John Curtice: The OAP vote

Published on Friday 22 April 2011 21:25

THEY are a group no politician can afford to ignore. They account for more than a quarter of Scotland's adult population. Particularly likely to vote, they may well be responsible for as many as one in three of the ballots cast on 5 May. They are Scotland's older citizens.

One testament to their influence is the central role that the council tax is playing once again in the campaign debate. Council tax often hits older people particularly hard - they have diminished incomes but are still living in houses bought during a lifetime of working and earning. So we should not be surprised that all the main parties are promising to freeze the tax, while both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats propose an actual cut for at least some pensioner households.

Older voters are of course distinguished by memories of times past that others have never experienced. So they can remember a time when the SNP were no more than a fringe party and the Union flag could still stir hearts north of the border. For some that memory lives on.

Thus older voters have not taken particularly well to the perpetual debate since the 1970s about independence. The latest Scottish Social Attitudes survey shows that just 16 per cent of over-65s prefer independence to devolution, compared with 23 per cent amongst the population as a whole.

In tune with this mood older voters have usually been less inclined to vote for the SNP too. In 2007 just 26 per cent backed the party, well down on the one third or so that did so amongst voters as a whole. Yet older voters have long had a sneaking admiration for Alex Salmond. That remains the case now. According to a Mori poll last week as many as 62 per cent of those aged 55 and over are satisfied with his performance as First Minister. According to our poll today, nearly half (48 per cent) of those aged 60 or over reckon Salmond is the best person to be Scotland's First Minister for the next five years. This admiration appears to be helping to overcome the reticence amongst older voters to back the nationalists. Both our survey today and Mori's last week suggests that older voters are just as likely as other voters to back the SNP this time. This could be particularly bad news for the Conservatives for whom older voters have hitherto been one of the few groups amongst whom the party has still been able to secure a reasonable degree of support - doubtless because older voters were brought up at a time when the Conservatives were capable of winning more than half the vote in Scotland.

Holyrood 2011 coverage in full

• Iain Gray under fire after poor show in new poll

• Eddie Barnes: concerns of leaking support in once-solid constituencies is a measure of the task facing Iain Gray

• Kenny Farquharson: What Labour needs is some six appeal

• Aidan Smith: Annabel Goldie risks becoming a national institution, despite her politics

• Target voters: OAPs

• John Curtice: The OAP vote

• Peter Ross: Socialists who go it alone

As many as 21 per cent of the over-60s say they would currently vote for the Conservatives in a Westminster election tomorrow. But only 14 per cent are currently committed to voting for the party on 5 May. Annabel may well need to try and bring Alex down a peg or two the few remaining days of campaigning that are left.

• John Curtice is Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University

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