Pro-independence campaign make crucial breakthrough in new Ipsos-Mori telephone poll

Three months ago, Ipsos-Mori published what to date was their only poll for public consumption in referendum year so far.  It baffled many observers by showing a resilience in the already inflated No lead that was extremely difficult to reconcile with the picture painted by virtually all other pollsters.  But a number of people still felt that the dam had to break eventually, even at Ipsos-Mori, and it appears that has finally happened.  The new poll for STV shows a reduction in the No lead since early March of no less than 7.2%.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 36.3% (+4.2)
No 53.6% (-3.0)

When Don't Knows are excluded, the movement looks even more dramatic, with Yes smashing through the psychological 40% threshold for the first time in any Ipsos-Mori poll conducted during the campaign so far -

Yes 40.4% (+4.2)
No 59.6% (-4.2)

The fieldwork is up to date, and conducted since the European elections.  It's possible, therefore, that this poll is the first concrete sign that revulsion towards UKIP's success south of the border has translated directly into a boost for Yes.  However, we can't assume that's the case, because it's been so long since the last poll, and we could just be catching up belatedly with a swing to Yes that happened weeks ago, or that has been taking place gradually on an ongoing basis.  It's also possible that the March poll was an out-and-out rogue result, and that some of the swing happened even earlier than that.

Make no mistake, though - this is the most important breakthrough that Yes have made at any stage in the campaign so far, with the possible exception of the steady progress they've made in the TNS-BMRB series.  What makes Ipsos-Mori special is that they're the only pollster that conducts referendum polls by telephone - all of the others use volunteer online panels, apart from TNS-BMRB, who use the old-fashioned face-to-face approach.  For as long as Ipsos-Mori remained totally out of line with the online pollsters, there was a genuine possibility that they were getting it right and everyone else was getting it wrong.  Now that they have converged with the norm to some extent (albeit emphatically only to an extent), we can put that worry to one side - and the No campaign will have to live without a comfort blanket that they have become extremely accustomed to.

The fact that the fieldwork for this poll was conducted well after the most recent poll from ICM is a further small indication that the increase in the No lead reported by ICM may well have been an artifact of the margin of error (or of the bizarre change in methodology), rather than something real.  We've now had three different pollsters (Panelbase, Survation and Ipsos-Mori) that have failed to replicate the ICM trend, so we're getting closer to the point where it may be safe to stop worrying about that poll.

Incidentally, Ipsos-Mori have as usual headlined the numbers for those respondents who say they are certain to vote.  Among the entire sample, the reduction in the No lead is in fact 1% greater on the rounded figures -

Yes 34% (+5)
No 52% (-3)

As far as I can see we haven't yet been told what the numbers are on that measure after Don't Knows are stripped out, but a rough calculation suggests it might well be Yes 40% (+5), No 60% (-5).  That would mean that a full third of the No lead has been wiped out since the last poll.  [UPDATE : I've just found the datasets, and it is indeed Yes 40% (+5), No 60% (-5)].

Leaving aside his utterly laughable claim that the Yes side would be "panicking" about a poll showing a 7% reduction in the gap (!), the No camp's embarrassment of a campaign chief Blair McDougall seems to be drawing particular comfort from the fact that the relatively small number of undecided respondents in this poll broke more for No when they were pressed.  However, that misses the point to some extent - because the 42% Yes vote among undecided voters who expressed a leaning is slightly higher than the 40% Yes vote among decided voters, that actually gives a slight boost to Yes if you add the undecideds in.  So absolutely no joy for Blair there.

And what does this tell us about the notorious secret Ipsos-Mori mega-poll commissioned by the UK government?  Not a huge amount, other than the fact that this result is perfectly consistent with the strong rumour that the mega-poll detected significant movement towards Yes.  Without knowing what the exact figures were, though, it's obviously impossible to say whether there was a really big surge towards Yes that has since receded slightly, or whether the surge was roughly identical to what we are looking at now, in which case it has been successfully consolidated.  It's also worth pointing out that we shouldn't take it as read that Ipsos-Mori used an absolutely identical methodology in the mega-poll to the one they use for their published polls, so even if we knew what the figures were they might still not be directly comparable.

The usual disclaimers about Ipsos-Mori apply here - they appear to only interview people by landline (we don't know that for a fact, but any evidence for mobile fieldwork is completely lacking), which means that they may be reaching a small 'c' conservative sample who are disproportionately less likely to be pro-independence.  But of course, there are equivalent caveats about online pollsters, who may be reaching people who are unusually politically aware.  So it really is very difficult to judge where the truth lies, although the face-to-face approach of TNS-BMRB offers a very useful additional dimension.

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SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

After the recovery in the No lead in the last update of the Poll of Polls that was almost entirely caused by the somewhat questionable ICM poll, normal service has now been resumed, with the No lead slipping back to a position closer to the all-time low.

MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 42.8% (+0.8)
No 57.2% (-0.8)

MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 35.7% (+0.7)
No 47.8% (-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%