NOTEBOOK: Poll suggests SNP majority at Holyrood with 59 seats

Research carried out by Norstat for the Sunday Times in the wake of John Swinney’s first Budget put the First Minister’s party on 37% for constituency votes and at 32% on the regional list.

It also put support for a Yes vote in a Scottish independence referendum at 54% when “don’t knows” are excluded, the highest level recorded in four years.

Analysis of the poll by expert Sir John Curtice suggested the SNP would be on 59 seats, Scottish Labour on 20, the Conservatives on 19, Reform on 13, the Lib Dems on 11 and the Greens on seven.

Such a result would mean a pro-independence majority of three seats at Holyrood, securing John Swinney’s place as First Minister.

The SNP are currently governing as a minority with 62 MSPs.

The poll put support for Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour party at 21% in the constituency vote and 18% in the regional list.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives were on 14% in the constituency vote and 16% in the regional list.

Sir John, the doyen of political number cruchers and tallymen, said Labour’s vote is being squeezed by the rising Reform UK vote as well as a resurgent SNP.

He said: “Just 21% of Scots now say they would vote Labour on the constituency ballot for a Scottish parliament election, down nine points on Norstat’s poll in August and as much as 14 points below the party’s tally in July’s general election.

“The party is being squeezed at both ends of the political spectrum.

“At 12%, the proportion of those who voted Labour in July who now say they would vote SNP is double the equivalent figure in August.

“Consequently, the party’s support is down among both supporters and opponents of independence.”

Sir John said the blame for Labour’s decline appeared to lie with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, whose net approval rating was at minus 32%.

Poor Sir Keir. Now that’s something we haven’t been hearing since the General Election which Labour won so comfortably earlier this year.

Starmer is a warmer who has cast a cold eye on our elderly and most vulnerable. For him this has turned out to be an annus horribilis. Nobody believes his line that he is from a working class background.

That’s simply because he doesn’t act like someone from a working class background.

What working class person would scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and keep the two child cap on welfare benefit?

None. Not one, not a single person in my view, and definitely not right at this moment in time of writing when the temperature in Dumbarton is below freezing and the mercury continues to drop.

I don’t have any statistics – West Dunbartonshire Council’s little Pravda department wouldn’t tell me if I asked them – but the number of funeral processions I have seen heading for the Dumbarton and Vale cemeteries is bound to have gone up.

So too the number of deceased travelling to Cardross Crematorium when they manage to get through the faulty traffic lights, potholes and roadworks. In Dumbarton funerals don’t slow down out of respect but out of necessity.

But back to the land of the living – and the chittering.

We have the same old set-up at West Dunbartonshire Council. The inefficiency, the blunders and bourachs, begrudgers, bad mouthing and back-stabbing.

If you always do what you always did then you always get what you always got. It’s time for a change.

Labour have lost the administration. In truth they gave it away when they resigned en masse when they couldn’t get Cllr Michelle McGinty elected to the Provostship.

This would give them a casting vote to essentially get through the proposals they want to see become policies.