Professor John Robertson OBA
A quick response to the latest Survation poll today giving the SNP a healthy 14% lead over Labour but still a No lead at 46% to 44% at a time when other polls have shown Yes leads, often big ones:
Why might the SNP lead be greater and the No lead false?
This:
The sample used in this 2025 poll has been adjusted to mirror the 2014 referendum result with Yes voters cut from 426 to 334 and No voters increased from 321 to 413.
I’m no expert on polling so I may not fully understand but doesn’t this weighting skew the results against pro-independence parties and Yes support?
Comment welcomed below.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I’m not an expert either but with an estimated 500,000 older NO-leaning voters dying since 2014 and similar number of young YES-leaning voters eligible to vote it seems impossible that the 2014 weighting is valid.
Perhaps we should routinely recalculate the results whenever a polling company uses 2014 weighting. Then compare these results to any pollster who does not weight the results.
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how is this weighting method allowed from a polling standards perspective as it only has the benefit to the unionists and you never hear this getting used for any other poll….its clearly manipulation of the data…
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As that polling expert Stalin used to say , it only matters who counts the votes ! Ditto with Polling in Scotland
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O/T More evidence of Labour in Name Only (LINO) being in government in Westminster?
From the Wales section of the BBC News website (May 1) : ‘Labour first minister says party’s MPs not standing up for Wales.’
‘The first minister has accused Welsh Labour MPs in Westminster of not standing up for Wales, BBC Wales has learned.’
And: ‘Sources said the first minister told the Welsh Labour members of Parliament they were not doing enough to stand up for the country. The comments were not well received, the sources said’.’ (my emphasis)
The same article reports: ‘Welfare reforms, the cuts to winter fuel payments and increases to employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs) – brought in at Westminster – have caused concern in Cardiff Bay.’
‘Wales has some of the highest rates of benefits claims in the whole of the UK.‘ – evidence Labour delivering over the long. term for Wales?
Despite the latter statistic, the BBC reports: ‘The UK government has not produced a Wales-specific impact assessment, despite the Welsh government asking for one.‘
And finally: ‘The Welsh Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford has also raised concerns that Wales will be left £65m short because of the way compensation is calculated for public sector bodies’ NICs.’
So we have a LINO government in Westminster that is failing to stand up for and support the devolved government and nation of Wales. At the same time, the same LINO government tees up on a weekly basis at PMQs its backbenchers from Scotland to deride devolved government in Scotland. Whilst British Labour Party leaders in the Senedd complain about the LINO government, British Labour Party leaders in Holyrood give it loyal support.
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James on ‘Scot Goes Pop’ provides an insight into this particular poll. That is a virtual dead heat.
Survation’s results over the years have tended to lean towards NO, so, in answer to your question, it is probably underestimating current support for independence.
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He doesn’t address the weighting, I see.
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