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OK. But where are the documents containing the information about what will happen in the event of a No vote. This is after all what better together are campaigning for.

Several parts are answered in the Scotland Analysis papers by implication. They set out things that, by implication, will not change in the event of a No vote, from currency, to terms of relationships with international organisations and other stuff.

You can take a look here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/scotland-analysis

Do I think there is not enough justification of the strengths of particular positions and a lack of a clear vision for the future direction of the Union relationship? Absolutely. But it is simply untrue to state that they have not set out the implications of a Yes/No vote in the referendum, as distinct from what they will subsequently DO in the event of a Yes or No vote, which is either a very narrow question, and one which the UK Government has already answered with "the Scotland Act 2012 comes fully into force" or a very broad one, which is so political in character and contingent on multiple different political parties agreeing first that it is both outwith the remit of the present UK Government and unreasonable for them to provide such a document.

On the other hand, the political parties against independence (as distinct from the UK Government) absolutely should be presenting a shared vision for reinventing the Union to reflect modern concerns in a fashion which has a credible chance of being implemented. The absence of such a document is precisely what pushed people like me towards Yes in the first place. Again though, note that this isn't the same thing as the White Paper, which was in any case inappropriate in its content (because it was basically a manifesto for an SNP government in an independent Scotland and not what it should have been which was a narrow, detailed and concise explanation of the process and powers that would be sought to be implemented in the event of a Yes vote).

The legitimate ground for criticism of the pro-Union Parties is their failure to present a clear, coherent and detailed plan for the changing in the form and substance of Scotland's relationship with the rest of the UK that they would seek to implement in (realistically) the 2015-2020 Parliamentary session, either if they form part of the government or in support of any such government pursuing those changes, from the opposition benches. The Lib Dems have done their bit here, with Ming Campbell's review.

The Tories and Labour have singularly failed to present their visions for a new settlement, and until they do, or until they agree to hold a Constitutional Convention of sorts, there is nothing that anyone can really do about that. The problem is it would be insanity to call one now (it's too late to report back before the referendum). There is no real alternative than for the individual parties to outline their positions on future devolution and to commit to the setting up of a cross-party commission to revisit the issue in the event of a No vote.

Expecting a UK Coalition government, that is very unlikely to be re-elected, to commit to binding a future UK Government that may not even involve either of the parties that comprise it, to legislate for a new system in respect of which the rest of the UK have not in either a representative or a direct sense been consulted, in respect of which the two parties in question cannot yet agree, and insodoing compromising the ongoing internal reviews of Labour and the Tories into this issues, is now unrealistic and unreasonable.

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Several parts are answered in the Scotland Analysis papers by implication. They set out things that, by implication, will not change in the event of a No vote, from currency, to terms of relationships with international organisations and other stuff.

You can take a look here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/scotland-analysis

Do I think there is not enough justification of the strengths of particular positions and a lack of a clear vision for the future direction of the Union relationship? Absolutely. But it is simply untrue to state that they have not set out the implications of a Yes/No vote in the referendum, as distinct from what they will subsequently DO in the event of a Yes or No vote, which is either a very narrow question, and one which the UK Government has already answered with "the Scotland Act 2012 comes fully into force" or a very broad one, which is so political in character and contingent on multiple different political parties agreeing first that it is both outwith the remit of the present UK Government and unreasonable for them to provide such a document.

On the other hand, the political parties against independence (as distinct from the UK Government) absolutely should be presenting a shared vision for reinventing the Union to reflect modern concerns in a fashion which has a credible chance of being implemented. The absence of such a document is precisely what pushed people like me towards Yes in the first place. Again though, note that this isn't the same thing as the White Paper, which was in any case inappropriate in its content (because it was basically a manifesto for an SNP government in an independent Scotland and not what it should have been which was a narrow, detailed and concise explanation of the process and powers that would be sought to be implemented in the event of a Yes vote).

The legitimate ground for criticism of the pro-Union Parties is their failure to present a clear, coherent and detailed plan for the changing in the form and substance of Scotland's relationship with the rest of the UK that they would seek to implement in (realistically) the 2015-2020 Parliamentary session, either if they form part of the government or in support of any such government pursuing those changes, from the opposition benches. The Lib Dems have done their bit here, with Ming Campbell's review.

The Tories and Labour have singularly failed to present their visions for a new settlement, and until they do, or until they agree to hold a Constitutional Convention of sorts, there is nothing that anyone can really do about that. The problem is it would be insanity to call one now (it's too late to report back before the referendum). There is no real alternative than for the individual parties to outline their positions on future devolution and to commit to the setting up of a cross-party commission to revisit the issue in the event of a No vote.

Expecting a UK Coalition government, that is very unlikely to be re-elected, to commit to binding a future UK Government that may not even involve either of the parties that comprise it, to legislate for a new system in respect of which the rest of the UK have not in either a representative or a direct sense been consulted, in respect of which the two parties in question cannot yet agree, and insodoing compromising the ongoing internal reviews of Labour and the Tories into this issues, is now unrealistic and unreasonable.

Pish.

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Given the evidence I've posted here do you stand by this post, xbl?

Give me links to all those polls and all the data attached to them and I'll let you know where the momentum lies.

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Give me links to all those polls and all the data attached to them and I'll let you know where the momentum lies.

Keep it on the polling thread! There is a reason he never talks about polling on the polling thread, and legal stuff on the legal thread.

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The "variety of start points" relate to the earliest available point from 2012 in which the relevant company conducted a poll. As for TNS the December poll is within the margin of error of the November poll. It does not change the overall narrative of TNS in the last 10 months according to the data. Any "gains" between September and now for Yes are them playing catch-up from a significant drop in support from its typical polling base of 33-35%. Scottish independence being placed at 27% support of the population is piss poor and is not evidence of a mass swathe of momentum for a Yes vote come polling day.

There is absolutely no way that it was "planned" by the Yes campaign to have the support of barely a quarter of Scots less than nine months from polling day. Only someone suffering from total delusion could believe this.

But the Yes vote is massively down since then as well! TNS only justifies xbl's claim that there is a massive shift towards undecided. It does absolutely nothing to suggest that Yes are in any respect in a better place than they were a year or so ago.

You don't count the undecided's, divide yes by (yes+no) and divide no by (yes + no).

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Keep it on the polling thread! There is a reason he never talks about polling on the polling thread, and legal stuff on the legal thread.

Aye, coz he talks pish.

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Give me links to all those polls and all the data attached to them and I'll let you know where the momentum lies.

You can access all of them (except for the most recent TNS one, which can be found on the polls thread) at UK Polling Report's website.

Keep it on the polling thread! There is a reason he never talks about polling on the polling thread, and legal stuff on the legal thread.

You are the one who started talking about polling on this thread. If you don't want it to be discussed on this thread, don't mention it on this thread. Simple as that.

You don't count the undecided's, divide yes by (yes+no) and divide no by (yes + no).

There is no rational basis for doing this. Indeed all this does is augment the gap by (wrongly) assuming that more than half of undecided voters who declare themselves certain to vote will vote No. Which as wingsoverperthshire assures us is not the case.

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You can access all of them (except for the most recent TNS one, which can be found on the polls thread) at UK Polling Report's website.

You are the one who started talking about polling on this thread. If you don't want it to be discussed on this thread, don't mention it on this thread. Simple as that.

There is no rational basis for doing this. Indeed all this does is augment the gap by (wrongly) assuming that more than half of undecided voters who declare themselves certain to vote will vote No. Which as wingsoverperthshire assures us is not the case.

If you discount the undecideds you are getting the %'s of those that know who they're voting for not this wouldacoulda shite we've to go through every time some half wit walks up Ayr High Street.

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If you discount the undecideds you are getting the %'s of those that know who they're voting for not this wouldacoulda shite we've to go through every time some half wit walks up Ayr High Street.

Very well. As you wish. Every Ipsos Mori poll back to the start of 2012:

Ipsos Mori 5th December 2013: 34/57/10 - shakes out at 37% Yes 63% No excluding DKs

Ipsos Mori 15th September 2013: 31/59/10 - shakes out at 34% Yes 66% No excluding DKs

Ipsos Mori 5th May 2013: 31/59/10 - shakes out at 34% Yes 66% No excluding DKs

Ipsos Mori 9th February 2013: 34/55/11 - shakes out at 38% Yes 62% No excluding DKs

Ipsos Mori 15th October 2012: 30/58/12 - shakes out at 34% Yes 66% No excluding DKs

Ipsos Mori 14th June 2012: 35/55/11 - shakes out at 39% Yes 61% No excluding DKs

Ipsos Mori 29th January 2012: 39/50/11 - shakes out at 44% Yes 56% No excluding DKs

As you can see, there is a net loss of momentum, by your preferred metric of excluding DKs according to Ipsos Mori, over 24 months, 18 months and 10 months. Everything in the last 10 months has been within the margin of error of one another and varies the margin of victory for the No side by a couple of percentage points, in any case providing a margin of (at worst) 24 points under your metric.

If you like, I can do the same with other pollsters. On request. Probably not until at least Sunday though. I'm going to bed now and tomorrow I'm going to get very very drunk at Daft Friday, before heading back up north for Christmas on a Scotrail Train (#nosignalnoparty).

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Once again, when in discussion unionists come up short, Ian Smart just got his arse handed to him on Newsnight

Interesting he did say the purpose of Better Together was not to just win the referendum next year, or for a generation but to kill independence forever

So basically no matter how bad things get for Scotland, we've to vote no regardless.

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And where is your evidence that "Better Together have played all their cards"? This is a subjective opinion, and not one that you can prove or disprove on the basis of, well, any set of opinion polls, such is the very marginal changes we have seen over the piece in the last twelve months or so.

No I haven't. I am simply providing you with figures, a historical comparator, and an explanation for why the polls aren't shifting. Note this isn't the same as saying they won't shift between now and the polling day, or that it won't be much closer than these polls suggest. It simply points out that there has been very little movement in the last year and those suggesting there has been in favour of Yes are looking at things through thistle-tinted spectacles.

That's just your opinion. It's not supported by peer-reviewed evidence. Your opinion is not the same as evidence.

^^^^ Claims to be a YES voter.

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Once again, when in discussion unionists come up short, Ian Smart just got his arse handed to him on Newsnight

Interesting he did say the purpose of Better Together was not to just win the referendum next year, or for a generation but to kill independence forever

So basically no matter how bad things get for Scotland, we've to vote no regardless.

Ach missed it. What was the gist?

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Averaging the change from 4 pollsters between their most recent and 2nd most recent poll YES has gained 1.5%.

39.4% to 40.9%

Not earth shattering but we've a long way to go.

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Not a surprise he's a St.Mirren fan

He's a racist too a Unionist who is both a racist and a St. Mirren fan...who would have thought it!

ETA, I see that newsnicht also says there is a trend towards yes and away from No. Presumably Ad Lib will write an angry complaint about why they are wrong? And then the guy from the polling company said EXACTLY what I've been saying for months. Pleasing. :)

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And then the guy from the polling company said EXACTLY what I've been saying for months. Pleasing. :)

Really? you've been saying this for months?

Tom Costley, head of TNS in Scotland, said: “The narrowing of the gap represents a drift in both the Yes and the No votes, rather than any strong movement on either side."

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Really? you've been saying this for months?

Tom Costley, head of TNS in Scotland, said: “The narrowing of the gap represents a drift in both the Yes and the No votes, rather than any strong movement on either side."

His own poll shows a 1.47% shift towards YES from November to December.

Here's a snippet from their own website.

However, the small month-by-month changes in opinion have reduced the lead of the No vote by 5 percentage points since September, and by 7 percentage points among those certain to vote.

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