This is the bit where everything changes - sensational ICM poll shows pro-independence campaign just 7% behind

At moments like this you're supposed to punch the air in delight, but I'm so dumbfounded that I think I've only managed to do it in my head so far. ICM, regarded by many as the 'gold standard' of UK pollsters, have released the first referendum poll of 2014, and it shows that the pro-independence campaign have slashed the No lead from 17% to 7%.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 37% (+5)
No 44% (-5)

I had a funny feeling a couple of hours ago that something special was in the offing. Normally when a new poll is on its way, the anti-independence campaign's troll-in-chief Blair McDougall can't resist a "scene-setting" tweet, but there was only deafening silence from him tonight, which left open the possibility that he'd seen the figures and knew that this time there was absolutely no way he could spin them in his favour. Some of the other usual suspects (notably our old friend Mike "can't be arsed" Smithson) indicated that they had no idea what the poll showed, suggesting an unusual level of secrecy that you wouldn't expect for a poll with a routine result.

So what does this mean? For years now, there has been an ongoing 'intra-nationalist debate' between those who think that polls are basically meaningless ("OK, they asked 1000 people, but what about the other five million?"), and those of us who think that we can certainly be critical of polls and point out their mistakes and limitations, but that there's no point in sticking our heads in the sand and trying to convince ourselves that polls don't matter at all. After all, there is a perfectly straightforward scientific basis for the idea that you can ask 1000 people for their opinion and get a result that is representative of the general population to within a margin of error of 3% (but only if you have your methodology absolutely bang on, which is the caveat that is too often overlooked). And perhaps more pertinently, I remember that when I took part in the For A' That podcast back in September, I made the point that the prevailing media narrative that is so unfavourable for the Yes campaign has been largely driven by poll results, and that everything would be completely different if we could only get those numbers to change. Make no mistake about it - a transformed narrative matters. Voters who previously thought that there was no point in wasting their mental energy thinking about the arguments for independence because Yes were too far behind will think again. Newspapers and other media outlets who previously thought that they were playing it safe and giving the audience what it wanted by churning out relentless anti-independence propaganda will realise that their interests are not quite so clear-cut. More specifically, a spontaneous surge for Yes in the polls is probably a prerequisite for securing unambiguous newspaper endorsements for independence in September.

We can now expect the long-awaited changed narrative to begin to unfold as a direct result of this poll - on one crucial condition. If there is a second poll in the coming days (in theory a TNS-BMRB poll should be due before the month is out), and if that poll contradicts ICM, the media will be all too keen to believe the figures that give them the easiest life. But if the next poll doesn't tell them what they want to hear, all hell will break loose. There's one thing even the most die-hard of unionist scribes will know in his/her heart of hearts - if Yes really have closed the gap from 17% to 7% since the last ICM poll four months ago, they are perfectly capable of closing the gap from 7% to zero over the next eight months. That's especially true given that the official campaign period (with the regulations to ensure balanced broadcast coverage) has not even started yet. The "Yes has already lost" fairy-story so beloved of Ian 'Complacency' Smart and his ilk is now utterly dead in the water.

* * *

ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH FOR PRO-INDEPENDENCE CAMPAIGN IN SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

Regular readers will remember that I provisionally updated the Poll of Polls after an Ipsos-Mori poll was released on January 12th, and that I then reluctantly had to reverse it after it transpired that the poll hadn't asked a straight Yes/No question, and probably wasn't properly weighted. I say 'reluctantly' because it was rather a good update for Yes, but I'm delighted to say that the first genuine update of referendum year shows much the same story anyway, with the pro-independence campaign closing the gap for the fifth time in succession...

MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 33.8% (+0.8)
No 48.0% (-0.8)

MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 41.3% (+1.0)
No 58.7% (-1.0)

MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 40.9% (+1.3)
No 59.1% (-1.3)

As ever, the Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of six polls - the most recent one from each of the six pollsters that have conducted properly-weighted nationwide referendum polls during the campaign, and that adhere to British Polling Council (BPC) rules. If any other BPC pollsters enter the fray at some point (for example ComRes or Populus), they'll be taken into account as well.

Obviously, with only one-sixth of the sample changing with this update, it's not possible for the movements to be as dramatic as seen in the headline ICM figures. However, Yes have still reached another new landmark, breaking through the psychological 40% threshold on the median average for the first time. The median was previously calculated as the mid-point between TNS-BMRB and ICM (as the 'middle' pollsters), but ICM have astonishingly just replaced Panelbase as the outright most favourable pollster for Yes, meaning that the median is now the mid-point between Angus Reid and TNS-BMRB.

On the headline average figures, Yes are left requiring a swing of just 7.1% to draw level - but the reality is that it'll almost certainly be much less than that by now if the trend picked up by ICM is genuine. Indeed, on that trend it's quite possible (arguably likely) that Panelbase would be showing either a dead heat or a narrow Yes lead at the moment. If I was a decision-maker in the SNP, I'd be sorely tempted to commission another Panelbase poll right now - the impact on the media narrative could be huge.

* * *

"You're better together with a Tory government you didn't vote for!" say panto stars John Barrowman and the Krankies. "Oh no we're not!" retort the audience.

When the news of this poll broke, I was in the middle of writing a post about the rather more trivial matter of John Barrowman's characteristically self-effacing Burns Night 'Address to the Nation', but I don't think I'll bother finishing it now. Suffice to say I spent my own Burns Night at the Hydro in Glasgow watching pro-independence singers Dougie MacLean, Rachel Sermanni and Karine Polwart performing for Celtic Connections. In particular, Polwart brought a tear to my eye with her beautiful rendition of Green Grow the Rashes. (I mean, obviously it wasn't a patch on Barrowman's timeless cover of Baby Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band, but we can only make do with the scraps of entertainment that are actually available to us here in the far provinces.)

Oh, and I think I would have been left with marginally more respect for Barrowman if he'd done his faintly pathetic "kilts, Irn Bru and Salmond is fat" routine in the American accent he uses on every other occasion he's on television. His weird decision to go Scottish for one night only reminded me a bit of the advice Margaret Thatcher apparently received in the 80s with a view to improving her dismal personal ratings in these parts. It was suggested that she adopt a mild Scottish accent on her forays north - a comic spectacle of truly epic proportions that we were cruelly denied from witnessing.

Come back, Dustin the Turkey, all is forgiven

In the light of the BBC's decision not to allow the public any say in the selection of this year's UK Eurovision entry for the first time since 1987 (indeed I believe it's the first entirely internal selection ever), I thought I might as well make sure I voted in this year's Irish national final - UK residents were able to vote by mobile phone, thanks to the dedicated numbers for Northern Ireland viewers. For slightly complicated reasons I had to watch the RTÉ webcast with the sound down, so I could only guess at what was going on at various points. However, Cheryl Baker's presence on the panel - love her though I do - didn't exactly inspire confidence that the people of Ireland were being offered the most up-to-date advice on how to go about winning Eurovision. It could, of course, have been worse. It could have been John Barrowman.

Anyway, having listened to the five songs in advance, I decided to vote for Nikki Kavanagh's Falling. It wouldn't have been the most inspiring entry, but when I tell you that her main competition was Jedward - I'll say that again, JEDWARD - you might understand my thinking a little better. In my naivety I had thought the 67/33 split in the voting between juries and the public probably meant that sanity would just about prevail, but...well, see for yourself. I'm already starting to feel nostalgic for Dustin the Turkey.

Will Eurovision 2011 be a Broad Church?

I've just been catching up on the rumour-mill surrounding this year's UK entry for Eurovision, with suggestions that Charlotte Church, Katherine Jenkins, Pixie Lott or even (weirdly) Madonna will be our representative.  We can probably safely discount the latter possibility, but I must say I'm mildly encouraged by all this, because it presumably means the BBC are planning a return to the moderately successful 1992-4 arrangement of an internal selection of the performer, but a public vote to decide the song.  As I've mentioned before, I'd much rather see a completely open selection, but the worst of all worlds is what happened last year, with everything resting on the judgement of a single songwriter who clearly didn't have a clue where the contest was 'at'.  All we need to ensure now is that John Barrowman and his oh-so-helpful attempts to 'guide' the public's choice are kept well clear of the selection show!

As for the three songs to be selected so far, if the contest were to stop right now probably the Swiss entry - In Love For A While by Anna Rossinelli - would be the winner.  That's not saying a great deal.  The Romanian song is pleasant, uptempo, and utterly unmemorable, while the Albanian entry is a complete dog's breakfast - although admittedly that always seems to be the case at this stage in proceedings, so it would be rash to write it off altogether.  Whatever radical surgery they perform, though, I can't believe it's going to be a patch on Juliana Pasha last year.  Hopefully something more inspiring will be along soon from other countries.

But on the other hand...

Having just made quite a cynical post about Your Country Needs You, let me balance that out with one much more positive observation - it's been a Barrowman-free zone thus far.

'Nuff said.

My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 7

Maria Haukaas Storeng of Norway

"Love can be hard sometimes
Yes, it can catch you off guard like bad crimes"

Hmmm, this is problematical on just all sorts of levels. First of all, Maria seems to be drawing a curious distinction here between 'bad' crimes on the one hand and, well, 'good' crimes on the other. What are all these good crimes? Perhaps I shouldn't dismiss this out of hand, after all I'm instantly conjuring up an image of Tony Benn with pipe in mouth, arms flailing about like only Rory Bremner can, saying "oooh, think of the suffragettes, they had to break the law". So, in the interests of fairness, I've taken this issue very seriously and done some painstaking research, ie. I googled it. And, indeed, it seems there are some things that are against the law which are, if not exactly 'good', then certainly relatively harmless. For instance, in Miami, it is strictly illegal to impersonate a bison, while in Missouri you could find yourself hauled before a court for shaving without a licence. So presumably these are the sorts of things Maria has in mind for her 'good' crimes, while the bad ones are obviously things like murder, rape, arson, and grievous bodily harm. But while being randomly murdered or having your house burnt down could certainly be said to "catch you off guard", does that entirely capture the gravity of the situation? I think not. On the other hand, it might just capture the lesser gravity of being the victim of an unprovoked bison impersonation, so in my view Maria should really be singing "love can catch you off guard like those not-so-bad crimes they have in Miami".

(Phew, I thought I'd never get to the end of that paragraph).

To be fair to Maria, though, she offers a far more robust and convincing argument later on in the song -

"If it ain't right, it is wrong"

Let's face it, the girl's got a point. Which is more than anyone's ever said about John Barrowman.