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Wings Over Scotland

The axe-persons cometh 114

Posted on November 16, 2015 by

When we commission polls we don’t like to just ask people easy questions like who their favourite member of One Direction is. We like to put them on the spot and make them actually think about stuff, and this time was no different:

“The UK government is imposing severe cuts to tax credits and benefits in order to save £12 billion from its budget. Scotland’s per-capita share of the cuts would be around £1 billion.

The Scottish Government will in future have the power to compensate those who lose out, by creating new payments it’ll have to fund itself.

Which of the following is closest to your view?”

Because we thought it was unlikely any Scottish Labour MSPs would be taking our poll, we decided to discount the “magic lots of extra money out of thin air” option and only allow respondents to pick from intellectually-coherent choices.

Their answers were enlightening.

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Tags:
Category analysis, scottish politics

Brick walls and open doors 234

Posted on November 15, 2015 by

The task facing the Scottish independence movement is to change the minds of just 6% of Scots. That’s all it would take to turn September 2014’s defeat into a victory if and when another referendum comes around, and when you put it like that it doesn’t sound like an impossible job.

brickdoor

The question for Yes supporters is where to focus their energies. A proportion of people who live in Scotland will never vote for independence no matter what, for a variety of reasons we don’t need to go into here. But we’ve always wondered exactly how big that proportion was, so in our latest Panelbase poll we just asked straight out.

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Category analysis, scottish politics, stats

Lords and ladies 60

Posted on November 15, 2015 by

The House of Lords has been in the news quite a bit recently, one way and another. So in our latest poll we thought it might be fun to ask a few questions about it.

ladymone

We decided to have something for everyone.

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Category analysis, scottish politics, stats, uk politics

Dead air 132

Posted on November 15, 2015 by

A few weeks ago, we were told by a source that BBC Scotland’s flagship weeknight current-affairs show Scotland 2015 was recording some truly shocking viewing figures, in the region of 5,000 people a night. When we sent the BBC an FOI request for the stats, it was rejected, like almost all FOIs to the Corporation are.

deadair

We also looked into trying to get the data from BARB, but they weren’t very helpful either. So the only option we had left to get any sort of idea at all was to ask in our latest Panelbase poll.

When the results came in, we understood why the BBC wanted it kept quiet.

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Tags:
Category analysis, media, scottish politics

A deliberate vagueness 91

Posted on November 14, 2015 by

This one rather speaks for itself.

dugdalemurphy

(Data below from our latest Panelbase poll.)

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Tags: ,
Category analysis, scottish politics, stats, uk politics, wtf

The march of time 147

Posted on November 14, 2015 by

As alert readers will know, we’ve just done another Panelbase opinion poll. You’ll be hearing more about the results over the next couple of days, but we thought we’d give you the headline finding first.

pb49yes

The most interesting thing about those numbers is that as far as we can make out that’s the highest Yes figure Panelbase has ever returned for that question. (The last two times, for the Sunday Times in September and July, both came out 47-53.)

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Category analysis, scottish politics, stats

One is the loneliest number 146

Posted on November 14, 2015 by

lonelyal

Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here.

Tags: ,
Category scottish politics, uk politics

Gordon Tries Again 188

Posted on November 13, 2015 by

And has no more luck this week with hapless Scottish Labour list MSP Claire Baker than he did with her habitually mendacious colleague Jackie Baillie last week:

(The Big Debate, BBC Radio Scotland, 13 November 2015)
.

Brewer’s weary sigh at 2m 14s speaks volumes.

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Category audio, idiots, scottish politics

Still better together 218

Posted on November 13, 2015 by

slabcumbernauld

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Category comment, scottish politics, uk politics, video

The Trojan Horse 429

Posted on November 12, 2015 by

One of the stranger criticisms regularly levelled at this site is that we don’t attack the SNP/Scottish Government enough.

labwhiners

That’s weird firstly because it’s not like there’s currently a shortage of hostile media scrutiny of Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues, and secondly because we’ve never in our four-year life claimed for a moment to be neutral.

But the reality is far more nuanced than that.

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Category analysis, audio, comment, scottish politics

From man to pig and pig to man 630

Posted on November 10, 2015 by

Below is an article taken from the UK media today about the Scotland Bill.

pigs

Give it a read through, and pay attention. There’ll be a very short quiz at the end.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics

Not-so-special delivery 140

Posted on November 10, 2015 by

Scottish Labour were unambiguous: VOW DELIVERED IN FULL!

slabvow

And who could disagree?

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Category comment, uk politics, video

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