Colkitto

Less than 50 days to go to the big vote. Polls still the same? Who's right & who's wrong? Nearly time to find out........

In the days leading up to the '97 referendum, two polls with standard sample sizes were conducted by System 3 for the Herald. They showed very similar results, averaging 61% of respondents in favour of a Scottish Parliament (with 23% opposed and 16% don’t-knows), and 46% in favour of that Parliament having tax-raising powers (31% against, 23% don’t-knows). The second poll was conducted the day before the referendum. The actual vote, just 24 hours later, was 74-26 for the Parliament and 64-36 for tax-raising powers – overnight swings of 7% and 9% respectively in favour of the two propositions. (Of the 16% of Don’t Knows on the first question, when it came to the crunch 13% had plumped for Yes compared to just 3% for No. On the tax-raising question, meanwhile, the 23% previously answering as Don’t Knows had divided 17% for Yes, 6% for No.)

British Election Survey (BES)? Sounds interesting! Can't wait to see the data from that one....

Haemorrhaging support......

Eh? They have the full backing of the British media And again it depends what pollster you believe. Where did the No camp start in the polls again?

Well like all other polls I'll wait and see the data tables to see questions asked. But I go back to what I said in an earlier post (before the two latest polls were published) and that it looks like we are going to see the good and bad polls right up to the 18th September. ALL pollsters can't be right and with under 10 weeks to go it will be interesting to see if any polling organisation changes their polling findings dramatically. With a huge, historical, monumental vote that whatever the result will reverberate world wide, I wouldn't like to be the organisation that got it badly wrong. Their reputation will be in tatters to say the least no matter what their excuse. I'm sure there will be the usual debate and argument on here but unless something changes it looks like good and bad polls till the 18th September.

Just caught up with the This Week programme. Andrew Neil asked all the guests what they thought the outcome of the referendum would be? Abbot and Portillo were sitting on the fence with a "too close to call" reply. Kennedy said it would be a No win but only just. Strangest reply was from Hosie who said Yes would win by a bigger majority than what many believed. Which I thought was strange and something he didn't really need to say. He could have made a similar comment to Kennedy and changed it to Yes winning narrowly, but he didn't. Over confident or does he know something?

Last six weeks is going to be a white knuckle ride!

Not at all. The No camp just can't shake off the Yes threat despite the massive backing of the Brit media. Remember the days of the forecasts of 70-30 to the No side? Remember the days when they were saying the SNP won't even have a referendum because they had no chance of winning? Momentum has been building since those days and Yes will win the vote on 18th September of that I'm supremely confident will happen. I merely mention the last 6 weeks as it's going to get intense and pollsters who differ will need to realign results as the big day gets nearer or some organisation is going to look ridiculous when the result is confirmed

I would say it's all down to the last 6 weeks campaigning where it's going to get a lot more intense. Don't think anything major will change till the start of August - which isn't that far away.

Can't find anything on compulsory voting.

How was it weighted? Where are the data tables? Are you a member of the polling council?

The 2006 Montenegro referendum was above the 80% mark too. Interesting quote I found about polling when looking for turnout "Polling throughout the campaign was sporadic"

I do, I believe we will get a high 70% turnout, maybe more

With under 10 weeks to go, I think the debate over opinion polls is becoming a bit stale. There are good polls for Yes and good polls for No, and I don't see that changing till maybe in the last 2 weeks or so. If polls remain the same right up to polling day, as in polls showing 15/20 point lead to No or level pegging or indeed a Yes lead, then some polling organisations are going to look ridiculous come the 19th September. One thing that seems to be getting ignored to a certain extent is how will the approximately extra 30% who didn't vote in the last general election vote? With turnout expected to be around 75% to 80% mark that could be around 1 million votes. But all will be revealed shortly in September.....

Intriguing ... Keith Brown MSP ‏@KeithBrownMSP 5h Told that BBC had too many Yes/struggled to get Nos to last nights debate. David Hayman tells me big increase in Yes on Skye since last year

Not in any way scientific or representative of the wider population, but I've seen two things on TV that does make you wonder.. 1. Kaye Burley on SKY news walks about Oban and can't find a No voter. 2. Tory MP Rory Stewart walks in to a packed Glasgow pub filmed by the BBC and finds only ONE No voter - the owner/manager. I heard something similar happened on BBC in Portree but didn't see it

Love the very first paragraph

Don't know if this has been posted before, if not I post for information purposes only. YouGov is an international internet-based market research firm, founded in the UK in May 2000 by Stephan Shakespeare (current Chief Executive Officer), and Na***** Zahawi, former CEO. Stephen Shakespeare - stood in the 1997 general election as the Conservative candidate for Colchester. Na***** Zahawi - resigned from the board to stand in the 2010 General Election and is now a Conservative Party MP for Stratford-on-Avon.

True, but you would be foolish to ignore these findings completely

Beads of sweat appearing on HB & Reynard brows....

I don't bet at all, in anything, not even the Grand National.

That's one way of looking at it...