A Statistic

Aventinian · A Statistic

Today on the television Professor John Curtis said that the last poll on the subject of Scottish independence gave 27% in favour. He said the poll was conducted in the summer of this year, and possibly (I may have misheard) by the Electoral Commission.

Does anyone know anything about this?

SLG

Heard that as well. Don't know what the poll was. I've certainly never heard of any polls since the Times poll that put support for independence at 54% of those who expressed an opinion (which was ~46% of all respondents)

FALSYDE

Aventian I didn't actually hear the discussion but have had one or two myself with prof. John Curtice and if I am right I understood him to say that, and I am paraphrasing, the general voting percentages range around the 55% +- of which the SNP tend to range between 15-25% depending on various things which affect voters intentions from time to time.

I also understood him to say that there was circa 25% +- of the voters in favour of independence who are effectively disenfranchised, i.e. they would either not vote fro a centre left / left wing party but would consider possibly doing so for a centre right nationalist one. Those people also either don't vote at all and we saw soem evidence last time when 51% stayed at home, or being maybe quite savvy they voted to obstruct least favoured alternatives.

If my memory serves me right I got the impression he felt this situation might be thought of as a democratic deficit in Scotland as these people would by and large not vote again for the Tories in a generation. This I think is born out by where the Tories are now, which is hardly credible were some one to have predicted that say 20-30 years ago when they used to poll around 50% I think.

As far as I remember, and we keep all the records here at the SEP of voting going back some time, the periodic polls seem to consistently hover around the mid 50%'s, sometimes up a few points, sometimes down a few. I certainly haven't heard of a poll with the numbers you mention. Could it have been a GB figure the Electoral Commission cited?

We get a regular 'feed' from them and to check I went to their website but find nothing about them doing a poll. I could be wrong but I don't think they do polls however they did do one to see what voters thought of Holyrood and to everyone's surprise voters trusted Holyrood but did nt understand what it did. Begs the question - do the MSP's? Side remark withdrawn.