WINGS-WATCH: Campbell yet again trots out his dodgy graph falsely claiming Yes support has flatlined on 47% since the indyref - even though it has been comprehensively debunked multiple times

Stuart Campbell is back to blogging about opinion polls today, which - as inevitably as night follows day - means that he's trotted out some cynical lies.  Fortunately, our much-requested Wings-Watch fact-checking service is on hand to set the record straight yet again.

Once again we must start with Campbell's Lib Dem-style dodgy graph which falsely claims that support for independence has remained absolutely static on 47% since just after the independence referendum.  I've comprehensively debunked that graph many times before, but it looks like I'll just have to keep doing it every so often, because he's determined to treat his readers with utter contempt by telling them the exact same lie over and over and over again.  Below you'll find the real figures for independence support in recent times, which as you can see actually show substantial changes from year to year.  The annual averages for conventional polling are now updated with the final average for 2022, which saw Yes fall shy of the 50% mark by just 0.2 percentage points.

Yearly support for Scottish independence in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey:

2014:  33%

2016 (a):  39%

2016 (b):  46%

2018:  45%

2020:  51%

2021:  52%

Average yearly support for independence in conventional opinion polling:

2016:  47.7%

2017:  45.3%

2018:  45.5%

 

2019:  47.6%

2020:  53.0%

2021:  49.6%

2022:  49.8%

(For the sake of simplicity, the above figures use any poll included in Wikipedia's main list of independence polls.  There are up to five surveys for the Scottish Election Study - two from 2022 and three from 2021 - that arguably should be in Wikipedia's list but aren't.  However, there may be sound reasons for excluding them which I'm not aware of, so I'll just stick with the list.)

Incidentally, there's no alibi of ignorance for Campbell in repeating his discredited claim.  He's almost certainly seen the previous posts in which I debunked his graph, because he occasionally attempts to leave comments on Scot Goes Pop, and did so as recently as two or three nights ago.  (The comments are invariably abusive, so I tend to leave them in the moderation queue.)  Oh, and for his two adoring fans who tried to question my mental stability this week because of what they seemed to think was my absurdly improbable claim that Campbell was attempting to leave anonymous comments and that I could tell it was him from his writing style - nice try, guys, but he freely confirmed his identity in the final comment.

Not content with just one dodgy graph, Campbell also presents us with a second, which purports to show that support for independence was around 24% in May 2007 when Alex Salmond became First Minister (although that was almost three years after Mr Salmond started his second stint as SNP leader), rose to 50% by November 2014 when Mr Salmond handed over to Nicola Sturgeon, and slightly declined to what appears to be around 48% or 49% in November 2022.  The latter figure is an outright lie - every poll conducted in November 2022 had Yes over 50% once Don't Knows were excluded. Campbell can't use the sleight of hand of saying he left Don't Knows in, because that would make a nonsense of the graph's claim that Yes was on 50% in November 2014 - no poll conducted that month had Yes higher than 46% prior to the exclusion of Don't Knows.  And chucking in the 24% figure from 2007 is an absolutely fatuous apples-and-oranges comparison, because it comes from the Social Attitudes Survey, which cannot be compared with conventional polling because it uses a completely different methodology, including a multi-option question format.  It has always produced wildly different results, and indeed wildly different yearly trends, from conventional polling.  If Campbell's graph had been consistent by following up the 2007 figure with the comparable Social Attitudes Survey results from 2014 and 2021 (the latter being the most recent survey), it would have shown a rise from 24% to 33% under Alex Salmond between 2007 and 2014, and then an even bigger rise from 33% to 52% under Nicola Sturgeon between 2014 and 2021.  

The other way Campbell could have achieved consistency in the graph is by using conventional polling throughout.  That would have meant using a far, far higher starting point for Yes in 2007.  An average of TNS polls in 2007 had Yes on around 47% with Don't Knows excluded, or around 39.5% with Don't Knows left in.

Campbell sometimes styles himself as a "journalist", and indeed his supporters often laud him to the skies as "the best journalist in Scotland".  Well, I'd invite you to check everything I've said above.  It's all in the public domain and you'll be able to verify that the points I've made are accurate.  Then be honest with yourself about whether or not Campbell's graphs can be considered "journalism".  If you think they can, I'd gently suggest the only type of "journalism" you can really have in mind is the grotesque parody of the profession that has left the credibility of the mainstream Scottish media in tatters over recent years.  The sole purpose of the graphs is to deliberately convince people that a lie is true.  And, what's more, it works.  Many Wings readers regularly parrot Campbell's lies about polling as if they were indisputable gospel.  I make no apology whatever for confronting Wings readers with the factual reality - even though in some cases they really, really don't want to hear it.