renton

Honestly, at the moment I think it might be one of the most effective campaigns in a while; they have no positive argument- they never could have, but it looks like being negative in the extreme is gonna work for them.

Certainly there are a lot of conflicting reports over eu membership and the SNP was guit of over simplifying the case to begin with. Nothing in comparison to the hysterics from No and the British states refusal to actually ask the eu. All good politics from no: go as negative as possible and obfuscate the issue. It works so you have to give them that.

It's not exceptionally unlikely

Or the same person multiple times.

Except that on the currency issue, no had by far the worse of the exchange. The polls narrowed significantly in the wake of that and In the impossible scenario of a yes win we would use the pound and it's highly likely a currency union would happen.

They said they'd be in the eu, they still say that. Some climb down. Anyway, it matters little. No have won through the preponderance of negativity and a healthy dose of out right lying.

I honestly don't think they ever did go 'land of milk and honey' when they assert that we will be in the eu, Un, nato and use the pound these were all relatively modest assumptions. Saying that things will work out ok is only 'milk and honey' when compared to the end is nigh rhetoric coming from the other side. It's not that the status quo isn't sexy either, it's that there simply is no point to the UK beyond defending entrenched corporate interests. However, no has been a masterclass in selling shit to people already up to their neck in it. This is as good as it gets, they say - and year after year, even that level of goodness erodes ever so slightly. No have been masterful in selling the message of managed decline. Good for them, no subtlety but none needed. Use the MSM like a sledgehammer and compound doubts and fear. Yes should take lessons, this has been the British political machine at the peak of its ability.

That and the fact that the no side had no central tenant, no big idea or narrative as to why the UK is 'a good thing' meant they never had much choice.If yes do get over 40% on the day, then Labour should be worried that their Scottish vote might not hold up. One of the fall outs from their bitter, negative tone will be a significant number of natural westminster labour voters absolutely scunnered with the party.

No have never had much of a case, theit strategy is negative, attritional and always has been. Throw enough shit at the wall and hope it sticks. At the moment it looks like working.

One of the interesting things is the other questions asked: there seems to be a huge amount of fatigue in the electorate now with 63% saying they are no longer listening to the debate due to both sides contradicting each other. That'll suit No to the ground.

Yeah, not a great poll: since tns have so many dks it takes a large swing to shift the numbers when dks are stripped out. The 3 more yes friendly pollsters are yet to report however, given this was conducted between the two Yg polls and despite what I maintain is a dodgy methodology in that pollster it would appear to be a shift to No over June. Tns take ages to publish so the fieldwork is a couple of weeks ago now, so we'll really need another tns poll to confirm the movement for sure, but yeah, at the moment we look fucked

Better than going round in circles wondering where the f**k we are gonna score goals from,

Might get in on that,

Good point, though I imagine it's sure to purge your innards either way.

There's that wee indian outside CP though, what was it? Like 3 pints and a curry £3.99 or something - sure fire colonic irrigation....

Not if they don't fucking score, trust us on that.

ICM have definitely done a breakdown of this, think it was in the region 20-25% voting Yes.

Polling is only accurate on larger turnouts. It's more than possible that the lower turnout contributed to the polling error seen. Just as a small polling set must introduce errors because they are not representative of the broader community, so a low turnout must do the same. As for the upweighting, it's not an insanely stupid adjustment to make, I think - but it's not smart either. Again, if they have a low number of these passing nats in their sample and upweight them, then the result cannot be said to be representative of a broader sample, and you'd be introducing another - different error to the one you say survation is introducing via it's 2011 recalled vote. as I said above, it's fine if you assume said group would be uniform in it's reasoning for switching from Labour to SNP and therefore the small number of folk in that subsmaple would not introduce an error (but why not Liberal to SNP switchers as well?) but that IS an unreasonable assumption to make.

In so much as all pollsters end up upweighting or downweighting their raw data to fit a demographic profile tha tthey've decided is most accurate, then all pollsters are guilty of skewing their results. The results are necessarily based on the asusmptions of those measuring them. In this case, YouGov are intorducing a seperate subsmaple and upweighting them to meet a pre-conceived target. this must introduce an error, if said subsample requires a dramatic upweighting, based on not haivng enough people in that subsample to make it representative of the broader community.

Nuh-uh.

I think, the issue here is that YouGov has said that 'about half' of SNP support in 2011 came from what you might call 'passing nats' - in any sample YouGov has of this lot, there may only be a very few respondents who match this 'passing nat' description who will be upweighted dramatically to make up YouGov's 'passing nat' quota. Now, if said subsample is small, then it cannot be taken as statistically relevent or accurate, and that error is then mulitplied when the subsample is upweighted. That could lead to dramatic changes in the headline numbers. Why do it anyway? Why not simply rely on a single SNP group and asking them yes/No - as the other pollsters do. They all show a 15-18% No rate amongst the SNP on 2011 recall. Why suspect that as wrong? It feels like his assumption is that there must be more No voters, so let's go find them, akin to ICM and their search for shy Nos. Yet I can think of a few problems with Kellner's proposition, his assumption is that if he has a small subsample of 'passing nats' he needs to upweigh, then any error he finds is irrelevent since this group must all be closet Unionists lending a vote to the party of competent administration. we all know these people exist, like HB and Lex. However, Kellner doesn't seme to factor in that some folk voting SNP for the first time in 2011 did so, because between '07 and '11 they'd genuinely begun to believe independence was viable and desirable - as I did. no doubt there are other hues of the same colour, Kellner's binary assumption seems to be that the 2007 vote is the SNP's only true pro indy constituency and that any additional 2011 votes gained were merely unionists in favour of competent government. That seems to me to be the only way he could get away with multiplying up fractional subsamples without introducing an error - if he assumed said sub group was very uniform in it's outlook. Now, it may be that there is a big enough sub group in there such that any multiplied error would not be egregious. If so, publish the data tables showing the two SNP groups split - you'll note that they don't. Thus we can't interrogate this subsample for it's size or demographic outlook - if Kellner is uplifiting 45 55-65 year old women from the top two percentile, then no wonder the No lead is amplified. Not to stray from the basic point, fractional subsamples dramatically upweighted must introduce error. It's an issue all pollsters will run into from time to time, particularly in terms of age groups - ICM had previously produced massively varying headline figures base don trying to get more or less youth voters in to their polls. In this instance I see no valid reason why Kellner would introduce this further subsample.

Wasn't him who wrote it.

Maybe, but he made a rod for his own back,or at least the board did by communicating how our freefall through the back half of last season was due to a lack of depth in the squad - or at least was a major part of that. Now, if he is trying and failing to bring guys in, then say so. When he comes out and says he might sign one more guy, if he's the right guy when our squad is virtually the same size it was last year and is lacking in a couple of positions, and with a strike force that folk have doubts over.... it just looks like a lack of awareness.

It's not panic, merely incredulous that the board can equate "Strength in depth" to "I'd like 1 or 2 more players" last week, which would at best give us a squad only very slightly bigger than what started last year to "content with the squad" This week when we haven't even signed those 1 or 2 players. We have no left sided midfielder, no cover for full backs and look very one paced, far more so than last year.

Completely agree.