Scotland’s referendum – the EXIT poll

Every time there is an election or a referendum the media bring their main toy to the party – THE OPINION POLL.

Over the years we have been told how accurate they have become, especially the exit poll.

Well. I have been thinking about the EXIT poll to end all EXIT POLLS –  Scotland’s referendum.

The media waste no time telling us how dependable these polls are.  However, they don’t say too much about how they predicted the SNPs first term in Government badly wrong and how they got the second term famously wrong.

Sometimes these polls are dismissed as a bit of fun.  I don’t think so – I don’t think they are fun.  I think polls are strategic tools of subversive campaigns to influence results and counter democracy.  Psychological warfare if you will.

If you don’t believe that then you have been browbeaten into their belief system.

As a maths graduate I studied ‘probability and statistics’.  This taught me a very valuable lesson; this is a tool for prediction and NOT a measure.  Personally, I file predictions in the box marked ‘astrology and the likes’.

I don’t like polls and I absolutely despise what and who is behind them.  For me, one simple statement sums up everything that is corrupt about opinion polls.  Human nature dictates that people like to be on the winning side.  Forget all the science, it’s as simple as that.  If you can convince the people who will win, they will vote for that person or that party.  If that does not happen that does not mean that polls can get it wrong – it means the polls failed to convince people who they wanted to win.  Human nature is human nature.

Let’s try a few thoughts.

QUESTION: Why do we have polls?  ANSWER: First and foremost to influence the outcome.  Oh, and by the way, it sells more copy; so it’s a double whammy! And remember, there are 37 national and local daily newspapers in Scotland.  5 of these papers are owned in Scotland and 0 of these papers supports Scottish Independence.  Thank God for Social Media.

I examined a number of recent opinion polls and they were ALL COMMISSIONED BY NEWSPAPERS.  Does anybody doubt that newspapers have a range of political bias?

QUESTION:  {typical} Would you like to be more healthy?  ANSWER:  35% said yes, 25% said no and 40% were undecided.  The first point, this is such an obvious question, just like ‘should you run your own country?’.  From the answer to the question on health, I would deduce that 40% of people are already sick in the head and a further 25% of people are very sick in the head.  And you can draw your own obvious association!

QUESTION: Should your mother/ father or the man from the Social be the head of your house?  ANSWER:  47% mother/father, 53% said the man from the Social.  This is almost the referendum question, except the man from the Social is replaced by a bunch of Eton educated ultra rich kids 420 miles away that are very very poor while we are very very rich; but don’t know it.

 

OK, lets have a look at some numbers.  We like numbers.  When I examined a large number of polls [have a look yourself] the sample size was always around 1,000.  The electorate size in the referendum is about 4,000,000.  One of the latest polls suggested that of those who expressed an opinion 47% were YES and 53% were NO.  Sorry to rain on their parade but here is the real result:

YES: 0.01175 of 1% {just over a hundredth of 1%}

NO:  0.01325 of 1% {just over a hundredth of 1%}

NOT ASKED: 99.975%

Factor into this the fact that this is a % of the electorate and there are 1,500,000 people not represented in the poll although they are Scottish citizens; so the relevance of this poll becomes even less.

Factor into this the fact that when asked, many people are selected because their answer is predicable, some people play dumb and a lot of people tell a lie.  Some are undecided and many will change their mind; so the relevance of the poll becomes mostly extinct.

Growing up in old Glasgow, like many like me, I found myself is some unknown parts and confronted by some local geezers conducting an opinion poll, ‘Heh! you, you a Proddy or a Fenian? ‘  I would hurriedly search my pollsters for signs of a crucifix or a ‘red hand’ badge that gave me a clue to the answer that would save my life’.  My little grasp of French and ‘Je ne parle Scots’ saved my bacon a few times.  When polled, sometimes it is prudent to tell a big fib?

There are some polls that are valuable and do not violate democracy.  The YES campaign across Scotland always gather data and conduct a poll to judge the performance of their local campaign.  The information is reconciled within the YES campaign and helps us to hone our campaign to optimum effectiveness.  We don’t publish the results and we keep them a closely guarded secret.  However, I can tell you ……… nothing!  that’s for the 19th.