Apologies for recycling my John Motson-inspired headline from last year, but it seems appropriate because Labour have just recycled last year's leadership election result...
Labour leadership election 2016 :
Jeremy Corbyn 61.8% (+2.3)
Owen Smith 38.2% (n/a)
Mr George Eaton's recent musings on Scottish opinion polling are an excellent example of how certain journalists, through either laziness or malice, constantly misrepresent polls to favour their own political agenda. The first YouGov poll on independence to be conducted after the EU referendum showed a small increase in the Yes vote, but according to our George, it actually showed a "fall". How so? Well, presumably he was comparing apples with oranges, and arguing that the Panelbase and Survation polls in the early summer had shown a temporary surge for Yes, which had then receded. But there wasn't the slightest shred of proof for that. It could just as easily have been that the different YouGov methodology had failed to pick up the mini-surge for Yes detected by Panelbase and Survation. For the same reason, the TNS and Ipsos-Mori polls that followed, and that put Yes support just below 50%, did not provide definitive proof of a receding surge. It was certainly plausible that the shock of the EU referendum result had led some people to briefly switch to Yes, before switching back when the complacency of the 'phony Brexit'/'Team GB' period set in. But a plausible theory is not the same thing as evidence. We needed a follow-up Panelbase or Survation poll before we could say anything with confidence, and that arrived earlier this week in the shape of an online poll from Survation.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 47%
No 53%
That represents a 6% swing back to No since the extraordinary Survation online poll in early summer, and takes us back to the sort of numbers that have been typical over the last couple of years. So it does appear that the theory of a temporary Yes boost in late June was probably correct, which means that if YouGov, TNS or Ipsos-Mori polls had been conducted at that time, they might well have shown an outright Yes lead.
Crucially, though, while it's true that the early summer mini-surge has been reversed, it's absolutely NOT the case that the gains Yes have made since the 2014 independence referendum have been lost. Survation have consistently shown Yes above 45% since the indyref, and continue to do so in this poll. We can be very confident that the increase is real, because Survation weight by recalled indyref vote, which in this case has had a very dramatic effect - 416 No voters in the raw sample have been upweighted to count as 476. That means that the superficial similarity to the high 40s Yes figures that Survation generally reported before the indyref is totally misleading - there has been a significant improvement since then (ie. if there was no weighting by recalled indyref vote, the reported Yes vote would now be above 47%).
Not that you'd be aware of any of this if you listened to the lazy spin that Survation themselves put on the poll. Oh no. According to them, we have a becalmed electorate who never change their minds about independence (the recent extreme volatility in Survation polls is a tad mysterious, then!), and who are more than happy to settle for the "compromise" (!) between independence and union represented by the half-delivered "Vow" (in which case why did the passing of the Scotland Bill not produce a boost for No?).
Back in the real world, support for Yes remains so high that we practically have a statistical tie, and Brexit hasn't even happened yet. Free movement of peoples hasn't ended yet. Visa-free travel to the continent hasn't stopped yet. The economic hit hasn't been felt yet. None of these mini-disasters are even on the horizon for most people, but they soon will be. I used the phrase 'phony Brexit' earlier, because in a very loose sense, the current period can be compared to late 1939/early 1940 when people were still playing rounders and kidding themselves that nothing much was going to happen. But when the realisation dawns, it will dawn with a vengeance - and we know from the early summer surge that there are enough people out there concerned about Brexit to potentially produce an outright Yes majority. The depressing reality for the London establishment is that we can't be distracted with Olympic gold medals every month.
Although I'm abroad at the moment, I'm in close proximity to a Scottish Tory couple who reckon that Ruth Davidson is "brilliant", and that recent polls have shown that both Davidson and Theresa May are more popular than Nicola Sturgeon. So Ms Sturgeon is "not going down well!", apparently. Well, whichever way you cut it, this poll begs to differ. Sturgeon has significantly better personal ratings than either Davidson or May (and every other politician asked about), and indeed May has an outright negative rating. That honeymoon didn't last long.
Curiously, Survation have replicated the counterintuitive finding from TNS that women are now more supportive of independence than men are. It may just be a coincidence that two polls close together are both producing a misleading finding, but who knows? Perhaps Brexit has turned the gender divide on its head.
Good morning from the beating heart of the Evil Empire, aka Victoria Station in central London. God, it's grim here, and there are Tory voters everywhere. I should really sit a few of them down and demand that they explain themselves to the readers of Scot Goes Pop.
So I just thought I'd better let you know that, barring mishaps at the Take Back Control Brexit Means Brexit border, I'll be on the continent until the start of October. I know that blogging has already been light for the last few weeks - I've had the most manic summer/early autumn I can remember in a long time. That culminated, as you may know, in me camping myself at the Emirates Arena for all three days of the Davis Cup semi-final, where I did my civic duty and interrupted the Union Jack Fest by waving my £2 saltire at strategic Murray Moments. It certainly wasn't an attempt to get on TV - as we all know, saltires are camera-repellents in designated Brit Zones, but I did feel it was important to give Simon Reed a visual clue by which he could identify me as an "English supporter".
Anyway, by the wonders of modern technology, it's possible to blog on the go, so although blogging will probably continue to be light over the next couple of weeks, it hopefully won't be non-existent. If a Scottish poll appears and I haven't said anything about it for 48 hours, you can safely conclude that I've dropped my phone in the sea (as I've done before).
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 48%
No 52%
More details to follow eventually. I'm physically blogging this from the Davis Cup semi-final in Glasgow, so it's not straightforward...
For some time now, Stormfront Lite's resident Labour 'moderate' Don Brind (he seems a decent enough chap in spite of the dodgy politics, so I won't call him a 'Blairite') has been trying to convince both the world and himself that the conventional wisdom is wrong, and that Owen Smith could be heading for victory in the Labour leadership election. He's repeatedly prayed in aid highly dubious propaganda claims from "Saving Labour", and yesterday excelled himself by reading epic significance into the "fascinating" thought processes of an individual voter called Laura or Loz, who unexpectedly plumped for Smith because of something to do with her boyfriend.
That all looked like pretty risible stuff (Corbyn could still win handily even if there are 5000 Smith voters called Loz), but in truth there was no way of being completely sure - there had been so little polling done during the leadership campaign that it was just conceivable that Don Brind was right and everyone else was wrong. The last credible poll had been conducted way back when Angela Eagle was still a candidate and Owen Smith was a complete unknown, so it was theoretically possible that the Labour selectorate had indeed been won over by a man saying "that's not leeeee-dership, Jeremy" a hundred billion times.
But it appears not. A new YouGov poll has been released -
Jeremy Corbyn 62%
Owen Smith 38%
YouGov themselves are putting all sorts of health warnings on those numbers, but the reality is that Corbyn is well ahead among all three segments of the selectorate with voting already underway. The polling methodology would have to be catastrophically wrong for there to be any genuine chance of Smith pulling off an upset.
Among many other potentially huge consequences, this means that the breach between London Labour and the Scottish branch office isn't going to be healed any time soon. Kezia Dugdale's display of rebelliousness (culminating in the grotesque appointment of the ex-political editor of the Scottish Daily Mail to her backroom staff) was probably initially intended as a gesture of fealty to what she assumed would shortly be the incoming London regime. Instead she seems to have crossed the Rubicon with an accidental declaration of independence.
Because of the disruption on the trains from Queen Street, I spent much less time than usual in Edinburgh over the first half of the year. But I've been there quite a bit during the festival, and I've found myself becoming increasingly transfixed (and not in a good way) by the large construction site between Calton Hill and the Royal Mile. My first reaction was that the powers-that-be are not complete idiots, and that they must have something very tasteful and carefully considered in mind for such a sensitive area. So I consulted the internet for some reassurance, and naturally discovered that every expert in the field has blasted the plans as barking mad, and that the city council had only narrowly given approval on the grounds that the buildings were not quite "hideous enough" to reject. That's the kind of logic that I'd expect to hear in relation to Cumbernauld town centre, not the UN-designated World Heritage site at the heart of our capital city. I really must stop kidding myself that the internet is ever going to provide me with reassurance about anything.
I at least drew some small comfort from learning that the height of the buildings had been reduced after the initial objections. But even over the course of the last few weeks, the shape of the large hotel has become suddenly apparent, and 'unobtrusive' is not the first word that springs to mind. It's already tarnishing the view from Calton Hill. The completed Costa and Premier Inn buildings aren't so noticeable, but that's mainly because they're obscured by the equally hideous council building which has presumably been there for decades. I wandered down to Market Street today, and when you're actually in between the council building and the Premier Inn, the whole concept of being within the Old Town ceases to have any meaning.
Not being a resident of Edinburgh, I can't get a clear image in my head of what that area used to look like, and maybe if I could I'd realise that less is being lost than it appears. I also appreciate that the whole of modern history has been punctuated by a war between conservation and opportunistic "development", and that you have to be philosophical and recognise that the forces of conservation aren't going to win every single battle. But you'd think local councillors might just be intelligent enough to recognise that it's counterproductive to attempt to economically exploit the heritage of a city in a way that fundamentally taints that heritage.
Last year, I spent about ten days in the Balkans, and went to the Old Towns of both Mostar and Dubrovnik, which are also World Heritage sites. In contrast to Edinburgh, the Old Town of Dubrovnik is pristine and almost perfectly preserved. The famous bridge in Mostar was destroyed during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, but was swiftly and lovingly reconstructed, even using the original stones where possible. You kind of feel that if Edinburgh city council had been in charge, they'd have said "ah well, it's gone now, we may as well stick a Starbucks and a car park there instead".
Apparently one of the biggest criticisms of "New Waverley" is the plan for a public square, which is alien to the architectural traditions of the Old Town. But quite honestly, I hope the square fills up as much of the space as possible - that's the only part of the whole thing that won't be an eyesore.
I'll reserve judgement on whether New Waverley will turn out to be an even worse idea than allowing Donald Bloody Trump of all people to "stabilise the doons". (Which the SNP have to accept a share of the blame for, although it has to be said that every political party apart from the Greens seemed to be wildly enthusiastic about it for some unfathomable reason.)
* * *
I'm writing this on the train back to Glasgow, and I'm sitting opposite two Canadians who have been sneering about the Quebec sovereignty movement to anyone who will listen. "That'll never happen! They'd never survive!" Just those same words over and over again. Calm, Mr Kelly, calm calm calm...
The Lochs was the second-weakest ward for the SNP in the whole of Fife in the 2012 local elections (the only worse one was the rarefied setting of St Andrews). They put up only one candidate, who finished third and received just 19% of the vote, a whopping 27% behind the combined support for Labour's two candidates. Remember all of that happened on a day when, across Scotland, the SNP defeated Labour in the popular vote by 1%. So on paper, this should be just about as tough a ward for Nicola Sturgeon's party as you'll find anywhere - but you certainly wouldn't know that from the by-election result yesterday. The SNP stormed into second place, and slashed Labour's lead to just 8.5%.
Labour 47.1% (+0.7)
SNP 38.6% (+19.6)
Conservatives 9.6% (+7.0)
Communists 3.1% (n/a)
Greens 1.6% (n/a)
As almost always seems to be the case, the quirks of the STV voting system are allowing some fairly extreme misinformation to do the rounds about the result. Labour are claiming to have "turned the tide" with a "gain". Well, yes, it's technically true that they "gained" the seat, in the sense that the vacancy was caused by the retirement of an independent councillor - but Labour topped the poll in the ward last time and did so again yesterday. Their vote effectively flatlined, in spite of the fact that a huge number of votes that had previously gone to the independent were now up for grabs.
On the other extreme, some people have claimed that the swing from Labour to the SNP was as high as 17%. I've squinted at the result in a number of different ways to try to understand where that figure has come from, but I'm mystified. Suffice to say it's inaccurate - the real swing was around 9.5%, which is plenty enormous enough to be getting on with.
UPDATE : It turns out that the 17% swing is not measured from the 2012 result at all, but from another by-election in the ward that was held in June 2014. Well, I suppose that can be justified, although 2012 is the more natural baseline, and allows for direct comparisons with other recent by-elections.
