Scotland Westminster polling – Labour's fightback continues

Last week I highlighted the first signs of a Murphy bounce. Today there was further encouragement for Scottish Labour, as the latest Panelbase online poll revealed figures of:


Big divergences between pollsters seem to be par for the course in Scotland – we saw very similar picture for the referendum, until they converged in the final stages. Panelbase has tended to show among the smallest SNP leads, so a margin of just 10 points should be seen in that context. Nevertheless, a 7-point reduction in the SNP’s lead will be welcome news for Jim Murphy and his party.
The tables haven’t yet been published, but John Curtice provides a writeup here. Key points include an initial net approval rating of -12 for the new Labour leader, an improvement -16 last time for Johann Lamont. The less good news for Scottish Labour is that Nicola Sturgeon is rated +10 (for reference, Alex Salmond’s +17 in 2012) and the really bad news is Ed Miliband’s -46 among Scottish voters.
Scottish Westminster polling
Turning to my aggregated model, which provides comparisons over time, Labour’s gains are smaller but the trend is in the right direction, with figures of SNP 42 (-1) LAB 27 (+1) CON 17 (-1) LIB 5 (-1) UKIP 5 (+1) GRN 4 (+1). The electionforecast weighted model was little changed SNP 44 (=) LAB 31 (-1) CON 11 (=) LIB 6 (+1) UKIP 2 (=) GRN 4 (=).
I’m not aware of any forthcoming Scotland-wide polls, but Lord Ashcroft’s constituency polling is currently in the field.
Update (23:10):





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