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%
————————————————————————————————
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.
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.
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?
Our poll has already established that the Scottish public is deeply sceptical of the No camp’s vague, equivocal dangling of unspecified new powers as an incentive to reject independence. But we also wanted to find out how much they believed the output of the two official campaign groups in general.
As mainly politicians are involved, you can probably guess the results.
Let’s start with a bang, then.
Since nobody wants to define devo-max and the parties of the Union won’t let anyone vote for it anyway (preferring the “Oh, we’ll sort it out for you later, just trust us” argument they so often berate the SNP for), the independence referendum has a great big hole in it where a very substantial proportion of the population would like to be.
So while the press constantly talks about “more powers” (and repeats the falsehood that the London parties are committed to them) without ever saying what the phrase means, and as Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems frantically evade even making solid promises to think about them in the event of a No vote, we thought we’d cut straight to the chase and ask the Scottish people what they wanted.
So it’s very nearly time to start on the poll results. We’ve made you wait long enough. But before the big reveals, we’d better get some quick background out of the way.
We got quotes from all the grown-up polling companies, most of which were in pretty much the same ballpark (with one dramatically expensive exception), but we chose Panelbase because they’ve got an excellent record for accuracy, they were the best at responding to our numerous stupid questions in a friendly and patient way, and if they’re good enough for the Sunday Times they’re good enough for us.
Okay, so we know this is teasing, but the results of our poll are in.
They make for amazingly interesting reading, and we’re confident you’re going to feel you got value for your money if you were one of the people who contributed to our absurdly successful fundraiser, which achieved 400% of its target in 72 hours before we had to issue a series of panicked tweets telling people to STOP sending money.
We only got the tables half an hour ago – we’re still digesting it all ourselves and there’s a fair bit of technical admin to do before we can start publishing, and there’s so much info we’re going to have to put it out in instalments so as not to overwhelm you with data, but hold tight. We should have the first release for you tomorrow.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
