What are the ordinary man and woman in the street to make of the polls? There are polls everyday now from the standard ones from the Newspapers to crowd funded ones from Wings Over Scotland etc.
This opinion piece is not about the ins and outs of polling, basically it is too complicated for me to even attempt and while the BBC will roll out Professor John Curtice at every opportunity I prefer my analysis from Scot Goes Pop and James Kelly.
This blog has come about because at last Better Together has, in their opinion, got a good result in a poll conducted by the Daily Record. Looking at it their percentage has stayed the same while the YES side have fallen away by 2%, so I suppose that would be enough to make Project Fear happy.
Now, I always say that I don’t take account of the polls and I genuinely try not to, but it is hard to not be aware of them, and how they can set the tone in the news on the BBC and in the newspapers. When I saw todays one I kind of thought mmmm not great and felt a wee bit down, Project Fear will love that. But then again, the referendum will be like no other vote in our history, and the turn out will be unreal and possibly the highest percentage turn out ever at any vote in the UK.
The polls may well be an indication of how the end result may turn out to be, well I believe Professor John Curtice and James Kelly would say that they are in the main very accurate overall in relation to the end result, however don’t fall into the melancholy trap I fell into today by allowing a poll to strike at my resolve and optimism of a YES vote. The polls are entertaining but for this vote I think that they may well be wrong and like the 2011 Holyrood elections, may just surprise us all.
Just a wee thought.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
When you look at the state of those in charge of the Better Together Campaign, Alistair Darling does not give me the thought that he is on the winning side. That there seems to be a dearth of those working on the ground for NO and that there are many more signs of grass roots support for YES. I feel that the private polling is telling them one thing and the stage managed polls issued to the media are saying another. So I never let myself get down hearted with regard to the polls.
The main one is the one which is on the 18th of September and is the only one which counts and between now and then we will fight and win.
Hektorsmum
Good points and I agree that Better Together private polling must be telling them something very different. If they didn’t have the papers and the BBC they would be dead and buried by now.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce