Record high

Today's poll in the Daily Record records Survation's highest ever figure for Yes at 39 (+2), with No at 44(-3) and undecideds 17 (unchanged). The swings are from their poll last month. So that's a five per cent drop in the gap between the two sides in about five weeks. Excluding the undecideds, the figures are currently Yes 47 and No 53. 

John Curtice comments that various "manoeuvres by the No side" over the last few weeks "came in for criticism in respect of their accuracy, wisdom and/or effectiveness". Better Together do seem genuinely to think that rather than consider things and make their own minds up, voters are going to be directed by (of course admirable) foreign heads of state, (of course talented) minor celebrities or (of course very good) writers of children's fiction. I'd crawl over burning coals to vote Democrat rather than Republican, think John Barrowman's lovely and have read almost one Harry Potter book. But I'll be voting Yes, thanks.

And interestingly most of the swing to Yes is from women voters. The Yes side has always said that women are either considering things more carefully than men, or simply waiting till nearer the time to decide, rather than less likely to vote Yes as a result of gender. Stephen Noon has pointed out that that was the pattern in the 2011 election where the polls suggested the gender gap started off at 17% and come the vote was down to only 3%. Survation now report it at 10%, their lowest figure ever.

And if people think that the Tories are going to win the next election? It's Yes 54 and No 46.

Crystal balls

There's another Institute of Fiscal Studies Report out today. Leave aside the fact that the whole point of independence is to give us the powers to address the challenges identified by the IFS in a way that contrasts completely with the British government's plans for our futures. Just forget the SNP's transformative childcare proposals, encouragement of skilled migration to boost the tax take and so on. Leave all of that to one side.

Every IFS report is based on the projections of future oil prices, years and decades ahead, issued by the Office of Budget Responsibility. Helpfully, Alistair Darling is on the record as describing how the the British government uses the OBR in a way that renders it "not just...part of the Government but...part of the Conservative Party". In any event, the British government has been woefully inept at predicting oil prices in the past, as a matter of demonstrable historic fact:

It has also regularly been out of step with the estimates of industry itself and a host of other organisations:

"Current projections from a wide range of organisations are largely upward. The ITEM Club forecast price rises over $130 a barrel; as does the Department for Energy in the UK. NIESR, the Economist Intelligence Unit and the US Energy Information Administration all forecast rises above $110 a barrel. The UK Government’s newly formed OBR – which Alistair Darling accused of being a front for the Conservative Party – is isolated in predicting a price fall."

Pensions: a well-informed, impartial man quietly explains.

Anyone who is worried about their pension, or that of anyone they know, in an independent Scotland owes it to themselves (and, frankly, to all the rest of us) to set aside the time to download, save and listen to this (alternative link here). The speaker is Neil Walsh, who’s the Pensions Officer of the Prospect trade union. Prospect is "the union for professionals". Its members are engineers, scientists, managers and specialists in areas as diverse as agriculture, defence, energy, environment, heritage, shipbuilding, telecoms and transport. Neil Walsh knows his stuff. You can find on YouTube clips of him speaking to members of his union on developments in relation to civil service pension reform, their pensions and pension entitlements.

This link though is to a recording of a tele-conference that he conducted for the union’s members, dealing specifically and at some length (it's around an hour) with the implications for pensions of a Yes vote in the referendum. Prospect is a UK-wide union and is entirely neutral on the referendum question. It has no stance, no position to argue or defend. What you’ll hear in the recording, then, is an independent expert with no axe to ground calmly and rationally addressing all the issues from the perspective of the 140,000 members of his union.

You'll do well if you hear a clearer, more reasonable, more informative or more balanced assessment of anything between now and September 18th. If you are worried about pensions, listen to what he says, please, as soon as you can. Or download the clip, or bookmark this page, and listen to it later.

I'll be blunt: you'll have failed the rest of us if you vote without doing so.

Tak!

Scotland and Poland have had a long, friendly and fruitful relationship, running through the centuries. In the 1600s, there were an estimated 30,000 Scots living in Poland. They came from Dundee, Aberdeen and elsewhere and settled in Krakow, Lublin and towns and cities throughout Poland. There were Episcopalians, Catholics, Calvinists. There were soldiers and traders. And they were welcomed by the Poles and allowed to thrive and prosper. King Stephen gave a Royal Grant in 1576 granting citizenship and assigning a district in Krakow to Scots immigrants. The evidence of the connection in the form of Polish surnames and place names is particularly poignant. Wanda Machlejd was a runner during the Warsaw Uprising; she was also the great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great granddaughter of a mercenary soldier called "MacLeod" who have arrived in Poland from Skye in the 1620s. 

Now, wind forward a few hundred years.

No Borders - new depths

Here's an email from Great Ormond Street Hospital about one of the cinema adverts run by the weird, sinister and creepy "Vote No Borders" organisation, about which Great Ormond Street had to complain and which was then pulled. I'm sure it's ok. I'm sure Great Ormond Street Hospital didn't have anything better to do that day.

If you are forcing both Great Ormond Street Hospital and the London School of Economics to take time away from their normal business to complain about you misrepresenting them, might you not benefit from pausing and taking a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror?

Full story at Wings, here.

Direction of travel

Reading and comprehension: 
Paper 1
Question 1

The following is an extract from a police interview. The speaker is a witness to events immediately preceding a road trafffic accident in which someone was seriously injured. Please read the extract and then answer the question at the end, giving reasons for your answer:

"I was stopped at some traffic lights. The lights turned to green and I started to move off. As I did so, this coked-up boy racer came zooming past me. He was already doing about 50 and looked like he had his foot down. He just missed some pedestrians. He was laughing like a maniac and didn't seem to know where he was or what he was doing. I was terrified. I remember thinking 'Jesus! He's going to hit someone!' I carried on for a bit and sure enough a few minutes later when I caught up with him I saw he'd collided with that bus."

What, do you think, the police will feel are the crucial bits of this account? What is the most important and relevant information that it contains?

1. The witness was travelling in the same direction as the other car.
2. Something else.

"...I've awaited your coming and dreaded it"

 

George Taylor: Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did it.
[screaming]
George Taylor: You Maniacs! ...Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Earlier today, UKIP came first in the European elections in the UK as a whole, becoming the first party other than Labour or the Tories to win a UK-wide election in a century. In Scotland, it came fourth. In the rest of the UK, it got nearly a third of the vote. In Scotland, it got around a tenth. Its result in Scotland is far behind its worst result in England. Throughout the UK, it got the largest number of MEPS of any party: 23. In Scotland, it got the lowest possible number of MEPs, other than no MEPS at all: one. Of UKIP's current 393 elected representatives, Scotland is responsible for a total of precisely one. 96.79% of  UKIP's 4,351,204 votes were cast outside Scotland. Even if every single one of those who voted for UKIP in Scotland had not done so, and even if every single one of them had actually voted for a different party, UKIP would still have won.

More votes were cast outside Scotland for UKIP than there are electors in the whole of Scotland.

Early this morning, Professor Vernon Bogdanor told David Dimbleby on the BBC's Vote 2014 programme that in his view there is a 50/50 chance that in five years time Britain will not be in the European Union. Earlier in the same programme, Tory MEP Daniel Hannan predicted to Dimbleby that there will be joint UKIP/Tory candidates for the UK general election in 2015, in eleven months time, with the intention of ensuring that the right-wing, anti-EU vote is maximised. Professor Bogdanor said there will be de facto pacts between the Tories and UKIP to ensure that the anti-EU vote is not split. Between them, UKIP and the Tories took 51.44% of the UK-wide vote. Labour took less than half of that: 25.40%.

50/50. 51.44%. Less than half. Eleven months time. It's soon going to be too late.

Vote Yes.