There has been another finding released by Panelbase from their poll commissioned by the SNP.

 

The findings is that if the 2015 general election would result in another Tory-led or Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition Government at Westminster,  41% said they are “very likely” to vote Yes and 9% “quite likely”.

If they felt the next general election would result in a Labour-led Government at Westminster, 37% said they are “very likely” with another 10% “quite likely” to vote Yes.

Whilst the numbers are fairly close, and you could argue that the make up of the UK government after 2015 won’t have much of an impact on the Scottish Independence referendum, that said, if the referendum is close, and a Tory led Westminster government looks like post 2015, that 3/4% “lead” that the Tories have over Labour in the above findings could be crucial in a close referendum.

The Westminster VI polling in August and September 2014 could be crucial to the Indy ref, it could only take one rogue poll.

Panelbase have themselves issued a statement, regarding the comments and criticisms their poll has attracted, and I commend them for doing so

We accept that it is not inconceivable that this [The order of the questions] may have had some limited effect – although we cannot really know for sure. It is entirely valid for a client to want to try out different approaches – and if the raising of  those two concepts really did have an effect, that’s a potentially interesting finding in itself.

I also agree with Panelbase on this point.

We chose to continue with that methodology for the referendum polling but the bottom line is that all pollsters are in pretty uncharted territory – whereas Holyrood and Westminster elections come around regularly and can be used to hone techniques, an independence referendum is a rare event. The one thing we polling agencies all have in common is the desire to produce accurate results – no company’s reputation would be enhanced by bending results to favour one side or the other.

In 54 weeks time, we’re going to find out which pollster is going to be right.

TSE