The SNP is on course for a third win in 2016, but Nicola Sturgeon’s party is showing intimations of mortality that could cost it in the long term
Even at the end of a very bad year for opinion polls, few would risk disagreeing with the current polling on Scotland’s 2016 election. In 2011, the Scottish National party won an outright majority at Holyrood on the back of a 46% share in constituency votes and a 44% share of regional list votes. But in recent polls, the SNP is still maintaining the increased 50% vote share that the party won in last May’s UK general election triumph. All the indications for next May are that Nicola Sturgeon’s party is on course for a third successive win, leaving the SNP masters of all they survey for another five years.
It would be perverse to suggest that the SNP’s political ascendancy shows any signs of faltering. Ms Sturgeon and her party remain sufficiently popular to withstand a few setbacks. Yet events in the past month contain some intimations of nationalist political mortality. The closure of the Forth Road Bridge until at least the new year because of structural cracks is the kind of embarrassment that can happen to any government. But it has happened on the SNP’s watch, not on anyone else’s. The closure is high-profile, bad for the Scottish economy, cannot be blamed on the Tories, and inconveniences a lot of people.