WITH a Westminster General Election looming, politicians of all colours will begin to twitch even more nervously than usual with each new set of opinion poll figures. Our latest figures from System Three tell a story of a tale of two parliaments.
In the context of a Westminster election, Labour finds itself in as comfortable a position as it did in Scotland in 1997.
Yet that picture rapidly changes when we move to the context of the Scottish Parliament, where the SNP would find itself on the basis of these figures the single largest party on 52 and well capable of building a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
What this picture reinforces is the growing sophistication of the Scottish electorate who are quite capable of expressing very different choices in the contexts of the two parliamentary bodies that dictate policy in Scotland.
For the SNP it must be frustrating to find that it could be in government in Holyrood yet be well short of a major breakthrough in Westminster.
Of course, that has much to do with the differing electoral systems for elections to the two parliaments. Nevertheless the SNP is a full 9% ahead of its Westminster rating on first ballot intentions for a Scottish parliament, with Labour suffering a 9% drop in the same comparison.
Clues to the reasons for this are to be seen in the timing of our polling fieldwork. Interviewing for our poll published in February came too late to pick up any effect from the forced ''U turn'' made by the Scottish Executive on free personal care for the elderly.
What we may be seeing in this poll is a reaction on that issue in Labour's support for Holyrood, while its rating at Westminster is largely untouched.
More and more attention turns to the anticipated general election perhaps a matter of two months away.
Labour in Scotland would go into that election in a very strong position. It has maintained its level of support above 40% for a large part of the last fours years, and at 45% in this month's poll it could expect to pick up as many seats in Scotland as in 1997.
The SNP is likely to make a significant advance in this election. In terms of its share of the vote, it is probable that it will be its best result since October 1974 when it polled just over 30%.
Despite this, it will be lucky to pick up more than one or two seats, and on the basis of these figures would find itself achieving an almost identical result in Westminster seats as it did in the constituency element of the Scottish Parliament elections in 1999 when it took a seat from Labour.
For the Conservatives there may be signs that it has not taken further steps back since 1997 - and although it will find it hard to win seats back that it lost in 1997 it may, given local circumstances, be in with a chance in several seats that it lost to Labour last time.
The Liberal Democrats find themselves under pressure too and it is perhaps no surprise that at Labour's spring conference in Glasgow last month it was Charles Kennedy's party that received the most stinging attack.
Four out of the top ten marginal seats in Scotland see Labour and Lib Dems placed first and second. If Labour wants to advance further in Scotland it will do so at the Lib Dem expense.
On the basis of poll figures we can perhaps expect only one or two seats to change hands in Scotland if we have, as widely predicted, a general election in May. While that may signal little change in Scotland's political landscape within a UK context, the same cannot necessarily be said when attention is turned to Holyrood.
l Malcolm Dickson is a lecturer in politics at the University of Strathclyde.
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