Support for independence once again holds up in the second poll to be conducted since the start of the war

Many thanks to an anonymous commenter on the previous thread for alerting me to the existence of a new Savanta ComRes poll - I probably would have overlooked it until tomorrow if he/she hadn't mentioned it.  

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Scotsman / Savanta ComRes, 10th-16th March 2022)

Yes 48% (-1)

No 52% (+1)

You might get the impression from some of the mainstream media's reporting of this poll that the increase in the No vote is 2%, but that's because the comparison is being made with the previous poll in the semi-regular Scotsman / ComRes series.  In fact, the correct comparison is with the more recent ComRes poll commissioned by the Economist, which had No in a very slight lead.

The Scotsman's own write-up of the poll should be taken with a heavy dose of salt, not least because it's written by Conor Matchett, who played a leading role in the notorious #Matchettgate fake poll scandal last year (indeed he gave his own name to the scandal).  In truth, today's numbers should be regarded as a tremendous relief for the Yes camp.  The previous ComRes poll was conducted at the very start of the invasion of Ukraine, and there was an obvious danger that as voters became preoccupied with the reporting of the war over a period of days and weeks that support for independence could have been adversely affected.  That appears not to have happened - the percentage change is statistically insignificant, and leaves the state of play roughly in line with the average results ComRes have produced over the last twelve months or so.  (Which also means that Joyce McMillan's accompanying analysis piece in the Scotsman speculating about the reasons for the 'fall in Yes support' is based on a false premise.)

Central to Matchett's reporting of the poll is a supplementary question that purports to show that, by a 2-1 margin, voters in Scotland think "discussions on when a second independence referendum should take place" should "stop" rather than "continue" due to the war.  (What discussions?  Yeah, exactly.)  That's an absurdly leading question that was deliberately designed to generate a unionist-friendly headline.  It pretty much guaranteed that the half of the population who oppose independence would eagerly say "discussions" should "stop", while significant numbers of independence supporters would join them due to a sense that they ought to.  It was the response that was clearly expected of them, after all.  With a bit of luck, that little stunt will prove to be pointless, because the mood music suggests that the Russia-Ukraine negotiations have a reasonable chance of bringing the war to an end.

The poll also has Holyrood voting intention numbers, which don't show dramatic changes, but are of interest for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, Labour have established themselves in a clear second place by opening up some daylight on the constituency ballot, and overtaking the Tories on the list ballot.  And secondly, Alba are registering (or "languishing" as Matchett rather desperately puts it!) on 2% for a third successive poll, which gives the distinct impression that Alex Salmond's party may have bounced back slightly in recent weeks.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 46% (-1)

Labour 24% (+2)

Conservatives 20% (+1)

Liberal Democrats 7% (-1)

Scottish Parliament list ballot:

SNP 34% (-)

Labour 22% (+2)

Conservatives 20% (-1)

Greens 13% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-)

Alba 2% (-)

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Scot Goes Pop fundraising for 2022: the launch

Click here to go straight to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser page for 2022.

It's more or less exactly two years since Scot Goes Pop commissioned its first opinion poll. It was a very successful exercise, showing that the impact of the December 2019 general election result had taken the pro-independence vote to its highest level since just after the Brexit referendum in the summer of 2016.  Several people said to me afterwards that they'd like me to continue with regular monthly Scot Goes Pop polls on independence - which would have been a nice idea in theory, but I think I can now say beyond a shadow of doubt that it was never feasible.  I seem to have done little else but fundraise over the last two years - I'm sure at times it's been tiresome for readers and it's certainly been embarrassing at times for me.  And yet in spite of that I've only barely raised enough to cover the cost of the six polls I've commissioned, which have averaged out at one every four months or so.  To have commissioned monthly polls, I would have needed to raise well in excess of £100,000 since January 2020, which simply isn't doable for the likes of me.  Stuart Campbell is probably the one and only person in the Scottish political blogosphere capable of pulling it off.

Bearing that in mind, I regard the six polls Scot Goes Pop has actually managed to commission so far as quite a feat, and it's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry when I hear that people on another high-profile pro-indy blog have been making snide comments essentially implying that I am a grifter.  Even just the three polls I commissioned in 2021 had a cumulative cost that was well into five figures. To pay for that required not just the funds from the dedicated polling crowdfunders, but also a significant percentage of the funds from the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2021, which was initially intended to supplement my own income and help keep the website going.  The idea that I've been pocketing the money and sailing off in a luxury yacht is absolutely laughable.  Things have actually been really tight recently.

I also ran into a number of specific problems in the middle of last year.  As you might remember, a former long-term commenter on this blog was so angry that I had joined "the wrong sort" of pro-independence party that he made determined efforts to sabotage the ongoing poll fundraising efforts.  He vexatiously demanded refunds of ancient donations that had been long since spent in exactly the way promised, and loudly broadcast what he was doing to the world (or to the readers of Wee Ginger Dug, at any rate). He even left lengthy comments on newspaper websites giving a list of spurious reasons why people shouldn't donate to Scot Goes Pop fundraisers.  Those were petty and profoundly cynical stunts that simply redoubled my determination that I would get the third poll of the year done one way or another - and I did.  But I don't think there's much doubt that our old friend's interventions made the exercise far more challenging than it otherwise would have been.

The third poll of the year was a comprehensive poll on GRA reform and related gender issues, with voting intention questions and a few supplementary questions about independence also added on.  Because of the controversial subject matter, I had to make sure that I only used funds that had been donated specifically with a GRA poll in mind.  By the time we were well into the autumn, not enough had been raised, and yet I had people on Twitter getting restless and saying: "Where is the GRA poll you promised, James?  The women and girls of Scotland are waiting and watching!"  To which I could only reply with some bemusement that it was a bit difficult to commission a poll without enough money.  Nevertheless, the GRA issue was clearly time-sensitive due to the promise of the Scottish Government to legislate for reform in the very near future, so I had to break the logjam somehow.  I eventually went ahead and commissioned the poll, using my own money to cover the shortfall, and then I set up a dedicated polling crowdfunder to both compensate me for that and help pay for the next poll. So far that's raised £4175 of a £6500 target (there have also been a number of additional donations via Paypal).

As it's no longer 2021, it's also time to draw the curtain on last year's general fundraiser, and start afresh with a Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.  So that's what I've done, and you can visit the new GoFundMe crowdfunder page HERE.

I want to once again thank everyone who has donated to Scot Goes Pop over the years - when you stop and think about it, it's amazing what we've achieved together.  By commissioning and publishing full-scale polls from reputable BPC-affiliated firms, we've done something that is normally the preserve of the mainstream media, or of political parties and think tanks.  And that has allowed us to set the agenda with the questions that actually interest us, rather than passively look on as unionist media outlets ask unionist-flavoured poll questions.

As I said at this time last year, I expect the fundraising to continue to be a slowburner.  So please bear with me as I promote the crowdfunder at the end of each blogpost for the foreseeable future.  I do intend to run another poll, but this time I'm going to do my best to avoid crisis-points.  Fundraising takes as long as it takes, so I'll just wait until the moment arrives when the funding is fully nailed down.  We'll get there, have no fear.

To reiterate, here are the options for donating:

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)

You can also view the promo film for Scot Goes Pop that I made with the amazing Phantom Power...

The best local election voting strategy for Alba supporters

I received a query of sorts about the local elections yesterday, and hopefully if I keep it anonymised, the person who sent it won't mind me quoting him - 

"I am really struggling with what to do when it comes to the council elections my friend. Luckily, I will have Leigh Wilson at the top of my ballot and the former COSLA leader is now standing as an independent (Referendum friendly by all accounts) but I just can’t bring myself to put the SNP and greens anywhere high up and I certainly don’t want any of the Yoons close to it either. I know I should vote till I boke but it’s a hell of a conundrum to say the least. My folks, who do a toner of leafleting for Alba are planning to spoil their votes because they don’t have an Alba Candidate for their ward so they are stuck too. Is there any way we could get the LACU’s to distribute information on the best course of action so that we can try to facilitate the best outcome possible. I know that you don’t believe in “rigging the system” but surely we need to do something to send that message, to the Yoons and now (ffs) Bute House. I know your a busy man so if you don’t have time to respond, I understand completely."

This once again gives me the opportunity to clear up some confusion, because the issue of "rigging the system" or "gaming the system" is simply not relevant to any election that is not conducted by the Additional Member System, or to put it another way, any election that is not a Scottish Parliament election.  When I used to caution against attempting to game the Holyrood system, people used to shout back at me "don't unionist parties game Westminster elections all the time by urging tactical voting?", which completely and utterly missed the point, because "gaming the system" refers to something much more specific than tactical voting or informal cooperation between parties.  There's a very particular and idiosyncratic "bug" in the Additional Member System, which if exploited properly (something which is very difficult to do) could be seen in some ways as cheating.  It has a completely different character to it from the strategies that can be used in other electoral systems.

Fortunately, one of those other systems is being used in May for the local elections, so we can strategise away to our hearts' content.  From the point of view of an Alba supporter who wants to maximise pro-independence representation, I don't think there's anything complicated about the strategy that should be used, and it's as follows...

1) Give your first preference vote to Alba, if there's an Alba candidate in your ward.

2) Give your next preferences to any SNP candidates in your ward.

3) Give your next preference to the Green candidate, if there's a Green candidate in your ward.

4) Give your next preferences to any independent candidates or minor party candidates in your ward who are either in favour of independence, or at least neutral on the subject.  (The exception to this would obviously be if the candidates in question are fascists or nutters.)

5) This is less important, but there's arguably a case for then giving your next preferences to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, just to make sure the Tories and their "muscular unionism" are ranked absolute rock bottom.

Although Alba will be standing in a large number of wards, they won't be standing everywhere.  And actually, having been to various meetings, it looks pretty likely that my own ward in Cumbernauld will not have an Alba candidate.  (Before anyone asks, I would have seriously considered putting myself forward as a candidate if it hadn't been for the pandemic, but because I live with a vulnerable person, it's just not realistic at this stage to contemplate throwing myself into a campaign involving a huge amount of personal contact with a huge number of people.) If that's the way it works out, I will have no hesitation in ranking the SNP top in my ward.  I can't really see why any committed independence supporter would not do that - we live in an imperfect world, and you just choose the best option that's actually available.  I know anecdotally that there are Alba supporters out there (hopefully a very small minority) who hate the SNP too much to even give them a ranking, but what that's effectively saying is that other issues are more important to you than independence.  

For me, just speaking personally, independence always comes first.  If you don't want a unionist-run  council, you have to give your top rankings to ALL of the pro-independence candidates in your ward. It really is that simple.  If you don't do that, you are effectively abstaining on the question of whether you want pro-independence councillors or unionist councillors.  How does abstaining help?

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Alba Ahoy! New pro-indy kid on the block continues to register with 2% of the list vote in latest Savanta ComRes poll

At long last, we have the datasets from the Savanta ComRes poll commissioned by The Economist, and some of the lingering questions can be answered.  Firstly, the all-important fieldwork dates.  The poll was conducted between the 24th and 28th of February, meaning it coincided with the first five days of the war in Ukraine.  That may be a positive sign, because there's always a danger that a major international crisis could dampen support for independence, and yet the poll produced a 49% showing for Yes, which is relatively good when you bear in mind that ComRes have typically been on the No-friendly end of the spectrum in recent times.  That said, most people tend to complete online polls on the day they are sent the link, which presumably means most responses will have been collected on the 24th - the very first day of the invasion.  Given that the sheer scale of Russia's actions came as a bolt from the blue, it may well be that it took the public a certain amount of time to truly 'process' what was happening - and if so, we may not really know the effect of the war on support for independence (if any) until the next poll appears.

The Yes vote is sky-high among the younger age groups, at 79% among 16-24 year olds, and 73% among 25-34 year olds.  You have to go up to the 55-64 year olds to find the first age group that is narrowly opposed to independence, but as usual, the real backbone of the slim overall No lead in the poll is the over-65s, who break 3-1 against self-government.

The unionist media's reporting of the poll gave the impression that there was no great public appetite for an early independence referendum, which made me wonder if the questions had been framed entirely neutrally.  You won't be surprised to hear that they weren't. The question that asked about the timing of a referendum offered six options - in the next year, in the next two years, in the next five years, in the next ten years, longer than the next ten years, and never.  On the principle that people without strong feelings tend to hover towards the middle options, they were effectively being guided towards the five year and ten year responses.  For my money, you'd have got a far more meaningful result by simply asking a binary Yes/No question on the Scottish Government's stated timetable of late 2023.  The good news, however, is that just 23% of respondents think a second independence referendum should never be held, and there is an absolute majority (55%) for holding it at some point within the next decade.

There's a question that asks about "which conditions should be placed on a new independence referendum".  That's seriously dodgy, because it implants the notion in respondents' heads that it's somehow obvious that there should be conditions.  Importantly, however, there is opposition to the suggestion that Westminster's agreement should be a condition.

There's a downright peculiar question about the extent to which the Scottish Government's plans for a referendum make respondents feel "anxious" or "relieved".  If anxiety was going to be mentioned at all, I'd have thought the more natural two poles are "anxiety" and "excitement".  There can't be all that many Yes supporters whose first reaction to the genuine calling of a referendum would be "oh gosh I'm so relieved".

The poll also contains Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers...

Constituency ballot:

SNP 47% (-)

Labour 22% (-)

Conservatives 21% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-)

Regional list ballot:

SNP 34% (-4)

Conservatives 21% (+3)

Labour 20% (-)

Greens 14% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-1)

Alba 2% (-)

Across all polling firms, there have been ten polls with Holyrood voting intention numbers since the election last May.  Of the first eight, only one had Alba above 1% on the list vote, whereas this is now the second in a row to have them on 2%.  So that could be a positive sign with the local elections fast approaching. (Having said that, three of the first eight polls were conducted by Panelbase, who literally don't even allow respondents to give a preference for Alba!)

34% is the lowest list vote for the SNP in any poll since May, but that can perhaps be mostly explained by the good showings for both Alba and the Greens - the latter's 14% is unusually high.  What is a little troubling, though, is that there may be signs of a Tory bounceback on both ballots.

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)

#Referendum2023: Can a hashtag shape history - or at least shame history?

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ 

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ 

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

So I've been reading with great interest Paul Kavanagh reporting to Wee Ginger Dug readers, under the title "Referendum 2023", that the Scottish Government's "plan" to hold a referendum in the latter part of next year "remains on track".  That could be seen as rather carefully chosen language, because of course any plan to hold a referendum next year would technically "remain on track" until the Tory government and/or the Supreme Court are given the chance to formally say no - and part of the whole problem is that we haven't even got to that stage yet.

But in fairness Paul goes on to use what appears to be much less tricksy language.  He notes that some people (hi!) will never be satisfied because they have "convinced themselves" that the Scottish Government are only pretending to want a referendum.  (Translation: we've learned from repeated past experience that the Scottish Government are only pretending to want a referendum.)  He adds that "the rest of us" have received "welcome confirmation" that a referendum "will indeed go ahead in the latter half of 2023".

Well now, blimey, that's quite a statement.  Since when have the Scottish Government - or their most loyal supporters - conceded that they have the ability to simply decide that a referendum will indeed go ahead on a certain date?  They are the ones who insist that we must have a "gold standard" process requiring consent from Westminster that we know is not going to be forthcoming within such a tight timescale.  They are the ones who idiotically use language like "legal referendum", implying that any referendum not sanctioned by the Tory government or by the Supreme Court would be "illegal". (In reality, we do not live in Spain, and in the United Kingdom there is no such thing as an "illegal vote" - merely a vote that has no legal effect.)

So unless there's been a complete U-turn while we were all napping, Paul's statement that a referendum "will indeed go ahead" appears to be literally devoid of all meaning.  I can only assume the get-out clause will be "no-one could possibly have foreseen that Boris Johnson would say no, but don't worry, he's sure to realise his stance is totally unsustainable by 2025!"

Long-term readers may remember that I was bemused in mid-2017 by Peter A Bell's repeated use on Twitter of the hashtag #Referendum2018. I pointed out to him that no-one in the SNP leadership had actually committed to a referendum in 2018, and judging from the mood music it was extremely unlikely to happen that early.  But he explained that it was a kind of "fake it until it's real" exercise - he thought that if enough people used the hashtag often enough, the Scottish Government would be forced to accept that a referendum in September 2018 was strategically inevitable.  Well, I think we can safely deduce from the failure of Peter's wheeze (and the failure of his similar #DissolveTheUnion wheeze) that hashtags alone cannot change the course of history.

But now that, for the first time, the SNP leadership have committed themselves to a rough date, the calculation may be slightly different.  It would be interesting to see if liberal use of #Referendum2023 could make it harder for them to allow the timetable to slip yet again.  So here are some thoughts about what you can tweet with the #Referendum2023 hashtag:

* Your plans for a referendum night watch party with your mates.  #Referendum2023

* What nibbles you plan to get in for referendum night.  #Referendum2023

* Speculation on who the BBC presenters will be for the results programme.  Will Sarah Smith be brought back for one night only?  #Referendum2023

* Invite SNP MSPs to speak at referendum hustings in your town.  #Referendum2023

* Should you take your own pen to the polling station?  Thoughts, please?  #Referendum2023

* Make suggestions for a new hat George Galloway could wear at the televised debates.  #Referendum2023

And if, as impossible as it may seem, we arrive at New Year's Day 2024 without a referendum having actually taken place, for heaven's sake don't stop using the #Referendum2023 hashtag.  It'll be an important way of forcing SNP leadership loyalists to notice and accept that they've allowed the goalposts to shift yet again.  So tell us about...

* Your favourite fictional memories of encounters with dogs at polling stations on referendum day.  #Referendum2023

* Your favourite fictional result on referendum night.  Was it that sensational Yes majority in Clackmannanshire?  #WellDoneClacks #Referendum2023

* Reminisce about that priceless fictional expression on BBC pundit Blair McDougall's face as the results came in.  Memories to last a lifetime!  #Referendum2023

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Let us resolve that this crisis must be the last time humanity ever faces a nuclear war scare. That means total nuclear disarmament.

I have two different theories about what's going on here.

Theory A: This is a deliberate neocon policy shift driven by Alyn Smith, Stewart McDonald, and their ideological godfather David Leask.

Theory B: It's thoughtless, reckless virtue-signalling.https://t.co/hdS253dRBb

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 9, 2022

My piece yesterday about Nicola Sturgeon's jaw-droppingly irresponsible suggestion that NATO should "consider" entering into direct military conflict with Russia via a no-fly zone triggered a predictably angry reaction from SNP leadership loyalists - but what was really interesting was the angle they took. There were two approaches they could have taken in supporting Ms Sturgeon's words - a) they could have doubled down on her behalf and insisted that NATO military intervention might well prove to be desirable, or b) they could have pretended that she didn't say what we all heard her say.  For the most part (although by no means exclusively) they plumped for the latter option, which in a way is quite reassuring.  It's intellectually dishonest, but it at least suggests that a significant chunk of the SNP's support base continues to regard what Ms Sturgeon was suggesting as unthinkable, and that she'd be crossing a red line if she persevered with it.

The section of Ms Sturgeon's remarks that several people pretended to misunderstand was this: "But on the other hand, Putin is not acting in any way rationally or defensively, and you know, we have a situation right now where perhaps the only thing nuclear weapons are deterring is the ability to properly and directly help Ukraine."  The reimagined version of these words is that Ms Sturgeon was suggesting that Putin's nuclear deterrent was so effective that we must under no circumstances set up a no-fly zone. In reality, she was plainly saying the polar opposite of that - she meant that Mr Putin's actions were so immoral that we should disregard (or "consider" disregarding) the nuclear threat and set up a no-fly zone to "properly and directly help Ukraine".  If you look closely, it's almost as if she perversely thinks Putin's malevolence somehow blunts the deadliness of his nuclear weapons and means that the only effect they have is to erect a psychological barrier to providing assistance to a country under attack.

Nuclear deterrence, as a concept, does not work like that.  It pays no heed to the moral rectitude of the person or country that possesses the nuclear arsenal.  The proponents of Britain's nuclear deterrent do not for one moment argue that it is our (dubious) benevolence and virtue that makes the weapon so 'effective' - but rather our amoral determination to obliterate the entire civilian population of our enemies if we are facing defeat. Jo Swinson, leader of the Liberal Democrats as recently as 2019, famously had no hesitation in saying that she would press the nuclear button, thus instantly incinerating untold millions of innocent men, women and children, while leaving untold more millions of innocent men, women and children to die slowly in the weeks thereafter from radiation sickness, horrific burns and starvation.  From the expression on her face, she said this with a degree of levity and with a lightness in her heart.  There are many variants of "liberalism" and "democracy", but this appeared to be a particularly exotic one. President Putin would be entirely comfortable with it.

Just under a decade ago, I wrote a column for the International Business Times arguing that nuclear weapons were "humanity's greatest problem" and that our long-term survival depended on eliminating them completely.  I remember feeling slightly embarrassed when I submitted the column, as if any editor that read it would think I was stuck in a Cold War time-warp.  But that is exactly what is so dangerous - we've been caught in a trance for the last thirty years, imagining that it's perfectly fine to have thousands upon thousands of nuclear weapons sloshing around, enough to wipe out our species dozens of times over, simply because NATO no longer faces a communist bloc in eastern Europe.  (In many ways that's comparable to the current bizarre trance we've slipped into about "the pandemic being over" even though 5% of the entire population are currently walking around with an active infection.)  The reality is that it was always the weapons themselves that were the problem, not ideological competition between communism and capitalism.

If there's any silver lining to come out of the current crisis, it's the education of a new generation about the nuclear threat, and the wake-up call to older generations that the potential for nuclear annihilation outlasted the Cold War.  Hopefully the penny will now drop that if we retain these weapons, nuclear 'close calls' will continue happening periodically, just as they did between the 1950s and 1990s. In each 'close call', there might be only a 1% or 5% chance of escalation to full-scale war, but eventually the law of averages will inevitably catch up with us and human civilisation will perish - perhaps due to a catastrophic strategic miscalculation such as the one proposed by Ms Sturgeon yesterday.  The only way to avoid that fate is global nuclear disarmament.  And, yes, that will be a formidable task for as long as Putin is in power - but we have to understand that we cannot ever "win a nuclear war" against him, and that arming ourselves to the teeth with more and more nukes is the opposite of a solution.

*  *  *

According to the Politico 'scoop', one reason for Blackford's departure if it happens would be that his troops think he's been too SOFT on Joanna Cherry, you know by 'just' sacking her rather than withdrawing the whip. It's like stepping into bloody Narnia.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

Stewart McDonald and Alyn Smith, the two most unsuitable replacements for Blackford in the entire SNP parliamentary group, are naturally touted as his most likely successors.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

A neocon SNP group leader, combined with the withdrawal of the whip from Ms Cherry, would obviously be a calamity for the independence cause, although the silver lining would be that it's hard to think of a more effective recruiting sergeant for the Alba Party.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

On a more positive note, Blackford's departure could yet be a good thing if he's replaced by someone like Philippa Whitford or even Tommy Sheppard. (Joanna Cherry presumably has no chance due to some people's irrational hatred of her.)

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 10, 2022

 *  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

No, Nicola Sturgeon, direct conflict between NATO forces and Russia must not be "considered"

In spite of the well known preoccupations of the SNP's wholly unsuitable defence/foreign affairs team at Westminster, I wouldn't have faulted the Scottish Government's response to the Ukraine crisis until today. However, I see that Nicola Sturgeon has given an interview in which she says that, although she understands the case against a no-fly zone, "all of these things must be considered". That, astoundingly, means she's more hawkish on NATO military intervention than Boris Johnson and the Tory government.

Let's be clear about what a no-fly zone would actually mean. It would mean direct war between NATO and Russia. If Russia attempted to fly over Ukraine, NATO would attempt to shoot the Russian planes down. I know some will argue that's not genuine war, but was the Battle of Britain not genuine war simply because it was confined to the air? Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, and NATO is a nuclear weapons alliance - something the SNP have long objected to, because they understood the appalling risks of nuclear states coming into direct conflict with each other. Now, it appears, the SNP leadership are not merely willing to countenance those risks, but are actively prodding the UK government and others to throw caution to the wind. What is happening to the party we thought we knew?

This, to put it mildly, is not a game. The future of human civilisation is at stake. We could literally all be dead within weeks if a strategic miscalculation is made. You don't provide humanitarian relief to the people of Ukraine by turning their country into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nicola Sturgeon may not hold any direct power to make these decisions, but she does possess a measure of 'soft power', and people with that kind of power contribute to a climate of ideas that can prepare the ground for a change in policy. I would urge any SNP members reading this to contact their parliamentary representatives and try to re-instill some common sense into the Scottish Government's pronouncements before it's too late.

*  *  *

FitzyFan asked yesterday if I could provide more analysis of last week's Savanta ComRes poll on independence.  I'm afraid I can't, because there's still no sign of the data tables.  I don't even know what the fieldwork dates were, and that's the most crucial point of all - were they before or after the invasion started?

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Every year in the last fifty has contained a world event that the current SNP leadership could have used as an excuse for postponing an indyref yet again

If the current SNP leadership had been in power in 1973:

"For now, the SNP's exclusive focus must be on the Yom Kippur War. The people of Scotland would expect no less."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

If the current SNP leadership had been in power in 1981:

"Are you seriously suggesting the people of Scotland should have a vote on their constitutional future before we have clarity on who shot JR? GROW UP."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

If the current SNP leadership had been in power in 1996:

"We will hold an independence referendum in due course, but first our young people must have time to grieve for the break-up of Take That. No time limit can be put on grief."

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

The above tweets attracted a hysterical response from certain quarters, to which all I'd say is that the SNP leadership loyalists doth protest too much.  They evidently know that this is the point at which they have to double down and claim that the war in Ukraine is yet another totally unforeseeable event that must, sadly and inevitably, delay the supposedly "scheduled" 2023 independence referendum yet again.  If they don't maintain that pretence with the utmost seriousness and self-righteousness, a large chunk of the SNP's own support base might start to think that the leadership have cried wolf once too often.  Actually, they're likely to start thinking that anyway.

Yes, in the literal sense the current war was largely unforeseeable, but what we do know and what we have always known is that major world events will crop up fairly frequently and regularly.  If you squint hard enough, every year in the last fifty has contained an event that could have been used as an excuse by the current SNP leadership for kicking independence into the long grass.  This is not even the first time in the last decade that Russia has invaded Ukraine, and yet other countries' politics have gone on.  It's the third time this century that Russia has invaded a fellow ex-Soviet republic, and yet other countries' politics have gone on.  The Soviet Union was at war in Afghanistan every year between 1979 and 1989, and yet other countries' politics went on.  The US and its allies were at war in Afghanistan every year between 2001 and 2021, and yet other countries' politics went on.  Israel has been in conflict with its Arab neighbours almost constantly since it came into existence in the 1940s, and yet other countries' politics have gone on.

Let's be honest: the only genuine reason the SNP leadership have ever had for postponing an indyref (a reason as opposed to an excuse) was Covid.  It would have been pretty much impossible to hold a referendum during full lockdown, and for campaigning reasons it might have been undesirable to hold it during a partial lockdown.  But with all of the governments of the UK prematurely declaring a return to normality (even though the virus is still absolutely everywhere), that reason no longer applies.  If the Scottish Government are now immediately latching onto yet another totally unconnected "delay is unavoidable" narrative, it's hard to escape the conclusion that they're not looking for opportunities to bring independence about - they're frantically searching for excuses to run away from it.

We as an independence movement don't have to continue going pointlessly round in circles like this.  There's a political party out there that doesn't just believe in independence as a nice idea in the abstract, but actually wants to achieve it in the real world, and with an appropriate sense of urgency.  Please consider giving Alba your first preference vote in the local council elections in May, and let's see if we can get the campaign for independence firmly back on track.

Just read that @Ianblackford_MP is suggesting @ScotGovFM might delay IndyRef due to Ukraine war
I hope this is mere speculation because if it’s delayed again @theSNP will lose many supporters
We have accepted too many delays already…this would be the last straw😡

— Patricia Farrington (@xraypat) March 7, 2022

"Blackford suggests SNP might delay GRA Bill Vote over Ukraine Crisis" will never be a headline in the coming weeks.
That alone should tell us everything about the current @scotgov and @theSNP

— Robinov VileCybernatski (@RobinBarclay1) March 7, 2022

"our plans for holding #indyref2 next year"

There comes a point where it's almost like believing in Santa Claus.https://t.co/kvDCjRKnCf

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 7, 2022

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)  

Beware the siren voices of tribalism that could help to elect unionist councillors in May

My number one mega-fan in the Wee Ginger Dug comments section, "Hamish100" (who famously couldn't run away fast enough when I offered him a chance to debate me openly on the podcast) has complained about my brief explanation yesterday that I wasn't blogging about Alba NEC meetings due to confidentiality rules.  I must say that I don't quite follow the point he's making - as I understand it, NEC meetings in the SNP are governed by similar confidentiality rules, and even if someone says or does something totally outrageous in an SNP NEC meeting, we only ever find out about it if it's leaked to Iain Lawson.

But whatever Hamish's problem is (he doesn't seem too sure himself), you won't be surprised to hear he thinks it's yet another reason for SNP supporters to help get unionists elected in the council elections in May - 

"Vote SNP, or Scottish Greens . Don’t put a number against anyone else seems a reasonable approach so I have been told"

So you've been told? By who? By someone high up in the SNP, perhaps? Make no mistake, this destructive anti-Alba tribalism carries the very real risk of needlessly getting Labour or Tory councillors elected.  Alba will be standing in a large number of wards, often with credible candidates who have a high profile locally.  They have every chance of being elected - if they get transfers from the surplus votes of SNP candidates who are sure to be returned to office.

In May, I will have no hesitation in asking Alba supporters to help the independence cause by giving their second, third and fourth preference votes to SNP and Green candidates.  If some people in the SNP can't bring themselves to return the favour, my question to them is simple: at what point did independence cease to be your priority, and why?

Elsewhere on the same thread, the Torrid Threesome of Hamish, Alec "LOL" Lomax and Grizebard criticise "divorced from reality" blogs for discussing gender self-ID rather than Ukraine.  They think this is evidence that the writers of those blogs are "parasites on the movement with other motives in mind". So let me get this straight, chaps.  The Scottish Government, through their own free choice, introduce gender self-ID legislation in the middle of the worst European war since 1945, and that is apparently NOT evidence that the Scottish Government are "divorced from reality", and "parasites on the Yes movement" who have "other motives in mind". But if anyone dares to COMMENT on what the Scottish Government have done in the middle of the war, that's somehow a different story?

Er, how does that work?

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Savanta ComRes poll: voters remain evenly split on independence

Apologies for being so late with covering yesterday's Savanta ComRes independence poll for the Economist.  I wasn't too busy or anything like that - I was just totally oblivious to the fact that there was a poll out.  This is the problem when there are no polls for extended periods - I just start forgetting to check, and it looks like I wasn't alone in being caught napping.  At time of writing, the lists of polls on both Wikipedia and What Scotland Thinks have yet to be updated.  Feel free to give me a little prod if I overlook any other polls in future.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Savanta ComRes / The Economist)

Yes 49% (-1)

No 51% (+1)

That's a trivial, margin of error change from the January poll which still leaves us with a statistical tie (ie. due to the margin of error, the poll is essentially saying that either side could have a slight lead). What none of the MSM reporting of this poll takes any account of is that ComRes have been on the No-friendly end of the spectrum over the last year, sometimes producing quite substantial No leads, so in a relative sense, a 49-51 split is a decent result for Yes.

I haven't found the fieldwork dates yet, and those will be crucial.  If the poll was conducted in whole - or even in part - after Russia invaded Ukraine, the numbers will look even better for Yes, because international crisis situations would typically be expected to reduce support for constitutional change at home, if only temporarily.

There are supplementary questions asking about the timing and circumstances of an indyref.  I'm going to ignore the unionist spin on those and withhold judgement until I see the exact question wording and the detailed results.

*  *  *

For Alba members out there, just to let you know we had an NEC meeting this morning - that's the sixth we've had so far.  The reason I haven't been reporting about them on the blog is simply the confidentiality rules, but rest assured they've been taking place regularly and I've been attending them.  I think you'll be really excited when you see how credible and extensive a challenge Alba will be mounting at the council elections in May.

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)