Project tracking voters’ conversations during election shows that half of people have discussed nationalist party or Nicola Sturgeon in past week

The Scottish National party (SNP) is driving more conversations in Scotland than other parties across the rest of the UK, according to a study tracking what people are talking about.

The research by the Keller Fay Group found that 51% of people in Scotland had talked about the SNP, its leader, Nicola Sturgeon, or its other politicians in the past seven days. By contrast, just 39% of people in the UK had done the same about the Conservative or Labour party.

People living in Scotland are also more likely than those in every other part of the UK outside London to be talking about the election, with 64% of people in Scotland having discussed a party, leader or politicians in the past week. This figure for London is 65%.

Men are more likely than women to have had a discussion, at 63% and 58% respectively. Older people are also more engaged with political conversation that younger ones. Just over two-thirds of peopled aged between 55 and 69 were recorded as having talked about the election, compared with 57% of those aged 16 to 24.



Where the Keller Fay Group data differs from polling companies tracking issues is that the former aims to measure what people are talking about day-to-day with their friends, family and colleagues, and the influence word of mouth has on these conversations.

Each week since the election started, 500 people who have answered surveys for market research panels were drawn from a nationally representative sample of people aged 16-69.

This ongoing online survey has gathered data about people’s conversations of all kinds: in person, on the phone, by text, email and social media.