Wings Over Scotland

(An update on this post.)

If the next Ipsos MORI poll shows a significant drop in the No lead, we can probably call that definitive. The days of the No camp being 30+ points ahead seem to be well and truly over. Five out of the seven British Polling Council members polling on the independence referendum now put the required swing for Yes at just 5-6%. Looks like Wings pollsters Panelbase were at the cutting edge again after all.

The Scotpulse poll we mentioned last night in a frankly shameful outbreak of tooting our own horn actually released two sets of data, accompanied by an odd email apologising that the survey had featured an overly wide range of questions. We don’t know if we’re going to see the others at any point, but the second one released yesterday was intriguing.

And we’re not talking about the somewhat leading preamble.

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A reader comment this morning caused us to go back and double-check the facts in an old post (which turned out to be entirely correct, so that was fine). But for reasons which will shortly become clear, Wings Over Scotland is on a constant mission to distill aspects of the independence debate down to the clearest, most concise summaries possible, and the act of checking spurred us to lay something out.

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As alert readers know, we don’t get ourselves overly excited about individual opinion polls, even when they’re like today’s Survation one showing a big 5.5% swing to Yes in the wake of George Osborne’s intervention on a currency union last week.

What we DO like to ponder is the more interesting data buried in such surveys.

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Recently discovered by an alert reader, another gem revealing the sort of razor-sharp attention to statistical detail that led the UK into the most disastrous recession of all time, from a man who thinks the population of Scotland is six million:

“Asked if he fancied another crack at being chancellor in the future, Darling said: ‘At the moment I am totally focused on the [Scottish] referendum in October 2014, after that I will see where I stand.'”

Might want to work a little more on that focus, Cap’n.

(Quote from May 2013, two months after the referendum date was announced.)

The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last seven days. (Which have already broken last week’s all-time record for one-week pageviews, incidentally.)

1. Comical Ali’s perfect game
The “Better Together” mailshot where literally every sentence is a lie.

2. The killer inside
The Madness Of Prince George (Osborne).

3. What you won’t read today
Actual financially-literate people assess Scotland’s currency options.

4. Turn and river
The real meaning behind the currency threat.

5. They don’t care about you
Scottish Labour admit they’ll hurt Scotland to win Westminster.

This week’s theme: the positive case for the Union.

We dropped our contact at Ladbrokes an innocent line last night enquiring why we could no longer find the bet they were offering just a fortnight ago with odds of 50/1 on an independent Scotland NOT using Sterling. Hey, it was worth a try.

They emailed back saying that the bet had been suspended due to the BBC/Guardian news story, but later this morning it resurfaced with new odds.

Click to enlarge if you can’t make it out. That’s curious, isn’t it?

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Labour Uncut, 11 February 2014:

“In the main race between Labour and the Tories, these figures mean the Tories have a higher core vote than Labour.

Applying the defection rate to the Tories 2010 total gives a core vote of 23%, 1.5% ahead of Labour. It could well be that the generational churn identified by the Fabians evens out this Tory advantage, but in terms of actual voters who participated at the last election, YouGov’s analysis shows us that the Tories have a clear core vote lead.”

It may be worth remembering that these figures also don’t, as far as we can ascertain, factor in those UKIP voters likely to return to the Conservatives when it comes to the crunch of a UK election that might install Ed Miliband as Prime Minister rather than a Tory leader promising to hold a referendum on EU membership.

Don’t come crying to us in May 2015, No voters. We keep telling you what’s coming.

As we always say, we don’t set a lot of store by polls at this stage. We didn’t get all overexcited by the ones showing big jumps towards independence in the last couple of weeks, and nor are we downcast by the newest Panelbase showing a small drop.

But there WAS something interesting and potentially significant about it.

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We’ve been talking about our own stats a little too much for our liking recently – we’ll give it a bit of a rest again after this month, honest. But this one’s kinda special.

Those are Wings Over Scotland’s lifetime stats – or at least, lifetime since we signed up to Google Analytics just under two years ago. And as of yesterday, they show that the site has been visited by more than a MILLION different readers over that period. And we’re damned if we’re not taking a moment to reflect on that one.

It’s been quite a ride so far. Let’s make it mean something.

There’s a pretty in-depth YouGov poll out this morning on the subject of attitudes towards immigration in the UK and Scotland. Some of the results are a little dismaying, others less so, but the media reaction has been predictably superficial.

“Scots want immigration cut and more control”, yells the Scotsman, while the Express goes with “Scots demand curb in migrant numbers” and the Daily Mail unsurprisingly goes for the most extreme xenophobic and anti-SNP interpretation possible:

Only the Herald finds a positive angle, with “Scots more liberal about immigration impact than rest of UK”. But those last two headlines aren’t merely an example of how the same polling data can be spun and twisted to give diametrically opposite impressions. A closer look at the figures shows us how sometimes poll results just don’t make a whole heap of sense in the first place.

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

1. Unleashing a firestorm
The Financial Times breaks ranks and tells the truth.

2. Ask and ye shall receive
Actual lovebombs from the rest of the UK.

3. Father knows best
Lesley Riddoch puts David Aaronovitch in his place.

4. The ultimate weapon
John Barrowman Of The Week.

5. A mixed day for Johann Lamont
Probably the best she can hope for from now on.

The top two of those are also our all-time #3 and #4 most-read posts, in what’s been a record-shattering start to February. As we write this we’re well over 800,000 pageviews for the week, with five hours to go, compared to the previous best of 618,499. And as for the number of unique visitors, well, we’re not even going to talk about that yet.