Well, I have been buoyed somewhat today by recent Scottish independence polls.
Over the last few months, polls have generally been indicating that support for independence is going up. The last big one by the pollster Panelbase indicated that support for independence had risen a bit (up to something like 46% from 45%) but the No vote had solidified at around 50% with the remaining don't knows (enough to swing the vote) leaning towards Yes. Interestingly though, the biased newspapers began scrutinising that poll heavily and trying to discredit the pollster, claiming that last year lots of Nationalists registered with the company as volunteers (it's a lot like YouGov) for polling to create a pro-Yes bias. Fascinating that they never criticised YouGov or any other similar pollsters when they were showing strong Unionist leads. They were even running with some headlines saying "Is the yes campaign really gaining ground? Is the support really increasing?" and that kind of shit, even "has support for independence
stalled?", trying desperately to cast doubt.
The press line changed from "support for independence just isn't moving and the unionists have this in the bag" to "support for independence isn't moving up fast enough".
Then, hilariously,
this happens. Apparently a poll by the British pollster ICM has indicated that the polls only need to swing 2 points in favour of Yes for the Yes side to win. When the "don't knows" are excluded the figure is something like 52% No, 48% yes. If just 2% of No's go to Yes, it becomes 50/50. When "don't knows" are included, the No vote is down from 46% to 42% in just one month.
Even the most biased newspapers like
The Scotsman are running with headlines saying stuff like "Yes on the brink of victory".
The Spectator is saying that it's time for the Unionists to panic.
There is a very good chance that, come July, we will indeed be ahead. I hope for that, I really do.