There's more than a touch of grim irony in the fact that, in the midst of a series of blogposts alleging that SNP members have been systematically fleeced and hoodwinked by their party leadership, Stuart Campbell should yet again trot out a graph claiming that Yes support has remained absolutely static on 47% since 2015 - a claim he knows to be a downright lie. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the allegations against the SNP, they'd actually have a perfectly reasonable point if they said to Campbell that he needs to put his own house in order and stop repeatedly deceiving his readers before he can have any credibility in throwing stones himself.
Campbell's graph has been discredited so many times, by so many different people, and from so many different angles, that it's practically been beaten to a pulp by this point. It's been explained that Campbell has just hand-picked one single poll from each year, rather than averaging Yes support in all polls from each year. It's been explained that if he had averaged all polls, he'd have found Yes support had never been on 47% in any year and had in fact varied wildly from 45% in 2017 to 53% in 2020. It's been explained that if he had looked at the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, which he has sometimes prayed in aid in other dodgy graphs, he's have found an even wider variation in support for independence from 39% in 2016 to 52% in 2021. It's been explained that the individual polls he's cherry-picked are not even directly comparable with each other, because they come from four different polling companies that use different methodologies.
Is there any other remaining way in which the graph can be debunked? Actually, there is. Campbell's single poll from each year has always been taken from April, implying that he thinks Yes support in April carries more significance than in other months (for some unspecified reason). So, as it actually is April right now, I decided to find out whether an average of all polls conducted in April of each year would bear out Campbell's claim that April-flavoured Yes support has flatlined at exactly 47% since 2015. Spoiler alert: no of course it doesn't. There have in fact only been two years in which the April average has come out at 47%, and one of those years is this year, which isn't even covered by Campbell's graph. There has been variation from 45% in 2017 to 49% in both 2021 and 2022.
Average Yes vote in conventional independence polls conducted (either in whole or in part) in April of each calendar year:
April 2015: 48.2%
April 2016: 47.0%
April 2017: 45.3%
April 2018: (No polls conducted)
April 2019: 48.4%
April 2020: (No polls conducted)
April 2021: 49.2%
April 2022: 49.0%
April 2023: 47.0%
RevStu is his own worst enemy. Every time he produces that graph I think "what are you doing, man?"
ReplyDeleteYay! Wingswatch is the jewel in the crown of the Scottish indy blogosphere. Many thanks, James.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to know what psychologically drives Campbell to keep producing that graph, long after it's been exposed as a fraud. For a while I thought it was an indirect way of taunting James for having had the temerity to debunk it, but James hasn't even mentioned it for months, and yet Campbell is carrying on doing it anyway. He must just really enjoy treating his readers like mugs.
ReplyDeleteGraphs produced by the Liberal Democrats or the Reverend Stuart Campbell = LOL
ReplyDeleteNo surprise that Campbell has been a Lib Dem voter all his life (until his recent defection to the Tories).
So Campbell has been telling people indy support was stuck on 47% in both April 2021 and April 2022, whereas it had actually risen to 49% in both cases.
ReplyDeleteThat's a significant lie on his part.
Totally agree.
DeleteOh Stuey, Stuey, Stuey. Has he done it AGAIN?
ReplyDeleteI was beginning to think you had given up the Wings Watch as he has used this flat line 47% graph in at least one other article that I remember. None of the articles benefited from its inclusion. You could easily do an article pointing the finger of suspicion at the financial probity of Angus Robertson's Progress Scotland without including it. You could easily do an article asking just what did Progress Scotland actually do to benefit Scottish independence if anything at all.
ReplyDeleteWhy does he do it - because he can - seems the simple answer to me. Part of his personality to stick two fingers up to anyone disagreeing with him. You just have to seperate out the good stuff ( and there is a lot of it) from the bad and ugly stuff.
Got to admit, that's shoddy from the Rev. He can't pretend it's accidental either.
ReplyDelete"Rev"? He's a fake "Reverend".
DeleteKudos to you, James, for being the only person (or one of the very, very few) prepared to call out his lies. Others seem too terrified of him to do it (or maybe it's his zombie cult followers they're terrified of).
ReplyDeleteWhat I find genuinely hilarious about Wings in recent days is that every second BTL comment is obsequiously calling Campbell "the best journalist in Scotland". Lads, I don't know how to break the news to you, but he isn't a journalist at all. He used to write about video games for an obscure magazine and now he's an amateur blogger. That's it. A goat doesn't magically become a lion just because you keep calling it "the best lion in Scotland".
ReplyDeleteCampbell a journalist? ROFL, I've heard it all now.
DeleteI'm angry at Stu Campbell about this because I've actually told friends and colleagues the story about a flat line at 47 per cent. I suppose I assumed he wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true.
ReplyDeleteA schoolboy error, I'm afraid, whenever one is dealing with the fake "Reverend".
DeleteFor the person trying to contact me by leaving a comment here, I can be reached by email. My email address can be found in the sidebar (desktop version of the site only) or on my Twitter profile.
ReplyDeleteThe SNP OFICIALS WHO WENT FISHING
ReplyDeleteIn January 2019 Tory MP David Davis read out in the HofCommons text messages between Peter Murrell, Sue Ruddick and Iain McCann. Three senior SNP officials. They included the following:
" Mc Cann expressed great disappointment to Ruddick that someone who had promised to deliver 5 complainants to him by the end of the week had come empty or overreached."
In one text , Ruddick says:- " what happens when my name comes out as fishing for others to come forward"
Ruddick said to McCann she hoped one of the complainants would be sickened enough to get back in the game.
So instead of working for independence these three officials were working to try and send Salmond to jail on false charges. Were they fearful of a Salmond comeback and their extra curricular activities being uncovered?
McCann is still in his job as Compliance Officer for the SNP.
Ruddick has recently been put in temporary charge of the SNP by Yousaf after Murrell resigned in disgrace for lying about membership numbers. Murrell is still not even suspended from the SNP.
Others involved in the stitch up are still in situ. Some have moved on.
It seems some people (for now) can get away with anything in the SNP.
April 2023 47% - perhaps that is the target Sturgeon has been trying to drive the polls DOWN to.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that you don't need to be a polling expert to perhaps think it looks a bit funny for each year to be 47%. Similarly, for Skier's Ski slope graph. I guess dodgy polling figures/graphs is one thing you cannot lay at the big dugs door as he never produces any but he never comments on Skiers Ski slope either.
The Rev tells fibs? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you !
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Times the SNP treasurer Beattie has told the SNP NEC they are short of money. Surely a simple solution is to announce that he will be unweaving the £600k from the accounts on a temporary basis before weaving it back in again when the money pours in from all the WGD numpties who claim they are joining and giving donations.
ReplyDeleteHow on earth is Beattie not suspended. The Treasurer ELECTED by the members resigned after Murrell wouldn't let him do his job. Murrell then APPOINTED Beattie.
Meanwhile, the SNP's new leader Yousaf has gone from singing the praises of Sturgeon and Swinney in the hustings to saying he knows nothing about anything. Yousaf the guy kept in the dark - aye right. Although he has now said the SNP owns the motorhome. So that sinks WGD village idiot Eilidh's comment that there is nothing wrong with parking your motorhome at your mother's house and there is nothing wrong with the Murrells spending their income as they see fit. Idiots on WGD trying their best to normalise the Murrells activities.
Has Yousaf picked up the phone and asked his mentor Sturgeon what is going on? If not why not?
I'm mystified by this financial business. Surely you remember when Skier bestowed his wisdom on here that he could 'personally guarantee' the party finances were sound.
DeleteFelix
It's time Skier raided his bank balance and helped out the SNP. He could cut back on the money he spends touring the world's unisex toilets. Or how about the big dug helping out. A special WGD crowdfunder to save the SNP - its down but not out he tells us in his latest article.
DeleteOnly numpties would give money to an organisation during a police investigation in to its finances but they are out there alright. Numpties perfect fodder for scammers.
Meanwhile Pension Pete is in New York galavanting about with his Britnat buddies. It's a grand life being an SNP MP but the party may be over for some of them next year. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the same MPs who rejected the de facto UK GE suddenly change their mind to try and harvest more votes when they see the polls. Sturgeon didn't just fake it and run away she has trashed the SNP.
I'M interested to see how the SNP holds up the day : Mz S and her acolytes have cut the SNP to ribbons - their government of Scotland ends at the next elections because the present lot have no idea why they're in the SNP.
ReplyDeleteSTURGEON never campaigned for indy with any gusto or determination. If the SNP had campaigned with even half the energy expended on EU membership or gender-IDing, then the party wouldn't be the aimless, hollowed out husk we see today.
IT'S a great pity Salmond resigned - both he and we regret his idiotic decision but he is not to blame for the SNP becoming little more than a Sturgeon band wagon - she knew the sht was about to hit the fans and left the sinking ship. None of this comes as any surprise at all to any who have been watching Sturgeon's SNP.
YET, on the National's comments threads the SNPy folk don't seem to realise the SNP's goose is cooked - quite bizarre.
THE only way forward is down and hopefully back up with a leader with Salmond's smarts... not many of them going about. Wish there was one now, Humza is coming across as a hapless incompetent, he needs to shake up his act - though in truth, he's not the problem - Mz S' legacy is the problem (a fractured, aimless SNP that she created whose activists wonder why they still support an indy-in-name-only party).
The mad liar Scottish Skier now claims there is majority support for taking the GRR to court because Tory voters should be excluded. Now this is the numpty who often says he is a polling expert😂😂😂. On Skiers approach we should be independent for the last 9 years as we would have won the indyref.
ReplyDeleteOnly WGD numpties could put up with his utter pish.
Oh and as final flourish to try and justify the GRR court case he says it will not cost any non trans people a penny as it will only cost a few quid per head of trans people. As I have said many times the guy is barking mad.