Two new Scottish polls show that Nicola Sturgeon is still more popular than every other leading politicianThere's been chatter in some quarters, which seems to me rooted largely in wishful thinking, that Nicola Sturgeon is on the way out as First Minister due to increasing unpopularity. And it's certainly true that her personal ratings in opinion polls have dipped, and it may well even be true that this is partly because her foolishness in placing herself so thoroughly and comprehensively on the wrong side of public opinion on the trans issue has finally caught up with her. But there's one obvious problem with the 'Sturgeon is toast' theory - why is every other leading politician still less popular than she is? If she's toast, then presumably the same must be true to an even greater extent of Anas Sarwar, and Keir Starmer, and Rishi Sunak, and Alex "Fast Bowler" Cole-Hamilton.
YouGov Net Ratings (Scotland-only poll, 23rd-26th January 2023):
Nicola Sturgeon: -4
Keir Starmer: -10
Stephen Flynn: -12
Lorna Slater: -12
Anas Sarwar: -14
Alex Cole-Hamilton: -14
Patrick Harvie: -16
John Swinney: -20
Douglas Ross: -35
Rishi Sunak: -40
Ipsos UK Net Ratings (Scotland-only poll, 30th January-1st February 2023):
Nicola Sturgeon: 0
Keir Starmer: -1
Anas Sarwar: -4
Douglas Ross: -41
Rishi Sunak: -42
When Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I vaguely remember joking that it was terrible news for Douglas Ross because it condemned him to going back to being less popular in Scotland than his UK Tory counterpart. Well, give Ross his due - he's somehow now less unpopular than Sunak, although that's a fairly low bar to clear at the moment because Sunak's numbers are mind-bogglingly abysmal. Sunak is clearly a talented communicator - in terms of his basic personality I don't actually particularly dislike him, which is almost unprecedented in a Tory leader, so such awful numbers must be down to a large extent to the ongoing toxicity of the Tory party in Scotland. Probably anyone in 10 Downing Street at the moment would suffer the same effect.
A couple of other nuggets of interest from the two polls - YouGov show a plurality of 47-42 in favour of an independence referendum being held within the next five years. Mysteriously that result hasn't attracted much attention from our legendarily neutral mainstream media. Meanwhile, Ipsos UK have found a 50-33 plurality in support of the UK Government's imperial veto of the GRR Bill. However, my view is that the question wording - although perfectly legitimate - is likely to have focused respondents' attention on how they feel about the gender identity issue itself, rather than the principle of the veto. In my own next poll, I'm minded to ask a question along the lines of: "Regardless of your own views on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, do you think the UK Government should have the power to veto a law passed by the Scottish Parliament?" I suspect the results might be a little different, but we'll see.
Incidentally, the detailed results on the Ipsos question once again contradict the "it's women v the Scottish Government" narrative. Although both genders support the veto of the GRR Bill, men (55%) are clearly somewhat more hostile to the Bill than women (47%).
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Source: Two new Scottish polls show that Nicola Sturgeon is still more popular than every other leading politician (//)