Wings Over Scotland

O/T Just off the boat back from Belgium in time for my first ever telephone poll, Ipsos/Mori, only for those 16-34 , luckily I scraped in by a couple of years.
Zillions of questions with a lot slewed towards a negative response to Independence. I told them that I was not answering them as they were nonsense. Think Flipper wrote the script, its all doom doom doom, were not getting a currency union , the oil is running out. One question was Do you think that in the North sea in 40 years there will be a. More Oil, B – Less or C- The same. I said what about west of Shetland and the Clyde, they said we don’t know that’s the question we have, so I said more. Lots in that vain.
Quite comprehensive , would say about 30 questions or more.

Call me Dave
Lang May yer lum reek mon ami

@call me dave – Sorry to hear you’ve been unwell, I have missed your posts on here (not just the footie links) hope you’re feeling better soon

I wished they had asked my 17 relatives living in New York.

OT – WTF EBC2 Propaganda overdrive..The Stuarts 🙁

This poll is totally anonymous and this questionnaire is being sent to approximately 300 native-born Scots, both male and female, members of all political parties, all above 21 years of age and living all across the United States. As well, these Scots represent the complete spectrum of professions.

This paragraph from the original article raises many questions.

Where did this organisation get the names and addresses of those they chose for this “poll”.

What is approximately 300 native-born Scots? Two hundred or Three Hundred and One?

How does this organisation know all those canvassed are “members of all political parties”? Are any at all not members of political parties?

“these Scots represent the complete spectrum of professions”
What professions? Is a Scot without a “profession” unworthy of a vote.

This is one of the most utter pile of shite that a UKOK newspaper has ever printed as news.

Squeeky bum time but they can’t hold it back and the crap is spread far and wide. I’m embarrassed now for their pathetic efforts at winning votes.

What more evidence do we need to see there is now a clear gap between the Yes and No vote? Clutching at straws printing shite like this is all the evidence we need to see how desperate the NO camp are.

Well here’s another ex-pat living in ‘far’ SW Virginia, in the coalfields (appropriate since I’m from W. Fife). I agree with thenpr – they are definitely sounding desperate, so they must know something we don’t, and I think it’s partly the newly registered voters that aren’t showing up in the published polls.

As you can see (except medicine)the petrolium exports make up the significant amount. Not discussed or examined in any detail by anyone at all.

Here in Dundee I am finding it interesting that windows that in 2010 were displaying a Labour poster are now displaying a Yes poster.

10 Polling Questions to Predict the Outcome of the Referendum

Please answer Yes or No.

1. If the Scottish government intructed kittens drowned would you call Dignitas?
2. If RBS was to close gifting £1,000 to every Scot would you bank the money?
3. If a nuclear bomb was on its way will you pig-out on Fried Mars Bars as a last meal?
4. If George Clooney stood for election as SNP First Minister would his politics matter?
6. If the price of polenta doubled would you shop at Poundstore in protest?
7. If the SNP were to introduce the guillotine would you buy shares in Gillette?
8. Do you believe Salmond’s promise of free homes, jobs for all, and virginal brides?
9. If a man called Jesus said a Yes vote means a great flood will you build an ark?
10. If Scotland became independent would you sleep with David Cameron for safety?

If you answered No to all the questions you are a sane voter. If you answered Yes to all the questions get a bloody life!

Well if we needed any further confirmation that the English have officially assumed the running of the “GLASGOW COMMONWEALTH GAMES” we got it tonight. The BBC have just announced that the Medals are to be presented by, “The Earl of Wessex”. An English Title with no relevance in Scotland.

Now correct me if I’m wrong but is that not an insulting diplomatic incident? Should not that particular Royal personage be addressed by his official proper title while on official duty in Scotland?

While in Scotland his proper form of address is, “Lord High Commissioner of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland”. In official duties he is The Queen’s representative in Scotland. If this had been any other Commonwealth Country this insult would constitute a Diplomatic Incident. I’d bet not a single MSM outlet even notices. They are too busy looking for Bolt or other persons insulting Scots, Scotland, Glasgow and the Games.

In a sensational new poll published in The Scotsman tomorrow, confirmation after 1000 bears have been canvassed —-> and the answers confirm they *do* shit in the woods.

Marcia, I’m finding similar scenes in Dundee and Angus.

Was out for a few pints last night round the Ferry and found hugely enouraging people voting yes. Especially the number of folk saying they’ve never voted for years or ever!

Dundee wil be Scotland’s biggest yes city! We’re going to be a bawhair off 60%

@ Liquid Lenny – that is not a magic number, it is the number if everyone does their utmost, sitting typing does nae quite hack it.

@Oscar Taime says:30 July, 2014 at 5:11 pm:

“To those who are tempted to think the referendum has nothing to do with us expats I say simply that they might like to consider why we are expats”

Whatever makes you imagine we have NOT considered why you left Scotland? Of course we have. My entire immediate family, with the exception of my, then new,first wife and adopted son went off to Australia. That was my Mother Father and my surviving siblings. Mum and Dad died there and the rest are now Australians with their considerably increased families. None of them are entitled to a vote but that does not stop them being Scots. What they are NOT is, “People of Scotland”, defined as, “Anyone, of any colour, creed or country of origin who resides in Scotland and is registered to vote in Scottish elections”

Now no one says my family in Australia nor my cousins in Canada, USA and New Zealand don’t matter we say YOUR VOTES DON’T MATTER” and they will never matter unless you reside in Scotland and are registered to vote in our Scottish elections. Just like my friend who came to study in Britain from Brazil, married a Scots girl and is now one of the proud, “People of Scotland”.

Dear Wings over Somerset,

The independence question in that survey is the very first, so subsequent questions, while clearly showing some bias, cannot be said to be ‘leading’.

My guess is that expats in the US simply tend to be fairly successful, worldly and discerning people, less susceptible to flag-waving dribble and grievance politics.

Your humble servant,

Charlie

@ Midgehunter

Should be some more seditious material heading your way next week.

My my the 👿 are out in force today 🙂 eh Charlie 😉

Laughably leading questions only underline just how little regard should be given to most of the polling these days. Particularly when so many pollsters keep changing their methodology to suit their BritNat clients, and after those same pollsters and pundits got it so very wrong in 2011.

@Paula Rose –

Apologies. I don’t know what came over me.

@CharlieMurphy, 10:18 pm

Shift change at GCHQ looks like it happens between 10pm and 11pm. Thanks for the info, good to know what time to ignore.

Dave McEwan Hill

Yeah asked quite a few questions to satisfy themselves that I was in the age profile.

Re who commissioned, don’t know but they are trying to manipulate the answers to most of the questions, the good thing was that the first question was the referendum question with the correct wording. they then asked on a scale 0-10 how likely you were to vote. Next lot of questions were about how I perceived Scotland’s voice in the world post yes. if the economy would be stronger, would health and education be better, would we be in the Eu, oil and gas , Pensions etc etc, obviously trying to figure out if there fear bombs are having an impact. They also asked questions on who I thought from Local Authority, Holyrood, Westminster and Europe was responsible for health, defence,social security,pensions etc etc.

I cant remember the figure that Stu put on the cost of each question with Panelbase something like a grand a question, then if Ipsos/Mori charge the same this would have cost a few bob. So I don’t think it was a newspaper as they don’t have the money, it must have been for BT or some other quasi governmental dept.

Paula

Fair Point, that’s why I cut my road trip in Europe short by over three weeks so I could get active.

Regards voting intentions.

It’s incredibly a class vote.

Finding working class areas are 65 plus yes.

Posher areas 30-40.

It’s goign to be michty ticht

Don’t believe the polls.

Just believe what your own eyes and ears are telling you. Only one can be true, which do you trust?

Problem is, in other elections, activists have believed to such an extent, what they were being told on doorsteps that they made a complete fool of themselves when the result was announced.

Evidence?

I give you Grahamski, the great see’r of Falkirk who rabidly told anyone on the Scotsman forums who would listen that Labour were a shoe-in for the Scottish elections, based on canvassing, doorstepping, gut feeling etc.

I have no doubt we are actually behind at the moment, but with a bit more hard work, this can still be turned around. I also suspect some people will make up their minds even in the booth and if that is the case they are much more likely to do a ‘two finger’ job at the establishment and vote ‘yes’.

@Jack Beck/Scotus says:30 July, 2014 at 8:42 pm:

“The are definitely sounding desperate, so they must know something we don’t”

Greetings from Kelty, Jack. There’s a point that is not at first apparent. It is that the people from the poorest sections of the population do not generally have phone lines nor do they have internet access. Most use pay-as-you-go mobiles. So they do not feature in random telephone polls. Most stop-in the street polls do not go into the most deprived areas either and the rest of the pollsters use a registered list of signed-up (sometimes paid), respondents.

Thus a large number of people who would not vote in normal elections but who do feel a referendum affects them just don’t get surveyed. Doorstep reports from the YES grass roots workers who do go into such areas come up with very large YES responses in such areas.

Graun thinks Dougie Alexander is going to be the next rUK prime minister which is a long shot but they are getting more and more desperate the britnats of teamGB, USA will like Dougie as PM, for the trident rule strikes.

“But it was a pyrrhic victory for Cameron. When his party split over the result, the prime minister resigned and Labour’s Douglas Alexander, now MP for Holborn, took office at the head of an all-party government comprising Labour’s pro-Europe majority and a rump of pro-Cameron Tories. The upshot for Scotland was that weak Labour governments in Holyrood and Westminster, both led by unionist Scots, were left to push through an independence package that neither agreed with, and from which support had ebbed in Scotland.”

The future isn’t bright for Scottish democracy, without Westminster we’re doomed. lol

jeezus, that massive indy troll Tellen1 (variously known under too many guises to name them all here, although we know it as norsewarrior) is really filling up the BTL comment on that Guardian fantasy by Mr Kettles.

Has Martin Kettle had a hard night on the drink? That Graun article is incoherent.

@Paula Rose says: 30 July, 2014 at 9:32 pm:

“Hope you’ve all had at least one conversation with a real person tonight darlings.

‘Fraid not, Paula Rose: Didn’t even get out to walk the wee Papillon. When I came in yesterday I coupled up my adapted camper-van to the mains to charge both the vehicle battery and the habitation battery. Now the Habitation battery also charges up my mobility Scooter batteries, (fitted with two sets).

So I went out later to change the mobility scooter charger to the second set of batteries and the first set were not charging. I spent all day designing and building a new charger, removing the old one and fitting the new one.

Only conversation was with the dug – and only then after she sneaked into the van and drank my cup of tea that I’d left down low and let get cold. The dug’s a befriender and the Old Ladies at the OAP’s home have made her into a wee tea Jenny and addicted her to Digestive Biscuits.,

(And so to bed).

Re Glasgow audiences. I’ve been watching Games like these for decades and I can’t honestly recall morning sessions being played out before virtual full houses like we are seeing in Glasgow. Have the commentators mentioned this? Maybe they have, I’ve just been dipping in and out of the coverage but I know for sure that London 2012, while very well atteneded, was not stowed out like this in the morning sessions.

Just believe what your own eyes and ears are telling you. Only one can be true, which do you trust?

Depends. If I drive into Edinburgh through Bruntsfield, my eyes are seeing 20 Yes windows to one No. If I look at car stickers it’s the same But talking to people round here is a different story. Yes there is a substantial number of nailed-on Yes people, but there are an awful lot of default Nos who don’t believe the BBC or the Scotsman would lie to them. And I bear in mind that the vast majority of windows and cars have no stickers.

Look at Twitter. Yes canvassers proudly boasting of massive Yes majorities – but others who simply report that they’ve been out. Others who’ve been out and don’t even say so.

There are obviously some very strong Yes areas. But don’t get carried away. If you were here, you wouldn’t believe it could be as close as 45/55. It’s not certain at all that the polls are wrong.

Dave McEwan Hill

The last STV poll result,

NO 54%
YES 36%
DK 10%

NO 18% lead.

Are STV havin a laugh. They know their poll is going to slaughter Alex Salmond even before the debate has started.

STV surely can’t go ahead with this poll result. They are going to lose thousands of viewers.

STV and BBC Scotland, no difference between them, the two of them are totally against Independence.

O/T Dave

Tried to put an over 55% bet on at William Hill and they said they don’t do that bet. Where was it that you got 10/1 for over 55%?

Typical – my pussy wants a stroke, night all – and Rev dear that is not smut.

Just trying to be realistic, Paula. Just because some areas are seeing >60% Yes doesn’t mean everywhere is like that.

But you know what? In this village there’s a wee square in the middle. Not many houses look on to it, and only two big in-your-face double-fronted numbers. I happen to know the occupants of both of these are screaming definite Yes.

But there’s not a sniff of a Yes window between them. They could, easily, dominate the entire bloody square. If they don’t do something soon I’m going to go round and threaten some people.

The collusion between STV and Ipsos Mori is only going to produce one result at the start of next Tuesday’s programme – a ‘blow for Salmond’.

And it’s worth repeating that not only are Ipsos Mori polling, they are recruiting the audience for next Tuesday.

Salmond will need to perform out of his skin to achieve even one of Ponsonby’s notorious ‘draws’.

Yep, I set my watch by the polls. Remember they forecast a landside out right majority for the SNP in 2011, or was it a 20 point lead for Labour, I can’t remember.

Yep, if there is one thing I do know, the polls are always right, or is it always wrong, I’m not sure but it’s definitely one of them.

Ian Brotherhood

Months ago I put £100 on at 6/1 for over 55% from Ladbrokes, then the price was falling fast. But for some strange reason the prices started to go out again.

This is the UK government at work, they have fixed the betting prices to reassure NO voters that plenty of money is being put on NO. They have done the same with the polls, all fixed.

The word will need to be put out in the twittersphere and Facebook land that the poll to be announced by STV, before the debate between AS and AD, is a FARCE.

You could also add that Ponsonby is a fat Unionist bastard.

@caz-m

STV didn’t even try to hide the collusion between the broadcaster and a polling company in the six o clock news segment in which Ponsonby was seen entering a ‘briefing’ with Ipsos Mori staff.

Why can’t STV get an audience together themselves? Why are they reliant on a polling company which, by any standards, produced a laughable outlier of a poll a few short weeks ago?

It is a set up, and a bloody obvious one.

Training Day

What are STV playing at here. We thought that we were in for a serious debate and it has turned into a joke even before a question has been asked.

Spread the word about the STV phoney poll.

How many will watch the debate, after all the viewers will be the judge of who actually wins.

That said, no matter how well Alec Salmond performs It’s a foregone conclusion that the press will give it to Darling. The articles are already written, give or take.

Just read Batemans piece about Darling, wouldnt it be great if the press took an interested. They follow WIngs, over to you members of the press!

How many will watch the debate, after all the viewers will be the judge of who actually wins.

That said, no matter how well Alec Salmond performs It’s a foregone conclusion that the press will give it to Darling. The articles are already written, give or take.

Just read Batemans piece about Darling, wouldnt it be great if the press took an interested. They follow WIngs, over to you members of the press!

@Robert Peffers in answer to your question “Whatever makes you imagine we have NOT considered why you left Scotland?” I was replying to Ross Mckay (30 July, 2014 at 4:55 pm) who asked “Who cares what expats think? Our referendum is nothing to do with them” and I believe I was careful to address my reply to “those who are tempted to think” not to everyone. I am well aware that most people know why we leave & what might make us come back but also that it is sadly too easy to get off on the wrong foot when one is writing rather than speaking & sadder still when we are all ostensibly of the same purpose albeit not the same means to bring it about i.e. a vote and proximity to other voters who we can help towards their decisions.

I guess what I was trying to say is that, while we expats may be less relevant or useful to the cause, even at a distance many of us are trying to help in any way we can. So even if some like Ross may not “care what we think” and others like yourself feel”our votes don’t matter” we care still what happens and want to help in any way possible whether we were brought up in Scotland or in some cases have never been there e.g. link to bellacaledonia.org.uk

All the best & as we say here bonne nuit y hasta la próxima tavarich

Dave McEwan Hill

Sorry couldn’t get back to you on Sunday. It was a busy day. Thanks for your tips on the betting odds.

I agree entirely about the polls and odds.

On the Gruan site it didn’t take long for the thread to turn to betting. But bitthick argued the case much more eloquently than I could.

bitthick commented on The Scottish independence debate should be about more than yes or no.
29 Jul 2014 6:33pm

“Last year, one single punter changed the odds with a 200k bet on NO. It was a wee bit odd.

Glasgow: a single 50k bet.
A few weeks later, Edinburgh: 200k bet.
Glasgow: another 50K
Edinburgh: andother 200k

Half a million quid from apparently four punters.
Compared to the average 50 quid vote, that’s four NO to ten thousand YES.

Bigging up your apparent support is a tactic as old as politics. This is just a variation on the old “silent majority” con.

If you are prepared to give your money away, and find that the campaigns are limited in what they are allowed to accept and spend — what better way to create the illusion that thousands of non-existent people support the union?”

and continuing – bitthick commented on The Scottish independence debate should be about more than yes or no.
29 Jul 2014 5:23pm

“I (was) discussing the common campaign tactic of trying to make voters believe that your campaign has more support than it actually has, in order to make them feel they are part of a social majority in supporting it. The desirability of voters thinking most people agree with them — the psychology of it really doesn’t have to be explained, does it? It is the reason political cmpaigns spend millions on push-polls. It is the reason push-polls exist. Statistically, 50% of voters are stupider than average.

Inducing NO voters to believe they are part of a “silent majority” has been a salient, ineed incessant plank of Better Together strategy.”

I look forward to your future posts as I might divert my later £2s to wider odds.

Little catch up for those who may not realise how the betting odds are really setting us up…

link to wingsoverscotland.com

@ Joe Swan

Re reportedly massive bets being placed in favour of No, I emailed the main Betting Chains mentioned a couple of months ago. I asked what their policy was regarding very large bets over £10,000 and the FSA regulations concerning money laundering under The Proceeds of Crime Act. Not one has got back to me.

I may be wrong, but any monetary transaction over a certain amount requires the person involved to show verifiable identification and financial information etc. Unless of course the Govt have excluded betting companies from that legislation, which would be a massive loophole.

This leads me to believe that the claims of massive bets for No are utter pish, either that or they are breaking the law.

Or any combination of the above possibilities.

The BBC (reporting from Glasgow this morning) are ramping up that NATO are ready for any attack on a Nato country by Russia.

Looks like we are about to be invaded folks. I wonder if there are any Royal Navy ships on their way to the Moray Firth?

For a more balanced opinion from across the pond, check out the Washington Post “Scottish independence vote is too close to call”
link to washingtonpost.com

Typical shite against Russia. When in doubt create a scare. Westminster shite. ‘It wisnae me’. Diversion. Clegg trying to look good.

The EU created the situation in Ukraine. The EU (Merkel) refused the Ukraine a loan. If they start with Russia they will know about it. Unforeseen consequences.

Bit of a gap in posts this morning between about 6 and 8ish. Unusual.

Indy bit on radio4 just now..

Odds on – when will Darling start greeting.

Anyone seen this?

link to washingtonpost.com

Russia just needs to put up Gas prices. The EU is fracked.

11WW in Europe

26million Russians died (1 in 4)
8 million Germans
6million In Poland
6million Jews
2 Americans
1/2 million in France
1/2 in Britain

@heedtracker

Followed your link to Kettle’s piece in the Graun. OMG they’ve finally cracked under the strain. 😀

Weapons grade fuckwittery if ever I saw it. 😀

@ Macart, the old progressive liberal mask slips off Graun “Don’t give the bastards a bawbee”, Mark Lawson wishing for middle east style civil war and so on. What a bunch.

Interesting also now watching daily UKOK vote No Wales BBC propaganda attacking the Welsh in exact same way Scotland’s been savaged for decades, you’d think auntie beeb was worried

link to bbc.co.uk
link to bbc.co.uk
link to bbc.co.uk

Or, Wales is too small, stupid, poor sayeth BBC