ONE of the difficulties with the SNP’s self-imposed target of a single-party overall majority at the Holyrood election is that it not only means they need to hold all of the constituency seats they currently have, but also that they can’t afford to make exceptions for any atypical constituency which they may be in danger of losing for reasons that don’t apply anywhere else in the country.
The mainland’s most northerly seat of Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, leaps out as being the most obvious example of that problem, because it’s a unique case of an SNP-held seat where the LibDems were in a relatively close second place in 2021.
In radical contrast to both Labour and the Conservatives, polling generally shows that the LibDems are more popular now than they were five years ago. When taken in combination with the sharp drop in the SNP’s constituency vote share since 2021, that adds up to a substantial net swing from SNP to LibDem.
The recent Ipsos poll, for example, suggested the national swing between the two parties is around 7.5%, which, if applied to Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, would see the LibDems gain the seat by a full eight percentage points.
And there’s no comfort to be drawn from recent trends in the equivalent Westminster constituency of Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross, which is very similar to the Holyrood seat but not identical.
Despite putting forward a strong candidate with a compelling backstory in the shape of Lucy Beattie, the SNP suffered a dispiriting 14% swing to the LibDems at the 2024 general election, which transformed a previously close-fought marginal seat into one in which the incumbent LibDem MP Jamie Stone looks utterly dominant.
The SNP’s national vote share has recovered a bit since July 2024, of course, but even if that swing back to them were to be applied to the Westminster constituency, it would still leave them around 15 points behind Stone.
So do the SNP have a mountain as steep as Suilven to climb in May? Possibly, but there are a few reasons for them to live in hope. Like many other sparsely-populated Highlands & Islands constituencies, Caithness, Sutherland & Ross and its predecessor seats have a track record of sometimes deviating from national trends, and in particular of rewarding popular incumbent representatives with a significant personal vote.
That was most memorably demonstrated by Robert Maclennan, who in 1981 was the sitting Labour MP at Westminster for Caithness & Sutherland, and had won the constituency for Labour in five consecutive General Elections stretching back to 1966.
He then defected to the SDP, and just carried on winning the seat for his new party (and later for the LibDems) as if nothing much had changed. That was a feat that very few other defectors to the SDP anywhere in the UK were able to pull off.
It’s reasonable to assume that if a personal vote has played any part in recent Westminster elections in the area, the very well-known Jamie Stone will have been the beneficiary. He’s not only been the incumbent MP since 2017, but was previously MSP for the Holyrood seat between 1999 and 2011. So it’s possible the Westminster results may have been flattering the LibDems a little.
By contrast, any personal vote in the Holyrood election in May should work in the SNP’s favour, because their candidate, Maree Todd, has now been the local MSP for five years, and before that was a Highlands list MSP.
Additionally, there’s something of an elephant in the room in recent Holyrood elections in the area, because the LibDems have been far, far less competitive on the list ballot than on the constituency vote. That strongly implies that a considerable proportion of their constituency vote does not come from their own natural supporters, but instead from anti-SNP tactical voters. While it’s true that tactical votes count for just as much as positive votes, this potentially leaves the LibDems just a little vulnerable if any of their past tactical voters suddenly decide there is a more important priority than stopping the SNP.
Notably, fishing is an important local industry, especially in towns and villages such as Wick, Ullapool and Kinlochbervie, a factor which contributed to the Westminster version of the constituency producing the second-highest Leave vote in Scotland in the 2016 EU referendum. Support for Brexit is known to correlate strongly with support for Reform UK, and if a Reform surge were to disproportionately harm the LibDems, that could potentially make the SNP’s task easier.
Nevertheless, the LibDems must be considered favourites to make the gain – which would probably be a real gain for the Unionist camp, ie, one that the SNP would not be compensated for on the regional list.
That would leave the SNP chasing extremely tough constituency gains elsewhere in the country to keep their hopes of an overall majority alive.
