Since the beginning of 2023, 30 polls have found a lead for No while only 6 have found a lead for Yes or most recently a tie. Five out of the 6 were carried out by the pollster Find Out Now. Since they started in December 2022, Find Out Now have never found a lead for No.
As readers will know, I’m a pretty basic ‘statistician’ but, like you, I can spot a pattern and confidently say that Find Out Now must be doing something different and almost certainly in the construction of the sample of around 1 000 Scots which they have used.
In July 2023, I asked Are the YES lead polls based on better methods? and suggested that a better statistician than me may have the answer:
I’m indebted to Independent Voices @Celebs4indy for explaining to us why they are probably more reliable than all of the others:
https://indyvoices.info/lifting-the-lid-on-the-black-box
I hope readers will agree that my Primary 7 numeracy skills are sufficient for dealing with comparative percentages, line graphs, scatter graphs and my recent dark fave – funnel web charts of hospital mortality, but judging the reliability of polling methods is beyond me
His extended piece on how polls work is a must read:
https://indyvoices.info/lifting-the-lid-on-the-black-box
His afterthought below is also very interesting:
Reweighting the poll I commissioned based on my understanding of the current yes/no/DNV split boosted the Yes lead by around two points. I think the polls that underweight for those who DNV are most inaccurate, This group are very heavily Yes.
Makes you wonder doesn’t it. With so many polls giving a No lead, why don’t they allow a referendum?
Do their statisticians also know something about sampling?
Are all the other polls just propaganda manufactured (as in Chomsky) by a kind of semi-conscious, unspoken consent within a culture and not, of course, the result of any top-down conspiracy to tell the No pollsters what to do.
You don’t need a conspiracy just participants who don’t question the methods others in the club are using to get on in life.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
And of course the media, which is overwhelmingly Anglo-British nationalist both in nature and output, are not interested in “accurate” polling.
If polling was slewed toward YES, they would be howling from the rooftops, as would the nodding dog Unionist political flunkies who infest Scotland as pretendy “Scottish” parties..
During the by-election in Scotland, does OFCOM regulations not insist on “balance” between the competing parties?
Yet the BBC et al, give Labour/Tory parties wall-to-wall airtime on all their news/politics platforms, while the SNP voice is silenced.
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Your point that since the polls heavily suggest a No vote, why not have a referendum and put the issue of independence away (“count the dead and bayonet the wounded” to quote Ian Davidson)? I’ve made this point in several Herald letters but strangely have never had a reply. Why might this be?
Whether the polls are “fixed” or not, it’s hard to imagine that this would be widely shared within the Unionist camp. I think we have to assume an unquestioning view of the polls – most of them will only have P7 stats – but an unwillingness to allow a referendum. In Psychology one explanation would be cognitive dissonance – believing two contradictory things at the same time, which sounds pretty bad, but the fact is that we all suffer from it. For instance, you want to exercise and be more healthy, but well, its raining and the TV is quite good.
My view would be that if you start from the proposition that “you’ve had your referendum’ – as many of them do – then the polls are merely confirmation of this view, resulting in the view that there shouldnt be a second vote which isnt necessary because they would lose again. Dissonance is at least reduced by the views being held sequentially (ie one as confirmation of the first) rather than simultaneously
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I once had a phone call from a polling company before the last Scottish local elections in 2022.
All my responses were Pro SNP and Pro independence.
Then the telephone interviewer stated she was having problems with her system and so could not continue but could she call me back…I said YES she could….but guess what she did NOT call me back…..hence my contribution would be consigned to the bin……perhaps she was really having problems with her system….but me being cynical and suspicious , via experiences and justified scepticism, started to think that perhaps I was ONE too many who was Pro SNP and Pro Indy for their DESIRED final result to be one that showed the opposing opinions to mine were what they really wanted their poll to present as a FINAL conclusion…..as in opposition parties and the (non) Union were the ones they favoured being in the majority……(or rather where system problems did not occur during those telephone interviews for their ‘poll’)
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It strikes me that most polling companies require you to register and that surveys are done online. If more independence supporters registered with these companies then the outcome of their polls might be different.
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I doubt it, because you only get polls that “fall within your demographic”. After a while of being told this when I went online immediately after receiving the invitation, I realised that I must fall into the ‘not giving us the answers we expect from your age group’ demographic…
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Meant also to add that I frequently also got “The number required within your demographic has been achieved.”
After 5 minutes? My goodness, silver surfers must have the proverbial rocket!
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