To ask all Scottish MNrs to work together 2

[siiiiiiiiigh]

Sorry, filled the last thread with this, thought I'd better be part of Team Scottish MN and work together for those of us on the old thread...

Here's Armando's thoughts. I vote him in for everything.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/21/scottish-referendum-massive-voter-turnout-means-politics-changed-for-ever

I thought so. Apparently no voters are all gullible idiots who don't know the truth - according to made up statistics from Yes Scotland.

DaughterDilemma:

"Sorry to be negative but in politics you do have to look at the worst case scenario and make sure you've got everything in place to avoid it happening"

Exactly why I had to vote no! . It really would have been asking a lot for me to vote Yes based on what might happen in England, the question on the ballot paper was specifically about Scotland and we had no details about what may happen in England.

Those who voted postally were definitely not affected by the late promises. Somewhere back in the threads the % vote for postal no was stated, can't find it now, but think it was quite high.
Everyone who was set on No or Yes from the beginning would not have been swayed. I think it would only have made a difference to a small portion of the undecided voters.

Another vote with no last minute promises would still be No IMO.

Here's the Ashcroft stats for when mind made up re voting intention - the survey is flawed when you try to break it down in to small age sub groups but at overall level it at least gives an indication

No Voters:
3% making their mind up on the day
3% in the last few days
3% in the last week
10% in the last month (some of those would have been before the new powers etc as much of it was in the last week really). Total 20% in last month

Yes Voters (Same order)
8%
7%
6%
18%
Total 39% in last month

So it's probably not accurate to say that 25% switched from no to yes because of the vow given that at least some would have made their mind up at the last minute anyway. Heck, you could probably argue based on the stats that people switched to YES because of it

Behoove, but then I think that postal voters as a group were more likely to vote No anyway.

Well you know, postal voters were likely to be either a) older or b) rich enough to be on holiday. So it makes sense that they would vote No

"Well you know, postal voters were likely to be either a) older or b) rich enough to be on holiday. So it makes sense that they would vote No"

No, because IMO (no clue about WhatWouldFreddieDo) yes voters would be more likely to want to do it in person.

I thought that was the case. It just seems to be anther variation on the theme du jour of why no voters are all stupid/deluded/gullible whereas all yes voters have an inbuilt magic truth filter.

Not to mention the irony of using a made up statistic which is demonstrably untrue to support the "stupid no voters" theory.

snorting at rich enough to be on holiday

In our case, DH works away a lot, and knew he wouldn't be in Scotland for the vote. But obv individual cases + anecdote does not = data

Think I'm going to stay off FB for the time being. Not good for my blood pressure.

The Ashcroft poll also asks people who made their mind up in the last month

" Did you move from being a “Don't know” or did you move from intending to vote the opposite to the way you actually ended up voting?"

of the No voters who decided in the last month, 13% moved from Yes to no, 59% from don't know and the rest from "Neither" (which I suspect means they were already pretty much a No but hadn't 100% decided)

I think I've found where the 25% has been lifted from;
They also asked No voters " I am going to read out three reasons people have given for voting NO. Please can you rank them in order of how important they were in your decision, from first to third, even if there were other reasons that were important to you?"

The three reasons;
The risks of becoming independent looked too great when it came to things like the currency, EU membership, the economy, jobs and prices - 47%
A strong attachment to the United Kingdom and its shared history, culture and traditions - 27%
A NO vote would still mean extra powers for the Scottish Parliament together with the security of remaining part of the United Kingdom, giving the best of both worlds - 25%

However, that's not specifically about "the vow". So either - a lot of people lied about when they made their mind up, there was some confirmation bias i.e. they were already No voters but that just strengthened their opinion, or they were thinking about the new powers that were coming anyway via the Scotland Act 2012 or those which the parties had individually discussed. Its also a pretty rubbish question to draw that conclusion from.

Yes, StainlessSteelBegonia

I'd like to know how much it cost too.

Mr Salmond didn't seem very interested in 'working together' from his speech in Holyrood yesterday. Still, he's off (for now.... he has form for flouncing off and then coming back) so what does he care?

Thanks Statistically. I wish I was that sharp so early on in the day.

I agree that the Ashcroft poll is flawed (for example, the sample of 16-17 year olds) but still has some value.

Haha, not very sharp at all ! The poll is actually useful - just needs to be considered in context and with consideration to what was asked and how small you are dicing.

Estimated cost of referendum on Scottish Independence £13.3 million. Paid for by Scottish government.

Cost of the UK referendum on AV came up as £70 odd million; but left far fewer reverberations.

The thing is, I think the whole no voters being stupid or gullible or whatever has very little to do with whether no voters switched to no at the last minute because of the vow of extra powers.

It's that the loudest voice of the no campaign was not like Phaedre's - I don't want extra powers, I don't want devolution.

It was - I want change too, but I trust these people working in the system I want to change more than I trust the SNP to deliver it.

Except the yes campaign wasn't the SNP, it was lots of groups and people (which I think got lost quite a lot in the campaigning as SNP were dominating it) and the yougov poll shows that it wasn't just SNP voters voting yes and that a significant amount of SNP voters voted no. It wasn't about party politics.

If it was a case of not wanting change then no-one can say that no voters are stupid, gullible or lied to because then the whole...the UK is a known quantity and we want to stick with what we have is true, but it does become a lie when it turns into, well we are going to give you change, only we don't know what, but it's still more sure than what the SNP (who aren't just the SNP) have said, even though we haven't planned it yet so haven't actually said anything. (I'm not defending the white paper here, because yes, that was a bit of an SNP wish list, but it still had more planning in it than just, we will give you change.)

The last minute vow of extra powers maybe didn't make much difference to the vote, but I suspect trying to blame that is actually more about the fact that it was a pretty shoddy thing to do and people are still angry about it being done in the first place...anecdotally, no voters as well have said they don't think it was right, for what that's worth.

But it's the incongruity of the fact that the no campaign said they wanted change, but also stability, but change makes things unstable anyway, especially unknown change that causes the issue to start with.

That's my opinion anyway, for what little value it has...I'll leave you to go back to discussing the fact that a poll is meaningless when you don't agree with what it says, but has some value when it does because I'm kind of sick of everything everywhere still being about rehashing their side of the debate instead of going, right, it happened, what happens next? And I do mean everyone, yes voters, no voters, campaigners and politicians. I'm going back to annoying people with my opinions on dogs and the weather instead.

I agreea that the last minute promise of extra powers was quite a shoddy thing to do. I wish they hadn't done as I think it made very little difference to the outcome of the results and has given disgruntled Yes voters something to focus their anger on. It certainly had no effect on my No vote or that of anyone else I know.

I think it's a shame though that so many of the Yes voters are almost willing these extra powers not to appear, which seems a bit cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I'll leave you to go back to discussing the fact that a poll is meaningless when you don't agree with what it says, but has some value when it does

Did we say that? No. You can't draw valid conclusions from a sample size of 14. The overall poll was much larger than 14 and so is useful, but when you try to separate out a group of 14 and make judgements based on that, it's not going to give you a statistically valid result. There's a huge difference between analysing what over 1000 people said, and what 14 said. That's logical.

And its perfectly valid to say "I'd like to see change. But not this change"

I sat next to two on the plane who had been in London for work and done a postal vote. Most of the plane had voted postal from what we could all figure out. It also applies I believe to people in the Civil Service overseas or Armed Forces overseas as well. Inability to get to the ballot box is for many different reasons.

daughter I don't think I can belabour the point enough that people voted NO because they were not convinced by the Yes arguments and had no interest in what was offer. Minds were made up years ago. I doubt the Vow had a significant impact on numbers in the overall vote - if one can take the Ashcroft poll as a guide. I thought it was a load of guff personally but even that would have in no way have persuaded me to vote Yes. Also I will never understand how people could all throw their caps over the windmill and vote Yes. But I have to park it too for the sake of my sanity and we all have to agree to disagree and move on.

I don't have a problem with the direction things are moving in and would rather time was taken to get it right. Bearing in mind it would be good to have this in place before the next election and the parties can still be held to account. If that is possible!

Statistically much as I love statistics, the kind of polls that ask people to analyse their own decision making and when and why they made decisions are just never going to be accurate or express anything other than people answering a question with a political answer, that is an answer that intrinsically involves their own political and personal leanings. People have different levels of self-awareness so these retrospective what if polls are pointless. And it doesn't really matter. What matters is that the people who decided on the day from both sides all knew enough about Cameron's intention to change the goalposts.

My argument is that there was not an informed choice and therefore the process was fundamentally flawed. You can't expect one side to have a fixed plan, discussed and debated for years and then another side to drop in random promises at the last minute and expect the electorate to have a fair knowledge of the facts in front of them. It's nothing to do with No voters being less smart - you didn't have the information with which to make an informed choice.

It really would have been asking a lot for me to vote Yes based on what might happen in England, the question on the ballot paper was specifically about Scotland and we had no details about what may happen in England.

...and as I said in my ranty late night posts last night, some of you were between a rock and a hard place even if you had the information as the two deals have ended up having a similarly groundshifting effect which those of you who considered for years had thrust upon you at the last minute. It's actually bloody insulting for Camerband to come up with this and expect people to change their minds over something so important. For this reason the vote was flawed, if the statistics about last minute vote switchers do have any relation to reality, the numbers of people who voted for the new Britain as promised is very low - everyone else voted either yes, or for No change.

I voted for no change but find I don't exist in the mind of politicians of any hue!

I'm moving on for sanity's sake too, living! Just one or two post mortem conversations to have in RL then I'm done.

I agree Daughtersdilemma, these type of polls always have flaws from that perspective as how many of us actually know when and why we made a specific decision. I was responding to being criticised for saying it was more useful for some things than others when that's actually a valid comment IYSWIM. And my earlier responses were to people who were saying that YesScotland had concluded based on the same poll that 25% voted Yes because of "the vow"- I was just pointing out the flaws with drawing that conclusion from the poll.

Given how much fiction there was in the SNP arguments and White Paper, I don't think Yes voters had the right information to make an informed decision either.

Daughter I made an informed choice to vote No well before any vow, as did the majority of the No voters. The polls all the way through were showing No ahead apart from that one poll which I believe was just an anomaly.

tabulahrasa - I hear you loud and clear and agree with most of what you say. It's exhausting to argue like this.

I am now thinking of it more as at best a flawed vote and at worst a massive gerrymandering exercise.