POLL ANALYSIS SHOWS SNP GAINING OVER CONFERENCE SEASON

POLL ANALYSIS SHOWS SNP GAINING OVER CONFERENCE SEASON

BOOST FOR SNP ON EVE OF CONFERENCE

An analysis of the daily tracker polls carried out by YouGov over the
course of the UK conference season shows SNP support strengthening in
Scotland - despite the conference coverage enjoyed by each of the London
parties.

YouGov carried out 15 daily polls over the course of the London parties'
conferences from 21st September and finishing on 10th October. Although
each individual poll has too small a Scottish sample to be meaningful, an
aggregation of all 15 allows some key trends to be identified of how
Scottish opinion moved over the UK conference period.

The analysis shows that over the first eight polls in September, the SNP
vote averaged 25 per cent. However in the seven polls carried out in
October, the SNP vote averaged 30 per cent, an increase of 5 per cent.

In the same period the Labour vote moved downwards by 6 per cent to 32 per
cent, the Tories up 1 per cent to 20 per cent while the Liberals
were stuck on 15 per cent.

In the first conference season poll on 21 September, the SNP vote was
recorded at 29 per cent. The last poll on the 9 October showed the SNP
at 31 per cent with Labour down to 24 per cent.

Commenting, SNP Westminster Leader Angus Robertson MP said:

"These results are highly encouraging. Normally you would expect each of
the other parties to have received a poll boost from their conferences but
the analysis demonstrates that, far from their conference coverage
benefiting the London parties, it seems to have resulted in an increase
in the SNP vote.

"With our conference to come, it shows that the SNP vote is strong and
growing and that we present a real election challenge to Labour domination
of Scottish politics.

"Two years ago we outpolled Labour in the Scottish elections. This year we
thumped them in the European elections. We are now challenging for the hat
trick at Westminster with everything to play for."

Notes:

Analysis of Scottish sample of YouGov Conference polls:

7 polls 1-9 October sample size 726 compared to (a) 8 polls 21-30
September sample size 820 (b) 2005 Election result


(a) (b)
Labour 32 (-6) (-8)
SNP 30 (+5) (+12)
Tory 20 (+1) (+4)
Liberal 15 (--) (-8)