Signing up new seamen fast 134
As we’re a polling site now, a brief post on polls.
In a column for today’s Herald on Sunday, Iain Macwhirter repeats the frequently-made assertion that “Boris Johnson is loathed in Scotland and is the best recruiting sergeant for independence since Margaret Thatcher”.
The first part is certainly true, as it has been of pretty much every Tory Prime Minister of the last 40 years. But the second part simply isn’t borne out by the facts.
Above (click to enlarge) is the graph of Yes polling since Johnson became PM. It shows support for independence FALLING from 52% to 49% during his term in office.
If you discount the Lord Ashcroft poll from a few days after he entered Downing Street (because Ashcroft isn’t a British Polling Council member), the graph becomes Nicola Sturgeon’s political speciality – a flat line, from 49% to 49%.
Johnson has “recruited” nobody. Those are the cold hard facts.