I've just caught up with David Cameron's interview on Scotland Tonight. Although John MacKay is plainly nothing like as forensic an interrogator as a Ponsonby or a Brewer, I think he did a reasonably good job of pressing the Prime Minister on some uncomfortable questions. At the outset, it was pointed out to Cameron that he and his policies are the embodiment of what Scotland is getting as a result of not being independent right now, and is also the embodiment of what we will continue to get if we vote No in September. Essentially he was being invited to actually defend his record and his future plans to the Scottish electorate just for a change, rather than relying on a God-given right to govern us due to a political system that was devised 300 years ago. His response was extraordinary. It amounted to -
"I'm not interested in defending my policies to the Scottish electorate, and I'm not going to. For now I just want you to decide to permanently contract out your choice of governments to the UK electorate at large. Only once you've done that will I defend myself to that electorate, who I will invite to choose on your behalf that I should be your Prime Minister. And in all honesty it's best not to think about that too much when you step into the polling booth. Just think about the cute kittens of Britain! And don't partition the Middleland! The sheep are too identical!"
We're told that we can just take Dave's word for it that he will deliver new powers for the Scottish Parliament if we vote No, because, hey, he's a pretty straight kinda guy, and he's also got this fabulous track record of delivering on devolution already. But does he? The delivery of the Calman proposals can be entirely explained by the presence of the Lib Dems in the coalition - all the mood music before the 2010 election was that a majority Tory government would kick Calman into the longest of long grass. The devolution of policing powers to Northern Ireland is an irrelevance, because Prime Ministers of all colours have always seen Northern Ireland devolution through the prism of the peace process, which in turn is seen as a precious opportunity for a legacy. And the delivery of extra powers to Wales was probably down to a combination of pressure from the Lib Dems and the entirely spontaneous (bordering on miraculous) emergence of a relatively progressive and forward-thinking Tory leadership in the Welsh Assembly, who it would have been embarrassing to knock back publicly. So this track record is largely one of wearily going along with other people's ideas due to the necessity of circumstance.
We also learned that, incredibly, Cameron does not think John Smith's opposition to everything the Tories stand for has any relevance whatever when the late Labour leader's memory is invoked in this campaign. Apparently the one and only fact about Smith that matters is that he was opposed to Scottish independence. Well, he undoubtedly was a unionist, and he was as scathing about the SNP as any present-day Labour figure is (although he was also a much more authentic devolutionist than most of the current crop). But when working-class Labour voters think back to John Smith wistfully, does anyone really imagine that they're thinking of his attitude to the constitution? The likelihood is that they're actually wondering how they can ever get a Smith-like politician installed as the Prime Minister of their country - and in the context of this campaign the only logical conclusion that can be reached is that a Yes vote is the way of making that possible. "Think of John Smith when you're voting for me to remain your Prime Minister" does not strike me as being the most promising message from Cameron.
Oh, and apparently the reason Cameron's government isn't going to publish the Top Secret Ipsos-Mori Mega-Poll (which it's now pretty obvious showed a Yes surge of some description) is because they don't publish internal polls. And why don't they publish internal polls? Because they don't. Well, that's all totally clear. A friendly hint, Prime Minister - when you repeatedly tried to get off the hook by saying "there is no shortage of polls in this campaign", a lot of viewers will have been thinking : "So what's the harm in one more, then? What's so special about this one that it needs to be kept hidden at all costs?" And when you cited your "passion for the United Kingdom" and your government's "engagement with the campaign" as reasons for commissioning the poll in the first place, viewers will have been thinking : "You can be as passionate and as engaged as you like, chum, just so long as you don't do it at our expense and then keep the results secret."
As we know, Cameron is fighting for the Union with every fibre of his being, but, alas, his being simply doesn't contain enough fibres for him to contemplate the TV debate with Alex Salmond that opinion polls show the voters want by an overwhelming margin. His alternative excuse is that this is a debate between the Yes campaign and the No campaign, and that since Alistair Darling is the leader of the No campaign it's only sensible and logical that Darling should debate with Salmond who, er...isn't the leader of the Yes campaign.
Dennis Canavan is Darling's direct counterpart. Salmond's role in this campaign is as the head of the government that is supporting a Yes vote. His only possible counterpart is the head of the government that is supporting a No vote, namely David Cameron Esquire.
But by all means let's have a ninety-minute, prime-time, head-to-head debate between Salmond and Darling anyway. Come to think of it, can we have five?
* * *
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Friday, May 16, 2014
See if you can reconcile these two recommendations from the House of Lords
Recommendation A :
"Senior Tories urged Prime Minister David Cameron in March to block Scots from voting in the 2015 general election.
The peers' conclusion is in line with the Scottish government's White Paper on independence, which argues people must be represented politically at UK level until the day of independence."
Recommendation B :
"The proposed date of Scottish independence should be delayed if it is not in the best interests of the rest of the UK, a House of Lords report has said...
Labour peer Baroness Jay of Paddington, who chairs the constitution committee, urged the UK government to "put the rest of the UK's interest first" in the event of independence negotiations.
She said: "The prime minister should feel under no obligation to conclude negotiations by March 2016.""
So it seems that Scotland will be "represented" in the UK parliament and government until the day of independence, but that the government and parliament we are "represented" in will be required to act only in the interests of the rest of the UK, to such an extent that Scotland may be held hostage on a colonial basis for an indefinite period of time, against the freely expressed democratic wishes of its people.
Yup, that all makes perfect sense. If there's a No vote, can we have a law saying that London MPs must act solely in the interests of Scotland? Fair's fair.
* * *
Alex Massie returns to a familiar theme, but unfortunately it's no more convincing than the last time he gave it a spin -
"It [the anti-independence campaign] could go further still and argue not only that Scotland is British (a point in large part conceded by the SNP leadership, what with their talk of the Social Union) but that Scotland actually is Britain. For without Scotland, what is Britain? Only England and a handful of dependencies (sorry about that, Wales) and since England cannot leave Britain* the fate of Britain – and Britishness – will be determined by Scotland.
*Yes, yes, yes, Britain as a geographical entity will still exist after independence but that’s not what we mean by Britain in this case is it? No it is not and it is tendentious piffle to pretend otherwise. That includes you, Mr Salmond."
Well, yes it is what we mean, actually. If what we mean by "Britain" is instead simply a political state (which is actually called the United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland), then it must logically be possible for either Scotland or England to leave it. Or else it must be impossible for either Scotland or England to leave it, because whatever would be left couldn't be considered Britain. But what has no logical basis is the claim that Scotland can leave Britain, but England can't. That implies Britain is the name we give to whatever state London happens to be the capital city of at any given moment, which is precisely the kind of proprietorial nonsense we're puncturing by pointing out that Britain is a geographical and cultural entity that Scotland will have just as big a stake in after independence. Norway didn't "leave Scandinavia" when it became independent of Sweden.
"Senior Tories urged Prime Minister David Cameron in March to block Scots from voting in the 2015 general election.
The peers' conclusion is in line with the Scottish government's White Paper on independence, which argues people must be represented politically at UK level until the day of independence."
Recommendation B :
"The proposed date of Scottish independence should be delayed if it is not in the best interests of the rest of the UK, a House of Lords report has said...
Labour peer Baroness Jay of Paddington, who chairs the constitution committee, urged the UK government to "put the rest of the UK's interest first" in the event of independence negotiations.
She said: "The prime minister should feel under no obligation to conclude negotiations by March 2016.""
So it seems that Scotland will be "represented" in the UK parliament and government until the day of independence, but that the government and parliament we are "represented" in will be required to act only in the interests of the rest of the UK, to such an extent that Scotland may be held hostage on a colonial basis for an indefinite period of time, against the freely expressed democratic wishes of its people.
Yup, that all makes perfect sense. If there's a No vote, can we have a law saying that London MPs must act solely in the interests of Scotland? Fair's fair.
* * *
Alex Massie returns to a familiar theme, but unfortunately it's no more convincing than the last time he gave it a spin -
"It [the anti-independence campaign] could go further still and argue not only that Scotland is British (a point in large part conceded by the SNP leadership, what with their talk of the Social Union) but that Scotland actually is Britain. For without Scotland, what is Britain? Only England and a handful of dependencies (sorry about that, Wales) and since England cannot leave Britain* the fate of Britain – and Britishness – will be determined by Scotland.
*Yes, yes, yes, Britain as a geographical entity will still exist after independence but that’s not what we mean by Britain in this case is it? No it is not and it is tendentious piffle to pretend otherwise. That includes you, Mr Salmond."
Well, yes it is what we mean, actually. If what we mean by "Britain" is instead simply a political state (which is actually called the United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland), then it must logically be possible for either Scotland or England to leave it. Or else it must be impossible for either Scotland or England to leave it, because whatever would be left couldn't be considered Britain. But what has no logical basis is the claim that Scotland can leave Britain, but England can't. That implies Britain is the name we give to whatever state London happens to be the capital city of at any given moment, which is precisely the kind of proprietorial nonsense we're puncturing by pointing out that Britain is a geographical and cultural entity that Scotland will have just as big a stake in after independence. Norway didn't "leave Scandinavia" when it became independent of Sweden.
The broadcast media adopts "one of the many faces of neutrality" in the referendum by continuing to fund anti-independence campaigning from the CBI
There's an episode in the first series of Blake's 7 (a BBC show, of course) in which the characters seek medical help at a "neutral" space station, and then make a number of sardonic comments about encountering "one of the many faces of neutrality" as they find themselves being shopped to the evil Terran Federation. It seems that the claims of both the BBC and ITV to be "neutral" in the referendum campaign fall into the same category, because that nominal stance certainly hasn't precluded them from continuing to pay tens of thousands of pounds in membership fees to an explicitly anti-independence organisation. The BBC are no longer even bothering to symbolically distance themselves by temporarily suspending membership for the next few months.
Let's be absolutely clear about this - the fact that the CBI got themselves out of jail with a risible excuse and have somehow managed to deregister as an official supporter of the No campaign doesn't mean that they have been certified as "neutral". An organisation only has to be registered if it is planning to spend more than £10,000 on campaigning between the end of this month and polling day. The CBI's website clearly identifies the organisation as still favouring a No vote by stating : "The CBI believes that the best way to deliver jobs and prosperity for the people of Scotland is for Scotland to remain in the UK." It then goes on to campaign for a No vote with a "range of materials" that propagandise about how bleedin' awful independence would be for people in their own rarified world.
Our "neutral" broadcasters are quite openly continuing to fund that anti-independence campaigning website - in the case of the BBC to the tune of £22,191 per year. I'd like to see Angus Robertson or Nicola Sturgeon bring up that point the next time David Dimbleby reacts with self-righteous indignation to any claim that the representation of the referendum debate on television may not have been entirely even-handed thus far.
* * *
I somehow missed Simon Schama's Holland-esque contribution to the debate a few days ago in the Financial Times. Schama was of course the historian who made a TV series about the history of England for the BBC, but brazenly called it "A History of Britain". When he was pulled up about the disconnect between subject-matter and title, he loftily made clear that "his view of Irish and Scottish history is that when England wasn't involved, nothing was happening". So he's perhaps not ideally placed to persuasively wax lyrical about how the UK is just one big happy family, but he pluckily gives it a go just the same. These are my favourite bits -
"On the morning of September 19 the Scots and the rest of the British may well wake up as foreigners to each other."
Well, no they won't, because the UK government have already conceded that nobody will have their British citizenship taken away. And even if that wasn't the case, the "foreigners" thing would only apply if the UK government was planning to treat an independent Scotland differently to the Republic of Ireland, which is explicitly defined in law as "not foreign". Why would they do that, given that Scotland will (unlike Ireland) be part of the Commonwealth?
Oh, and last but not least, what's your problem with foreigners anyway, Simon? When you look out of your window in America, is "Johnny Foreigner" all that you can see staring back at you?
"Our shrunken country will henceforth be divided by borders, barriers, perhaps passports."
That'll be news to people who travel back and forth between Northern Ireland and the Republic every day without a border, barrier or passport check in sight. But even leaving the factual inaccuracy aside, Schama's melodramatic sentence still doesn't make an iota of logical sense. "Our shrunken country" presumably refers to the rest of the UK. Why would Scottish independence lead to the rest of the UK being divided, and to people needing a passport to travel between Yorkshire and Lancashire?
"Something precious, to this historian at any rate, will have been irreparably destroyed: a nation state whose glory over the centuries has been precisely that it does not correspond with some imagined romance of tribal singularity but has been made up of many peoples, languages, customs, all jumbled together within the expansive, inclusive British home."
A few cynical souls might suggest that "expansionist" is somewhat closer to the mark than "expansive". From a historical perspective, there aren't many nations in northern Europe that were more of a melting-pot than Scotland - this was the home of Britons, Picts, Gaels, Angles, Norse, and latterly Italians, South Asians, Poles and many others. We're a trilingual nation (English, Scots, Gaelic) and have countless community languages from all over the world. So your British nationalism isn't going to trump our inclusivity any time soon, Simon.
"Robert the Bruce may have been the victor of Bannockburn, destroying the English forces of Edward II; but he was also lord of the manor in Tottenham and his grandfather, the first Robert Bruce of Annandale, had been constable of Carlisle castle for Henry III."
I've rarely seen such a convincing explanation for why Scotland simply must carry on being ruled by Tory governments it didn't vote for.
"Three hundred years of shared experience, in war and peace, hard times and good, will have been thrown into the dustbin of history – and for what, exactly? So that Scots may be relieved of the bedroom tax and the Trident nuclear missile?"
Yes, heaven forbid that we start electing our own governments for such a trivial reason as the prevention of thermonuclear war.
Let's be absolutely clear about this - the fact that the CBI got themselves out of jail with a risible excuse and have somehow managed to deregister as an official supporter of the No campaign doesn't mean that they have been certified as "neutral". An organisation only has to be registered if it is planning to spend more than £10,000 on campaigning between the end of this month and polling day. The CBI's website clearly identifies the organisation as still favouring a No vote by stating : "The CBI believes that the best way to deliver jobs and prosperity for the people of Scotland is for Scotland to remain in the UK." It then goes on to campaign for a No vote with a "range of materials" that propagandise about how bleedin' awful independence would be for people in their own rarified world.
Our "neutral" broadcasters are quite openly continuing to fund that anti-independence campaigning website - in the case of the BBC to the tune of £22,191 per year. I'd like to see Angus Robertson or Nicola Sturgeon bring up that point the next time David Dimbleby reacts with self-righteous indignation to any claim that the representation of the referendum debate on television may not have been entirely even-handed thus far.
* * *
I somehow missed Simon Schama's Holland-esque contribution to the debate a few days ago in the Financial Times. Schama was of course the historian who made a TV series about the history of England for the BBC, but brazenly called it "A History of Britain". When he was pulled up about the disconnect between subject-matter and title, he loftily made clear that "his view of Irish and Scottish history is that when England wasn't involved, nothing was happening". So he's perhaps not ideally placed to persuasively wax lyrical about how the UK is just one big happy family, but he pluckily gives it a go just the same. These are my favourite bits -
"On the morning of September 19 the Scots and the rest of the British may well wake up as foreigners to each other."
Well, no they won't, because the UK government have already conceded that nobody will have their British citizenship taken away. And even if that wasn't the case, the "foreigners" thing would only apply if the UK government was planning to treat an independent Scotland differently to the Republic of Ireland, which is explicitly defined in law as "not foreign". Why would they do that, given that Scotland will (unlike Ireland) be part of the Commonwealth?
Oh, and last but not least, what's your problem with foreigners anyway, Simon? When you look out of your window in America, is "Johnny Foreigner" all that you can see staring back at you?
"Our shrunken country will henceforth be divided by borders, barriers, perhaps passports."
That'll be news to people who travel back and forth between Northern Ireland and the Republic every day without a border, barrier or passport check in sight. But even leaving the factual inaccuracy aside, Schama's melodramatic sentence still doesn't make an iota of logical sense. "Our shrunken country" presumably refers to the rest of the UK. Why would Scottish independence lead to the rest of the UK being divided, and to people needing a passport to travel between Yorkshire and Lancashire?
"Something precious, to this historian at any rate, will have been irreparably destroyed: a nation state whose glory over the centuries has been precisely that it does not correspond with some imagined romance of tribal singularity but has been made up of many peoples, languages, customs, all jumbled together within the expansive, inclusive British home."
A few cynical souls might suggest that "expansionist" is somewhat closer to the mark than "expansive". From a historical perspective, there aren't many nations in northern Europe that were more of a melting-pot than Scotland - this was the home of Britons, Picts, Gaels, Angles, Norse, and latterly Italians, South Asians, Poles and many others. We're a trilingual nation (English, Scots, Gaelic) and have countless community languages from all over the world. So your British nationalism isn't going to trump our inclusivity any time soon, Simon.
"Robert the Bruce may have been the victor of Bannockburn, destroying the English forces of Edward II; but he was also lord of the manor in Tottenham and his grandfather, the first Robert Bruce of Annandale, had been constable of Carlisle castle for Henry III."
I've rarely seen such a convincing explanation for why Scotland simply must carry on being ruled by Tory governments it didn't vote for.
"Three hundred years of shared experience, in war and peace, hard times and good, will have been thrown into the dustbin of history – and for what, exactly? So that Scots may be relieved of the bedroom tax and the Trident nuclear missile?"
Yes, heaven forbid that we start electing our own governments for such a trivial reason as the prevention of thermonuclear war.
Are the Tories about to tell us that "separatism" is OK after all - but only in Belgium?
Try not to guffaw too loudly, but it looks like David Cameron could be faced with an extremely painful dilemma over the coming weeks. You might remember that a key part of his pitch to win the Tory leadership in the first place was that the party would leave the European Parliament grouping dominated by the supposedly "federalist" European People's Party, and instead set up a new Eurosceptic group that the likes of Bill Cash could just about live with. It wasn't exactly easy to do it, because in order to reach the thresholds for official recognition as a group, they had to align themselves with some borderline nutters. They got there in the end, though, and the "European Conservatives and Reformists" are currently the joint fourth largest group in the parliament, with MEPs from eleven of the twenty-eight member states.
But not, if the polls are anything to go by, for much longer. The ECR group seems to be about to fall below one of the two thresholds for official recognition, which is representation in at least seven member states. That doesn't mean the group will necessarily fold after next week's election, but it does mean that they will need to draft in at least one extra party. This is where it gets interesting, because the general consensus seems to be that one of the obvious candidates is the New Flemish Alliance. In many ways, they're an absolutely dream fit for Mr Cameron - they're centre-right rather than hard-right, they seemingly have no overtly racist or homophobic baggage, and they even bill themselves as "liberal conservatives" (ring any bells?).
Just one snag, though - they also happen to be what is known in Tory jargon as "separatists". Here is how Wikipedia describes them...
"It is a regionalist and separatist movement that self-identifies with the promotion of civic nationalism. It is part of the Flemish Movement, and strives for the peaceful and gradual secession of Flanders from Belgium."
They are, in a nutshell, a rough Flemish equivalent of the SNP. They are even currently part of the same political family as the SNP, namely the European Free Alliance (EFA). They're seemingly planning to leave that grouping and seek a new home, not because they have renounced their "separatism", but because of left/right ideological differences, and because the EFA are in alliance with the Greens, which causes embarrassment at home.
But how can David Cameron possibly enter into a political marriage with "separatists" just months before the Scottish independence referendum? You might think he wouldn't be so foolish, but bear in mind that the alternatives could look even worse from his point of view. Getting over the threshold without the New Flemish Alliance might involve dealing with some extremely unsavoury characters, with all the bad press and "nasty party" connotations that come with that. A "prodigal son" return to the European People's Party group would be portrayed as a betrayal and is surely unthinkable. And it's highly unlikely that a major party like the Conservatives would consider not being part of any group at all, because that would freeze it out of much of the parliament's workings. So it could well be that Cameron feels his least worst option is to embrace his inner separatist.
Be sure to have some popcorn handy.
* * *
Meanwhile, it's perfectly conceivable that the SNP will overtake the Liberal Democrats next week as the fourth largest party in the UK contingent at the European Parliament. Both parties are currently forecast to win either two or three seats - but the difference is that the SNP have two definite seats in the bank, whereas the Liberal Democrats are in genuine danger of being completely wiped out.
Such an outcome wouldn't be unprecedented - between 1979 and 1994, every European Parliament seat in Great Britain was held by either Labour or the Conservatives, with the sole exception of the Highlands and Islands seat held by the SNP's Winnie Ewing. In the last first-past-the-post election in 1994, the Liberal Democrats finally made a breakthrough, but still only won two seats across the whole of Great Britain - exactly the same number as the SNP.
But not, if the polls are anything to go by, for much longer. The ECR group seems to be about to fall below one of the two thresholds for official recognition, which is representation in at least seven member states. That doesn't mean the group will necessarily fold after next week's election, but it does mean that they will need to draft in at least one extra party. This is where it gets interesting, because the general consensus seems to be that one of the obvious candidates is the New Flemish Alliance. In many ways, they're an absolutely dream fit for Mr Cameron - they're centre-right rather than hard-right, they seemingly have no overtly racist or homophobic baggage, and they even bill themselves as "liberal conservatives" (ring any bells?).
Just one snag, though - they also happen to be what is known in Tory jargon as "separatists". Here is how Wikipedia describes them...
"It is a regionalist and separatist movement that self-identifies with the promotion of civic nationalism. It is part of the Flemish Movement, and strives for the peaceful and gradual secession of Flanders from Belgium."
They are, in a nutshell, a rough Flemish equivalent of the SNP. They are even currently part of the same political family as the SNP, namely the European Free Alliance (EFA). They're seemingly planning to leave that grouping and seek a new home, not because they have renounced their "separatism", but because of left/right ideological differences, and because the EFA are in alliance with the Greens, which causes embarrassment at home.
But how can David Cameron possibly enter into a political marriage with "separatists" just months before the Scottish independence referendum? You might think he wouldn't be so foolish, but bear in mind that the alternatives could look even worse from his point of view. Getting over the threshold without the New Flemish Alliance might involve dealing with some extremely unsavoury characters, with all the bad press and "nasty party" connotations that come with that. A "prodigal son" return to the European People's Party group would be portrayed as a betrayal and is surely unthinkable. And it's highly unlikely that a major party like the Conservatives would consider not being part of any group at all, because that would freeze it out of much of the parliament's workings. So it could well be that Cameron feels his least worst option is to embrace his inner separatist.
Be sure to have some popcorn handy.
* * *
Meanwhile, it's perfectly conceivable that the SNP will overtake the Liberal Democrats next week as the fourth largest party in the UK contingent at the European Parliament. Both parties are currently forecast to win either two or three seats - but the difference is that the SNP have two definite seats in the bank, whereas the Liberal Democrats are in genuine danger of being completely wiped out.
Such an outcome wouldn't be unprecedented - between 1979 and 1994, every European Parliament seat in Great Britain was held by either Labour or the Conservatives, with the sole exception of the Highlands and Islands seat held by the SNP's Winnie Ewing. In the last first-past-the-post election in 1994, the Liberal Democrats finally made a breakthrough, but still only won two seats across the whole of Great Britain - exactly the same number as the SNP.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Survation headline figures revealed
Quite why we had to be left in 'suspense' overnight is a bit of a mystery, but the Survation headline figures have now been published, in addition to the figures excluding Don't Knows that were revealed last night. They show an identical position to the last poll in the monthly Record series, although the correct comparison is with the more recent Survation poll for the Sunday Post. There have only been margin of error changes since then.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 37% (-1)
No 47% (+1)
So the picture painted by Survation recently is indeed one of stability. But I'm slightly bemused by John Curtice's implication that this is somehow the final piece of the jigsaw that proves his long-running contention that there was a significant swing to Yes over the winter, but no movement in either direction since then. Let's consider the evidence from the five BPC pollsters other than Survation...
TNS-BMRB are showing the highest Yes vote of the campaign so far (41.3%) after Don't Knows are excluded. OK, that's only fractionally higher than the previous all-time highs, but it's always at least potentially interesting when a pollster produces numbers outside its normal range. The Yes vote on the headline numbers has also reached its highest level since TNS changed their methodology and increased the reported number of undecided voters.
Likewise, YouGov appear to be showing - albeit only by a very narrow margin - their highest Yes vote of the campaign so far when Don't Knows are excluded. We can't be 100% sure of that because YouGov don't reveal their unrounded figures. But it's a reasonable assumption given that the headline No lead is the lowest to date.
ICM are showing a Yes vote with DKs excluded that is 2% higher than at any previous point in the campaign.
Panelbase have shown stability recently, but they don't actually assist Professor Curtice's theory, because they were entirely out of step with the trend shown by the other pollsters during the winter. They showed No maintaining (or even slightly increasing) its previous lead after the White Paper, followed by a sudden drop a couple of months ago, followed by stability since then. The fact that no other pollster has replicated that pattern illustrates how methodology (including data collection method) can lead to the same basic trend being detected at an earlier or later date - it's almost as if some pollsters are on a time delay. Which brings me neatly on to...
Ipsos-Mori : If the rumours about the secret mega-poll are true, they would not only mean that Ipsos-Mori have picked up the trend shown by other pollsters a little bit later in the day (possibly due to telephone fieldwork reaching a more small 'c' conservative sample), but also that two out of six BPC pollsters are showing statistically significant movement to Yes since the end of the winter, and that four out of six pollsters are showing the highest Yes vote of the campaign so far in their most recent poll.
When you look at it that way, it becomes clear that the jury is still very much out on the Curtice theory.
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
Sorry for the delay in adding the update of the Poll of Polls - I've been on the move all day. As you'd expect, the margin of error changes in the Survation poll have fed through into the averages, and the No lead has fractionally increased, but only to a position 0.3% higher than the all-time low reported in the previous two updates.
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.8% (-0.2)
No 47.3% (+0.1)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.1% (-0.2)
No 56.9% (+0.2)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.0% (-0.6)
No 57.0% (+0.6)
(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 headline figures :
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%
And as Survation conduct their fieldwork online, it's also time for an update of the averages for the four online pollsters that have reported so far this year...
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 38.3% (-0.2)
No 46.3% (+0.3)
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.3% (-0.3)
No 54.7% (+0.3)
MEDIAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.6% (-0.5)
No 54.4% (+0.5)
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 37% (-1)
No 47% (+1)
So the picture painted by Survation recently is indeed one of stability. But I'm slightly bemused by John Curtice's implication that this is somehow the final piece of the jigsaw that proves his long-running contention that there was a significant swing to Yes over the winter, but no movement in either direction since then. Let's consider the evidence from the five BPC pollsters other than Survation...
TNS-BMRB are showing the highest Yes vote of the campaign so far (41.3%) after Don't Knows are excluded. OK, that's only fractionally higher than the previous all-time highs, but it's always at least potentially interesting when a pollster produces numbers outside its normal range. The Yes vote on the headline numbers has also reached its highest level since TNS changed their methodology and increased the reported number of undecided voters.
Likewise, YouGov appear to be showing - albeit only by a very narrow margin - their highest Yes vote of the campaign so far when Don't Knows are excluded. We can't be 100% sure of that because YouGov don't reveal their unrounded figures. But it's a reasonable assumption given that the headline No lead is the lowest to date.
ICM are showing a Yes vote with DKs excluded that is 2% higher than at any previous point in the campaign.
Panelbase have shown stability recently, but they don't actually assist Professor Curtice's theory, because they were entirely out of step with the trend shown by the other pollsters during the winter. They showed No maintaining (or even slightly increasing) its previous lead after the White Paper, followed by a sudden drop a couple of months ago, followed by stability since then. The fact that no other pollster has replicated that pattern illustrates how methodology (including data collection method) can lead to the same basic trend being detected at an earlier or later date - it's almost as if some pollsters are on a time delay. Which brings me neatly on to...
Ipsos-Mori : If the rumours about the secret mega-poll are true, they would not only mean that Ipsos-Mori have picked up the trend shown by other pollsters a little bit later in the day (possibly due to telephone fieldwork reaching a more small 'c' conservative sample), but also that two out of six BPC pollsters are showing statistically significant movement to Yes since the end of the winter, and that four out of six pollsters are showing the highest Yes vote of the campaign so far in their most recent poll.
When you look at it that way, it becomes clear that the jury is still very much out on the Curtice theory.
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
Sorry for the delay in adding the update of the Poll of Polls - I've been on the move all day. As you'd expect, the margin of error changes in the Survation poll have fed through into the averages, and the No lead has fractionally increased, but only to a position 0.3% higher than the all-time low reported in the previous two updates.
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.8% (-0.2)
No 47.3% (+0.1)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.1% (-0.2)
No 56.9% (+0.2)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.0% (-0.6)
No 57.0% (+0.6)
(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 headline figures :
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%
And as Survation conduct their fieldwork online, it's also time for an update of the averages for the four online pollsters that have reported so far this year...
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 38.3% (-0.2)
No 46.3% (+0.3)
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.3% (-0.3)
No 54.7% (+0.3)
MEDIAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.6% (-0.5)
No 54.4% (+0.5)
Support for independence at 44% in new Survation poll
I thought we were getting the new Survation poll last night, as it turned out it's tonight! However as far as I can see all that has been revealed so far are the numbers with Don't Knows excluded -
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 44% (-1)
No 56% (+1)
I've already had to update this post, because the poll was misleadingly billed on Twitter as a no change affair. The confusion comes about because some people are comparing it to the last Survation poll for the monthly Daily Record series, which did indeed show figures of Yes 44%, No 56%. However, the correct comparison is with the more recent Survation poll for the Sunday Post, which had Yes one point higher. It doesn't make a huge amount of difference, though, because the changes between the three polls are well within the margin of error, and offer an impression of recent stability following the winter slump in the No lead - although that's only an impression, and it's not one that all other pollsters agree with.
We'll need the headline numbers that don't exclude Don't Knows before we can really assess where this poll leaves the state of play. If past form is anything to go by, we may not get those until the morning, and I won't be able to update the Poll of Polls until we do.
Still, the initial reaction of the usual suspects to this poll has been highly instructive. The glee with which Murdo Fraser claims "more proof of no Yes momentum" betrays a No campaign that is entirely on the defensive, and that has given up all hope of making progress of it own. That's in spite of the fact that the last two or three weeks should have marked some kind of fightback for No, given the number of different advertising campaigns that have been rolled out (including from those adorable London Tory millionaires in the "Scottish grassroots group" Vote No Borders). Unlike the TNS poll last night, Survation's fieldwork is likely to be bang up to date, and indicates that the huge spend on anti-independence ads has had no impact, beyond minor changes that are most likely due to normal sampling variation.
And here's a thought for Murdo - if there's such a premium on finding "more" proof of "no momentum for Yes", why don't you simply ask your Tory ministerial colleagues at Westminster to publish the results of the secret Ipsos-Mori mega-poll they recently conducted at huge expense to the taxpayer? I mean, I know some cynical people say you're only failing to do that because the poll would in fact prove the complete opposite to be true, but surely that can't be right...
The creative geniuses over at McDougall Central have recently developed a fondness for publishing glossy graphs comparing each new poll to the most recent one to be published, even if the firms and methodologies concerned were entirely different. So we can doubtless look forward in the morning to a graph showing that the Yes vote has increased 3% since the TNS poll just 24 hours ago. And I gather the Daily Mail has a headline screaming : "Support for separation soars to 44% as outrage over Putin subsides!"
In the comments section below, Rolfe asks if the fact that recent published polls are showing "much of a muchness" means that the secret Ipsos-Mori poll must have been a rogue, and therefore of no great significance. It's worth remembering that a rogue poll is simply the one poll in twenty that falls outside the standard margin of error, which for a poll with a sample of 10,000 (it may well have been as high as that) would be just 1%. So in the context of a mega-poll on that scale, even a "rogue" result is actually likely to be fairly accurate - or at least accurate within the parameters of Ipsos-Mori's own methodology and the logic that lies behind it, which may or may not be flawed. In other words, if the rumours about the poll are true, it would be fairly convincing evidence that the No campaign have lost their most important safety net, and that the only telephone pollster in this campaign is no longer showing them in a near-impregnable lead. There could hardly be a more significant breakthrough for Yes than that - it would mean that every single BPC-affiliated pollster, regardless of data collection method, is now suggesting that the referendum result is hanging in the balance.
Check back here tomorrow for the headline Survation numbers, and for the latest Poll of Polls update.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 44% (-1)
No 56% (+1)
I've already had to update this post, because the poll was misleadingly billed on Twitter as a no change affair. The confusion comes about because some people are comparing it to the last Survation poll for the monthly Daily Record series, which did indeed show figures of Yes 44%, No 56%. However, the correct comparison is with the more recent Survation poll for the Sunday Post, which had Yes one point higher. It doesn't make a huge amount of difference, though, because the changes between the three polls are well within the margin of error, and offer an impression of recent stability following the winter slump in the No lead - although that's only an impression, and it's not one that all other pollsters agree with.
We'll need the headline numbers that don't exclude Don't Knows before we can really assess where this poll leaves the state of play. If past form is anything to go by, we may not get those until the morning, and I won't be able to update the Poll of Polls until we do.
Still, the initial reaction of the usual suspects to this poll has been highly instructive. The glee with which Murdo Fraser claims "more proof of no Yes momentum" betrays a No campaign that is entirely on the defensive, and that has given up all hope of making progress of it own. That's in spite of the fact that the last two or three weeks should have marked some kind of fightback for No, given the number of different advertising campaigns that have been rolled out (including from those adorable London Tory millionaires in the "Scottish grassroots group" Vote No Borders). Unlike the TNS poll last night, Survation's fieldwork is likely to be bang up to date, and indicates that the huge spend on anti-independence ads has had no impact, beyond minor changes that are most likely due to normal sampling variation.
And here's a thought for Murdo - if there's such a premium on finding "more" proof of "no momentum for Yes", why don't you simply ask your Tory ministerial colleagues at Westminster to publish the results of the secret Ipsos-Mori mega-poll they recently conducted at huge expense to the taxpayer? I mean, I know some cynical people say you're only failing to do that because the poll would in fact prove the complete opposite to be true, but surely that can't be right...
The creative geniuses over at McDougall Central have recently developed a fondness for publishing glossy graphs comparing each new poll to the most recent one to be published, even if the firms and methodologies concerned were entirely different. So we can doubtless look forward in the morning to a graph showing that the Yes vote has increased 3% since the TNS poll just 24 hours ago. And I gather the Daily Mail has a headline screaming : "Support for separation soars to 44% as outrage over Putin subsides!"
In the comments section below, Rolfe asks if the fact that recent published polls are showing "much of a muchness" means that the secret Ipsos-Mori poll must have been a rogue, and therefore of no great significance. It's worth remembering that a rogue poll is simply the one poll in twenty that falls outside the standard margin of error, which for a poll with a sample of 10,000 (it may well have been as high as that) would be just 1%. So in the context of a mega-poll on that scale, even a "rogue" result is actually likely to be fairly accurate - or at least accurate within the parameters of Ipsos-Mori's own methodology and the logic that lies behind it, which may or may not be flawed. In other words, if the rumours about the poll are true, it would be fairly convincing evidence that the No campaign have lost their most important safety net, and that the only telephone pollster in this campaign is no longer showing them in a near-impregnable lead. There could hardly be a more significant breakthrough for Yes than that - it would mean that every single BPC-affiliated pollster, regardless of data collection method, is now suggesting that the referendum result is hanging in the balance.
Check back here tomorrow for the headline Survation numbers, and for the latest Poll of Polls update.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Your money in action
So I wanted to demonstrate some kind of tangible benefit from your unbelievably generous donations to the Scot Goes Pop fundraiser (which now has eight days left to run) over and above simply keeping the blog going until the referendum. I didn't push the boat out too far, because obviously I'm going to have to be careful to make the money last. In fact I barely nudged the boat at all! But I did run a little experiment by placing a dirt cheap £18 ad on Facebook, just to test what would be possible over the coming months. It publicises yesterday's post about the Tories taking an outright lead in a second GB-wide opinion poll, and its potential implications for the independence referendum. This is what it looks like -
Other than a minimum age, the only targeting option I used was 'in Scotland'. I didn't specifically try to reach people who are interested in politics, partly because that would mean preaching to the converted or the unconvertible, and partly because such people are likely to have friends with similar interests who are constantly sharing links about the referendum anyway. I just wanted to reach random voters, including people who the indyref hashtag rarely finds its way to. I seriously considered targeting women specifically, although I decided against it in the end because it would have meant reaching fewer people overall. And with about 20% of the ad's expenditure still left to run, this is the number of people in Scotland it has reached so far -
So by the time it has run its course it may well have been seen by up to 14,000 voters. Not too shabby for £18.
Why did I choose that particular post to publicise? As Mick Pork pointed out yesterday, it's all very well saying that a Tory lead in the GB-wide opinion polls will make people more likely to vote for independence, but that's not terribly helpful if most people don't follow the opinion polls and therefore don't actually know that the Tories have taken the lead. So I thought it would be nice to do something practical about that problem. By the time the ad has finished, approximately 1 in 300 of the voting age population of Scotland will have seen the words "Increase in support for independence expected as another new poll suggests the Tories are heading for victory in next year's UK general election". Of course only a small percentage of people have followed the link through to this blog, but that doesn't matter as long as the basic message has got through to some extent.
Apart from illustrating a side-benefit of the fundraiser, this hopefully demonstrates how any blogger with a few pounds to spare can get a message through to undecided voters in a cost-effective manner. But I think the trick is to contain the full essence of the message in the title - there's no point in relying on people clicking through to the blogpost itself, because in most cases that won't happen. It's probably also best to make sure that the message is actually something that will make undecided voters stop and think, rather than just a random slagging off of Johann Lamont or Blair McDougall (however richly deserved that slagging off would undoubtedly be).
I'll have to do this reasonably sparingly, but I'll try to select the most useful looking posts, and promote them in the same way between now and the referendum.
Support for independence breaks through psychological barrier in new TNS-BMRB poll
When the SNP's Kevin Pringle teased us earlier tonight about a forthcoming "encouraging" poll, I wondered if it might be the overdue monthly poll from Survation for the Record. But in fact it's the latest poll from another monthly series - the one conducted by TNS-BMRB.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 30% (+1)
No 42% (+1)
TNS of course use a methodology that for some reason finds far more Don't Knows than any other pollster, and this is the first time the Yes vote on the headline numbers has been in the 30s since that methodology was introduced. The No lead also remains at the record low of 12% that it fell to last month - less than half of the peak lead of 25% that TNS reported in the autumn of 2012, and barely over half of the 22% lead they reported as recently as last September.
If you pump the above numbers into a calculator, it looks as if the Yes vote with Don't Knows excluded ought to be 42%, which would be a record high from TNS during the campaign period. However, it appears from John Curtice's blog that the rounding has cheated us of that -
Yes 41% (n/c)
No 59% (n/c)
It may well be, though, that when the datasets appear we'll find that the gap has indeed narrowed a smidgeon on the unrounded numbers. And we already know that the No lead has slumped to single digits among respondents who say they are certain to vote -
Yes 35% (+2)
No 44% (-2)
Those numbers are identical to the record low No lead of 9% that was reported in late January on the same measure, which has proved considerably more volatile than the headline numbers. But other than that January poll, the No lead among certain voters has only fallen below 13% once, so this could well be a significant moment. When Don't Knows are stripped out, the figures work out as something in the region of 44% or 45% for Yes - much more in line with what the more Yes-friendly pollsters have been showing on their headline numbers for months. (And remember if this was Ipsos-Mori the figures for certain voters would be the headline numbers.) Coming from one of only two non-online pollsters, that's massive - but only if it doesn't prove to be another January-style blip.
The Curtice spin on this poll fits neatly into the narrative he's been nursing in recent weeks of "there was momentum for Yes during the winter, and they've consolidated that in the spring rather than building on it further". I must say that seems like a slightly odd reaction to this particular poll. 42% for No is an extremely typical figure that we've seen no fewer than five times before in recent months from TNS. But Yes have never been as high as 30% before (at least not since the methodological change), and indeed have only been as high as 29% on three occasions. So that suggests to me that further progress is being made. As for the slump in the No lead among certain voters, Curtice casually brushes that aside and accuses TNS of only drawing attention to it in order to make a "no change" poll look more interesting. Perhaps he hasn't noticed that the figures for certain voters have been on prominent display on the TNS website for months now?
In spite of the fact that TNS have shown a hefty swing to Yes since the autumn, they do of course remain one of the more No-friendly pollsters, and that has to be borne in mind when trying to make sense of these numbers. A 41% Yes vote from TNS with Don't Knows excluded could well be the equivalent of a 47% or 48% Yes vote under the Panelbase or ICM methodologies. The million dollar question is who (if anyone) is getting it right - and, scarily, we won't be sure of the answer to that until polling day. It's quite conceivable that by September some pollsters will be showing a Yes lead while others will still be showing a No lead, and we genuinely won't have a clue whether Scotland is about to become an independent country or not.
The other health warning that always has to be put on TNS polls is that their fieldwork is generally quite a bit out of date by the time they actually get round to publishing. So these numbers probably won't wholly factor in the impact (if any) that the anti-independence cinema advert has had, and they'll entirely exclude any impact of the utterly barmy newspaper ads from the fake "grassroots" Tory-funded group Vote No Borders. Is it just me, or has the Yes campaign suddenly fallen slightly behind in the advertising wars in recent days?
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
In line with the trend shown by TNS, both sides edge upwards in this update of the Poll of Polls headline numbers, with Yes reaching the giddy heights of exactly 36%, and with the No lead remaining at a record low of 11.2%. Once Don't Knows are stripped out, though, the No lead has dropped even further.
Of course Ipsos-Mori are still represented in this sample by their last published poll, which was conducted in the late winter. If we were able to replace that poll with the notorious secret mega-poll they conducted for the Cabinet Office recently, it might well be that the No lead in this update would be somewhat lower than 11.2%.
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 36.0% (+0.2)
No 47.2% (+0.2)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.3% (+0.1)
No 56.7% (-0.1)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.6% (n/c)
No 56.4% (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 headline figures :
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%
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 30% (+1)
No 42% (+1)
TNS of course use a methodology that for some reason finds far more Don't Knows than any other pollster, and this is the first time the Yes vote on the headline numbers has been in the 30s since that methodology was introduced. The No lead also remains at the record low of 12% that it fell to last month - less than half of the peak lead of 25% that TNS reported in the autumn of 2012, and barely over half of the 22% lead they reported as recently as last September.
If you pump the above numbers into a calculator, it looks as if the Yes vote with Don't Knows excluded ought to be 42%, which would be a record high from TNS during the campaign period. However, it appears from John Curtice's blog that the rounding has cheated us of that -
Yes 41% (n/c)
No 59% (n/c)
It may well be, though, that when the datasets appear we'll find that the gap has indeed narrowed a smidgeon on the unrounded numbers. And we already know that the No lead has slumped to single digits among respondents who say they are certain to vote -
Yes 35% (+2)
No 44% (-2)
Those numbers are identical to the record low No lead of 9% that was reported in late January on the same measure, which has proved considerably more volatile than the headline numbers. But other than that January poll, the No lead among certain voters has only fallen below 13% once, so this could well be a significant moment. When Don't Knows are stripped out, the figures work out as something in the region of 44% or 45% for Yes - much more in line with what the more Yes-friendly pollsters have been showing on their headline numbers for months. (And remember if this was Ipsos-Mori the figures for certain voters would be the headline numbers.) Coming from one of only two non-online pollsters, that's massive - but only if it doesn't prove to be another January-style blip.
The Curtice spin on this poll fits neatly into the narrative he's been nursing in recent weeks of "there was momentum for Yes during the winter, and they've consolidated that in the spring rather than building on it further". I must say that seems like a slightly odd reaction to this particular poll. 42% for No is an extremely typical figure that we've seen no fewer than five times before in recent months from TNS. But Yes have never been as high as 30% before (at least not since the methodological change), and indeed have only been as high as 29% on three occasions. So that suggests to me that further progress is being made. As for the slump in the No lead among certain voters, Curtice casually brushes that aside and accuses TNS of only drawing attention to it in order to make a "no change" poll look more interesting. Perhaps he hasn't noticed that the figures for certain voters have been on prominent display on the TNS website for months now?
In spite of the fact that TNS have shown a hefty swing to Yes since the autumn, they do of course remain one of the more No-friendly pollsters, and that has to be borne in mind when trying to make sense of these numbers. A 41% Yes vote from TNS with Don't Knows excluded could well be the equivalent of a 47% or 48% Yes vote under the Panelbase or ICM methodologies. The million dollar question is who (if anyone) is getting it right - and, scarily, we won't be sure of the answer to that until polling day. It's quite conceivable that by September some pollsters will be showing a Yes lead while others will still be showing a No lead, and we genuinely won't have a clue whether Scotland is about to become an independent country or not.
The other health warning that always has to be put on TNS polls is that their fieldwork is generally quite a bit out of date by the time they actually get round to publishing. So these numbers probably won't wholly factor in the impact (if any) that the anti-independence cinema advert has had, and they'll entirely exclude any impact of the utterly barmy newspaper ads from the fake "grassroots" Tory-funded group Vote No Borders. Is it just me, or has the Yes campaign suddenly fallen slightly behind in the advertising wars in recent days?
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
In line with the trend shown by TNS, both sides edge upwards in this update of the Poll of Polls headline numbers, with Yes reaching the giddy heights of exactly 36%, and with the No lead remaining at a record low of 11.2%. Once Don't Knows are stripped out, though, the No lead has dropped even further.
Of course Ipsos-Mori are still represented in this sample by their last published poll, which was conducted in the late winter. If we were able to replace that poll with the notorious secret mega-poll they conducted for the Cabinet Office recently, it might well be that the No lead in this update would be somewhat lower than 11.2%.
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 36.0% (+0.2)
No 47.2% (+0.2)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.3% (+0.1)
No 56.7% (-0.1)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.6% (n/c)
No 56.4% (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 headline figures :
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%
Wisdom on Wednesday : The independence imperative
"We are seeking sovereignty because it is absolutely essential, like the ripening of fruit, like reaching adulthood, like a river opening out into the ocean. It is necessary because we are a people."
Said by Lucien Bouchard, moderate leader of the (very nearly successful) Quebec independence movement in 1995. And I bet that quote sounded even better in French!
Said by Lucien Bouchard, moderate leader of the (very nearly successful) Quebec independence movement in 1995. And I bet that quote sounded even better in French!
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Increase in support for independence expected as another new poll suggests the Tories are heading for victory in next year's UK general election
It seems that GB-wide polls showing the Tories in the lead are like First Buses - you hope against hope that none will ever turn up, and then after a couple of years two of them arrive at the same time and make you feel very depressed. Just hours after the appearance of the landmark Ashcroft poll showing a 2-point Conservative lead, the Guardian published this poll from their regular ICM series -
Conservatives 33% (+1)
Labour 31% (-6)
UKIP 15% (+4)
Liberal Democrats 13% (+1)
Others 9% (+1)
This is much more significant than numbers based on the entirely untested Ashcroft methodology. The ICM/Guardian series is the longest-running and most trusted set of regular polls in the UK, meaning that this 'crossover' moment must be taken extremely seriously. It's particularly striking that the collapse in the Labour vote has coincided with a 4% increase in UKIP's support. That's unlikely to mean that ex-Labour voters are switching to UKIP in droves, though - probably something odd is going on beneath the surface, such as Tory voters switching to UKIP at roughly the same rate as Labour voters are switching to the Tories.
But the real sting in this poll's tail is provided by the European election voting intention figures -
Conservatives 27% (+2)
UKIP 26% (+4)
Labour 24% (-12)
Greens 10% (+4)
Liberal Democrats 7% (+1)
Others 7%
If that was the result on May 22nd it would be a potentially fatal blow for the anti-independence campaign in Scotland, because it would send the most powerful possible signal to the Scottish electorate that the Tories are going to win the UK general election, and that there's no escape from the nightmare for us other than to choose our own governments in future. In reality ICM are probably underestimating UKIP a touch, because most telephone polls do. But in a sense that doesn't matter - if the Labour opposition can't even outpoll the Tories (or finish higher than third) in a relatively meaningless mid-term contest, then they might as well not bother getting out of bed for the real thing next year. And if by any chance this poll is exactly right and the Tories do win the Euro popular vote, then the anti-independence campaign won't even enjoy the temporary benefit I've long anticipated of Labour's (now non-existent) poll lead increasing by default as a result of a UKIP honeymoon that draws off Tory voters.
For "Better Together", this poll is about as bad as it gets.
Conservatives 33% (+1)
Labour 31% (-6)
UKIP 15% (+4)
Liberal Democrats 13% (+1)
Others 9% (+1)
This is much more significant than numbers based on the entirely untested Ashcroft methodology. The ICM/Guardian series is the longest-running and most trusted set of regular polls in the UK, meaning that this 'crossover' moment must be taken extremely seriously. It's particularly striking that the collapse in the Labour vote has coincided with a 4% increase in UKIP's support. That's unlikely to mean that ex-Labour voters are switching to UKIP in droves, though - probably something odd is going on beneath the surface, such as Tory voters switching to UKIP at roughly the same rate as Labour voters are switching to the Tories.
But the real sting in this poll's tail is provided by the European election voting intention figures -
Conservatives 27% (+2)
UKIP 26% (+4)
Labour 24% (-12)
Greens 10% (+4)
Liberal Democrats 7% (+1)
Others 7%
If that was the result on May 22nd it would be a potentially fatal blow for the anti-independence campaign in Scotland, because it would send the most powerful possible signal to the Scottish electorate that the Tories are going to win the UK general election, and that there's no escape from the nightmare for us other than to choose our own governments in future. In reality ICM are probably underestimating UKIP a touch, because most telephone polls do. But in a sense that doesn't matter - if the Labour opposition can't even outpoll the Tories (or finish higher than third) in a relatively meaningless mid-term contest, then they might as well not bother getting out of bed for the real thing next year. And if by any chance this poll is exactly right and the Tories do win the Euro popular vote, then the anti-independence campaign won't even enjoy the temporary benefit I've long anticipated of Labour's (now non-existent) poll lead increasing by default as a result of a UKIP honeymoon that draws off Tory voters.
For "Better Together", this poll is about as bad as it gets.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Crossover? Tories take the lead in a Britain-wide poll for the first time in two years
Belize's very own unelected billionaire representative in the UK Parliament, Lord Ashcroft, has started a new series of GB-wide telephone polls. The results of the first one should strike terror into the heart of anyone contemplating a No vote in the independence referendum, because it shows the Conservative Party taking an outright lead for the first time in any poll for two years.
Conservatives 34%
Labour 32%
UKIP 15%
Liberal Democrats 9%
SNP 3%
Of course Ashcroft does not have his own polling organisation that actually conducts fieldwork, so just like the PSO referendum poll at the weekend, this poll was actually conducted by others. The layout of the datasets looks very similar to Populus and Comres, so that may (or may not) be a clue.
This turn of events has been on the cards for some time. After the Budget, the Labour lead in the daily YouGov polls plunged to almost nothingness, but then recovered somewhat, leading some commentators to assume that there had merely been a temporary Budget boost for the Tories that was of no real consequence. But in truth it now looks as if it was the Labour recovery that was illusory. A succession of YouGov polls last week put the Labour lead at somewhere between one and three points, and although there was one at the weekend that showed a bigger lead, that had the look of an outlier. It seemed it was only a matter of time before at least one poll from at least one firm showed a Tory lead, and it's finally happened.
I put a question mark after the word "crossover" in the title of this post, partly because one swallow does not a summer make, and partly because this is only the first in a series of polls - it may be there's something weird about the Ashcroft methodology that helps the Tories. Only time will tell. But this could just as easily be the start of a pattern, with some polls showing a very narrow Labour lead, some polls showing a dead heat, and others showing a Tory lead.
If so, what could be the impact on the independence referendum? A number of different pollsters have asked a hypothetical question about how people's vote might be affected if it looked like the Tories were heading for victory in the general election. They've produced wildly different results - some have pointed to an outright Yes lead in those circumstances, and others have shown No in a decent lead. But the one thing they all agree on is that the Yes vote would be significantly higher than it currently is.
John Curtice always cautions us that voters are very bad at judging what their opinion would be in a hypothetical set of circumstances. For example, questions along the lines of "who would you vote for if X was leader of X party?" often produce results that bear little resemblance to what actually happens when that person becomes leader. But it should be remembered that the uncertainty works both ways - it could be that voters would swing even more sharply to Yes in the event of a clear Tory lead than they currently realise.
The fly in the ointment is, as ever, UKIP's likely (but not certain) victory in the forthcoming European elections. In the afterglow of that result, it's possible that some Tory voters who are currently planning to 'lend' their vote to UKIP for the European elections only could temporarily start telling pollsters that they will vote UKIP for Westminster as well, thus generating the illusion of a bigger Labour lead for a while.
Conservatives 34%
Labour 32%
UKIP 15%
Liberal Democrats 9%
SNP 3%
Of course Ashcroft does not have his own polling organisation that actually conducts fieldwork, so just like the PSO referendum poll at the weekend, this poll was actually conducted by others. The layout of the datasets looks very similar to Populus and Comres, so that may (or may not) be a clue.
This turn of events has been on the cards for some time. After the Budget, the Labour lead in the daily YouGov polls plunged to almost nothingness, but then recovered somewhat, leading some commentators to assume that there had merely been a temporary Budget boost for the Tories that was of no real consequence. But in truth it now looks as if it was the Labour recovery that was illusory. A succession of YouGov polls last week put the Labour lead at somewhere between one and three points, and although there was one at the weekend that showed a bigger lead, that had the look of an outlier. It seemed it was only a matter of time before at least one poll from at least one firm showed a Tory lead, and it's finally happened.
I put a question mark after the word "crossover" in the title of this post, partly because one swallow does not a summer make, and partly because this is only the first in a series of polls - it may be there's something weird about the Ashcroft methodology that helps the Tories. Only time will tell. But this could just as easily be the start of a pattern, with some polls showing a very narrow Labour lead, some polls showing a dead heat, and others showing a Tory lead.
If so, what could be the impact on the independence referendum? A number of different pollsters have asked a hypothetical question about how people's vote might be affected if it looked like the Tories were heading for victory in the general election. They've produced wildly different results - some have pointed to an outright Yes lead in those circumstances, and others have shown No in a decent lead. But the one thing they all agree on is that the Yes vote would be significantly higher than it currently is.
John Curtice always cautions us that voters are very bad at judging what their opinion would be in a hypothetical set of circumstances. For example, questions along the lines of "who would you vote for if X was leader of X party?" often produce results that bear little resemblance to what actually happens when that person becomes leader. But it should be remembered that the uncertainty works both ways - it could be that voters would swing even more sharply to Yes in the event of a clear Tory lead than they currently realise.
The fly in the ointment is, as ever, UKIP's likely (but not certain) victory in the forthcoming European elections. In the afterglow of that result, it's possible that some Tory voters who are currently planning to 'lend' their vote to UKIP for the European elections only could temporarily start telling pollsters that they will vote UKIP for Westminster as well, thus generating the illusion of a bigger Labour lead for a while.
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.
* * *
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.
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.
* * *
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.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Huge surge in support for independence in remarkable new poll from Progressive Scottish Opinion
I mentioned in my post this morning that my decision to introduce a Poll of Polls on this blog was triggered by the absurd misreporting of one or two individual polls that showed improbably high leads for the No campaign - and, yes, I was mainly talking about polls from Progressive Scottish Opinion, a non-BPC pollster with appalling standards of transparency and a track record of wild volatility in their Holyrood polling. In a way I was hoping we'd finally seen the last of them, but perhaps we should be glad we haven't, because their first poll in several months has shown a huge swing towards the pro-independence campaign.
Do you believe Scotland should become an independent country?
Yes 34% (+7)
No 54% (-2)
When Don't Knows are removed, it works out as...
Yes 39% (+6)
No 61% (-6)
As you can see, the real referendum question was not posed in this poll, which is rather peculiar, because when I asked about this last autumn I was told that PSO do use the real question. It appears that they've since had a good hard think about how they can possibly improve their dubious methodology, and have come to the conclusion that their question was just far too close to the thing they are actually trying to measure. However, I can't see anything in the new wording that would benefit the Yes camp - if anything the opposite might be true, because the replacement of the word "be" with "become" subtly draws attention to the position of No as the status quo option. So there's no reason to doubt the extent of the swing to Yes in these numbers - unless of course it was simply caused by PSO's notorious volatility as a pollster.
And the swing is what matters here. John Curtice has today gone through the motions of effectively saying "yes, PSO are one of the most No-friendly pollsters, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong, and if by any chance they're right this poll is a reminder that Yes would still have a lot of ground to make up". But a "reminder" is all it is - that's not new information, any more than it would be new information to point out that if ICM and Panelbase happen to be correct, Yes do NOT have a lot of ground to make up, and are already almost neck-and-neck. We won't find out which pollsters are right and which ones are wrong until polling day, so for now all we can do is look at the trend shown by each firm and see how it fits into a broader pattern. With Don't Knows excluded, PSO are today suggesting a swing of 8% to Yes since September, which is at the upper end of the range of swings shown by other pollsters - ICM are also showing a swing of 8% over the same timescale (although in their case that has taken Yes from 40% to the apparent brink of victory at 48%), while at the other end of the scale Panelbase are suggesting only a 3% swing since September. So the new information we have today slightly increases the chances that the movement to Yes over the last few months has been bigger than some of the more conservative estimates have implied. (I emphasise the word 'slightly' - I'd be more confident if we were getting these numbers from a pollster other than PSO.)
I said earlier that Progressive Scottish Opinion aren't exactly the most transparent of pollsters, and the best illustration of that point is the fact that I can't actually work out something as basic as the data collection method for today's poll - was it face-to-face, was it online, or was it telephone? Neither the Sunday Mail article nor John Curtice's analysis seems to bother telling us (unless I skimmed over the crucial bit). PSO's website bills the company as both an online and face-to-face pollster, and reveals that fieldwork for their online polls is conducted by their "partners" YouGov (let joy be unbounded). Given that this poll took place over just two days, presumably the balance of probability is that the fieldwork was online and used the YouGov panel, which we can reasonably suspect to be one of the more No-friendly online panels. However, the weighting procedures will have been decided by PSO rather than YouGov, which clearly has the effect of producing a somewhat bigger No lead than even YouGov do. This may be because PSO no longer weight by past vote recall.
Nevertheless, PSO are no longer the outright most No-friendly pollster - with these new numbers they've allowed themselves to be 'overtaken' by Ipsos-Mori. The latter haven't published a poll for over two months (although we know they've been conducting unpublished polls since then), and the trend in that early March poll was somewhat out of line with what other pollsters were showing. So it'll be fascinating to see if the next Ipsos-Mori poll to be conducted for public consumption shows any convergence with the norm.
Meanwhile, our dear friends over in the official anti-independence campaign continue with their relentless quest to shed any last vestiges of self-respect. When the PSO poll was published a few hours ago, they posted a graphic on Twitter comparing it to the YouGov poll from ten days ago, rather than to the last poll conducted by PSO. By sheer coincidence, this piece of jiggery-pokery gives the grossly misleading impression that there has in fact been a big swing to the No campaign, rather than the other way around. But don't worry - you can rest assured that they'll maintain consistency at all times, and when a new Panelbase poll appears in the near future, they'll be comparing it with this PSO poll, rather than the last Panelbase poll.
Oh do stop sniggering - these guys have integrity.
In case you're wondering, PSO's reappearance doesn't affect the Poll of Polls because they don't adhere to British Polling Council rules. The mean average for all BPC-affiliated pollsters remains at Yes 35.8%, No 47.0%, and with Don't Knows excluded it's Yes 43.2%, No 56.8%.
Do you believe Scotland should become an independent country?
Yes 34% (+7)
No 54% (-2)
When Don't Knows are removed, it works out as...
Yes 39% (+6)
No 61% (-6)
As you can see, the real referendum question was not posed in this poll, which is rather peculiar, because when I asked about this last autumn I was told that PSO do use the real question. It appears that they've since had a good hard think about how they can possibly improve their dubious methodology, and have come to the conclusion that their question was just far too close to the thing they are actually trying to measure. However, I can't see anything in the new wording that would benefit the Yes camp - if anything the opposite might be true, because the replacement of the word "be" with "become" subtly draws attention to the position of No as the status quo option. So there's no reason to doubt the extent of the swing to Yes in these numbers - unless of course it was simply caused by PSO's notorious volatility as a pollster.
And the swing is what matters here. John Curtice has today gone through the motions of effectively saying "yes, PSO are one of the most No-friendly pollsters, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong, and if by any chance they're right this poll is a reminder that Yes would still have a lot of ground to make up". But a "reminder" is all it is - that's not new information, any more than it would be new information to point out that if ICM and Panelbase happen to be correct, Yes do NOT have a lot of ground to make up, and are already almost neck-and-neck. We won't find out which pollsters are right and which ones are wrong until polling day, so for now all we can do is look at the trend shown by each firm and see how it fits into a broader pattern. With Don't Knows excluded, PSO are today suggesting a swing of 8% to Yes since September, which is at the upper end of the range of swings shown by other pollsters - ICM are also showing a swing of 8% over the same timescale (although in their case that has taken Yes from 40% to the apparent brink of victory at 48%), while at the other end of the scale Panelbase are suggesting only a 3% swing since September. So the new information we have today slightly increases the chances that the movement to Yes over the last few months has been bigger than some of the more conservative estimates have implied. (I emphasise the word 'slightly' - I'd be more confident if we were getting these numbers from a pollster other than PSO.)
I said earlier that Progressive Scottish Opinion aren't exactly the most transparent of pollsters, and the best illustration of that point is the fact that I can't actually work out something as basic as the data collection method for today's poll - was it face-to-face, was it online, or was it telephone? Neither the Sunday Mail article nor John Curtice's analysis seems to bother telling us (unless I skimmed over the crucial bit). PSO's website bills the company as both an online and face-to-face pollster, and reveals that fieldwork for their online polls is conducted by their "partners" YouGov (let joy be unbounded). Given that this poll took place over just two days, presumably the balance of probability is that the fieldwork was online and used the YouGov panel, which we can reasonably suspect to be one of the more No-friendly online panels. However, the weighting procedures will have been decided by PSO rather than YouGov, which clearly has the effect of producing a somewhat bigger No lead than even YouGov do. This may be because PSO no longer weight by past vote recall.
Nevertheless, PSO are no longer the outright most No-friendly pollster - with these new numbers they've allowed themselves to be 'overtaken' by Ipsos-Mori. The latter haven't published a poll for over two months (although we know they've been conducting unpublished polls since then), and the trend in that early March poll was somewhat out of line with what other pollsters were showing. So it'll be fascinating to see if the next Ipsos-Mori poll to be conducted for public consumption shows any convergence with the norm.
Meanwhile, our dear friends over in the official anti-independence campaign continue with their relentless quest to shed any last vestiges of self-respect. When the PSO poll was published a few hours ago, they posted a graphic on Twitter comparing it to the YouGov poll from ten days ago, rather than to the last poll conducted by PSO. By sheer coincidence, this piece of jiggery-pokery gives the grossly misleading impression that there has in fact been a big swing to the No campaign, rather than the other way around. But don't worry - you can rest assured that they'll maintain consistency at all times, and when a new Panelbase poll appears in the near future, they'll be comparing it with this PSO poll, rather than the last Panelbase poll.
Oh do stop sniggering - these guys have integrity.
In case you're wondering, PSO's reappearance doesn't affect the Poll of Polls because they don't adhere to British Polling Council rules. The mean average for all BPC-affiliated pollsters remains at Yes 35.8%, No 47.0%, and with Don't Knows excluded it's Yes 43.2%, No 56.8%.
Scot Goes Pop Fundraiser : For accurate reporting of Indyref Polls
In the six years that Scot Goes Pop has been running, it has carved out a niche for itself among pro-independence blogs due to its coverage of opinion polls. Towards the end of last year, exasperated by the misleading reporting of one or two individual polls that showed wildly improbable leads for the No campaign, I went a step further by introducing a Poll of Polls feature so that every new referendum poll could be placed in a more meaningful context. I’ve since updated the Poll of Polls every single time fresh figures are released, usually within two or three hours. There has also been comprehensive analysis of each individual poll, which has also typically appeared very speedily. This has played a role in combating the misrepresentation of polling numbers, especially on social media. The most recent YouGov poll is a good example – John Curtice’s analysis didn’t appear for the best part of 24 hours, so for a long spell this was the most high-profile blog to be pointing out the simple truth that, far from being a "setback for the Yes campaign", the poll actually showed the slimmest No lead of the campaign so far.
There is now at least one mainstream media outlet (the Financial Times) and another semi-mainstream outlet (John Curtice's blog!) that publish their own Poll of Polls, and that is an extremely welcome development. Unfortunately, both of them use what in my view is a flawed method - a rolling average of the last six or seven polls to be published, regardless of whether the polls were conducted by Yes-friendly pollsters (such as Panelbase) or No-friendly pollsters (such as Ipsos-Mori). That will lead to gross distortions in the trends that are reported, as we’ve already seen when the appearance of the last YouGov poll led to a 2% increase in the No lead in the Financial Times Poll of Polls, in spite of the fact that it had actually shown a modest drop in the No lead. So the Scot Goes Pop Poll of Polls still has an important role to play in accurately reflecting the real trends.
I would very much like to carry on covering the polls in the way that I have been doing over the last few months, and indeed to step up my efforts even further (which will certainly be necessary, because the rate at which polls appear is bound to increase significantly as polling day approaches). Unfortunately, though, my personal circumstances are changing, and as things stand it’s simply not going to be possible for me to carry on as before. Writing this blog isn’t the equivalent of a full-time job, but it’s certainly the equivalent of a relatively heavy-going part-time job. It’s very common for me to stay up half the night writing posts. I don’t mind doing that in the slightest, but unfortunately I can’t do it if the time isn’t available! I’m not suggesting that Scot Goes Pop will end completely, but it will probably be reduced to a ‘skeleton service’, with perhaps a brief round-up now and again.
However, before I resign myself to that outcome, I’m going to try the alternative – an appeal to raise enough funds for me to be able to carry on as before, and hopefully to ‘expand operations’ even further. I’m setting what I openly admit is an extremely ambitious target of £2500. There’s very little point in setting it much lower than that, because that’s probably the minimum that would be required to make the plan work properly over the four-month period between now and the referendum. The campaign will be running on Indiegogo until May 21st, and is already open for donations.
There seems to be a convention of doing a Q&A when launching a fundraiser like this, so here goes –
Why is it important for the pro-independence blogosphere to cover opinion polls?
I think there’s a degree of myopia among some (not all) Yes supporters about this subject. One of the main factors that has held some voters back from seriously engaging with the Yes campaign’s arguments is their sense that it is either unlikely or impossible for us to win. That impression is entirely driven by misreporting of opinion polls in the mainstream media, and it needs to be combated. You can’t do it with throwaway lines such as “the polls are all biased” or “the only poll that matters is on September the 18th” – that sounds weak beyond belief, and simply reinforces the original impression in voters’ minds. It instead has to be done by taking the polling numbers seriously, and explaining what they really mean.
Even if this is important, why is it more important than any of the other pro-independence causes I could donate to?
I don't think it is. Nobody is more desperate than I am to see a Yes victory, and I’ve been extremely conflicted about whether to launch this fundraiser, because I hate the idea of ‘diverting’ even a single penny that might be better spent elsewhere. But the beauty of an appeal like this is that you can decide for yourself what will give you the best bang for your buck. If you personally think Scot Goes Pop's coverage of the polls can play a significant role, you have the option to donate – but it's only an option.
How many people actually see Scot Goes Pop’s coverage of the polls?
Over the last twelve months, there have been roughly 50,000 unique visitors to the site (ie. real people, only counted once no matter how many times they visited). Approximately 50% of them were in Scotland, meaning that 1 in 200 of the Scottish population have visited the site at least once in the last year. If the current trajectory continues, the numbers are likely to increase significantly in the run-up to polling day.
Could you use online advertising to boost those numbers even further?
Yes, if the fundraiser exceeds the target figure, that’s most likely how I would use any excess funds. Facebook advertising, for example, looks very cost-effective, and could potentially lead to a blogpost headline and snippet being seen by hundreds of thousands of people throughout Scotland.
Do you intend to blog full-time until the referendum if this appeal is a success?
Not quite – I think I would become extremely jaded if I attempted to write four or five posts every day, and that would detract from the blog. But I would certainly be looking to at least maintain the current tempo, and probably increase it.
Is analysis of polls the only thing you do?
No! The other staple of Scot Goes Pop over the years has been ‘fisking’ of mainstream media commentators. Exhibit A : Richard Madeley.
What experience do you have as a blogger/writer?
Apart from my six years writing this blog, I’ve also written articles for the International Business Times, Political Betting, Wings Over Scotland, National Collective, Scottish Roundup and the Eurovision Times. In the final running of the Total Politics Blog Awards in 2011, Scot Goes Pop was voted one of the top 100 political blogs in the UK, and as an individual blogger I was rated higher than the likes of Peter Oborne, Adam Boulton and Kevin Maguire.
Is there a danger this fundraiser could end in utter humiliation?
Yes, absolutely! A few months ago, some anti-independence Twitter trolls took advantage of the ‘fame’ they had gained from being mentioned in the Scotsman, and ran a fundraiser. After several weeks, their running total stood at…zero. So there’s certainly a significant chance that the amount of money raised could be so small that the whole thing won’t have been worth the bother. If that happens, you have my solemn promise that anything raised will be given to other pro-independence causes. The money won’t be wasted.
Isn't it a mistake to run the appeal over such a short timescale?
Possibly. But most people who donate to fundraisers tend to do so early on. My hope is that the short timescale will add focus, and it also has the added advantage of meaning that my embarrassment will end more quickly if things don’t go well!
Shouldn’t you have set a much more modest target? There would have been nothing to stop people donating even after a small target had been reached.
The problem is that contributions do sometimes tend to dry up when the nominal target has been met.
So is the £2500 figure purely psychological?
Not quite – if it isn’t reached, Indiegogo will deduct a bigger administration fee.
If everyone who visited this blog in the last week donated just £1, would the appeal reach its target?
Yes!
WILL everyone who visited this blog in the last week donate £1?
Er, probably not. It’s purely illustrative.
How can I donate?
It’s really simple – just click HERE and follow the instructions.
There is now at least one mainstream media outlet (the Financial Times) and another semi-mainstream outlet (John Curtice's blog!) that publish their own Poll of Polls, and that is an extremely welcome development. Unfortunately, both of them use what in my view is a flawed method - a rolling average of the last six or seven polls to be published, regardless of whether the polls were conducted by Yes-friendly pollsters (such as Panelbase) or No-friendly pollsters (such as Ipsos-Mori). That will lead to gross distortions in the trends that are reported, as we’ve already seen when the appearance of the last YouGov poll led to a 2% increase in the No lead in the Financial Times Poll of Polls, in spite of the fact that it had actually shown a modest drop in the No lead. So the Scot Goes Pop Poll of Polls still has an important role to play in accurately reflecting the real trends.
I would very much like to carry on covering the polls in the way that I have been doing over the last few months, and indeed to step up my efforts even further (which will certainly be necessary, because the rate at which polls appear is bound to increase significantly as polling day approaches). Unfortunately, though, my personal circumstances are changing, and as things stand it’s simply not going to be possible for me to carry on as before. Writing this blog isn’t the equivalent of a full-time job, but it’s certainly the equivalent of a relatively heavy-going part-time job. It’s very common for me to stay up half the night writing posts. I don’t mind doing that in the slightest, but unfortunately I can’t do it if the time isn’t available! I’m not suggesting that Scot Goes Pop will end completely, but it will probably be reduced to a ‘skeleton service’, with perhaps a brief round-up now and again.
However, before I resign myself to that outcome, I’m going to try the alternative – an appeal to raise enough funds for me to be able to carry on as before, and hopefully to ‘expand operations’ even further. I’m setting what I openly admit is an extremely ambitious target of £2500. There’s very little point in setting it much lower than that, because that’s probably the minimum that would be required to make the plan work properly over the four-month period between now and the referendum. The campaign will be running on Indiegogo until May 21st, and is already open for donations.
There seems to be a convention of doing a Q&A when launching a fundraiser like this, so here goes –
Why is it important for the pro-independence blogosphere to cover opinion polls?
I think there’s a degree of myopia among some (not all) Yes supporters about this subject. One of the main factors that has held some voters back from seriously engaging with the Yes campaign’s arguments is their sense that it is either unlikely or impossible for us to win. That impression is entirely driven by misreporting of opinion polls in the mainstream media, and it needs to be combated. You can’t do it with throwaway lines such as “the polls are all biased” or “the only poll that matters is on September the 18th” – that sounds weak beyond belief, and simply reinforces the original impression in voters’ minds. It instead has to be done by taking the polling numbers seriously, and explaining what they really mean.
Even if this is important, why is it more important than any of the other pro-independence causes I could donate to?
I don't think it is. Nobody is more desperate than I am to see a Yes victory, and I’ve been extremely conflicted about whether to launch this fundraiser, because I hate the idea of ‘diverting’ even a single penny that might be better spent elsewhere. But the beauty of an appeal like this is that you can decide for yourself what will give you the best bang for your buck. If you personally think Scot Goes Pop's coverage of the polls can play a significant role, you have the option to donate – but it's only an option.
How many people actually see Scot Goes Pop’s coverage of the polls?
Over the last twelve months, there have been roughly 50,000 unique visitors to the site (ie. real people, only counted once no matter how many times they visited). Approximately 50% of them were in Scotland, meaning that 1 in 200 of the Scottish population have visited the site at least once in the last year. If the current trajectory continues, the numbers are likely to increase significantly in the run-up to polling day.
Could you use online advertising to boost those numbers even further?
Yes, if the fundraiser exceeds the target figure, that’s most likely how I would use any excess funds. Facebook advertising, for example, looks very cost-effective, and could potentially lead to a blogpost headline and snippet being seen by hundreds of thousands of people throughout Scotland.
Do you intend to blog full-time until the referendum if this appeal is a success?
Not quite – I think I would become extremely jaded if I attempted to write four or five posts every day, and that would detract from the blog. But I would certainly be looking to at least maintain the current tempo, and probably increase it.
Is analysis of polls the only thing you do?
No! The other staple of Scot Goes Pop over the years has been ‘fisking’ of mainstream media commentators. Exhibit A : Richard Madeley.
What experience do you have as a blogger/writer?
Apart from my six years writing this blog, I’ve also written articles for the International Business Times, Political Betting, Wings Over Scotland, National Collective, Scottish Roundup and the Eurovision Times. In the final running of the Total Politics Blog Awards in 2011, Scot Goes Pop was voted one of the top 100 political blogs in the UK, and as an individual blogger I was rated higher than the likes of Peter Oborne, Adam Boulton and Kevin Maguire.
Is there a danger this fundraiser could end in utter humiliation?
Yes, absolutely! A few months ago, some anti-independence Twitter trolls took advantage of the ‘fame’ they had gained from being mentioned in the Scotsman, and ran a fundraiser. After several weeks, their running total stood at…zero. So there’s certainly a significant chance that the amount of money raised could be so small that the whole thing won’t have been worth the bother. If that happens, you have my solemn promise that anything raised will be given to other pro-independence causes. The money won’t be wasted.
Isn't it a mistake to run the appeal over such a short timescale?
Possibly. But most people who donate to fundraisers tend to do so early on. My hope is that the short timescale will add focus, and it also has the added advantage of meaning that my embarrassment will end more quickly if things don’t go well!
Shouldn’t you have set a much more modest target? There would have been nothing to stop people donating even after a small target had been reached.
The problem is that contributions do sometimes tend to dry up when the nominal target has been met.
So is the £2500 figure purely psychological?
Not quite – if it isn’t reached, Indiegogo will deduct a bigger administration fee.
If everyone who visited this blog in the last week donated just £1, would the appeal reach its target?
Yes!
WILL everyone who visited this blog in the last week donate £1?
Er, probably not. It’s purely illustrative.
How can I donate?
It’s really simple – just click HERE and follow the instructions.