joozy

Not as tragic as the stalling yes campaign, less than 10 weeks to poll time and no inroads being made at all.

You're always very quick to demand arbitrary numbers of proof points aren't you Cuntydemus. I'm still waiting for some evidence to prove that Atos has driven thousands of people to suicide. Please be very specific.

While you are of course correct that a 3/1 returns the same regardless of the field size, there are differences that you have to take into consideration. Brazil are the likeliest winners of the World Cup, 3/1 would imply they have a 25% chance of success. They have a 75% chance of failure - with that spread among the 7 remaining contenders. In the referendum, that 75% chance of failure for the yes campaign(using the 3/1 as an example, when in fact you can get 5/1) simply means that the no campaign have a 75% CoS. In the Brazil case they're 3/1 and the likeliest winner....in the referendum campaign yes can be 3/1 and are nowhere near the likeliest winner. I take your point, and I suppose a lot of this is semantics, but people will view a 3/1 shot differently depending on the field size.

Betfair has yes at a fraction over 5/1 with no at 2/11. Pretty much equates to an 85% probability of a no victory in September. As for the Brazil reference, that's an 8 horse race....this field only has 2 contenders.

Yes has drifted markedly to 5.7 (>9/2) on Betfair while No has came back to 1.2 (1/5) over the past couple of weeks.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/10/scottish-independence-referendum-bet-no-vote

An article from about 6 weeks ago....

The state of you lot. A poll from over 2 years ago, that showed around 92 folk in favour of independence is enough to get you creaming your knickers.

Funnily enough, most of the people that I know who are as thick as pigshit are voting Yes. On the other hand, the smart and successful ones are breaking massively for No.

It's also worth remembering, as i'm sure you've pointed out in the past, that it's a fallacy to assume that any apparent trends will continue in a linear fashion.

Or as you meant to write... I didn't know how to work it out myself

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out.... I'm sure you have a calculator on whatever device you're using to post.

There is no democratic deficit - I acknowledge it has become something of a political mantra for the yes campaign to argue that there is but that doesn't mean it should just be swallowed blindly. Scotland is not underrepresented in parliament. Indeed the average Scottish MP represents fewer people than his/her English counterpart. Scotland has its own parliament, which has control over a wide range of areas. Scottish MP's can vote on policies in England and Wales that have no effect on Scotland - this is arguably an area where there is a far greater democratic deficit. The same argument about Scotland influencing the eventual government could be made about any region.

I simply don't agree that there is a democratic deficit affecting Scotland. Many of your complaints reflect the nature of the first past the post political system rather than any inherent bias against Scotland. Indeed with the powers the Holyrood government can wield, I would argue that Scotland has more powers over its own affairs than any other region of the UK. If you were to take any other region of the UK (whether it's the North-East, Greater London etc), I'd be interested to know how often their results would have been the swing factor in UK general election.

How ever will Scottish voices be heard at Westminster? Obviously i'm not counting 2 of the last 3 Prime Ministers (i will accept that calling Blair Scottish may be something of a stretch), 2 of the last 3 Chancellors, the current Chief Secretary to the Treasury and numerous other Cabinet members over the past couple of decades. The fact is that there has been no problem with Scottish voices. In fact, it's one area where Scotland have punched above its weight significantly.

Wow. And i mean that. So unless I'm willing to deny the existence of Scotland...then there is no good argument against independence. I know this is a concept which is alien to many in the yes campaign, but there are those of us who are perfectly happy being both British and Scottish. We don't see it as an either/or thing. Neither does it mean we slavishly agree with every decision made by either the Westminster or Holyrood parliaments.

Well thank goodness these lucky, lucky ladies have a man about the house to put them right. Women, know your limits.

More lol-tastic stuff. Yet more cult-like chatter, anyone who doesn't subscribe to the kool-aid party line is somehow just a bit less moral.

Yes is still available at around 9/2 on betfair. I'm sure those who are so confident that the polls are wrong will be lumping on big style.

If you think that 7/2 is massive, then you should be piling into the odds of over 4/1 available on Betfair. £153k has been matched on this market on Betfair so far - £27k of that has went on 'yes', £126k on 'no'.

The Donside byelection canvassing was done by the SNP - perhaps you have more information about the methodology used here but I'd hardly be rushing to use this as particularly strong evidence. Studies have shown that polls can be manipulated massively if certain questions are asked in the run-up to the main question. That's why it is always interesting to read exactly how these things are conducted. While the results of the PCS election are striking, again it only represents one subset of the population and the majority did opt for not supporting either campaign officially. I accept that any one poll can be bollocks, but it is rare for many polls to be totally wrong. That isn't to say that things can't change, but I'd argue that the current polls reflect a fairly accurate view of the current state of play. I only glanced quickly at the 2011 polls but the ones conducted closer to the time of election seemed to be broadly right IIRC. Nate Silver's book 'The Signal and the Noise' is pretty good on this subject and a really interesting read. I actually think your whole article is made weaker by the inclusion of the various polls on football fora. Everyone knows that they're not really representative and so easily manipulated as to be pretty worthless.

With the greatest respect, comparing polls conducted on various football fora and those taken at student debates with the ones done by the likes of Gallup etc is not really valid. Professional polling companies attempt (or, they should at least), ensure that they try to conduct a poll with a sample which is as representative of the population as a whole as possible. When you have self-selecting surveys like those on here, then it's going to be those with the strongest motivation and interest who look to reply. As far as I'm aware, in the case of most referenda like this it is usually the side looking to break from the status quo who have more of this type of supporter. I could take a survey of the Edinburgh investment community (where I work), and I'd reckon that a no vote would carry the day by a proportion of around 4 to 1. But then, this also wouldn't be representative of the wider community either.

Sigh... one was a cock-up clearly signed-off by someone who didn't understand the market; one is a fairly bog-standard market offered by every single bookie. Even just by taking a quick glance at the two Ladbrokes offering, it's clear they're not comparable. That's why the former market was pulled with great haste.You can like it or not, but political betting markets provide a good guide into the likelihood of a particular outcome. Bookmakers on the whole price more efficiently and accurately than they ever have before. They're giving the yes campaign a c.20-25% chance of success. If you think they're pricing it totally wrong, lump on. Clearly, there hasn't been a great weight of money willing to do so thus far.

Your point was what exactly? You tried comparing a total cock-up by Ladbrokes on a (as I said earlier) rather esoteric market with the odds offered by almost every bookie on the more straightforward yes/no market. There is no logical link between the two.Of course, none of this means the yes vote can't win. It just means that bookies think a no vote is c. 3x more likely. They just don't pluck these figures out of thin air - which is I suppose is a bit ironic as this seems to be how you operate.

So you admit you were talking nonsense?