Very strange polling results in the Telegraph,
“an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph has found. Independence is backed by 52 per cent of Scots while an astonishing 59 per cent of English voters want Scotland to go it alone.”
68 percent of English voters and 58 per cent of Scottish voters support for the establishment of an English parliament with similar powers to the Scottish Parliament.
48 percent of English voters – also want complete independence for England, divorcing itself from Wales and Northern Ireland as well.
The reasons given for the support for an English parliament
60 per cent of English voters complained of higher levels of public spending per head of the population in Scotland
The West Lothian Question, 62 percent of English and 46 per cent of Scots voters are concerned about the affects of Scottish devolution on the British Parliament. “Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, said: “In England, people quite rightly resent Scottish Labour MPs bossing them about on English domestic legislation. England has as much right to self government as Scotland does.”
“In the sporting arena, 70 per cent of English people said they would support a Scottish team playing football or rugby against a nation other than England. But, when the question was put to Scots, only 48 per cent said they would back England with 34 per cent supporting their opponents, no matter which country it was.”
That last, points to what I see as strange about the results, if 48 percent of English want complete independence for England the final figures do not make sense because
“The poll showed that the English are more likely to think of themselves as British than the Scots are. Only 16 per cent of English people said they were “English, not British“, compared to 26 per cent of Scots who said they were “Scottish, not British.”
Like all polling much depends on who asks the questions, who they choose to ask, what choices are offered, and how the raw results are manipulated For instance what other constitutional arrangements were offered to the respondents. What is clear from this polling is that many people are now very concerned about the constitutional settlement of the United Kingdom after Mr Blair and his colleagues have created the problems in the first place.
A further point about polling is how the results are interpreted; the headline could have been 84 percent of English people think of themselves as British instead of England wants its independence that would put a totally different spin on the results and indicate a different preference for a constitutional settlement.
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"English not British" there were no figures quoted for say "more English than British". You could have said 74% of Scots think of themselves as British in a similar way and questioned the Scottish Independence figures as well.
One helluva beating…
Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Charles Kennedy, John Prescott, Robert Hazell, Peter Hain, Lord Falconer. Lord Falconer can you hear me? Lord Falconer, as they say in your language in boxing bars around Madison Square Garden in New York: Your boys……
Quite right Sara, as I said it depends on how you spin it .
I think you’re misunderstanding the poll, which to my mind showed a clear falling out with *Scotland*, but not necessarily the idea of Britishness. In other words, the English want rid of Scotland, but are happy to remain in a Union with the rest of the UK.
David that is the problem with polls, the results can be interpreted in many different ways. I personally would vote to allowScotland independence if it ever comes to it, but not from a desire of wanting rid of Scotland , but for the same reason I am against the EU, the right of self-determination. I feel that if Scotland does decide to go its own way both Scotland and the rest of the UK would be less significant. I would therefore interpret the results differently thinking that people are not wanting rid of Scotland but are seeing it as one way out of the muddle this government has made of devolution, many people would also be calling for an English parliament for the same reasons (not that you can make any real judgement on the basis of this one poll)