Scottish independence within SNP’s grasp - poll
▻http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-within-snp-s-grasp-poll-1-3281655
The largest swing towards a Yes vote recorded so far in the campaign is revealed today in an ICM survey for Scotland on Sunday, which has found that support for independence has grown from 32 per cent to 37 per cent since September.
The surge in those backing Yes was accompanied by a corresponding drop in No support by five percentage points from 49 per cent in September to 44 per cent currently.
Scotland’s Labour traditions are the real battleground for the yes vote
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/23/scotland-labour-traditions-yes-vote-independence
This week’s Scottish Social Attitudes survey shows a strong correlation between support for independence and social class. Some 40% of households earning under £14,300 are likely to vote yes, while wealthy Scots are resolutely hostile, and 72% of business leaders are hostile to independence. Contrary to the views of many Labour supporters and liberals, the referendum is not about blood and soil separatism. It reflects longstanding societal divisions about the British state’s direction.
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Independence is not merely reducible to working class desperation. It also reflects broad progressive values. Compared with the Scottish average, yes supporters are much more likely to favour spending on people with disabilities, on pensioners, and on the unemployed. They back taxation for redistribution, and other long-forgotten “Old Labour” principles, like universalism. And while the new wave of English nationalism, in all its varieties, seeks to win poor voters by blaming immigrants and Europe, Yes Scotland and SNP rhetoric has been free of bigotry and prejudice. Only 20% of Scots wish to leave the EU.