Polling: 2017 General Election, Council Elections and Independence

[Gallant Pioneer]

4 hours ago, GordonS said:

Hadn't heard of them before, they're not one of the regulars. I checked and they are members of the British Polling Council, and the question they asked is (I think) in the standard format, so this looks legit.

Anyone know who commissioned them?

The poll was commissioned by a right-wing  think tank but I can’t remember their name.

The polling company Hanbury Strategy were set up by a Dominic Cummings mate and another fud who was a David Cameron aide.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by Gallant Pioneer

[Glen Sannox]

1 hour ago, Gordon EF said:

That demographic breakdown is absolutely brutal for the future of the UK.

Yes is absolutely cruising it in the working age population.

I really don't mean this in a disrespectful or offensive way but statistically, you could see something like 20-25% of folk who'd vote No today being dead in 10/15 years time. Even if we don't win a referendum in the next few years, I just don't see how the union can survive those kind of demographic issues.

You need to remember that the young very quickly mature and become aspirational. They will naturally replace the elderly no voters.

They all want to change the World but won’t help Mum with the dishes.

[jakedee]

You need to remember that the young very quickly mature and become aspirational. They will naturally replace the elderly no voters.
They all want to change the World but won’t help Mum with the dishes.

Even if 75% of the young "mature and become aspirational" and replace elderly no voters,they too will be replaced by more of the young.
The numbers are only going one way.

[Gallant Pioneer]

6 minutes ago, Glen Sannox said:

You need to remember that the young very quickly mature and become aspirational. They will naturally replace the elderly no voters.

They all want to change the World but won’t help Mum with the dishes.

Scotland is undergoing a generational change, even those nearing retirement are coming out for Yes. Those over 65 grew up in the 40’s/50’s when Britishness was at its peak and everything was overshadowed by WW2

[Gordon EF]

13 minutes ago, Glen Sannox said:

You need to remember that the young very quickly mature and become aspirational. They will naturally replace the elderly no voters.

They all want to change the World but won’t help Mum with the dishes.

Yeah, some day those hopelessly idealistic 55 year olds will be mature, aspirational 75 year olds.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Gordon EF

[speckled tangerine]

9 minutes ago, Glen Sannox said:

You need to remember that the young very quickly mature and become aspirational. They will naturally replace the elderly no voters.

They all want to change the World but won’t help Mum with the dishes.

I'm now heading towards middle age, have done reasonably well for myself and I am, by all metrics, a middle class p***k.

I am also not a c**t and support independence as I have always done, but more strongly than ever.

Don't rely on "the old get more reactionary... we'll be fine" line. You may get a few wankers shitting the bed but nowhere in the numbers the Union requires.

[Glen Sannox]

1 minute ago, Gordon EF said:

Yeah, some day those fresh faced 55 year olds will be aspirational 75 year olds.

To be fair Gordon, speaking as a fresh faced 56 year old, I’m pretty sure you know which age banding I was referring to.

[HTG]

This will help Scotland on the road - desperate stuff.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCScotlandNews/status/1374785263851995136

[Gordon EF]

 

1 minute ago, Glen Sannox said:

To be fair Gordon, speaking as a fresh faced 56 year old, I’m pretty sure you know which age banding I was referring to.

Yeah, but the point I was making is that it's not just 18-30s who're overwhelming pro-independence. 44-54s are pretty solidly pro-independence by the looks of things and 55-65 are only marginally against it. If the vote was under 65s, Yes would absolutely walk it. It's pensioners who're keeping No in the game at the moment. Why would swathes of people in their late 50s / early 60s who support independence now break massively against it over the next 10 years. It makes absolutely no sense.

I was looking that the groups a little more closely and I'd say the broad picture is:

• 35s and under are massively pro-independence and there doesn't seem to be much age dependence.
• From 35 up, people are more pro-union the older they are. The tipping point age seems to be around 61/62. Above this age, people are more likely to be pro-union. Below it, people are more likely to be pro-independence.

As someone who just turned 36, the first one doesn't surprise me. People my age and younger have had the Scottish parliament in existence for their whole adult lives. I think that generation much prefer it to Westminster and think it makes little sense not to just push devolution to it's natural conclusion and become independent.

I genuinely believe the generational divide is far more to do with the distance between two events than it is to do with a natural conservative drift in age. Those two events are the second world war and devolution. The age groups who are anti-independence are those who lived through the war or whose parents did. the further away people get from that, the less pro-union they become. And the younger they were when devolution happened, the more likely they are to think that Scotland can and should manage it's own affairs like a normal country, rather than be governed by governments it doesn't vote for.

[Glen Sannox]

13 minutes ago, speckled tangerine said:

I'm now heading towards middle age, have done reasonably well for myself and I am, by all metrics, a middle class p***k.

I am also not a c**t and support independence as I have always done, but more strongly than ever.

Don't rely on "the old get more reactionary... we'll be fine" line. You may get a few wankers shitting the bed but nowhere in the numbers the Union requires.

I’m certainly not going to rely the “old get more reactionary....we’ll be fine” mantra. 
You implying that c***s and wankers will be the ones voting no epitomises the “civic and joyous” Yes movement.

 

[Gordon EF]

Isn't the theory that you can rely on the old to be risk-averse enough to just plump for the status quo pretty much blown out of the water by Brexit?

[Antlion]

7 minutes ago, Glen Sannox said:

I’m certainly not going to rely the “old get more reactionary....we’ll be fine” mantra. 
You implying that c***s and wankers will be the ones voting no epitomises the “civic and joyous” Yes movement.

 

Well, obviously. I doubt he thinks c***s and wankers are joyous citizens. 

[Glen Sannox]

8 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Isn't the theory that you can rely on the old to be risk-averse enough to just plump for the status quo pretty much blown out of the water by Brexit?

That’s a very salient point Gordon. I think a lot of my age group viewed the Brexit risk as minimal and I certainly still believe that. Breaking up the UK is a completely different proposition. The Unionists will throw the kitchen sink at this,  “vaccines and furlough” will win the day for them.

[John Lambies Doos]

That’s a very salient point Gordon. I think a lot of my age group viewed the Brexit risk as minimal and I certainly still believe that. Breaking up the UK is a completely different proposition. The Unionists will throw the kitchen sink at this,  “vaccines and furlough” will win the day for them.

Of course it's not as if other countries haven't done furlough. With all due respect, if unionists think that's their "stick' then independence is a foregone conclusion

[Gordon EF]

3 minutes ago, Glen Sannox said:

That’s a very salient point Gordon. I think a lot of my age group viewed the Brexit risk as minimal and I certainly still believe that. Breaking up the UK is a completely different proposition. The Unionists will throw the kitchen sink at this,  “vaccines and furlough” will win the day for them.

I'd agree that unionists see independence as riskier than leavers saw Brexit. 

Personally, I think people's feelings about these things run much deeper than that though. I think on all sides of both of these issues people tend use particular issues and arguments to mask more fundamental feelings on the topic. So leavers saw the risk in Brexit the same as remainers did but they either underplayed it or saw it as a price worth paying because what made most of the them leavers was more about how they felt than how they thought.

It's the same with independence. You could predict someone's vote on independence with incredible accuracy just by getting them to answer the questions "Do you feel more Scottish or more British?" That's not an accident. It's not a coincidence that people who answer "British" to that question will talk about "vaccines, furlough and currency" as if that's what swayed them to vote No. And it's not a coincidence that people who answer "Scottish" will see those things are far less important when it comes to the question of independence.

[BFTD]

21 minutes ago, HTG said:

This will help Scotland on the road - desperate stuff.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCScotlandNews/status/1374785263851995136

The Westminster plan appears to be, "keep telling them they're ours until they get the message".

I'm starting to get the feeling that this really is the best that the British establishment can manage and, if so, it's a pretty poor state of affairs.

[Glen Sannox]

2 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

11 minutes ago, Glen Sannox said:

That’s a very salient point Gordon. I think a lot of my age group viewed the Brexit risk as minimal and I certainly still believe that. Breaking up the UK is a completely different proposition. The Unionists will throw the kitchen sink at this,  “vaccines and furlough” will win the day for them.

Of course it's not as if other countries haven't done furlough. With all due respect, if unionists think that's their "stick' then independence is a foregone conclusion

JLD, I get totally get that. But surely you can imagine the yes/no campaign.

They will be grilled to death by the media...how would an Indy Scotland have funded furlough? How would an Indy Scotland as part of the EU, procured and administered the vaccine rollout?

Last time out, they couldn’t even answer the currency question, so yes, I think it’ll be a very important “stick”.

[John Lambies Doos]

JLD, I get totally get that. But surely you can imagine the yes/no campaign.
They will be grilled to death by the media...how would an Indy Scotland have funded furlough? How would an Indy Scotland as part of the EU, procured and administered the vaccine rollout?
Last time out, they couldn’t even answer the currency question, so yes, I think it’ll be a very important “stick”.

But Ireland are and still are running a furlough scheme, get they are impacted by EU vaccine issue and in fairness that's something the UK has got right. But that will pass and people will start talking about 50+% reductions in exports, long queues at ports, airports etc, ESTA style visas etc etc

[Glen Sannox]

14 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

I'd agree that unionists see independence as riskier than leavers saw Brexit. 

Personally, I think people's feelings about these things run much deeper than that though. I think on all sides of both of these issues people tend use particular issues and arguments to mask more fundamental feelings on the topic. So leavers saw the risk in Brexit the same as remainers did but they either underplayed it or saw it as a price worth paying because what made most of the them leavers was more about how they felt than how they thought.

It's the same with independence. You could predict someone's vote on independence with incredible accuracy just by getting them to answer the questions "Do you feel more Scottish or more British?" That's not an accident. It's not a coincidence that people who answer "British" to that question will talk about "vaccines, furlough and currency" as if that's what swayed them to vote No. And it's not a coincidence that people who answer "Scottish" will see those things are far less important when it comes to the question of independence.

Vaccines, furlough and currency and are massively important though, and you can rest assured the SNP will not have the answers to these impending questions. I think you might be underestimating “the broad shoulders of the UK” card, that will be relentlessly played.

[HTG]

20 minutes ago, BFTD said:

The Westminster plan appears to be, "keep telling them they're ours until they get the message".

I'm starting to get the feeling that this really is the best that the British establishment can manage and, if so, it's a pretty poor state of affairs.

Aye, that's my take too. The slight problem with it is that they can get themselves right tae f**k and then when they get there, they can f**k off.