2nd September 2013 Comment The Scottish independence referendum
Well, at last we have a referendum poll that is generating some excitement. Hitherto every poll has put the No side ahead, and indeed often (as in Sunday’s YouGov poll for Devo Plus) quite a long way ahead. Many a commentator has been wondering whether the contest is already all over bar the shouting. But […]
1st September 2013 Comment The Scottish independence referendum
In commissioning the YouGov poll they have published today, the Devo Plus group were hoping to demonstrate that the unionist parties need to come up with clear proposals for more powers for Holyrood this side of referendum polling day in order to ensure that the future of the Union is secure. Alas for them, the […]
29th August 2013 Comment
It may seem an obvious thing to say, but it is broadly true that the more Scottish you feel, the more likely you are to vote ‘yes’ in the referendum. According to the 2012 Scottish Social Attitudes survey, about 6 in 10 of those who say they are ‘Scottish not British’ want the Scottish Parliament […]
25th August 2013 Comment Elections, parties & leaders Expectations of constitutional change
With the 18th September ‘exactly a year to go’ date coming into view, we can expect a flurry of media interest in the state of the referendum debate – and thus of polling activity too. First out of the blocks is an Angus Reid poll in today’s Sunday Express – though we should note that […]
15th August 2013 Comment
Tall tales are common currency when it comes to religion’s supposed role in Scotland’s politics. On the one hand, there are occasional murmurings of a continued underlying ‘Protestant’ basis for Unionism in Scotland, as if Better Together marched, willingly or otherwise, to the beat of the Lambeg drum. Yet at the same time we are […]
12th August 2013 Comment The Scottish independence referendum
An interesting new development for polling in Scotland over the weekend. Concerned about the paucity of published polls about the referendum, the pro-independence website, Wings Over Scotland, raised from its own readers the funds needed to commission a poll from Panelbase. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time that a conventional […]
8th August 2013 Comment Elections, parties & leaders The Scottish independence referendum
Rather a lot of political excitement has been caused recently by claims that the Labour for Independence campaign was a front populated by current and/or recent SNP activists rather than a grassroots organization consisting of genuine Labour members – see, for example, these articles by Severin Carrell and Tom Gordon. Apart from casting aspersions on […]
1st August 2013 Comment The Scottish independence referendum
Just when Scotland’s politicians – and its psephologists – thought it was safe to lie in the sun and forget about the referendum for a while, up popped the Sunday Times last weekend with its Panelbase July poll. So apologies that it has taken us a little while to catch up with what was the first regular public […]
16th July 2013 Comment Policy issues The Scottish independence referendum
One of the great social revolutions of our time has been the expansion of higher education. In the Scottish Election Surveys of the 1970s, just 9% of adults had gained a higher-education qualification. In the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey of 2012, the figure had quadrupled to 36%. This massive change has occurred in parallel with […]
8th July 2013 Comment How England should be governed
The latest Future of England Survey (FoES), conducted annually by the University of Edinburgh, Cardiff University and the Institute for Public Policy Research, is launched today (8 July). It shows that people in England are increasingly dissatisfied with their current constitutional arrangements and increasingly demand the political recognition of England. Some of the dissatisfactions are […]
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