A poll to darken Salmond’s day

It looks like Fraser was right to question Vision Critical’s recent Scottish independence poll. That poll surveyed just 180 Scots and found 51 per cent saying they would vote ‘Yes’ to Alex Salmond’s referendum question – ‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?’ – and just 39 per cent saying ‘No’. Today, Ipsos MORI has released a somewhat more reliable poll, sampling 1,005 Scots. It finds 50 per cent saying they’d vote ‘No’ and just 37 saying ‘Yes’.

So, it looks like even if the referendum asks Salmond’s leading question, the Nationalists are likely to be defeated. And while the SNP may try to claim that 37 per cent is still a good starting point and they’ve got plenty of room to grow, today’s poll suggests otherwise. Just 18 per cent of those who oppose independence say they might change their mind, compared to 31 per cent of those who support it.