The results of some of the questions in this week’s Panelbase independence poll are so striking we just couldn’t help ourselves. Let’s have a quick delve.
It’s been a remarkable week in opinion polling, with YouGov calling the independence referendum for No on Sunday, Panelbase calling it for Yes on Monday, and TNS-BMRB, according to Prof John Curtice, calling it for Don’t Know by Wednesday.
When you look at those results more carefully it becomes apparent that only the initial YouGov poll holds good news for the No camp, and the reason for this comes down to the psychology of change.
Every single line a classic.
The No campaign got itself rather excited today about the third independence poll of this week, this time by TNS-BMRB, which showed a spectacular and unexpected doubling of the “Don’t Know” figures at the expense of both Yes and No.
We didn’t go into the other two in any depth (noting only the difference in media coverage of them), because as we’ve said for the last 18 months, simple Yes/No polls at this stage are fairly meaningless. But this one deserves a little scrutiny.
Sometimes there isn’t much happening in the world of politics, but it’d be a bit of a stretch to describe this week as one of those times. So we’re not sure in what context this article on the BBC website today counts as “news”.
Curiously, the only place in the media we’ve been able to find even slightly detailed coverage of Gordon Brown’s speech on independence to a group of Labour MPs, MSPs and party apparatchiks in Govan this week was in Newsnet Scotland.
The press, which gave extensive coverage to the former Prime Minister’s last intervention in the debate, has barely mentioned the latest one, made again in the name of the figleaf “United With Labour” brand created to convince the party’s more gullible grassroots supporters that it’s not walking hand-in-hand with the Tories.
That may, of course, be because the media, while more or less obliged to cover UWL’s launch, is generally rather uncomfortable about it and doesn’t want to shine too much light on the group. But it may also be because Brown’s speech was such arrant, obvious nonsense that even Scotsman readers would be insulted by it.
Calton Hill is probably our favourite place in all of Edinburgh. You can see everything from its slopes – Princes Street, Arthur’s Seat, the Forth Bridges, Leith, the Castle, the whole city. It’s also, now we come to look at it, just about the worst conceivable place in the entire capital to hold a rally, but it’s too late to worry about that now.
Wings Over Scotland will be there. Come and join us. We’ve a flag and everything.
And just to finish off our in-depth study into respective coverage of the recent YouGov and Panelbase polls in the Scottish media, here’s the Scottish Daily Express.
Reporting of the YouGov poll (giving the No camp a 30% lead) is at the top, and the Express’ coverage of the Panelbase poll (putting Yes narrowly in front) is below.
Alert readers will, we trust, remember how yesterday we highlighted the somewhat differing approaches that the Herald and Scotsman both took to reporting the two drastically-opposed independence polls of the last 48 hours.
Here’s the Daily Record’s version.
You can argue about the words. But it all comes down to this.
Almost every newspaper today reported a declaration by George Osborne that a No vote would result in a boost to Scottish family incomes of a dramatic-sounding £2,000. The headline figure, which some papers gave a more negative spin, was actually a cumulative sum spread over 30 years (because “£67 a year per family”, or £1.29 a week, sounds rather less impressive as a compelling case for the Union).
It hinged on forecast economic growth of 4% – due to “extra trade, labour migration and cross-border investment” – compared to that in an independent Scotland.
Those are two pretty sweeping predictions. Is the Chancellor that good a fortune-teller?
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
