WORLD events are casting a long shadow. With international concern about the military campaign in Afghanistan gathering apace, there is perhaps less room in public opinion for domestic political crisis.
Fieldwork for our latest System Three poll came before first minister Henry McLeish's damaging end to last week in the Officegate row. The issue was up and running during the interviewing phase for our monthly test of Scottish political opinion.
In normal circumstances, one could have expected a downturn in Labour's standing. That has not happened and in our measures for voting intention for Westminster and most surprisingly for Holyrood also, Labour's support has risen. Yet these are not normal circumstances. Public attention has undoubtedly shifted to more national and international concerns in recent weeks.
In Mori's monthly digest of important issues, defence has jumped from being cited by around 2 to 3 % of people this year as being the most important or an important issue until Sep-tember 11. In the two polls since, the average now stands at 59%.
Probably as a direct consequence fewer people were citing the usual core of concerns - NHS, education, and law and order as being the most important or an important issue.
This shift may not be sustained over time, but the consequences for domestic politics is clear - if the first minister is to have a political crisis, then now is the time to have it. This position, though, is also liable to change if the heat is not turned down on Henry McLeish soon. A sustained inability to address all the questions will fundamentally harm his public standing and voter level of trust in him.
With the campaign for elections to the Scottish Parliament now only 18 months away, this situation could harm Labour's cause dramatically.
In the nine months up to the first Holyrood elections in 1999, Donald Dewar managed to turn round public opinion in almost every measure of leadership quality and trust. With it he took his party's support from languishing behind the SNP in the summer of 1998 to a clear victory in May 1999. For Henry McLeish the choice is stark - if he is damaged more this week but remains first minister, does he risk damaging his party's support in the longer term?
The prime beneficiary of Labour discomfort is the SNP. Yet, continuing a trend that has been apparent this year, John Swinney's party's support is also up this month. At the time of the general election and after, polls suggested even at times of Labour ascendancy the SNP support was not fundamentally weakened. After a run of bad polls in relative terms, the SNP is now back to levels of support which would see it increase its representation in the Holyrood parliament.
System Three's polling on attitudes to the campaign in Afghanistan, as published in The Herald last Saturday, may also begin to impact on Scottish political attitudes. The SNP did not benefit from Alex Salmond's criticism of the Nato bombing campaign in Serbia in 1999. Now that the SNP has distanced itself more from the government's backing of military action in Afghanistan, it will be interesting to see whether or not the SNP may benefit from any misgivings voters may have over the coming months.
The losers this month are the Conservatives. Their figures for Holyrood and Westminster are truly shocking and at a historic low. Last month I suggested it was too early to suggest any negative impact the election of Iain Duncan Smith as leader may have had on the party. Maybe the drop in support has more to do with the general backing for Labour's response in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the US.
Yet there is the worry for Tories at this stage that we may be seeing the signs of further alienation from Scottish Conservative opinion in the wake of the leadership contest.
l Malcolm Dickson is a
lecturer in politics at the
University of Strathclyde.
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