I'm almost speechless : Scot Goes Pop fundraiser reaches £2615 in the first 24 hours

I don't know where to start with this post, really.  Yesterday I set up a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo that will run for eleven days.  I had braced myself for the possibility that very little would be raised.  But after just one day, 119 incredibly generous people have donated, and the running total currently stands at £2665.  The fact that the £2500 barrier has been crossed now means that Indiegogo will only deduct a 4% commission from donations, rather than 9% (well, strictly speaking it's still a 9% commission, but apparently the refund will come later!).

I just can't thank you all enough.  I'm really touched, absolutely gobsmacked, and above all else slightly terrified by a sudden feeling of responsibility!  I'll do my very best not to let you down.

The fundraiser will carry on for the remaining ten days, and I'll continue to promote it.  But if you've already donated, please ignore all of that.  It'll only be aimed at other people who might still be interested in donating.  If the final amount raised significantly exceeds the original target figure, I plan to use a good chunk of it for online advertising (possibly on Facebook), to hopefully bring the opinion poll analysis on this blog to a wider audience.

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Are we one step closer to solving the mystery of the missing Ipsos-Mori referendum poll(s)?  A letter has appeared in the Sunday Herald, ostensibly from an Ipsos-Mori employee. It claims that the Cabinet Office recently commissioned a poll that ended up showing a surge for Yes, and which remained unpublished. Now, on the one hand it seems very fishy that anyone would put their job at risk by putting their name to a letter which so obviously breaches basic confidentiality rules.  But on the other hand, the story itself has the ring of truth to it.  When Ipsos-Mori were challenged on Twitter to confirm that Better Together had commissioned a poll and then suppressed it, they used a very careful form of words in their denial.  Something like : "We can confirm this story is not true."  Which might well have led a few cynical people to suspect that the story was basically true apart from one or two minor details - for example that the poll was commissioned by the Cabinet Office rather than by Better Together?  Hmmmm...

One thing that should be pointed out in the interests of fairness, though, is that if a poll was commissioned by any arm of the UK government, it would almost certainly never have been intended for publication, regardless of the results.