A reminder of how it works
Posted on
September 02, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There’s something subtly different about the wording of these two Scotsman headlines.
Well, not very subtle. Can you spot it, readers? Tell us your answers in the comments.
If you need a clue, here you go:
The lack of a specific polling company in the second one makes it sound like a universal truth, rather than just the result of one poll. Putting the 59% in as well makes it seem more definitive. Oh, and let’s not forget the use of the term “hardens up” rather than simply “ahead”.
Hmmm….Nope…Can’t see it…But it does seem similar to the STV wording that’s being pointed out on Twitter as well…
No, no. We’re just being paranoid people. Stand down!
Doh!
Which one went out in the (ever diminishing) print edition though?
Is it because we must be stupid, stupid, stupid?
Vote – definite, actual, real, going to happen
Poll – indeterminate, possibly, opinion, maybe
The first headline does not give you any percentage but the second one gives you a massive 59%. The second headline(anti indy) is more effective!
Actually, there is something (relatively) subtle. The first, by mentioning Panelbase, implies a one-off, freak event by an organisation (you know, that ‘dodgy’ one), whereas the second, is, of course, a statement of fact….
Doug nailed it straight off. One is reported almost as a curio, leading with a qualifier that suggests “Hmm, this is probably a freak or something”, while the other is presented as a solid fact.
Jinx!
In fact the “No” vote has NOT gone up to 59%, as that would then leave the remaining 41% to be split between the “Yes” and the “Don’t Know”… Methinks they have done a couple of things here;
a) Lumped in the “Don’t Knows” with the “No” crowd.
2) Ignored the poll in the first place and are trying desperately to somehow manufacture rejection of this excellent opportunity.
Doug is correct.
These word games are a sign of immature student politicians. I was one many years ago.
I grew up !
Hail Alba
I’m just stunned they put it out there it at all to be honest.
The first one wouldn’t look strange with a question mark at the end. Deliberately worded this way?
State TV website : Any body know of this guy ???
THE Scots journalist, John Mullin, who was most recently editor of The Independent on Sunday, has been appointed to lead the BBC’s coverage of the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence.
A former deputy editor of The Scotsman, Mullin has been named ‘referendum editor’ and follows an announcement in May that the BBC was planning to devote significant resources to coverage of both the Commonwealth Games and the referendum.
Oh! and my answer is :
One is reported almost as a curio, leading with a qualifier that suggests while the other is presented as a solid fact.
Slightly confused, Rev. – the SNP press release says: It was sampled between 23-28 August, among 1,043 people aged 18 and over in Scotland.”
While the Courier has: Out of a sample of 908 people aged 18 and over in Scotland…”
Any idea what’s up with that?
They could have saved paper/line space by combining the articles with a suitable headline:
THE 59% NO THAT WE WISHFULLY THOUGHT WAS “HARDENING UP” IS ACTUALLY DISAPPEARING LIKE SNAW AFF A DYKE.
Still nothing on State TV website regarding YES lead in Panelbase poll – 11.30am
“While the Courier has: Out of a sample of 908 people aged 18 and over in Scotland…”
Any idea what’s up with that?”
Nope. Will have to see the full tables.
“Still nothing on State TV website regarding YES lead in Panelbase poll – 11.30am”
In fairness, I had a quick look and couldn’t find anything about the YouGov/DevoPlus poll on the BBC site either.
Luigi says:
Too honest for hootsman
Meanwhile the BBC appoint John Mullin as Referendum Editor. I’ll keep an open mind, for the moment.
The 908 sample size comes from Panelbase routinely discarding certain “categories” as part of their methodology – it’s in the SNP press release..
Re the figures 908 etc @RogerMexico explains on the last article.
See end of press release on SNP website for explanation of sample size. It’s to do with likelihood that respondents will vote I think – using standard Panelbase method.
An Duine Gruamach
the 908 are people who will definitely or are most likely to vote. People who said they wouldn’t vote were discounted from the totals, hence why the courier only states 908.
Soctttish independence : ‘No’ polling figures unchanged, ‘Yes’ numbers increasing
John Mullin’s witness statement Leveson Inquiry. Worth a read.
link to levesoninquiry.org.uk
Re John Mullin, here his Wikipedia page, seems he’s been away from the Independent on Sunday since April, I’d be interested to know who else they ‘boarded’ (BBC speak for interview).
Anyone know?
link to en.wikipedia.org)
Yes: 44% (+7)
No: 43% (-3)
Don’t Know: 13% (-4)
So it appears that we are taking votes from the soft NO vote and also the Don’t Knows. Still over a year to go. This has put a fair spring in my step.
Rev : But it is on ‘non state’ broadcaster site ? Does this tell us something ?
And just for reinforcement: http://wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/snppoll.jpg
Yup, John Mullin was depute editor of the Scotsman under Andrew Neil’s tenure. Another London-based Scot journo being parachuted into the referendum by the BBC.
Even better read on (from NNS)
A detailed breakdown of the poll shows that 24 per cent of people who voted Labour in the Scottish Parliament constituency vote in 2011 intend to vote Yes in 2014. It also reveals that among women aged 35-54, Yes leads No by 45 per cent to 41 per cent.
Yah beauty .. . now that is encouraging.
“Even better read on (from NNS)… among women aged 35-54, Yes leads No by 45 per cent to 41 per cent.”
Some of us were tweeting that at 9am, of course.
link to twitter.com
@Dcanmore
And someone with zilch broadcasting experience, and on their all singing and dancing referendum team I hear Mr Naughtie will be on the airwaves, here in Scotland, on Thursdays and Fridays, as I thought, in and around the weekend, makes perfect sense for someone who lives between London and Edinburgh.
Albalha says:
2 September, 2013 at 11:52 am
@Dcanmore
Hey: What did we really expect of the BBC (State owned propaganda machine)
At least it appears the impartiality will continue … better the devil you know !!
Every freedom movement has come up against this, YES just needs to be very clever how this is countered.
Just took these two question from the poll of the SNP website.
Stu have you any observations… the poll virtually asked two similar question but got two completely different results.
Is it that many people would vote for freedom from Westmidden as long as its not called independence?
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes: 44% (+7)
No: 43% (-3)
Don’t Know: 13% (-4)
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: ‘Scotland could be a successful independent country’.
Yes, I agree: 52%
No, I disagree: 37%
Don’t Know: 11%
If the YES campaign are convincing both Labour voters and also women then that is a game changer. No doubt about that.
John Mullen on the Levesen Inquiry… John Mullin, editor of the Independent On Sunday, put it like this: “Once you cross the rubicon of the Government effectively governing the people who are holding the government to account, that becomes a very awkward and difficult situation.
“The real freedom to criticise and to have a go at the Government, and hold the Government to account is really under pressure then.”
link to news.sky.com
I wonder if he will stand by these words in his new BBC role?
If there was a referendum tomorrow on Scotland leaving the
United Kingdom and becoming an Independent Country and
this was the question, how would you vote? Should Scotland
be an independent country?
Erm, Yougov, the referendum is not tomorrow, it’s next year and there’s no immediate plans to end the UK. Lizzie will still be queen.
Yougov asked Westminster VI and Holyrood. They also didn’t report what they found once weighted.
Wonder why.
Roll_On_2014 – it means 8% of people know fine well that Scotland is capable of being independent, but for some inexplicable reason 6% would rather vote No anyway, and another 2% are wavering.
Oh dear what a dirty mind I have!
I was looking at the Scotsman’s NO headline and thinking ‘sexual prowess’
Alba4Eva says:
2 September, 2013 at 12:01 pm
John Mullen / I wonder if he will stand by these words in his new BBC role?
Would you concur that he was talking about the real ‘Govt’ and not the Scottish Executive thingy?? Don’t hold yer breath he’s likely to be another BBC stalwart in time. I fear he will hold the Union Line.
Yougov appears to have been weighted to Westminster 2010. Not sure that’s the brightest idea. Looks to have resulted in significant downweighting of respondents saying SNP.
I may try some back calculation as see what this does.
“Yougov appears to have been weighted to Westminster 2010.”
Conversed on Twitter this morning with a chap claiming to have been involved in the poll’s commissioning who claimed it was CURRENT Westminster VI.
I’m certainly not holding my breath Gordoz regarding anything BBC’esque.
Press Gazette:
Former Independent on Sunday editor John Mullin has been appointed by the BBC as its referendum editor ahead of next year’s vote on Scottish independence.
Mullin, who will take up his new role next week and report to BBC Scotland’s head of news John Boothman, left the Independent on Sunday in February this year.
Mullin was deputy editor of The Scotsman from 2000 to 2003, before moving to The Independent as executive editor for The Independent from 2003 to 2007 before becoming becoming deputy editor and later editor of its Sunday sister paper.
Mullin said: “This is going to be a historic year for Scotland and I’m delighted to be taking up this new role at the BBC. I’m really looking forward to working with some of the best journalists in the business and I can’t wait to get cracking.”
Boothman described Mullin as “a talented editor” and added: “I am confident that our coverage of this momentous event in Scotland’s history will be world class.”
So, Boothman’s sidekick/enforcer; or will Mullin be his own man? The only dealing I ever had with John Mullin was to do with a complaint against the then-editor of the Scotsman. Mullin (then deputy-editor) wrote and published (on the leader page) a comprehensive and direct apology, which the Private Eye reported as being the most full and honest mea culpa apology ever published in the UK. The editor was sacked (by Neil) a few days later…So maybe/hopefully not a Yes man for the ‘No’s….
@beachthistle
Who knows, but given he’s never worked in TV/Radio that puts him at an immediate disadvantage, I’d have thought.
Would a newspaper appoint someone, who’d never worked in print, to head up an important political campaign?
It would appear that the Scotsman are deliberately blocking people from logging in to post comments on this story.
25% of Labour voters intend to vote YES. Anybody wonder why Labour For Independence has been smeared by BT and the MSM?
Labour voters will swing the YES vote. Important not to criticise labour voters in general but to have considerate dialogue with them. They have been let down by Westminster the same as us. Some are still in denial but are saveable.
BBC in Scotland – ‘world class coverage’ LOL .. Not sure how they will manage to look completely pathetic and useless as per their usual standards and somehow also be world class. World class ******** more like.
Scottish_Skier
“If there was a referendum tomorrow on Scotland leaving the
United Kingdom and becoming an Independent Country and this was the question, how would you vote? Should Scotland be an independent country?”
“Erm, Yougov, the referendum is not tomorrow, it’s next year and there’s no immediate plans to end the UK. Lizzie will still be queen.”
Yes indeed. That is something that has always struck me. What bearing does ‘tomorrow’ have on how people will vote a year from now?
Also; There’s the psychological element. Substituting ‘Tomorrow’ for Sept’, 2014, can bring about a negative response. Spring an important, must answer now, decision on some-one at short notice, without giving them time to think about it, and see how they react.
If anybody doubted it before, then I think that we can now say with certainty that we know why unionists, especially the media do not like panel base polls!
Does it matter anymore what the BBC report? I would say it doesn’t anymore. The message is spreading REGARDLESS of their anti-scotland stance.
They will hate it and we love it.
Long may it continue. As the circulation numbers show, a very small % of people read the papers and they don’t believe the BBC.
So, a grassroots campaign, leaflet, canvassing, visible presence at local events goes a long way, we are always there, a leaflet in your house etc extoiling the virtues of an indy scotland….they are on for half an hour in someones house. It’s a no contest.
Will John Mullins lift the ban on commenting at BBC Scotland?
That will be the first big test of the BBC’s new referendum editor. Failing to lift the ban will mean Mullins has failed at the first hurdle.
Conversed on Twitter this morning with a chap claiming to have been involved in the poll’s commissioning who claimed it was CURRENT Westminster VI.
Then they need to re-issue the tables showing the weighted outcome for this, i.e. weighted (currently not reported, just ‘X’s) and unweighted (reported) Westminster VI . All that’s shown is weighted and unweighted for 2010 vote which strongly implies that’s what was used in terms of the ‘political party’ aspect of weighting.
Note if assume Yougov are correct in number of SNP supporters for indy, number of labour for indy and do a quick re-weight of raw sample data based on Holyrood VI quickly I get:
Yes 37%
No 47%
Look familiar? Bit like Angus Reid or panelbase…
And just a sec. How the fcuk do you weight on current Westminster VI? You can only weight on a previous result! You don’t know what current VI actually is! You’d have to take everyone else’s results, average them and use that.
ronald alexander mcdonald says:
2 September, 2013 at 12:31 pm
25% of Labour voters intend to vote YES. Anybody wonder why Labour For Independence has been smeared by BT and the MSM?
Labour voters will swing the YES vote. Important not to criticise labour voters in general but to have considerate dialogue with them. They have been let down by Westminster the same as us. Some are still in denial but are saveable.
Fair point .. but, its still hard not to, given the history & all.
“It would appear that the Scotsman are deliberately blocking people from logging in to post comments on this story.”
Every time you go into the Scotsman site it brings them much needed revenue from advertisers, which in turn pays for next week’s anti Scottish headlines.
It is newspapers like the Scotsman that help to perpetuate the Scottish cringe. Every time time you use these sites you’re helping keep the Scottish cringe alive by gaining financial transfusions for them because of the number of ‘hits’ on their comments sections.
There are more people read WOS than read the comments sections of these papers. Why not debunk their articles here, in the knowledge your comments will be seen by a far wider audience
You can’t just seize on one poll that confirms what you think and say that one’s right and the rest are wrong imo.
However, what you can do is look at the trends across different polling firms. And Panelbase are showing a clear trend towards Yes. And they’re the ones polling most regularly so most likely to pick up on changes.
This poll could be an outlier, but it’s starting to reflect what people on the ground are saying.
You can only weight on a previous result!
Just to expand here. You can only weight on a fixed reference point. What people voted in the last election is a fixed point. This can be for Holyrood or Westminster in Scotland. What you do is exactly what panelbase do; make sure the sample represents a group that voted in 2011 in a way close to what the result was.
You can do that for Westminster 2010, however you have an odd situation where people have two parties, e.g. SNP for Holyrood and Labour for Westminster. I’d be worried about what effect this might have. It will likely cause down weighting of people responding SNP. That appears to be the case consistently with Yougov, both in UK and Scotland polls. Better use Holyrood where the tactical vote (FPTP) effect should be non-existent or minimal as it’s PR-type. Furthermore, it is the most recent election so the most ‘up to date’ data and better for correct voter recall.
You can’t weight on current voting intention. How the hell do you know what that is? That’s what you are trying to work out in a poll. It’s like saying ‘We weighted the poll based on current Y/N intention to give you current Y/N intention’.
I read both sets but they all said the same thing
Scottish jounalistic integrity confirmed dead Shock! Horror!
@Albalha
Who knows, but given he’s never worked in TV/Radio that puts him at an immediate disadvantage, I’d have thought.
Would a newspaper appoint someone, who’d never worked in print, to head up an important political campaign?
Fair points – and Mullin’s background makes me think that Boothman’s plan will be to use him for the ‘unofficial’/invisible part of Boothman’s current role: being circus-master of the Scottish MSM, orchestrating headline loops, sending 3-line whip memos to pront-title editors/journos, generating heavy phone calls to rank-breaking hacks…hence my ‘enforcer’ suggestion.
If, on the other hand, Mullin is not to be Boothman’s sidekick, but actually be an active professional editor, ensuring balance and compliance with BBC charter, etc., he has good form re all of these, and of not being a corporate ‘yes-man’.
Whatever, he can’t be both. And it won’t take long to find out which one he is..
In the simplest terms, Yougov upped Labour respondents by 20% and downweighted SNP respondents by 20%. As these groups represent by far the two largest, the effect is very significant in terms of Y/N. Ups N by ~12% and puts Y down by ~8%.
I’ve done the same for previous polls from Yougov. If you re-weight them to Holyrood VI instead of Westminster VI you find they match panelbase.
Pity also that Yougov don’t show acutal respondent numbers. They only include % of totally certain to vote people.
@scottis_skier
“Yougov appears to have been weighted to Westminster 2010.”
Yougov have been doing that for years even though their CEO publicly admitted that that was the main reason for their discrepancy from other pollsters. They also use some other weightings which arguably double count effects. Doesn’t stop the SMSM headlining each eagerly awaited distortion though.
@Gillie
Will John Mullins lift the ban on commenting at BBC Scotland?
That will be the first big test of the BBC’s new referendum editor. Failing to lift the ban will mean Mullins has failed at the first hurdle.
A very good suggested indicator of whether JM is going to be a proper editor (which he has been in the past according to some journo pals) or Boothman’s enforcer. I’m going to get tweeting on it right away…
(and reminds me I haven’t had a reply yet from BBC why comments are open on BBC Scottish football articles but not news/politics ones.._
Weighting a poll by voting intention seems like the most bizarre thing in the world…
Still can’t understand the Lib Dem position. From what I can see from the tables, Lib Dems are even more against independence than are Labour voters – yet independence gives them just about everything they say they want. Does anybody know if Lib Dem voters have always been so strongly against independence (as opposed to the Home Rule they insist they support) or is their preference to remain in the UK something to do with having been in coalition government both at Holyrood in the past and currently at Westminster, that is to say, they very much see themselves as part of the establishment?
Also, am baffled at the sheer amount of people who seem to think that Scotland could not be a successful, independent country. Can anybody out there tell me what exactly you need in order to be a successful, independent country that Scotland does not already have? I’m directing that question to any undecideds who are reading this comment. What, specifically, is it we would need that we haven’t already got?
@scottish_skier;
Everything makes more sense now I’ve read the above posts. Cheers.
Do you think this anomaly with Yougov weighting is;
A. Unavoidable?
B. Accidental?
C. Deliberate?
@jeannie
Not, clearly, that I’m an undecided but I’d say people need ……
More self belief and better self esteem, without that they’re unlikely to project hope onto the idea of a future independent Scotland.
After all that’s what Project Fear is all about, tapping into people who, at a level, feel they and their lives are worthless.
That the power to change anything lies outwith their control.
scottish_skier says:
In the simplest terms, Yougov upped Labour respondents by 20% and downweighted SNP respondents by 20%. As these groups represent by far the two largest, the effect is very significant in terms of Y/N. Ups N by ~12% and puts Y down by ~8%.
What is the likely impact of weighting based on
respondents’ likelihood to vote?
Jeanie, “Lib Dems are even more against independence than are Labour voters”… I have never understood that either.
I’m afraid I’m quite cynical about the Mullin appointment: I’m not speculating about his inclination for balance and fairness. This referendum is the biggest single event in the political history of the British Isles since 1707, and if we win, that’s the end of the British State. In the event of a ‘No’ victory, I think there would only be a delay of a few years, but nevertheless, the British establishment in London are going to fight against it by all means possible. Ask yourself: would someone at all sympathetic to independence have been appointed? Moreover, he worked at the Scotsman under Andrew Neil, when it was owned by the batty right wing Britnat Barclay brothers (owners of The Telegraph), and he has Boothman’s endorsement.
Given the Lib Dems performance in Government I can’t be sure Lib Dems understand Lib Dems
Do you think this anomaly with Yougov weighting is;
They are using a method that works well in England (no devolved parliament obviously). I guess they haven’t felt it worth the money developing an alternative methodology for Scotland. They have gone for quantity and given up on quality as a sacrifice from what I see. If they felt there was money in Scots polls, they might change.
What is the likely impact of weighting based on
respondents’ likelihood to vote?
The table lack a lot of information, namely exact numbers of people who responded specific ways. This is standard practice for all pollsters but Yougov don’t do it. Therefore, we have no idea how many people out of the total sample actually said no. Likewise, we don’t have info on likelihood to vote either; Yougov doesn’t provide this and you can’t back-calculate. They really provide the bare minimum required by the BPC.
Here’s a remarkably accurate (if we believe panelbase) piece of forecasting by Arc of Prosperity (note date of post)
link to arcofprosperity.org
@Jeannie…
I think people might equate the country’s ‘success’ as per their own personal circumstances. Such as someone who thinks that they will not benefit or will be worse off with independence then they’ll say that Scotland won’t be successful. So with that, a pensioner may believe that Scotland won’t have the money to keep paying him/her the rate (or value) of the pension they receive at the moment. So I would say perhaps that people who don’t not think that Scotland will be a success are comfortable with their own economic fragility and they couldn’t bear the thought of being in a worse situation. It’s another facet of the fear factor.
The NO vote will consist of: those who fear for their personal circumstances; those who feel they won’t gain anything from independence but feel they will pay for it somehow; and those who are just British Nationalists. I doubt the ‘success’ of Scotland is a factor in their decision making and they’ve probably already made up their minds and make up the solid NO vote core of about 35-40%.
After the Referendum, I wonder if the No voters will hold the No politicians to account for all they have claimed, if there is a No decision, and will the No politicians take any notice if they do.
The Panelbase tables are now up on their website as well:
link to panelbase.com
Now the Rev was complaining about the question wording on the other poll, but what we have here I’m afraid is very poor question order.
Q1. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “Scotland could be a successful, independent country
Q2. Who do you trust to take the best decisions for Scotland: the Scottish Government or the Westminster Government?
Q3. There will be a referendum on an independent Scotland on the 18th of September 2014. How do you intend to vote in response to the question: Should Scotland be an independent country?
Q4. And how likely are you to vote in the referendum?
Assuming this is the order they were asked in (and the numbering and tables certainly make it look like that) this is completely the wrong way round[1]. Q1 and Q2 are effectively ‘priming’ the voter to reply ‘Yes’ to Q3 by invoking patriotism and support for a popular, competent Holyrood government (the YouGov poll shows them well ahead of Labour there).
If the ‘No’ campaign had done the same and put up a couple of scare question as Q1 and Q2, you’d all be the first to complain and rightly so.
The SNP have actually made a stupid mistake here by trying to be ‘clever’ and asking for such a leading order of questions because it has completely invalidated a poll that might have been useful for them even with a corrected question order. Now they will just look shifty and their opponents will use it to discredit previous Panelbase polls.
Panelbase should really have known better and gently pointed this out to their clients, though they are pretty inexperienced in political polling and it’s a different dynamic with commercial customers.
[1]A correct order would have been Q4 first (you usually ask likelihood of voting before you ask how), then Q3, Q2, Q1.
@albalha
but I’d say people need ……
More self belief and better self esteem, without that they’re unlikely to project hope onto the idea of a future independent Scotland.
After all that’s what Project Fear is all about, tapping into people who, at a level, feel they and their lives are worthless.
It’s strange, though – according to the tables you’re more likely to hold the belief that Scotland could not be a successful independent country if you vote Tory, Lib Dem, 2/3 Labour, some Green, you’re a young woman or an older woman a top-earner or a CI. Intuitively, you’d think that many in some of these categories – rich Tory, for example, would not be lacking in self-belief or suffer from low self-esteem (though I know fine well that’s not strictly the case). Poor women generally seem to agree on the whole that Scotland could be a successful, independent country, which seems counter-intuitive. Is it down to attribution, e.g. Scots who have done well in life attribute their success externally – to the UK, rather than internally – to their own efforts whereas poorer people have more faith in their own ability and that of their fellow citizens?
ll need to go away and think about this, but I’m now thinking that perhaps we need to define more clearly what we mean by the term “successful”. Yes Scotland has tried to do this, in terms of “fairer and more equal”, for example. But are people equating that with their own, personal definition of “successful”? Or does the word “successful” in terms of an independent Scotland have different meanings for different categories of voters? Might take a bit of unravelling.
Will have to have a lie-down – brain starting to hurt.
Assuming this is the order they were asked in (and the numbering and tables certainly make it look like that) this is completely the wrong way round[1]. Q1 and Q2 are effectively ‘priming’ the voter to reply ‘Yes’.
Would you do that yourself? I mean you plan to vote No, but the ordering of questions in a poll makes you change your mind and answer Yes?
I’d have thought the effect would, if any, be a % or two. The vast majority of people will answer as they see fit. There’s always a few who get confused though or are easily led.
I figured the higher Yes was because the question asked about what people would do in 1 year, not tomorrow (as commonly implied or as Yougov actually asked).
Roger Mexico says:
link to panelbase.com
Sure its not just the result that’s wrong ??
@jeannie
Clearly there will be top earning ToryLib Dem etc types that think an independent Scotland will be worse for them personally, maybe more tax etc and of course who’re wedded to the idea of the UK and all that entails.
But you say C1’s, and older women, that I reckon, could well be what I’m saying, real fear that it will be a disaster.
I’m only going on anecdotal evidence that some NO voters really feel they can do nothing to make things better and so it’s better staying with what you’ve got.
@dcanmore
Just read your post after posting my last one. Yes, the “what’s in it/not in it for me factor will also count. Some people will look at it from a macro- and others from a micro point of view. I’m just glad it’s not my job to figure it all out.
Roger, what kind of percentage difference do you think the order of the questions will make? Perhaps to a respondent who has not considered the referendum at all it could sway the outcome, but to anyone who has already started to take an interest it would seem unlikely that the order of questions will make any difference. I suppose the critical question is therefore how many who are currently uninterested are being asked? and how will that translate to the day of the referendum when, I suspect virtually everyone will be far better informed and there will be a nationwide ‘buzz’ about the whole thing.
On the flip side, most of the other polls ask how would you vote if the referendum was tomorrow. ith that question I’d imagine pretty much everyone who hasn’t so far taken an interest will say NO.
@albalha
I’m only going on anecdotal evidence that some NO voters really feel they can do nothing to make things better and so it’s better staying with what you’ve got.
Aw naw! Forgot to factor in optimists and pessimists as well – I’ll be here all day trying to work this one out 🙂
Would you do that yourself? I mean you plan to vote No, but the ordering of questions in a poll makes you change your mind and answer Yes?
To continue…
So all YesScotland have to do is do some adverts asking people if they think Scotland could be an independent country. Follow these on with some asking who people think is best to govern Scotland. Then top these with some asking how people will vote and finish up with some asking people how likely they are to vote. That’s it. Sorted. The electorate will move to yes and give a majority.
Hmmm. I give the electorate a lot of credit. I don’t think the vast majority are so naive as to be so easily led when polled. With 7 in 10 concluding there will be no more powers after a No vote, they’re clearly very clued up!
@ Roger Mexico
Q2. Who do you trust to take the best decisions for Scotland: the Scottish Government or the Westminster Government?
That isn’t a leading question. It is theoretically possible to answer Westminster.
It is also arguably sensible to leave the how likely to vote question till last, i.e. ask people what they think and then whether they care enough about the point to vote.
Have a concern troll award.
@jeannie
Always a few Cleggs in the ointment! Good luck.
Nearly choked on a cup of tea, when Clyde 2 Radio during a news bulletin, came out and said that the Independence Referendum, was at neck and neck between the Yes and no camps.
Hopefully the tide is turning a wee bit.
@ Roger Mexico @ scottish_skier
Just because the questions were numbered 1 to 4 doesn’t necessarily mean they were asked in that order; they may well have rotated the order in which the questions were asked to remove the risk that the order may influence the responses.
Roger
Are you saying support for the No vote is so soft that it can be effectively whittled away with two pretty straightforward and reasonable questions? If so then this is surely good news because those two questions encapsulate the essence of what Yes Scotland is trying to tell people. Yes we can be a successful country, Yes people do have more trust in Holyrood than Westminster. The thing is people agreed with these two statements they were not led to them. There was no “have you stopped beating your wife” question. It was a straight choice, Holyrood or Westminster. They could easily have chosen Westminster and led themselves to a No vote if the No vote was solid.
What is certain, these are the messages that will appear on the billboards and TV adverts when the campaign gets into full swing in the weeks before the vote. Will Better Together try to counter by saying we will all be doomed…one can hope so.
Interestingly but a bit confusing, in my opinion, the panelbase poll, on question 2)
which states who do you trust to take the best decisions for Scotland, Holyrood or Westminster 64% of females between the ages of 18/34 picked Holyrood.
Yet on question 3) Their will be a referendum on a independent Scotland on 18th of September 2014, how do you intend to vote in response to the question,should Scotland be an independent country 50% of females aged between 18/34 voted no
So to recap a large percentage of females between 18/34 want Holyrood to govern Scotland, but also a hefty percentage of them dont want independence.
Maybe the NO camp have done this on purpose as they fear their vote may not turn out because they believe all the MSM’s previous polls telling them the Yes vote has no chance.
Just a thought.
Andy-B
That will be your Devo Max preference. There will be more pro-Holyrood than independence because question 2 will capture those who trust Holyrood and want more but haven’t gone that final step. Seems logical. This perhaps identifies the demographic that populates that option most heavily.
@Handandshrimp.
Yes but theirs no Devo Max option on the table YET?
And I dont want one either, but BT if they find their seriously lagging in the polls come Sept 18th 2014, will roll this Devo Max option out, and say they will decide the terms after we vote no, this will suit the females in the 18/34 group, according to the Panelbase Poll.
How many other Scots will fall for this Devo Max plan, and will it be a deciding factor of the independence vote if its implimented. more to the point CAN it be implimented.
Re. Devo Max option. Is anyone actually suggesting scrapping the Edinburgh Agreement?
what they’ve done is what Darling has done. You can rock up to a tory conference and they’ll give you a clap (or something like that) but they won’t give you a vote. It’s easy to confuse some of the folk some of the time, or SLAB all of the time.
Are we not going to see polling companies start to slag each other off?
Is you actually study the results you’ll see that it polled a completely unrepresentative proportion of people in the DE social group. This social group is one that strongly favours independence (51 Yes, 31 No). If you actually weight the group based on a proper representation of social groups and remove the don’t knows you get 55.2% no, 44.7% yes.
link to panelbase.com
“Is you actually study the results you’ll see that it polled a completely unrepresentative proportion of people in the DE social group.”
436 ABC1 to 473 C2DE doesn’t seem “completely unrepresentative” to me. Anything but. Can you direct me to where the “correct” proportion for such groups is found?
Devo Max is not a plan. Devo Max is not an option.
Dveo Max is nothing more than a ruse, a red herring. It will never happen.
RAdio Forth led with this on their “news” programme at 7am this morning. It’s very much “news lite” but fair play to them they led with it and I suspect a lot of people get their news from such sources
Can you direct me to where the “correct” proportion for such groups is found?
Lower your eyes towards the bracketed figure – that is the weighted base.
Lower your eyes towards the bracketed figure – that is the weighted base.
I fail to see your point.
Lower your eyes towards the bracketed figure – that is the weighted base.
That’s the unweighted base.
ABC1C2DE Weighted bases are within 1% of e.g. the recent yougov.
Seem fine to me.
DE hasn’t been down-weighted considerably. On the contrary, the results are based on unweighed responses. 416 people from the DE social class were asked, but their proportion should only constitute 168 people. IF you factor in the weighting responses across social classes represented by the bracketed figures the results are pretty much what the baseline polls have been for a while now.
No doubt the DevoMax group were up to the same tricks – I suspect nothing has really changed at all.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, nothing has really happened of late to produce a swing and it’s too far out for a large-scale change of hearts.
ABC1C2DE Weighted bases are within 1% of e.g. the recent yougov.Seem fine to me.
My apologies you are correct. It threw me as such a high DE count did not sit right. Of course labels would be nice.
Hmm, I don’t recall finally concluding DE were downweighted considerably. Rather they were upweighted. You got things the wrong way around. Unweighted is in brackets, weighted is the numbers above; the opposite of what you said. Hence my confusion when I then checked things.
To sum up:
Panelbase Weighted
ABC1 = 46%
C2DE = 54%
Yougov Weighted
ABC1 47%
C2DE 53%
I can’t see a difference here. This is fairly standard weighted bases for Scotland. Yougov concluded something wildly good for No (due to poor further weighting), panelbase something quite realistic historically.
Why would Yougov use ‘tricks’ for the benefit of Devoplus? Why would panelbase – based in Northumberland, England – use an essentially identical and demographically correct ‘trick’ for the benefit of independence supporters?
The increased Yes was most likely due to people being asked what they are planning to vote in September 2014 rather than what they would do if forced to make a choice instantly in a vote tomorrow (as almost ubiquitously asked or inferred). People are tending to Yes. They feel safer predicting what they will end up doing in a year once they’ve heard all they need to know. Throwing them into a ‘panic’ vote tomorrow makes them respond differently. That’s my take on it.
Note that parity in Y/N was the norm up to 2007 on average at 4/10 for both sides. In 2007, things became more volatile as the prospect of it really happening started to loom large.
OK, just got your last post!
No worries. Confused me for a moment too. Felt it worth checking!
And yes, labels would be nice. Needed to quickly calculate what was weighted/unweighted!
@Scottish Skier
Your explanations of ‘weighting’ have been a HUGE
help to me understanding the big discrepencies in polls.
However, can I ask what do you mean when you say
Westminster VI & Holyrood VI?
“However, can I ask what do you mean when you say
Westminster VI & Holyrood VI?”
Voting Intentions.
i feel its a waste of time even mentioning lib dems, feels like i just wasted 10 seconds of my time
im comforted by new poll results but even more comforted by the fact the 3 leaders of their respective parties fighting for their personal futures in an aggresive scaremongering style are the worst in the history of politics anywhere at anytime on this planet, they are simply atrocious and very embarrasing to out country
Voting Intentions.
Yes, basically what the pollster does is up or down-weight respondents based on what they said they voted in 2011. The idea is that the final respondent sample matches the 2011 result (first vote for constituency), i.e. for those who are certainly/likely to vote, you should have ~45% of them having supported SNP in 2011, 28% Labour and so on.
Yougov don’t do this. They weight to UKGE data. This worked up to 2007, then the SNP came into the equation with labour having collapsed to almost core. This meant you had lots of people who supported the SNP, didn’t like Labour, but were voting for them for UKGE’s tactically. Applied to some libs too. Anyone but the Tories! For various reasons, this means weighting the scots electorate to UKGE voting is highly unreliable, the net result being SNP supporters are weighted down (by 20% in the recent one) and Labour supporters are weighted up (by 20%). As these are the two dominant parties, this causes a huge error in Yougov Y/N polls. Compounded further by the fact you have people who voted Lib in 2010 who will never again as part of the UK. These have mainly gone to the SNP.
Really, if you want to past election weight a sample, you use the most representative election and the most recent one. That would be Holyrood (PR-type) and 2011.
Thanks!