Has Yes stayed in the lead all along? Hanbury polling from February and March shows thumping pro-independence majorities

I normally pride myself on staying on top of all the Scottish polls that are released, but today brought word of another #Matchettgate-style episode, with the Hanbury polling numbers reported by the Sunday Times at the weekend turning out to be wrong – and I was like: “what Hanbury polling numbers reported by the Sunday Times?”  The story must have flown completely under my radar.  What seems to have happened is that Hanbury conducted two waves of polling on independence – the first mostly in February and the second in early March.  The Yes vote dropped by 3% from the first wave to the second, but the drop was originally misreported as being 6%. The issue, of course, is that a 6% drop would probably have been a sign of real changes on the ground, whereas 3% could easily just be caused by random sampling variation.  But the rather more salient point, that the media reporting of the polls seems determined to miss, is that there was a clear Yes majority on both waves.  That’s fascinating, because the fieldwork took place during the period when other firms were giving the impression that No had drawn level or edged slightly ahead.  Could it be that the pro-independence majority has remained intact all along?