A couple
of weeks ago, the much belegred Yes Scotland campaign received a boost with a
Panelbase poll that showed for the first time in this referendum campaign a
lead for those supporting Independence.
It lead to pro-Independence supporters to claim that it was now “Game on”
for the referendum.
The
problem with that claim is of course that every other poll has shown a majority
in support for the status quo. Indeed,
the first thought that popped into my head when the poll emerged was outlier. Taking that into account and the fact that
this poll was the first poll since January 2012 to show support for
Independence over 40%, this looked like an anomaly. Visiting US polling guru Nate Silver
evidently thought so when he called the referendum in favour of the “No” camp
(with the caveat that a major crisis in England could make a yes vote more
likely). Yet, while I think that it is
highly likely that Scotland will vote “No” this time next year (and there are
plenty of reasons, all of then based on “Yes Scotlands” wretched campaign), why
is there that small element of uncertainty over this poll.
What
seems to have gone unnoticed is that polling support for a no vote is actually
falling. Apart from a Yougov poll at the
start of September, you have to go back to May for a poll to put support for
the status quo over 50%. Most polls
since then have put support for the status quo in the high forties. All of this could suggest that rather than
any successful “Yes” campaign, the pro-Independence supporter’s best chance of
a “yes” vote could well be the unfolding landscape at Westminster and the rise
of the right wing there, with UKIP pulling the Conservative’s rightwards.
Henry
McLeish identified this phenomenon in a piece for The Scotsman last month, however
even he must have been struck by the divergence in attitudes and policy over
the past couple of months. The Spare
Room Subsidy, a policy so bad that it makes both Swinney’s Sterling Zone policy
and the Dangerous Dogs act look like works of genius, continues to be popular
with the government and HM Opposition.
Labour’s
procrastination over whether to scrap a policy that deserves the notorious
handle of The Bedroom Tax has caused serious problems for Scottish Labour. Both Annas Sarwar and Jackie Ballie have at
best looked foolhardy in trying to claim that the next Labour government would
scrap the Bedroom Tax, in spite of the deafening silence from the Shadow Work
and Pensions Secretary on the subject.
It was rather strange to see that Baillie was slapped down for her
comments, but not Sarwar. So, a penny
for the thoughts of the Better Together canvassers I met a year ago on that
subject and a separate penny on the subject of the Royal Mail.
In
among the coverage of this part of Osborne’s rather obvious fire sale, there
was no indication over what would happen to the Universal Service Agreement,
which has obvious implications for rural Scotland. I don’t seem to have the Better Together
leaflet (that prompted this post) anymore, but I’m sure that their willingness
to keep the UK’s seat in the Security Council at the UN rather trumped their
willingness to protect the Royal Mail.
With a
year to go, Yes Scotland still has an awful campaign with so many questions
still to answer. However it is conceivable they might
still win thanks to Westminster’s intransigence towards this referendum. It could be that the people who will help
Salmond towards his aim could well be the people who push Scotland out of the
UK door, Cameron, Osborne & Milliband.
In short, people are now noticing the mass of contradictions at the
heart of the “Better Together” campaign.
Maybe, against all the odds, it is “Game on” after all.
