ALEX Salmond may have suffered fierce criticism within the Holyrood village in recent weeks, but his Government's standing in the country is well ahead of approval ratings for the UK Government.
An Ipsos Mori poll has shown that over half of Scots (54%) are satisfied with the way the Scottish Government is running the country compared to 39% who are dissatisfied, giving a net satisfaction rating of +15%. This is in stark contrast to the UK Government's net satisfaction rating of -40%.
The pollsters say all key demographic groups are more satisfied than dissatisfied with the Scottish Government, with net satisfaction high among 18 to 24-year-olds (+50%), men (+23%) and those working in the public sector (+22%).
SNP supporters are the most likely to approve of the Scottish Government's performance, giving a net satisfaction score of +68%.
Liberal Democrat supporters are the second most positive with a net satisfaction rating of +17%, while Labour and Conservative supporters are more likely to be dissatisfied, with scores of -13% and -26% respectively.
SNP Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "This reinforces the fact that the SNP Scottish Government is doing a good job."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article