Updated 2pm on Tuesday, April 11
Recent surveys suggest voters are deserting Humza Yousaf and the SNP in their droves with some suggesting they could fall into second place in Scotland
The SNP and Scottish Labour are neck and neck in the latest polling, but it comes with a caveat. Surveys since Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to stand down have shown decreasing support for the Nationalist cause.
Most of those voters are drifting to the Labour Party and the most recent study from Redfield and Wilton suggests that pattern is continuing. A UK-wide poll for the next general election showed Sir Keir Starmer’s party had a 14 per cent lead on Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives.
But the Scottish sub-sample also offered a hint at the changing political makeup with Labour and the SNP level pegging on 31 per cent each once don’t knows are excluded and likelihood to vote is considered.
And the study suggests predictions of a Conservative collapse in Scotland are wide of the mark with the party polling at a respectable 24 per cent, just one per cent down on 2019.
Meanwhile, the Express reports, that the man who correctly revealed Nicola Sturgeon would resign as first minister has predicted she will also step down as an MSP before the next Scottish election. David Griffiths said at the end of January that the former SNP leader was on the verge of quitting after a backlash against her gender reforms.
Many Nats went into denial and dismissed the claim, but Mr Griffiths, who was once a Holyrood candidate for the Alliance 4 Unity party, was proven right just weeks later when Ms Sturgeon stunned the political world by announcing her intention to resign. And the insider now says she is on the verge of packing in Holyrood completely after the arrest of her husband Peter Murrell last week.
Taking to social media at the weekend, Mr Griffiths predicted Ms Sturgeon would “confirm her intention to step down as MSP for Glasgow South-side, either at or before the next Holyrood election”. And on Monday night, he went further when he said: “I’m told she’s chosen the latter option, ie stepping down ahead of time. I’m also told this will be announced imminently.”
Breaking news now (2pm, Tuesday) has revealed that Humza Yousaf has admitted that the SNP’s auditors quit six months ago, and that the party has yet to appoint a replacement despite its accounts being due on July 7.
The Express previously told how the Nats’ long-term accountants Johnston Carmichael had resigned from its role amid a police probe into party finances.
Now, the new First Minister has admitted that their decade-long working relationship with the firm had actually come to an end in October last year, a full six months ago.
The SNP confirmed on Friday that a search had been launched for a new accountancy firm to be brought in. But it is cutting it fine for when the audited accounts need to be submitted to the Electoral Commission. If it is not submitted, then the body will be forced to bring its own auditors in.
Mr Yousaf also admitted that this was “problematic” for the party. He said: “It’s certainly problematic, I won’t deny that at all” as he claimed that officials had hid this from him, and that he did not know it had happened until he was briefed after winning the leadership contest on March 27.
The SNP support may be fading but the support for independence has not reduced one bit.
Indeed some recent polls have shown an increase in Scots wanting independence.
And that is despite the absolutely abysmal performance of the SNP who folks now recognise to have sold out.
The SNP have, with some help from some dark friends, rotted from the inside out.
Corbyn and his agenda for Labour was rotted too with some help from some friends.
Odds it whatever way you want but new Labour and the Tories are basically exactly the same. I mean Keith Starmer not unlike the Tories favours partial privatisation of the NHS, and the commitment to privatised corporate public sector delivery is absolute.
This of course should come as no surprise to anyone. Private profit, or is it corporate plunder is the way of the UK. Think fuel poverty and then think utility gas and electricity super profits and you get the message.
Think Norway with its huge pension fund, it’s levels of social care, and it’s first world levels of infrastructure investment in roads, bridges, tunnels, hospitals and the like and then contrast that with fuel poor Scotland and its crumbling roads.
Yes the SNP may have rotted but there is, like there was with Corbyn, a reason.
Anyway, the forthcoming war predicted by the defence secretary some months back might change the landscape so dramatically that none of us will be in a position to care about Labour, Tories or the SNP.
And the date for Britain being at war was given by defence minister Mr Wallace was within the next seven years at the latest.