renton

Yup, overlapping identities, some of which come across stronger than others, mostly I would think as a matter of distance, both geographical and temporal.

Not quite, while both nationality and the colour of your eyes are by and large, accidents of birth, you as an individual and collectively can have an influence on how a nation develops, what it achieves. It's a fairly abstract level of identification but no less real or valid. The whole constituency of the islands were proud, or remains so, of the NHS - even those who aren't doctors or nurses, work there, built or administer the hospitals, becuase they felt they contributed in some way - that the NHS reflected their values. You can have that in a nation: Pride in a shared collective experience that you help shape in some small way. Same with my football team. I support the Rovers purely by accident of birth, it doesn't stop me feeling pride in it's achievements, shame in it's many shortcomings. It's a collective experience for those who support it, we as a football support, as a nation are the institutional memory of the organisations we choose to belong to.

Surely, what is meant goes beyond mere legal technicalities. Scotland is an idea, a mental space in people's heads based on shared experience. it doesn't matter about it's 'international personality' it matters what the people who live there think it is, and it's relative importance vis a vis Yorkshire is based entirely on how the people who live in Scotland view it. That's surely what the whole fucking debate is about.

Not really, as the financial well being of a country is best secured in the long terms by the people who have a vested interest in it prospering. That is the people who live there. So Scotland as a country should be able to govern itself, finanical security comes from a stable and representative democracy.

Why do you have to keep borrowing someone elses utterly shite banter?

Maybe, but then it depends on how much attention you are paying in advance. I don't doubt the many issues involved with canvassing for a partisan organisation, and as I said, you can't treat it as a replacement for BPC polling, it's a supplement - but an interesting one. BPC polling does indicate an uptick in independence support amongst C2D2E percentile voters, so the RIC showing a Yes lead amongst that demogrpahic - their raison d'etre - might not necessarily be self selection or industrial scale lieing to the canvassers. As with all data points, it's methodology limitations must be considered, and the results filtered accordingly into an overall picture.

Not really, no. They don't know who is yes or No before they go to the door number, so how can they be self selecting. Folk who won't answer the door, won't necessarily be doing so because it's RIC. It isn't a demographic profile of Scotland, of course it isn't - but it isn't meant to be either. Therefore it can't be used in place of BPC polling, but it can be a useful supplementary data point on a demogrpahic that is not always, picked up, if at all by BPC pollsters. one interesting effect of face to face polling and canvassing, by the way, is the larger number of DKs. You can see this in the TNS BPC polling as well as canvassing. Whether that means the online pollsters are self selecting from more politically aware repsondents who are naturally more sure of their voting style, or whether tha act of asking someone face to face creates more reticence in the respondent is interesting to me. The last two RIC canvasses have shown Yes ahead but with a DK as big as the No response. Now, in BPC polling they've been looking for Shy Nos but areguably haven't found it. There is some anecdotal evidence of shy yes responses to BPC pollsters, but you have to wonder: Could someone with a RIC badge etc be producing a shy No response in these canvasses?

It depends on whether they actively stare out a window to see who's at the door, or even if said canvasser is festooned with badges, or whatever. The fact is that the sheer size of the poll should help reduce some of the error - either non responses or lieing to the canvasser. it'll be interesting to see if they have a response rate right enough, I'm sure if asked you could get an answer.

Well, no. The mass canvas isn't a demographic profile of Scotland, and it shouldn't be treated as such. It is a snapshot of what a certain section of the Scottish populace is thinking, and while canvassing can produce erroneous results due to lieing to the canvasser that you might not get in BPC polling, the sheer size of the sample should reduce that error somewhat, given that the RIC is targetting communities with a lot of lapsed voters who didn't vote in 2010 or 2011 (or even further back than that), then they tend not to be picked up by the BPC pollsters. Threrefore it's an interesting data point there at least. Whether either campaign can get them into a polling booth on the day is a different story.

Yeah that's yes pretty much fucked if it's a consistent methodology with their last poll

It's bordering on a persecution complex.

yeah, I'm reasonably sure that, if nothing else, Yes will get absolutely papped in South of Scotland, which kind of makes the rest of the numbers suspect.

If yes can get Glasgow city and greater glasgow then they have a chance (so long as they avoid an absolute drubbing in Edinburgh and Aberdeen)

Weren't they just sub-samples of the standard 1,000 respondant polls?

To be fair, it's not the first poll to show Glasgow tending yes - a fair few have, but then your into sub-sample territory and large statistical uncertainty (about +/- 7%, I think, at that size) so you really can't take too much from it. There never has been a full poll done on what Glasgow, or Edinburgh would vote. I recall there being a borders only poll - woudl be nice to see some full regional polls.

I suppose we could try 4-3-3: Stick Callachan in the midfield with Fox and Scott, play Stewart up closer to Nade with Elliot in behind? We'd likely get killed down the flanks, and it wouldn't lead to pretty football, but at least we'd impose ourselves in the middle of the park....

Depends on what system he wants to play. Callachan in a midfield two will give you the same problems as having Fox in there. In Fox's case it's a lack of pace to keep up with the guys running through, with Callachan it's poor positional sense - he's got a good physicality to his play, decent pace and good engine on him, but he's never where he's meant to be, he's like Davo in that respect. His best games last year were when he was playing out right or as a free role in a 3 man midfield. Playing him instead of Fox in a two man central midfield won't (for my money at least) solve the problem of our central midfield leaking like a sieve.

I'll try and be absolutely objective here, and not let my natural bias to yes interfere. If you look at the BPC polling data on it's own, it seems unlikely that yes would get itself ahead in the polls by the day of reckoning. Several times now, pollsters have shown yes to within a bawhair of levelling, or drawing ahead - without ever actually managing to do so. It's worth noting that all of the pollsters have various quirks in their methodologies: The online polls can suffer from picking the same folk, over and over, as well as their individual issues -YouGov with it's proper Nat/Passing Nat strategy that just begs for the multiplication of statistical error within the sample, or Panelbase and it's recent shift to partial weighting to the Euro elections who's turnout was low enough to cast doubt on the representative nature of that election on Scotland. Then you have TNS, who's face to face polling method tends to reduce anonymity, and possibly therefore voter honesty (possibly why TNS always record much larger DKs than everyone else?) and Ipsos who's phone polling methods can be skewed by demographics - having to massively upweight certain sections to get the weighting right, and even then not actually weighting to the demographic profile that SSAS/census data recorded. However, they all agree that yes is behind - they can't all be wrong. I do think that numbers are probably in the mid forties (dk excluded) for yes. Even Ipsos are above 40% now for Yes. Thus I believe if you ironed out all the varying polling idosynchracies you'd get to a number of around 45% for yes (DK excluded). DKs are NOT around "a third of the electorate" as some articles have suggested, unless of course TNS are correct. Having said that, the proportional difference between yes and No in TNS is broaldy the same as the online guys with smaller DKs. If DKs split marginally for Yes, as those few polls who've asked indicated, yes might end up fractionally higher - 46% or so. I think this is just the reality of where we are, right now. One thing I don't believe is that yes needs to be considerably ahead on the day to do the job. 50.01% would do it, I don't think in this referendum there is a soft yes, and the general tone and feel of the debate means that going from No/DK to Yes is a bit of a trial and once there folk tend to be Yes voters with some conviction. it's getting to that fabled 50+1 vote that's the issue. In terms of the Canvassing returns. these are generally unreliable. Like TNS, but worse. You could easily see industrial scale lying to the canvassers (admittedly th SNP/Yes graded scale is designed to at least filter some of that out). The RIC as far as i can see don't use that methodology in their mass canvasses, thus are open to being lied to. The other thing is that theirs is not, and isn't intended to be a dmeographic profile of Scotland. It's targeted at the C2D2E communties, the folk who haven't before voted. One thing in their favour is the sheer size fo the canvass, which lends it some weight (quality is great, but quantity has a quality all of it's own) - again, that's not demogrpahically accurate. These guys seem to break massively yes, and if we can doubt the overall margin of of yes to no in these canvasses, we can't really doubt the overall sentiment. The BPC pollsters struggle to cope with first time voters, and I think a lot of Yes hopes are pinned on getting these guys out on referendum day, but how realistic is that. You can canvass them, register them, convince them - but you might well not get them to the booth. How realistic is it to get folk out who are naturally wary of politics, haven't voted in decades and thinks all this stuff happens in another world that has nothing to do with them. I'd be wary on relying on them, even if they are the folk a Yes vote has the most potential to help. So to conclude? Well, it's a bit of a rambling post that no one will have any interest in, mostly I just wanted to waste some bandwidth and put my thoughts in one place. Really, Yes at the moment look like losing while getting a vote in the mid forties on the day. Respectable, but ultimately futile. Unless of course, Reynard's worst nightmare comes true and a previously unnacounted for demographic of "scheme goblins" rise from the concrete towers to smite him mightily. probably not though, and unless there is a shift we'll go down 45/55 in my opinion.

An unsubstanstiated rumour at best. Graham has had a good pre-season at United by all accounts, has, from his comments in the press a desire to establish himself in the first team and only has this year left on his contract - not the best time to be going out on loan to the championship.

You wonder if with the extra central midfielder and the extra centre backs - when fit - that he'll go 3-5-2: Stops the middle getting overun, allows him to push Elliot further up and makes use of the surplus of centre backs. Be nice, if and when we get these guys fit.

Lord of the Dance and no, but there will be a booing section for families and a FUUUUUCKININNGGGBOOOOOOOoooooo section for everyone else.

We booed back in August before the season had begun Cause we drew with Forfar and we lost to Dunfermlun We booed home at stark’s park when we f****d Dumbarton well So bring out the Rovers and we’ll boo them as well Boo boo, wherever you may sit We are don’t like murray and we think his team are sh!t We’ll follow you, and boo you where you go And moan online about the status quo (repeat) Courtesy of Stelios. A far better songwriter than I.

Feeling is, that the contract award was a bit knee jerk on the back of an 18 game unbeaten streak in the first half of last year. That's the weird thing. Murray, largely with mcGlynn's last (quite limited) side in his first year had us playing some decent stuff overall, and then re-jigged the squad and for the first half of last season had us playing really well before the nightmare after christmas from last season. Had our performances been more evenly spread (i.e. not an 18 game unbeaten streak before winning 3 in 20) he might not be under the pressure he is now. As it is, he's managing us on the back of an unrelenting six month shit streak.

yeah, though sometimes they just can't get the numbers and end up upweighting/downweighting dramatically. It's just part of the trade really.

Correct, it's not reliable. Doesn't stop both sides spinning it though.