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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Suddenly independence looks within Salmond ‘s grasp in new
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Suddenly independence looks within Salmond ‘s grasp in new ICM poll
There’s a new IndyRef poll in Scotland on Sunday from ICM – the pollster that got the 2011 AV referendum most right predicting the final result to within a small fraction of a percent.
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Interesting never the less.
Rennard viewed fairly criticially, again more so anong older voters, but Clegg's handling gets the thumbs down as well. Also an amusing set of questions asking if voters find various models sexy - the bemused panel of politics nerds respond "Who?" in large numbers.
Do the figures suggest that people are changing their minds, or that former Don't Knows have moved into tyne Yes camp?
If so, that could be worrying for "Better Together"!
The latest polling points to all that being possible.
A triple Whammy
What are the quoted odds against a Tory overall majority at the moment? If Yes wins those odds could be wildly generous.
A yes vote is disastrous for Labour.
Scottish Secession would be devastating for your party, naturally, so I presume you are praying this is an outlier.
This is the highest Yes tally in any independently commissioned poll so far. It represents a six-point swing to Yes since last September, the biggest yet in a campaign in which the polls have been remarkably stable. True, there is one word of caution. The swing is entirely confined to those aged 44 and under. All pollsters, including ICM, find it more difficult to get younger voters to answer their questions. Consequently, their estimates of how such voters will behave are more likely to change randomly from one poll to the next.
It's not as simple as one bit of news 'causing' a shift: we're human, and we see patterns everywhere and love cause and effect (even when we get it wrong). It's easy to say 'this bit of news caused this movement', and you hear people shout this even when the polling occurred before the news. Or to look at a piece of news and say 'this hasn't caused a movement'.
If my theory is right, what is needed is a series of positive news stories bang-bang-bang-bang at the right intervals - the public find it hard to ignore one story, but a series of consecutive stories creates a mood and can alter behaviour. Then when the 'snap' from elastic to plastic does occur, we psephologists tend to blame the last bang only, not the cumulative effect.
If the delay between the news is too long, the plastic hinge never develops.
Naturally, the other sides also try to get this sort of effect, so you have competing materials, perhaps in a bi-metal. But that's stretching the analogy too far ...
As I said before, we need a Young's Modulues for polling. ;-)
When they were well ahead in the polls for the 2011 scottish elections they were quite content to follow the strategy mapped out for them by westminster to go hard on negative campaigning. When the polls began to close their response was to stick firmly to the negative strategy. Even when the polls went from bad to worse and the SNP started to widen their lead little Ed and his strategists thought the fault had surely to lie in still just not being negative enough. This culminated in the very people who dreamed up the scottish labour strategy in the first place making one last effort to double down and put everything into negative campaigning. The 2011 SNP landslide result we know. What is also known is that some of the very same 'masterminds' who charted that strategy out for scottish labour's 2011 campaign are right back in place coordinating the SLAB attacks and strategy for the referendum. Even Iain Gray has been brought back in, because, after all, the polls are all pointing to a No win so the strategy must be working. And even if it starts looking like it's not, they can always double down on the negativity again.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2546078/Labour-civil-war-Balls-lurches-Left-soak-rich-50-cent-tax-bombshell.html
I couldn't possibly comment ....
There is one seasonal factor that might help Conservatives as it unwinds: Christmas. Many firms pay wages early in December, so a there is a six or seven week wait for January's payday.
On-topic: is it the recovery helping Yes, or a post-storm boost for the SNP government? If the latter, it may evaporate.
But as the UK struggles with those things as well and life is already risky and difficult, the risk is less. One of my earlier posts on this was that despite the polls the yes camp had the momentum. Personally I don't want Scotland to leave, but I can see why it is such a temptation for them - no more Tory government, no more London dictat.
I hope Wawrinka can win, but would be significantly surprised. If Nadal wins with such a massive blister it would rather cement his position as the best player in the world.
From your Mail link: Survation pollster Damian Lyons-Lowe said: ‘The 50p income tax proposal is clearly popular in itself – even a fair number of Conservative voters approve of it. But the problem for Mr Balls is he lacks credibility.’
It is the underlying story that is important: the trend and regularity of positive stories. It is easy for a voter to ignore positive stories that don't particularly apply to them: there needs to be lots of positive stories, all applying to different sectors of society, until everyone has several good news story.
That's when the plastic hinge may develop.
Mystic DH 100% wrong record intact
Better PM of the UK:
Cameron: 41
Salmond: 29
Never mind, I'm sure your scottish labour chums will be there to aid SCON and provide you with yet more negative spin for this fairly remarkable independence polling.
Maybe if you ask little Ed and Balls nicely enough they'll come up to scotland to help out the scottish tories and 'better together'?
*chortle*
Again, this will be clever politics. The right hate tax dodgers if they are poor, but celebrate it when they are rich. A one rule for all approach is difficult to argue against and appear to not just be supporting your city benefactors
Labour economic logic
You should celebrate by repeating the exact same spin for the 50p tax cut for richest that heralded the biggest drop in tory polling since before 2010. I'm sure the voters just didn't get the message strongly enough from Osbrowne's omnishambles the last time.
In unrelated news, it's grim out there (again).
@ToryTreasury: There we have it. UK went into the crisis with biggest structural deficit in G7 (IMF data). Ed Balls says that deficit was "not too high".
The man was from the IFS, Labour's favourite economic think-tank. When your own side describes a policy as risky it's probably not a good one.
In reality recent changes to tax by this government appear to have had mostly positive effects, why would Labour chose to reverse them if they are keen to demonstrate economic competence?
On the other hand Morgan is making batting look ridiculously easy.
@ShippersUnbound: Asked if he would spent it all again in pre crisis years, Balls; 'some areas we would spend more...'
It's also worth recalling that the would-be King of North Britain once could not wait to ditch the pound (I believe he said it was a millstone around Scotland's neck, or similar) and now thinks sharing a currency with the UK (having left the UK) is a divine right.
One look at RP's post just shows how economically illiterate they really are.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, I have been trying to tell you all that as a unionist I expect Eck to win his Referendum by a squeaky bum margin.
Interesting news this morning that 58% of the people of rumpUK would either be delighted or not bothered to waken up and find Scotland had left the club.
I wonder if the Parliamentary draftsmen have got that Parliament (Suspension of Scottish Constituencies) Bill 2014 ready yet. GE2015 without the 59 Scottish constituencies would be fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_hfQU-4r0
Balls "I am really proud of what we did."
The change is the move of labour to Independence, they have nowhere else to go , it is either be Tories in the UK or have a chance of changing things in an independent Scotland, many of them are not happy with that.
I do hope Scotland remains, but agree it'll be closer than many think.
If and when crossover happens it will be with ICM and then all the other pollsters will fiddle with their weighting etc to ensure they fall into line for fear of being shown to be wide of the mark.
Murnaghan this morning on SKY talking about the Scottish Referendum so might be interesting. Ironically I think a YES vote would be good for the Tory parties on both sides of the Scotland-England border. Scotland's socialist public sector junkies would get a big shock post 18th September when the international markers make it clear the only way an Independent Scotland would be taken seriously is if it adopts a centre-right free market economy, the type John Swinney and chums has quietly been building for the past 7 years while many of his chums have been talking leftie crap to win the Scottish Labour vote over.
Suddenly Catalan secession from Spain would seem quite acceptable, maybe even logical. And the Basque Country .... Wallonia and Flanders... Tyrol in Italy?
We can expect Madrid, Brussels, and London to fight dirty if Salmond looks like winning.
Depending how negotiations happen, it could occur in return for fiscal constraints and as a bargaining chip on certain matters. Disentangling a 300 year old union would require more than just a couple of years (Faslane and the carriers spring to mind).
If the ICM poll remains uncorroborated by other pollsters there will be no establishment panic on the Scottish Referendum.
If we do see a series of polls indicating the gap closing to parity, then reactions will escalate. The first real panic will come from the markets and those global corporates with a heavy exposure to Scotland. Inbound investment decisions will be deferred, exchange rates and bond yields will become volatile and capital flight from Scottish banking institutions will start.
At present the Scottish economy is recovering well with excellent recent employment figures (for the Edinburgh area in particular). A safe "no" expectation with sufficient "yes" support to ensure further devolution remains on the agenda is the only way to ensure this recovery builds.
Politics today is all about economic outcomes. If the markets aren't behind you failure is inevitable.
I wonder about Brussels... weaker nation states might well suit the meddlesome eunuchs of the EU.
Remind me which one of them won a landslide election under a voting system specifically designed to prevent that? And which one couldn't even win a majority under FPTP after the biggest financial crash in decades and so had to run begging to Clegg to save him?
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/cumming-cannot-vote-in-2014-poll.22823930
LOL
I do find it amusing that SKY has a major programme on the Scottish Independence issue this morning yet on Friday made no mention of the result of the Cowdenbeath by-election, preferring instead to talk about such world issues as a badly behaved 19 year old Canadian who frankly could do with a good birching!
I appreciate it's simpler to type the word 'fop' and then write another panegyric of Salmond than to actually engage with what's being said by others, but it's quite tiresome.
Edit: Salmond will play on that.
That bloody annoys me. I don't live in bloody Gallia Narbonensis.
If that's true, why do we bother with all the expense of politicians and elections? Couldn't a committee of technocrats do just as well - or better since the markets wouldn't have to allow for political interference?
Tell me, why was it that all your little yellow boxes and spin during Osbrowne's omnishambles were so hilariously inept and pointless since you are now posing as some kind of economic guru? Because I remember you and most of the PB tories getting that one as wrong as it is possible to get.
Maybe you should find stuarttruth again and start pontificating on the next US elections since your spinning for Romney was also comedy gold.
He'll be posting the wiki polling chart next.
We haven't had one today.
But there are clearly other groups in society that are almost as strongly in favour. As a Unionist I hope that differential turnout will favour no but I do think it will be close.
A team of technocrats was prescribed for both Greece and Italy after their leaders/governments fell out with their bosses in Frankfurt and Brussels.
'No money, no honey' is the order of the day.
We don't care much either way. It will make England more Tory, and I suppose that's probably a good thing, going by the latest tax nonsense from miliband. Apart from that - *big shrug*
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-bully-pulpit/
http://wingsoverscotland.com/edited-highlights/
Why not keep the field up?
Still that would make the run-up to the referendum vote much more fun.
I too have said for a while that Scottish independence is a distinct possibility. But I have also said that the case for independence has been poorly thought out. And Salmond's poor effort this week in handling questions about the Ryder Cup jolly could yet be the fly in the ointment. There is not much point in asking the voters to go with your Braveheart New World if it has the appearance of a shiny new country but with the same old troughing politicians just looking out for themselves and their cronies.
But good luck to the Scots. If it does happen, then we could be looking at a horribly uncertain period of rUK government, perhaps with a Prime Minister Miliband robbed of a chunk of his MP's part way through his term, probably when Labour's inevitable economic meltdown mean that his party's polling has gone through the mid-term floor. Not a time to lose a confidence motion and have to go to the country....
Now why would it be that you are so upset at the prospect of polling? Could it be the same reason you and stuarttruth made us all laugh so hard when you were dismissing every poll as you were cheerleading for Romney?
So far, there are three nose types:
The Tusks - Lotus
The Platypus - Ferrari
The Rhino* - Williams/McLaren
*Ok, the Rhino-noses actually conjure up something else, but I'm using family-friendly terms.
I'm most disappointed.