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[Soapy FFC]

1 hour ago, CarrbridgeSaintee said:

This article raises some interesting points about FON.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/scexit-poll-showing-almost-record-29015930?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target
 

I don’t think we should be taking their polling data very seriously.

 

Quote

The survey was carried out by little-known polling company Find Out Now (FON) and put support for Yes at 54 per cent once don't knows were excluded, with No being on 46 per cent.

 

Quote

And following investigation by nationalist fact-checking collective ScotFax, they concluded that there was some nationalist bias within the polling results.

So the analysis of the little known polling company was carried out by a little known twitter account. Just saying.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

On 18/06/2023 at 22:28, moses1924 said:

Fair play @lichtgilpheadthat's some telt

FTFY

Edited June 22, 2023 by DeeTillEhDeh

[itzdrk]

2 hours ago, Jenny Geddes Stool said:

 a troll tbh.

 

[DublinMagyar]

21 hours ago, DiscoStu said:

I actually commend you for having the sheer brass neck to post the above.  Onyhoo, let's go through the points at hand.

"The 2011 census contains the most recent official figures that are publicly available. I used them to compare the weightings with the FON weightings, as I don't have any more up-to-date figures. They match perfectly. Are you suggesting that age demographics in Scotland have changed since 2011? Please explain why and by exactly how much. The fact that people's ages change has absolutely no bearing on the percentages falling into each age group. In 2011, I fell into the 18% of Scottish residents aged 45-54. Twelve years later (not 13, as you erroneously claim), I fall into the 15% of Scottish residents aged 55-64. This is simple stuff!"

It's not the most realistic official figures we're after, but the most true, fair and representative view.  I'm afraid that using age figures from 12 years ago does not give that.  I'm not suggesting anything, other than that the FON cowboys have used ancient data which can't be relied on.

"As I suggest above, you'll need to demonstrate why FON's weightings are incorrect before you can make claims about the weighting skewing the figures. Incidentally, I love the dog-whistling going on in the last 5 words of that sentence! Given that we are talking about Scotland, can you explain exactly how Scotland will be ripped apart as a consequence of an independence vote?"

Using incorrect weighting does indeed skew the figures, and it's wrong because the figures are ancient.  You'll admitted yourself that they used figures from 2011.  I never said Scotland would be ripped apart, although now that you mention it, it could lead to a further break up if Orkney, Shetland, Edinburgh, the North East and borders areas were dragged out of the country against our will, especially when the matter had already been decided in 2014.

"Word Salad. What does this have to do with proving your contention that FON polls are dodgy and loaded? It just appears to be a list of politicians you don't personally like."

I never said it did.  I mentioned these charlatans to illustrate how the SNP and by extension the separation movement are seen to many.  It's not word salad at all.

"Oh. Has all the preamble to this question been some sort of joke? It certainally isn't any proof that my previous analysis is incorrect"

No, it hasn't 

As for the graph, I mentioned recent Yes leads.. not ones from as way back as 2017.  There have only been 4 yes leads out of 26 polls this year, and 3 of the 4 were by the FON cowboys.  My claim is correct and not false as you incorrectly state.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Lionel Hutz found.

[lichtgilphead]

12 hours ago, CarrbridgeSaintee said:

This article raises some interesting points about FON.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/scexit-poll-showing-almost-record-29015930?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target
 

I don’t think we should be taking their polling data very seriously.

Firstly, I'd like to thank @CarrbridgeSaintee for actually linking to something rather than posting opinionated fact-free nonsense like @DiscoStu

Unfortunately, he has picked the most hardline unionist rag "newspaper" quoting what almost appears to be a parody Yoon account's take on events. 

Let's have a look at some of the sites that Twitter consider to be similar to @ScotFax:
@These_Islands
@themajorityscot
@kevverage
@scotlandinunion (yes, the holocaust denier!)
@snpwatch

I also note that @ScotFax have enthusiasticaly retweeted both Historywoman and AgentP

So, now we've established that a completely neutral newspaper is quoting a completely neutral "nationalist fact-checking collective", let's get down to looking at their claims.

The article is dated 21st January 2023, and refers to a poll carried out by Find Out Now for The National. 

Here is a link to the Find Out Now tables from that very poll

https://audience.findoutnow.co.uk/files/reports/Tables_ScotInd_20230119.xlsx

Find Out Now interviewed 1,094 Scottish adults online from 11-18 January 2023. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all Scottish adults by gender, age, social grade, other demographics and past voting patterns. 
Weighting targets come from the 2011 census and reported election results. Weighted population total is the effective sample size (the size of the equivalent uniform sample with the same sample errors).

I note that on this occasion, Find Out Now have specifically stated that their weighting targets are taken from the 2011 Census, confirming my suspicions in previous posts above. Strangely, however, @ScotFax do not denounce these weighting targets, so I think that we can assume that they also consider @DiscoStu's opinions to be absolute garbage. 

They give the result as Yes 54% and No 46% when DK's are excluded, and Yes 40% No 34% and DK's 20% with DK's included. In addition, they claim that 5% refused to say

Unfortunately, the true results are vey different, both on the Wikipedia Indypoll page here, and in the tables I linked to above. Both sources report the headline result of that particular poll as Yes 52%, No 44% Undecided 3%

So, where has this mysterious 40%/34%/20%/5% split come from? To find out the answer, we need to look further down the tables.

Oh, look! @ScotFax have lumped together the 17% that said that they will not vote at all in with the 3% of don't knows. In reality, the figures they are working from are Yes 40%, No 34%, DK 3%, Refused 5% and "Would not vote" 17%

"Scotfax points out that the surveys have a high percentage of Don't Knows/Refused than the rest, which covered about a quarter of their responses, when it is usually at 10 per cent in the other ones."

It is quite simple to work out that this is untrue. The FON total of Don't Knows/Refused is actually only 8%. It's only by including the 17% of "will not vote" in the "Don't Know's" that they can falsely claim DK's are at 20%

So, what does this all mean? ScotFax appear to have drawn the conclusion that the vast majority of the people that told the pollster that they would not vote at all were lying, and that they are all "quiet and reluctant No voter(s)"

As turnout in the last Indyref was just under 85%, a properly representative sample of the population is actually quite likely to find people that won't vote. If the Yoon's are now pinning their hopes that those people are all really 'quiet and reluctant' No voters, then it looks pretty desparate for the Union.

[Soapy FFC]

40 minutes ago, lichtgilphead said:

Firstly, I'd like to thank @CarrbridgeSaintee for actually linking to something rather than posting opinionated fact-free nonsense like @DiscoStu

Unfortunately, he has picked the most hardline unionist rag "newspaper" quoting what almost appears to be a parody Yoon account's take on events. 

Let's have a look at some of the sites that Twitter consider to be similar to @ScotFax:
@These_Islands
@themajorityscot
@kevverage
@scotlandinunion (yes, the holocaust denier!)
@snpwatch

I also note that @ScotFax have enthusiasticaly retweeted both Historywoman and AgentP

So, now we've established that a completely neutral newspaper is quoting a completely neutral "nationalist fact-checking collective", let's get down to looking at their claims.

The article is dated 21st January 2023, and refers to a poll carried out by Find Out Now for The National. 

Here is a link to the Find Out Now tables from that very poll

https://audience.findoutnow.co.uk/files/reports/Tables_ScotInd_20230119.xlsx

Find Out Now interviewed 1,094 Scottish adults online from 11-18 January 2023. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all Scottish adults by gender, age, social grade, other demographics and past voting patterns. 
Weighting targets come from the 2011 census and reported election results. Weighted population total is the effective sample size (the size of the equivalent uniform sample with the same sample errors).

I note that on this occasion, Find Out Now have specifically stated that their weighting targets are taken from the 2011 Census, confirming my suspicions in previous posts above. Strangely, however, @ScotFax do not denounce these weighting targets, so I think that we can assume that they also consider @DiscoStu's opinions to be absolute garbage. 

They give the result as Yes 54% and No 46% when DK's are excluded, and Yes 40% No 34% and DK's 20% with DK's included. In addition, they claim that 5% refused to say

Unfortunately, the true results are vey different, both on the Wikipedia Indypoll page here, and in the tables I linked to above. Both sources report the headline result of that particular poll as Yes 52%, No 44% Undecided 3%

So, where has this mysterious 40%/34%/20%/5% split come from? To find out the answer, we need to look further down the tables.

Oh, look! @ScotFax have lumped together the 17% that said that they will not vote at all in with the 3% of don't knows. In reality, the figures they are working from are Yes 40%, No 34%, DK 3%, Refused 5% and "Would not vote" 17%

"Scotfax points out that the surveys have a high percentage of Don't Knows/Refused than the rest, which covered about a quarter of their responses, when it is usually at 10 per cent in the other ones."

It is quite simple to work out that this is untrue. The FON total of Don't Knows/Refused is actually only 8%. It's only by including the 17% of "will not vote" in the "Don't Know's" that they can falsely claim DK's are at 20%

So, what does this all mean? ScotFax appear to have drawn the conclusion that the vast majority of the people that told the pollster that they would not vote at all were lying, and that they are all "quiet and reluctant No voter(s)"

As turnout in the last Indyref was just under 85%, a properly representative sample of the population is actually quite likely to find people that won't vote. If the Yoon's are now pinning their hopes that those people are all really 'quiet and reluctant' No voters, then it looks pretty desparate for the Union.

I was just about to say that, but you beat me to it. 

[CarrbridgeSaintee]

On 22/06/2023 at 08:45, Soapy FFC said:

 

 

So the analysis of the little known polling company was carried out by a little known twitter account. Just saying.

The ScotFax tweet thread gives the detailed information, and the points are spot on, including these ones:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any Nationalist with any self respect should be disavowing these chancers.

Edited June 23, 2023 by CarrbridgeSaintee

[lichtgilphead]

So, I see that @CarrbridgeSaintee is avoiding replying to my detailed response above. He claims that he can't see my posts, but (as everyone knows), he will see my posts if anyone quotes me.  @Soapy FFCquoted my post from yesterday in full, so I'm not sure what his problem is. I suspect that it's because I exposed @ScotFax's lie that people who don't intend to vote at all are secret No voters.

I also note that his selective quoting today avoids reposting any of the @ScotFax tweets that I examined & debunked yesterday. I'm sure that this is just coincidence & nothing at all to do with having seen my post & him avoiding the question.

Anyway, onto today's examination of @ScotFax's nonsense...

"FON use a very different method. Unlike panel pollsters they have a very wide unpaid audience which answer microsurveys as and when they feel like it."

Let's look at YouGov's panel methodology

Yougov have a panel of 1 million unpaid volunteers. They have all signed up to receive polls. Yougov send polling questions to a subset of these volunteers. It's not compulsory for the volunteers to respond. Can @CarrbridgeSaintee explain how this is completely different from the Find Out Now methodology

"This is a different approach from online panels where such question enthusiasm can be filtered out."

How? If a YouGov panel member isn't interested in completing a survey, they won't do so. How can this be measured?

@ScotFax also said

I've taken four vote sets from the data:
Constituency Unionist
Constituency Nationalist
List Unionist
List Nationalist

Unionists = Con,LAB,Lib
Nationalist = SNP, Green

The first figures are the FON prediction and the next the actuals

Constituency Unionist 43% versus 50.4%
Constituency Nationalist 53.9% versus 49%
List Unionist 40.5% versus 46.5%
List Nationalist 49% versus 48.4%

Well, talk about comparing apples with oranges! There are two major problems with this approach.

Firstly, we have the usual problem that not all SNP/Green voters wiould vote Yes in a referendum, and not all Con/Lab/LD voters will vote No. Whilst around 95% of Tories would vote No, only around 65% of Labour voters will vote No - it is commonly accepted that around 1/3 of Labour supporters are Yes voters. Accordingly, @ScotFax's figures are nonsensical  from the start.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, @ScotFax are comparing a survey carried out over the period 23 - 26th March 2021 with the results of an election held on 6th May 2021. That's approximately 6 weeks later! During that period, the Alba party was launched, and there were 4 televised debates plus election hustings etc up & down the country. Is @ScotFax pretending that all this electioneering didn't shift the polls at all? 

Let's have a look at the actual results (all polling figures to nearest percentage, so there will be rounding errors

Constituency

The result on 6th May was Nat 49.0% Yoon 50.4%

The average result of all polls between BMG on 19th March & Lord Ashcroft on 19th April was Nat 52% Yoon 46%

Using @ScotFax's methodology, this means that the "nationalist" vote was overestimated by 3%, and the "Unionist" vote was underestimated by 4.6%. 

Regional List

The result on 6th May - Nat 48.4% Yoon 49.5%

The average result of all polls between BMG on 19th March & Lord Ashcroft on 19th April was Nat 50% Yoon 45%

Using @ScotFax's methodology, this means that the average Nat vote was overestimated by 1.6%, and the Yoon vote was underestimated by 4.5%.

Conclusion

In each and every case, the traditional methods used by other pollsters overestimated the Nat share of the vote and underestimated the Yoon share of the vote. This error is not unique to FON. 

Quire simply, @ScotFax are presenting FON's figures in isolation and ignoring the fact that other polling firms were finding similar underestimates of the eventual Yoon vote at the same stage in the election process. This is dishonest, and Yoons that quote these lies should hang their heads in shame.

[Suspect Device]

Is this another FindoutNow poll for @DiscoStu to ignore because it's from FindoutNow or has it already been posted?

Yes opens up a three point lead | Independent Voices (indyvoices.info)

It seems ot be that the Unionist side dismiss the polling that they don't like and the Naotionalist side dismiss the polling that they don't like.

 

I reckon the best way to solve this would be to hold another referendum. That would give a better indication of opinion. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Suspect Device

[lichtgilphead]

3 hours ago, Suspect Device said:

Is this another FindoutNow poll for @DiscoStu to ignore because it's from FindoutNow or has it already been posted?

Scot Goes Pop posted last night that there were rumours of a new FON poll. I assume that this is it.

[DiscoStu]

On 24/06/2023 at 08:57, Suspect Device said:

Is this another FindoutNow poll for @DiscoStu to ignore because it's from FindoutNow or has it already been posted?

Yes opens up a three point lead | Independent Voices (indyvoices.info)

It seems ot be that the Unionist side dismiss the polling that they don't like and the Naotionalist side dismiss the polling that they don't like.

 

I reckon the best way to solve this would be to hold another referendum. That would give a better indication of opinion. 

If it's from FON then yes, it'll be ignored by me.  They are a laughing stock.

Looks like this is one is so dodgy that even John Curtice isn't touching it.

As for another referendum.. maybe in 2060 or something.

[Suspect Device]

 

 

 

 

 

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, Suspect Device said:

 

 

 

 

 

Given Starmer and Sarwar’s inspirational leadership and Labour’s clear commitment to a raft of policies aimed at undoing the harm of successive Tory/Coalition governments this is fully understandable.*

 

 

 

 

 

* this is an example of sarcasm.

 

[RuMoore]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

Given Starmer and Sarwar’s inspirational leadership and Labour’s clear commitment to a raft of policies aimed at undoing the harm of successive Tory/Coalition governments this is fully understandable.*

 

 

 

 

 

* this is an example of sarcasm.

 

There's zero surprise you're struggling to understand something tbh. 

[StellarHibee]

3 hours ago, RuMoore said:

There's zero surprise you're struggling to understand something tbh. 

What are they failing to understand? "Vote Labour to get rid of the toreeeeeees"? Something that hasn't worked since Labour formed in 1900?

[ICTChris]

Three by-elections today, Uxbridge and South Ruislip (where Boris Johnson resigned after being found in contempt of Parliament), Selby and Ainsty (where Nigel Adams resigned in sympathy with Johnson) and Somerton and Frome (where David Warburton resigned after facing accusations of taking cocaine, sexually assaulting several women, failing to declare donations and forging documents used in his mortgage application).

All were Tory seats with healthy majorities

Uxbrige - 7,210

Selby - 20,137

Somerton - 22,906

My prediction is that the Tories will lose all three.  Be interesting to see how much tactical voting goes on, Uxbridge and Selby have Labour as main challanger, Somerton is Lib Dems.

As I'm a geek I'll be interested to see how Reform UK does - polls consistently show them on up to 5-10% of the vote but it hasn't been replicated in actual elections.

[ScotiaNostra]

19 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Three by-elections today, Uxbridge and South Ruislip (where Boris Johnson resigned after being found in contempt of Parliament), Selby and Ainsty (where Nigel Adams resigned in sympathy with Johnson) and Somerton and Frome (where David Warburton resigned after facing accusations of taking cocaine, sexually assaulting several women, failing to declare donations and forging documents used in his mortgage application).

All were Tory seats with healthy majorities

Uxbrige - 7,210

Selby - 20,137

Somerton - 22,906

My prediction is that the Tories will lose all three.  Be interesting to see how much tactical voting goes on, Uxbridge and Selby have Labour as main challanger, Somerton is Lib Dems.

As I'm a geek I'll be interested to see how Reform UK does - polls consistently show them on up to 5-10% of the vote but it hasn't been replicated in actual elections.

That will be nice to see if the tories lose all 3

[ICTChris]

Tories lose two out of three.  Uxbridge apparently swung by the ULEZ that is about to be extended there by Sadiq Khan.

The thing that should chill the Tories blood is the fact that Labour came fifth in Somerton and the Lib Dems came sixth (I think) in Selby.  If that level of tactical voting is even partly replicated in the General Election a lot of Tories are, to use a psephological term, fucked.

[Billy Jean King]

2 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Tories lose two out of three.  Uxbridge apparently swung by the ULEZ that is about to be extended there by Sadiq Khan.

The thing that should chill the Tories blood is the fact that Labour came fifth in Somerton and the Lib Dems came sixth (I think) in Selby.  If that level of tactical voting is even partly replicated in the General Election a lot of Tories are, to use a psephological term, fucked.

The size of the swings too if replicated at the GE would see them almost wiped out. Seems there are plenty of dopes for Starmer to rope out there.

[CarrbridgeSaintee]

The swings are awful for the Tories, but having just looked at the Uxbridge and South Ruislip results it seems a considerable number of voters have ditched Labour too.

Turnout was 48187 in 2019 but only 31000 yesterday, which I find incredible.  Do by elections usually have lower turnouts?