As most Americans forget, the name of the country east of Ireland and south of Iceland is formally known as "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." That means it is a union of different nations, for want of a better term. In addition to Northern Ireland, there’s England, Scotland and Wales. Because England dominates by virtue of its population, the political polls tend to treat the Celtic portions as they would the Anglo-Saxon bits. I’m sure psephologists and pollsters have formulae that account for this, but I work in a Wall-Street related business, and I have learned not to trust mathematicians bearing models as much as Greeks bearing gifts (or junk-grade sovereign debt). This is a rather long-winded way of getting to three new polls that look at Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (sometimes called "Ulster") separately ahead of tomorrow’s vote.
Wales
ITV Wales commissioned YouGov to poll voting intentions in Wales: Labour is ahead on 35%, the Tories are second at 27%, the Liberal Democrats have 23%, while Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists) get 10%. What is interesting is that these results compared to the last such poll (at the height of Cleggmania) shows the Tories increasing their support 4%, Labour moving up 2%, the LibDems losing 6%, and PC getting an extra point. Clearly, the LibDems peaked too early in Wales.
Overall, that represents a 6.7% move to the Tories from Labour compared with the last election. That’s more than most polls are showing for the UK as a whole. Wales has a total of 40 seats in the Westminster Parliament, as I don’t see a single constituency with a boundary extending past the border with England (Brits, if I have this wrong, please help). If that 6.7% swing holds tomorrow, the Conservatives would gain 4 seats (Cardiff North, Vale of Glamorgan, Aberconwy and Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire) to give them a total of 7 Welsh seats, while Plaid Cymru would pick up both Ynys Mon and Arfon for a total of 5 seats. Each of these would be at the expense of Labour down to 23 seats, leaving the Liberal Democrats unchanged on 4. One independent, Dai Davies, is likely to get re-elected.
This doesn’t affect the completely separate Welsh Assembly seats. For that matter the following Scottish information won’t affect the composition of the Scots’ own Parliament in Edinburgh.
Scotland
The Scotsman newspaper commissioned the same YouGov pollsters (fieldwork done April 28-30) to cover the constituencies north of the border. We see Labour at 37%, the LibDems are second at 22%, the Scottish National Party is a close third at 21%, and the Tories are fourth at 17%. I would compare this to a poll also done by YouGov for The Sun (fieldwork done April 21-28) which showed Labour at 36%, LibDems and SNP tied at 23%, and the Tories last on 14%. "Other" seems to have picked up some support from the SNP as have the Tories.
What is interesting here is just how stable Scotland is politically. Just two of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats would change hands if the Scotsman is accurate. The SNP would pick up the seat for Ochil and South Perthshire, and the Liberal Democrats would win Edinburgh South. Both would come at the expense of Labour.
What I think is particularly useful to point out is how damned unpopular the Tories are among the Welsh and Scots relative to the UK as a whole. In Wales, they would get 7 out of 40 seats, and in Scotland, they would keep the one they have (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale – one seat despite the long name) out of 59. If Mr. Cameron’s bloc forms the next government, it will be a government composed of representatives of English constituencies. An unpopular English government of Tories could push voters to demand greater devolution in the years ahead.
Northern Ireland
Northern Irish politics are quite divorced from those on the other island. There, it’s still 1688, and King James II and King William I seem to be fighting the Battle of the Boyne all over again. In fairness, 2010 is not 1910, nor 1810, and there is something that resembles peace there (Labour should get a bit of credit). However, the Orangemen against the Green-wearing republicans is the big divide. In other words and in over-simplified terms, the Protestants are happy to be part of the UK and the Catholics still want to join the Irish Republic in the south.
The main parties of the UK have customarily avoided getting involved in Ulster politics. The Liberal Party of the 1800s split over Irish Home Rule, and the "mainland" parties learned a lesson from that – leave the six counties alone. That said, there have been a couple of forays across the Irish Sea. In the 1980s, the Liberal-Social Democrat Alliance in the 1980s tried to work with the anti-sectarian Alliance Party, and the LibDems still adhere to vestiges of that arrangement. This time, the Tories have formally linked up with the Ulster Unionist Party, forming the Ulster Conservative and Unionist – New Force (UCUNF).
Be that as it may, the latest poll (by Inform Communication for the Belfast Telegraph) has the Democratic Unionist Party on 26%, closely followed by republican Sinn Fein on 25%. The Social Democratic and Labour Party (a moderate republican party) has 17%, and the UCUNF has 13%. The Alliance Party earns just 7%, while a Unionist hard-core party called True Ulster Voice gets 5%.
Of the 18 Westminster seats from Northern Ireland, 5 of them are currently held by Sinn Fein, and that number is likely to hold. Because Sinn Fein MPs would have to take an oath of loyalty to the Crown, they have never taken their seats in Westminster (salaries and expenses, yes -- seats no). The DUP currently has 9 seats and will probably have 8-10 when Thursday’s count is done. How the rest works out, I really haven’t a clue.
However, if the unionist parties have 10 or so seats, and if Mr. Cameron can take 310 outside of Ulster, he doesn’t need to rely on the Liberal Democrats for anything. He’ll be able to win a vote on the Queen’s Speech (which lays out the governments plans, and which if defeated results in the government losing office) and the Budget.
Tomorrow is Polling Day
Polls open 7 am British Summer Time, close at 10 pm British summer time. First results will be around 10:45 pm BST. Most of the important results will be coming in between 2 am and 5 am May 7.
For people in the Americas, that means the fun will peak between 9 pm Eastern and Midnight, 8 pm to 11 pm Central, 7 pm to 10 pm Mountain, and 6 pm to 9 pm Pacific.
To watch live coverage in the UK, just turn on your TV – it will be plastered all over everywhere. For the rest of us, the BBC website will stream it (news.bbc.co.uk), C-Span 3 should have it, and BBC America. In Canada, CPAC will show it. And I am trying to working things out so I can live blog it, but the home life is not cooperating at the moment.