Polls apart: Clacton landslide and a Scottish cliffhanger

Two new polls – one suggesting a cliffhanger in the Scottish independence referendum, the other appearing to confirm a Ukip landslide in the Clacton by-election – point to a dramatic transformation of the political scene over the next five weeks.

YouGov’s Scottish poll fully justifies The Times headline: ‘Scotland puts Union on a knife edge’. It shows that the No campaign’s lead, which was a comfortable 22 per cent in early August, has now fallen to just six per cent. After excluding don’t knows, Yes scores 47 per cent to the No campaign’s 53 per cent.

Many observers have long said that in the final few days before the 18 September referendum, the buzz of voting for change could attract a large number of ditherers. With the referendum only 16 days away, “the momentum is firmly with the nationalists”, as The Times puts it.

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If it wasn’t for the Scottish poll suggesting a thriller north of the border, Lord Ashcroft’s polling in Clacton would look sensational. It points to an emphatic victory for Douglas Carswell following his decision to defect from the Tories to Ukip, forcing the by-election

Ashcroft’s polling puts Ukip on 56 per cent, a stunning 32 points ahead of the Conservatives on 24 per cent. Labour are on 16 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats and Others are on two per cent each.

The by-election has yet to be called, but it’s expected to take place on Thursday 9 October – which Lord Ashcroft notes is David Cameron’s 48th birthday. “The Prime Minister’s birthday this year is unlikely to be his happiest, but at least he knows what he is going to get,” writes the former Tory party treasurer turned pollster.

“More than half (59 per cent) of those who voted Conservative at the last general election said they would switch to Ukip, as did 45 per cent of 2010 Labour voters. Most of the Clacton electorate, including nearly nine out of ten Ukip supporters and more than half of Tories, expected Douglas Carswell to hold the seat for his new party.”

Most Clacton voters say Carswell “seems more principled than most politicians”. Nearly two-thirds say he “has been a good MP for Clacton”.

Pollsters are generally more cautious than headline writers in interpreting dramatic shifts in numbers, aware that they could easily be the result of a statistical blip that will be tipped back towards the long-term average in a later survey.

Thus YouGov’s Peter Kellner observes – in regard to his Scottish poll - “as ever, we should be careful of reading too much into a single poll – it’s the wider trend that counts.”

However, detailed analysis of the data from previous referendum polls concludes that there has been a real shift in sentiment and “it looks like this may go right down to the wire”.

The analysis shows that the Yes to independence campaign has been gaining more supporters than it loses while the No campaign has suffered a net loss. “The Yes campaign has both gained converts, and secured a two-to-one lead among people who were undecided and have now taken sides,” says Kellner.

Most significant is a shift in opinion amongst traditional Labour voters. Labour campaigners led by the former prime minister, Gordon Brown, have been desperately seeking to keep these voters in the No camp. However, says Kellner, “One month ago, only 18 per cent of people who backed Labour in the last Holyrood elections told us they would vote Yes; that figure is now 30 per cent.”

Kellner believes the Yes campaign has been bolstered by widespread fears that if Scotland stays in the UK, the NHS in Scotland will deteriorate. Only nine per cent think it will improve. In short, SNP leader Alex Salmond has started to neutralise the fear factor that drove the big No leads until a month ago. “Many people still worry about how an independent Scotland would handle issues such as the currency – but now, a great many Scots are also beginning to fear remaining part of the UK.”

The big question with just over a fortnight to go is whether the Yes campaign has peaked or whether it can maintain momentum and beat the No campaign in a photo-finish. What is pretty certain – unless the pollsters are way off the mark - is that if the pro-independence campaign fails, it will do so by only a small margin, leaving the question of Scotland’s future unanswered.

Kellner concludes: “If the final vote is anything like our current poll figures, I would not bet much against a second referendum being held within the next ten to 15 years.”