THE recent cold snap may have brought large parts of the country to a standstill but Scotland's political scene is ever the hothouse. Labour's setbacks of recent months in Hamilton South and in the polls have largely come to nothing according to our latest survey from System Three.

If anyone is suffering the winter blues it may be Alex Salmond whose party is doing better than it did in the May elections but which doesn't appear to have capitalised on its success in Hamilton or from Labour's governmental difficulties of late.

There is a renewed strength in Labour's showing in the first ballot voting intention figures which puts a full nine percentage points on its standing from two months ago.

That in itself means that Labour would reverse the losses in the constituencies it made in May by retaking Aberdeen South from the Liberal Democrats and Inverness East from the SNP.

If we extend that picture to a full projection of how the Scottish Parliament would look if voters actually cast their votes in these proportions in a real election it would put Labour in as as strong a position on 57 seats as it has been since the election.

This will give Donald Dewar a much needed boost as Christmas draws closer. His administration and he himself have come under quite considerable criticism in the past few weeks on a number of key policy areas.

The Liberal Democrats' position is still remarkably similar to that of six months ago and shows their presence in the Scottish Executive has been neither a net vote winner nor a net vote loser.

The Conservatives on the other hand continue to show badly in the polls despite their reasonable showing in May. However, the consistency of Conservative support is reflected in both the System Three series and actual elections. Tory support dropped below 20% in Scotland in 1994 in actual elections. That position has remained the same until the present moment. System Three's polling figures support that trend. Despite the Conservatives' own concerns over their measured level of support their position in Scotland remains weak.

Recent concerns about drawing conclusions from polls leads to necessary caution in discussing projections of the make-up of the Scottish Parliament. Of course, such a projection is merely that - a projection - and not a prediction in any sense, as is the case with all projections made from snapshot surveys. A poll does not replicate polling day conditions and the actual result may differ due to factors such as turnout. Yet modern politics is about democratic choice and this means the intentions of voters are a useful and vital addition to the political debate.

These concerns aside, individual polls will always cause controversy and disagreement. Yet beyond the headline figures, the trend of any poll series is fundamental in understanding the message it portrays.

It has been a momentous year in Scottish politics and the position of the parties as we approach the new millennium offers interesting pointers for the future.

Certainly Labour continues to be the pre-eminent party of Scottish politics, yet the SNP challenge has not waned. It has seen itself consolidated as the main opposition to Labour in a Scottish context and if anything has improved its position from May. Any doubts about the continued potency of the Nationalist message should have been dispelled in 1999.

*Malcolm Dickson is Lecturer in Politics at Strathclyde University