The third in a series of polling by Survation for the Daily Record ahead of the 2016 Scottish Parliament election does not appear to be good reading for Scottish Labour, with Kezia Dugdale’s party down three per cent in the Holyrood constituency voting intention. While the SNP remain strong, some 34 points ahead of second-placed Labour, the Conservatives are yet to make any noticeable progress – in the constituency voting intention at least – despite some commentators proposing that Ruth Davidson’s party will be aiming for a “serious Holyrood campaign”.

SNP 54% (+1); LAB 20% (-3); CON 16% (NC); LD 7% (+1); OTH 4% (+1)

However, it is perhaps in the List voting intention where the Conservatives are going to make progress; this poll shows them up three points from last month, leaving them neck-and-neck with Labour and further compounding the party in this poll. The SNP continue to vastly outperform the other parties in this voting intention, however, 24 points ahead of Labour and the Conservatives. The List vote also shows favourable figures for the Scottish Greens again, this time on 10%, and also increasing the gap between them and the Liberal Democrats for the third successive month.

SNP 42% (-3); LAB 18% (NC); CON 18% (+3); GRE 10% (+1); LD 6% (NC); UKIP 5% (-1); Other 1% (NC)

Respondents were also asked to what extent they feel favourably or unfavourably towards a number of UK or Scottish political leaders. For the third month in a row, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon was the only leader with a positive net favourability rating (+21), with the next ‘best’ rating again coming from the Co-convenor of the Scottish Green Party, Patrick Harvie (-1%). However, Sturgeon’s favourability has dropped 7 points since our first poll in January, making her the only leader on our list whose favourability has fallen consistently month-on-month. Westminster leaders once again tended to have worse favourability ratings than their Holyrood counterparts, with David Cameron (-35%) and Jeremy Corbyn (-19%) doing significantly worse than Ruth Davidson (-6%) or Kezia Dugdale (-9%). Whilst last month we saw all the Holyrood politicians having an improvement in the number of Scots who had heard of them, this didn’t translate into a trend going into March. It will be interesting to see what impact, if any, the upcoming Holyrood leader’s debates will have on these figures come April.

Respondents were also asked to rank each of thirteen issues in the order that they think the next Scottish government should prioritise them. We analyse the percentage of respondents who place each in their top three. Whilst the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ‘top’ issues remain unchanged since January (although if “Economy” continues to drop at its current rate it will be overtaken by “The cost of living” in April), we have seen “Education” seemingly jump up the list of priorities of Scottish voters, now ranked 4th on 38% compared to 5th on 25% in January. “Land Reform” (2%), “Trident” (5%) and “Transport” (6%) continue to feature most infrequently in Scot’s top three priorities for the next Scottish government.

Survation interviewed 1,051 Scottish adults aged 16+ between 10th – 17th March 2016. Full tables available here.

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