Professor John Robertson OBA
Since the end of 2024, all four of the full Scottish independence polls have a had clear lead for Yes, yet in a period of ongoing media negativity, at the end of March 2025, about Labour and the other pro-Union parties and no new negative reports on the pro-independence parties, YouGov manage to reverse that trend with an 11 point (56/44) lead for No:
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51898-scotland-march-2025-snapshot
Curiously, the last two YouGov polls (circled), also found an 11 point lead for No, in the midst of other pollsters find a much narrower lead. That’s quite a coincidence and it makes you wonder what’s going on in their methodology, especially the sampling, to get such outliers.
One possible explanation is their weighting of the sample from 352 Yes and 408 No, in 2014 to 366 and 454. With half a million voters (two thirds No) having left the electorate and around the same number (two thirds Yes) having joined it, the argument for this weighting seems hard to make.
Who owns YouGov?
The company is co-founded by Stephan Shakespeare [former owner of Conservative Home] and Nadhim Zahawi [former Chancellor], who first met while working in British politics.
Finally, note the one poll by Ipsos, a French company, with no dog in the fight, finding a Yes lead in June 2024, alone among a sea of Nos.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I’ve subscribed to YouGov for years but NEVER get asked political questions.
Declaring I’m a member of the SNP may well be something to do with it
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I suppose their polls could be right and “No” is now ever so popular. Mind you, in a previous life I was the Queen of Sheba.
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No way! I’ve been told about your dancing.
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Oh that was my sister Salome, she was quite a mover.. 🙂
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if the poll is political the entry questions are also political. Mundane few questions first then “what party did you vote for in the last election followed by which party are you most likely to vote for in, say, 2026”. Depending on the poll, these questions kick you out.
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indyvoices on blue-sky and formally on twitter has some very intresting insights into how yougov weight their samples using outdated data to always show a no lead 😳
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