It’s one of the weirder aspects of the independence debate that the No campaign constantly shrieks about how an independent Scotland might run a deficit, as if that was some sort of unusual and terrifying state unique to Scotland. So we thought it might be handy to keep this clip from today’s BBC Breakfast here for future reference.
“Better Together” website, May 2013:
Awesome start on healing those divisions, Johann.
(From today’s Scottish Sun.)
“Gary Gibbon on Politics”, Channel 4 website, today:
Does he? Is he an idiot or something?
There are now just fewer than nine months to go until the referendum that will decide Scotland’s future. But in those 260 or so days, there will be one that more than any other is likely to shape the outcome, and curiously it’s one in which few people in Scotland will actually be very interested.
The last elections to the European Parliament, in 2009, saw a turnout in Scotland of under 29%, below even the dismal UK figure of 34%. We have no reason to believe this year’s will be massively different, at least not on the northern side of the border.
But the election, which takes place (on 22 May) almost exactly halfway between now and the referendum, will have a huge impact on UK politics, and the corresponding knock-on effect could decide which way Scotland swings in September.
What a week it’s been for respect. Here’s today’s Telegraph:
Maybe when you’re on holiday it doesn’t count or something.
We don’t normally post stuff straight out of SNP press releases, but we’re about to have some sort of breakdown today on account of the appalling Windows 8, and this is some powerful polling data, so we hope you’ll forgive us a bit of a cut-and-paste job.
The Nats commissioned a poll this month from Panelbase of 1,011 people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which found overwhelming support for the rest of the UK sharing Sterling and the Common Travel Area with an independent Scotland.
The Independent is the most English newspaper in Britain. Alone among the nationals, it has neither a Scottish edition nor even a Scottish news section. And for the vast majority of the time, it acts as though Scotland simply doesn’t exist at all. (Or, perhaps, as if Scotland was already independent and therefore none of its business.)
So it’s perhaps not altogether surprising that on the rare occasions it dares venture north of Luton, it invariably makes a gigantic ham-fisted hash of it.
Our more downmarket readers may have noticed this piece in today’s Scottish Sun:
But we were tickled to learn this morning, from a very well-placed inside source, that the advertising agency involved had also (genuinely) presented as part of their report a graphic demonstrating the current public perception of the No campaign.
You can see it below.
As we’ve been poring over old opinion polls today, we thought we may as well share this with you. We make no suggestions that it proves anything about anything, it’s just fascinating. (It is to us, anyway, because the alternative is Strictly Come Dancing.)
It’s hopefully pretty self-explanatory. It charts the SNP’s lead (or, for much of the time, otherwise) in Holyrood opinion polling in the 16 months leading up to the 2011 Scottish election. And it’s interesting to ponder the timing of some of its peaks and troughs.
We’ve read a lot in the past few days about how referendum polling basically hasn’t moved at all this year. But we weren’t sure if that was really true. So with nine months to go, it seemed a reasonable idea to check the stats for the LAST nine months and see if any progress was being made.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
