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Category: Scotland

With 10 weeks to go to the Holyrood election new Scottish poll has the SNP down to lowest point since GE2019

With 10 weeks to go to the Holyrood election new Scottish poll has the SNP down to lowest point since GE2019

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Chart Wikipedia Could the Salmond-Sturgeon row impact on May’s elections? Probably the biggest elections taking place in the UK on the first Thursday of May are for the Scottish Parliament where a majority for the SNP could be important plank in its effort to have another referendum on the country being independent. If the latest poll by Survation for the Daily Record then opinion might just be moving away a touch from Nicola Sturgeon’s party. It has not been a…

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Polling Klaxon: Why you shouldn’t read too much into a small subsample, see this Scottish subsample as the perfect example

Polling Klaxon: Why you shouldn’t read too much into a small subsample, see this Scottish subsample as the perfect example

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Earlier on this week there was much excitement about that tweet from UK Briefing that the SNP had shed nearly a quarter of their vote which would fit a certain narrative given the recent extraordinary contretemps between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond, and the original tweet was retweeted with wild abandon. However astute poll watchers like Anthony Wells and Britain Elects plus myself pointed out that the figures quoted by UK Briefing was a subsample of 154 which is nowhere…

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Scots missed. The Parliamentary dynamics of Scottish independence

Scots missed. The Parliamentary dynamics of Scottish independence

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The Big Bang Theory has run more than a few seasons past its peak, but one of its more striking moments was Sheldon’s and Amy’s game Counterfactuals. One player had to build a question on a premise and then other players had to come up with, then defend, their answer. For example: “In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the Second World War?”   Such exercises would limber us up for a problem that might well be coming down the…

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What will Scotland’s historic victory Rugby victory do to the push for independence?

What will Scotland’s historic victory Rugby victory do to the push for independence?

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Judging by the last thread many PBers have spent the last few hours watching the opening matches in this year’s Six Nations. Given the proximity of the Scottish Parliament elections due for the first week of May I wonder whether Scotland’s first victory over England at Twickenham in 38 years is going to have a political impact. A former colleague of mine at the LSE in the 1990s was working on a thesis that linked the sporting success of Scotland…

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LADBROKES tighten the odds on Sturgeon NOT being the First Minister by the end of the year

LADBROKES tighten the odds on Sturgeon NOT being the First Minister by the end of the year

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New revelations on the Salmond exit add to her problems The controversial events over Alec Salmond departure from the party continue to pose problems for Sturgeon. The Telegraph is reporting that SNP ministers got legal advice from a top QC ‘ that it would lose the Alex Salmond judicial review which it proceeded with. This and other issues are impacting on the betting. Having been a 9/4 shot earlier this morning that Sturgeon would not to survive the year Ladbrokes…

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After a quick & successful vaccine rollout, this is the second most thing I want to see in 2021

After a quick & successful vaccine rollout, this is the second most thing I want to see in 2021

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On New Year’s Eve The Spectator dropped a very interesting story. As many hospitals struggle to cope with a surge of Covid-19 patients, the most important judgement yet to be made about 2020 is how much difference it would have made had England been pre-emptively locked down in September. This is not an academic question. Because there were two separate occasions in September when the prime minister’s political and scientific advisers urged him to impose tough national restrictions and suppress…

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Rebuilding a Nation: Unionists need to engage in a battle of both hearts and minds

Rebuilding a Nation: Unionists need to engage in a battle of both hearts and minds

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But it’s a task singularly ill-suited to Boris Johnson TV used to be so much simpler. When I was growing up, there were only three, then four channels (though Channel 4 didn’t start up until mid-afternoon). If you wanted On Demand, you had to use a Video Recorder. Viewing was entirely through the box (and TVs were boxy) and the only thing resembling an internet was Ceefax and Oracle. They were also almost entirely passively consumed: no ‘e-mail, text or…

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