SNP show strong support at Westminster

Amid a weekend of gloomy polls for Labour, SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson today pointed to the Independent on Sunday ComRes poll, the Scottish sample of which gives the SNP a 2 point lead over Labour: with the SNP taking 30% to Labour's 28% if a general election were to be held tomorrow.

Mr Robertson said:

"As the latest opinion poll indicates continued growth in support for the SNP, and overtaking Labour even for a Westminster election, it is clear that backing for Gordon Brown and Labour is draining away.

"It is a tale of two governments  - the SNP under Alex Salmond is
demonstrating competence, credibility and success, while Gordon Brown's government dithers its way from crisis to crisis.

"Even in Gordon Brown's supposed Scottish heartland, more people think Labour will have a better chance of winning the next election if Brown goes.

"In addition, the Yougov poll in the Sunday Times shows that voters have seen through Labour's cynical compensation ploy over the abolition of the 10 pence tax rate.  They are not going to be bought off with a half hearted compensation package that gives even greater tax breaks to the well off and leaves over a million people, 100,000 of them in Scotland, worse off than they were before."


The ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday polled 1,004 people on the 14th and 15th May 2008, including 88 in Scotland.

When asked if there was a general election would you vote Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or for some other party, the results in Scotland were as follows:
SNP 30%, Lab 28%, LD 19%, Con 16%, Green 1%, Other 6%

When asked "the Labour Party has to change leader if it is to have a chance of winning the next election" 48% of respondents in Scotland agreed, 46% disagreed and 6% didn't know.

The YouGov UK poll for the Sunday Times polled 1854 people between the 15th and 16th May 2008

Alistair Darling announced last week that he would raise personal tax allowances at a cost of £2.7 billion to compensate the losers from Gordon Brown's abolition of the 10p income tax rate. Which of these statements comes closer to your view?
* It was a sensible and necessary move to correct a mistake that the Government now admits it made over the way it handled the issue: 36%
* It was a cynical ploy to bribe voters ahead of the Crewe & Nantwich by-election, at a time when the public finances are already in a bad way: 47%
* Neither: 8%
* Don't know: 9%