Sunday, September 2, 2018

First Scottish subsample since the Alex Salmond story broke has the SNP still in the lead

When news of the complaints against Alex Salmond was irresponsibly broken by the Daily Record, I said that we'd just have to wait for opinion poll evidence to see whether there would be much (if any) negative effect on the SNP.  Frustratingly, the end of August has seen an unusual dearth of polls even at Britain-wide level.  (It goes without saying there was never much chance of a full-scale Scottish poll when you really wanted one.)  However, we do at last have a Britain-wide YouGov poll which was conducted on the 28th and 29th of August, and the Scottish subsample shows the following:

SNP 34%, Conservatives 27%, Labour 24%, Liberal Democrats 8%, Greens 3%, UKIP 3%

Now, to state the obvious, any individual subsample cannot be regarded as statistically reliable, and I normally wouldn't dream of looking at one in isolation.  However, when a major event has occurred and you're waiting for any clues at all about the impact, obviously you're going to be interested in the first straw in the wind, no matter how many health warnings have to be attached to it.  The good news is that the above figures are not at all untypical for Scottish subsamples since last year's general election, but the bad news is that they're less impressive for the SNP than the most recent batch of subsamples from YouGov.  The previous eight had the SNP on 38%, 39%, 42%, 40%, 40%, 42%, 38% and 42%.

The dip to 34% might easily be explained as the meaningless effect of random sampling variation, but obviously it could also be a sign that the media hysteria of recent days has had a genuine effect on public opinion.  If it proves to be the latter, I think we should take heart from the fact that there's no sign yet of the SNP losing their lead outright, and that it's perfectly possible that any setback will be quickly reversed once the media obsession eventually blows itself out.

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15 comments:

  1. I will still vote for Independence whether or not AS is innocent or guilty. The cause is more important than one individual.

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    1. Shaggin is the oldest story in history even the Queen did it as well as John F kennedy, big bonkin Bill Clinton, John Major an Lloyd George et al. Wummin jist love it up em an some men tae. Now stop the moanin and get on wae it.

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    2. GWC2 AKA The Hon. Cordelia Bracely-Dubois

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  2. For comparison what were the Opposition parties standings in the previous sub samples?

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  3. This tells me one thing and that is the parties in opposition have a better propaganda machine than us #SNP

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  4. Yes at 52% according to the National's front page for tomorrow.

    https://twitter.com/ScotNational/status/1036331210501447680

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    1. Reading between the lines, that sounds like it was probably a non-standard question, so isn't directly comparable to standard independence polls. But encouraging nonetheless.

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  5. Has there been internal polling carried out by Labour or conservatives in Scotland in the last few months ?. Are the polling companies obliged to publish these or not ?

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    1. Private polls don't need to be published. Hence the word private. However I would like to see them. :) The Panelbase poll done nearly two weeks ago has not been made public.

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  6. The policy of the Union press is to oppose independence, despise the SNP, and vilify its leadership. This in turn will be used to denigrate the supporters of independence. Its a pattern. The rush to judgement of Alex Salmond was a foregone conclusion. The guilt or innocence of Alex Salmond is now irrelevant. The smearing is in full bloom.

    If you donated to his fund, your a sex pest. If you didn't, your a faction in the SNP civil war. This is clearly the strategy that it will employ from now until their doomsday.

    Take a deep breath folks. You are all going to be called paedophiles, sex pests and any other sexual deviance the trolls can think up.

    Character assassination is all they have. See it for what it is. Don't get angry, get even. Bare down. Our independence was never going to be a cake walk. The British establishment will pull out all the hatchets before we're done.

    Posted in previous thread by accident.

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    1. Catholic non poofter PriestSeptember 2, 2018 at 10:31 PM

      Anon, were you referring to the Catholic Church in your 3rd para!

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    2. Celia Rodina Arthur Whyte-SempleSeptember 3, 2018 at 12:07 AM

      Catholic non poofter Priest AKA GWC2 AKA jimmy glesga AKA The Hon. Cordelia Bracely-Dubois.

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    3. GWC2 AKA The Hon. Cordelia Bracely-Dubois

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  7. No. Not particularly. Still, it is a true and tried tactic to malign an entire community. It's what muckrakers do.

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  8. SNP back up to 40% in latest Yougov sample - 3/4 September

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