And it’s great news for the Supporters of Yes as No’s lead slumps from 20% to 9% with Survation.

As Mike correctly forecast the Edinburgh confrontation over the currency might be just what the YES campaign wants, as Yes goes up 6% and no goes down 5%, the changes are from the Survation poll carried out at the end of January. (Note the reason why the changes don’t net off to zero is because of rounding)

The fieldwork was Monday and Tuesday of this week, so post George Osborne’s currency union and Jose Manuel Barroso’s EU intervention (The sample size was 1,005)

My one caveat on this poll is that the fieldwork was conducted during and in the immediate aftermath of Alex Salmond’s speech that was a response to George Osborne’s intervention, that may have influenced the responses, particularly given Alex Salmond’s positive ratings amongst Scottish voters.

Which is one of the reasons I’ve been backing Yes for quite some time.

If it is a case of a higher visibility of  Alex Salmond gives Yes a boost, then given he’s going to be featuring a lot in the Independence Referendum campaign, then Better Together are going to have major problems during the campaign to stop a big swing to Yes during the campaign, as No don’t have anyone with the nous or talent to match Alex Salmond.

UPDATE

It would appear Survation has changed its methodology and this latest one is not comparable with the January survey which was turnout weighted to 2010 Westminster VI.

UPDATE II

Survation have published a note about their methodology.

They say the effect of changing the weighting appears to account for approximately 6.5 of the 10.8 points of apparent reduction in the “No” lead compared with the previous Survation poll.

So swing like for like was 2.15% from No to Yes, which is half the 5.5% swing the initial headline figures suggested.

Backing Yes at 7/2 represents value.

But this is just one poll, we need more polls to confirm whether this is a trend or just a one off. I’m hoping to see more IndyRef polling in the next few days.

TNS POLL – Fieldwork ended 6th of Feb

There’s another poll out, this is by TNS, the field work ended on the 6th of February, so long before the Westminster Currency Union intervention.

TNS' #indyref findings pic.twitter.com/zMJWSJydl7

— The Screaming Eagles (@TSEofPB) February 20, 2014

The headline figure shows no change from their last poll conducted at the end of the January, which sees a lead of 13% for No, but when certainty to vote is taken account, the lead is 9%, down from 17% last month, which fits in with my expectation there may differential turnout in the referendum and that will boost the yes side, the general trend since September will also give joy to the Yes Side, as Yes voters are more likely to vote than No voters, by 84% to 73%

The other interesting finding from this poll. One of the reasons that has always favoured No is that women are overwhelming in favour of remaining in the Union, this poll found that Men are more likely than women to say they are certain to vote (71% vs 67%), so this other differential turnout may negate the gender gap.

The full data tables for TNS are available here. 

TSE