The Reverend Stuart Campbell is unhappy, and that makes us all sad. His blogpost today has left a lot of people wondering in all seriousness whether he's even an independence supporter anymore, because its sole purpose seems to be to undermine the impact of the new Panelbase poll (commissioned by Scot Goes Pop) showing that Yes is back into the lead. Why would the most-read Yes blogger make such systematic efforts to sap the morale of his own side? It's really odd.
His basic point is that there have been "Yes surge" headlines in previous years based on polls showing Yes at 52% or higher, and therefore the "Yes surge" headline relating to this poll's 52% finding must be bogus or misleading. But here's the thing, Stuart: the Yes vote dipped again after those previous good results. Now it's gone back up, that's a surge. Or an increase, or whatever word you'd prefer to use. It really is just basic arithmetic.
His most disingenuous point is that 52% is 7% lower than the 59% for Yes recorded in a Scotpulse poll immediately after the EU referendum in 2016. He claims he's being "generous" in "discounting" that result as an "outlier", and notes that Scotpulse are not affiliated to the British Polling Council. But the problems with that poll went way beyond the lack of BPC membership - after all, Lord Ashcroft is not a BPC member and we still take his polls seriously. The basic issue is that Scotpulse do not appear to weight their results properly. The 59% result wasn't reliable, and I said that at the time. To the best of my knowledge, the best ever Yes showing in a credible poll is 54% with both Survation and ICM. But 52% is the joint highest ever result for Yes in a Panelbase poll.
Stuart also popped round to the comments section of this blog last night, and if I didn't know he was a fellow fan of milk I'd have concluded he was a little "tired and emotional". He left a trademark abusive comment complaining about my use of the word "consider" in the Plan B poll question, and suggesting that made me a "hypocrite" because I had previously criticised his use of the same word in one of his own poll questions. When I deleted his comment for being abusive, he then said I was a "coward" and was trying to cover up my "hypocrisy". Er, no, Stuart, I really did delete your comments because you were behaving like a toddler.
I'm more than happy to have a grown-up discussion with anyone about the reasons for my use of the word "consider", but it's simply a fact that I didn't use it in the same way Stuart did. He asked whether respondents would "consider" voting for a list-only pro-independence party, and then suggested the percentage of respondents who said they would consider it represented the potential support for a Wings party (even though the Wings party wasn't even mentioned in the question). That was grossly misleading. If you ask respondents whether they'd consider voting for a party, they'll think to themselves "I'm a reasonable person, of course I'd consider it". If you ask them whether they will vote for a party, you'll get a different result.
The question I posed was whether respondents think political parties should consider the "Plan B" option - and that was an appropriate use of the word, because not even proponents of the idea think it should definitely be done. It depends on circumstances - for example on whether the courts end up closing off any legal route to a consultative referendum (and of course many legal experts don't think that will happen).
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Monday, June 8, 2020
Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll finds that, by a decisive margin, Scottish voters want the SNP and Greens to use an election to seek an outright mandate for independence, if Boris Johnson continues to refuse a Section 30 order
When I asked for your suggestions for questions to add to our crowdfunded Panelbase poll, a number of you wanted me to find out whether the public were in favour of the so-called "Plan B" of using the 2021 Holyrood election to seek an outright mandate for independence, if the Tory government continues to refuse to grant a Section 30 order. I was initially reluctant to ask a question along those lines, because it seemed to me that the pandemic makes the 2021 timing look a lot more ambitious than was previously the case. But it then struck me that it would be possible to ask a question about the general principle of using an election as a de facto referendum, without specifying any date. So it could be the 2021 election, or it could be another scheduled election, or it could even be an early Holyrood election held midway through the 2021-26 parliamentary term. (Nicola Sturgeon doesn't literally have the power to "call" an early election, but under the rules it probably wouldn't be too difficult to bring one about.)
Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, 1st-5th June 2020:
If Boris Johnson and the UK Government manage to block an independence referendum, do you think that pro-independence parties such as the SNP and the Greens should consider including an outright promise of independence in their manifestos for a future election, to give people an opportunity to vote for or against the idea?
Yes 49%
No 29%
With Don't Knows excluded, it's roughly...
Yes 63%
No 37%
That's a much more emphatic result than I expected. The five key groups that are all in favour of the proposal are SNP voters (Yes 80%, No 4%), Green voters (Yes 61%, No 29%), independence supporters (Yes 86%, No 1%), Remain voters (Yes 57%, No 21%) and most intriguingly of all Labour voters (Yes 45%, No 35%).
You might remember that our earlier poll in January also found clear public support for the idea of the Scottish Parliament going ahead and legislating for a consultative referendum in the absence of a Section 30 order, and allowing the courts to decide whether it can take place. So we now have polling evidence that voters support both of the two main options for circumventing a Westminster veto - which suggests to me that the wider population basically agrees with the Yes movement that Scotland must have the ability to make a choice on independence and that a "no" from Boris Johnson cannot and must not be the end of the matter. It also suggests that any fears the SNP leadership may harbour about a public backlash if they seek an independence mandate by an 'alternative' means are probably not well-founded. As long as the public understand that this is about facilitating a democratic choice, it looks like voters will be on board.
* * *
UPDATE: I've just caught up with Keith Brown's response to this poll, which I think people will find frustrating, because it doesn't actually engage with the 'Plan B' idea, but nevertheless tries to shut it down in an indirect way that involves a number of red herrings -
"The process by which we choose Scotland’s future must be capable of actually achieving independence. It must allow majority support to be expressed clearly and unambiguously. It must be legal. And it must have the recognition of the international community."
The subtext is that using an election to seek an outright mandate for independence is 'not legal', but that's quite plainly untrue. In fact it's exactly what the SNP did in every general election until the 1990s. What would be illegal, at least as far as UK domestic law is concerned, is a unilateral declaration of independence - but that's categorically not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a method of securing a mandate. It's up to the UK government to decide whether to respect that mandate - if they do, there would be no question that the independence process would have international recognition. If they don't, they would come under considerable pressure, both domestically and internationally, to negotiate with the Scottish Government to find a resolution.
* * *
There are a couple more questions to come from the poll. To be the first to know when they're released, you can follow me on Twitter HERE. You can also read my piece in The National about last night's Holyrood voting intention results HERE.
Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, 1st-5th June 2020:
If Boris Johnson and the UK Government manage to block an independence referendum, do you think that pro-independence parties such as the SNP and the Greens should consider including an outright promise of independence in their manifestos for a future election, to give people an opportunity to vote for or against the idea?
Yes 49%
No 29%
With Don't Knows excluded, it's roughly...
Yes 63%
No 37%
That's a much more emphatic result than I expected. The five key groups that are all in favour of the proposal are SNP voters (Yes 80%, No 4%), Green voters (Yes 61%, No 29%), independence supporters (Yes 86%, No 1%), Remain voters (Yes 57%, No 21%) and most intriguingly of all Labour voters (Yes 45%, No 35%).
You might remember that our earlier poll in January also found clear public support for the idea of the Scottish Parliament going ahead and legislating for a consultative referendum in the absence of a Section 30 order, and allowing the courts to decide whether it can take place. So we now have polling evidence that voters support both of the two main options for circumventing a Westminster veto - which suggests to me that the wider population basically agrees with the Yes movement that Scotland must have the ability to make a choice on independence and that a "no" from Boris Johnson cannot and must not be the end of the matter. It also suggests that any fears the SNP leadership may harbour about a public backlash if they seek an independence mandate by an 'alternative' means are probably not well-founded. As long as the public understand that this is about facilitating a democratic choice, it looks like voters will be on board.
* * *
UPDATE: I've just caught up with Keith Brown's response to this poll, which I think people will find frustrating, because it doesn't actually engage with the 'Plan B' idea, but nevertheless tries to shut it down in an indirect way that involves a number of red herrings -
"The process by which we choose Scotland’s future must be capable of actually achieving independence. It must allow majority support to be expressed clearly and unambiguously. It must be legal. And it must have the recognition of the international community."
The subtext is that using an election to seek an outright mandate for independence is 'not legal', but that's quite plainly untrue. In fact it's exactly what the SNP did in every general election until the 1990s. What would be illegal, at least as far as UK domestic law is concerned, is a unilateral declaration of independence - but that's categorically not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a method of securing a mandate. It's up to the UK government to decide whether to respect that mandate - if they do, there would be no question that the independence process would have international recognition. If they don't, they would come under considerable pressure, both domestically and internationally, to negotiate with the Scottish Government to find a resolution.
* * *
There are a couple more questions to come from the poll. To be the first to know when they're released, you can follow me on Twitter HERE. You can also read my piece in The National about last night's Holyrood voting intention results HERE.
Sunday, June 7, 2020
Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll: SNP on course to win almost every single Scottish seat at Westminster, while the Tories and Lib Dems would be WIPED OUT - Scottish Parliament looks set for a big SNP overall majority with Labour and the Tories facing substantial seat losses
Before I saw the results of the new Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, the trend I found easiest to predict was a sharp decline for the Tories. They've been going backwards at a rate of knots in recent Britain-wide polls, especially since the Cummings scandal, and I couldn't see any particular reason why it would be a different story in Scotland. What I didn't foresee, though, is that this change of fortune would put the SNP in the zone of potentially winning virtually every single Westminster seat in Scotland - slightly more than they won even at their high watermark of 2015.
Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, 1st-5th June 2020):
SNP 51% (+1)
Conservatives 21% (-5)
Labour 19% (+2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)
Greens 2% (n/c)
Seats projection: SNP 58 (+10), Labour 1 (n/c)
(Note: Percentage changes are measured from the last Panelbase poll, which was commissioned by Wings Over Scotland and conducted in early May. Changes on the seats projection are measured from the actual result of the 2019 general election.)
The seats projection doesn't include the words "Conservatives 0 (-6), Liberal Democrats 0 (-4)", because why should we treat them differently to any other fringe parties? Don't even mention parties that win zero seats and then people will forget they exist. But, no, in all seriousness, the Electoral Calculus projection model really does suggest that both the Tories and the Lib Dems would be totally wiped out on these figures. In reality, the likelihood is that the Lib Dems would hold Orkney & Shetland as they did in 2015, but it's not entirely inconceivable that the Tories could be removed from the Scottish map on 21% of the vote - and that says more about the absurdity of the voting system than about anything else. But, hey, the Tories are the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for first-past-the-post, so they're in no position to complain.
Although the Tory vote share is substantially down since the last poll and also since the general election, it may surprise you to learn that they've actually been lower than 21% on a few occasions within the last eighteen months. The lowest figure I can find is 18% in two Panelbase polls in May and June of 2019. But that was during the brief heyday of the Brexit Party, when Farage was successfully wooing the type of hardline Tory voter that other parties don't have a hope of reaching. There's no equivalent alibi for the Tory slump this time - their lost votes have instead gone to mainstream parties of the centre-left and the centre. 3% of Conservative voters from the general election are now in the SNP column, 8% have gone to Labour, and 2% to the Liberal Democrats.
Although Labour are not projected to gain any seats, there may be an indication here that the Starmer bounce south of the border is being partly replicated in Scotland. 19% is Labour's highest vote share in any poll (by any firm) since the general election. However, all that means is they're back to where they started under Corbyn on polling day in December - which falls short of their current performance in England, where they're now comfortably outscoring their general election vote share. They're plainly being hampered in Scotland by the wide appeal of the SNP. It's telling that Labour have retained a significantly lower percentage of their voters from December (76%) than the Tories have (86%). Roughly one-sixth of people who voted Labour are now minded to vote SNP, although those switchers have been offset by other voters moving towards Labour (partly from unionist parties).
Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:
SNP 53% (n/c)
Conservatives 21% (-2)
Labour 16% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)
Greens 3% (n/c)
Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:
SNP 48% (n/c)
Conservatives 19% (-3)
Labour 16% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 8% (+2)
Greens 7% (n/c)
Seats projection: SNP 72 (+9), Conservatives 25 (-6), Labour 19 (-5), Liberal Democrats 8 (+3), Greens 5 (-1)
The Holyrood pattern is very similar to the Westminster trends, with the Tories polling lower than they have for months. In fact their 19% on the regional list vote equals their lowest ebb during the Brexit Party surge last year.
There's been no further progress for the SNP, but that's not surprising given that they must already have been pretty close to their absolute ceiling of support anyway. They're on course for an overall single-party majority of fifteen seats - which would be an almost unbelievable feat under a proportional representation system. I don't think enough has been said about just how phenomenal it is that they've been consistently polling in the mid-to-high 40s on the list ballot this year. Throughout the whole of 2019 they never scored higher than 39% on the list in any poll from any firm. Some of the improvement can probably be explained by the change of weighting scheme after the general election - but not all of it.
The pro-independence parties in combination would have 77 seats if this poll was replicated on polling day, and the anti-independence parties in combination would have only 52. That's roughly a 60/40 split in favour of independence. There's also a clear pro-independence majority in the popular vote on both ballots (56% in the constituencies, 55% on the list). Whatever type of mandate the pro-indy parties end up seeking next year - whether it's for a referendum or for independence - they clearly have the opportunity of gaining an immaculate one.
For the first time, the Conservatives will have to start seriously contemplating the possibility of dropping back significantly from the 31-seat haul they won under Ruth Davidson in their breakthrough year of 2016. Obviously proportional representation would cushion their fall and there would be no wipeout of the sort that is a possibility at Westminster, but slipping to 25 seats would still be a humbling experience for them.
It must be dispiriting for Labour that the minor progress they've made under Starmer leaves them significantly below their performance under Corbyn and Kezia Dugdale in 2016, and thus on course to lose more seats and slump to yet another new all-time low of Holyrood representation. It doesn't help matters for them that a full one-quarter of people who voted Labour in the general election would vote SNP on the constituency ballot - although that partly just reflects the fact that some people will always vote differently in Holyrood and Westminster elections, with Holyrood more of a "home fixture" for the SNP.
Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, 1st-5th June 2020):
SNP 51% (+1)
Conservatives 21% (-5)
Labour 19% (+2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)
Greens 2% (n/c)
Seats projection: SNP 58 (+10), Labour 1 (n/c)
(Note: Percentage changes are measured from the last Panelbase poll, which was commissioned by Wings Over Scotland and conducted in early May. Changes on the seats projection are measured from the actual result of the 2019 general election.)
The seats projection doesn't include the words "Conservatives 0 (-6), Liberal Democrats 0 (-4)", because why should we treat them differently to any other fringe parties? Don't even mention parties that win zero seats and then people will forget they exist. But, no, in all seriousness, the Electoral Calculus projection model really does suggest that both the Tories and the Lib Dems would be totally wiped out on these figures. In reality, the likelihood is that the Lib Dems would hold Orkney & Shetland as they did in 2015, but it's not entirely inconceivable that the Tories could be removed from the Scottish map on 21% of the vote - and that says more about the absurdity of the voting system than about anything else. But, hey, the Tories are the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for first-past-the-post, so they're in no position to complain.
Although the Tory vote share is substantially down since the last poll and also since the general election, it may surprise you to learn that they've actually been lower than 21% on a few occasions within the last eighteen months. The lowest figure I can find is 18% in two Panelbase polls in May and June of 2019. But that was during the brief heyday of the Brexit Party, when Farage was successfully wooing the type of hardline Tory voter that other parties don't have a hope of reaching. There's no equivalent alibi for the Tory slump this time - their lost votes have instead gone to mainstream parties of the centre-left and the centre. 3% of Conservative voters from the general election are now in the SNP column, 8% have gone to Labour, and 2% to the Liberal Democrats.
Although Labour are not projected to gain any seats, there may be an indication here that the Starmer bounce south of the border is being partly replicated in Scotland. 19% is Labour's highest vote share in any poll (by any firm) since the general election. However, all that means is they're back to where they started under Corbyn on polling day in December - which falls short of their current performance in England, where they're now comfortably outscoring their general election vote share. They're plainly being hampered in Scotland by the wide appeal of the SNP. It's telling that Labour have retained a significantly lower percentage of their voters from December (76%) than the Tories have (86%). Roughly one-sixth of people who voted Labour are now minded to vote SNP, although those switchers have been offset by other voters moving towards Labour (partly from unionist parties).
Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:
SNP 53% (n/c)
Conservatives 21% (-2)
Labour 16% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)
Greens 3% (n/c)
Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:
SNP 48% (n/c)
Conservatives 19% (-3)
Labour 16% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 8% (+2)
Greens 7% (n/c)
Seats projection: SNP 72 (+9), Conservatives 25 (-6), Labour 19 (-5), Liberal Democrats 8 (+3), Greens 5 (-1)
The Holyrood pattern is very similar to the Westminster trends, with the Tories polling lower than they have for months. In fact their 19% on the regional list vote equals their lowest ebb during the Brexit Party surge last year.
There's been no further progress for the SNP, but that's not surprising given that they must already have been pretty close to their absolute ceiling of support anyway. They're on course for an overall single-party majority of fifteen seats - which would be an almost unbelievable feat under a proportional representation system. I don't think enough has been said about just how phenomenal it is that they've been consistently polling in the mid-to-high 40s on the list ballot this year. Throughout the whole of 2019 they never scored higher than 39% on the list in any poll from any firm. Some of the improvement can probably be explained by the change of weighting scheme after the general election - but not all of it.
The pro-independence parties in combination would have 77 seats if this poll was replicated on polling day, and the anti-independence parties in combination would have only 52. That's roughly a 60/40 split in favour of independence. There's also a clear pro-independence majority in the popular vote on both ballots (56% in the constituencies, 55% on the list). Whatever type of mandate the pro-indy parties end up seeking next year - whether it's for a referendum or for independence - they clearly have the opportunity of gaining an immaculate one.
For the first time, the Conservatives will have to start seriously contemplating the possibility of dropping back significantly from the 31-seat haul they won under Ruth Davidson in their breakthrough year of 2016. Obviously proportional representation would cushion their fall and there would be no wipeout of the sort that is a possibility at Westminster, but slipping to 25 seats would still be a humbling experience for them.
It must be dispiriting for Labour that the minor progress they've made under Starmer leaves them significantly below their performance under Corbyn and Kezia Dugdale in 2016, and thus on course to lose more seats and slump to yet another new all-time low of Holyrood representation. It doesn't help matters for them that a full one-quarter of people who voted Labour in the general election would vote SNP on the constituency ballot - although that partly just reflects the fact that some people will always vote differently in Holyrood and Westminster elections, with Holyrood more of a "home fixture" for the SNP.
* * *
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll: Sensation as Scottish voters, by a 3-1 margin, say that the Scottish Government's handling of the pandemic makes them "more confident" that Scotland will be well-governed as an independent country, and that the UK government's response to the crisis makes them "less convinced" that Scotland is safer as part of the UK
The primary responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe. One of the reasons the Dominic Cummings scandal was so damaging for the UK government is that it was blindingly obvious that ministers were sacrificing public safety to protect the power of one man. If the lockdown legislation had to be hastily 'reinterpreted' to make what Cummings did OK, they had absolutely no problem with that, even if they knew a laxer regime would cost lives.
It's one thing to put the public at risk because of policy misjudgements, but to do it intentionally and with so little subtlety...well, that's a whole different ball-game. This poses a particular problem for those who want Scotland to remain part of the UK, because one of the main arguments against independence has always been that Scotland is "safer" with London rule. You don't want to take any chances with your livelihoods, your pensions, etc, etc. But if people start to feel that Westminster is actually putting them at direct risk, where else is there for the anti-indy campaign to go? I decided to use the new Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll to find out how severe the damage is.
Does the handling of the coronavirus crisis by Boris Johnson and the UK Government make you more convinced or less convinced that Scotland is safer if it remains part of the UK?
More convinced: 20%
Less convinced: 59%
That's an ouch with a capital OUCH. And no-one should be under any illusions that it's only people who already believe in independence who are reflexively saying they are less convinced. Let's look, for example, at the figures for those who actually voted No in 2014...
2014 No voters:
More convinced: 29%
Less convinced: 41%
Or how about people who voted Labour in the 2019 general election?
2019 Labour voters:
More convinced: 18%
Less convinced: 63%
Or people who wanted Britain to leave the European Union?
2016 Leave voters:
More convinced: 33%
Less convinced: 43%
Of course none of this would matter very much if there was a similar lack of confidence in Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government. If you think all governments are as bad as each other, you're not going to bother with a major constitutional change. So I also used the poll to ask a very similar question about the Scottish Government. The results are nothing short of breathtaking - the polar opposite of the verdict on the UK government.
Does the handling of the coronavirus crisis by Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government make you feel more confident or less confident that Scotland will be well-governed if it becomes an independent country?
More confident: 59%
Less confident: 22%
Once again, you might be surprised by some of the groups who say they are more confident about the good governance of an independent Scotland. Take, for example, people who were born in England...
English-born voters resident in Scotland:
More confident: 43%
Less confident: 26%
Or No voters from 2014...
2014 No voters:
More confident: 39%
Less confident: 36%
Incidentally, even 25% of people who say they would vote No in a new referendum are more confident. Last but not least, let's take a look at people who voted Labour in December, and who Richard Leonard probably thinks are the last people who would have any "appetite" for independence...
2019 Labour voters:
More confident: 56%
Less confident: 26%
So you're probably starting to see why I said yesterday that I strongly suspected that the 2% boost in the headline Yes vote, relatively modest though it may be, is a genuine increase and not a quirk caused by normal sampling variation - and also why I think there's scope for further progress.
* * *
There are several more questions to come from the poll, so follow me on Twitter if you'd like to stay updated. You can also read my piece in The National about the headline independence results.
It's one thing to put the public at risk because of policy misjudgements, but to do it intentionally and with so little subtlety...well, that's a whole different ball-game. This poses a particular problem for those who want Scotland to remain part of the UK, because one of the main arguments against independence has always been that Scotland is "safer" with London rule. You don't want to take any chances with your livelihoods, your pensions, etc, etc. But if people start to feel that Westminster is actually putting them at direct risk, where else is there for the anti-indy campaign to go? I decided to use the new Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll to find out how severe the damage is.
Does the handling of the coronavirus crisis by Boris Johnson and the UK Government make you more convinced or less convinced that Scotland is safer if it remains part of the UK?
More convinced: 20%
Less convinced: 59%
That's an ouch with a capital OUCH. And no-one should be under any illusions that it's only people who already believe in independence who are reflexively saying they are less convinced. Let's look, for example, at the figures for those who actually voted No in 2014...
2014 No voters:
More convinced: 29%
Less convinced: 41%
Or how about people who voted Labour in the 2019 general election?
2019 Labour voters:
More convinced: 18%
Less convinced: 63%
Or people who wanted Britain to leave the European Union?
2016 Leave voters:
More convinced: 33%
Less convinced: 43%
Of course none of this would matter very much if there was a similar lack of confidence in Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government. If you think all governments are as bad as each other, you're not going to bother with a major constitutional change. So I also used the poll to ask a very similar question about the Scottish Government. The results are nothing short of breathtaking - the polar opposite of the verdict on the UK government.
Does the handling of the coronavirus crisis by Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government make you feel more confident or less confident that Scotland will be well-governed if it becomes an independent country?
More confident: 59%
Less confident: 22%
Once again, you might be surprised by some of the groups who say they are more confident about the good governance of an independent Scotland. Take, for example, people who were born in England...
English-born voters resident in Scotland:
More confident: 43%
Less confident: 26%
Or No voters from 2014...
2014 No voters:
More confident: 39%
Less confident: 36%
Incidentally, even 25% of people who say they would vote No in a new referendum are more confident. Last but not least, let's take a look at people who voted Labour in December, and who Richard Leonard probably thinks are the last people who would have any "appetite" for independence...
2019 Labour voters:
More confident: 56%
Less confident: 26%
So you're probably starting to see why I said yesterday that I strongly suspected that the 2% boost in the headline Yes vote, relatively modest though it may be, is a genuine increase and not a quirk caused by normal sampling variation - and also why I think there's scope for further progress.
* * *
There are several more questions to come from the poll, so follow me on Twitter if you'd like to stay updated. You can also read my piece in The National about the headline independence results.
Friday, June 5, 2020
Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll on independence: Yes storms back into the lead in wake of Dominic Cummings episode
For the second time this year, Scot Goes Pop asked for your help to commission an opinion poll on independence, just to check whether a landmark recent event had boosted support for Yes. The first time around in January, we got the result we wanted - Yes had jumped into the lead with 52% of the vote. I did worry that it was too much to hope that lightning would strike twice, but what do you know? It has.
Should Scotland be an independent country? (Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, 1st-5th June 2020):
Yes 52% (+2)
No 48% (-2)
As always, the headline results exclude Don't Knows. With Don't Knows left in, the results are Yes 48% (+2), No 45% (-1). Percentage changes are measured from the last Panelbase poll, which was conducted on behalf of Wings Over Scotland early last month.
This is the fourth Panelbase poll on independence in 2020 so far. The sequence of results for Yes has been 52 - 49 - 50 - 52. All of those results are theoretically within the margin of error, so there are a couple of ways of interpreting what we've seen - it could be that the Yes vote has been holding steady over the last few months after an initial post-election surge, and that the differing results have been caused by random sampling variation. Or it could be that the surge subsided just slightly in late winter and early spring as attention turned away from Brexit and towards the coronavirus crisis, and that there has now been a bounce back for Yes as a result of the Dominic Cummings episode and the UK government's mishandling of the pandemic. I must say that looking at the results of the supplementary questions from this poll (which I'll release over the coming days), I'm inclined much more towards the latter theory.
The datasets show a now-familiar pattern. A large minority (35%) of people who voted Labour in the general election would vote Yes. Significantly more No voters from the first indyref (18%) have changed sides than Yes voters (8%). That's different from polls a few years ago that showed post-2014 progress for Yes without any net movement at all from No voters - back then it was 2014 non-voters who were making the difference. That suggests to me that the current Yes lead is built on much more solid foundations.
Naturally, most Yes voters are Remainers. 56% of people who voted to stay in the EU would now back independence. But in fairness a healthy minority of Leave voters (34%) are on the Yes side too.
There are several more questions to come from this poll - I'll be releasing the details bit by bit. If you'd like to be the first to know every step of the way, you can follow me on Twitter HERE.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Back when the MP for the Western Isles held the fate of the UK government in his hands
In the unlikely event that you have two-and-a-half hours to spare this morning or this afternoon, I can recommend that you grab the last chance to watch the National Theatre recording of This House - the story of the 1974-79 Labour government from the vantage point of the whips' office. I went to see it in Edinburgh in March 2018 - which given the current circumstances is a rather unsettling memory, because two days later I came down with just about the most horrendous dose of the flu I've ever had. Just goes to show how easily respiratory infection can be passed on in large indoor gatherings (although admittedly I've no idea whether I caught it in the theatre or on the train).
There was a debate in the press recently (in relation to Braveheart) about whether historical inaccuracies detract from artistic merit. It must be hoped that isn't the case as far as This House is concerned, because it's not hard to spot the errors and misrepresentations. You'll wince at the portrayal of the SNP's Westminster leader Donald Stewart, but even worse is the depiction of the SDLP's Gerry Fitt as some sort of romantic Irish nationalist who helped bring down the British government for no other reason than that it was the British government. The reality is that if Fitt was a romantic anything, he was a romantic socialist. He was horrified when his successor as SDLP leader, John Hume, turned the party into an out-and-out nationalist party. He actually had a very specific reason for refusing to back Callaghan on the vote of no confidence: he wanted rid of Roy Mason as Northern Ireland Secretary.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Welcome to the wacky world of Mark Smith (twinned with Planet Daisley)
If you're starting to feel like you've taken out a subscription to the Daily Telegraph by mistake, it may be because you've been reading a few too many Herald columns from Mark Smith, who seems to have emerged from nowhere to fill the gap left by an earlier wave of militant Nat-bashers such as David Torrance. I asked around last night to see if anyone knows who he is, but nobody seems to have the faintest idea - apart from a scurillous rumour that he might have been cloned from Mr Torrance's beard-clippings. Judging from his profile photo he's a relatively young guy, which makes sense, because the person his writing most reminds me of is not Mr Torrance - it's Stephen Daisley. You get the same sense of a youthful writer who incongruously yearns to be viewed as a worldly-wise sage, and who has enough flair for prose to think it's worth bluffing it. But a bluff is most certainly what it is. He's made a series of distinctly odd pronouncements in recent months, including some that are downright daft and offensive.
A few weeks ago he indignantly informed us that Nicola Sturgeon had made a terrible mistake by urging people to wear face coverings. His reason for worrying (and I'm not making this up) is that he thought she would probably succeed in persuading people to wear face coverings, which he just knew would be harmful because he, Mark Smith, world-renowned armchair expert on respiratory infections and behavioural psychology, couldn't see the point of a scarf over the mouth and thought it would probably give people a false sense of security. He also fatuously added that: "As a result of the First Minster’s pronouncement, more people are going to start wearing masks. At best, it will be a waste of time; at worst, it could increase the spread of the virus."
Hmmm. Alternatively, Mark, the best-case scenario is that the scientific advice heeded by the First Minister is right and that face coverings will slow the spread of infection. I've heard of journalistic conceit, but it really takes the biscuit for a columnist to completely exclude the possibility, even as a best-case scenario, that his own hunches are wrong and that the expert science is right.
Then there was Smith's reaction to the controversy over remarks on BBC evening news programmes by his namesake Sarah Smith -
"She is expressing an opinion. And perhaps, when she hears the opinion, the First Minister could try to be a little less touchy."
You see, Mark, personal opinions are things that newspaper columnists like yourself are allowed to express. Not so much BBC correspondents when they're speaking to millions of viewers live on air. Sarah Smith's role is to report facts and offer politically impartial analysis. Characterising what she said as an "opinion" means, whether you realise it or not, that you're saying the criticisms of Ms Smith were extremely well-founded. As for the First Minister being "touchy", I'd suggest most reasonable people would conclude that her riposte was remarkably restrained given that the "opinion" was illegitimately expressed and impugned her own integrity. She also magnanimously declared the matter closed after a grudging apology that was only made on social media, where it received a fraction of the audience of the original remark.
But it's not just Nicola Sturgeon that Mr Smith feels the need to periodically admonish (in sorrow more than in anger, you understand). Earlier in the crisis, he had this rebuke for the "nationalist" hordes -
"A message for nationalists: do not make the virus about Scotland v England - it demeans you."
Quite so. By contrast, British nationalists who make the virus about "one United Kingdom moving forward together" are doubtless elevating themselves to a higher plane of existence.
Which brings me neatly onto Smith's already notorious new column that outrageously claims "nationalists" and lefties are "in love with lockdown". He moronically portrays left-wingers as authoritarians who revel in strong-man leadership (you can tell he's just dying to trot out the stock Fox News line of "remember Hitler was a National Socialist, folks!"), and right-wingers as lovers of liberty. As I've noted before, this is a faux libertarianism - or rather it's libertarianism for pathogens rather than people. There's no 'personal freedom' in pointlessly ending up in an intensive care unit.
There's a trademark Smith moment of unintended comedy midway through the column when he notes that right-wingers who flout the lockdown are putting themselves at risk, and claims that this proves that they cannot possibly be motivated by selfishness. Yes, of course, Mark, they're nobly sacrificing themselves for the good of the economy. Alternatively, it might just be that as 'rugged individualists' they have no sense of social responsibility whatsoever (there's "no such thing as society", after all), and don't much care who they infect as long as they're convinced - perhaps wrongly - that their own personal risk is reasonably low.
Curiously, Smith once again lambasts Cybernats for playing up differences between Scotland and England which he says don't really exist. That would have been a much better line three months ago, because the divergence between the two nations is now demonstrably enormous. England is opening up schools and non-essential shops, Scotland isn't. England allows unlimited travel, Scotland is urging people to stay within five miles of home. England has relaxed the shielding of vulnerable people, Scotland has not.
Smith thinks it was absurd that "nationalists" criticised Boris Johnson in early May for the first steps towards easing lockdown, when Scotland took similar steps only a "little later". Seriously? Three weeks is a "little"? In a pandemic, three weeks is an eternity.
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