Click here to go straight to the fundraiser page.
We are about to move into a year which could well be catastrophic for the independence cause, and I for one would quite like to do something constructive to try to arrest that process. With your help, I'd like to commission a Scot Goes Pop poll, probably very early in the New Year (although something quicker might be possible if the funds are there) in which we try to identify a credible way forward as the general election approaches. The poll would probe the following -
* Would a pre-election change of SNP leader (however improbable that may seem at this late stage) help or hinder?
* Would a unity Cabinet with Kate Forbes as DFM or Finance Secretary help shore up the SNP's vote?
* Would scrapping the coalition with the Greens, as Kate Forbes has suggested, be a step forward or could it even cost votes?
* Have the SNP alienated or demotivated their core vote by back-pedalling on independence? Could a more full-on independence push help the SNP shore up their position - a thought that many SNP careerists find counterintuitive?
* Has Ash Regan's defection boosted support for the Alba Party?
* How do the public react to Alba's plan to contest at least a dozen seats?
* What do voters think would be legitimate or illegitimate ways to secure independence in the absence of a referendum?
There will also of course be voting intention numbers, which will hopefully help clarify whether the SNP are indeed heading for defeat as things stand, or whether (as Ipsos suggested) they might yet hold Labour off. I am also open to suggestions for other supplementary questions.
I know my involvement in the Alba Party is always raised when I fundraise for polls, so let me be clear that I will firmly have my "general pro-independence blogger hat" on when I do this - I'll be acting entirely independently and this will in no sense be an "Alba poll". The questions about Alba will be scrutining questions - not least because, as you know, I'm sceptical as to the wisdom of running in as many as twelve seats and would genuinely like to discover the public's view.
If you'd like to help make this poll happen, you can click here to go to the new GoFundMe fundraiser page.
However, the ideal way to donate is directly via Paypal, because the funds are usually transferred instantly and depending on the menu option you select, fees can be completely eliminated. My Paypal email address is jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
You can simply send your donation via Paypal with a note saying "for the poll".
* Would a pre-election change of SNP leader (however improbable that may seem at this late stage) help or hinder?
ReplyDeleteNeither
* Would a unity Cabinet with Kate Forbes as DFM or Finance Secretary help shore up the SNP's vote?
Maybe
* Would scrapping the coalition with the Greens, as Kate Forbes has suggested, be a step forward or could it even cost votes?
For SNP? Lose
For Yes? Lose
For Green? Win
* Have the SNP alienated or demotivated their core vote by back-pedalling on independence? Could a more full-on independence push help the SNP shore up their position - a thought that many SNP careerists find counterintuitive?
Shore up
However been left too late. Getting 40% as a high mark now would be seen as a failure. They're packpeddling has really cost us badly.
* Has Ash Regan's defection boosted support for the Alba Party?
Boosted
* How do the public react to Alba's plan to contest at least a dozen seats?
Ambivalent
* What do voters think would be legitimate or illegitimate ways to secure independence in the absence of a referendum?
Ballot box
Temperature gauged at every UK election on union. HR for domestic policy.
Just sent some money your way, James.
ReplyDeleteSomething I'd love to see asked, and which I don't remember ever being polled before, is to gauge public support for independence parties adopting an abstentionist policy with regard to Westminster. I appreciate that it's less pertinent to this particular poll with its very specific objectives, but the question of a walk-out gets discussed so often that it seems slightly mad to me that no one has ever done any polling on it.
Every time I've seen it mentioned the result of such a question has been assumed. I doubt the assumptions were wrong, but it would still be interesting to see how big the presumed fringe that would support that is. Especially if it were asked regularly: the most interesting data in any poll is always how it compares to the same question in another poll if the answers have changed significantly.
DeleteUntil the outcome of the police inquiry into the SNP finances is known the party is virtually in stasis as far as I am concerned. It has been extremely damaging. Should you get funding for a poll my advice would be to await the outcome. My only caveat to that would be is that you may have a very long wait!
ReplyDeletePoor old Boris Johnston. He must have been thinking today where is a big fridge when you really really need it.
ReplyDeleteAll doubt removed today that Johnston is an English supremacist/nationalist and a complete plank.
Talking of planks, what about the failure formally known as Sturgeon?
DeleteYour comment on NS is out of order. She had her faults but was a good leader and a great communicator.
DeleteLook where we’re heading without her? I, like many Nats, am dreading the GE. Maybe a period in opposition wouldn’t be the worst thing though.
I no longer trust the SNP. There is nothing that that anti Indy Wokist shower of Traitors can do to get my vote back. it has gone. If Alba doesnt stand a candidate in my Westmidden Constituency I will be spoiling my ballot paper. I hope Alba stands in every constituency except the Western isles. Even Joanna Cherry has shown herslf to be gutless. Alba contesting a dozen seats isnt anyhwere near enough.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. Surely the more seats Alba contest, thereby splitting the nationalist vote, the more it benefits the unionist parties.
DeleteI’m at a loss to understand this line of thinking.
John REDACTOR MAN Swinney becomes an Honorary Professor at Glasgow uni for services rendered to the union. Glagow uni being a well known Unionist uni. Swinney pal of wee Labour man Douglas Alexander will feel right at home there. Is Swinney getting his Redactor pen ready for some more redacting of papers following yesterday's court of session judgement.
ReplyDeleteWGD numpty yesindyref2 currently punting the view on WGD that the Scottish government should waste more money losing more court cases. Mind you being an ex ( well I think it's ex) Labour voter he is used to supporting governments who waste money while people struggle with the cost of living.
ReplyDeleteA cracking new record for a Holyrood government - losing two court cases in the same week. Numpties are upset about the self ID court case but nothing to say about the Freedom of Info case. Are they secretly worried that Sturgeon's final chapter in her book will say I'm glad we built this nice new prison in Stirling and life really isn't that bad I've got a lot of my old friends and colleagues here with me.
Mind you being an ex ( well I think it's ex) UKIP voter, Independence for Scotland is used to making things up in a vain attempt to make himself appear useful.
DeleteMone and Sturgeon could do lunch together in Stirling and bitch about it being all their husbands fault for getting them in to this mess.
DeleteThe fact that even Yousaf and Robison have finally seen sense and stopped wasting money on court cases that they will lose only goes to highlight how much of a WGD numpty the Admiral is. Yesindyref2, Irish Skier the whole lot of these WGD numpties (exception being Capella) wanted to keep wasting money supporting a policy that the vast majority in Scotland did not want.
DeleteThe whole business of self ID was designed to lose support for independence by the Britnats in the SNP.
Ditching the Greens would be the single best thing the SNP could do to get some of their disillusioned voters back on side.
ReplyDeleteIt would also set the scene for Forbes (and others) to return to ministerial posts.
WGD numpty mad liar Irish Skier wants a Public Inquiry into the polis Branchform saga. I don't remember the numpty saying the same about the shocking polis investigation in to Salmond. Hundreds of interviews by the polis fishing for complaints against Salmond and the only people they could find are members of Sturgeon's gang but the polis didnae twig there might be something fishy going on. Double standards are rife among the WGD nicophant numpties.
ReplyDelete'Has Ash Regan's defection boosted support for the Alba Party?'
ReplyDeleteBased on Ipsos MORI, it's doubled from May to September! From 1 to 2%. Go home and .....well, just stay there?