Question about the local election voting system: "Should I rank all (or most) of the candidates?" Answer: YES, especially if you want to stop the Tories

In the wake of my April Fool (which alarmingly about 10-20% of people took seriously, even though I thought I had made it self-evidently absurd), I was planning to write a genuine guide to how the Single Transferable Vote system for the local council election works.  That's been slightly overtaken by the insanity of certain leaflets that have been dropping through people's doors recently, but there is one specific question that several people have asked me and that I feel I should respond to. In a nutshell, it's...

"I know I should rank all of the pro-independence candidates in my ward, but should I rank all (or most) of the other candidates as well?"

The answer is yes, and I'll explain why.  Suppose I lived in a ward which returns three councillors.  Suppose also that the SNP were putting up two candidates (a typical number in a three-seat ward where the SNP are strong), Labour were putting up one, Alba one, the Greens one, the Tories one, the Liberal Democrats one, and there was also one inoffensive independent candidate with no apparent stance on the constitutional question.  I would probably rank the candidates as follows -

1) Alba

2) SNP

3) SNP 

4) Green

5) Inoffensive Independent

6) Liberal Democrats

7) Labour

8) Conservatives

Most of those decisions are no-brainers.  I have the SNP ahead of the Greens because, at least on paper, independence is the SNP's number one objective, whereas for the Greens it's a somewhat lower priority.  The inoffensive independent is ranked below all of the pro-independence candidates, but ahead of all the unionist candidates, on the logic that a non-unionist is usually preferable to a unionist.  The Tories are ranked last because they're obviously the most objectionable party in all sorts of ways, and more specifically because it's important to reject their "muscular unionism" as emphatically as possible.  The only real dilemma is whether to have Labour ahead of the Lib Dems or vice versa, but I've given the Lib Dems the nod on the theory that Labour poses the greatest medium-term threat to the hegemony of pro-independence parties in Scottish politics.  It's worth giving Labour a ranking to help bury the Tories, but I'm inclined to think every other party apart from the Tories should be ranked ahead of Labour.

So why isn't ranking the pro-indy candidates enough to properly reject the Tories? Well, it might be, but only if you strike it lucky.  In my hypothetical example above, let's imagine that Alba are eliminated early on - which means that my vote will transfer to whichever SNP candidate I ranked highest. Then let's imagine that the two SNP candidates reach the quota and are duly elected.  That means there is one remaining seat to be filled, and it can only be filled by a non-SNP and non-Alba candidate.  Any surplus votes from the two SNP candidates (ie. the number of votes they exceeded the quota by) will be transferred to other candidates and will help to determine the winner of the final seat.  The upshot is that a portion of my vote will be transferred - but only if I gave a ranking to one of the candidates still in contention.  So if I only ranked pro-indy candidates, I'm banking everything on the Greens doing well enough to have a chance of the final seat.  If the Greens are eliminated, I've effectively abstained on the question of who I want to be the third and final councillor from the ward.

Maybe I'll be fortunate and the final count will come down to a straight fight between the Greens and the Tories.  A portion of my vote will transfer to the Greens, and I'll have done everything I conceivably could to freeze the Tories out.  But really it's up to other voters to decide whether the Greens are in with a shout.  If instead the final count is a straight fight between Labour and Tory, a portion of my vote will only transfer if I gave a ranking to Labour - and if I haven't done that, I've sat on my hands and thus could effectively have helped the Tories win the last seat. 

This is what is so bonkers about the leaflet and letter the SNP have just sent out.  There's no joined-up thinking at all.  The content of the letter makes clear that the priority of the SNP's campaign is not independence, but instead to "send a message to the Tories".  And yet it then goes on to recommend an electoral strategy (only ranking the SNP candidates and abstaining on all other rankings) that is tailor-made to help Tory candidates get elected.  That is not an exaggeration at all.  The SNP have huge influence over where the lower preferences of pro-independence voters go - either they'll help elect pro-indy councillors and non-Tory councillors, or they'll go nowhere and be wasted.  At present, the SNP are urging the latter.  If you think you can make any sense of that whatsoever, you're...well, you're probably drunk.

*  *  *

To catch up with my Scot Goes Popcast interview with Alba candidate Lisa Keogh, please click HERE (video version) or HERE (audio only).

STV for dummies

So no, this is not a reference to Scottish Television dumbing down even further, it's about the other STV, the Single Transferable Vote system which will be used to elect our local councillors in just over a month from now. Several people have asked me if I'll be writing another "idiot's guide" as I did in 2017, because STV has a reputation for being far more fiendishly complicated than just about any other electoral system.  However, that does it a disservice.  The real complexity is actually at the counting end of the system - as a voter, it should be relatively simple to use.  So here's my step-by-step guide to using STV, all the way from deciding your voting choices in advance of polling day, through to how to actually cast your ballot in the polling station.

1) STV is a preferential system, which allows you to rank as many of the candidates as you wish in order of preference - and if you want to maximise the impact of your vote, it's vital to rank as many of them as you can bear to (the "vote till you boak" principle).  That being the case, it's far more important than in other types of election to know how many candidates are standing in your ward, who they are, and what party - if any - they're standing for.  So find the name of your ward (which can often be the toughest part of the process!) and search online for the full list of candidates.

2) Look carefully to see whether each candidate is a Red Code or a Blue Code candidate.  Blue Code candidates are relatively rare these days, but it's important to identify them because the quotient that applies to them is different.

3) If a candidate is Blue Code, they are required by Electoral Commission rules to incorporate a QR code into their election literature.  So when they send you a leaflet, scan the code and it will take you to a website setting out the quotient.  Alternatively, you can search for it manually.

4) On polling day, take your polling card to a polling station and hand it to staff - either that or just tell them your name and address.  (Thankfully, the Tories don't control this election and there will be no ID requirement.) 

5) The staff will then give you a ballot slip.  It will be colour coded if there are both Red Code and Blue Code candidates in your ward.  If there are only Red Code candidates, it will be white.

6) Take your ballot paper to a booth, and start by applying the quotient to all Red Code candidates.

7) If there are Blue Code Candidates, apply the Blue Code quotient separately.  The colour coding should assist you here, but to ensure your preferences for Blue Code candidates are correctly counted, you must ensure that each quotient is applied accurately.

8) Indicate your insistence.

9) Fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box.

10) Leave the polling station.

11) As an extra precaution to ensure that no mistakes have been made, re-scan the QR code, and if the quotient has been correctly applied, you should be taken to a page displaying a green "W" and a magenta "7".  

12) Excise the coupon.

And that's it, you're done. 

Just a reminder that we have hard evidence that the Scottish public want to be represented by Team Scotland at the Olympics, not Team GB

As we move towards the end of Tokyo 2020 and the accompanying #ButchApronFest, it's worth reminding ourselves of the result of a Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll from the start of this year, which asked in very straightforward, neutral language whether people wanted to be represented at the Olympics by Team Scotland or Team GB.

Currently, Scottish athletes represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, and Great Britain at the Olympic Games.  Do you think Scottish athletes should represent Scotland or Great Britain at the Olympic Games?  (Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll, 11th-13th January 2021)

Scotland: 47%

Great Britain: 42%

With Don't Knows excluded...

Scotland: 53%

Great Britain: 47%

Some people expressed disappointment at the narrowness of that result, but I think that looks at the issue the wrong way round.  Team GB has been one of the very few propaganda successes for unionism in recent years.  Look at the medals table from the last three Summer Olympics - Great Britain finished fourth in Beijing 2008, third in London 2012, and second in Rio 2016.  There's no question that this means they punched above their weight - to finish second five years ago, they had to outperform countries with much bigger populations, such as China, Russia, Germany and Japan.  There's also no great mystery as to how or why that happened - it's the legacy of the sports-mad Prime Minister John Major setting up a National Lottery in the mid-90s that to a large extent helped to fund athletes from a wide variety of sports.  That's a template that an independent Scotland could quite easily follow if it had similar priorities, but in the meantime British nationalists have the opportunity to claim that Scottish sportspeople are hitched along to a Rolls Royce outfit and that we'd be foolish to give that up for also-ran status.

Not everyone is convinced by that argument, because far more Scottish athletes would be given the chance to actually compete at the Olympics if we had our own team.  But nevertheless, the GB medal haul in recent Games makes a powerful case for some, which I would suggest means it's actually quite remarkable and significant that there's still a majority among the public - however narrow - in favour of Team Scotland and against Team GB.

It may be that GB won't quite match their recent stellar performances in Tokyo anyway.  They're currently in fourth place in the medal table, which would equal 2008 but not 2012 or 2016.  And they also have Australia and the Russians breathing down their necks, so it's still possible that they could finish as low as fifth or sixth.

*  *  *

I'm continuing to fundraise for forthcoming polling via the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser - please click HERE if you'd like to donate.

Are you a newspaper columnist and want to say Scottish democracy should be dismantled without anyone noticing? Try smuggling it into an article about the Eurovision Song Contest...

Via Professor John Robertson's blog, I caught up with professional troll Mark Smith's latest column in the Herald. If you doubt my characterisation of him as a professional troll, bear in mind that his last-but-one column was titled "What can reasonable people do about the SNP?", which I believe is technically known as a QTWTAIVFTOTCBBVAOTL (Question To Which The Answer Is "Vote For Them On The Constituency Ballot But Vote Alba On The List"). 

His new piece invokes one of my own favourite subjects, the Eurovision Song Contest, and innocently inquires what Scotland can learn from it. The punchline comes at the end, when he mentions that the Eurovision voting system does not automatically give the majority what they want, but instead gives weight to expert opinion, because experts sometimes know best. "Interesting" says Mark. So this appears to be a call for democracy in Scotland to be semi-dismantled and replaced with an electoral college system in which only 50% of the vote goes to the public, and the other 50% goes to unionist "experts". And that is, to be fair, pretty much the only "voting system" I can think of that might have any chance at all of electing Douglas Ross as First Minister. 

But well disguised, Mark, I'm sure no-one even noticed how barking mad your worldview must be. 

* * * 

While I'm on the subject of Eurovision, this is the final call for any genuine Eurovision fan who has heard this year's songs and fancies giving opinions on them in a special edition of the Scot Goes Popcast, ideally to be recorded at some point tomorrow. If no-one volunteers, you'll be getting a monologue, I give you fair warning of this. My contact details can be found in the sidebar on the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.

The reason for suspecting a Scottish poll conducted right now might show a pro-independence majority

The latest Britain-wide YouGov poll makes grim reading for Labour, and spectacularly gives the lie to the notion that a lurch to the right was ever going to be a magic solution to the party's problems.

GB-wide voting intentions (YouGov, 11th-12th May):

Conservatives 45% (+2)

Labour 30% (-3)

Greens 8% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 7% (-)

SNP 5% (-)

Reform UK 2% (-1)

Plaid Cymru 1% (-)

There's no mystery about why the Conservative lead has grown still further - this is the classic snowball/momentum effect that often occurs immediately after a party performs strongly at an election.  It's for exactly the same reason that I suspect a Scottish opinion poll conducted right now would possibly show a boost for both the SNP and Yes.  But will we ever find out?  A mainstream media worth its salt would be commissioning a poll, but after the SNP landslide at the UK general election in 2019 it inexplicably took four months for any newspaper to do that (the drought had already been broken a few weeks before then, but only due to non-traditional clients commissioning polls, and YouGov conducting a poll off its own bat).  

By the way, if you think things are bad for Labour at UK level, wait until you see YouGov's Scottish subsample: SNP 50%, Conservatives 26%, Labour 13%, Liberal Democrats 5%, Greens 2%, Reform UK 1%.  Labour centrists convinced themselves that they'd made progress by going backwards at the Holyrood election, but it looks like the public themselves haven't got that convoluted memo.

Is it good or bad for the independence movement that the Tories are so dominant in England?  The obvious plus point is that it makes it easier to argue that the only rescue from the Tories is to take matters into our own hands - UK Labour are not coming to save us.  But as Lesley Riddoch pointed out the other day, a large Tory lead may tempt Boris Johnson into an early general election in 2023, which wouldn't be so optimal.  It's in all our interests for any referendum or plebiscitary election to take place before the next UK election.  The other thought that occurs to me is that Labour are actually getting into the sort of territory where it's not totally unimaginable they might change leader before the general election - and if that happens all bets are off.  I've always said that if Labour had any sense they'd install Clive Lewis as leader - but then, as we all know, Labour have no sense.  

Stephen Paton, John Nicolson, Stewart McDonald and others were salivating a few days ago at the thought of being able to dance on the Alba Party's grave - but I'm afraid they're going to be disappointed for at least another year.  Alex Salmond has released a video this afternoon making abundantly clear that Alba will be contesting next May's local elections, and as a result I would suggest it's now virtually inconceivable that the party will fold before then.  He remains the leader (or technically the acting leader) of a party with two members of parliament at Westminster and well over ten local councillors.  

If there's another poor result in the local elections, I can imagine that the party's future might be reviewed again at that point - but it's up to all of us who value Alba's contribution to ensure that there's a good result instead.

On the subject of the three SNP MSPs who are said to have been ready to defect to Alba if Alex Salmond was elected as an MSP, it's been suggested that they have no leverage now that the SNP have been returned with such a commanding win.  But that isn't true, and the reason is the parliamentary arithmetic.  Nicola Sturgeon has a safety-net due to the Greens, but she will not have Green support on every single vote by any means.  So losing three or more seats will not be cost-free for her - regardless of whether that happens as a result of direct defections to Alba, or due to MSPs simply resigning the whip and sitting as independents.

I have every respect for Peter, but I've read his tweet several times and the only possible conclusion I can come to is that he doesn't know how STV works. It's a preferential system which means not a single Alba voter will have to "vote against the SNP". https://t.co/nr3mqE5quC

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) May 14, 2021

In fact the much bigger question is whether the SNP will be urging their voters to give their lower preferences in the local elections to other pro-indy parties. You can guarantee that Alba will, so if the SNP don't, who is it that's actually causing harm?https://t.co/23itnFraue

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) May 14, 2021

Le Royaume-Uni, nul points: Big majority of public demand a SCOTTISH ENTRY in the Eurovision Song Contest, in bombshell for the BBC from Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll

So you've got to allow me the occasional indulgence, OK? Out of a large number of questions in the Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, I asked just ONE about the Eurovision Song Contest.  Frankly, you should be praising me for my restraint, because I can think of at least two follow-up questions I could have asked.

At the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest, there will be a United Kingdom entry.  However, in 2019, Scotland and Wales both competed in the Eurovision Choir event as countries in their own right.  In future years, how would you prefer Scotland to be represented in the Eurovision Song Contest?

By a Scottish entry: 60%

By a United Kingdom entry: 40%

That's much more decisive than the slim 53-47 majority in favour of a Scottish Olympic team in the Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll in January.  I can think of a few possible explanations for the difference: a) it could simply be caused by pollsters' house effects, ie. perhaps Survation have fewer people in their panel with a strong Scottish identity, b) it may be that people have more of an emotional attachment to Team GB at the Olympics due to specific memories from the past (Torvill & Dean, Linford Christie, Steve Redgrave or whatever), or c) people might have been deterred from abandoning Team GB because larger countries tend to win more medals.  The latter worry is irrelevant to the Eurovision, where smaller countries are not disadvantaged against larger ones.  (Ireland are still the most successful country in the contest's history with seven victories, although they now have Sweden breathing down their necks with six.)

Another difference with the Olympics is that there's no rule that would prevent Scotland competing without first having to become independent - as can be seen not only from the participation of Scotland and Wales in the Eurovision Choir event, but also from Wales having twice had entries in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.  BBC Alba are believed to have toyed with the idea of a Scottish entry in Junior Eurovision but decided against it - although whether that was because of pressure from London isn't clear.  The bottom line is that it's up to the BBC - if they tell the EBU they want a Scottish entry, it would almost certainly happen.  Now that we know what licence fee payers in Scotland want, will they listen?

As I always point out, no Scot has even represented the UK since Scott Fitzgerald in 1988.  Incredibly, Cyprus and France have both been represented by Scots more recently than that.  (Karen Matheson of Capercaillie fame sang for France in 1996.)  The lack of Scottish representation deprives us of a golden opportunity to promote Scottish culture and boost tourism.

I shall now embark on the unusual task of giving you the Eurovision preferences of various demographic and political groups.  Women are significantly keener on a Scottish entry - the majority is 64-36 among female respondents, compared to a narrower 55-45 among men.  Yes voters from 2014 are overwhelmingly in favour of Scottish representation, and among current Yes supporters there's near unanimity - only 7% want to be represented by the UK.  The position isn't quite so clear-cut among No voters - 34% of people who voted against independence in 2014, and even 25% of people who would vote No in a new referendum, would like a Scottish entry.  Labour voters are close to being evenly divided (44% for Scotland, 56% for the UK), which suggests that even the rump Labour vote still includes a decent number of people who strongly identify as Scottish.

There's a big age divide - under-35s prefer Scottish representation by a majority of almost 3-1, while over-55s are split right down the middle.  And fascinatingly, there's a narrow majority among English-born respondents (53-47) for a Scottish entry.

It's worth making the point that because the Eurovision question is to some extent a proxy for Scottish/British national identity, and because 40% of respondents plumped for the British option, it may well be that certain people in the SNP are over-optimistic about the prospect of Yes support rising consistently above 60%.  The idea that we should wait for that to happen before firing the starting gun on a referendum may be tantamount to giving up on independence completely.

Now, I'm not necessarily going to claim there's a strong thematic link here, but the next two questions in the poll are about nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons were banned by an international treaty that came into force in January this year.  However, the nine countries that are currently believed to possess nuclear weapons, including the UK, have so far refused to sign the treaty. Do you think the UK should join the treaty and dismantle its nuclear weapons?

Yes: 47%

No: 33%

With Don't Knows removed -

Yes 59%

No 41%

There have been polls in the past that have purported to show support for Trident in Scotland, so this could be an early indication that the new treaty is a game-changing moment that will make it a lot easier for campaigners to make the case for disarmament.  As you'd expect, the figures for SNP and Tory voters are reverse mirror images of each other (71% of SNP voters support disarmament and 71% of Tory voters oppose it), but what's much more significant is that Labour voters break 46-37 in favour of joining the treaty and disarming.  That suggests the type of 'atomic unionism' espoused by Jackie Baillie has the potential to cost Labour a lot of votes.  Additionally, 30% of people who voted No in 2014, and 22% of people who would currently vote No, want to sign up to the nuclear ban - which highlights a possible means by which a future Yes campaign could win more converts.

The UK government argues that its nuclear weapons protect the public due to a 'deterrent' effect.  However, others argue that the presence of nuclear weapons on the Clyde puts the public in greater danger by making the area a target for nuclear attacks, and by creating a risk of serious accidents.  Do you personally feel more safe or less safe due to the presence of nuclear weapons on the Clyde?

More safe: 24%

Less safe: 42%

Makes no difference: 34%

After I saw this result, it occurred to me that some of the 34% who chose the "makes no difference" option may be people who live nowhere near the Clyde and are naive enough to think that makes them safe.  In reality, you'd probably need to be in Shetland to escape the effects of a nuclear attack on Faslane.

There's an age and gender divide on the nuclear questions as well.  Although a plurality of over-55s want rid of the UK's weapons and say they feel less safe because of them, it's a fairly tight result in each case.  And women are significantly less likely than men to think Britain should not disarm or that nuclear weapons make them safer.

*  *  *

There are still more results to come from the poll.  If you'd like to be the first to know, feel free to follow me on Twitter HERE.

VIDEO: Scot Goes Popcast interview with Alex Salmond

You've already heard it, and now you can watch it in glorious technicolor. Here is the video version of Episode 6 of the Scot Goes Popcast, in which I speak with Alex Salmond, leader of the Alba Party and former First Minister of Scotland. If you have any trouble with the embedded player below, the direct link is HERE.

I've written quite a few constituency profiles for The National since I last mentioned them: Clydesdale, Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse, Mid-Fife & Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy, Highlands & Islands (regional list), Falkirk West, Falkirk East, Glasgow Anniesland and Glasgow Provan.  

The Bairns of Boris Bridge

People have complained that I've been spending too much time promoting the Alba Party and not enough time attacking unionists, so I'll just take a brief interlude to nod towards the barking mad story in the Telegraph suggesting that there might be a 'Union Island' midway across any bridge or tunnel connecting Scotland with Northern Ireland.  The idea is that a small maternity unit will be constructed on the "island" to give patriotic expectant mums the opportunity to give birth to babies who are "not Scottish, not Northern Irish, not English, not Welsh, but quite simply British".

You really have to worry about people who think it's normal to say that sort of thing out loud.  Years of talking to themselves about "Our Precious Union" have caused them to lose touch with reality.  Rory Stewart's madcap "let's link hands on top of Hadrian's Wall to raise Union awareness" plan suddenly looks quite sane and restrained in retrospect.

*  *  *

You can catch up with Episode 5 of the Scot Goes Popcast, with special guest Len Pennie (Miss PunnyPennie) HERE.

*  *  *

If you find Scot Goes Pop's coverage of polls helpful and would like it to continue, I'm currently running a fundraiser HERE.

Scot Goes Pop Fundraiser 2021

Click here to go straight to the fundraising page.

Someone asked me on Twitter the other day why I had stopped promoting the Scot Goes Pop fundraiser, and I said I was a bit conflicted about the whole thing, because there are a number of important SNP election crowdfunders ongoing and I don't like deflecting attention or funds from them. However, this is the first general fundraiser I've run for almost two years (the ones in the interim have been earmarked solely for our exclusive opinion polling), and with the unusual circumstances of lockdown my financial circumstances have been tightening alarmingly. I really, really wanted to wait until after the election before pushing hard to reach the target figure, but I've been having a hardheaded think over the last few hours and realised that is simply no longer an option. I've incurred some unexpected expenses in recent weeks, and that's been the final straw. So with apologies for the atrocious timing, this is the official launch of the Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 2021. 

There are two pieces of good news: firstly, we've already made a great head start since I quietly set the page up in late January, so a million thanks to everyone who has donated so far. And secondly, I'm going to try to kill two birds with one stone this time - the original target figure was £10,000, but I've changed that to £14,000 so that this is now a dual purpose fundraiser, with up to £5000 of whatever is raised set aside for further polling. My hope and plan is to commission the next poll during the election campaign proper in April (ideally from Panelbase, although I can't guarantee that), so hopefully with some carefully chosen questions we can have a real impact and influence the trajectory of the campaign by putting the unionist parties on the spot. 

As for the rest of the funds, I'm sure by now you know what you'll be getting: I try to cover all Scottish opinion polls as fast and as extensively as possible, and having an independent source of income helps me to do that, because otherwise I wouldn't have the time or the flexibility to drop everything when I see that a new poll is out. (However, just to stress for the benefit of passing trolls, the blog is not my sole income: I do freelance writing elsewhere, and until lockdown interrupted it, I also did some other work that thankfully had nothing whatever to do with writing or politics.) And of course, I also regularly provide general political commentary. The last few weeks have been bruising for me, especially on social media, but hopefully they've proved one thing: that I'm a genuinely independent voice within the movement, and I'm not a slave to any particular faction. Pretty much every grouping has lambasted me at some point, because I've just been calling things the way I see them. 

Additionally, I've started a Scot Goes Pop podcast and I hope to keep that going. My free storage allowance on Soundcloud will run out after Episode 4, so at that point I'll have to make a choice between paid hosting or moving to a free platform. 

On the whole GoFundMe has proved to be a good fundraising platform. However, I know a small number of people have run into payment problems, and others don't like the fact that there are processing fees (they're fairly minimal, but they do still exist). So for anyone looking for an alternative means of payment, my Paypal email address is: 

jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk 

That's different from the contact address listed in the sidebar, simply because I joined Paypal long before I had a Gmail account. 

One or two people have encouraged me to make my bank details publicly available in the way that Craig Murray has done. It may be irrational of me, but I don't feel comfortable doing that. However, if anyone feels strongly for whatever reason that they would rather donate by bank transfer, by all means contact me privately. 

Lastly, I'd just like to reiterate that the SNP election crowdfunders are absolutely vital and shouldn't be overlooked. Keeping a blog afloat is all very well, but it's winning the election that really matters.

Click here if you'd like to donate to the fundraiser.

For the attention of voters: please note that the result of the election is none of your business

So I guess the news is out. First, I thank SNP Lothian members who gave an Afro-Carib-Scot socialist their votes. I'm deeply honoured to top the batting order for us at Holyrood. Secondly thanks to my Edinburgh, Midlothian, East & West Lothian branch supporters You're amazing 1/

— Graham Campbell SNP (@CeeGraham1) March 5, 2021

So note the extremely careful wording of the above tweet. Mr Campbell thanks SNP members for giving him their votes. That's correct: some people voted him. He says he's proud that he will "top the batting order". That's correct: he will be top of the Lothian list. But what he doesn't do is thank members for voting him to the top of the list, or say that he is proud that they did so. And the reason for that omission is that he almost certainly wasn't the candidate with the most votes. He may not have been even close to being the candidate with the most votes, but the result was artificially altered to move him to top spot due to a rule that members weren't informed of when they cast their votes, and as far as I can see haven't been informed of subsequently. Nor have they been told what position Mr Campbell would have been in if the result hadn't been modified.

Whatever the difference of views on the reserved places system, surely we should all agree on the importance of transparency. It should (belatedly) be explained to members that the outcome of the democratic vote has been altered, and the reason why that was done.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 5, 2021

The results of the actual vote should be published, so members can see the effect of the alteration. I realise that may be awkward if someone who finished fifth or sixth has been moved to top place, but *if* the principle of the system is defensible, it will withstand scrutiny.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 5, 2021

Essentially just now members are being treated as children who need to be protected from the truth.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 5, 2021

Dear SNP can we have details of how we all voted in the rankings, of how much we all pay for membership, of what everyone on NEC had for breakfast? Hope this saves conspiracy theorists having to conjure up new reasons not to be cheerful when our fantastic party is flying high.

— Anne McLaughlin SNP MP (@AnneMcLaughlin) March 6, 2021

Dear governments around the world: if you're not going to tell us what you had for breakfast, then frankly it's hardly worth your bother publishing election results. Election results are mere trivia! We simply don't need to be troubled with such details.https://t.co/G5t62bDY53

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 6, 2021

By the way, I hope Anne isn't suggesting that the alteration of the list ranking results is a 'conspiracy theory', because that really would be a insult to everyone's intelligence.https://t.co/G5t62bDY53

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 6, 2021

As a SNP member I got a ballot paper telling me it's now time to rank the SNP's candidates for the regional list election. Surely it's only right and proper to find out the result of the vote?

— Jambodeek (@jambodeek) March 6, 2021

Every election I’ve taken part in you get a piece of paper from returning officer with all the figures on it. Open and transparent procedure.

— Bill Duff (@BillNorAngus) March 6, 2021

"I, being the returning officer for the said constituency, hereby give notice that the total number of votes cast for each candidate is as follows. No, actually I'm not going to tell you. Why the hell should I? You'll be wanting to know what I had for breakfast next."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 6, 2021

"Honey nut loops and a square sausage SINCE YOU INSIST."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 6, 2021

Scot Goes Popcast Episode 2: Dr Tim Rideout on an independent Scottish currency

In a few days' time, the Scottish Currency Group will host a virtual conference called 'Moving Beyond the Sustainable Growth Commission'. To set the scene for that, I was joined for the second episode of the Scot Goes Popcast by Dr Tim Rideout, head of the Currency Group and also a newly-elected member of the SNP's Policy Development Committee. Topics we discussed include... 

* The six tests the Growth Commission laid down for establishing a new Scottish currency. Are they reasonable, and can they ever realistically be met? 

* Whether the euro is a better long-term bet than a Scottish currency. 

* Whether it would be quicker for Scotland to rejoin the single market via EFTA than it would be to rejoin the EU as a full member state. 

* The Panelbase poll question that Tim and I worked together on last year, which showed considerable public sympathy for the idea of a Scottish currency. 

* Would the new currency rise or fall in value against other currencies? 

* Tim's four suggestions for the name of the currency, and his own personal favourite. 

* Whether the leadership have listened to the message SNP members sent them in the internal elections a few weeks ago.

* We had a quick debate about whether Nicola Sturgeon's leadership will survive the ongoing inquiries, and whether it will affect the SNP's chances at the Holyrood election if she doesn't. (We actually disagreed on both points.) We also discussed who might replace her if she does step down. 

* Tim gives his verdict on the infamously rude reply Pete Wishart MP sent him after he made some perfectly polite suggestions about the attitude the SNP should take to the Commons vote on the Brexit deal last December.

I think you'll find the sound quality vastly improved this time.  There were a few minor gremlins, and it was just my luck that a delivery man pounded loudly on my front door midway through the recording, but I don't think that'll affect your enjoyment too much.

If you have any problems with the embedded player below, the direct link to the podcast is HERE.

 

James Kelly · Scot Goes Popcast Episode 2: Tim Rideout

Don't forget you can also listen to Episode 1 of the podcast, in which I spoke to Dr Yvonne Ridley about her experiences as a prisoner of the Taliban, and her thoughts on the sacking of Joanna Cherry, by clicking HERE. 

And if you have any *realistic* suggestions for future podcast guests, please let me know in the comments section below. The operative word here is *realistic* - people keep suggesting Devi Sridhar and Andrew Neil, but I have a feeling they might both be a bit preoccupied at the moment! Incidentally, I've no objection to having a guest from the anti-indy side of the fence, but finding someone who is actually willing to do it might be a challenge. For all his bravado about taking on all-comers, Kevin Hague rejected the idea out of hand when one of his chums kindly suggested it to him.

There's no particular reason to think opinion polls are overestimating the Yes vote

First of all, I have an analysis piece in The National today about the new Savanta ComRes poll which puts the Yes vote on 53%.  You can read it HERE.  

Elsewhere in the same paper, Shona Craven argues that the Yes lead in the polls might be misleading, and asks whether Yes voters are significantly more likely than No voters to join volunteer online polling panels.  To which the answer is: almost certainly yes, but it probably doesn't matter that much, because that's what political weighting is there to correct for.  Most polling firms start by asking respondents how they voted in the 2014 referendum, or in some cases it's already known how they voted due to responses in previous surveys.  If there are too many Yes voters in the sample, they are downweighted accordingly.  For example, in the recent Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times, the 494 Yes voters from 2014 were downweighted to count as only 471, and the 560 No voters were upweighted to count as 583.  If that adjustment hadn't been made, the Yes lead would have been higher than the 52-48 that was reported.  And in many other surveys, the correction has been a lot bigger than that.  

If anything, the greater concern ought to be that an over-correction is going on, and that Yes are actually being underestimated as a result.  That's exactly what happened to the SNP in the 2019 election - the polls underestimated them, because people who voted for them two years earlier were being downweighted by pollsters to a target figure that was too low, due to the disproportionate number of potential SNP voters who stayed at home in 2017.  

Don't get me wrong: I think there's no room at all for complacency about the current polling situation.  But that's not because I think there's any particular reason to suppose the polls are wildly overstating Yes at the moment.  The problem is more that the Yes lead is relatively modest, and public opinion can change in the blink of an eye.

If the SNP leadership aren't going to reverse the catastrophic mistake of the Great Purge, they urgently need to show signs of having listened to members by offering some red meat on Plan B

Every so often, Stormfront Lite makes a plucky attempt to Anglosplain Scottish politics to us, although just this once - and rather irritatingly - I'm finding it hard to disagree with the overall thrust of David Herdson's piece on Saturday (he's still wrong on a number of details).  Basically he argues that divisions over the trans issue could unexpectedly cost the SNP its chances of an overall majority, and that the fault does not predominantly lie with the rank-and-file but instead with the leadership for giving too much weight to the views of a relatively small minority.  I think that's right - when the zealots called for Joanna Cherry to be sacked, the response should have been to point out that both sides of the debate were represented on the frontbench, and that was exactly as it should be.  The SNP was a broad church, it should have been said, and that was how it intended to stay, rather than letting itself become the hostage of one faction.  Nicola Sturgeon's intervention on social media should have been an even-handed denunciation of both transphobia and any trampling on women's rights, and should have assured both sides of the debate, not just one side, that they were welcomed and valued within the SNP.  

There's nothing wrong with wanting your own viewpoint to be represented at the top - but the problem with the zealots is that they're not satisfied with that, they also want the opposing view to be totally annihilated.  Joanna Cherry's ill-judged sacking did not succeed in appeasing them - it just emboldened them to start preparing the ground for her suspension or expulsion, presumably using the synthetic tool of an absurdly broad definition of the word 'transphobia' which will shortly be written into the party's rulebook.  When I suggested that one solution to the damage that had been done by the sackings was simply to reverse them, it was pointed out to me that although that would reassure a lot of people, it would also cause others to leave the party.  But I do wonder if it might be no bad thing to lay down a marker - to say to people that they're welcome in the party, but that they're not welcome to spend every waking moment trying to drive other good people out.

However, plainly the leadership have no intention of reversing the sackings, so I'd suggest we need something in lieu of that.  Mike Russell argued at the weekend that the danger of division was that it demotivated SNP activists who needed to be wholeheartedly behind the campaign for an SNP majority win in May - but actually the onus has to be on the leadership itself to help solve that problem.  Asking passionate supporters of Joanna Cherry to campaign without reservation for the SNP in these circumstances is a bit like randomly punching a marathon runner in the stomach, and then lecturing him about how he owes it to you and to himself to carry on running for another ten miles.  The problem is particularly acute given that the reshuffle looked like a way of effectively overturning or defying the NEC election results - there can be no clearer way of demonstrating to members that they have no stake in their own party than to treat their votes with contempt.  They indicated that they wanted a change of direction and the leadership's response has been to continue in the original direction at even greater speed.

So we need evidence of the leadership listening, and quickly.  If we can't have Joanna Cherry and people of like mind back on the front bench, probably the best available substitute will be some red meat on Plan B, and it will have to go quite a bit further than Mike Russell's 11-point plan.  We need specifics and dates, and also a Plan C for a plebiscitary election in the event that a legal challenge by the UK Government succeeds.  That, I think, would be the recipe for an enthused membership chapping on doors (or the figurative pandemic equivalent), regardless of any misgivings they have about recent events.

It also goes without saying that there can be no further big concessions to the zealots.  Everyone has their breaking-point, and if MPs or even ordinary members start being suspended or expelled on the basis of bogus allegations of transphobia, people will quite rightly conclude that enough is enough.

Scot Goes Popcast with special guest Dr Yvonne Ridley

There was an overwhelmingly positive reaction on Twitter a few weeks ago when I asked if I should consider starting a 'Scot Goes Popcast', so I thought I'd give it a go as a one-off, and then make up my mind about whether to do some more.  For the 'pilot episode', I was delighted to be joined by Dr Yvonne Ridley, who was once voted "the most recognisable woman in the Islamic world".  

She talks about her experience as a captive of the Taliban in 2001, and as the Respect Party's candidate in the landmark 2012 Rotherham by-election.  She shares her memories of campaigning for Yes in the 2014 independence referendum, and as a long-standing SNP member offers some forthright views on the sacking of Joanna Cherry.  I also asked her about anti-Semitism in the Labour party, her stint as an animal handler on the TV series Outlander, and her new sci-fi/time travelling/Scottish historical novel The Caledonians.   

Devotees of the Scot Goes Pop channel on YouTube may not be totally dumbfounded to hear that I ran into some technical problems.  Well, what can I say, I'm not the BBC.  I used Cleanfeed for the recording, which worked great when I was on Paul Kavanagh's Wee Ginger Dugcast last year, but it wasn't quite so straightforward this time for some reason.  I think the main lesson I've learnt is that for any future podcasts I'll have to use a laptop, because the background "vacuum cleaner" noise that's audible throughout is simply the whirring of the desktop.  Anyway, you can hear what we're both saying, so that's the main thing!

If you have any problem with the embedded player below, you can also listen via the direct link HERE.  I'll also try to upload it to YouTube (and maybe to one or two other places as well) later on.

James Kelly · Scot Goes Pop

The way forward

Should we be bracing ourselves for the sequence of twenty-in-a-row Yes majority polls to be broken? Even just from a purely statistical point of view, it's very possible that could happen - the most recent polls from both YouGov and Survation had Yes on 51%, and the most recent from Panelbase had Yes on 52%. Due to the margin of error, sooner or later you're likely to end up dropping to 49% in at least one poll. And that's before we even consider recent events, which may have checked the momentum behind the Yes movement. Nobody is free of responsibility for that. It's all very well for the SNP leadership to lecture the rank-and-file as if they're unruly schoolchlidren, but the building and maintenance of unity is a two-way process, and yesterday's sacking of Joanna Cherry was a monumentally idiotic unforced error that the leadership have no-one to blame for but themselves. None of the excuses we've heard from anonymous sources are remotely convincing. Even if you're hellbent on punishing a hugely popular frontbencher for alleged 'disloyalty', there are ways of doing it with subtlety and nous. Instead of sacking her, you could move her to a less prominent portfolio, and if she refused to take it, you could present it as a resignation. Or you could offer her a meaningful role away from the frontbench. And what you most certainly wouldn't do is sack two other promiment people from the same wing of the party at exactly the same time as sacking her. What happened yesterday looks like petty factionalism because that's exactly what it is. 

However, we are where we are, and in a strange way the results of independence polls aren't actually the most important thing in the very short-term. So close to an election, we normally set the independence numbers to one side and concentrate almost exclusively on the party political voting intention numbers. It's odd that hasn't happened yet, and it may be because an SNP win and a pro-indy majority at Holyrood look like foregone conclusions. But we know from the 2016 campaign that such an impression can be horribly deceptive. The election has to be taken by the scruff of the neck and won, whether by the SNP alone, or by the SNP and the Greens in combination, or by a three-way combination of the SNP, the Greens, and a Party X involving Alex Salmond. I've no idea whether Mr Salmond is even thinking along those lines, and I know some people are claiming it's impossible anyway because he'd be timed out by the Electoral Commission - but there are always ways and means. He could, for example, join forces with one of the small pro-indy parties that are already registered with the Electoral Commission. If he doesn't take the plunge, though, we have to be realistic and accept that the SNP and Greens are the only game in town and are the only pro-indy parties capable of winning seats. I know that's a bitter pill to swallow for people furious with both party leaderships for their stance on the trans issue and reluctance on Plan B, but it really is true - if we care about independence, this is an absolutely critical election, and in the absence of a Salmond-led party we'll need to set aside all reservations and make an SNP/Green majority happen. And, more ideally, an outright SNP majority. 

Some people are in love with the idea of building up the ISP and winning list seats that way, but without big name backing that simply isn't a viable option. We'll doubtless hear the usual misguided arguments over the coming weeks about how SNP supporters should vote "tactically" on the list for the Greens, and those siren voices should be ignored. But at the end of the day, if you vote Green in the erroneous belief that you're doing so tactically, you're at least voting for a party that has a chance of picking up list seats. That will not be the case if you vote for the ISP or another fringe party.

* * *

If you'd like to help Scot Goes Pop continue during this crucial election year, donations are welcome HERE.  

Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll: Sensation as Scottish voters give their backing to the McEleny/MacNeil plan to use *this year's* Holyrood election to secure an outright independence mandate

Every time I've crowdfunded a poll, by far the most requested question has been on the subject of a 'Plan B' to secure an independence mandate if a Section 30 order is never granted.  To avoid duplication, I've taken a different angle for the question each time, and it might be worth starting this post with a reminder of the results from the previous three polls (all conducted by Panelbase) - 

January 2020: By a margin of 50% to 39%, respondents said the Scottish Parliament should legislate for an independence referendum in the absence of a Section 30 order, and then allow the courts to decide whether it can take place.

June 2020: By a margin of 49% to 29%, respondents said pro-independence parties should consider using an election at some point in the future to double as an independence referendum.

November 2020: By a margin of 63% to 37%, respondents backed the general principle of a Plan B being used at some point over the coming five-year Holyrood term if the UK Government remains intransigent.

The June question was in principle fairly similar to what Chris McEleny and Angus MacNeil MP are proposing, but it wasn't quite as specific, because of course they don't just want to use an election to obtain an indy mandate at some point in the future - they essentially want to do it right now, in the Holyrood election that is only a matter of weeks away.  So as I'd already covered pretty much every other angle in previous polls, I thought I might as well throw in the kitchen sink this time, and use our new Survation poll to ask about the specific McEleny/MacNeil plan.  I was fully expecting this to be the first occasion on which we'd got a negative result on a Plan B question, because I thought that voters would think that we shouldn't rush our fences, and that we should at least go through the motions of making one last push for an agreed referendum before moving on to Plan B.  But I was wrong.

The UK Government has stated that it will seek to prevent a Scottish independence referendum taking place for several decades, regardless of whether Scottish voters elect a Scottish Government committed to holding a referendum.  In view of this stance, do you think pro-independence parties, such as the SNP and the Scottish Greens, should or should not include an outright independence pledge in their manifestos for this year's scheduled Scottish Parliament election, to give people the opportunity to vote for or against independence?  (Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll, 11th-13th January 2021): 

Should: 45%

Should not: 36%

With Don't Knows excluded, it works out as -

Should: 55%

Should not: 45%

I'd suggest this result poses a major problem for the Pete Wisharts of this world, who base at least part of their opposition to Plan B on the assumption that voters are intrinsically hostile to any way forward that does not involve the express permission of the UK Government, and that the SNP would thus pay a heavy electoral price for flirting with the idea.  But that's a difficult argument to maintain when voters have given the thumbs-up to what is just about the most 'extreme' variant of Plan B - ie. abandoning Plan A right away and going for an outright indy mandate in just four months from now.  SNP voters from the 2019 general election are behind the McEleny/MacNeil plan by the overwhelming margin of 74% to 10%, as are Yes voters from 2014 by a margin of 75% to 12%.  Unionists are naturally opposed on the whole, although substantial minorities of Labour voters (31%), Liberal Democrats voters (26%) and Leave voters (35%) are in favour.  

My own thinking is that once every option for a referendum is closed off, a plebiscitary election should not just be considered a possibility, but should become a default certainty.  However, we will not reach the point of every option having been exhausted until we've legislated for a referendum and the courts have adjudicated upon it - and that can't happen this side of the 2021 election.  On the other hand, Chris McEleny and Angus MacNeil do have a very good point in the sense that if we spurn the opportunity of using this election to gain a mandate, when will the next opportunity come?  We surely can't just twiddle our thumbs until the 2026 Holyrood vote.  In theory, we could easily engineer an early Holyrood election in 2022 or 2023, but there are strong grounds for thinking the current leadership are far too cautious to ever do that.  The only other possibility is the 2024 Westminster election, but I've always thought it would be a big mistake to try to use the 'away fixture' of a UK general election, during which the media would be shoving Britain-wide issues down our throats, to seek an indy mandate.  

*  *  *

There are still lots more questions to come from the poll, most of them Brexit-themed.  If you'd like to be the first to know when the results are published, you can follow me on Twitter HERE.  

Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll: SNP on course to win 55 of the 59 Scottish seats at Westminster, with the Tories slipping into a deep hole that could finish Douglas Ross' leadership

As I mentioned in the preview video earlier, I was planning to put out both the Holyrood and Westminster voting intention numbers from our new poll today.  However, I later spotted a small problem with the Holyrood tables which Survation are now in the process of resolving, so in the meantime I'll give you the Westminster numbers, which are nothing short of a horror show for Mr Douglas Ross Esquire.

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll, 11th-13th January 2021):

SNP 48% (-3)

Labour 23% (+2)

Conservatives 19% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 7% (+1)

Seats projection, with changes from the 2019 election: SNP 55 (+7), Conservatives 2 (-4), Labour 1 (n/c), Liberal Democrats 1 (-3)

In fairness, 19% is not the Tories' lowest ebb recently - they fell as low as 18% in polls from both Survation and JL Partners in the mid-autumn.  However, what is new is the four-point lead that Labour have opened up over their main unionist rivals - they haven't had an advantage as big as that since exactly three years ago, when they were still basking in the afterglow of Jeremy Corbyn's moral victory in the 2017 general election.  

I am seriously beginning to wonder if Douglas Ross is heading for the same fate that befell Jim Murphy in 2015 - ie. only lasting a few months as leader before a single unimaginably bad election finishes him off.  I don't think the Tories are even close to being psychologically ready for a return to third place - it just wasn't on the radar until very recently.  Even when they lost more than half their seats in the 2019 general election, they were still comfortably clear of Labour in terms of both seats and the popular vote.

It would be completely nuts to call the SNP's 48% vote share a poor result, given that it's three points better than they achieved in their 2019 landslide victory.  However, it's their first sub-50 result in any Westminster poll since last March.  Time will tell if that's just a little blip caused by sampling variation - although in the long run it's very difficult for any party to maintain support at quite such a high level.  

Independence supporters often give over-65s a bad rap for being the only age group that is solidly No.  But it's worth making the point that even they would elect an SNP majority if they were the only people allowed to vote.  Voting intentions among over-65s are: SNP 37%, Conservatives 26%, Labour 23%, Liberal Democrats 14%. As was the case for Yes on the independence question, the SNP's best age group is 25-34 year olds, where they enjoy phenomenal 63% support, with the Tories on just 7%.

*  *  *

There's still lots more to come from the poll, including a big result tonight on whether the SNP and Greens should use the coming Holyrood election as a de facto referendum on independence.  If you'd like to be the first to know, you can follow me on Twitter HERE.  

I'm warning you, if you say "Jehovah" once more, or "England" to a former leader of the Liberal Democrats...

Presumably the Lib Dems think France should also be required to leave the European Union in order to save the English from the consequences of their own voting preferences.https://t.co/ZiqZWlsUu9

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) December 30, 2020

‘The English’ 🙄

— Tim Farron (@timfarron) December 30, 2020

What the hell's supposed to be wrong with that?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) December 30, 2020

Lumping us together as some homogeneous oppressive mass. It’s a hallmark of nationalism to do that, and I’m assuming you don’t want lumping in with UKIP...?

— Tim Farron (@timfarron) December 30, 2020

Tim, you are making yourself look completely bloody ridiculous here. Everyone can see that there is nothing whatsoever about my tweet, let alone the innocuous term "the English", that states or implies an "oppressive mass".

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) December 31, 2020

For future reference, is there an acceptable Lib Dem term for "the people of England"? And if there isn't, doesn't that make conversation slightly difficult at times?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) December 31, 2020

Just not lump us all together... or talk about us as if we’re all Boris Johnson or Margaret Thatcher. I’m a northerner so I’m far more British than English.

— Tim Farron (@timfarron) December 31, 2020

Sigh. I ask again: how do I say "the people of England" without "lumping you all together"? Are you saying there's no acceptable way of doing it, and if so, isn't that frankly a bit nuts?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) December 31, 2020

Here’s my point: It isn’t the English who oppress, dictate to or rule Scotland. The English are as diverse as the Scots and do not consider Scots to be ‘other’ to us - in fact many of us northerners see more in common with Scotland than the south. I certainly do.

— Tim Farron (@timfarron) December 31, 2020

That's a point that should have been made to someone who actually said that the English oppressed Scotland. Having said that, I believe it is Lib Dem policy to deny Scotland a choice on its own future, regardless of how we vote. On what planet is that not "dictatorial"?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) December 31, 2020

CROWDFUNDER: A new opinion poll to test support for independence now that the Tories' Hard Brexit has become a cold reality

Click here to go straight to the fundraising page. 

Hi, I'm James Kelly, and I write the pro-independence blog Scot Goes Pop, which has a particular emphasis on opinion poll analysis. Over the course of 2020, I commissioned three Panelbase polls with your help. All three showed pro-independence majorities, and they were all landmark results in their own ways - the one at the start of the year put Yes on 52% for the first time since the summer of 2016, the one in June was the first to show that the events of the pandemic had pushed Yes back into the lead, and the one in November saw Yes soar to an all-time high in Panelbase polls of 56%. 

The time is now ripe for another poll. After four and a half years, the terms of Brexit are finally known and will become a harsh reality within just hours. Extraordinarily, and without a shred of evidence, the Conservatives are claiming that Boris Johnson's last gasp, minimalistic trade deal is some sort of monumental setback for the independence movement. They also seem to believe that the public have been successfully hoodwinked into believing that the SNP "voted for No Deal" - when in fact it was only the Conservatives themselves that put us all at severe risk of a catastrophic No Deal outcome. Who knows, perhaps the public are reacting in the way that the Tories want them to react - but that seems highly unlikely somehow, and they should probably be allowed to speak for themselves. 

As before, if the crowdfunder is successful, I will commission an opinion poll from a firm affiliated to the British Polling Council. It will ask the standard independence question, ie. 'Should Scotland be an independent country?', plus a number of supplementary questions of interest to the Yes movement. I'll ask for your suggestions before deciding on the final list of questions. Bear in mind that there's never any guarantee that we'll get the results that we want - but anything is better than unionist parties presuming to speak for the people of Scotland at such a critical juncture in our national story. 

Target figure: I've set a slightly higher target figure of £7500 this time - not because the poll is likely to cost any more than the previous ones, but simply to give us a head start for the spring. It would probably make sense to commission one more poll during the Holyrood campaign proper. 

Click here if you'd like to donate.

An average of all twenty-three polls conducted this year puts support for independence at more than 53%

By overwhelming popular demand (well, a couple of people asked) here is an update of this blog's Poll of Polls.  Just a reminder that rather than including all of the most recent polls, it includes only the most recent poll from each individual firm, to ensure that no 'house effect' is given too much weight.  There are six polls in the current sample - one from Savanta ComRes, one from Survation, one from Panelbase, one from Ipsos-Mori, one from YouGov and one from JL Partners.  The percentage changes are measured from the last published update on 10th November.

SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 54.8% (-)

No 45.2% (-)

So no change whatsoever!  Of course there's been movement underneath the surface, but it's cancelled itself out.  Panelbase and Savanta ComRes have shown a swing to Yes (a huge swing in the latter case), while YouGov, Survation and Ipsos-Mori have shown a modest swing to No.

It's entirely possible that we've now seen the final Scottish poll of 2020, in which case this is also a good moment to calculate an average of all the year's polls - I can always update it later if another poll unexpectedly turns up.  This isn't as straightforward an exercise as it appears, because there's a debate to be had over what should be considered a 'proper' independence poll.  Twenty-one polls this year have asked the standard independence question, while an additional two have asked about independence using non-standard questions.  There's also been a Scotland in Union propaganda poll asking about "leaving the United Kingdom", which as I always point out can't be considered a question about independence, because it's perfectly possible to leave the UK without becoming independent.  (For example, if Northern Ireland ever leaves the UK, it will almost certainly join another existing state rather than become independent.)  So I've excluded the non-indy propaganda poll, but included the two non-standard indy polls for the sake of completeness - which is hopefully fair enough, because one of the two was commissioned by an anti-indy client (Hanbury) and the other by a pro-indy client (Progress Scotland).

2020 average:

Yes 53.2%

No 46.8%

We've never come close before to a whole calendar year in which there was a majority for Yes, so we've broken that duck in quite some style.  (And in case you're wondering, including the Scotland in Union propaganda poll would have made only a minimal difference - Yes would still have been on 52.8%.)

A few people have also been asking already about future crowdfunded Scot Goes Pop polling.  Obviously I have to be careful not to go to the well too often, because there's always a danger of donation fatigue setting in, but if anyone has any strong feelings about timing, let me know in the comments section below.  The two obvious options are at the start of 2021 when people are coming to terms with the realities of Brexit, and at some point in April/early May, during the Holyrood campaign proper.