It's been quite an eventful week, but one way or another we all made it to Friday. Yesterday we got a YouGov/Times poll that had pretty standard figures of 40-24 in favour of the Conservatives.
The one local by-election in Kilmarnock was a win for the SNP as expected, but the increase of just 2 points in their first preferences was interesting, because the comparison, is with 2012. If this swing were repeated across Scotland in May, the nationalists would poll 34 per cent. That's wouldn't be a bad share given the number of independent candidates that tend to stand in Scottish local elections, but the lack of any impact from Brexit (or anything else that's happened since 2012) wouldn't be as hoped. The continuing strength of Scottish Conservatives (in real votes and in polling) also suggests a limited Brexit impact on party voting thus far….
Down south the Lib Dems have been having an impact recently when they've stood (they're undefeated in council by-elections in January, having contested two and won both). Mark Pack shared a perspective from within that party on their recent success.
My school memories of Fridays (especially Friday afternoons) are pretty full of waiting for the bell to go. I'm not sure MPs are quite as enthusiastic voting, but the BBC have an interesting feature on the division bell.
Because we got a YouGov/Times poll yesterday, we may not get one today, but we should be getting at least one poll for the Sunday papers tomorrow night. Before then I'm joining the FT crew for their weekly podcast. I'll tweet a link out when I have it.
Happy Friday!
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