The votes for “God Save The Queen” being driven by Tories, English-born residents and supporters of a particular football club probably won’t come as the biggest shock in the world to anyone.
(Alert viewers will of course have noticed that due to MI5 INTERFERENCE in the poll, there were actually two votes for Hoots Mon, which have been suspiciously rounded down to one. We are conducting an investigation, by which we mean brutal purge.)
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson managed to make a bit of a balloon of herself earlier this month when she contrived to get THREE fairly key facts wrong in a single tweet about a poll on a second independence referendum.
(We’re not sure who the guy in the picture with her is. Probably a colleague.)
We suspected the reason she’d so badly misunderstood the data was that there were two options for “have another indyref in the next two years” and only one for “don’t have another indyref”, so when we were putting our latest poll together we thought we’d try to make it easier for her by having an equal number on both sides.
There’s a nice piece in today’s Scottish Sun about one of the findings of our newest Panelbase poll, on who was Scotland’s all-time best First Minister.
We thought you’d want a more detailed look at the data behind it.
There were no surprises in our latest Panelbase poll with regard to the independence question, at least not in terms of the headline figures – in line with a flurry of recent polls they came out at Yes 46% No 54%, with 2016’s Brexit vote seemingly having caused almost equal numbers of people to change sides since 2014.
But as readers will know, we usually like to probe a little bit deeper into the thoughts of our respondents than other media do, so we asked a few more questions on the subject. And the results of that were just plain weird.
When we commissioned our latest opinion poll from Panelbase, we were aware that there’d been a lot of polls recently about independence and Brexit/the EU and even Westminster voting intentions, but surprisingly few on the next thing that Scots will actually go to polling stations for – the council elections in May.
That’s odd because it’s a pretty significant vote, and could lead to some fairly seismic changes in how the country is governed. Despite losing the popular vote for the first time in 2012, Labour are still the dominant force in Scotland’s town/city halls, running almost twice as many of the country’s 32 local authorities (either in sole control or in coalition/minority administrations) as the SNP – 16 to nine.
Depending on the outcome in May, the Nats could either secure a grip on all levels of Scottish elected politics for the first time ever, or a Tory alliance with Labour as junior partners could keep most councils Unionist – something which could have all sorts of wider ramifications beyond local services. (That’s an article for another day.)
The ultra-hardcore Unionist community – or the Yoons, as they’re better known – are in a pretty much permanent state of wild and terrified rage, but it’s been turned up to 11 for most of this year. Constantly proclaiming that the people of Scotland don’t want independence, for some reason they’re absolutely petrified of putting that to the test.
Below is part of a segment from Monday’s edition of Good Morning Scotland (from 2h 35m at the link beneath the clip), which featured an interview with Professor Allyson Pollock, an extremely experienced academic in the field of healthcare on both sides of the border who so far as we know has no dog in the Scottish constitutional fight.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “‘DUNOON UNIT REPORT: THE POSTAL BALLOT AT THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM’ (2015): “We are now convinced that the Postal Ballot…” Apr 22, 16:04
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “Okay – but I think the crux of your post is that votes were counted that should not have been…” Apr 22, 15:26
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lorncal To make ordered reading of the thread I think your post should have been a reply to my 13.38…” Apr 22, 14:32
Lorncal on The Pit Of Vipers: “YL; personally, I think that the so-called feminization of society is a load off old b******s. It is the usual…” Apr 22, 14:10
Colin Alexander on The Pit Of Vipers: “how do you know those things? “second-home owners were getting votes” anecdotal evidence. “temporary residents, foreign students” franchise was officially…” Apr 22, 13:52
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lorncal Disagree with you on this one. Ok, Just for a moment; imagine Sturgeon was an instigator or ringleader. What…” Apr 22, 13:38
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “I see (no pun intended) that the Lyrid meteor shower could be visible in night skies. Sort of thing that’s…” Apr 22, 13:11
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: ““We know second-home owners were getting votes, temporary residents, foreign students, dead people etc. We know postal votes were being…” Apr 22, 11:57
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “PAUL ROBESON SINGS FOR SCOTTISH MINERS (1949) www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0bezsMVU7c” Apr 22, 11:16
Colin Alexander on The Pit Of Vipers: “Before 2014 Alex Salmond proposed a multi-option ballot that included Home Rule / Devo-Max. The UK Govt refused. (Opinion polls…” Apr 22, 11:04
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “PAUL ROBESON: On colonialism, African-American rights. (3 mins, Spotlight, ABC,1960) www.youtube.com/watch?v=puOIdh944vk” Apr 22, 10:58
Dominic Berry on The Pit Of Vipers: “You get the sense that these people think that anything is permissible as long as you don’t get caught. And…” Apr 22, 10:30
Alf Baird on The Pit Of Vipers: “Yes, in a colonial society we might expect all social institutions to be colonial in terms of their allegiance and…” Apr 22, 09:58
Frank Gillougley on The Pit Of Vipers: “After all this time of him being in the political domain, isn’t it kinda obvious to everyone with any nous,…” Apr 22, 08:42
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “What surprises me the most is obviously not turkeys not wanting to vote for Christmas, but the relative ambivalence of…” Apr 22, 08:01
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “George Sorry brother I’m an atheist after a youth spent being dragged weekly to fairly hardcore COS. I worked out…” Apr 22, 00:44
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “James Kelly, reveals a bit more of the family home. This time with his bedroom and some of his favorite…” Apr 21, 22:57
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Thanks Sven I typed that on the hoof without checking. Sorry. Appreciate it! 🙂” Apr 21, 22:00
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “@Young Lochinvar I genuinely think people dont understand what is happening. The Lord High Commissioner did a great job last…” Apr 21, 21:11
Sven on The Pit Of Vipers: “I believe it’s the other way round for the Scripture reference, YL, 32:23. Very appropriate.” Apr 21, 20:50
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “@Young Lochinvar 7:22pm I am OK with the King appointing the Lord High Commissioner for the second time. A Catholic…” Apr 21, 20:41
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “100 percenter Yup, Does make you think doesn’t it? Wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs Redacto was a COS elder as…” Apr 21, 20:40
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “It appears to me Sturgeon power is entirely from people she has around her, who are complete and utter morons…” Apr 21, 20:18
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “Reply to Young Lochinvar Sarah What must Swinney’s wife think to all this, she has to know. If the rolls…” Apr 21, 20:09
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lorncal The phrases you are looking for are: -Stairheid rammies -Manipulation -Daren’t leave the group incase they get talked about…” Apr 21, 19:41
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Screams; GUILTY.. Nae wonder Sturgeon was in tears of gratitude when he said he’d take over eh!? Can’t last forever…” Apr 21, 19:22
sarah on The Pit Of Vipers: “100%Yes: I don’t subscribe to the National but saw this story posted by other independence supporters. It is a shocker.” Apr 21, 19:18
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “C’mon Wullie Cicero is uber untrendy now after Bojo the Clown used him as an example in his getting sacked…” Apr 21, 19:16
