in terms of their views of independence. In some sense we are

entering... Scotland has finally entering modern politics with very

mobile voters, meaning that every political party is kept on their

toes. Chris? Building on what he said, one thing the Labour Party

needs to realise as it moves forwards is there is a very

different party structure in terms of support amongst the electorate.

If we talk about the national UK love for buses the National

Scotland level, we embed the Den experiment in the survey to ask, if

you think about the UK, politics at Westminster, what party which you

say you support? And which party would you say you supported at

Harley rude? Labour supporters somewhat higher if they are talking

about UK level, but talking about the Scottish love of it is very

much the case that SNP support goes up dramatically -- talking about

the Scottish level. Parties have to keep in mind that the party's

support structure is different in Scotland than in the general

elections. If we look at the sense of the Scottish public... The sense

they have about Scottish interests in general, how closely the various

parties look after Scottish interests, the SNP is way ahead on

that one, it has managed to make that connection in the voters'

minds. How effective do you think we would be at managing cuts from

Westminster? Way ahead again. And the overall performance evaluations,

this plus 36 for the SNP was -12 for Labour had they been in

government, and -48 for the UK government coalition. Do you it --

accept the idea that we have a promiscuous electorate, or do you

think people are making quite subtle comparisons and quite

detailed comparisons? There is a clear differential in this election

compared with last year. The SNP does better in Scottish Parliament

elections than in Westminster elections. Of the various lights

you have alluded to, the one I thought was particularly

interesting and must be particularly alarming for Labour is

that at the start of the campaign the Labour Party effectively said

we are not overly interested in governing Scotland, but Scotland

can be a pressure group. Ed Miliband came to Scotland and said,

we can start a fight back against the Tories. They put all that

effort into saying, vote for us, and the Electric said, we do not

think you will be very good. -- and the electorate said, we do not

think you will be very good. If you think about the old orthodoxies

being gone, do you think there is something now but voting patterns

in Scotland, the mould has been broken permanently? Casting forward,

what do you think it will be like? There is the element of a cycle in

that the more the voters seem promiscuous and willing to cross

these social boundaries, though less incentive there is for parties

to target voters in a kind of social way. For example, Labour

built New Labour and ordered to appeal across class boundaries. You

would never hear them talking about class. It as a result they will

lose a lot of working-class support because they are no longer saying

you are the natural supporters Flores, the constituency we are

catering for. I think this process of the alignment will continue, the

incentive for the parties to reverse it is not that.

Thank you all very much indeed. A quick look at tomorrow's papers,

Scotland has been killed by three services says the chief-executive

of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. He says universal

benefits should be aimed at the much midi -- most needy.

The Times and the F T both talk about the IMF tying brigade to a

bail out pledges. Gordon is back It will stay pretty showery for the

rest of the week, positively wet across northern parts of the UK

through the day. Parts of Scotland in particular will have fairly

persistent rain keeping things rather cool. Further south, some

sunshine with heavy and possibly thundery showers across northern

England. Fewer showers further south, Wimbledon will probably get

away with it, a largely dry day with sunshine. Some showers across

south-west England and Wales, but because there will be a breeze, the

showers should not last too long. Not too warm, 14 or 15 degrees. Not

much warmer for Northern Ireland, maybe some drier spells but further

downpours possible. For Scotland, looking thoroughly wet across many

areas. Away from the far north, we will keep brightness going. No

prospect of things trying dramatically in the next few days.

Wednesday looks a showery across northern parts of the UK. More

showers further south, more chance of interruptions at Wimbledon by

the middle of the week. This is the picture on Wednesday, starting off

bright across south-eastern areas but the showers will move in from