This question appears in today's YouGov poll commissioned by the Sunday Times, and it's certainly not the first time we've seen a variant of it -
If there are to be TV debates at the next election in 2015, which of the following would you prefer?
a) Straight debates between David Cameron and Ed Miliband, as they are the only two leaders who stand any realistic chance
b) Three-way debates, like last time, between the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders
c) Four-way debates, to include Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, as UKIP is now more popular than the Lib Dems
d) Don't Know
If I had been responding to that question, it would have been literally impossible for me to give an honest answer. I'd have had to say "don't know" to avoid appearing to support one of three options that I strongly oppose, but it's not true that I don't have an opinion - I have an extremely firm view that the SNP and Plaid Cymru should be represented in any leaders' debates that may take place. Even some respondents in England must have struggled with the question, because there will be many people who think that the Greens and/or Respect should have a place in the debates - after all, unlike UKIP, both of those parties are already represented in the House of Commons.
Listen, YouGov. If you want to arbitrarily restrict the ability of your respondents to express their positive preferences, that's one thing. But what is so hard about giving them a "none of the above" option to at least allow them to feel that they aren't having words put in their mouth?
* * *
Because of the absurd weighting scheme that YouGov use for their Scottish respondents in GB-wide polls, it's quite unusual for the SNP to hold a clear lead in the Scottish subsample for Westminster voting intention, but today is one of those rare occasions -
SNP 36%
Labour 29%
Conservatives 17%
Liberal Democrats 9%
UKIP 5%
Greens 3%
Heaven only knows what the position would be if YouGov were using a sensible weighting procedure, because as happens day in, day out, the voices of people who identify with the SNP and Plaid Cymru have been massively downweighted in this poll. 51 SNP and Plaid identifiers were interviewed, but they were downweighted by a whopping 40% to count as just 31 'virtual' respondents.
As you'd expect, the SNP also hold the lead in the subsample for European Parliament voting intentions, although curiously that lead is somewhat more modest than the one for Westminster...
SNP 29%
Labour 25%
UKIP 18%
Liberal Democrats 10%
Greens 8%
Conservatives 8%
Much has been made of the fact that UKIP have now taken a slender European election lead over Labour in this poll across Britain. Unlike some people, though, I don't think that's good news for the Yes campaign. Voters in Scotland will certainly be repulsed by a UKIP victory down south, but the biggest side-effect is likely to be a temporary UKIP surge in voting intentions for Westminster, which will come largely at the expense of the Tories. That will disguise the overwhelming polling evidence that the Tories are heading for a general election victory next year, thus potentially giving soft No voters the comfort blanket of thinking that they aren't necessarily voting for David Cameron to remain as Prime Minister (which is of course exactly what they're doing).
However, the only real alternative to a UKIP victory in May is a Labour victory - it's highly unlikely that an incumbent governing party in Westminster could come out on top in a relatively unimportant mid-term election that offers the opportunity for 'free hit' protest voting. So whichever way it goes, there may well be a scenario created that will give Labour a misleading temporary boost in the GB-wide polls, which is the last thing we need with just four months to go until the referendum.
We can't control any of that, so the most important thing is to ensure that the SNP win the popular vote in Scotland, and if possible an additional seat. The momentum generated from that could prove invaluable.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Is Ian Smart a malfunctioning android?
Now don't bite my head off, I'm merely throwing the question out there. I know we've long suspected that Smart isn't quite of our species, but I now feel that the sheer regularity with which he follows up tweets telling us that "Victory Is Inevitable! #itsover" with the not-exactly-logically-consistent message that "There Is No Room For Complacency" probably demands an even more drastic explanation. If by any chance he isn't a malfunctioning android, my only other thought is that we could be witnessing an incredibly advanced type of performance art.
Here are some of Smart's "insights" from earlier this evening, which as ever take a fair bit of imagination and a shot of vodka to make much sense of -
"Slowly sinking in to the cybernats that their public meetings speaking to each other doesn't actually reflect the real world. 28%."
I don't know about you, but I'm struggling to think of a single bona fide "cybernat" who doesn't believe both publicly and privately that Yes are going to win this. My own view is that the referendum could easily go either way, and accordingly I sometimes find all the misplaced euphoria a bit wearing. So heaven only knows which "cybernat" Smart thinks he's been talking to - maybe it was Tom "It Is I, LeClerc" Harris in his latest brilliant disguise?
"Not close to 49%. Not even close to 40%. Phone banks don't lie. That's why they are consoling themselves in their own company."
Well, Ipsos-Mori use phones to conduct their surveys, and even they (as the extreme No-friendly outliers) produced a Yes vote of 36% in their last poll two months ago. Surely even a malfunctioning SmartDroid Z-3000 can see that 36% is considerably closer to 40% than it is to 28%?
"The polling is nonsense. They keep adjusting the sampling to try and pretend it's a contest. Look at the real election results."
Yes, the entire polling industry (which for the purposes of this referendum is 100% English-based) is quite clearly in cahoots with the pro-independence campaign and is trying to make the race look closer than it is. And if Ian could just supply a single reason why they might be doing that, his theory would sound even more plausible.
"At a funeral c 2 months past was worried when I was told by 4 others they were thinking of Yes. Turned out they were taking the piss."
What an astonishingly classy anecdote.
"So, Kilsyth thinks a Yes vote is worthy only of humour. More worrying for the Nats is that I suspect so does Cumbernauld. #itsover"
Hmmm. Speaking as a former resident of Kilsyth, and a current resident of Cumbernauld, "I suspect" I have a fair idea whose name will be the punchline to a good few jokes told in these parts on September the 19th. I don't want to be unkind, but frankly we're still trying to recover our composure after listening to Ian's plucky attempts to explain away his repeated predictions that "there will be no referendum".
"Mind you, there is no room for complacency. Off to bed."
Bingo!
Barking mad though he is, a man with Smart's Labour background presumably does have some genuine connections, so the specificity of the comments about "phone banks" and "28%" led me to wonder if we were supposed to assume that he was hinting at private polling or canvassing data. Luckily, I wasn't left in the dark for long, as it turn out his witterings tonight were just a rehash of something he wrote on his blog a few weeks back -
"Firstly, we have the polls. Here they are. Look at the orange line (that's us) and then look at the blue line (that's them). What do you notice? The orange line is comfortably above the blue line in every case but one and even that one is a poll now accepted on both sides to be flawed in it's methodology. And what else do you notice? That this hasn't changed in a year."
Hang on - I thought the polls were nonsense? (Mind you, Ian wrote this a month ago, so it's possible they've only become nonsense since then.) For reasons I've rehearsed umpteen times, the averaging method I use on this blog is actually much more generous to the No campaign at present than pretty much any other averaging method would be (it's certainly more generous than the one the FT is using for its own Poll of Polls), and yet even I'm showing that the No lead has collapsed from 21.6% to 11.4% since September. What do you notice most about those two numbers, Ian? That's right - the second one is only half as big as the first.
"Then we have real elections. The SNP won a local government by-election, retaining a safe seat, in Kilmarnock on Thursday. Congratulations to them. Particularly since it was the first by-election of any sort that they had won in the last eleven. And even then their vote dropped 9%. While the unwritten story of Scottish politics continued. That there was a major swing to the Tories. Now, it might be the case, as the SNP losing candidate in Cowdenbeath maintained with a, just about, straight face, that voters are embracing Nationalism while simultaneously abandoning the Nationalist Party. Somehow, however, I doubt it."
To be fair, this is (just for once) a point with a small glimmer of reasonableness about it, and if you dilute it by a factor of about 20 it's similar to one I've made myself a couple of times. If we believe the Yes-friendly pollsters, the SNP still have a whopping Holyrood lead, and the pro-Labour swings in the real elections in Cowdenbeath and Kilmarnock do contradict that to some extent. But here's the thing - those were only two localised elections. Anyone would think Ian was talking about dozens of elections that had taken place over the last few months, all showing a uniform picture. The Scotland-wide European election next month will resolve the issue - if Scottish Labour do much better than the likes of ICM and Survation are predicting, then Ian has a point and those companies' referendum polls should probably be regarded as suspect. But if the SNP do as well or better than predicted, Ian will naturally eat his words with the good grace to which we have become so accustomed. Oh wait...
"Then we have the school polls. School polls are interesting since they don't rely on adjustment by pollsters."
You mean they are restricted to a very narrow demographic, and are in any case self-selecting, thus robbing them of the scientific validity that the polls enjoy? That's an unusual definition of 'interesting'.
"There were another slew on Friday and again Nationalism was rejected by a margin of between to (sic) and three to one. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, no secondary school of any proper size in the whole of Scotland has yet to vote Yes in such an exercise."
In other words, several secondary schools have voted Yes (Plockton High and Dornoch Academy, for example), but SmartDroid Z-3000 has deleted those from its memory-banks due to arbitrary post-programmed threshold criteria relating to 'properness'. The reality is that school mock votes have occurred in many wildly different formats, and the claim that the No campaign has generally come out on top depends on conveniently denying the validity of some of those formats.
As an aside, Better Together ought to be absolutely petrified by the result of the Strathclyde University mock referendum the other day. As we know, the more prestigious universities in Scotland tend to have a disproportionately high number of affluent students, and a very significant minority of English students - both of which are No-heavy demographics. There is no way on Earth the Yes vote in Strathclyde should have been anything like as high as 45% - and yet it was.
"Then we have the 'feel' of the ground troops. Those who are doing the telephone and street canvassing. Obviously I speak to more of ours than theirs. But I do speak to theirs. Ours admit to genuine bewilderment as to where this supposed, even significant minority, Yes vote is."
There may be a grain of truth in that - we've been told, for example, that the Labour and SNP canvassing on the independence question in Cowdenbeath produced utterly irreconcilable results. Unless one side or other was lying about their numbers, it's possible that an undecided electorate is giving different answers depending on how the question is posed, and who poses it.
"At best, theirs insist they have 'still got a chance' even while bemoaning the various factors (apathy, fear, the BBC) conspiring against them."
This claim, on the other hand, appears to be utterly delusional. Admittedly I've no knowledge about phone canvassing, but we've all heard feedback from street canvassers for Yes, and the vibe we're getting from them is, to put it mildly, somewhat better than "well, maybe we've still got a chance". But I suppose it's possible that SmartDroid Z-3000 is programmed to interpret legitimate complaints about an obscenely biased media as some kind of admission of defeat.
"Then we have the argument, not on the policy but on its prospects, of our opponents. Chief among these is Mr Stephen Noon, who informs his observations with hints of secret polling known only to an elect of which he is one. I have no idea why this guy is taken seriously. Here is what he wrote on 27th April 2012, a week out from the local government elections in 2012. Either his "inside information" was seriously flawed or more likely he was just making it up. For we know the actual results of these elections."
Yes, we do - and as Stephen Noon correctly anticipated, the SNP won a historic victory. Ian Smart on the other hand, claimed that the Scottish Government had no intention of holding an independence referendum. He claimed that Labour had won a stunning triumph in the 2012 local elections even after they had lost. He tells us on an ongoing basis there is no room for complacency, but adds that a crushing referendum victory is already predetermined. And then he questions (of all things) the credibility of others, based on their track record.
For a human being, that would take some gumption. But for a malfunctioning SmartDroid Z-3000, it's just part of the daily routine.
* * *
As of this moment, it looks like this is going to be a poll-free weekend, but thanks to Calum Findlay for pointing out that ICM asked something very close to the actual referendum question in a GB-wide poll conducted between the 19th and 20th of April. That's a few days later than the fieldwork for the sensational ICM poll that put Yes just 3% behind. The results among the Scottish subsample of 166 people are eerily similar to that poll -
There will be a referendum in Scotland in September 2014 on Scottish independence. Should Scotland become an independent country?
Yes 39%
No 43%
Even if the subsample figures were properly weighted (and the chances are they weren't), the margin of error would be a very high 7.6%. So the fact that the numbers are so similar to the full-scale Scottish poll may simply be coincidence, but it's an encouraging straw in the wind all the same.
Here are some of Smart's "insights" from earlier this evening, which as ever take a fair bit of imagination and a shot of vodka to make much sense of -
"Slowly sinking in to the cybernats that their public meetings speaking to each other doesn't actually reflect the real world. 28%."
I don't know about you, but I'm struggling to think of a single bona fide "cybernat" who doesn't believe both publicly and privately that Yes are going to win this. My own view is that the referendum could easily go either way, and accordingly I sometimes find all the misplaced euphoria a bit wearing. So heaven only knows which "cybernat" Smart thinks he's been talking to - maybe it was Tom "It Is I, LeClerc" Harris in his latest brilliant disguise?
"Not close to 49%. Not even close to 40%. Phone banks don't lie. That's why they are consoling themselves in their own company."
Well, Ipsos-Mori use phones to conduct their surveys, and even they (as the extreme No-friendly outliers) produced a Yes vote of 36% in their last poll two months ago. Surely even a malfunctioning SmartDroid Z-3000 can see that 36% is considerably closer to 40% than it is to 28%?
"The polling is nonsense. They keep adjusting the sampling to try and pretend it's a contest. Look at the real election results."
Yes, the entire polling industry (which for the purposes of this referendum is 100% English-based) is quite clearly in cahoots with the pro-independence campaign and is trying to make the race look closer than it is. And if Ian could just supply a single reason why they might be doing that, his theory would sound even more plausible.
"At a funeral c 2 months past was worried when I was told by 4 others they were thinking of Yes. Turned out they were taking the piss."
What an astonishingly classy anecdote.
"So, Kilsyth thinks a Yes vote is worthy only of humour. More worrying for the Nats is that I suspect so does Cumbernauld. #itsover"
Hmmm. Speaking as a former resident of Kilsyth, and a current resident of Cumbernauld, "I suspect" I have a fair idea whose name will be the punchline to a good few jokes told in these parts on September the 19th. I don't want to be unkind, but frankly we're still trying to recover our composure after listening to Ian's plucky attempts to explain away his repeated predictions that "there will be no referendum".
"Mind you, there is no room for complacency. Off to bed."
Bingo!
Barking mad though he is, a man with Smart's Labour background presumably does have some genuine connections, so the specificity of the comments about "phone banks" and "28%" led me to wonder if we were supposed to assume that he was hinting at private polling or canvassing data. Luckily, I wasn't left in the dark for long, as it turn out his witterings tonight were just a rehash of something he wrote on his blog a few weeks back -
"Firstly, we have the polls. Here they are. Look at the orange line (that's us) and then look at the blue line (that's them). What do you notice? The orange line is comfortably above the blue line in every case but one and even that one is a poll now accepted on both sides to be flawed in it's methodology. And what else do you notice? That this hasn't changed in a year."
Hang on - I thought the polls were nonsense? (Mind you, Ian wrote this a month ago, so it's possible they've only become nonsense since then.) For reasons I've rehearsed umpteen times, the averaging method I use on this blog is actually much more generous to the No campaign at present than pretty much any other averaging method would be (it's certainly more generous than the one the FT is using for its own Poll of Polls), and yet even I'm showing that the No lead has collapsed from 21.6% to 11.4% since September. What do you notice most about those two numbers, Ian? That's right - the second one is only half as big as the first.
"Then we have real elections. The SNP won a local government by-election, retaining a safe seat, in Kilmarnock on Thursday. Congratulations to them. Particularly since it was the first by-election of any sort that they had won in the last eleven. And even then their vote dropped 9%. While the unwritten story of Scottish politics continued. That there was a major swing to the Tories. Now, it might be the case, as the SNP losing candidate in Cowdenbeath maintained with a, just about, straight face, that voters are embracing Nationalism while simultaneously abandoning the Nationalist Party. Somehow, however, I doubt it."
To be fair, this is (just for once) a point with a small glimmer of reasonableness about it, and if you dilute it by a factor of about 20 it's similar to one I've made myself a couple of times. If we believe the Yes-friendly pollsters, the SNP still have a whopping Holyrood lead, and the pro-Labour swings in the real elections in Cowdenbeath and Kilmarnock do contradict that to some extent. But here's the thing - those were only two localised elections. Anyone would think Ian was talking about dozens of elections that had taken place over the last few months, all showing a uniform picture. The Scotland-wide European election next month will resolve the issue - if Scottish Labour do much better than the likes of ICM and Survation are predicting, then Ian has a point and those companies' referendum polls should probably be regarded as suspect. But if the SNP do as well or better than predicted, Ian will naturally eat his words with the good grace to which we have become so accustomed. Oh wait...
"Then we have the school polls. School polls are interesting since they don't rely on adjustment by pollsters."
You mean they are restricted to a very narrow demographic, and are in any case self-selecting, thus robbing them of the scientific validity that the polls enjoy? That's an unusual definition of 'interesting'.
"There were another slew on Friday and again Nationalism was rejected by a margin of between to (sic) and three to one. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, no secondary school of any proper size in the whole of Scotland has yet to vote Yes in such an exercise."
In other words, several secondary schools have voted Yes (Plockton High and Dornoch Academy, for example), but SmartDroid Z-3000 has deleted those from its memory-banks due to arbitrary post-programmed threshold criteria relating to 'properness'. The reality is that school mock votes have occurred in many wildly different formats, and the claim that the No campaign has generally come out on top depends on conveniently denying the validity of some of those formats.
As an aside, Better Together ought to be absolutely petrified by the result of the Strathclyde University mock referendum the other day. As we know, the more prestigious universities in Scotland tend to have a disproportionately high number of affluent students, and a very significant minority of English students - both of which are No-heavy demographics. There is no way on Earth the Yes vote in Strathclyde should have been anything like as high as 45% - and yet it was.
"Then we have the 'feel' of the ground troops. Those who are doing the telephone and street canvassing. Obviously I speak to more of ours than theirs. But I do speak to theirs. Ours admit to genuine bewilderment as to where this supposed, even significant minority, Yes vote is."
There may be a grain of truth in that - we've been told, for example, that the Labour and SNP canvassing on the independence question in Cowdenbeath produced utterly irreconcilable results. Unless one side or other was lying about their numbers, it's possible that an undecided electorate is giving different answers depending on how the question is posed, and who poses it.
"At best, theirs insist they have 'still got a chance' even while bemoaning the various factors (apathy, fear, the BBC) conspiring against them."
This claim, on the other hand, appears to be utterly delusional. Admittedly I've no knowledge about phone canvassing, but we've all heard feedback from street canvassers for Yes, and the vibe we're getting from them is, to put it mildly, somewhat better than "well, maybe we've still got a chance". But I suppose it's possible that SmartDroid Z-3000 is programmed to interpret legitimate complaints about an obscenely biased media as some kind of admission of defeat.
"Then we have the argument, not on the policy but on its prospects, of our opponents. Chief among these is Mr Stephen Noon, who informs his observations with hints of secret polling known only to an elect of which he is one. I have no idea why this guy is taken seriously. Here is what he wrote on 27th April 2012, a week out from the local government elections in 2012. Either his "inside information" was seriously flawed or more likely he was just making it up. For we know the actual results of these elections."
Yes, we do - and as Stephen Noon correctly anticipated, the SNP won a historic victory. Ian Smart on the other hand, claimed that the Scottish Government had no intention of holding an independence referendum. He claimed that Labour had won a stunning triumph in the 2012 local elections even after they had lost. He tells us on an ongoing basis there is no room for complacency, but adds that a crushing referendum victory is already predetermined. And then he questions (of all things) the credibility of others, based on their track record.
For a human being, that would take some gumption. But for a malfunctioning SmartDroid Z-3000, it's just part of the daily routine.
* * *
As of this moment, it looks like this is going to be a poll-free weekend, but thanks to Calum Findlay for pointing out that ICM asked something very close to the actual referendum question in a GB-wide poll conducted between the 19th and 20th of April. That's a few days later than the fieldwork for the sensational ICM poll that put Yes just 3% behind. The results among the Scottish subsample of 166 people are eerily similar to that poll -
There will be a referendum in Scotland in September 2014 on Scottish independence. Should Scotland become an independent country?
Yes 39%
No 43%
Even if the subsample figures were properly weighted (and the chances are they weren't), the margin of error would be a very high 7.6%. So the fact that the numbers are so similar to the full-scale Scottish poll may simply be coincidence, but it's an encouraging straw in the wind all the same.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Who Wants to Be a Laughing-Stock?
Well, CBI, this is where it gets very exciting. You're just one question away from being able to spend up to £150,000 campaigning against Scottish self-government, and you still have two of your lifelines intact. We're talking about seriously life-changing money here. Don't turn around, but I can tell you that David and George are looking very happy about the situation.
No wonder, they've probably spent the money already!
Now remember you do not have to play this question. But take a look at it, and tell me what you want to do.
OK, Chris.
Here's the question : "Are you going to register with the Electoral Commission as a supporter of the anti-independence campaign?" And the four possible answers - a) Yes, b) No, c) Yes and d) No.
Ooooh, this is such a tough one, Chris.
Tell me what you're thinking.
Well, it could be a), because we are of course violently opposed to Scottish self-government. But then again, it could be b), because we're pretending that being opposed to self-government is perfectly compatible with a non-political stance.
So, you've narrowed it down to two, then?
Well, no, I'm drawn to c) as well, because there could be COMPLIANCE ISSUES. And then there's d) - I mean, complying with the law is all very well, but would we want to inadvertently leave people with the accurate impression that we're some kind of anti-independence campaigning organisation? I just don't know, Chris.
Remember you do have two lifelines at your disposal.
Seems such a shame to use them, though.
That's what they're there for. Think about it carefully. We don't want you to go home without any money to use to stop the Scots choosing their own government.
OK, I'll go 50/50.
Right, computer, take away two random wrong answers, and leave CBI with just the right answer and one remaining wrong answer, please.
Oh, no.
Hasn't helped?
Not at all, I'm afraid. Yes and No are both still there.
Those are always the worst ones. But remember you can still ask the audience.
Yes, I think I'll have to.
OK, audience, let's see if we can help CBI here to sock it to the whingeing Jocks. All on your keypads please - vote now.
Cripes.
Yes, that's pretty decisive. 100% of the audience think that you shouldn't register as an anti-independence organisation, and absolutely nobody thinks that you should. Has that helped you make up your mind?
It certainly has. In the finest traditions of the CBI, we'll naturally be ignoring the pig-ignorant opinions of peasants, and registering with the Electoral Commission immediately.
Is that your final answer?
Yes, Chris, that's my final answer.
So the answer has changed to yellow, there's nothing you can do about it now, and you might be interested to know that half your membership has just resigned.
No, actually, that wasn't my final answer.
What? I'm sorry, CBI, it's too late, I've already accepted "yes, we're registering with the Electoral Commission" as your final answer.
Don't be silly, Chris. I think you'll find that the paperwork was filled in by a total amateur. You just can't get the staff these days.
No wonder, they've probably spent the money already!
Now remember you do not have to play this question. But take a look at it, and tell me what you want to do.
OK, Chris.
Here's the question : "Are you going to register with the Electoral Commission as a supporter of the anti-independence campaign?" And the four possible answers - a) Yes, b) No, c) Yes and d) No.
Ooooh, this is such a tough one, Chris.
Tell me what you're thinking.
Well, it could be a), because we are of course violently opposed to Scottish self-government. But then again, it could be b), because we're pretending that being opposed to self-government is perfectly compatible with a non-political stance.
So, you've narrowed it down to two, then?
Well, no, I'm drawn to c) as well, because there could be COMPLIANCE ISSUES. And then there's d) - I mean, complying with the law is all very well, but would we want to inadvertently leave people with the accurate impression that we're some kind of anti-independence campaigning organisation? I just don't know, Chris.
Remember you do have two lifelines at your disposal.
Seems such a shame to use them, though.
That's what they're there for. Think about it carefully. We don't want you to go home without any money to use to stop the Scots choosing their own government.
OK, I'll go 50/50.
Right, computer, take away two random wrong answers, and leave CBI with just the right answer and one remaining wrong answer, please.
Oh, no.
Hasn't helped?
Not at all, I'm afraid. Yes and No are both still there.
Those are always the worst ones. But remember you can still ask the audience.
Yes, I think I'll have to.
OK, audience, let's see if we can help CBI here to sock it to the whingeing Jocks. All on your keypads please - vote now.
Cripes.
Yes, that's pretty decisive. 100% of the audience think that you shouldn't register as an anti-independence organisation, and absolutely nobody thinks that you should. Has that helped you make up your mind?
It certainly has. In the finest traditions of the CBI, we'll naturally be ignoring the pig-ignorant opinions of peasants, and registering with the Electoral Commission immediately.
Is that your final answer?
Yes, Chris, that's my final answer.
So the answer has changed to yellow, there's nothing you can do about it now, and you might be interested to know that half your membership has just resigned.
No, actually, that wasn't my final answer.
What? I'm sorry, CBI, it's too late, I've already accepted "yes, we're registering with the Electoral Commission" as your final answer.
Don't be silly, Chris. I think you'll find that the paperwork was filled in by a total amateur. You just can't get the staff these days.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
ITV's position is untenable - if this was a UK-wide referendum, everyone knows they would already have resigned from the CBI
Make no mistake - if the CBI had registered as an official supporter of either the Yes or No campaign in the AV referendum, ITV would have instantly resigned from the organisation without a second thought. If they hadn't, then the pathetic excuses in the statement issued today would have been savaged in the press. It is utterly untenable for a public service broadcaster to be a fully paid-up member of a partisan organisation - or at least it would be in the context of a "grown-up" UK-wide vote. The one and only difference in this case is that the independence referendum is being seen by decision-makers in London as trivial and local, and they're frankly irritated that it should have any implications at all for them at a "national" level, even though they know full well that the logic demanding an exit from the CBI is inescapable.
We've been here before, of course. In 1995, the BBC scheduled a lengthy interview with John Major for broadcast just days before the Scottish local elections. When the decision was (successfully) challenged in court, they were asked whether they would have breached their requirements for balanced coverage in the same way if the local elections had been taking place in England. They admitted they would not have done.
I wonder if legal action may once again be the only recourse? If the current position is not overturned one way or another, I would suggest that every ITV report on the referendum should be routinely (and accurately) billed as being "from ITV, a broadcaster affiliated to the anti-independence body the CBI".
We've been here before, of course. In 1995, the BBC scheduled a lengthy interview with John Major for broadcast just days before the Scottish local elections. When the decision was (successfully) challenged in court, they were asked whether they would have breached their requirements for balanced coverage in the same way if the local elections had been taking place in England. They admitted they would not have done.
I wonder if legal action may once again be the only recourse? If the current position is not overturned one way or another, I would suggest that every ITV report on the referendum should be routinely (and accurately) billed as being "from ITV, a broadcaster affiliated to the anti-independence body the CBI".
The mad, mad world of Rory Stewart MP
Anyone who watched Peter MacMahon's Representing Border show last night was in for an unexpected treat, because for some bizarre reason the anti-independence campaign decided to put up "Rory the Tory" as their right-of-reply option for the package about Alex Salmond's St George's Day speech. When he first appeared on screen, I thought to myself, "surely we're not going to hear any more about Better Together's answer to Narnia, that really would be too much to hope for so soon after we were all spoiled with the epic BBC production". But it seems that when interviews are conducted right in the heart of the magical realm of "the Middleland" (ie. Carlisle), dreams just can't help themselves from coming true...
"We were in fact, for 700 years, a single unit. The Middle of Britain was different to the south of England or the north of Scotland. That's why reintroducing the border would be a tragedy, because people in Newcastle have far more in common with people in Edinburgh than they do with people in London, or people in Edinburgh do with people in Inverness. I believe REALLY strongly that we have SO much in common. We speak the same language! The Scotch that's spoken in southern Scotland, the English that's spoken in northern England, it's...it's...THE SAME WORDS!"
Crikey. There can't be many languages which lead people to actually use the same words. You've hooked me on this Middleland magic, Rory - do please go on.
"We've got exactly the same type of economy, we have the same sheep on our hills. We move back and forth, we have a very similar landscape."
Oh sheep, oh hills, oh streams, oh air, oh grass, OH BRITAIN!!!!
Yup, that was pretty much the strictly non-political message of Tory Rory's two-part BBC 'documentary' Border Country : The Story of Britain's Lost Middleland, which was entirely coincidentally aired in a prime-time slot just six months before the date of the independence referendum. In case you're wondering how in God's name the story of a wholly fictional land (even the name was Rory's invention) came to be produced by the 'factual' arm of the BBC, apparently they thought it would be OK just so long as Rory was forced to drop in occasional disclaimers such as "I like to call it the Middleland", and "many scholars disagree with me, but..." The latter seemed to be Rory-speak for "no-one apart from me actually believes this".
In case you missed it, the central idea of the "Middleland" campaign video (sorry, educational history show) was that Britain existed as a single harmonious island nation, until the bastard Romans came along and split us in two, thus giving rise to the concepts of England and Scotland. I was actually fairly open-minded about this idea, because of course all nations have their origins somewhere in history, and intuitively it seems entirely plausible that a distinctive Scottish culture may have come about as the serendipitous by-product of a foreign occupation. But the bizarre thing is that Rory used up most of his precious minutes of propaganda airtime seemingly trying to disprove his own theory. It appears the Romans needn't even have bothered, because as soon as they left a united and indescribably wonderful "Middleland" culture immediately sprang up on both sides of Hadrian's Wall. It was only several centuries later that the south of Middle-Earth (sorry, "the Middleland") was gobbled up by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and the north of Fantasia (sorry, "the Middleland") was gobbled up by the mongrel kingdom of Scotland.
So where exactly do the Romans even come into this? It seems like the modern border is just the point where two conquering armies happened to collide with each other, several centuries after Hadrian's Wall was abandoned. The Angles and Saxons on one side of the divide hadn't even set foot on British soil at the time when the wall was an actual frontier. But in an unconvincing attempt to hint at a non-specific causative link, Rory waffled about how the border was set "just a few miles north of Hadrian's Wall". Well, yeah, if you call 60 miles on the eastern side "just a few miles". The most terrifying thing about the programme was the creeping realisation that when Rory links hands with "one hundred thousand" members of his local Conservative association on Hadrian's Wall later this year, he actually will think that he's more or less doing it on the real English-Scottish border. The "hands across the border" thing isn't just a figure of speech as far as he's concerned.
When Rory wasn't berating the Romans for splitting one country that nature intended to be indivisible into two, he was moaning about the fact that there should actually have been three countries (England, Scotland and "the Middleland") rather than just two. Er, has he never heard of Wales? The irony is that the Celtic cultures of Wales and Cornwall are the remnants of Rory's beloved pre-Roman unified nation of Britain. The Brythonic-speaking peoples who ended up confined to those regions were displaced from the rest of the island by the invading English - who of course had still been residents of Denmark and northern Germany at the time of the Roman departure from Britain. As for the Scots, the basis of our non-Brythonic culture was the conquest from the west by Gaelic-speakers. It used to be assumed that those invaders were Irish in origin if you go back far enough, but the modern school of thought is that Gaelic was spoken in a small portion of western Scotland for just as long as it was spoken in Ireland. That seemingly unlikely situation came about because the west was cut off from the rest of the country due to the challenging terrain, but had easy links to Ireland via the sea. Rory started his programme by suggesting that Britain's natural borders in Roman times were the sea, but that couldn't be more wrong - in those days the sea was a highway that enabled cultural and linguistic closeness, and the hills were a natural frontier that fostered cultural and linguistic separateness. It was the hills that created Scotland, not a Roman wall.
The supreme comedy moment of the show was when Rory visited a churchyard somewhere in "the Middleland", and pointed towards a Viking grave. "This is the kind of thing you'd just never see in the south of England or the north of Scotland," he told us breathlessly. Yeah, because as we all know, not a single Viking ever set foot in Orkney, or Sutherland, or the Western Isles.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Wisdom on Wednesday : The eleventh commandment was missing for a good reason
"But no man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country: 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no further'."
Said by Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster in the late 19th Century. Are you listening, Ian Davidson?
Said by Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster in the late 19th Century. Are you listening, Ian Davidson?
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Concerns mount over the pollsters' apparent failure to weight by country of birth - a key predictor of referendum vote
In some quarters, ICM's Martin Boon has been widely praised for his piece in Scotland on Sunday explaining the thinking behind his company's approach to "indyref" polling methodology. It was certainly an interesting insight into thought-processes that normally remain private, although as I've already mentioned I find it extremely troubling that Boon seems to be taking seriously the very speculative notion that the Yes vote is being overstated due to a 'Shy No Syndrome', but doesn't even seem to have considered the much more plausible possibility that the No vote is being overstated due to 'Shy Yes Syndrome'. More broadly, there was a certain amount of ambiguity in the article's language, which has directly led to a few daft new myths doing the rounds.
Exhibit A comes from hardcore anti-independence Tory troll Carlotta Vance (who I am now permanently banned from setting straight over at her preferred haunt, the 'Stormfront Lite' site Political Betting) -
"If the polls say 'Yes' but Scotland votes 'No' - we probably know why already."
She then goes on to quote Boon talking about "lifting the power of SNP voter voices" by weighting according to 2011 vote recall, thus implying that she has (to her relief) identified the 'innocent explanation' for the No lead having collapsed to just 3% in the latest ICM poll. Except that doesn't work. There were in fact 288 people in ICM's sample who voted SNP in 2011 - and they were weighted DOWN to count as just 238 respondents in the final results. The respondents who were significantly upweighted were non-voters from 2011 - only 181 of them were interviewed, but they counted as 309 people in the final results. Crucially, among this group there was a 10-point No lead - not huge, but enough to mean that this aspect of the weighting procedure is helping the No side, not the Yes side.
The point being of course that Boon was actually explaining how weighting by past vote recall might flatter Yes UNLESS non-voters from 2011 are also correctly weighted, which is exactly what ICM are now doing. That caveat seems to have to got lost in translation, at least as far as certain PB Tories are concerned.
What those of us who care about polling accuracy should actually be concerned about is the apparent failure of the pollsters to weight by country of birth, which we know is an extremely strong predictor of referendum vote (with those born south of the border being far more likely to vote No). The place of birth of ICM's sample is as follows -
Scotland : 75%
England : 15%
Wales : 1%
Northern Ireland : 1%
Outside UK : 8%
ICM claim in the introduction to their datasets to use targets for their weighted data that are derived from the 2011 census, which as far as I can see must mean that they are failing to weight by country of birth, because according to the census results the correct numbers for the voting-age population are as follows -
Scotland : 81.5%
England : 9.6%
Wales : 0.4%
Northern Ireland : 0.8%
Outside UK : 7.6%
So unless I'm missing something, it seems absolutely clear that a heavily No-voting section of the population has been over-represented in ICM's sample by several percentage points, meaning that even the wafer-thin 3% No lead in the headline numbers may be exaggerated.
* * *
Note : I've updated this post with the exact census figures for over-16s, as provided by Scottish Skier in the comments section below. SS also estimates that the No lead in the ICM poll would be just 1% if weighting by country of birth had taken place.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Recalculating the Poll of Polls and long-term trend figures with Angus Reid excluded
First things first - Survation have released the datasets for yesterday's referendum poll, and they show that on the unrounded figures (or rather the figures rounded to one decimal place), the No lead has indeed fallen to the lowest level that the firm has reported so far -
In the referendum, voters will be asked, "Should Scotland be an independent country?" If this referendum were held today, do you think you would vote Yes or No?
Yes 38.4% (+1.4)
No 46.1% (-1.1)
With Don't Knows excluded, the position is -
Yes 45.4% (+1.5)
No 54.6% (-1.5)
The headline No lead now stands at 7.7%, compared to 8.9% in February, 8.3% in March, and 10.2% earlier this month. So the idea that is being put around that Survation have failed to show any tightening of the lead in recent weeks is a touch misleading. It's true that the changes since February could very conceivably be normal margin of error variation (although that is emphatically not the case in respect of the changes since the Survation poll conducted in January), but in my view it's always significant when a poll produces figures that are outside the range we've seen before, as this new poll has done. It could indicate a tightening of the lead, but even if it doesn't, it would instead indicate that the 'static' position is a touch better for Yes than we previously realised. When taken in combination with the sensational ICM poll that was conducted at the same time, I'd suggest a genuine tightening of the lead is the more probable scenario in this case.
After a recent poll from another firm, Calum Findlay pointed out the proportion of Yes voters who had voted SNP in 2011, which I think is quite an interesting way of looking at things. In this poll, only 231 of the 374 respondents who said they were voting Yes were SNP voters in 2011. That's significantly fewer than two-thirds. It's sometimes said that "if Yes are to have ANY chance of winning, they'll have to extend their coalition of support EVEN BEYOND the HUGE numbers who voted SNP in 2011", as if that's the hardest thing in the world to do, but we can see from these figures that Yes have already done just that. If they had also claimed the allegiance of everyone who actually did vote SNP three years ago, they'd effectively already have the referendum sewn up - but, alas, it doesn't work like that. We're talking about two very different coalitions of support.
A few other interesting nuggets -
* The No lead is a touch on the high side among 16-24 year old voters, who as usual have been massively upweighted (from 62 real people to 121 'virtual' respondents). So if Yes are being underestimated among the young due to normal sampling variation, that could be slightly distorting the overall headline figures in a No-friendly direction.
* A healthy 26.2% of people who voted Labour in 2011, and 18.6% of people who voted Liberal Democrat, are planning to vote in favour of independence. Those figures rise to 31.3% and 19.3% respectively when Don't Knows are excluded.
* Of the very small number of people in Scotland who are planning to vote UKIP at the next Westminster general election, more than a third are also planning to vote Yes to independence in September. Does Nigel Farage really want this kind of riff-raff inside his tent?
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
When I started the Poll of Polls a few months ago, I always knew that the list of pollsters represented in the sample would not remain static. I expected that new firms would enter the fray (as has happened with Survation), but what I didn't really anticipate was that any firms would effectively drop out. That appears to be what has happened with the Canadian firm Angus Reid, who haven't conducted a poll since August. Until now, I've left their most recent poll in the sample in the hope that they might pop up again and make things simpler for me, but it's getting to the point where this is having a significantly distorting effect on the median average. So the time has come to remove Angus Reid (although you can guarantee that now I've done this they'll be bound to produce a new poll next week!).
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.8%
No 47.2%
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.1%
No 56.9%
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.4%
No 56.6%
(The Poll of Polls is now 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.)
I'm hugely indebted to Ivan McKee of Business for Scotland who retrospectively recalculated the Poll of Polls without Angus Reid all the way back to September, and sent me his table. So it will still be possible to chart the long-term trend, which now looks even more dramatic.
The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls headline figures (past updates recalculated to exclude Angus Reid) :
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%
In case you're wondering, the final update introduces the Easter polls from ICM and Survation in one go. And it must be admitted that Survation's entry into proceedings in late January does distort the trend slightly, because they started out with an extremely No-friendly methodology in their first poll, and then introduced a methodology much closer to ICM and Panelbase from their second poll onwards.
Finally, here is Scott Hamilton's updated graph for the extrapolated trend after the Easter polls. This uses a completely different method - it's based on a rolling average of the last eight polls to be published, rather than the most recent poll from each firm.
In the referendum, voters will be asked, "Should Scotland be an independent country?" If this referendum were held today, do you think you would vote Yes or No?
Yes 38.4% (+1.4)
No 46.1% (-1.1)
With Don't Knows excluded, the position is -
Yes 45.4% (+1.5)
No 54.6% (-1.5)
The headline No lead now stands at 7.7%, compared to 8.9% in February, 8.3% in March, and 10.2% earlier this month. So the idea that is being put around that Survation have failed to show any tightening of the lead in recent weeks is a touch misleading. It's true that the changes since February could very conceivably be normal margin of error variation (although that is emphatically not the case in respect of the changes since the Survation poll conducted in January), but in my view it's always significant when a poll produces figures that are outside the range we've seen before, as this new poll has done. It could indicate a tightening of the lead, but even if it doesn't, it would instead indicate that the 'static' position is a touch better for Yes than we previously realised. When taken in combination with the sensational ICM poll that was conducted at the same time, I'd suggest a genuine tightening of the lead is the more probable scenario in this case.
After a recent poll from another firm, Calum Findlay pointed out the proportion of Yes voters who had voted SNP in 2011, which I think is quite an interesting way of looking at things. In this poll, only 231 of the 374 respondents who said they were voting Yes were SNP voters in 2011. That's significantly fewer than two-thirds. It's sometimes said that "if Yes are to have ANY chance of winning, they'll have to extend their coalition of support EVEN BEYOND the HUGE numbers who voted SNP in 2011", as if that's the hardest thing in the world to do, but we can see from these figures that Yes have already done just that. If they had also claimed the allegiance of everyone who actually did vote SNP three years ago, they'd effectively already have the referendum sewn up - but, alas, it doesn't work like that. We're talking about two very different coalitions of support.
A few other interesting nuggets -
* The No lead is a touch on the high side among 16-24 year old voters, who as usual have been massively upweighted (from 62 real people to 121 'virtual' respondents). So if Yes are being underestimated among the young due to normal sampling variation, that could be slightly distorting the overall headline figures in a No-friendly direction.
* A healthy 26.2% of people who voted Labour in 2011, and 18.6% of people who voted Liberal Democrat, are planning to vote in favour of independence. Those figures rise to 31.3% and 19.3% respectively when Don't Knows are excluded.
* Of the very small number of people in Scotland who are planning to vote UKIP at the next Westminster general election, more than a third are also planning to vote Yes to independence in September. Does Nigel Farage really want this kind of riff-raff inside his tent?
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
When I started the Poll of Polls a few months ago, I always knew that the list of pollsters represented in the sample would not remain static. I expected that new firms would enter the fray (as has happened with Survation), but what I didn't really anticipate was that any firms would effectively drop out. That appears to be what has happened with the Canadian firm Angus Reid, who haven't conducted a poll since August. Until now, I've left their most recent poll in the sample in the hope that they might pop up again and make things simpler for me, but it's getting to the point where this is having a significantly distorting effect on the median average. So the time has come to remove Angus Reid (although you can guarantee that now I've done this they'll be bound to produce a new poll next week!).
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.8%
No 47.2%
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.1%
No 56.9%
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.4%
No 56.6%
(The Poll of Polls is now 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.)
I'm hugely indebted to Ivan McKee of Business for Scotland who retrospectively recalculated the Poll of Polls without Angus Reid all the way back to September, and sent me his table. So it will still be possible to chart the long-term trend, which now looks even more dramatic.
The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls headline figures (past updates recalculated to exclude Angus Reid) :
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%
In case you're wondering, the final update introduces the Easter polls from ICM and Survation in one go. And it must be admitted that Survation's entry into proceedings in late January does distort the trend slightly, because they started out with an extremely No-friendly methodology in their first poll, and then introduced a methodology much closer to ICM and Panelbase from their second poll onwards.
Finally, here is Scott Hamilton's updated graph for the extrapolated trend after the Easter polls. This uses a completely different method - it's based on a rolling average of the last eight polls to be published, rather than the most recent poll from each firm.
(Click to enlarge.)
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Landmark Survation poll confirms that pro-independence campaign have closed the gap to lowest level so far
As it's Easter Sunday, I'll just keep this brief and give you the figures -
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 38% (+1)
No 46% (-1)
On these rounded numbers, the No lead of 8% is 1% lower than the previous record low reported by Survation. However, in the last-but-one poll from the firm, the No lead on the unrounded figures was 8.3%, so it remains to be seen whether this poll will represent a record low on that measure as well (unless the unrounded figures have already been published and I can't find them!).
With Don't Knows excluded, the position is -
Yes 45% (+1)
No 55% (-1)
I see John Curtice is again peddling the line that these numbers are consistent with a static picture over the most recent period. That may be true, but with the Survation poll having been conducted at the same time as the ICM one, and with both showing a reduction in the No lead (to what may well be a new low for the campaign in both cases), the likelihood is that the Yes camp have indeed made further progress - albeit the jury is still out on the scale of that progress.
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
For the second time in less than twelve hours, I'm delighted to report that the No lead has slipped to yet another all-time low in the Poll of Polls!
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.6% (+0.2)
No 47.1% (-0.2)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.0% (+0.2)
No 57.0% (-0.2)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 42.0% (n/c)
No 58.0% (n/c)
(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, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are seven - YouGov, TNS-BMRB, Angus Reid, 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 updated long-term trend figures -
The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls headline figures :
Sep 2013 - 20.2%
Sep 2013 - 20.0%
Sep 2013 - 18.4%
Oct 2013 - 17.9%
Oct 2013 - 17.5%
Oct 2013 - 17.4%
Nov 2013 - 17.5%
Dec 2013 - 17.1%
Dec 2013 - 16.3%
Dec 2013 - 16.2%
Dec 2013 - 15.8%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.7%
Feb 2014 - 15.1%
Feb 2014 - 13.6%
Feb 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 13.6%
Mar 2014 - 12.9%
Mar 2014 - 13.0%
Mar 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.6%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 11.9%
Apr 2014 - 11.5%
And the updated averages for the four online pollsters that have reported so far this year -
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 38.5% (+0.2)
No 46.3% (-0.2)
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.4% (+0.2)
No 54.6% (-0.2)
MEDIAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 46.1% (+0.5)
No 53.9% (-0.5)
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 38% (+1)
No 46% (-1)
On these rounded numbers, the No lead of 8% is 1% lower than the previous record low reported by Survation. However, in the last-but-one poll from the firm, the No lead on the unrounded figures was 8.3%, so it remains to be seen whether this poll will represent a record low on that measure as well (unless the unrounded figures have already been published and I can't find them!).
With Don't Knows excluded, the position is -
Yes 45% (+1)
No 55% (-1)
I see John Curtice is again peddling the line that these numbers are consistent with a static picture over the most recent period. That may be true, but with the Survation poll having been conducted at the same time as the ICM one, and with both showing a reduction in the No lead (to what may well be a new low for the campaign in both cases), the likelihood is that the Yes camp have indeed made further progress - albeit the jury is still out on the scale of that progress.
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
For the second time in less than twelve hours, I'm delighted to report that the No lead has slipped to yet another all-time low in the Poll of Polls!
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.6% (+0.2)
No 47.1% (-0.2)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 43.0% (+0.2)
No 57.0% (-0.2)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 42.0% (n/c)
No 58.0% (n/c)
(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, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are seven - YouGov, TNS-BMRB, Angus Reid, 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 updated long-term trend figures -
The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls headline figures :
Sep 2013 - 20.2%
Sep 2013 - 20.0%
Sep 2013 - 18.4%
Oct 2013 - 17.9%
Oct 2013 - 17.5%
Oct 2013 - 17.4%
Nov 2013 - 17.5%
Dec 2013 - 17.1%
Dec 2013 - 16.3%
Dec 2013 - 16.2%
Dec 2013 - 15.8%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.7%
Feb 2014 - 15.1%
Feb 2014 - 13.6%
Feb 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 13.6%
Mar 2014 - 12.9%
Mar 2014 - 13.0%
Mar 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.6%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 11.9%
Apr 2014 - 11.5%
And the updated averages for the four online pollsters that have reported so far this year -
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 38.5% (+0.2)
No 46.3% (-0.2)
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.4% (+0.2)
No 54.6% (-0.2)
MEDIAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 46.1% (+0.5)
No 53.9% (-0.5)
Independence rises this Easter, as Yes campaign close the gap to just 3% in earth-shaking new poll from "gold standard" ICM
Santa was rather kind to us by delivering a swing to Yes in the last batch of polls before Christmas, and I'm delighted to say that the Easter Bunny hasn't let the side down either. Actually, that's putting it mildly. ICM are regarded by some commentators as the UK's "gold standard" polling organisation, and their Easter Sunday poll reveals that the pro-independence campaign are now within a hair's breadth of victory...
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 39% (n/c)
No 42% (-4)
With Don't Knows excluded, the position is -
Yes 48% (+3)
No 52% (-3)
These astonishing numbers drive a stake through the heart of the cherished belief of the No campaign that Panelbase are some kind of outlier with their relatively Yes-friendly results - although in truth several ICM and Survation polls earlier this year ought to have already done the trick. Apart from one Panelbase poll conducted last August that used an unusual question sequence, this is the very first poll of the campaign that constitutes what the Americans call a "statistical tie", meaning that even if the figures are accurate to within the standard margin of error, there is still a greater than 5% chance that the side that appears to be slightly behind is actually ahead.
Although the last few polls from Panelbase, Survation and TNS-BMRB have been generally very encouraging for the Yes campaign, the fly in the ointment (which John Curtice was all too eager to point out) was that the results were consistent with Yes consolidating their gains from the winter, but not actually generating any further momentum. This poll is admittedly not conclusive proof that more gains have been made in recent weeks, but it certainly points powerfully in that direction. And it's not simply that there has been a significant 4% decrease in the No lead since last month's poll from ICM. More tellingly, the gap has narrowed by an extraordinary 14% since ICM's first contribution to the campaign last September. If there was ever any such thing as an ICM "normal range" for the No lead, this poll is so far below it that it's almost impossible to believe that what we're seeing tonight is a statistical illusion.
Other than the wafer-thin gap between the two sides, the other thing that leaps out immediately from the headline numbers is the No campaign's unbelievably low share of the vote. The only other pollster that has ever placed No as low as 42% is TNS-BMRB - but of course that generally happens because TNS report a much higher number of undecided voters than other firms. Blair McDougall and co have no such alibi in this case.
ICM have also provided a fascinating breakdown of voting intention numbers by country of birth. Ipsos-Mori have done that in the past, but as you can probably guess the results could hardly be more different. Yes are now in the lead by 42% to 40% among Scottish-born respondents, and contrary to the impression given by Scotland on Sunday's analysis, that finding can be regarded as being more or less statistically credible. Because Scottish-born people make up the lion's share of the overall sample, the margin of error isn't all that much greater when you separate them out.
Strangely enough, though, what I find particularly exciting is the position among English-born respondents. A margin of 58% to 28% in favour of No might look like a handsome lead, but it's actually stonkingly good for Yes among a group of voters that have sometimes been lazily assumed to be a lost cause. It means, for example, that Yes are faring far better with English voters than the pro-sovereignty campaign in Quebec did among non-francophone voters back in 1995. That could make all the difference in a tight contest. Admittedly, though, there is a health warning on these numbers, because the sample size for English-born respondents is indeed very small.
A few eyebrows have been raised over the fact that 15% of ICM's sample are English-born, even though the 2011 census shows that just 9% of the population of Scotland fall into that category. It goes without saying that if English voters are being over-represented in the sample, then the headline numbers should be even better for Yes than they already are. But could there be a logical explanation for the discrepancy? If such an explanation exists, it seems to me that it would have to be a combination of two factors. Firstly, the census figures include children, and it's likely that the share of the over-16 population who hail from south of the border is slightly higher. Secondly, ICM may have reason to believe that a greater number of English people have moved here in the three years since the census was conducted. But for what it's worth, my own guess (and it is only a guess) is that the 15% figure is probably a bit too high. If so, we know that both YouGov and Ipsos-Mori have been making exactly the same mistake in at least some of their polls.
ICM's Martin Boon has penned a rather confusing article in Scotland on Sunday, which could (I only say could) be cynically interpreted as him saying that his company have been actively searching for reasons why they may have been overstating the Yes vote, and have introduced a methodological change in this poll to try to 'redress' the situation. But if I understand the slightly ambiguous explanation of the new procedures correctly, then it's not at all obvious to me that they would actually have the effect of decreasing the reported Yes vote. Perhaps things will become clearer when the datasets are published.
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
Unsurprisingly, this update of the Poll of Polls sees the No campaign's lead tumble to yet another new record low - it's now below 12% for the first time ever. With undecided voters excluded, the Yes vote now stands at a new high watermark of 42.8%.
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.4% (n/c)
No 47.3% (-0.6)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 42.8% (+0.3)
No 57.2% (-0.3)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 42.0% (n/c)
No 58.0% (n/c)
(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, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are seven - YouGov, TNS-BMRB, Angus Reid, 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.)
I was planning to finally bite the bullet and remove Angus Reid in this update (because they haven't reported for a ridiculously long time), but I'm too sleepy to break the mould tonight! However, the advantage of sticking to the familiar method one more time is that it underscores the long-term movement towards Yes...
The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls headline figures :
Sep 2013 - 20.2%
Sep 2013 - 20.0%
Sep 2013 - 18.4%
Oct 2013 - 17.9%
Oct 2013 - 17.5%
Oct 2013 - 17.4%
Nov 2013 - 17.5%
Dec 2013 - 17.1%
Dec 2013 - 16.3%
Dec 2013 - 16.2%
Dec 2013 - 15.8%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.7%
Feb 2014 - 15.1%
Feb 2014 - 13.6%
Feb 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 13.6%
Mar 2014 - 12.9%
Mar 2014 - 13.0%
Mar 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.6%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 11.9%
Last but not least, because ICM are an online pollster (at least for the purposes of the referendum), we have the updated averages for the four online pollsters that have reported so far this year. These figures do exclude Angus Reid.
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 38.3% (n/c)
No 46.5% (-1.0)
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.2% (+0.6)
No 54.8% (-0.6)
MEDIAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.6% (+0.6)
No 54.4% (-0.6)
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 39% (n/c)
No 42% (-4)
With Don't Knows excluded, the position is -
Yes 48% (+3)
No 52% (-3)
These astonishing numbers drive a stake through the heart of the cherished belief of the No campaign that Panelbase are some kind of outlier with their relatively Yes-friendly results - although in truth several ICM and Survation polls earlier this year ought to have already done the trick. Apart from one Panelbase poll conducted last August that used an unusual question sequence, this is the very first poll of the campaign that constitutes what the Americans call a "statistical tie", meaning that even if the figures are accurate to within the standard margin of error, there is still a greater than 5% chance that the side that appears to be slightly behind is actually ahead.
Although the last few polls from Panelbase, Survation and TNS-BMRB have been generally very encouraging for the Yes campaign, the fly in the ointment (which John Curtice was all too eager to point out) was that the results were consistent with Yes consolidating their gains from the winter, but not actually generating any further momentum. This poll is admittedly not conclusive proof that more gains have been made in recent weeks, but it certainly points powerfully in that direction. And it's not simply that there has been a significant 4% decrease in the No lead since last month's poll from ICM. More tellingly, the gap has narrowed by an extraordinary 14% since ICM's first contribution to the campaign last September. If there was ever any such thing as an ICM "normal range" for the No lead, this poll is so far below it that it's almost impossible to believe that what we're seeing tonight is a statistical illusion.
Other than the wafer-thin gap between the two sides, the other thing that leaps out immediately from the headline numbers is the No campaign's unbelievably low share of the vote. The only other pollster that has ever placed No as low as 42% is TNS-BMRB - but of course that generally happens because TNS report a much higher number of undecided voters than other firms. Blair McDougall and co have no such alibi in this case.
ICM have also provided a fascinating breakdown of voting intention numbers by country of birth. Ipsos-Mori have done that in the past, but as you can probably guess the results could hardly be more different. Yes are now in the lead by 42% to 40% among Scottish-born respondents, and contrary to the impression given by Scotland on Sunday's analysis, that finding can be regarded as being more or less statistically credible. Because Scottish-born people make up the lion's share of the overall sample, the margin of error isn't all that much greater when you separate them out.
Strangely enough, though, what I find particularly exciting is the position among English-born respondents. A margin of 58% to 28% in favour of No might look like a handsome lead, but it's actually stonkingly good for Yes among a group of voters that have sometimes been lazily assumed to be a lost cause. It means, for example, that Yes are faring far better with English voters than the pro-sovereignty campaign in Quebec did among non-francophone voters back in 1995. That could make all the difference in a tight contest. Admittedly, though, there is a health warning on these numbers, because the sample size for English-born respondents is indeed very small.
A few eyebrows have been raised over the fact that 15% of ICM's sample are English-born, even though the 2011 census shows that just 9% of the population of Scotland fall into that category. It goes without saying that if English voters are being over-represented in the sample, then the headline numbers should be even better for Yes than they already are. But could there be a logical explanation for the discrepancy? If such an explanation exists, it seems to me that it would have to be a combination of two factors. Firstly, the census figures include children, and it's likely that the share of the over-16 population who hail from south of the border is slightly higher. Secondly, ICM may have reason to believe that a greater number of English people have moved here in the three years since the census was conducted. But for what it's worth, my own guess (and it is only a guess) is that the 15% figure is probably a bit too high. If so, we know that both YouGov and Ipsos-Mori have been making exactly the same mistake in at least some of their polls.
ICM's Martin Boon has penned a rather confusing article in Scotland on Sunday, which could (I only say could) be cynically interpreted as him saying that his company have been actively searching for reasons why they may have been overstating the Yes vote, and have introduced a methodological change in this poll to try to 'redress' the situation. But if I understand the slightly ambiguous explanation of the new procedures correctly, then it's not at all obvious to me that they would actually have the effect of decreasing the reported Yes vote. Perhaps things will become clearer when the datasets are published.
* * *
SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
Unsurprisingly, this update of the Poll of Polls sees the No campaign's lead tumble to yet another new record low - it's now below 12% for the first time ever. With undecided voters excluded, the Yes vote now stands at a new high watermark of 42.8%.
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 35.4% (n/c)
No 47.3% (-0.6)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 42.8% (+0.3)
No 57.2% (-0.3)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 42.0% (n/c)
No 58.0% (n/c)
(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, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are seven - YouGov, TNS-BMRB, Angus Reid, 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.)
I was planning to finally bite the bullet and remove Angus Reid in this update (because they haven't reported for a ridiculously long time), but I'm too sleepy to break the mould tonight! However, the advantage of sticking to the familiar method one more time is that it underscores the long-term movement towards Yes...
The No campaign's lead in the Poll of Polls headline figures :
Sep 2013 - 20.2%
Sep 2013 - 20.0%
Sep 2013 - 18.4%
Oct 2013 - 17.9%
Oct 2013 - 17.5%
Oct 2013 - 17.4%
Nov 2013 - 17.5%
Dec 2013 - 17.1%
Dec 2013 - 16.3%
Dec 2013 - 16.2%
Dec 2013 - 15.8%
Jan 2014 - 14.2%
Jan 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.8%
Feb 2014 - 14.7%
Feb 2014 - 15.1%
Feb 2014 - 13.6%
Feb 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.0%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 14.3%
Mar 2014 - 13.6%
Mar 2014 - 12.9%
Mar 2014 - 13.0%
Mar 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 12.6%
Apr 2014 - 12.7%
Apr 2014 - 12.5%
Apr 2014 - 11.9%
Last but not least, because ICM are an online pollster (at least for the purposes of the referendum), we have the updated averages for the four online pollsters that have reported so far this year. These figures do exclude Angus Reid.
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 38.3% (n/c)
No 46.5% (-1.0)
MEAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.2% (+0.6)
No 54.8% (-0.6)
MEDIAN AVERAGE OF ONLINE POLLSTERS (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 45.6% (+0.6)
No 54.4% (-0.6)
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