Wings Over Scotland

George Orwell, “The Freedom Of The Press”, 1943:

“‘If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.‘”

We hear you, George.

When we commissioned our poll, we were about 50/50 in terms of whether the mainstream media would cover it. When the results came in, we cautiously shifted to 60/40 in favour. No matter how piqued the press was about this site’s scrutiny of it for the last year and a half, we reasoned, these results were dynamite and surely couldn’t be ignored by any journalist with a shred of conscience or dignity.

Who would have thought that we, of all people, could be guilty of so over-estimating the integrity and professionalism of Scotland’s newspapers and broadcasters?

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A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

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VOTERS WHO EXPRESS ANY OPINION ON MEDIA BIAS

Men: 60%
Women: 37%

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A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

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VOTERS WHO HAVE HEARD OF THE WEBSITE “LABOUR HAME”

SNP: 6%
Conservative: 4%
Labour: 4%
Lib Dem: 2%

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HAVE HEARD OF THE WEBSITE “LABOUR FOR INDEPENDENCE”

Labour: 12%
SNP: 12%
Conservative: 10%
Lib Dem: 6%

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A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

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VOTERS WHO THINK ALISTAIR DARLING ALWAYS TELLS THE TRUTH

Lib Dems: 9%
Conservatives: 6%
Labour: 4%
SNP: <1%

Age 45-54: <1%
Age 55-64: 1%
Age 65+: 8%

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A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

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VOTERS MOST AFRAID OF TERRORIST ATTACKS

Conservative: 55%
Lib Dem: 42%
Labour: 32%
SNP: 26%

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VOTERS MOST AFRAID OF SPACE MONSTERS

Conservative: 6%
Labour: 5%
SNP: 4%
Lib Dem: <1%

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A series of super-short snippets from our splendid survey.

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UNDECIDED WHICH WAY THEY’LL VOTE IN THE REFERENDUM

Men: 22%
Women: 38%

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Earlier this week, mad Labour activist Ian Smart posted a tweet – now deleted – in which he referred to Labour For Independence as “fifth-columnists”. (Which caught our eye as Labour types unfailingly leap on any renegade cybernat types intemperately denouncing Unionists as “traitors” or “Quislings”.)

But the phrase reminded us of something Labour like to keep pretty quiet. Their own camp is divided into not just supporters of devolution and independence (and undecideds), but also contains a sizeable faction of prominent voices who don’t just want to freeze devolution in its current position, but demolish it entirely.

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Meet the least believed man in Scotland.

Viewers who are still awake after all today’s excitement will doubtless recall an article from this morning in which we reported the fact that hapless “Better Together” director Blair McDougall had issued an extraordinary petted-lip complaint about the Yes camp daring to use the phrase “best of both worlds”, as if it was copyrighted.

(The even more remarkable news being that the Scotsman considered this a story.)

Still, it’s a fair point, right? You shouldn’t just pinch stuff from people, should you?

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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.

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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.

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