The YouGov MRP figures are finally out, and it’s going to take me a while to wade through the data properly. But like a lot of people, the first seat I checked was East Dunbartonshire, because there’s been a long-running difference of opinion about whether Jo Swinson is in trouble, or will hold her seat easily. The answer seems to be somewhere in between the two extremes.
East Dunbartonshire estimate:
Liberal Democrats 38%
SNP 33%
Conservatives 17%
Labour 8%
Greens 3%
So she’s in the danger zone, but she’ll probably hold on. However, YouGov agree with the earlier Better for Britain projection in saying the SNP have the lead in the Lib Dem seat of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. That would be a reasonably big shock.
The SNP are projected to win 43 seats overall, which would be a perfectly good result if it actually happens, but it just worries me a little because the projections in 2017 were showing much the same thing, and we all know what happened next. If there’s another late Labour surge, things could still go wrong. But one point of encouragement: some of the seats the Tories are projected to hold look quite tight. So things could yet go wrong for them as well, and if that happens there’ll only be one beneficiary: the SNP.
* * *
On a completely different topic, a free Scottish Gaelic course is now available on Duolingo. That could have a transformative effect on the language’s prospects – it puts it in the shop window, and anyone with the urge to begin to learn it can now do so, wherever they are in the world. Read more HERE.
