Professor John Robertson OBA
Not for the first time, one time half-decent journo, now full-time Tory Gammon, Ian Macwhirter, cannot conceal his glee when he thinks he’s found evidence that Scots are just as nasty as Essex Tories.
He bases his latest on the Sunday Times/Norstat poll on 22-25 September 2025, revealing that 60% of the sample (1 010) support mass detention sand deportation of those who arrive in the UK, without permission, for example on small boats?
There’s a problem. The sample of 1 010 has been adjusted, ‘weighted‘, to match the vote in the 2014 referendum, 11 years ago, and to reduce the number of SNP supporters in the sample to 419 No voters and only 339 Yes voters. Recent polls tell us that to reflect the current situation, there should be more Yes than No supporters in the sample.
The weighted sample has only 319 SNP supporters and zero Green supporters, compared to 196 Labour supporters and 155 Conservative supporters. Again, recent polls tell us that to reflect the current situation, there should be far fewer Labour and Con supporters in the sample.
He has less to say about the 6 point lead for Yes in another referendum on independence, even with the above sampling bias.
Further, on a progressive Scotland, immigration is only one issue. What about these Nigel?
From Children’s Social Work Statistics: Looked After Children 2023/24 published 22 April 2025, we can see that the number of children requiring to be in the care of the local authority in Scotland has fallen from 15 600 in 2014 to 11 842 in 2024, a 24% fall.
Looked after children are defined as those in the care of their local authority (Children Scotland Act 1995). There are many reasons children may become looked after including: facing abuse or neglect at home; having disabilities that require special care; unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, or illegally trafficked into the UK; or involvement in the youth justice system.
This is one of the ‘canary in the coalmine’ statistics for any society, like the abortion or stillbirth rates and shoplifting which, in Scotland, have been lower than in England or even falling for the last 10 years or so. In a society where increased numbers of children have to be taken in to care, where abortion rates and stillbirth rates climb, where women are increasingly shoplifting essentials, those children and women are telling you that society is in deepening trouble.
More detail on these:
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
What happened to him? he used to be respectable, even for a journalist in Scotland .
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Hmm, I saw him give a talk in 2014, at an establishment a pal used to frequent and my was MacWhirter swithering, mostly against Scottish independence, but I realised not to be trusted at all. A jobsworth if ever there was.
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NEVER EVER BELIEVE THESE LYING UNIONIST
THEY FOUGHT AN ILLEGAL WAR FOR BLAIR AN BROWN
SO BEING AN OUT AN OUT UNIONIST ITS NO WONDER
THEY FOLLOW THEIR LEADERS CHARACTER
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MacWhirter , a man of principle …his principle being , pay me and I’ll say what you want !
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For a while I seemed to remember him as a decent thinking journalist.
Now his journalist scope seems to be to scrape together anything to please his employer regardless on how baseless it actually is.
Well, he gets some money for it after all and maybe that’s all that matters to him.
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