Lucky old Scots

To judge from reference 1 this morning, the Scots have got themselves into a bad place with about half of them wanting independence and about half of them not. With the nots having a slight edge. So a mess, rather like the mess that the UK as a whole got into with Brexit, with no very happy solution in sight.

This morning's thought, for what it is worth, is that leaving Europe and leaving the UK are both big steps which, once taken, are hard to reverse. So a simple majority is not good enough and there should have been/should be a much higher bar, making it much less likely, though not impossible, that one comes to regret what one has done. 

Plenty of precedent here, with lots of legislating outfits operating a two tier system, with the top tier requiring a super majority - however defined - and the bottom tier making do with a simple majority. From where I associate to the division of power between the Congress and the Senate in the US, with, roughly speaking, the former working by majority of people, the latter by majority of states. An arrangement which now seems to be breaking down, with far too much power now vested in the thinly populated but conservative states of the central plains.

We also have some more statistical overkill from the polling people at reference 2. I have not bothered with the small print, but I am not at all sure that making the graphic snapped above so readily available is really very helpful. The jitters of small samples of voters over small periods of time does not really amount to information, rather random noise, also known as white noise, albeit statistically flavoured.

References

Reference 1: Path to independence ‘starts with respect’ for unionists, says SNP leadership candidate: Kate Forbes has the greatest appeal among the Scottish public but party heavyweights back her main rival - Lukanyo Mnyanda, Mure Dickie, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 2: https://whatscotlandthinks.org/.