21st January 2014 Comment Expectations of constitutional change Perceptions of government & the Union
Tonight (Tuesday) sees the release of initial findings on attitudes towards independence from the latest Scottish Social Attitudes survey, which was conducted between June and October last year. Tomorrow (Wednesday) you will be able to both to mine the data for yourself using our data explorer while there will also be some briefings that report […]
15th August 2013 Comment
Tall tales are common currency when it comes to religion’s supposed role in Scotland’s politics. On the one hand, there are occasional murmurings of a continued underlying ‘Protestant’ basis for Unionism in Scotland, as if Better Together marched, willingly or otherwise, to the beat of the Lambeg drum. Yet at the same time we are […]
16th July 2013 Comment Policy issues The Scottish independence referendum
One of the great social revolutions of our time has been the expansion of higher education. In the Scottish Election Surveys of the 1970s, just 9% of adults had gained a higher-education qualification. In the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey of 2012, the figure had quadrupled to 36%. This massive change has occurred in parallel with […]
19th June 2013 Comment The Scottish independence referendum
Eight polls have so far been conducted since the Scottish Government accepted in January that the question on the referendum ballot paper should read, ‘Should Scotland be an independent country’, as recommended by the Electoral Commission. Every single one of those polls, conducted by no less than five different companies, has put the Yes side […]
19th June 2013 Comment
Women may well hold the key to the outcome of the referendum in 2014. Neither the Yes nor the No side is likely to win unless it can secure the support of a majority of women as well as that of men. And if one side were to win without winning a majority of women’s […]