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Mapping Scotland's Dramatic Shift in Political Geography

32 points by jjar 11y ago

lordnacho 11y ago
What I want to know is how all those polls were wrong. The closest I can get is there's a systematic "shy conservative" bias. It's certainly not a sample size problem. I trust the pollsters understand statistics, and this seems to be the most polled election ever.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  Note that the same polls were all pretty accurate in regards to the result in Scotland, which makes the errors even odder (and gives a bit of support to the "shy conservative" theory). Possibly the highly promoted guides to tactical voting provided by the right-wing press had a disproportionate impact on the marginal seats?
  - lordnacho 11y ago
    But wouldn't tactical voting be captured in the polls as well? There's another theory about bias inherent in sampling from the internet. But I can't imagine pollsters don't know about that.
    - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
      There was discussion about the variance between phone and internet polls before the result, but the differences between the two types of polls were minute compared with the change in the actual results. Tactical voting in an opinion poll doesn't make any difference, so I'd guess there's a danger of misleading answers. I'm sure the pollsters are at least aware of the issue, though what they can do about it I'm not sure.
  - aidos 11y ago
    How does the "shy conservative" come into play in telephone polls, for example? I guess it may well, but it seems a little strange. Is there something where on the day people swing more towards the safety of the incumbent? This study seems to suggest the opposite should true [0], at least when it comes to undecided voters. It's definitely an interesting question. How were the polls so wrong? Maybe in the closely contested seats the minor parties split labour? But why didn't the polls show that? I'd love to paw through the data. Really need to look at it on an electorate by electorate basis to see the variation between the parties (opinion vs actual). [0] http://www.pollingreport.com/incumbent.htm http://www.pollingreport.com/incumbent.htm
    - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
      The basic theory is that people are embarrassed to vote in their own selfish self-interest. There are some who claim you get more conservative voters with online polls, because there's no human being there to judge them. I'd always heard that the undecided break towards the incumbent. I believe all the polls took that into account already though, and still got it wrong.
      - vixen99 11y ago
        Oddly enough I would rather not have someone patronizingly voting for what they believe is in my best interests. How do they know what that might be? I would hope that people would always vote in their own 'selfish' self-interest.
        aidos 11y ago
        I might vote for something that's not directly in my self-interest, believing it's more in the collective interest. I'm part of the collective and I feel a more even society is in my interests, even if that means I personally might not be as well off as I could be. That's really not patronizing. Though you could argue that I've done it for my own self-interests in the long term (who knows when you or your kids might rely on essential services) :) EDIT Also, it's pretty obvious that there are choices that are better for some groups of people (that aren't me). I don't know who "you" are, but there are voting choices that I can make that will help those classes of people, you may or may not be among them. I resent the idea that I'm being patronizing by making that choice (though in the strictest sense of the word "patron" maybe you're right).
        vixen99 11y ago
        'Collective' suggests to me we're not going to agree. Patronizing in this context only means making assumptions (likely to be unwarranted I’d argue) about what someone else wants. But who is the 'someone' affected by a vote in a general election? How many people? To what extent? What about unknown/known effects on other people who you do not have in mind? You cannot know and the assumptions pile up. So much easier to vote on what you really do know to the extent that you can know or rationalize. As you say, we can surely agree that it isn’t always our immediate concerns that best serve our interests as in the simple example of imagining ourselves out of work or needing medical attention. As you say, this benefits everyone – point being that we also are ‘everyone’.
- _petronius 11y ago
  Interestingly, Survation actually got it (mostly) right the day before, but didn't publish it because it looked like such an odd outlier: http://survation.com/snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory/ http://survation.com/snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victo...
- Brakenshire 11y ago
  The last time time the opinion polls were so wrong was in 1992, when similarly they overestimated support for a somewhat awkward Labour leader who had been the subject of a massive negative campaign by the popular press. I suspect that this kind of personal campaign had an effect when people came to the morning of the election and thought 'actually, do I really want this guy to be Prime Minister?'. For example: The headline of the UK's largest newspaper on the morning of the election: https://mobile.twitter.com/hendopolis/status/595703178294878208/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/hendopolis/status/595703178294878... The top columnist for the Daily Mail, a day or two before (for reference, Jimmy Saville was a well known entertainer who turned out to be a paedophile): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3068131/Trust-Labour-d-trust-Jimmy-Savile-babysit-writes-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3068131/Trust-Labo...
commonsense2 11y ago
Glad the tories won. Now they can get to business: 1. Cut the BBC license fee and defund their left wing political bias, and stop them splurging cash on failed ruby on rails sites. 2. Get us out of the EU, or at least grab back more cash to stop them wasting it.
- bbcfailzz 11y ago
  Hear hear. Anything that stops the forced taxpayer funding of the BBC is a good thing. People have gone to jail for not having their TV license, and for what? For the BBC to waste it on more failed internal Scala sites (failed because they could not understand ruby let alone scala!)
  - mike-cardwell 11y ago
    "People have gone to jail" - How many?
    - ThinkingGuy 11y ago
      "In recent years at least 70 people have been jailed for non-payment of fines associated with TV licensing offences." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10256679/TV-licence-offences-account-for-one-in-ten-UK-court-cases.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10256679/T...
      - ceejayoz 11y ago
        70 "in recent years" versus 155,000 convicted of not paying it just last year? I'm guessing they were jailed for more than just simple "I didn't pay".
        vixen99 11y ago
        "Women make up about 70% of those prosecuted and convicted, and half of those jailed for not paying the fine. When people fail to pay other utilities, such as energy companies, they are guilty of a civil offence, not a criminal one, and they cannot be prosecuted and fined for falling behind with their payments. Civil action can be taken for recovery, but without fines and jail terms." http://freedomsfloodgates.com/2015/03/20/non-payment-of-bbc-licence-fee-accounts-for-10-of-prosecutions/ http://freedomsfloodgates.com/2015/03/20/non-payment-of-bbc-...
ilamont 11y ago
Why were the Liberal Democrats so strong in rural/highland areas up until now?
- daleharvey 11y ago
  Scotland votes far left of the rest of the UK typically, Lib Dems have historically been more left than Labour however they formed a coalition with Tories to form the last government (and as a part government instituted policies the opposite of why anyone would ever vote for them, ie university tuition fees). So they are no longer considered actually a liberal party.
- petercooper 11y ago
  The Liberal Democrats have always (well, till now) been at their strongest in progressive rural areas that have little to no urban blight (so, much of Scotland, much of the South West, parts of East Anglia, Northumberland, mid Wales). Now for my personal opinion.. I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties - they're progressive without being overtly socialist, and that appeals to the "hey, I'm still cool" element of the rural middle class that still likes their cars, village fetes, and horsey stuff, but is also pro gay marriage, pro equality and pro welfare.
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    >> "I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties" I thought the liberal democrats (at least before the coalition) were the most left leaning of the major parties.
    - petercooper 11y ago
      Long-term, no, but due to New Labour (1997-2010) being slightly right of centre, the Lib Dems were "left" in relation to that, yes, but not in relation to Labour's traditional position. I am not particularly savvy when it comes to Scottish politics, but I was under the impression that Scottish Labour was considered somewhat more left than Labour proper even during the New Labour years.
5h 11y ago
As an English person residing in England, This is very much the most interesting story from this election.
- _petronius 11y ago
  It's going to be really interesting to see what happens at Holyrood next year, and what the result of the promised 2017 EU referendum is. Although I am sceptical that we'd see independence before 2020 for Scotland, a big constitutional shakeup does seem to be on the cards.
  - riffraff 11y ago
    what is "holyrood next year"?
    - Sulfolobus 11y ago
      Elections for the devolved Scottish Parliament. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_general_election,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_general_el...
    - mtviewdave 11y ago
      "Holyrood" is the part of Edinburgh in which the Scottish parliament is located. In this context it's being used to refer to the Scottish government collectively, in the same way that "Washington" is often used to refer to the American government.
  - kagamine 11y ago
    > Although I am skeptical that we'd see independence before 2020 Wait, didn't we just have a democratic vote on that in 2014 and the result was no? Are we going to have another one because the yes people aren't happy about the result?
    - _petronius 11y ago
      No, we'd probably see a second vote only if the SNP took a majority in the Scottish parliament again and the UK voted to exit the EU. Leaving the EU is really bad for Scotland (arguably all parts of the UK, but Scotland especially for many economic reasons), and might spur a bunch of people that voted "no" last time to vote "yes" if it were held again. Like I said, I consider that unlikely, but it's a risk.
erikb 11y ago
As a German I feel strange seeing a nationalist party win. Is it reasonable to worry here? Don't know much about Scotland. *edit: deleted a sub comment after being shown that I misunderstood something.
- Luc 11y ago
  Worry about what?
  - erikb 11y ago
    "Nationalist Party German History" peek what google has to say about that topic if your memory from school and grand parents isn't sufficient already. ;)
    - Luc 11y ago
      Pffft. Same argument can be used against socialism. All the other parties are nationalist too, and sometimes fiercely so, just for the current status quo.
      - erikb 11y ago
        There was no argument but a question. I interpret your answer as "no there's nothing to answer". Thanks for your reply.
      - masklinn 11y ago
        > Pffft. Same argument can be used against socialism. Sure, but it's understandable that a german would be slightly worried no? Though nationalism in general is benign in most of the world, it remains a worrying sight in Germany (IIRC a few years ago there were comments that Germans only allowed themselves waving the flag for football matches) for perfectly good historical reasons.
- rossng 11y ago
  The SNP are nothing to worry about, really. They're centre-left and moderate. They might campaign for another referendum but it would be silly to class them as xenophobic. However, from a technology perspective the new Tory majority really worries me. They have no understanding of tech. They want to reintroduce sweeping surveillance legislation that was blocked by the Lib Dems in the previous government. They also want to ban encryption (!) and will continue to attempt to censor the internet. They will also likely fail to reform the current system that sees people being arrested for making jokes on Twitter (or, more widely, our terrible libel laws). They also have no real interest in ensuring widespread rollout of high-speed fibre broadband. They'll pay lip service to it, but that's easy to do. They are also unconcerned about data protection and will likely continue to allow more care.data-style schemes with little effective oversight. The only upsides: GDS and open data initiatives will probably survive.

32 points by jjar 11y ago

What I want to know is how all those polls were wrong. The closest I can get is there's a systematic "shy conservative" bias. It's certainly not a sample size problem. I trust the pollsters understand statistics, and this seems to be the most polled election ever.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Note that the same polls were all pretty accurate in regards to the result in Scotland, which makes the errors even odder (and gives a bit of support to the "shy conservative" theory). Possibly the highly promoted guides to tactical voting provided by the right-wing press had a disproportionate impact on the marginal seats?
- lordnacho 11y ago
  But wouldn't tactical voting be captured in the polls as well? There's another theory about bias inherent in sampling from the internet. But I can't imagine pollsters don't know about that.
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    There was discussion about the variance between phone and internet polls before the result, but the differences between the two types of polls were minute compared with the change in the actual results. Tactical voting in an opinion poll doesn't make any difference, so I'd guess there's a danger of misleading answers. I'm sure the pollsters are at least aware of the issue, though what they can do about it I'm not sure.
- aidos 11y ago
  How does the "shy conservative" come into play in telephone polls, for example? I guess it may well, but it seems a little strange. Is there something where on the day people swing more towards the safety of the incumbent? This study seems to suggest the opposite should true [0], at least when it comes to undecided voters. It's definitely an interesting question. How were the polls so wrong? Maybe in the closely contested seats the minor parties split labour? But why didn't the polls show that? I'd love to paw through the data. Really need to look at it on an electorate by electorate basis to see the variation between the parties (opinion vs actual). [0] http://www.pollingreport.com/incumbent.htm http://www.pollingreport.com/incumbent.htm
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    The basic theory is that people are embarrassed to vote in their own selfish self-interest. There are some who claim you get more conservative voters with online polls, because there's no human being there to judge them. I'd always heard that the undecided break towards the incumbent. I believe all the polls took that into account already though, and still got it wrong.
    - vixen99 11y ago
      Oddly enough I would rather not have someone patronizingly voting for what they believe is in my best interests. How do they know what that might be? I would hope that people would always vote in their own 'selfish' self-interest.
      - aidos 11y ago
        I might vote for something that's not directly in my self-interest, believing it's more in the collective interest. I'm part of the collective and I feel a more even society is in my interests, even if that means I personally might not be as well off as I could be. That's really not patronizing. Though you could argue that I've done it for my own self-interests in the long term (who knows when you or your kids might rely on essential services) :) EDIT Also, it's pretty obvious that there are choices that are better for some groups of people (that aren't me). I don't know who "you" are, but there are voting choices that I can make that will help those classes of people, you may or may not be among them. I resent the idea that I'm being patronizing by making that choice (though in the strictest sense of the word "patron" maybe you're right).
        vixen99 11y ago
        'Collective' suggests to me we're not going to agree. Patronizing in this context only means making assumptions (likely to be unwarranted I’d argue) about what someone else wants. But who is the 'someone' affected by a vote in a general election? How many people? To what extent? What about unknown/known effects on other people who you do not have in mind? You cannot know and the assumptions pile up. So much easier to vote on what you really do know to the extent that you can know or rationalize. As you say, we can surely agree that it isn’t always our immediate concerns that best serve our interests as in the simple example of imagining ourselves out of work or needing medical attention. As you say, this benefits everyone – point being that we also are ‘everyone’.
_petronius 11y ago
Interestingly, Survation actually got it (mostly) right the day before, but didn't publish it because it looked like such an odd outlier: http://survation.com/snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory/ http://survation.com/snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victo...
Brakenshire 11y ago
The last time time the opinion polls were so wrong was in 1992, when similarly they overestimated support for a somewhat awkward Labour leader who had been the subject of a massive negative campaign by the popular press. I suspect that this kind of personal campaign had an effect when people came to the morning of the election and thought 'actually, do I really want this guy to be Prime Minister?'. For example: The headline of the UK's largest newspaper on the morning of the election: https://mobile.twitter.com/hendopolis/status/595703178294878208/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/hendopolis/status/595703178294878... The top columnist for the Daily Mail, a day or two before (for reference, Jimmy Saville was a well known entertainer who turned out to be a paedophile): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3068131/Trust-Labour-d-trust-Jimmy-Savile-babysit-writes-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3068131/Trust-Labo...

commonsense2 11y ago

Glad the tories won. Now they can get to business: 1. Cut the BBC license fee and defund their left wing political bias, and stop them splurging cash on failed ruby on rails sites. 2. Get us out of the EU, or at least grab back more cash to stop them wasting it.

bbcfailzz 11y ago
Hear hear. Anything that stops the forced taxpayer funding of the BBC is a good thing. People have gone to jail for not having their TV license, and for what? For the BBC to waste it on more failed internal Scala sites (failed because they could not understand ruby let alone scala!)
- mike-cardwell 11y ago
  "People have gone to jail" - How many?
  - ThinkingGuy 11y ago
    "In recent years at least 70 people have been jailed for non-payment of fines associated with TV licensing offences." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10256679/TV-licence-offences-account-for-one-in-ten-UK-court-cases.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10256679/T...
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      70 "in recent years" versus 155,000 convicted of not paying it just last year? I'm guessing they were jailed for more than just simple "I didn't pay".
      - vixen99 11y ago
        "Women make up about 70% of those prosecuted and convicted, and half of those jailed for not paying the fine. When people fail to pay other utilities, such as energy companies, they are guilty of a civil offence, not a criminal one, and they cannot be prosecuted and fined for falling behind with their payments. Civil action can be taken for recovery, but without fines and jail terms." http://freedomsfloodgates.com/2015/03/20/non-payment-of-bbc-licence-fee-accounts-for-10-of-prosecutions/ http://freedomsfloodgates.com/2015/03/20/non-payment-of-bbc-...

ilamont 11y ago

Why were the Liberal Democrats so strong in rural/highland areas up until now?

daleharvey 11y ago
Scotland votes far left of the rest of the UK typically, Lib Dems have historically been more left than Labour however they formed a coalition with Tories to form the last government (and as a part government instituted policies the opposite of why anyone would ever vote for them, ie university tuition fees). So they are no longer considered actually a liberal party.
petercooper 11y ago
The Liberal Democrats have always (well, till now) been at their strongest in progressive rural areas that have little to no urban blight (so, much of Scotland, much of the South West, parts of East Anglia, Northumberland, mid Wales). Now for my personal opinion.. I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties - they're progressive without being overtly socialist, and that appeals to the "hey, I'm still cool" element of the rural middle class that still likes their cars, village fetes, and horsey stuff, but is also pro gay marriage, pro equality and pro welfare.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties" I thought the liberal democrats (at least before the coalition) were the most left leaning of the major parties.
  - petercooper 11y ago
    Long-term, no, but due to New Labour (1997-2010) being slightly right of centre, the Lib Dems were "left" in relation to that, yes, but not in relation to Labour's traditional position. I am not particularly savvy when it comes to Scottish politics, but I was under the impression that Scottish Labour was considered somewhat more left than Labour proper even during the New Labour years.

5h 11y ago

As an English person residing in England, This is very much the most interesting story from this election.

_petronius 11y ago
It's going to be really interesting to see what happens at Holyrood next year, and what the result of the promised 2017 EU referendum is. Although I am sceptical that we'd see independence before 2020 for Scotland, a big constitutional shakeup does seem to be on the cards.
- riffraff 11y ago
  what is "holyrood next year"?
  - Sulfolobus 11y ago
    Elections for the devolved Scottish Parliament. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_general_election,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_general_el...
  - mtviewdave 11y ago
    "Holyrood" is the part of Edinburgh in which the Scottish parliament is located. In this context it's being used to refer to the Scottish government collectively, in the same way that "Washington" is often used to refer to the American government.
- kagamine 11y ago
  > Although I am skeptical that we'd see independence before 2020 Wait, didn't we just have a democratic vote on that in 2014 and the result was no? Are we going to have another one because the yes people aren't happy about the result?
  - _petronius 11y ago
    No, we'd probably see a second vote only if the SNP took a majority in the Scottish parliament again and the UK voted to exit the EU. Leaving the EU is really bad for Scotland (arguably all parts of the UK, but Scotland especially for many economic reasons), and might spur a bunch of people that voted "no" last time to vote "yes" if it were held again. Like I said, I consider that unlikely, but it's a risk.

erikb 11y ago

As a German I feel strange seeing a nationalist party win. Is it reasonable to worry here? Don't know much about Scotland. *edit: deleted a sub comment after being shown that I misunderstood something.

Luc 11y ago
Worry about what?
- erikb 11y ago
  "Nationalist Party German History" peek what google has to say about that topic if your memory from school and grand parents isn't sufficient already. ;)
  - Luc 11y ago
    Pffft. Same argument can be used against socialism. All the other parties are nationalist too, and sometimes fiercely so, just for the current status quo.
    - erikb 11y ago
      There was no argument but a question. I interpret your answer as "no there's nothing to answer". Thanks for your reply.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      > Pffft. Same argument can be used against socialism. Sure, but it's understandable that a german would be slightly worried no? Though nationalism in general is benign in most of the world, it remains a worrying sight in Germany (IIRC a few years ago there were comments that Germans only allowed themselves waving the flag for football matches) for perfectly good historical reasons.
rossng 11y ago
The SNP are nothing to worry about, really. They're centre-left and moderate. They might campaign for another referendum but it would be silly to class them as xenophobic. However, from a technology perspective the new Tory majority really worries me. They have no understanding of tech. They want to reintroduce sweeping surveillance legislation that was blocked by the Lib Dems in the previous government. They also want to ban encryption (!) and will continue to attempt to censor the internet. They will also likely fail to reform the current system that sees people being arrested for making jokes on Twitter (or, more widely, our terrible libel laws). They also have no real interest in ensuring widespread rollout of high-speed fibre broadband. They'll pay lip service to it, but that's easy to do. They are also unconcerned about data protection and will likely continue to allow more care.data-style schemes with little effective oversight. The only upsides: GDS and open data initiatives will probably survive.