Scottish independence referendum poll tracker | Hacker News Reader

Scottish independence referendum poll tracker

bbc.com

31 pointsSami_Lehtinen57 comments

Kudos to the BBC and the UK as a whole, there are not many countries in which the state broadcasting unit seems to be covering a move to secede with reasonable impartiality.

cf. the shock to the Indonesian political elite when East Timor voted overwhelmingly to secede - there is a downside to a press that is too docile

They've actually had quite a lot of criticism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Scottish_...

The BBC is technically independent [1], not a “state broadcast” – that’s the whole point of being funded via TV license [2]. … Of course, in reality people accuse the BBC of all kinds of biases, amongst them being pro-government (I find myself in that camp, but there are few hard numbers [3]). It’s also been accused of bias by both sides of the referendum debate [4].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#Governance_and_Corporate_St... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#History [3]: http://www.newstatesman.com/broadcast/2013/08/hard-evidence-... [4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Scottish_i...

BBC is (always were) pro government. That said, IMHO is the state-of-art TV broadcast network.

"Pro government" is maybe a little strong. The BBC is funded by the government under an "arms length" arrangement with license fees; it is (understandably) nervous about doing anything that annoys the government enough to make it reconsider this status.

That doesn't mean that the BBC actively endorses the government of the time, but rather that it tends to prefer not to rock the boat too hard. It's never been - and never will be - a hotbed of edgy, controversial content. You could describe its objective as "quality content that isn't going to be hated by too many people".

The BBC is not pro-government currently, and wasn't pro-Labour after the Iraq War. I think the best way to describe the BBC's bias is "pro-Guardian" (a left-leaning newspaper).

The BBC is only neutral where it serves their best interests. For example, good luck finding any coverage of the opposition to the TV tax that funds them.

Also worth noting that you can be politically 'neutral' while still having unbalanced levels of coverage or using weasel words. While the BBC certainly does better than most organisations that claim to be neutral, there is still a tendency to oppose the incumbent government as well as a slight lean to the left politically.

On the other hand good luck finding something against the TV licence fee, or against most things the BBC do, that isn't written by a Murdoch paper.

I agree on the second paragraph, it's a shame that each individual doesn't shine through that where relevant.

Odds at online bookmakers and betting exchanges still rate a "No" vote as around twice a likely as a "Yes" vote.

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/scottis...

As well they should. This one poll gives the appearance of a trend towards Yes and a dramatic close finish, but Yes have always been behind by a fairly consistent margin [0]. Just so happens the odd poll (~2/50 now) finds a Yes majority by crook or by hook (e.g. SNP commission a poll) and it makes a nice news piece. I did a quick analysis of that polling data should anyone be interested [1].

[0] http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/scottish-independence-referendu...

[1] http://blm.io/blog/scottish-independence-polls/

Phenomenal work, well done. I was slightly disappointed that the (beautiful) blog post was not authored in R Markdown. ;-)

One comment, your analysis only takes into account data up to July of this year. It is entirely plausible that the recent debates could have affected the polls dramatically (there’s precedence for this, prime example being the Kennedy–Nixon debate), something that the BBC data is consistent with.

It's worth noting that YouGov polls have been the most cited, especially recently, while there has been a coordinated effort by the pro-independence campaign to start registering their people on there in bulk to inflate their numbers in the polls (YouGov allows anyone to register to participate).

I don't know. But note that you can change the source from the selectbox below (and others sources show that the "Yes" is not yet #1 (but might be (or not), if you count later the "Don't know" voices).

YouGov is the most recent poll though, the others are 1-6 weeks older. So it is hard to compare

Error: ')' expected.

YouGov allows everyone to register but selects panels based on approximate population distribution rather than surveying everyone.

Disclaimer: used to work in that sector.

Assuming support for Scottish independence is randomly distributed among the Scottish population, what criteria would you use to select a representative panel?

I'm not sure what they would use myself but based on the prequel questions they ask people plus some heuristics they can determine roughly were you sit within the populous on a number of aspects between age, class, income, location and political inclination etc.

If a poll is biased towards political inclination they can exclude that from the selection criteria to avoid result bias.

The assumption is among other things that it is correlated with past voting for the SNP, eg see (a few months old) http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/07/who-is-right-youg...

That is surely a huge bias in cases like this. Eg I see they are under represented in young males so if the Yes campaign gets young male yes voters to sign up it will bias results significantly...

Actually no. The yes campaign gets people to sign up but it doesn't mean they will be surveyed. It's invitation only i.e. you sign up and wait until you are invited based on your personal information. They are gated polls.

Also based on experience there are "shill traps" in the surveys as well.

I see they also have a quite complex compensation based on previous voting history, which they have for longer term respondents. It does seem odd though that none of the other polls show a sudden shift in intentions.

Some notes on this (from experience):

This is because the non-YouGov polls are quite slow to aggregate data. For example Ipsos Mori is mainly scheduled physical panels and not online (some of it is still paper collection!?!) so any shift in behaviour isn't immediately noticed. It can take a week or so for anything to become apparent.

Opinion changes very rapidly when there are political items on the table. Sometimes within hours. YouGov wins here as it can constantly obtain data almost in a stream-like format and adjust rapidly. They had a thing called BrandIndex that did that a few years ago as well with brand opinions based on advertising and press scraping.

Usually the last minute swings are because there has been a lot of focus on this subject recently in the press which means people are likely to commit to firmer decisions based on research, actually decide to communicate their decisions or are relatively conservative at making decisions.

If you look at how these things are worded, they are always in the form of NO to the status quo and YES to change as well. This means that people less conservative with their opinions will be apparent up front and people more conservative (and usually more intelligent) will lag behind.

The nature of the vote depends on which group goes which way.

Watch these stats over the next few major political events - it's really interesting!

Thanks. I might sign up to YouGov to get a better idea. I was on a phone poll for something years ago but of course I moved and they lost continuity. Phone polling accuracy is falling sharply it seems.

It's not that accurate then. I'm a YouGov member and keep getting polled on most of their topics most of the time,including scottish independence more than once even though I don't get a vote (which infuriates me, that I don't get a vote on if the people my tax money subsidises get to run off with my hard earned money...).

Just because you don't get a vote doesn't mean they bundle you in with the voting statistics. That and public opinion are separate.

Would be shocked if this actually happens. Most Scottish business will move down south (they've said as much loudly), they will not be able to use the pound, and because of the EU's "any member can veto policy", I think EU membership will be harder, not easier for Scotland to get - Spain, for one (with Catalonia or the Basque region), is not going to want this precedent set.

Still, will be interesting to watch. Money is still on "No", but stranger things have happened.

By the way, Tyler Cowen has an interesting link on this (Citing the FT): note that financial services are the biggest part of Scotland's GDP now, and getting away from the pound would affect that: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/09/doe...

I think it's perhaps more accurate to say that business leaders in Scotland are split just the same way that the rest of the population is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-2896...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28944255

Also worth noting that the SNP wants to lower corporation tax rates to attract large companies here.

The UK already has very low corporate taxes, so Putting it even lower could be interesting.

Ireland already has lower taxes than the UK, it would probably have a similar effect, although the EU is quite keen to get rid of the ways to evade even the low official rates in Ireland.

Spain has said they will be fine with it since it's bilateral. It's unilateral independence they wouldn't be ok with.

As a foreigner, living in Scotland the whole debate seems left wing-ish to me. SNP shows they are nationalistic, but wants to be an independent republic, not having the Queen (or restore their own historical realm).

There are also a lot of very good things I see, but there's no sign of the same nationalistic spirit as I can see in Poland, Croatia or Hungary.

Beautiful landscape anyway, they could be rich and smart when independent. In fact, after Russia, Scotland will be the most manliest country in the world with more culture and gentleman than Russia :)

I will be also very sad an other Kingdom will be smaller in case they became independent.

Despite I have the right to vote, I can't say aye or naw yet, but silently observing the thing to learn from it. Hope Transylmania one day will have the same opportunity.

Pretty sure the Isle-of-Man is the manliest country.

That's probably the most interesting thing that will happen in 2014, especially if Scotland votes 'YES' (which I believe will do, I don't trust pools anyway).

Generally speaking, after 2008 and the policies the EU choose to endorse, Europe is heading towards right-wing, nationalistic governments, who speak against a unified EU. That's because where the EU was seen as a good thing before, it was used by liberals to kill effectively every social protection Europe had to offer[1]. That doesn't apply to Scotland as much as other countries, but I believe it does affect the vote indirectly.

[1] From Spain to Turkey, every country that had to do a non-popular, usually anti-social reform, used Brussels as the main reason.

The fact is that no non-Scottish UK citizen really gives a toss. It's Scotland vs Westminster and the rest of the UK couldn't give a fuck what they do.

Not true. They will once they understand the significance of the Westminster parliament losing 52 Scottish Labour MPs which would leave the rest of the UK with a strong Tory majority.

If the vote is YES the Prime Minister in office when independence takes effect (most likely to be Labour) would certainly have to resign.

"most likely to be Labour" - er, what? Ed Milliband? I would say it's 50/50 as to who the next PM would be.

"If the vote is YES the Prime Minister in office when independence takes effect (most likely to be Labour) would certainly have to resign."

I doubt it, if Scotland votes yes it'd probably cripple Cameron's career, not whoever becomes PM after the vote.

I sometimes wonder if this was exactly Osbourne's plan

Part of me wants to say that gives Osbourne a lot more credit than he deserves, part of me thinks he's probably shrewd enough to have a go at it with some level of success.

You think Boris wouldn't be the heir apparent in that case, not Osbourne?

As far as I understand, there's only been a couple of elections where losing the Labour majority in Scotland would have made a difference for Labour.

It's true that a Labour government would likely have a far smaller majority without the Scottish MPs, but when Labour has won, it has usually been with far greater majorities than that.

It would have in the most recent general election, while the general consensus is that hung parliaments[1] are only going to become more common if not the norm in future.

[1]That is, no clear majority, requiring a coalition government

If independence happens (I don't think it will), this will be re-writing of borders of a country long term. The political paradigm will adapt.

Long term, the Westminster system gravitates towards a two main party or coalition equilibrium. Scottish Labour will be gone. Maybe the Tories will pull right and cede some of the centre. Maybe Labour will pull right.

This is actually a pretty minimal effect historically:

http://theweebluebook.com/assets/images/uk-govts.png

I'm English and I care about it, so that's not factually correct.

It's a commonly repeated SNP canard that non-scottish people don't have opinions on it, along with that they would somehow be able to use the pound despite every single political party and the EU saying they can't.

Actually what I think the SNP are saying is non-Scottish peoples opinions aren't of as much importance as Scottish peoples opinions. Which is fair, it's their country, they get to decide their own future.

Speak for yourself buddy, not for me, thank you.

Definitely not true. There are plenty of people in Wales and Northern Ireland wondering what it means for them if Scotland does leave the union.

I imagine this will be confusing for Northern Ireland Unionists, and Republicans probably.

It's hard not to see this as a precedent. Perhaps even a precedent in international geopolitics. If Scotland has an inalienable right to secede by popular referendum, Why not Iraqi Kurdistan? Why Not Turkish Kurdistan? Why not Crimea?

It's going to be incredibly confusing for Northern Ireland. Historically, and culturally, they have much closer ties to Scotland than England/Wales.

So what happens when the unionists find themselves left attached to 'the wrong union'?

It's a layered and weaved history. Northern Ireland's Gaelic culture is historically related to Isle of Mann and Northwest Scotland's Gaelic cultures. At certain points in history the spoken dialects, kinships and such were closer between these regions then they were between Northern Ireland and other parts of Ireland. Dublin was a Gaelic-Viking town, later a Anglo-Irish-Norman town.

During the 16th-18th centuries, "The Plantations" there was a lot of migration of Loyalists from the Scottish Lowland. Their descendants make up the majority of the island's Presbyterians. Some still call themselves (or their subdialect of English) Ulster (Norther Ireleand) Scots.

Obviously there is even more weaving and layering. There are mountains of historical threads, cultural similarities. The Highland clan system is related to the Northern Irish system. There was trade dating back to prehistoric times.

When Irish Nationalism was on the rise, strongly Republican and strongly Catholic, these people developed their own Unionist political identity.

The whole thing is predicated on being in the United Kingdom. With political identities UK becoming Welsh, Scottish, English, even Mannish (Is there a Cornish nationalism?), where does that leave the Ulster Scots (who generally don't go by that demonym)?

Confusing.

Maybe it will confuse some sense into the situation.

seems unlikely that either of those regions will wish to leave the union, as unlike Scotland they are both heavily subsidised by England (to the tune of about half of their budget).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com