VIDEO PREVIEW: Scot Goes Pop poll on independence incoming

Who is still betting on Trump to win an election he's already lost?

Just a quick update on my earlier post about the inexplicable fact that the betting markets were still implying that Donald Trump had a 5% chance of winning an election he's already lost.  I would have expected common sense to kick in at some point, but incredibly it's gone the other way - at the time of writing, Trump is now implied to have around a 9% chance of winning.  Which begs the question, who on earth is placing these obviously doomed bets on Trump, and why are they doing it?

Someone suggested on Twitter that it might simply be that people who successfully bet on Biden are closing out their position, which effectively counts as bets on Trump.  That's technically a possibility, but it doesn't really make sense, because any such phenomenon will have been balanced out (perhaps more than balanced out) by people who placed pre-election bets on Trump and now think it's Christmas because they were somehow able to retrieve some of their stake by cashing out long after the election result was known.  

It must be that there are an awful lot of true believers out there who actually accept the fairy-tales about industrial-scale fraud and who think the Supreme Court will overturn the election results in three, four or five states and that Trump will be inaugurated for a second term in January.  When people are behaving as irrationally as that on betting markets, there's a golden opportunity to cash in.  To pretty much remove any risk, the thing to do would be to place a lay bet against Trump (as opposed to a positive bet for Biden), and that will cover any unlikely scenario in which something happens to Biden.  All you'd need is for Trump not to be declared winner of the election, which he won't be, and you'll have locked in a 9% profit.  I'm still not tempted to do it, simply because a huge stake would be required to get a half-decent return.  But this is just about the closest thing you'll ever see to free money.

Return of the Poll of Polls shows an average Yes vote of almost 55%

Long term readers of the blog will recall that in the run-up to the 2014 indyref, I regularly updated the Scot Goes Pop Poll of Polls, which differed from other Polls of Polls in one key respect - it only included the most recent poll from each individual polling firm.  Because there were such wide disparities between the No-friendly and Yes-friendly firms, it seemed obvious to me that you'd get wildly misleading trends if you went back and forth from a sample that was 75% comprised of YouGov polls to one that was 75% comprised of ICM or Panelbase polls.  I eliminated that problem by ensuring the balance between firms remained exactly the same in each update.

Since 2014, it's rarely been feasible to apply the same method, because there usually haven't been enough independence polls from a broad enough range of pollsters.  But for obvious reasons, the last few weeks have seen a flurry of polls, and they've come from no fewer than six different firms - two of which (Savanta ComRes and JL Partners) had never polled on independence before.  Here's what the average of the most recent poll of each of the six shows...

SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 54.8%  

No 45.2%

There's no longer the chasm between Yes-friendly and No-friendly firms that we used to see a few years ago.  But for what it's worth, the most No-friendly firms at the moment are YouGov and Savanta ComRes (both of which have Yes on 53%) and the most Yes-friendly firm is Ipsos-Mori (which has Yes on 58%).  Curiously, Survation are currently closer (54%) to the No-friendly end of the spectrum, even though we've always tended to regard them as a relatively Yes-friendly firm.

Why don't the media hold the Tories accountable for *their* past statements on when and how a second independence referendum can be held?

We all know why the claims that the 2014 indyref was a "once in a generation" vote are bogus. The words were not contained or implied in the Edinburgh Agreement, and whenever Alex Salmond used them, he was always at pains to point out that he was only expressing a "personal view" about likely timescales, rather than making a commitment that the SNP would be bound to for decades to come. Indeed, on one occasion when Jeremy Paxman pressed him to go further, he pointed out that no government can bind its successors, and added "don't be daft". And as no less a person than Professor John Curtice pointed out just the other day, it's also not possible for an SNP leader to bind the electorate - it's up to voters to decide how often they want to have referendums, and their democratic rights cannot be curtailed by a personal opinion that one particular politician happened to hold six years ago. 

But even if it wasn't a lie to say that the SNP closed off any possibility of a second indyref for the next twenty years and that they aren't allowed to change their minds, it's reasonable to ask: why aren't the Tories held to the same standard? Here are clear statements that Tory politicians have made since 2014 - 

* Ruth Davidson, in her capacity as Scottish Conservative leader, said that it would be constitutionally improper for Westminster to block an independence referendum if pro-independence parties won a majority of seats in a Holyrood election on a manfesto commitment to hold a vote. 

* Alister Jack, in his capacity as Secretary of State for Scotland, said that the 2021 Scottish Parliament election would determine whether a second independence referendum is held. Just to leave us in no doubt about what he was getting at and the full implications of it, he specified (absurdly) that only an overall single-party majority for the SNP would be deemed a trigger for a referendum, and that a combined majority for different pro-independence parties would not be sufficient.

Why wasn't it the end of history when the Tories made those statements? Why do the media allow them to continue making up the rules as they go on, without holding them accountable for crystal-clear undertakings they have already given? Why, in a nutshell, is it only SNP politicians who aren't allowed to change their minds? 

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Talking of glaring contradictions, I was bemused by this summary of Pete Wishart's reasoning for rejecting a 'Plan B' - 

"SNP critics of Plan B argue the strategy of holding out for a Section 30 order is working with support for independence at record levels. They contend if the PM is not going to grant a Section 30 he is unlikely to enter independence talks." 

The same is true in reverse, surely - if you believe that the PM is unlikely to enter independence talks even if there is a mandate for independence, it's also phenomenally improbable that he will grant a Section 30 order simply because there is a mandate for a referendum and a pro-indy majority in the polls. That makes the case for Plan B unanswerable - if you're conceding that you're going to be facing a brick wall of intransigence in Downing Street, you'll plainly be much better equipped if you have an outright mandate for independence in your pocket, rather than merely a 79th mandate for a referendum. 

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If anyone even vaguely mentioned the *possibility* of ending free movement between Scotland and England, let alone waved flags about it and had a party, the Tories would call it "ugly, twisted, bitter, grudge and grievance fuelled small-minded separatism".https://t.co/7CQmrCRBX5

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) November 9, 2020

"Dark cloud over BBC journalism, says Michael Grade."
These people look at the BBC's antics in the indyref and say "no problem there, we're proud of that", but some incomprehensible rubbish about royal bank statements in 1995 is apparently the end of civilisation as we know it.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) November 9, 2020

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I'm not tempted, but just for your consideration...

Incredibly, the current odds on the Betfair exchange imply Trump has an approximately 5% chance of winning an election he's already lost. Punters have consistently overestimated his chances for months, but this is getting ridiculous.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) November 8, 2020

What's the odds on a Biden win? Worth a punt

— Tam Jardine (@Tam__Jardine) November 8, 2020

Roughly 1/20. It's practically free money at this stage, but I'm not tempted. It would take a huge stake to get a decent return, and the money would potentially be tied up for weeks, depending on how long the legal challenges drag on.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) November 8, 2020

Still- even if it took 6 months 5% return is really good. As you say- free money.

— Tam Jardine (@Tam__Jardine) November 8, 2020

Significantly better than most savings accounts :)

— Col Total Manscaping (@colken16) November 8, 2020

Day of despair for Douglas Ross as the Tories go backwards in Aberdeen by-election, and are on course to lose TWELVE SEATS in next year's Holyrood vote

I didn't get round to updating my post about the Survation poll yesterday, so for the sake of completeness here are the party political voting intention numbers, with more good news for the SNP and the Yes movement.

Scottish voting intentions for Westminster: 

SNP 52% (+1) 

Labour 20% (-1) 

Conservatives 18% (-2) 

Liberal Democrats 8% (+2) 

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 54% (+1) 

Conservatives 19% (-1) 

Labour 18% (-) 

Liberal Democrats 8% (+1) 

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 43% (+2) 

Labour 19% (+1) 

Conservatives 17% (-1) 

Greens 10% (-) 

Liberal Democrats 7% (-1) 

Brexit Party 2% (-) 

UKIP 1% (-) 

Holyrood seats projection (with changes from 2016 result): SNP 69 (+6), Labour 25 (+1), Conservatives 19 (-12), Greens 11 (+5), Liberal Democrats 5 (n/c)

For anyone who still doubts that the list vote is generally the more important ballot, please note that the Tories are in second place in the constituency ballot, Labour are in second place in the list ballot, and that translates firmly into Labour being in second place in the seats projection.  The exact reverse occurred in 2016 - Labour clung onto second place in the constituencies, but were pushed into third place in terms of seats due to what happened on the list.  

The phenomenon of the Tories' status as the largest opposition party being seriously threatened should perhaps be seen as a 'house effect' of Survation's methodology, because the last Survation poll showed something similar, but other firms have not corroborated those findings in the meantime.  That said, there's no doubt that the Tories are now performing much more poorly than at the peak of the revival under Ruth Davidson.  The new leader Douglas Ross must take his share of the blame for that, because the position seems to have worsened slightly since he took over, and that's coincided with dire personal ratings for him being reported in a couple of polls.

The situation the Tories now find themselves in is arguably reminiscent of where the SNP were just after they elected John Swinney as leader twenty years ago.  They had it all worked out - Alex Salmond, for all his qualities, had supposedly been too abrasive to make the ultimate breakthrough, whereas John Swinney was more like a friendly older brother, impossible to dislike, a bit of a reassuring bank manager figure in the mould of John Smith.  There was just one snag - the voters didn't react to him in the way they were supposed to react, and polls consistently showed that he commanded less confidence than all three of the other main party leaders.  The SNP weren't deterred - they thought the public just hadn't had enough of a chance to get to know Swinney, and he would become popular with time.  But after four years they finally had to admit to themselves that the dial wasn't moving, resulting in the unexpected comeback for Alex Salmond that changed Scottish politics forever.

Same story with Douglas Ross - the public are supposed to like him, but the public haven't read the script provided for them, and my suspicion is they won't change their minds.  How long will it take for the penny to drop?

More evidence that the tide has gone out on the Conservatives can be found in the result of the Kincorth, Nigg & Cove by-election, which although a routine SNP hold, showed a swing of approximately 4% from Tory to SNP.

Kincorth, Nigg & Cove by-election result (first preferences):

SNP 47.4% (+6.7) 

Conservatives 20.2% (-1.3) 

Labour 12.2% (-5.3) 

Independent - Finlayson 10.5% (-0.4)

Liberal Democrats 3.6% (-1.6)

Sparkling Survation survey sustains the sequence: eleventh poll in a row to show pro-independence majority

Survation have traditionally been one of the most Yes-friendly pollsters, but oddly that hasn't really been the case during the current spell of sustained pro-independence majorities - they haven't been showing a Yes vote even higher than that reported by other firms (in the way that Ipsos-Mori did, for example).

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 54% (+1)

No 46% (-1)

54% does equal the all-time high for Yes with Survation - but that high was previously recorded long before this year.

In some quarters you'll see this being billed as the twelfth Yes majority in a row, but in my view it's the eleventh - I think to be consistent you really need to only include polls that ask the standard question.

More to follow...

Biden: never in doubt (much)

So my winning track record on political betting remains intact - an hour or two ago, I cashed out my bet on Biden for a decent profit, although I must admit it was a rollercoaster ride to get to that point, and I almost lost my nerve at one stage.  Even though Biden was very much a value bet before the results started to come in, probably the optimum time to bet on him would have been at around 2am, when incredibly the odds implied that Trump had more than a 75% chance of winning.  I couldn't make head nor tail of that, because at the time Biden had built up decent leads in Ohio and North Carolina - states he didn't even need to win.  My best guess was that punters had massively overreacted to Trump holding Florida against expectations.  

But of course, a couple of hours later, the tables had turned.  Trump had not only secured a comeback win in Ohio and taken what looked like a decisive lead in North Carolina, he had also rapidly built up what looked like telling leads in states that were actually much more vital to Biden's chances, namely Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  The experts repeatedly cautioned that those numbers might well be misleading due to the order in which different types of votes were being counted, but I remembered waiting for a Clinton comeback in those states in 2016 that never materialised, so I started to wonder if the sensible thing to do would be to cash out at a loss.  I decided to risk seeing if anything had changed after a few hours sleep, and by the time I woke up, as if by magic, Biden had the upper hand in Michigan and Wisconsin.  Although the margin in each case is narrow, those in the know are convinced it won't be overturned, meaning that Biden is assured of a majority in the electoral college unless Trump can overturn his narrow deficit in Nevada, which by all accounts is also unlikely.  And even if an improbable comeback does occur somewhere, it still might not be enough if Biden squeezes out a win in Georgia, which is considered perfectly possible.

I would guess at this stage that Trump's main hope will be that Biden ends up owing his electoral college majority to a narrow win in a single state - that would at least give the appearance of reasonableness to any legal challenge.  But if Trump needs the courts to alter the results in two or three states, his efforts to stay in office are going to look a bit desperate.

I don't actually think it'll take the army to remove him from the White House in January, but ideally he'll want to spin this out for as long as possible to build up a victim/conspiracy narrative, possibly with a view to another tilt at the presidency in 2024.

Pool and share, Yookay-style

Just a quick note to let you know that I've written today's online-only 'National Extra' piece, about how wonderfully convenient it is that the extension of furlough suddenly became possible when the south of England faced lockdown.  You can read it HERE.

The case for backing Craig Murray as SNP President

The honorary role of SNP President has in some ways just as impressive a pedigree as the position of party leader.  The legendary Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (aka Don Roberto) was President but never leader, and the same was true of Roland Muirhead, Donald Stewart and Winnie Ewing.  Both positions were held by Robert McIntyre and William Wolfe.  In a more rational world, the presidency would have been the natural role for Alex Salmond to take on if he had been welcomed back into the SNP fold after his acquittal - imagine the barnstorming speeches he could have given to finish conference every year, sending the membership off with a spring in their step.  In the absence of such rationality, though, Mike Russell is probably the next-best candidate for the job, and there's no real doubt at all that he will get it.

First of all, though, he faces a challenge from Craig Murray, who is using the contest to make the case for much greater urgency in the quest for independence.  I must say I'm very disappointed in the scathing reaction from certain quarters to Craig's decision to throw his hat into the ring.  Presumably the most faithful leadership loyalists believe, as I do, that people should stick with the SNP and not flirt with no-hoper splinter parties.  That being the case, it inescapably follows that the SNP must remain a broad church and that dissenting voices must be heard.  Craig is doing absolutely the right thing - staying in the party, fighting his corner, making his case, and giving the members (or rather the delegates) a meaningful choice between two competing visions and strategies.  He will, presumably, define success not as victory but the securing of a substantial minority vote to demonstrate to the leadership the depth of feeling about the need for a route-map to independence that does not accept the validity of a Westminster veto.

To me, that looks like a highly desirable outcome - the current popular leadership still firmly in charge, but pushed by members towards considering a more realistic and effective strategy.  So I've nominated Craig for the role of President, and I'd urge you to do the same if you're a member of the SNP and agree with me about the need for a Plan B.  You can nominate him by logging in to your SNP member account, then clicking on "elections" and then "nominations".  Don't be deterred by the customary attempts to deligitimise Craig as a "crank conspiracy theorist", because this isn't actually about Craig Murray anyway.  Mike Russell will be the President - this is about seizing an opportunity to make our voices heard at a conference which isn't even being permitted a direct vote on Plan B.  

Oh, and as for the synthetic outrage at Craig's rather imaginative wheeze of running an advert in support of his campaign in The National, I'd have to ask - have these people never seen a paid advert before?!