I found today's devolution poll fascinating

[andrewducker]

The poll showed asked people how they would vote if an independent Scotland was shown to make them £500 better off per year, £500 worse off per year, or not cause a change. The results were:

£500 better off: 65% for independence; 25% against
£500 worse off: 21% for independence; 66% against
If not changed: 46% for independence; 32% against

Which I find fascinating because it indicates that 21% are in favour of Independence irrespective of the monetary effect*, 25% are against it, and 54% don't care who runs their country so long as they get a grand in their pocket.

It looks very much like the outcome of the referendum will depend on how convincingly the Unionists can scaremonger that Independence will cause economic disaster, and how convincingly the Seperationists can sell the story that Independence will make us all as well off as Norway.

*Obviously the £500 will mean more to people with less money than it does to rich people. I'd love to know how the effect size varied depending on the income of the respondent.
BBC story here, based on the study here.

Comments

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

I decided long ago that if anything were to change my mind on Independence it would be who could make a good economic case for/against. Not necessarily how much they could put in my personal pocket, but convincing me that it would be genuinely good/bad for the country.

I think voting for Independence on a purely emotional/entrenched anti-or-pro union basis can only end badly. There's some emotion, sure, there's bound to be in something like that, but without a quantitative debate alongside the emotional one it'll end in disaster.

[andrewducker]

I think that the financial argument has its place. But I think that societal ones are just as important. If the culture of Scotland is substantially different to the culture of England then that's a good argument for governing them differently - and the lack of right-wing MPs up here certainly makes a case for there being some differences in culture.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it needs both.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

On a tangent to this, I would be interested to know more about the discussions that Scottish politicians have undoubtedly had with large companies doing business in Scotland.

I know how independence is being sold to the public, but I'm very curious what is being said to the private sector at high levels. Realistically, the decisions made without the input of the public are the ones which will determine what kind of independence is gained and those are the ones that, in many ways, are most relevant once you get past Independence? Yay or Nay.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

£500 better off would at least suggest that the new regime knew what it was doing and going the right direction. £500 worse off might indicate a downward trend.

[chess]

I am feeling rather terrified of the Scottish independance thing, as someone stuck down in the south of England, because I fear it will take away England's hope of ever having a non-Conservative government / a lot of important progressive voices, and England will sink even further into being a kind of outdated outpost of the United States.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

There was a Labour government rather recently, and at the general election in 2015 there will quite likely have been a preceding four years of drastic coalition-led cuts in pretty much every sector. Labour are going to have a hilariously easy time campaigning in some areas, and are already starting to move ahead in opinion polls slightly.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

assuming Labour is a damned site better led than it is now.
their lack of ability to supply a compelling narrative to me, as someone that would absolutely leap at any excuse to vote Labour, is rather telling

Like the last election, the next one will be Labours to lose. They managed it in truly spectacular fashion, and have done in the past.

Don't you find it cringingly absurd that Osborne's popularity has actually *risen* since his fucking awful announcements a few days back? [which effectively amounted to "I got everything totally wrong, and am now going to get it even wronger"]

[chess]

I don't massively approve of Labour either, you understand :). My ideal government is probably a Labour / Lib Dem coalition (Labour for not screwing over the poor quite as much, Lib Dems for holding back Labour's worst authoritarian excesses).

[andrewducker]

Mine too.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see a few Greens in the mix there - just for laughs.

Also, will nobody think of the children.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of resolving this difficulty by moving to Scotland, if I can. Not sure how well that will work, I hear it's kinda COLD.

[chess]

Edinburgh is actually surprisingly mild; I would seriously consider moving there if I didn't have such an excellent job down here.

[andrewducker]

It is lovely :->

[andrewducker]

We're the Canada to the UK's USA!

And it's kinda cold up here right now, but it's not _that_ cold in Edinburgh. The East Coast is milder than the West coast, and once you get further North than Stirling you're into colder winters.

[naath.livejournal.com]

My Mum's Scottish, so it's not quite like threatening to move to Canada; I have a connection! :-p

In some ways I really want to move to Shetland and keep sheep and try crofting. In other ways I think that would be cold and miserable and I know nowt about keeping sheep. Edinburgh presumably has jobs for technical types.

[andrewducker]

Edinburgh has a lot of financial companies, so as long as you're happy to work for one of them I believe there are jobs going. And there are a preponderance of geeks about that place :->

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

IIRC in most of the cases where the Labour party has won a general election in the UK they would also have won in just England and Wales.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

I'd not vote for it even for £5000

[andrewducker]

That puts you squarely in the 25% (At £5000, possibly less). I find it fascinating that so many people are in the "Don't really care" category.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I think a part of the problem with a lot of discussion of independence (ones that aren't conducted at the nitty gritty level) is that independence means different things to different people. I'd love to see a poll like that with a written question at the end "What do you think 'independence' means?"

I know what -I- would want independence to mean, but I'm aware this is different from the SNP's view. However, I also know people at work who take independence to simply mean "Westminster/England not telling us what to do" and don't think it through further than that as regards global politics, the economy, tax, Europe, currency, defence or immigration, say.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Do you mean: what will Independence mean in terms of constitutional set up and the relationship of Scotland to other institutions? or what would Independence mean in terms of changes to the way decisions are actually made, the outcomes of those decisions and how that affects the life of the average Scot?

I think both are things I’d be very interested to hear the views of the electorate on. Partly out of curiosity, partly out of a desire to guess which way they will jump but also partly because post-Yes we’ll probably get what most people want and I’d like to know what that is before I vote. I also think the gap between expectation and actual or potential delivery will be a key one when deciding if the Independence lark has been a success over the next decade and this in turn will affect how the following decades turn out.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

On the economics of Scottish Independence the following collection of essays is worth a scan.

http://reformscotland.com/public/publications/scotlandseconomicfuture.pdf