Angus Robertson's pro-separation outfit 'Progress Scotland' commissions a poll that purports to show a major shift in Scottish opinion towards Scexit.
A spread in the pro-separatist journal The National leads with misleading headlines.
Now, there's a trickle of claims from the poll on the Progress Scotland website, many prefaced with weasel words like 'If we remove those who "Don’t know" or are completely undecided' and 'A clear majority of respondents who hold an opinion'.
In one contentious finding, people are asked to rank their support for separation from 0 'completely oppose Scotland becoming an independent country' to 10 'completely support Scotland becoming an independent country'.
Q. Why did they reverse the scale and change the wording? A. The previous version didn't produce the answer they wanted!
A further trickle of findings is promised, to be published on their website and expressed solely in the words Progress Scotland choose.
When they undertook their previous survey, the full data tables appeared at an early date on the website of the polling company they used, Survation ...
... only to be hastily removed, presumably at the request of the client, Progress Scotland.
This time, 'Further opinion poll findings from the survey will be released in the next days, after which the full data-tables will be published.' Hmm.
This is important because it's only the full data tables that allow you to see exactly what was asked, in what order, and what the full results were.
If you detect manipulation of the poll findings by Progress Scotland to suit their separatist agenda, you are right. Don't trust any claims by them until you can see the full results on the Survation website.
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