Wings Over Scotland

The crowdfunded opinion poll this site commissioned from Panelbase last week was a wide-ranging one which covered numerous aspects of the independence debate in some depth. We had to break up our reporting into several pieces to keep it a manageable read. Here, however, is a quick summary of the top ten major findings.

The full data tables can be downloaded directly from Panelbase via this link.

Read the rest of this entry →

When we commissioned our poll, we were about 50/50 in terms of whether the mainstream media would cover it. When the results came in, we cautiously shifted to 60/40 in favour. No matter how piqued the press was about this site’s scrutiny of it for the last year and a half, we reasoned, these results were dynamite and surely couldn’t be ignored by any journalist with a shred of conscience or dignity.

Who would have thought that we, of all people, could be guilty of so over-estimating the integrity and professionalism of Scotland’s newspapers and broadcasters?

Read the rest of this entry →

A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

————————————————————————————————

VOTERS WHO EXPRESS ANY OPINION ON MEDIA BIAS

Men: 60%
Women: 37%

————————————————————————————————

A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

————————————————————————————————

VOTERS WHO HAVE HEARD OF THE WEBSITE “LABOUR HAME”

SNP: 6%
Conservative: 4%
Labour: 4%
Lib Dem: 2%

————————————————————————————————

HAVE HEARD OF THE WEBSITE “LABOUR FOR INDEPENDENCE”

Labour: 12%
SNP: 12%
Conservative: 10%
Lib Dem: 6%

————————————————————————————————

A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

————————————————————————————————

VOTERS WHO THINK ALISTAIR DARLING ALWAYS TELLS THE TRUTH

Lib Dems: 9%
Conservatives: 6%
Labour: 4%
SNP: <1%

Age 45-54: <1%
Age 55-64: 1%
Age 65+: 8%

————————————————————————————————

A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

————————————————————————————————

VOTERS MOST AFRAID OF TERRORIST ATTACKS

Conservative: 55%
Lib Dem: 42%
Labour: 32%
SNP: 26%

————————————————————————————————

VOTERS MOST AFRAID OF SPACE MONSTERS

Conservative: 6%
Labour: 5%
SNP: 4%
Lib Dem: <1%

————————————————————————————————

A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

————————————————————————————————

UNDECIDED WHICH WAY THEY’LL VOTE IN THE REFERENDUM

Men: 22%
Women: 38%

————————————————————————————————

Earlier this week, mad Labour activist Ian Smart posted a tweet – now deleted – in which he referred to Labour For Independence as “fifth-columnists”. (Which caught our eye as Labour types unfailingly leap on any renegade cybernat types intemperately denouncing Unionists as “traitors” or “Quislings”.)

But the phrase reminded us of something Labour like to keep pretty quiet. Their own camp is divided into not just supporters of devolution and independence (and undecideds), but also contains a sizeable faction of prominent voices who don’t just want to freeze devolution in its current position, but demolish it entirely.

Read the rest of this entry →

This is the last of the political data from our Panelbase survey of Scottish opinion. The full data tables should now be available to the media from the pollster.

(But a quick word to all the Scottish journalists who we know read this site – had a single one of you had the courtesy, wit or basic journalistic initiative to actually contact us and ask us for the tables directly, we’d gladly have given them to you 24 hours before your competitors. Just a wee tip there.)

We know our chums at “Better Together” have been looking forward to this one for days, so we won’t keep them waiting any longer.

Read the rest of this entry →

We didn’t just go for big blockbuster revelations with our Panelbase poll. We thought it’d also be interesting to delve a little deeper into voters’ party affiliations, since the referendum isn’t a party political issue (despite the determined attempts of the No camp to make it all about the SNP rather than independence).

Given the gulf between how Scotland votes in Westminster elections and Holyrood ones, we were particularly curious to find out to what degree the constitution was colouring party loyalties, one way or another. Here’s what we discovered.

Read the rest of this entry →

We learned yesterday, in perhaps not the most groundbreaking journalistic scoop of all time, that people don’t much trust politicians. While Scots were much more inclined to believe what they were told by the Yes campaign than the No one, the majority still thought they were being told more fibs than truth by everyone concerned.

What, then, of those whose job it is to scrutinise our politicians, dig down through all the spin and evasion for the facts and tell the public what they need to know?

Read the rest of this entry →

We thought we might as well take advantage of an excellent new facility revealed to us by an alert reader last night, whereby we can now link you to permanent full copies of web pages without directing traffic to the website in question or faffing around with awkward and flaky things like Google Cache.

Unsurprisingly totally ignoring yesterday’s dramatic poll revelations, the Scotsman’s big political story this morning is “Better Together” campaign director Blair McDougall throwing a barely-believable playground tantrum about Alex Salmond saying some words that Mr McDougall likes to say.

You can read it, without earning the Scotsman any undeserved ad revenue, here.

Read the rest of this entry →