Will you vote for independence?

[Quartz]

Wind and wave energy is a long way off being efficient and you can't export it,

Of course energy can be exported.

potentially you could become self sustaining in terms of energy but it's unlikely and currently unknown.

Hmm...

Fresh water (maybe with the exception of the bottled kind is economically unviable).

That's not true. England will have a severe water shortage in the near future, and there are already plans for taking water from Scotland to England, along the 300m contour line IIRC.

Fishing, yeah but when was the last time you were in a supermarket where you noticed a label "fished in Scotland" other than salmon which is mostly fished in farms now and not exclusive to Scotland.

Plenty of times, but then I have ties to the fishing industry and live in a port city.

In fact the environmental lobby is actively resisting any expansion.

Quite rightly too: there has been severe over-fishing.

Shipbuilding, please, get grip the only way that will return is if,through desperation, you'll try to compete with likes of South Korea. Good luck with that.

As the Far East prospers their wages will rise and so the cost of building ships over there will increase.

 

[Cpatain Rbubish]

Of course energy can be exported.

Really? How? The only way for Scotland could export electricity is to supply into the National Grid, and as England is already spending fortunes on these white elephants I doubt they'd be in the market for more. Most of the time wind farms output is not required due to its unreliability but they are still paid for supply that is never used.

Wave power is more promising as a future solution due to its predictability but no-ones achieved this effectively yet.

 

[Cpatain Rbubish]

As the Far East prospers their wages will rise and so the cost of building ships over there will increase.

And when this happens ship building will move to the next low wage economy not back here.

 

[Cpatain Rbubish]

That's not true. England will have a severe water shortage in the near future, and there are already plans for taking water from Scotland to England, along the 300m contour line IIRC.

Highly speculative. This makes perfect sense and I'm aware of the plans but I don't think we'll be buying any this year cheers.

 

[gosub]

http://willhillbet.tumblr.com/post/94438394233/79-of-scots-backing-yes

The big money, gilts/CDS has bet NO. If Yes came in, there would be a market correction, but if then you tried to knit that into a currency union, the pound which Yes has lashed itself to would slide off into quicksand.

 

[Quartz]

Highly speculative. This makes perfect sense and I'm aware of the plans but I don't think we'll be buying any this year cheers.

Remind me, how common are hosepipe bans in England?

 

[gosub]

In the event of a YES vote, Scottish government could do far worse than taking the sorted ballot papers, inking in the vote and serial numbering them. It would give the money shufflers something to play with.

 

[Quartz]

I've just received the Electoral Commission's voting guide. Page 7 seems to exclude the possibility of a tie. What does happen if there's a tie? I've emailed the Electoral Commission to ask them.

 

[butchersapron]

A tie? Haven't you got better things to worry about?

 

[danny la rouge]

I've just received the Electoral Commission's voting guide. Page 7 seems to exclude the possibility of a tie. What does happen if there's a tie? I've emailed the Electoral Commission to ask them.

I don't even know how to calculate the probability of that. For a start, an even number of people would need to vote, and the exact same number would have to vote Yes as No.
The last figure I have for registered voters in Scotland was 3,985,257 in 2012. Assuming they all vote, there couldn't be a tie. Let's say an even number does vote, say 75% - 2,988,942. You'd need exactly 1494471 to vote each way. But then, what about spoiled papers? You'd need an even number of those, too.

I'd say the probability of all that is vanishingly slight.

 

[DairyQueen]

Really? How? The only way for Scotland could export electricity is to supply into the National Grid, and as England is already spending fortunes on these white elephants I doubt they'd be in the market for more. Most of the time wind farms output is not required due to its unreliability but they are still paid for supply that is never used.

Wave power is more promising as a future solution due to its predictability but no-ones achieved this effectively yet.

Scotland would be a net exporter. It already is. It is not as simple as that though, sometimes Scotland actually imports electricity from England. However, it would be a net exporter as it is now. The nuclear plants, AFAIK, are replacing existing plants. Someone could correct me here.

 

[teuchter]

I don't even know how to calculate the probability of that.

kabbes

 

[weepiper]

Oil And Gas People (oil industry recruiters) have come out for Yes (from their facebook page)

Oil and Gas People has been watching the Independence debate from the fence and like many businesses felt it wasn't in our best interest to back one side or the other. That has all changed with the negative campaigning the Better Together campaign have directed towards our industry with false information and outright lies misleading the people of Scotland.

With this post we back the #yes campaign and get behind 64% of the industry who are voting YES to Independence. Without Oil and Gas Scotland can be a rich nation with it we can be one of the richest, no one knows the industry better than those who work in it and we all know that Oil and Gas will be around for a long time yet.

 

[weepiper]

And the result of another Radical Independence mass canvas:

 

[geminisnake]

Weeps beat me to the oil and gas post

 

[Quartz]

I'd say the probability of all that is vanishingly slight.

But like the Lottery, it's not zero.

 

[teuchter]

Oil And Gas People (oil industry recruiters) have come out for Yes (from their facebook page)

Well, if there's one industry whose politics we should take a lead from, it's the Oil and Gas industry. This would change my mind for sure to a Yes.

 

[DairyQueen]

Well, if there's one industry whose politics we should take a lead from, it's the Oil and Gas industry. This would change my mind for sure to a Yes.

You do know they are a contractor, and when they say 64% of the industry back independence they mean workers not multinationals?

 

[teuchter]

You do know they are a contractor, and when they say 64% of the industry back independence they mean workers not multinationals?

They are a company which recruits workers, and they just say "64% of the industry" and mention a poll of 1000 people without any further explanation or a link to the source (as far as I can see). We don't know the makeup of that poll - bosses, workers, jobseekers, what?

 

[weepiper]

They are a company which recruits workers, and they just say "64% of the industry" and mention a poll of 1000 people without any further explanation or a link to the source (as far as I can see). We don't know the makeup of that poll - bosses, workers, jobseekers, what?

Workers

http://news.stv.tv/north/278497-north-sea-workers-want-independence-according-to-website-survey/

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

And the result of another Radical Independence mass canvas:

What do you think this says? 587 canvassers got less than 10 responses each and recorded them. Where were the canvases? Was it a face-to-face canvas done in an identical way? Were the canvassers identified as being from a Yes-inclined org? What was the question that was asked? Was there any prior discussion before the survey question was asked? Was there any weighting for likelihood to vote? Was there any consideration as to previous voting patterns?

Pro polling firms live by making accurate predictions. They all have their own twists and turns, but in aggregate they are rarely wrong.

 

[DotCommunist]

where are you going to get voting patterns for a question that hasn't been put to actual vote for over a generation?

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

where are you going to get voting patterns for a question that hasn't been put to actual vote for over a generation?

You got me bang to rights there Replace "voting patterns" with "previously indicated/surveyed voting intentions"?

 

[Celyn]

... Scotland as an independent state will have a very small voice in Europe

Well, we only have 6 MEPs just now, (the same as Malta), compared to Ireland having 11 and Denmark having 13.

 

[geminisnake]

Pro polling firms live by making accurate predictions. They all have their own twists and turns, but in aggregate they are rarely wrong.

So how many of them predicted the SNP landslide at Holyrood?? Coz I can't find any. YouGov is owned by a Tory MP, yet they are not biased??

 

[butchersapron]

So how many of them predicted the SNP landslide at Holyrood?? Coz I can't find any. YouGov is owned by a Tory MP, yet they are not biased??

It's not owned by a tory MP and no they're not biased. That's not how opinion polling works. Would you like to check yougovs record? (pdf). You're being ridiculously partisan here, and that's going to lead to a world of dissapointment further down the road. Don't you think there's a good reason that real politicians keep a very close eye on polling and take it very seriously - in every country in the world?

YG's last poll before the SNP landslide was:
SNP: 45
LAB: 32
CON:10
LD:8

The result was:

SNP:45
LAB: 26
CON: 12
LD: 5

So yeah, they were spot on on the SNP vote and with the MOE on tory and lib-dem and 3 outside of that for labour. Ipsos-Mori and TNS-RMRB both had similar results. Replacing research results with partisanship will only damage your own side.

 

[butchersapron]

Newly published TNRMRB poll - i say new but most polling was done during the commonwealth games and a little bit during and after the darling-salmond debate.

The No side has extended its lead in the campaign for Scottish independence, but sentiment among those who say they are certain to vote appears to have stabilised, according to a new poll by TNS.

A survey of 1000 over-16s in Scotland found 45% backing a No vote in the September 18 referendum (up 4 points on a month ago), with 32% favouring a Yes vote (unchanged) and 23% undecided (down 4 points), giving a No lead of 13%.

The latest poll suggests that these and other recent events have not swayed voting intentions among the 71% of all adults who say they are certain to vote in the referendum.

Among these voters, 46% say they will vote No, unchanged from a month ago, while 38% intend to vote Yes (up one percentage point) with 16% undecided (down 2% points).

 

[Cpatain Rbubish]

Well, we only have 6 MEPs just now, (the same as Malta), compared to Ireland having 11 and Denmark having 13.

But currently they are 6 among 73 UK MEPs.

 

[Quartz]

And it would seem the SNP have been caught basing their economic forecasts on wishful thinking. Or the Telegraph are bashing them.

My money's on both.

 

[DairyQueen]

As for the not trusting YouGov stuff, I'm sorry but it's conspiracy nonsense, they're a member of the British Polling Council, why the fuck would they risk their reputation by biasing polls. In addition, the polling they have done over the last 5 years or so has consistently been as accurate as Mori, Populus etc. Now it's possible that there is some systematic problem with their polling on this issue but their polling isn't particularly out of line with Mori's. Simply dismissing their polls because they are from YouGov is daft.

We're talking about this issue though. I have explained my problem with their methodology and their results. If they really cared about their polling on this issue (no-one will give a shit after), all they need to do is change their sampling population and apply the same methodology. Ipsos Mori have had much more random variation around their estimates than YouGov.