Pro-independence campaign close the gap to just 5% in sensational new Survation poll

Based only on some very insubstantial straws in the wind, I've had a slight feeling that the direction of travel in the aftermath of the European elections may have been in the favour of Yes.  Last night's TNS poll didn't really offer any clues because the fieldwork mostly predated the announcement of the European election results, and although last week's Ipsos-Mori poll was conducted during the right period, it was hard to interpret because it was the first poll from the firm for three months.  But the latest monthly poll that has just been released from Survation may - and I do emphasise the word may - be the first proper indication that something has indeed been happening.  It shows the No lead at just 5% - that's a 5 point drop on last month, and is 3 points lower than Survation have shown at any point in the campaign to date.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 39% (+2)
No 44% (-3)

With the Don't Knows stripped out, the No lead has been cut in half from 12 points to 6 -

Yes 47% (+3)
No 53% (-3)

Survation have thus joined ICM and Panelbase as one of three BPC-affiliated pollsters that have shown the No lead at 5 points or lower (ie. close to what the Americans call a "statistical tie") at some point during referendum year so far.

It's important to stress at moments like this that one swallow does not a summer make.  We know that there will be another ICM poll in a few days, and there's a rumour about a Panelbase poll in the works as well, so if those polls fail to replicate tonight's trend then it's possible we're just looking at a poll that is unusually flattering for Yes due to margin of error effects.  But if one or both of those upcoming polls show something out of the ordinary, then we may just be in business.  And I can't emphasise enough that last night's TNS poll in no way contradicts Survation, simply because the fieldwork took place considerably earlier.

At an absolute minimum, this poll represents the final nail in the coffin for the idea that the increase in the No lead suggested by the last ICM poll was in any sense real.  It's clear now that, at worst, the position has been static in recent weeks, and at best there has been sufficient movement towards Yes to take us to the brink of victory with more than three full months to go.  The latter point is naturally contingent on the belief that relatively Yes-friendly pollsters like Survation and Panelbase are closest to the truth - if by any chance Ipsos-Mori are the most accurate then Yes will still require significant gains (although of course even Ipsos-Mori are saying that the No lead has slumped from 28 points to 18 since last September).

Tonight's poll was commissioned by the Daily Record, who are actually making a bigger splash about one of the supplementary questions. When people were asked how they would vote in the referendum if they were sure that David Cameron would remain Prime Minister, this is how they responded -

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 44%
No 38%

With Don't Knows excluded, that works out as -

Yes 54%
No 46%

That finding is an absolute hammerblow for the No campaign.  Doubtless John Curtice will caution us that people are generally bad at accurately answering hypothetical questions, but in a sense that's not the point.  What these numbers prove is that there are sufficient people out there who are at least open to the idea of voting Yes without requiring any implausible financial guarantees (ie. "if you could be sure that you would be X amount of money richer per year").  There's a path to victory for us here.

And as it happens, this linkage of David Cameron's future with a possible majority for Yes coincides with a dramatic improvement in the Tories' fortunes at Britain-wide level.  Perhaps helped by the Newark by-election result, they seem to have regained the ground they lost to UKIP in the aftermath of the European elections, and have been just 2% behind Labour in both of the last two YouGov daily polls.  If that trend continues, it won't be long until there is unequivocal polling evidence that Cameron is heading for another five-year term as Prime Minister - and then we'll see if Survation's respondents mean what they say about opting for independence in those circumstances.

A final important detail - the fieldwork for this poll took place entirely after President Obama's rather half-hearted (or should that be quarter-hearted?) "endorsement" of the No campaign.  So it appears that Cameron's latest desperate attempt to enlist the help of a world leader has either had no effect at all, or has catastrophically backfired.  But I'm sure all of us are far too mature to even dream of finding that highly amusing.

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SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

In spite of the fact that the Poll of Polls sample still includes what increasingly looks like a rather questionable poll from ICM, the No lead has practically returned to its all-time low on the average that takes account of Don't Knows (the second batch of figures below).  Incidentally, I had a brief discussion on Twitter yesterday with Ipsos-Mori's Steven Hope about the merits of various averaging methods.  He felt that the FT's methodology is the best one, although he did go on to add that no method is perfect, and that it's important to look at various different averages to get the complete picture.  Frankly, my own view is that what we're seeing tonight illustrates perfectly the misconceived nature of both the FT and the Curtice averaging methods.  Over recent weeks, the FT Poll of Polls has seen the No lead increase from 7 points to 14 - and that's happened without the slightest scrap of evidence from any individual pollster (with the possible exception of ICM) that a trend towards No was actually underway.  It came about simply because a sample full of polls from Yes-friendly firms like Panelbase was gradually replaced with a sample featuring a greater number of polls from No-friendly firms like Ipsos-Mori.

Only the method used to produce the figures below is more or less guaranteed to reflect the real trends, because the respective weighting given to Yes-friendly and No-friendly firms does not change from one update to the next (except in the rare circumstance of a new firm entering the fray).

MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 43.2% (+0.4)
No 56.8% (-0.4)

MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 36.0% (+0.3)
No 47.3% (-0.5)

MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 42.3% (n/c)
No 57.7% (n/c)

(The Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of the most recent poll from each of the pollsters that have been active in the referendum campaign since September 2013, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are six - YouGov, TNS-BMRB, Survation, Panelbase, Ipsos-Mori and ICM. Whenever a new poll is published, it replaces the last poll from the same company in the sample. Changes in the Poll of Polls are generally glacial in nature due to the fact that only a small portion of the sample is updated each time.)

Here are the long-term trend figures, with the updates prior to Easter recalculated to exclude the inactive pollster Angus Reid...

The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls mean average (not excluding Don't Knows) :

Sep 2013 - 21.6%
Sep 2013 - 21.4%
Sep 2013 - 19.4%
Oct 2013 - 18.8%
Oct 2013 - 18.4%
Oct 2013 - 18.2%
Nov 2013 - 18.4%
Nov 2013 - 18.0%
Dec 2013 - 17.0%
Dec 2013 - 16.8%
Dec 2013 - 16.4%
Jan 2014 - 14.4%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 15.2%
Feb 2014 - 15.0%
Feb 2014 - 15.5%
Feb 2014 - 15.5%
Feb 2014 - 13.7%
Feb 2014 - 13.3%
Feb 2014 - 14.2%
Mar 2014 - 14.2%
Mar 2014 - 14.5%
Mar 2014 - 14.5%
Mar 2014 - 14.7%
Mar 2014 - 13.8%
Mar 2014 - 13.0%
Mar 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.3%
Apr 2014 - 11.4%
May 2014 - 11.2%
May 2014 - 11.2%
May 2014 - 11.5%
May 2014 - 13.3%
Jun 2014 - 12.1%
Jun 2014 - 12.1%
Jun 2014 - 11.3%

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Why the hell didn't anyone bother to tell me that STV's former current affairs show Scotland Tonight has been relaunched as a comedy series?  If only I'd known I would have tuned in long before tonight.  It really is the freshest, most rib-tickling new comedy to appear on our screens since Bonjour La Classe made its triumphant debut back in 1990.  In case you missed tonight's episode, the hilarious plot concerned a woman who was on the brink of tears because someone had accurately pointed out that she's a member of Labour's Shadow Cabinet, and had also inaccurately suggested that she's the daughter-in-law of Pat Lally.  In spite of the fact that the "wrong-doer" had for some inexplicable reason issued her with a grovelling apology for doing practically nothing at all, she continued to ramp up the victimhood for the cameras and told the nation that it felt more like an insult than an apology.  It seemed that nothing short of Campbell Gunn committing a Japanese-style ritual suicide would have sufficed.

I think what made the production work so brilliantly was the utter seriousness with which many of the participants treated the woman's complaints - there wasn't even the slightest hint of a giggle at the fact that the "hate attack" upon her largely consisted of being wrongly called Pat Lally's daughter-in-law.  The highlight of the episode (which is already assured of its place in the pantheon of iconic TV comedy moments alongside Del Boy and Rodney dressing up as Batman and Robin) was the horrified intake of breath from a former Labour aide when Stuart Campbell accurately described the woman as being a "hard-core political activist".  The exquisiteness of the comic timing was, I felt, rather reminiscent of the "even if he does say Jehovah" moment in Life of Brian.

Question - in the brave new Scotland unveiled by our mainstream media today, shouldn't the Labour party be issuing a grovelling apology to Pat Lally for suggesting that being called the daughter-in-law of Pat Lally is something that requires an apology?

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This is a real conversation that occurred just a few hours ago -

Family Member A : Is it true that people have been attacked on the streets just for being No supporters?

Family Member B : No, no, I think they were talking about verbal attacks.

Family Member A : I was sure I heard something about physical attacks...

Moral of the story : It's high time that journalists stopped using such irresponsibly inflammatory language when they refer to minor (and sometimes non-existent) Twitter spats.  Not everyone hangs around to hear the details.