Eddie Barnes: 'Shared nightmare' may return to haunt SNP, but it is Labour that faces the ruder awakening

A FEW weeks ago, when Labour was still streets ahead of the SNP in the Holyrood polls, one senior party strategist, chatting in the corridors of the Scottish Parliament, wondered out loud whether the coming race would once again see the emergence of the "schizophrenic Scottish voter".

This observer has to admit to not quite grasping what he meant at the time. But the phrase made crystal-clear sense at the weekend when the latest polling data emerged.

YouGov's polling for The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday continues to ask people how they would vote at both Holyrood and Westminster. And the differences between the two do, indeed, suggest that something is not quite right about the Scottish voters' mental state.

On Westminster voting intentions, respondents plump enthusiastically for Labour over the SNP, by 43 per cent to 28 per cent. When it comes to Holyrood, however, they reverse ferret. On the constituency vote, Labour drops down to 37 per cent, while the SNP leaps 12 points to 40 per cent.

That suggests fully a third of people who say they will vote SNP on 5 May wouldn't back the party at Westminster, if an election there were called tomorrow.

Schizophrenic? That's one way of putting it. Another way is to describe these SNP swingers is tactically smart.

The polling suggests they come from both Labour and Tory sides of the fence (the Lib Dem share of the vote is similar in both parliaments). They know that Westminster is about Labour versus the Tories, and cast their vote accordingly.

But, aware that Holyrood is about Labour versus SNP, they rethink. These people probably don't back independence. But then they know that Mr Salmond's nationalism-lite isn't imposing that. For Westminster Tories, they may want to keep Labour out in Scotland. For Westminster Labour voters, they may think Mr Salmond is the best man to represent the country. So, for any number of reasons, they switch to the Nats.

After this happened at the 2007 election, one Scottish Labour MP described it as "our shared nightmare with the SNP".

This is the scenario where, safe in the knowledge separation from the UK won't happen, such voters back the SNP at Holyrood, only to thwart Nationalist hopes of domination by sticking with their preferred option at Westminster. Neither Labour nor the SNP, therefore, takes home the cigar. The voters, meanwhile, happily enjoy the luxury of having it all.

But, with Labour facing five years out of power in Scotland, and four more at Westminster, it has to be said that this nightmare looks a lot less chilling from the SNP side than from the Labour's, if Scotland's schizophrenics come out to play again in two weeks.