My eye was caught earlier by a tweet from the rabidly pro-London-rule Paul Hutcheon, Political Editor of the ever-contemptible Daily Record. He claimed that an "independence poll" had found that "less than 40%" of the public support Nicola Sturgeon's plan of a plebiscite election in the event that the Supreme Court rules that the Scottish Parliament cannot unilaterally hold a referendum. This of course is intended to give the impression that "more than 60%" oppose a plebiscite election - but they don't. The poll actually shows that 38% of the public do not agree that a majority for pro-independence parties at the general election would constitute a legitimate mandate for independence, compared with 39% who do agree. The remainder of the sample said they didn't know or had no strong views.
Or, to put it another way, a plurality of the Scottish public, and a clear majority with Don't Knows stripped out, support the principle of a plebiscite election - the total opposite of the impression given by the piece in the Record. To be sure, it's a tight result, but if it had gone the other way it seems phenomenally improbable that the Record would have been saying "less than 40% oppose Nicola Sturgeon's plan, in staggering blow to unionist parties". It would simply have been reported that a plurality was opposed.
We've actually had a succession of good news stories from the polls recently. The Ipsos poll shows that the public feel that a positive result from either a plebiscite election or a referendum held without Westminster's permission would constitute a mandate for independence. The Panelbase poll found that respondents want a referendum within the next five years, and think the decision should be made by the Scottish Government, not the UK Government.
You have to wonder where the Record is heading under the reckless direction of Hutcheon. In spite of the notoriety of The Vow back in 2014, they were very careful not to explicitly back a No vote because they knew that would alienate a massive proportion of their own readers. If Hutcheon thinks for some reason he's on firmer ground in adopting an outright anti-independence posture this time, he's catastrophically "misreading the room", to use one of his own favourite phrases.
Incidentally, I see that Ipsos-Mori have now been rebranded as Ipsos UK, which is a bit of a shame given the long history of the Mori brand in British political polling. But on the plus side, at least this is the end of the road for the tiresome troll who for years has ranted at me every time I decline to put the word Mori in capitals.
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Alba NEC nominations update: A huge thanks to all the Alba members who have got in touch over the last few days to nominate me for the upcoming election to the party's NEC. I was very pleasantly surprised by the numbers - there was more than double the ten nominations required. I submitted my nomination form earlier today, so we'll see what happens.
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SNP leadership: "Our vermin supporters must stop attacking BBC journalism, which is the envy of the world and beyond reproach, and...and...and...we wholly agree with Emily Maitlis that the BBC are in collusion with the Tory party."
— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) August 25, 2022
Seems OK when an establishment figure says it.
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Sane analysis yet again. If only others would follow suit.
ReplyDeleteI see Sturgeon has got her pet top cop Livingstone to now attack the Perth demonstrators. If they were so bad why did none of the police arrest them. All these Britnat SNP politicians attacking the demonstrators clearly was insufficient for Sturgeon. English Tory MPs should be made to feel unwelcome in Scotland.
ReplyDelete"IN THIS COUNTRY"
ReplyDeleteBBC Reporting Scotland Business and Economy Editor Douglas Fraser says today that the reason the price of electricity is shooting up is due to the fact that the price of gas is shooting up due to the Russians and "we rely on gas to generate a lot of our electricity IN THIS COUNTRY"
What country is this? Scotland, Great Britain, the UK ? Now some people may think he is referring to Scotland as it is after all BBC Reporting Scotland but why does he not make it clear who exactly is this country. Could it be because Scotland PRODUCES nearly 100% of its total electricity needs from renewables. In fact Scotland produces so much electricity from different types of power stations that it currently exports electricity to the rest of the UK. It is purely because we are part of the UK that we have these high electricity prices. Of course the BBC (Sturgeon's key and valued institution) would NEVER tell its viewers the whole and correct story.
Scotland has all these energy resources but the people of Scotland have to pay a fortune to use any of them. A typical situation experienced by a colony.
Yesterday Sturgeon says she is British - I was not surprised.
ReplyDeleteToday Blackford says he just loves Westminster - I am not surprised. So Blowhard are you British as well?
Reply to unpublished attempt at a comment from Mr Troll: you're right about one thing, legitimate criticisms are not trolling. But, alas, mindless wittering which literally serves no purpose other than to cause disruption and annoyance is practically the textbook definition of trolling. And I'm afraid that, and that alone, is what you have been doing for years. Now kindly sling your hook, there's a good chap. It's your own time you're wasting, and your beloved Ipsos-Mori is no more.
ReplyDeleteThere was an article in the Guardian today by Martin Kettle that suggested Truss may call an early GE. I thought he made a good point - Truss's mandate comes from 180k Tory members and she was not favoured by the Tory MPs. Kettle's point was at least the Tory MPs have been elected so they sort of vaguely have some connection to democracy. But here Truss's mandate comes from the members - who, as the Byline Times revealed, includes around 5000 foreign nationals.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, this is a weak mandate for a new PM. So Kettle suggests an early GE may well happen, to establish a proper mandate and maybe to try and sneak in before the fan gets hit by the all sh!t coming this winter.
So....what might this mean for the de facto independence referendum? Are we ready, or would this catch us off guard?
How about this quote from WGD numpty Bob Lamont referring to the Sturgeon/Lord Advocate request to the UK Supreme Court:-
ReplyDelete" The legal clarification is but one in a series of carefully planned steps, and from each, support for independence will continue to climb ever higher."
"Carefully planned steps" 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Extraordinary level of self delusion by Lamont that ignores reality.
WGD numpty Alex Clark decides he wants to post a video of Sturgeon at an independence march. The only one he could find was from 2013. So a video and a speech from 9 years ago and Clark is convinced Sturgeon wants independence. Desperate stuff from an independence supporter living in the past.
ReplyDelete