Wings Over Scotland

The chance presented itself recently to conduct a quick bit of snap opinion polling at a lower cost than our usual, so it seemed daft not to jump on it. The data below comes from the same Panelbase survey whose headline findings (Yes 46% No 54% excluding don’t-knows) were reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend, and sampled 1046 Scottish adults earlier this month.

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There’s been a fair bit of crowing from “Better Together” about some recent poll results. Which is fair enough – almost everybody likes to shout when they get some good news (though this site has consistently urged caution over polling findings months before a vote, whether favourable or not).

It is, however, always wise to look at the small print.

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The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last seven days.

1. Quoted For Truth Extra
The first defection to Yes from inside “Better Together” itself.

2. The talk of the town
What Alex Salmond really said to GQ, stripped of media hysteria.

3. What an arsehole looks like
Vile taxpayer-funded scumbag repeatedly abuses decent citizens in public.

4. Character assassination
Journalism, as imagined by a petulant six-year-old.

5. Look away now
Massive story almost totally and inexplicably ignored.

This week’s theme: not pretending any more.

This morning’s Sunday Herald carries a typically sour and sneery quote from “Better Together” campaign director Blair McDougall in response to a Yes Scotland release of financial data relating to its campaign funding:

“No-one would criticise the Weirs, who are ­longstanding SNP supporters. However, it is extraordinary that compared to the tens of thousands of small donations received by Better Together, almost 80% of Yes Scotland’s money comes from one source.

We now know why they have been hiding their donations for so long.”

Firstly, of course, he might want to revise that opening sentence, since his campaign’s representative Alex Johnstone MSP seems quite unable to stop criticising the Weirs, repeatedly painting them as gullible and dishonest dupes of the evil Alex Salmond.

But as usual, Mr McDougall’s obnoxious bluster also conceals a cynical misdirection.

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Just magnificent work from the Daily Mail today.

Really only a couple of tiny quibbles.

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Readership stats for April, for those interested.

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Anyone involved in the independence debate for any length of time will probably already have lost count of how many times they’ve heard the plaintive we-cannae-dae-it wail of “But how will you pay for all of Alex Salmond’s milk and honey promises?”

So here’s a clue.

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Earlier this week we did a little poking and prodding of the Scotsman’s last ICM poll, and now the full data tables are in for the latest one, so to while away an hour before tea we figured we may as well do a bit of comparing and see how things had changed.

Wait! Come back! There’ll be Miley Cyrus at the end!

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Here’s the Scottish Labour finance spokesman Iain Gray on last night’s Newsnight Scotland, discussing Gordon Brown’s speech in Glasgow on pensions because Mr Brown himself refused to answer any questions about it.

As ever with Mr Gray, he packs a lot of entertainment into a short space of time.

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We’re still waiting for the full data tables for the ICM/Scotland on Sunday poll that got everyone a little excited at the weekend, and whose findings closely mirrored the Panelbase/Wings Over Scotland one two weeks ago that the same publisher crudely smeared and cast aspersions (which it later retracted) on the credibility of.

In the meantime, even though we’re still technically on holiday, we had a bit of a rummage through the company’s preceding one for the Scotsman papers this morning and picked out some random interesting snippets. We’ll be watching keenly to see if the latest poll has corresponding stats to compare.

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There are a couple of opinion polls in the papers this morning, of which independence campaigners are naturally paying most attention to the ICM one for Scotland on Sunday which shows referendum voting at a hair’s-breadth 48% Yes to 52% No (after removing Don’t Knows).

But perhaps more revealing is one in the Sunday Telegraph regarding the imminent European elections, which puts Labour on 30%, UKIP on 27%, the Tories on 22% and the Lib Dems – the only actively Europhile party south of Scotland – on just 8%.

If you apply those figures to the electorate of the rUK, excluding Scotland, that means that there are something like 11.3 million UKIP voters in England, as opposed to a total Scottish electorate of 4 million.

Readers may wish to consider for a moment which of those groups is likely to have a stronger influence on the direction of UK politics in the coming years.

The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last seven days.

1. Playing with fire
The No campaign turns ugly. Okay, more ugly.

2. Neither national nor collective
Some particularly audacious “Better Together” lies about the NHS.

3. People are strange
The most curious results from our third Panelbase poll.

4. Fine-tuning the news
The Scotsman edits itself into a bit of a pickle.

5. The mushroom farm
The story of the Queen’s Scottish coronation that never was.

This week’s theme: rewriting history.