By Liz S

The National reports “The UK Government has been carrying out secret taxpayer-funded Scottish independence polls and are refusing to release the results”.

Apparently “Since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office has conducted a secret Scottish independence polling operation”

Now this reminds me of the time when Michael Gove, when he was a part of a former Tory UK government, did something similar.

The money Gove used for his polling was originally to be designated for pandemic messaging.

In June 2019, “SNP MP Tommy Sheppard requested secret polling data from January 2018 to June 2019 regarding public attitudes toward the Union”.

The Information Commissioner’s Office initially sided with the government.

“Sheppard appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights). In June 2021, the tribunal ruled in favour of disclosure, finding that the data related to policy implementation and that the public interest favoured its release, ordering the Cabinet Office to publish it”.

“The UK government sought to appeal or challenge the decision, arguing that the polling related to policy development and initially refused or resisted releasing the files”

(While the government lost initial challenges, “subsequent legal manoeuvres and appeals allowed the (Tory) administration to continue withholding or concealing the results from full public view”).

Now we have Burnham’s UK government trying to do the same thing.

So much for Burnham “doing politics differently” as it is now obvious it is yet again a case of it being no “change” now with Labour , compared to when it was formerly the Tories in charge of the UK State as the previous UK government.

Both Tories and Labour refusing to release polling that concerns the big constitutional Q , how very clandestine of them both. (Two peas in a pod).

No wonder then that in September 2026 Andy Burnham was reported as having told John Swinney that a second Scottish independence referendum remains “off limits”.

Perhaps just like Gove’s polling it seems Labour’s secret polling has not produced results in favour of the so called, but clearly not, ‘Union’.

After all if the polling by Gove’s Tory government and by Burnham’s Labour government produced a result that greatly favoured the No side in this constitutional debate, then as sure as S*** those results would have been released to mega fanfare (via the media) and also lauded by both UK Tory & Labour politicians.

Seems obvious to me that the UK State, that includes Scotland within it, may finally be in it’s dying stages and so then beyond resuscitation , but will there still be yet further secret polling from the UK side that also then becomes unreleased ?

So much for transparency .

As Burnham in his first speech as the new PM in July 2026 spoke about ” putting the right values and the right standards at the heart of government”.

Well all I can say is that in them conducting secret polling and then refusing to release the findings of that poll , well that is not ” putting the right values and the right standards at the heart of government” but instead it is most dishonest and clearly shows that Burnham and his Labour UK government are lacking integrity, are most untrustworthy and so then are behaving in a unethical manner.

Which means that they are , as a new Labour UK government, no different from the previous Starmer led Labour UK government – so then Burnham is indeed a continuity Starmer – it’s just his delivery that is different – aka (a contrived) style over substance.

Liz S

Afterthought:

BTW in relation to my above comment , The National also raises a very good point in them stating that Burnham said this in October:

“I just feel we all have to move beyond the constitutional questions”.

Yet clearly he and his Labour government were not doing that themselves , in them “using tax payers money to ask the constitutional question over that whole period of time”.

How hypocritical and devious of them. (and yet also how predictable and expected is it, as a behaviour, by them).

So Burnham is not “doing politics differently” .

Burnham is doing politics in the exact same (awful) way that all previous UK PM’s have done it , that is especially in relation to Scotland – and that is to treat our nation as something that they (and he) can control, dominate, undermine, fleece, suppress and abuse , as and when it suits them (which is pretty much a constant (UK) state of affairs ).

Liz S

Evidence for the drawing claim:

Take away pollsters still skewing their samples to look like it’s 2014, a Yes win by 10-12% in Referendum2 seems probable and Westminster knows that