I'm a great fan of slow journalism (if you don't subscribe you really should) it's a wonderful publication that explains the benefits of writing news stories and opinion pieces well after the event rather than in the heat of the moment. In politics, business and life the 24 hour news cycle often doesn't help and can often mean you attribute far too much importance to the latest change in the story rather than the story itself.
With the announcements of last week were designed to change the narrative for the SNP. This was their big play, this was the attempt to paint the Tories into the corner to "block the will of the people". From my active days on twitter I know many nationalists who were salivating at the prospect of this block by Westminister. The "block" would be the moment when the people of Scotland would finally see the light and turn to the nationalist cause.
The trouble is it hasn't worked out like that. Taking all the polls for the month of March (so far) where are we?
Bang on trend again, with the apparent correlation (not to be confused with causation) between time and support for independence looking stronger. The further we get away from the referendum the less people tend to support independence.
I've also started to look at the data from a poly trend basis. I do this to improve the line of best fit but also to tease out if there are deeper trends going on in the data. Here too it looks like we are bang on trend with a tiny but almost unnoticeable improvement in the nationalist cause since Brexit. It's clear after the shock of Brexit there were a number of No voters who temporarily contemplated switching sides, early in the morning of the Brexit vote I confess I was one of them. But that feeling has clearly subsided for many (again including me).
The nationalists were clearly banking on a similar Yes bounce after the Westminster block. So far though there seems to be no sign of it and the long term trend remains intact.
Even looking at the PanelBase only polls (which have a lower level of Don't Knows than the rest of the pollsters and tend to have a slight systematic bias towards Yes, please note that doesn't make them wrong) we can see the downward trend of the Yes movement since the EU referendum - thanks to Fraser Whyte for pointing that out.
The "Westminster block" narrative was the SNP's "big dog", the trump card in their deck. But it looks like (so far) this particular dog hasn't barked.
Again looking at the data over the long term rather than obsessing about the latest narrative we just have a relentless trend which is not in the SNP's favour. No wonder they are talking about "before it's too late" it looks like time is running away from them.
Really no need for the faux objective nonsense about you contemplating independence after brexit. You're a dyed in the wool nationalist who would support the Union come what may. You even rejoice at the thought of people losing their rights if it helps the Union.
ReplyDeleteCrankie is living in cloud cuckoo land. She also states the pound is HER currency. Whatever.
ReplyDeleteErrr Craig I'm on the record as stating that I'm far from ideologically opposed to independence, indeed I'm trying on the blog to help the nationalist movement and if you cared to read it you would know it.
ReplyDeleteCan you point to me doing anything other than lamenting the loss of EU national's rights?
Thought not.
However Craig as yourself why you are reduced to such pathetic attempts at playing the man, that probably demonstrates more than any other why deep down you know that the SNP have made a strategic mistake last week. Sorry about that but perhaps if they had listened to people like me you would have a coherent case for working towards independence.
There is a strong correlation between the fall in support for independence and the assumption of FM status of Nicola Sturgeon. In short, the data proves she is failing. That this further correlates with a fall public services performance is not unexpected.
ReplyDeleteWhat a load of pish, your polls are fantasy. If you want a true indicator wait till you get the result of the council elections in May. You have but a few weeks to indulge in your little game before the shit hits the fan. Scotland will speak and silence the nonsense constantly churned out by the propaganda machine called the MSM. ðŸ˜
ReplyDeleteAyrBlues; the thing is, at the momen the SNP have the support of around 45% of the elctorate, that means they are highly likely to win a mjority of seats and in some case nearly all of the seats (see the 2015 general elction for an example), but this is because opposition to them is split between three parties. However that is quite different to a binary vote such as a referendum where those who oppose the SNP's aim are not split. Frankly the SNP winning all the councils might even give a boost to their opponents in a referendum as it would give them an increased chance to muck stuff up and hack people off. They haven't relly done a stellar job in government, but it doesn't get noticed as they spend 80% of their time distracting people with incessant talk about independence, thus covering up their at best mediocre performance and paucity of ideas. The clock is ticking on them being rumbled, putting them in charge of some more local authorities might just speed that up.
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