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| kevin04 |
New Independence Pollhttp://www.theherald.co.uk/politi...ort_for_Scottish_independence.php41% for 43% against. Slow & Steady  wins the ...
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| azzuri |
Support has been both higher and lower in the past 10 years, these polls aren't really important at the moment.
what's important is getting a straight YES/NO referendum, that's when these sorts of polls become important. |
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| Dave Coull |
Past form suggests that, if anything, opinion polls underestimate support for change in the direction of greater self-determination. Right up to the referendum on setting up a Scottish Parliament, opinion polls were suggesting that it would be touch-and-go, that some regions would vote against, and as for the second vote on tax-raising powers, that would definitely be lost. What actually happened was that there was a very large majority in favour of a Scottish Parliament, every region voted in favour, and even the second question was comfortably carried. The dire predictions of defeat, and of major regional divisions, which had been widespread in the media beforehand, simply didn't happen. I think opinion polls, by their very nature, underestimate the desire for change, because some people give answers in terms of what they believe is possible , rather than in terms of what, in their hearts, they really want. A referendum seems more "real" than an opinion poll, and, for this reason, it makes the possibility of radical change seem more real. This has the effect of appearing to "increase" support for change, when all it is really doing is revealing, more accurately than any mere opinion poll ever can, what is already there.
Party political elections which involve choosing between one set of ambitious politicians and another are completely useless for deciding really important constitutional matters, and mere opinion polls can never settle such matters one way or the other. Only a referendum will do. I am confident that a clear majority for independence already exists. In any case, whether this is so or not, we should trust the people of Scotland to decide. REFERENDUM NOW - INDEPENDENCE - YES OR NO ! |
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| Reluctant Hero |
Surprised to see support for independence so low amongst 18 to 24 year olds. | ||||||||
| Dave Coull |
Reluctant Hero says "Surprised to see support for independence so low amongst 18 to 24 year olds"
Where is your evidence that it is "so low"? If you are basing your claim on this fairly meaningless poll, then your claim is pretty worthless. This poll involved just over a thousand people. Assuming the polling sample was supposed to be "representative" of the Scottish electorate as a whole (itself a highly questionable proposition, given that the pollsters CHOOSE who they ask), that probably means about 65 of these people were aged 18 to 24. It is completely pointless trying to extrapolate anything from such a small sample group. Forty eight percent of 65 is about 32. You only need to choose two or three different people who give slightly different answers to get a totally different result. With such small numbers, the "margin of error" becomes huge. Opinion polls in general contain so many built-in possibilities of error, the ONLY way to actually prove the extent of support for independence is through a referendum. |
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| garye |
Azzuri, generally I agree with you but I think they are important in that it should shut up Unionist politicians harping on about the "fallling support for Independence" and "only a quarter of Scots support Independence " rubbish that they've been spouting for the past few months. |
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| Reluctant Hero |
I should have said, "Surprised to see support for independence so low amongst 18 to 24 year olds in the poll."
Where do you get your figure of 65? In a poll of 1,112 people, I would expect over 100 of them of them to be between 18 to 24.
Who was trying to extrapolate? I was simply stating that I found it surprising in the poll that support was so low between 18 and 24 year olds.
You are right, so why do so many people pay so much money on them? They must mean something to someone. In the lead up to the election, most polls showed a lead for SNP over Labour and that is how it turned out. If this poll showed 95% support for independence and 5% against, what would you be saying then? I fear that if we had a refernedum now, we would lose. Allow another couple of years of an SNP government, showing that earthquakes and the like won't happen with them in power and a year or two of a Tory govt in Westminster and then ask the question. We would win then. |
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| Economist |
Totally agree azzuri. The reason the polls are all over the place is because of the different questions asked and the different options offered. The truth is we don't really have a consistent guesstimate as to support of the two constitutional states at the current time and the figures are volatile. A much more important task is getting people to understand what independence is and rolling back the years of one-sided unionist argument (and dare I say misinformation), giving a level platform and then allowing people to make up their own minds on the subject. I'm still totally dismayed by the number of Scots I come across who are at best ambivalent on independence, or against it because "we're too poor", "too small", "English money pays for Scotland" and all the other arguments that are easily countered. There's no real support for the Union amongst many of these people, but they are reading from the hymn sheet that the media and others have given them - "Ask not what you can do for Britain, but what Britain can do for you" is a way you could summarise it. And that's a pretty shameful and "grasping" standpoint to argue support for the Union from. But, these unscrupulous arguments have been amazingly effective at poisoning people's attitudes on the subject for far too long. |
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