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What is unbelievably frustrating is that the election is two weeks tomorrow and we're not even getting a single opinion poll a week.
We get 6-8 general election opinion polls a week for an election that isn't happening until next year, but this unprecedented vote is going almost unsurveyed.
Yesterdays Yougov could be an outlier or significant, we don't know.
YouGov poll tonight, Yes 51% - No 49%, a swing of 22% in the last month.
Come on Scots, this is a one-off opportunity to grasp your own destiny. Seize it with both hands.
Another online poll giving just a 1% difference, this time a 1% lead for No. If the polls are right its no longer one-sided.
As a famous Scot liked to say, its squeaky bum time.
After the result of that first poll which put the Yes campaign ahead, the pound fell against the Euro and the Dollar. Scottish-based firms and those with large Scottish interestes, such as Standard Chartered and Lloyds Banking Group, which owns Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows, saw billions wiped off their share prices.
Meanwhile Scots continue to question the flaky financial underpinnings of Salmond's Scottish vision. My other half's folks who live in Argyll, both life-time teachers now retired on state pensions, are very seriously worried about their future finances if Salmond gets his way. The promises of low taxatation and high public spending are wooing the naive and the nationalistic, the uneducated and the ignorant, but those asking the sensible questions about financial probity here remain unanswered.
Like you Rand, much as I can see a slightly sadistic schadenfreude temptation in wanting the Yes campaign to win only to see Scotland fail utterly, which it will, the truth is that too many people will be hurt by an independent Scotland to find it funny really.
The undecided in the polls have been around the 20% mark throughout, and i'd expect the majority of those to vote come crunch-time on the 18th. I'm still expecting a clear No win.
Don't misjudge me, I don't want Scotland to go independent to fail and feel smug about it. The Scots have become to weaned to the public teat and hence why Salmond is electorally probably playing his cards just right - its what Labour have been doing for decades and there's a bit of karmic balance if Labour get hurt by the SNP outdoing them on that front.
But I don't think that an independent Scotland will stay that way for long. I view Scotland sort of like a modern day twenty-something young adult who's still living with (and sponging off) their parents (England) who are ultimately backing up and paying the bills for their spendthrift ways; then they start to hate their parents whenever they say no to some new extravagance. Going out and getting an apartment and finding their own way in the world may be daunting, it may be difficult at first but then they'll grow up and cut their cloth accordingly. Eventually by leaving the nest they'll grow up.
The Scots aren't French who do the wrong thing, then re-do it again and again. The nation of Adam Smith isn't doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes but the current status quo is no longer healthy. Any problems are England's fault, any successes are their own. It doesn't work and it needs to change and we'll all be better off and get along better afterwards.
Countries that gain independence almost never give it up again, regardless of how badly they do.
Right, not even Surinam, despite the fact that half of its population moved to the mother land.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I am looking forward to the EU referendum in the UK; it should be fun to see people turning their scottish referendum position on its head :D
Who said or implied they would?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I find it interesting that the US coverage mentions that Scots blame Thatcher for shuttering Scotland's "industrial might". They all seem to use some variation of "might" or "mighty" -- as if Thatcher just willed-away all that industry for spite.
Sorry, I misread your post.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Dread, the Scots blame Thatcher not being left wing. That's at the root of their criticism.
I understand that. I just find the media shorthand to be weird.
That's the union left wing ideology. Thatcher let industrial jobs fail out of spite. It is BS but your media isn't making it up on their own.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Cameron, Clegg and Milliband all trek north to make pleas for the Union.
Cameron promising more devolved powers to Scotland if they vote No. Shoulda been less complacent at the start of this, Dave. :|
The irony is that if he loses the vote then his reputation will be ruined and he may have to resign as the PM who lost our 300 year old union. But on a party basis his successor would find it much easier to win a majority.
Are you seriously suggesting here that it would be politics as usual in the rUK in the case Scotland votes yes next week? Hilarious. More likely the Conservative party will tear itself apart in the aftermath of Scottish independence. It already hardly is a party at all as is. Any Conservative leader since Thatcher basically has been trying to herd cats, none of them very successfully.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Labour tore itself apart in the 80s and returned to power with a massive majority for 13 years in the 90s.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Tories turned to massive in-fighting in the 90s and returned to power (albeit in a coalition) in 2010.
Canadian Tories went down to just 2 seats in the 90s, successor party returned to power with an overall majority in the 00s and is still in power.
Politics will oscillate between left and right and in a First Past the Post system especially will eventually stabilise the party in opposition as they unite to get rid of their opponents. The "centre of gravity" is to the right in England and however the right ultimately stabilises (as Tory not the abhorrent UKIP I hope) it will either hold on or return to power at some point.
If I were a Scott and I'd see the bribes the UK government is throwing at me for saying 'no' against independence, I'd be more inclined to vote 'yes'.
It's pretty shit.
If the case for No hasn't yet been made, it's certainly not going to be made through last-ditch pleas and desperate promises.
WhyScottish can have a referendum but East Ukrainians got shelling?
EastUkrainians have more reason to seek independence because they speak Russianwhile Scottish speak the same language as British do.
good point
lets shell scotland
We need to send vacationing Brits there, along with their tanks.
That would be considered terrorism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wraith
Because the Scots have campaigned for decades democratically for a referendum and won enough votes at the last election to ensure one, while the Eastern Ukrainian terrorists took up arms and turned to violence.Quote:
Originally Posted by katsung47
Polls are settling around Yes 48 - No 52 it seems. If anything I expect a higher No vote, but it seems almost certain to be a No. I hope I'm wrong.
Everyone else in my family I've discussed it with (not many people) want a No, I'm the only one who wants a Yes. I was around at my grandparents (in their 80s) at the weekend who are very annoyed about the whole thing and very much against it.
Okay, just so we're clear, scots don't speak the same language as the other Brits. I dunno what language they speak but it damn sure ain't English :o :p
1% of Scots speak Scottish Gaelic. 100% of Scots speak English (or Sean Connery English :o ).
I haven't been to Scotland, but what they speak in, say, Trainspotting, is more 'english' than english :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I like this guys:
It's like the Swiss German of English, maybe that's makes me feel a little bit related to Scots. They also have the same 'r' and 'ch' :heart:
I was listening to more or less on the radio this weekend, and they were speaking to one of the guys who's been doing the polls for the referendum. What he saying was, because of the unprecedented nature of the vote tomorrow a lot of the modals they used for, e.g. general elections, aren't valid. For example, they can't use data on how xyz demographic group voted in the last Scottish independence referendum to predict how they might vote in this one.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Upshot is, there's a chance the polls might be completely wrong.
Personally, I believe that because while the content of the campaign from both sides has been extremely poor, the yes campaign will suffer more from this because they set out to make the case for independence and they failed to make it. The fact that BT failed, if anything, even harder than they did won't be relevant; the status quo is the default position. I think a lot of undecideds and even some yes voters are going to go no in the privacy of the polling booth, because away from the noise, fury and group-think of the average political campaign people are going to understand how irrelevant most of that stuff was to the decision they were being asked to make.
But I could be totally wrong, one thing the pollsters are confident about is that while the actual numbers are uncertain the direction of travel has definitely been toward's 'yes'. I do think the margin of victory for whoever wins will end up be a surprise.
Agreed with Steely. General election polls tend to be accurate because there are only marginal changes between general elections, and it's not too hard to model those changes properly. There's no precedent for this kind of vote, which means any poll is going to have a huge margin of error. There's no reliable way to estimate turnout and there's no way to get a truly representative poll. I wouldn't be surprised to see anything from a 5% No victory to a 5% Yes victory.