Tory surge threatens SNP in Donside

By John PoulticeThe World's Only Polling Specialist

ee pollA shock poll published in the Aberdeen Evening Express suggests that the Tories are poised to make a shock gain in Aberdeen Donside.

Such a result in the SNP heartland would be a devastating blow to the separatists' hope of snatching victory in next year's referendum.

Tory candidate, Ross Thomson, was ecstatic about the poll. He tweeted, "EE poll shows Tories challenging SNP in Donside. Lab and Libs out of the race."

The actual numbers are -

SNP - 45 : Con - 15 : Lab - 13 : UKIP - 11 : LD - 6 : Green - 0 : Nat Front - 0 : Christians - 0 : SDA - 0 : Fit election? - 35.

Of course, as a professional pollster, I need to guide you to the correct interpretation of the polls, which you must take as gospel.

As I pointed out, the figures above are what we experts call "numbers".

These are actual integers which represent the precise number of individuals who responded to the poll. After lengthy calculation, I determined that the actual number of individuals polled was 126.

statistic

numbers-2

A number is a different thing from a percentage and, though the mathematics of this will be well beyond your simple minds, a statistic may (or not) include a number, or a percentage, or both or neither!

A separatist polling expert (were there such a thing) would claim that those who had no opinion were unlikely to vote anyway in a by election, where the number of voters who can be arsed to turn out is normally even lower than in a General Election, so should be discounted.

Were that idea to be followed then the percentages would become SNP - 50% : Con - 17% : Lab - 14% : UKIP - 12% : LD - 7% : Green - 0% : Nat Front - 0% : Christians - 0% : SDA - 0%. A drop of only 5% in the SNP vote after 6 years in power is so ludicrous that the separatist approach must be wholly discounted.

The shocking data in the poll is the huge swing to the right. Despite the SNP's Social Democratic policies, they have been portrayed as being on the far Fascist Right of politics for so long that must actually be there. Apart from the Greens (on the loony Left, but without a single supporter) all the other UK parties are clearly on the Right, so a devastating 100% of voters are supporting right wing parties!

The interesting aspect for students of right wing parties is the movement between them, compared with the 2011 election. Then the SNP gained 55% of the vote, Labour 29%, Tories 8%, Lib Dems 6% and the National Front less than 1%. Only 1% voted then for the Independent candidate, proving that support for separatism was virtually non-existent.

The shift between the UK right wing parties is astonishing. Labour (once seen as the bastion of conservatism in Scotland) has lost 14% of its support, Most of these former Labour supporters have found their natural home in either UKIP or the Tories. No wonder that Ross Thomson has had a pollgasm!

Alternatively, when asked to comment on the poll, I could have said "A poll of 126 people is so meaningless that only really rubbish media outlets would report it." However, Johnny Bossyman wouldn't have paid me my large fee for saying that, and my bank balance is the really interesting statistic here.


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