You can't actually boil a frog
GE2024 will prove to be a tipping point where the fall of the SNP accelerates. It's all feeling a bit like 2015, and Scottish voters are matching the evidence of their eyes with perceptions of the SNP
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The boiling frog allegory holds that a frog will leap out of a pot if thrust into boiling water, but wouldn’t perceive the danger if placed in tepid water and slowly heated. Naturally this isn’t true, at least in the case of frogs. They do perceive the risk as the water slowly warms around them, but the metaphor is a useful one. Looking at contemporary Scottish politics I find myself wondering if most people were even vaguely aware of the threats to our quality of life. As standards in public life gradually rather than suddenly decreased alongside competence and what we expect from our government, it seems voters didn’t notice how far we were falling. At least until now.
Polling perceptions
As one of the dullest General Election campaigns in my lifetime continues and 14 years of Conservative governance unspools before our eyes, you could be forgiven for not appreciating the shift happening in Scotland.
For the longest time the Scottish Government was perceived by between 40-50 per cent of the electorate either somewhat or mostly favourably. Savanta’s Scotland series regularly recorded the Holyrood government’s favourability over 40 per cent until October last year. Then it happened, voters suddenly noticed the water around them wasn’t tepid any longer.
Education outcomes have been in the doldrums for years, the attainment gap stubbornly unyielding. Accident and Emergency (A&E) waiting times deteriorating for years. Drug deaths epidemic has long burned its ugly path across communities and mourning families. Constitutional and culture-war divisions decades old as taxation has continued to squeeze quality of life even before the pandemic and subsequent inflationary pressures kicked in. But only now it seems have Scottish voters finally realised the water is boiling. Only very recently have the electorate decided to actually blame the 17-year long incumbents in Holyrood for the shocking state of the nation.
In fact it’s only since the 2022-2023 period that Scottish voters began rapidly turning on the incumbent SNP in the polling data. Matching for the first time the evidence of their eyes of Scotland in decline across policy outcomes with their perception of the 17 year long SNP administration.
Savanta’s 11 October 2023 poll placed the Scottish Government approval sub-40 per cent for the first time in years. And as of the latest figures (Savanta’s 28 May 2024 poll) only 35 per cent maintain a favourable or mostly favourable view of the incumbent administration in Scotland.
And this matters, especially since the mood across the UK has landed firmly on ‘change’. The Conservatives in Westminster realise the ship has sunk, government minister’s aren’t even trying anymore. Earlier today the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing needed LBC’s Nick Ferrari to tell him what the child allowance was. They've decided to hand the election to Labour at this point, barely even trying. Proper out to lunch territory now.
Meanwhile in Scotland voters seem to be rapidly arriving at a similar conclusion regarding the Scottish National Party. Policy outcomes are terrible - and have been for years - but voters have lost their patience with the incumbents in Bute House. The prospects of a UK Labour government have begun to concentrate minds in Scotland about what we’ve come to expect from the SNP administration. The electorate isn’t willing to grant the benefit of the doubt to SNP failings…they’ve noticed the water is boiling and are ready to jump out.
There are consequences when the voters wake up. They look around incredulously remembering how things used to be. Big thoughts dart across the collective consciousness such as ‘how did we get here’? In Scotland right now the electorate is ruminating on just how things could have become this bad. In the end the mood turns and in politics it can be sudden, sharp and brutal.
Scots no longer trust the Holyrood government. They no longer grant it the benefit of the doubt, and no longer believe the SNP can be trusted to improve their quality of life. It happened quite suddenly in political terms, but it’s happened. The figures bare it out.
And when the avalanche starts, it’s too late for the pebbles to vote. There’s not much the SNP can do when the mood turns and the voters determine the water’s not pleasant and it’s time for a change.
‘Which of the following parties do you trust the most to improve the Scottish economy?’
2022-2023 will be the period in which we will look back and conclude was when the SNP lost the trust of the Scottish voters, in an existential fashion. In much the same manner in which we now look back on the Tory decision to elect Liz Truss as leader proved the tipping point for their electoral prowess.
As we march slowly toward the General Election finishing line of 2024, it’s clear that the mood in Scotland is a hunger for change as much in Holyrood as Westminster. Given the polling perceptions, I doubt the anticipated talking points to come from the SNP will be true.
Surely the SNP will trot out lines about ‘mid term blues’ or ‘voters wanted to punish the party’, but it’s going to prove bigger than any of that. I expect that GE2024 will be along the lines of GE2015, it’ll be a fork in the road moment.
We’re witnessing the beginning of the end of House of SNP.
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I will be publishing an extended essay arguing the SNP were the original populists this weekend. Stay tuned!
Do you honestly believe that labour can do better in Scotland? Ballie and Sarwar doubling down on Tory austerity? Where is their prospectus for Scotland? They don't have one, it's just a return to Things can only get better.