Eighteen months ago, the Scottish media was not as bad as it is now. I know some of you will be itching to take issue with that claim, but let me give you one killer fact that puts the matter beyond all dispute: eighteen months ago, the “Scottish” Daily Express website did not yet exist. People on the unionist side sometimes accuse The National of being a “comic” or a “fanzine” but they must know that the Express abomination is the Brit Nat version of everything they accuse The National of being, multiplied by about forty-three thousand.
The website insists on never referring to independence as anything other than “Scexit” – and if that’s supposed to be pejorative it’s somewhat ironic, given the key role of the Express and other like-minded anti-EU newspapers in bringing Brexit about. But rather like Mrs Thatcher’s determination to get the term “Community Charge” off the ground through sheer repetition, it’s doomed to failure. The site also pumps out almost daily misinformation about opinion polls, and treats random ultra-unionist trolls on Twitter as if they were Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters.
The latter two practices have come together today in an article that is almost exquisitely excruciating – it’s like the pinnacle of a new art-form. It reports breathlessly on an “Ipsos Mori bias accusation row”, which actually amounts to nothing more than a prolonged temper tantrum on Twitter from Brit Nat uber-zoomer “The Majority”, who is grandiosely referred to as a “group”. In an attempt to lend credibility to The Majority as a non-idiot, it suggests Ben Page of Ipsos had “agreed to investigate” his accusations of bias – although in reality all Page was actually doing was humouring the guy and using a polite form of words to indicate that he needed a moment to draw breath before explaining why the claims were garbage.
Embarrassingly, the final 40% or so of the Express article gives over the floor entirely to an extended, unchallenged rant-quote from The Majority, which contains multiple factual inaccuracies. The most grievous falsehood is this:
“Combined with the fact that NO OTHER POLLSTER has ever polled Scottish independence greater than 50% AND that Ipsos polls have the highest of all polling results on Scottish ‘independence, we can, with no margin of error, confidently say that their credibility is ZERO.”
You might be puzzled as to how he thinks he can get away with the claim that no pollster other than Ipsos has ever reported a pro-indy figure of higher than 50%, given that we can all remember Yes-majority polls from the likes of Panelbase and Survation (and indeed from Find Out Now only yesterday!). I personally have commissioned no fewer than four non-Ipsos polls with Yes majorities – three from Panelbase and one from Survation.
What he’s actually talking about is the Yes figure before Don’t Knows are excluded, but even on that basis his claim is indisputably false. Here are a few examples of Yes having more than 50% in non-Ipsos polls with Don’t Knows left in –
Find Out Now, 1st-8th December 2022: Yes 51%, No 43%, Don’t Know 6%
Hanbury Strategy, 12th February-1st March 2021: Yes 52%, No 41%, Don’t Know 7%
Panelbase, 5th-11th November 2020: Yes 51%, No 40%, Don’t Know 8%
JL Partners, 17th-21st September 2020: Yes 51%, No 40%, Don’t Know 7%
Panelbase, 12th-18th August 2020: Yes 51%, No 42%, Don’t Know 7%
Additionally, the Express allows The Majority to make this claim unchallenged –
“[The Ipsos poll is] based on a sample that uses 50% SNP + 4% Greens + 1% Alba = 55% when, combined, those parties have never had over 50% of the vote.”
