Author Archives: Stephen Tall

Events in Scotland have rather dominated these past few weeks, but we shouldn’t forget there’s another election soon to take place: the by-election in Clacton triggered by Douglas Carswell’s defection from the Tories to Ukip.

Early polls shows Carswell is the front-runner to retain the seat in his new colours. The local Lib Dems have selected a candidate to fly the party’s colours: Andy Graham, “a former teacher in Clacton has performed in shows at the Clacton’s West Cliff Theatre”.

Details of how you can help Andy in Clacton are as follows:

The people of Scotland have spoken. As that sound echoes, here’s what I think its rejection of independence means…

The SNP are strengthened:

45% of the Scottish electorate voted Yes. That’s a far higher figure than many of us would have predicted even a few weeks ago. Yes Scotland’s campaigning, driven by the SNP, has proved far superior to Better Together’s, driven by Labour. If the Nationalists resist the temptation to turn in on themselves they can expect to reap the electoral rewards of their grassroots activity next May. The Scots, by decisively rejecting independence, have lost their negotiating leverage: I expect them to turn to the SNP as an insurance policy against being forgotten about by Westminster. That poses a big threat to Labour, but also to the Lib Dems — after all, one-fifth of our MPs sit for Scottish seats.

The Tories are weakened…

Did Cameron panic or was it one of those things that seemed a good idea at the time? I’m referring to the ‘vow’ he co-signed with Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, published in the Daily Record, promising more powers for Scotland and the safeguarding of the Barnett Formula financial settlement for Scotland. This opens up a whole Pandora’s Box of constitutional questions which are likely to dominate debate at least until Christmas. That part of it won’t bother Cameron: the irresistible logic of devo-max for Scotland is de facto home rule also for England – in other words, English votes deciding English laws – which, given the Tories’ strength in England, boosts their prospects of remaining in power, at least in the short-term. However, the promise to retain the Barnett Formula is another matter altogether. It offers an obvious opportunity to Nigel Farage to exploit: “It’s right that Scotland should have more powers,” he’ll say, “but it’s also right that there’s a fair financial settlement for the English, too. Public money should be allocated according to need.” And the worst of it is he’s 100% right on this, and he’ll now be the lone voice among the four main party leaders able to make that compelling case to the voters in the lead-up to the next general election. The Tories (as well as the Lib Dems and Labour) have placed ourselves on the wrong side of this issue.

Almost all the polls have now been published and election day is tomorrow – so the time has come to put your pundit’s reputation on the line and say what you think will be the result of the Scottish independence referendum.

A quick reminder for those who’ve been fogged by the blizzard of polls in the last couple of days:

Ipsos MORI: Yes 49%, No 51%
Panelbase: Yes 48%, No 52%
ICM: Yes 48%, No 52%
Opinium: Yes 48%, No 52%
Survation: Yes 48%, No 52%

Since the YouGov poll showing a narrow Yes lead was published at the weekend the Westminster Village has flailed into hyper-active over-drive. Even today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was cancelled to allow the three party leaders to descend on Scotland and bolster the flagging No campaign.

Personally I cannot begin to describe the extent of my ambivalence. As a federalist, I’m caught in a pincer of equal distaste for Alex Salmond’s and his cybernats’ nationalist aggression and the shrill Anglo-presumption of unionist politicians and commentators that the Scots need saving from themselves.

The Better Together campaign’s frayed nerves will be partially soothed by the latest poll released tonight purporting to show No leading by 53%-47%. I use the word purporting quite deliberately. Here’s why, courtesy ComRes’s blog:

Ignore the “don’t knows” at your peril

Most of the recent headlines have been generated by reports which have excluded “don’t know” respondents from the calculation. This gives a neat prediction of the final split. But it can be a misrepresentation of the polls.

Two polls in the Scottish independence referendum debate were published last night. The one that’s (understandably) getting all the attention is YouGov’s showing a wafer-thin Yes lead, 51% to 49%. It’s only the second poll to have found a pro-independence majority (the previous one was over a year ago). The other poll, commissioned by the SNP, continues to show No in the lead, 48% to 44%.

Peter Kellner in the Sunday Times has a good summary of the factors that will likely decide the outcome in the final 10 days’ campaigning:

Factors that could favour a Yes vote

It’s three months since the Lib Dems were beaten into fifth place at the European elections: the party which nudged us out was the Greens. Ukip may be grabbing the media attention, but it’s the party of Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas which poses the bigger threat to our party.

It’s not hard to see why. Ian Warren of the @election-data blog has analysed which groups of voters were most likely to vote Green last May. See if you can spot a trend:

Douglas Carswell, elected in 2010 as Conservative MP for Clacton, has today announced he’s joining Ukip and will fight a by-election under his new party’s banner.

In one sense, the news isn’t a surprise. Carswell is a member of the Tory awkward squad, its sixth most rebellious backbencher according to Revolts.co.uk, having defied the party whip on 46 occasions during this Parliament.

But on another level it’ll be a real shock to the Tories: Carswell’s right-wing brand is much less swivel-eyed than that of many of his fellow rebels like Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall. He’s generally a thoughtful, independent-minded …