New Panelbase poll shows Yes vote up on last directly comparable poll

A new Panelbase poll has finally been released - I'm not sure yet whether it's the one that we heard about people being interviewed for ten days ago, or whether that was an unpublished internal poll.  Either way, tonight's results are reasonably encouraging for Yes.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 41% (-2)
No 48% (+2)

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

Yes 46% (-2)
No 54% (+2)

The percentage changes listed above are from the last Panelbase poll, which was commissioned by Yes Scotland.  But it's important to stress that tonight's results are unlikely to be directly comparable to that poll, because the new poll was commissioned by the Sunday Times, and Panelbase use a slightly different question for their Sunday Times series.  It's not a biased question by any means, but there is now quite strong circumstantial evidence that it tends to produce a slightly higher No lead.  You don't have to take my word for it - Anthony Wells (no friend to the Yes campaign) has commented on the phenomenon as well.  If we compare tonight's numbers with the last directly comparable Panelbase poll, this is how they look -

Yes 41% (+1)
No 48% (+1)

And with Don't Knows excluded...

Yes 46% (n/c)
No 54% (n/c)

So no change in the overall headline gap, but with the Yes vote hitting a new record high for the Sunday Times series.  It's also only the second time that the No lead has been as low as seven points.

I almost feel quite sorry for Blair McDougall tonight - he finds himself openly 'gloating' about the No vote being ahead by only seven points in what John Curtice would call an "independently-commissioned poll", even though only three such polls in the entire campaign so far have been worse for No (the two most recent Survation polls and the ICM poll on Easter Sunday).  How the mighty have fallen.

As for what this means for the overall trend, there's good news and bad news.  It further increases the likelihood that the YouGov polls a few weeks ago were just showing margin of error 'noise', as opposed to a real increase in the No lead.  On the other hand, it also slightly decreases the likelihood that the most recent TNS poll was picking up a genuinely big decrease in the No lead.  It leaves us looking at a relatively static position, albeit with the possibility that both campaigns have been picking up a little support as Don't Knows are squeezed (the pollsters are split on whether that is happening or not).

Crucially, however, this is all before the Commonwealth Games - I'm not sure yet what Panelbase's fieldwork dates were, but they almost certainly will have been mostly or wholly before the start of Scotland's extraordinary gold rush.  There's a very strong suspicion that the No lead was significantly boosted in the summer of 2012 as a direct result of Team GB's success in the London Olympics, and if that's true there must be at least a theoretical chance of Team Scotland's success working the same magic for Yes now.  On the other hand, the impact may be diluted by the BBC's rather political choice to place the entire Commonwealth Games within a "British" frame, with viewers being invited (or should I say instructed) to view the distinction between the "Home Nations" teams as a mere formality.  So I genuinely have no idea whether there'll be a Games bounce for Yes or not - we'll just have to wait and see.

Talking of the Commonwealth Games, I've got an early morning ticket booked for tomorrow, with a long journey to get to the venue, so I'll have to cut this short (mainly because I got distracted by an exchange on Twitter with the drongo wing of Blair McDougall's Trolling Army.)  I'll post a Poll of Polls update when I get home tomorrow.

A wild suggestion : why not crowdfund the handing out of free saltires for the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony?

I don't know if anyone has definitively solved the mystery of who was responsible for handing out the blatantly political "two-faced" flags at the opening ceremony on Wednesday, although there have been dark whispers about possible Orange Order involvement.  It was presumably a well-planned stunt, and I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for us to take a leaf out of their book for the closing ceremony.  Nothing political - just free saltires to help the crowd celebrate what may well turn out to be the most successful ever Scottish team at any Commonwealth Games.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting I would be the person to run this potential initiative - for one thing I haven't the first idea of how to go about bulk-buying flags at very short notice, or indeed if it's even feasible at all.  However, the crowdfunding element is certainly doable, because a Paypal-only Indiegogo campaign would enable the funds to be accessed instantly.  So if there's anyone out there who feels capable of taking the task on, I think it would be a great idea.

Come On In, Scotland! (Or 'My trip to the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, plus yet another rubbish photo of the Queen')

So, yes, I'm just back from Celtic Park.  I hadn't been planning to go to the opening ceremony until a few weeks ago, when I got an email offering restricted view tickets for only £20.  I thought to myself, "well, you get what you pay for, so I'm bound to be right behind a pillar", but as it turned out it was fantastic value for money - I could see pretty much everything.  And having just read through some of the comments on Wings, it's probably just as well I was there in person, because I don't think watching it on the BBC would have been good for my health.  Was Cameron really a guest on The One Show? I mean, seriously?  How the hell did they justify that, given that we're now in the regulated campaign period, and especially after they banned Alex Salmond from appearing on a rugby broadcast a couple of years ago?  And what was the logic for it anyway?  Scotland is the host country, not the UK, and as I understand it the London government has contributed absolutely nothing to the costs of the Games - 80% came from the Scottish Government, and 20% from Glasgow City Council.  (Contrast that with the 2012 Olympics when we were all required to stump up for London's party.)

Before I set off for the ceremony, I had a good look at the list of items that were not permitted, and one of them was the flag of any non-participating country.  This is presumably a more-or-less identical rule to the one at the Olympics that leads to the banning of Scottish flags on the grounds that they are "political" (the Union Jack being totally fine and "non-political", naturally).  But with delicious irony, the UK is of course a non-participating country in the Commonwealth Games, and so on a strict reading of the rules, the Union Jack should have been verboten, with everyone being required to wave the non-political saltire instead.  I was intrigued to see whether that rule would be enforced with the the same zeal that we've come to know and love at the Olympics, and the simple answer is that it wasn't.  It goes without saying that saltires very heavily outnumbered Union Jacks, but there was a small smattering of little flags with a saltire on one side and a Union Jack on the other.  I now gather that those flags were being handed out for free.  Who was responsible for that, and what was their political agenda?  Did they check in advance whether it was in adherence with the rules?

It's always said that stadiums look much smaller in real life than on TV. True enough, I was very slightly underwhelmed when I arrived, and the initial set-up with the Irn Bru cans (which was there hours in advance) looked incredibly tacky.  I thought to myself "all we need is a giant haggis and John Barrowman, and the twee vision of 'Scotland the Cringe' will be complete".  I really must be more careful about thinking these thoughts, but we didn't get the giant haggis, so I suppose that counts as some kind of result.

I recall being a bit frustrated with the uninspiring music that was used for Glasgow's little presentation at the end of the Delhi Games in 2010.  When I thought of the almost unbelievably good Scottish traditional music that I hear year in, year out at Celtic Connections, it was heartbreaking to realise we'd thrown away a golden opportunity to showcase all of that to the world.  But I thought "surely when the Games are actually in Glasgow, we'll get it right on the night".  Well, the first few minutes gave us Barrowman and Donald Where's Your Troosers.  Surely it could only get better from there?  Thankfully yes, although I never would have predicted that Rod Stewart's appearance would mark the moment when the quality improved.  Nicola Benedetti was spellbinding, and everyone around me immediately started to sing along to Loch Lomond.  I found I could hardly get the words out after a while, because I had a lump in my throat.  And then finally when the Queen's Baton arrived, we got a precious few minutes of the type of music that the evening had been crying out for all along, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.  I couldn't even see who was singing in Gaelic, and there was no name announced - could it have been Julie Fowlis, perhaps?  Whoever it was, take a bow - you made my night.

Where was our national anthem, by the way?  I can't claim to have a photographic memory of previous Commonwealth Games opening ceremonies, but I'm fairly sure Advance Australia Fair was heard at some point during the 2006 ceremony, for instance, and it would have been extremely odd if it wasn't.  When we were invited to stand and sing the "national anthem", and it turned out to be God Save the Queen rather than the national anthem of the host country, I can tell you that there was genuine bemusement all around me.  Some people did sing it, but it was probably one in five at the absolute most, and they weren't doing it with much gusto.  I got the impression they were mainly singing it for the sake of the Queen (and Prince Imran, whose name everyone misheard as Prince William!).

So it was a mixed night, but thankfully there was much more good than bad (there's no getting away from it, though - the Barrowman introduction was absolutely, unspeakably atrocious, and I'd say that even if he wasn't anti-independence).  I'm so glad I went, because I've seen so many opening ceremonies over the years on TV, and there was a real touch of magic to being able to wave back at the athletes as they marched past.  Oh, and I can imagine that the London media must be quietly seething that no-one booed the First Minister.

I wonder if the words "Come On In, Scotland" might resonate in a few weeks' time?  You know, in a "Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on" kind of way?

Overheard on the way back -

Official : "Twenty minutes' walk to the city centre straight ahead.  Or five minutes if you're Usain Bolt."

Sarcastic pedestrian : "Hashtag Topical."

Wisdom on Wednesday : Knowledge is power, in more ways than one...

"An independent Scotland could now expect to have massive surpluses both on its budget and on its balance of payments and with the proper husbanding of resources this situation could last for a very long time into the future."

From the 1970s McCrone Report, that was unsurprisingly suppressed for decades by successive UK governments.

I wouldn't have thought this was possible, but I've just lost even more respect for Craig Reedie

There's been a perception for quite some time that, in broad brush terms, and perhaps because of the personality traits that drive people to go down a certain path in life, creative types such as artists, writers and musicians are voting Yes, and elite sportspeople are more inclined to vote No.  The most useful thing about John Beattie's documentary on the relationship between sport and politics is that it challenged that perception, and reminded us that there are a great many sportspeople out there who have already firmly nailed their colours to the Yes mast, including household names such as Alex Arthur.

For the most part, it was an admirably even-handed programme, which was perhaps surprising given the extent to which it entered into "a personal view by John Beattie" territory.  But there was just one particular bit that left me absolutely fuming, and that was when the factual basis of Craig "Apolitical" Reedie's drivel about Scotland having no chance of entering a team to the Rio Olympics went unchallenged.  Indeed, it was worse than unchallenged, because Beattie went on to ask judo star Connie Ramsay if she would still support independence even if it meant passing up the chance to compete at the Olympics (answer : yes, she would).

The reality is that, even in the highly unlikely event that it did not prove logistically possible to enter a Scottish team for 2016, the top Scottish athletes would not miss out.  They would be able to take part via one of two methods, both of which have clear precedents in recent Olympic history -

1) Team GB, possibly under a different name, would continue on a transitional basis for one more Games.  The precedent for this is the 'Unified Team', which represented twelve of the fifteen ex-Soviet republics at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.  Yes, the BOA could theoretically veto Scottish involvement, but does anyone seriously think that such a glory-seeking organisation would turn down the chance to boost their team's medal haul?

2) The best Scottish athletes would compete outside any formal team as 'Independent Olympic Athletes'.  There are several precedents for this, most recently London 2012, when athletes from the new state of South Sudan and the freshly-dissolved territory of the Netherlands Antilles competed as independents.

But this is all ridiculously hypothetical, because whatever fairy-tale Reedie tries to weave, the overwhelming likelihood is that a Scottish team would go to Rio.  Unlike the collapse of the Soviet Union in the second half of 1991, independence will not be a bolt from the blue that nobody sees coming until just a few months before the Games - there will be lots of time to put arrangements in place.  It's worth remembering that international recognition of the independence of the three Baltic states was deemed utterly unthinkable until the Soviet coup of August 1991, and yet less than a year later all three countries were represented in Barcelona - they didn't even need to take part in the Unified Team on a transitional basis.

So much for Reedie's transparently agenda-driven 'predictions'.  But just when you thought the man couldn't sink any lower, he made what I can only describe as an utterly shameful comment.

John Beattie : So in a word, do you think Scotland, should there be a Yes vote, would have a team in 2016?

Craig Reedie : No, I think they would miss on the basis of adhering to the Olympic rules, and because simply I think they'd be timed out.

John Beattie : As a Scot, though, would you not fight very hard to get them in?

Craig Reedie : No, I wouldn't, because I was proud to be President, or Chairman, of the British Olympic Association, and I think the elite athletes from Scotland have been served very well by membership of Team GB.

Hang on, hang on.  That is a perfectly legitimate argument to deploy before the referendum in an attempt to persuade people to vote No.  But surely after the referendum, once there's nothing anyone can do to change the outcome, we all revert to being on the same side - we're all part of Team Scotland, and we'll all do whatever we can to make sure the nation's interests are protected and advanced.

Apparently not.  Apparently Reedie will take revenge on his own country if it makes the 'wrong' choice.  Let me make clear that I have absolutely no time for people who use the word 'traitor' about opponents of independence, but it's very, very hard to see Reedie's petty and vindictive stance as being anything other than a betrayal of this country's elite athletes, and indeed of the sport-loving population at large.

Is this the best put-down of the campaign so far?

Jonathan Jones (in his "On Art" Guardian blog) : Scotland's art is doing brilliantly as an inflection of British art.

Bredei685 (in a below-the-line comment) : When I was wee, I always wanted to grow up so I could be an "inflection" of somebody else.

Personally, I've always thought of Scotland as a cheeky apostrophe in the middle of a page of stirring British prose, or as a quizzical expression on a noble British brow.

Elsewhere in the blog, Jones tells us - bizarrely - that he sees his decision to write in the English language for a living as a rejection of Welsh linguistic nationalism. Leaving aside the fact that he almost certainly wouldn't have the option of being so handsomely remunerated for writing in Welsh (and how did that state of affairs come about?), it has to be said that he sounds very much like the sort of chap who cackles with laughter every time he eats meat, telling himself that he's only doing it to get back at those ghastly vegetarians. And if by any chance he has a female life partner, he probably sees it as nothing more than a cunning plan to irritate the hell out of gay rights activists.

* * *

Adam "IT'S THE LAW!!!!" Tomkins, quoted in the Sunday Herald -

"For me, that is what the independence referendum is all about - it is forcing me to choose, would I want to stay in an independent Scotland as a No supporter?"

Is it just me, or does the fact that we're even being invited to care about that "dilemma" smack of the most breathtaking arrogance and self-importance? Being a sore loser would be just one out of many possible reasons why Tomkins might conceivably want to leave Scotland at some point in the future, but it would be a free and entirely personal choice, just as it is for him right now.

It's worth pointing out, of course, that many people are already forced to choose as supporters of independence whether they want to remain in a country that doesn't govern itself, and is governed badly from outside. That unpalatable choice would remain in place after a No vote, but at least those people will have had their "day in court" by then - just as Tomkins will have done after a Yes vote.

"...everyone else will act in their own interests. Just because something is in the Scottish national interest, doesn't mean it is in the interest of all of the people an independent Scotland will have to negotiate with."

Which is fine as far as it goes, but it's still a hell of a jump from there to claim, as Tomkins and his ilk routinely do, that the national interest of an independent Scotland will never, ever coincide with the national interest of the rest of the UK. One thing I forgot to mention about John McTernan's talk at Yestival was that he claimed that rUK "obviously" wouldn't vote with Scotland on the Common Fisheries Policy, so we'd need to seek other powerful allies like France or Germany. He just seemed to take it as read that London would act vindictively towards Scotland, whereas others might at least be open to negotiation. Tell me - why in God's name would we want to stay in political union with a country that McTernan clearly thinks is capable of harbouring such irrational ill will towards us?

"...although [Tomkins] insists there has been no credible poll which has put the Yes vote [above] about 45% and the No vote below 55%..."

The word "credible" is presumably supposed to be a dig at Panelbase, and possibly Survation as well, but the reality is that ICM - the UK's "gold standard" polling organisation - have also put the Yes vote above 45% on two occasions so far this year. If Tomkins is disregarding all three of those firms, he's effectively saying that only half of the active pollsters in this campaign are "credible".

Some might question whether that's a credible claim.

A-list, at last

You might remember that a few months ago, the ex-fascist Daily Mail newspaper started running a series of sinister articles that "named and shamed" ordinary members of the public for the heinous crime of expressing pro-independence views on the internet.  The theory seemed to be : "if people are in a constant state of terror about being treated like sex offenders by a mass-circulation national newspaper, they might just be deterred from speaking out in favour of the Yes campaign".  Well, that plan worked a treat, didn't it?  I must admit I was gutted not to make the cut in any of the Mail's articles, but an exciting new development has more than made up for that disappointment.  I've just discovered that I'm on the "watch-list" of a website called CyberNatWatch, which describes its mission in the following terms -

"Fed up with selective CyberNat behaviour?, the high profile abuse of Union supporters?, especially those such as JK Rowling? Tired of seeing the Union Flag being burnt? We thought we'd put this site together to show you all the nastiness at a glance. Click here for the 'watch list'!"

You'll be pleased to hear that while you were reading that quote, I burned no fewer than six Union Jacks. Just twenty-seven more to go and that'll be my quota for the morning.

This "watch-list" is a very exclusive club - a mere twenty-one of us are vile enough to be on it. Of course there are all the usual suspects - Melissa Murray, Dr Morag Kerr, and...er, the Courier Roadshow. Yes, that'll be the same Courier Roadshow that does all those abusive Cybernat ping-pong polls, and that brings us the foul-mouthed Cybernat cutesy tales about dogs in Carnoustie who are planning to vote No.

I hate to admit this, but John McTernan has got a point. Salmond must call off the dogs (and the ping-pong balls) NOW!!!!

TNS-BMRB poll : 'Undecided leaners' are breaking for Yes

As I pointed out a few days ago that the rounding in the ICM poll had flattered No slightly, I should in fairness also point out that the reverse has happened in the new TNS-BMRB poll.  For the whole sample, Yes have been rounded up from a position of Yes 43.6%, No 56.4%.  Once again, though, a significant difference is made if you simply remove the 3% of the sample who say they will definitely not be casting a vote in September, which strikes me as an eminently sensible thing to do - that in itself is sufficient to take us up to Yes 44.3%, No 55.7%.  

Among the 74% of the sample who say they are certain to vote, Yes have also been given a little boost in the published figures by the rounding - on the unrounded numbers it's Yes 44.6%, No 55.4%.  However, for the second TNS poll in a row, the highest Yes percentage of all is found among the 85% of the sample who say they are either certain or very likely to vote - on that measure it's exactly Yes 45.0%, No 55.0%.  That may be significant, because if I was going to hazard a wild guess as to what the turnout will be, I think I'd plump for something closer to 85% than 74%.

I couldn't resist a little peek at Political Betting last night, to see what inventive forms of denial the dark hordes were coming up with to explain away the apparent swing to Yes.  I've identified a couple of particular favourites.  First up is one from a certain Aberdeenshire Conservative activist...

"Deep breath, and relax.  Scotland is on holiday."

This presumably implies that it's only affluent No-voting Scots who are on holiday, and that TNS are utterly incapable of coping with that problem by means of their weighting scheme.  It's worth pointing out, though, that exactly the same Aberdeenshire Conservative activist once dismissed the results of a bad poll for the Tories on the grounds that "it's Christmas", even though it was in fact late November.  By the same token, I'm guessing that any bad poll conducted during any part of spring is an irrelevance because "it's Easter", and as for January or February - forget it.  Lovers are far too busy gazing into each other's eyes in anticipation of Valentine's Day.

And this was the other one -

"The Don't Knows are also Nos."

Hmmm.  That would have been a much better line if this poll hadn't specifically asked Don't Knows which way they are leaning, and found that they are breaking slightly more for Yes.  Adding in undecided leaners to the voting intention numbers has a small but significant effect across the board, although on some measures it would be disguised by rounding.  All of the figures below exclude the hard-core of undecideds who are unable to give an answer even when pressed.

Should Scotland be an independent country? 

Whole sample, includes undecided leaners :

Yes 44.3%

No 55.7%

Whole sample other than the 3% who will definitely not vote, includes undecided leaners :

Yes 44.8%

No 55.2%

Respondents who are certain or very likely to vote (equivalent to 85% turnout), includes undecided leaners :

Yes 45.3%

No 54.7%

Respondents who are certain to vote (equivalent to 74% turnout), includes undecided leaners :

Yes 45.3%

No 54.7%

One question mark that John Curtice has raised about this poll is that Yes have been weighted up from their position in the raw data by slightly more than usual.  That seems to be largely because TNS have had to make a bigger adjustment for past vote recall, due to there being more people in the sample who say they voted Labour in 2011 than who say they voted SNP.  In order to conclude that the weighting procedure is misguided, though, you'd have to believe that there is a significant problem of people being unable to accurately recall how they voted in 2011, which would flatly contradict evidence from other pollsters that recall of 2011 vote is much more accurate than recall of 2010 vote.  In any case, even if we assume for the sake of argument that people who recall voting Labour are being downweighted too much, that isn't the whole story by any means - TNS also dramatically upweight people who say they didn't vote in 2011, or who can't remember how they voted.  Both of those groups are more No-friendly that the overall sample.  So it's not immediately clear that the position would be that much worse for Yes if weighting by past vote recall was eliminated altogether.  SNP voters haven't actually been upweighted much at all - only from 224 to 228, which has a negligible effect on the results.  As usual, a big part of the reason for the disparity between the raw data and the published results is that the heavily No-friendly oldest age group has had to be downweighted significantly to bring them into line with their real population share.

Pro-independence campaign make spectacular breakthrough in new poll from traditionally No-friendly firm TNS-BMRB

TNS-BMRB have on average been the third most No-friendly out of the six BPC-affiliated firms.  Their last poll showed Yes on a new high watermark for the campaign - but even that was only 41.4% with Don't Knows excluded, as compared to the highs reported by ICM, Panelbase and Survation of between 47.1% and 48.3%.  It was also only fractionally higher than the figure that Yes had been hovering around in the firm's polls for several months.  However, just when we were beginning to wonder if Yes were ever going to make a telling breakthrough with TNS, it's finally happened tonight - and in quite some style, with the No lead slumping by 6% after Don't Knows are excluded.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 44% (+3)
No 56% (-3)

With Don't Knows left in, these are the figures -

Yes 32% (n/c)
No 41% (-5)

On the latter measure, Yes remain on the new high watermark for the campaign that they reached in the previous TNS poll - before that poll, they'd never been higher than 30%, or at least not since TNS introduced a major methodological change.  By complete contrast, the No campaign's 4% increase in the last poll (which was partly an illusion caused by rounding) has been more than wiped out, and they're now back down to a vote share that equals their all-time low.  Although on face value this looks like a straight swing from No to Don't Know, it's more likely that the last poll was simply an outlier in showing a big decrease in the undecideds.  That would mean there has been genuine movement from No to Yes at some point over the last few weeks.

As you'll doubtless have spotted already, the headline No lead is just 9% - the first time it has hit single figures with TNS in the campaign so far.  That's a 5% drop on the last TNS poll, and is 3% lower than the previous record low shown by the firm.

I've pointed out before that swings to Yes reported by Ipsos-Mori and TNS are considerably more important than swings reported by other firms, for the simple reason that they're the only two active referendum pollsters that actually seek out a fresh 'real world' sample in every poll, rather than rely on volunteer online panels.  Until now, both have tended to be firmly on the No-friendly end of the spectrum.  That isn't to say they're necessarily more accurate than others, because there are plenty of advantages to the online approach as well - it's more anonymous, for starters, and respondents are more likely to give honest answers.  But it's nevertheless highly encouraging to see an old-fashioned face-to-face pollster like TNS produce the kind of numbers that have previously only been reported by online firms.  Indeed, as things stand TNS are showing a slightly higher Yes vote than ICM (after Don't Knows are excluded), which is quite a turn-up for the books.

On the other hand, the perennial problem with TNS is that there's always quite a long gap between fieldwork and publication, meaning that their figures are slightly out-of-date by the time that we see them.  In this case, that will complicate any attempts to use this new poll to resolve the mystery of the contradictory trends we've been seeing recently from different firms.  The TNS fieldwork took place between the 25th of June and the 9th of July, meaning that it had the same start-date as the most recent YouGov poll, but a much later end-date.  So it certainly adds to the weight of evidence that the slight drift towards No reported by YouGov recently has probably just been margin of error "noise", and it leaves open the possibility that there has been movement to Yes since YouGov's fieldwork concluded.  The fieldwork for last week's Survation poll overlapped with the tail-end of the TNS dates, which is useful, because both firms are in agreement that Yes have reached a new high.  However, the most up-to-date poll remains the ICM poll published at the weekend, which finished a couple of days after TNS had stopped interviewing.  Confusingly, that poll showed a small increase in the No lead - but the changes were consistent with margin of error noise, and the headline figures remained well within ICM's normal range.

So although the TNS findings dramatically increase the chances that there has been real and substantial movement to Yes recently, they still don't constitute absolute proof.  As ever, we'll just have to await the next poll for more information.  One thing we can certainly say, though, is that there's no credible evidence at all of a swing against Yes - shouldn't that be happening by now, if the predictions made last year by certain "experts" (and Ian Dunt) have any validity?

*  *  *

UPDATE : Even better news - the STV website is reporting that the TNS figures for respondents who say they are certain to vote are as follows...

Yes 37% (+2)
No 46% (-3)

No word yet on the figures with Don't Knows excluded, but a rough calculation suggests that they're most likely to be Yes 45% (+4), No 55% (-4).  That would certainly explain why Yes Scotland tweeted that this poll showed Yes at 45%, rather than 44%!

*  *  *

REQUIRED SWINGS

Although I'm going to persevere with the Poll of Polls, I'm coming round to the idea that it may not be the best way of summarising the state of play, given the huge ongoing disparity between the figures produced by different firms - it's just providing an "imaginary middle".  So I'm going to start giving the swings that would be required for a certain number of pollsters to either show Yes in the lead, or a dead-heat.  For simplicity, these are based on the rounded numbers used for publication, and with Don't Knows not excluded.  (It wouldn't be possible to use unrounded numbers across the board anyway, because the notoriously secretive firm YouGov never reveal their unrounded results.)

Swing required for 1 out of 6 pollsters to show Yes in the lead or level : 1.5%

Swing required for 2 out of 6 pollsters to show Yes in the lead or level : 2.5%

Swing required for 3 out of 6 pollsters to show Yes in the lead or level : 4.5%

Swing required for 4 out of 6 pollsters to show Yes in the lead or level : 5.5%

*  *  *

SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

This update of the Poll of Polls essentially reverses the small boost for No that was seen last time round - the No lead with Don't Knows taken into account is now back below 11%.

MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 43.6% (+0.5)
No 56.4% (-0.5)

MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 36.8% (n/c)
No 47.7% (-0.8)

MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 43.4% (+1.3)
No 56.6% (-1.3)

(The Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of the most recent poll from each of the pollsters that have been active in the referendum campaign since September 2013, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are six - YouGov, TNS-BMRB, Survation, Panelbase, Ipsos-Mori and ICM. Whenever a new poll is published, it replaces the last poll from the same company in the sample. Changes in the Poll of Polls are generally glacial in nature due to the fact that only a small portion of the sample is updated each time.)

And here are the long-term trend figures, with updates prior to Easter recalculated to remove the inactive pollster Angus Reid ...

The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls mean average (not excluding Don't Knows) :

Sep 2013 - 21.6%
Sep 2013 - 21.4%
Sep 2013 - 19.4%
Oct 2013 - 18.8%
Oct 2013 - 18.4%
Oct 2013 - 18.2%
Nov 2013 - 18.4%
Nov 2013 - 18.0%
Dec 2013 - 17.0%
Dec 2013 - 16.8%
Dec 2013 - 16.4%
Jan 2014 - 14.4%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 15.2%
Feb 2014 - 15.0%
Feb 2014 - 15.5%
Feb 2014 - 15.5%
Feb 2014 - 13.7%
Feb 2014 - 13.3%
Feb 2014 - 14.2%
Mar 2014 - 14.2%
Mar 2014 - 14.5%
Mar 2014 - 14.5%
Mar 2014 - 14.7%
Mar 2014 - 13.8%
Mar 2014 - 13.0%
Mar 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.3%
Apr 2014 - 11.4%
May 2014 - 11.2%
May 2014 - 11.2%
May 2014 - 11.5%
May 2014 - 13.3%
Jun 2014 - 12.1%
Jun 2014 - 12.1%
Jun 2014 - 11.3%
Jun 2014 - 9.9%
Jun 2014 - 10.3%
Jun 2014 - 10.7%
Jul 2014 - 11.0%
Jul 2014 - 11.0%
Jul 2014 - 11.7%
Jul 2014 - 10.9%

Remember the day Eddie Izzard campaigned with Elaine C Smith under a 'Scotland says Yes' banner?

There are already doctored photos doing the rounds on Twitter of the Z-list celebrities from the much-mocked 'Let's Stay Together' video, with their patronising "We love you, Scotland (you're such a fab nuclear weapons base)!!!!" messages being replaced with "Yes" or "Aye". But the photo of Eddie Izzard below doesn't need any doctoring - it really does show him campaigning with Elaine C Smith under a 'Scotland Says Yes!' banner.

That was just three years ago, when both were campaigning for a Yes vote in the AV referendum.  It seems that Izzard's zeal for constitutional reform has very rapidly deserted him, because he now wants Scotland to reject a proportional voting system for national elections, a written constitution, the abolition of unelected legislators, and all of the other long overdue steps forward that would happen with independence, and that would only happen with independence.

Alternatively, it could just be that he (along with Tony Robinson, Richard Wilson and Ross Kemp) is a blindly loyal Labour man, and just goes along with whatever stance the Labour leadership take on any given issue.  If so, it's rather sad.

As ever, four little words : True Love Isn't Possessive.

*  *  *

A couple of interesting straws in the wind, albeit based on extremely small sample sizes - the Scottish subsamples from the new GB-wide telephone polls conducted by ICM and Ipsos-Mori both show the SNP in the lead in Westminster voting intentions...

ICM :

SNP 34%
Labour 24%
Conservatives 21%
UKIP 11%
Greens 1%
Liberal Democrats 1%

Ipsos-Mori :

SNP 36%
Labour 28%
Conservatives 14%
Liberal Democrats 9%
Greens 7%
UKIP 5%