I am sure that all my friends on Facebook are sick of reading posts about Independence, including my own. It does really get to you though.
I am undecided on the Question - Do you want Scotland to be an Independent Country? And the day of the vote, September 18th, is not that far away. Somehow I think I'll still be undecided on September 18th.
You see its just not so simple. Getting sufficient information on what the impact will be from a Yes vote is hard, because no one really knows all the answers. A great deal of detail will have to be debated and agreed after the vote. For example, the use of £ Sterling. I agree we have a right to use it, despite some in the No camp saying we can't. What is more important is the fact that the currency would be tied to the Bank of England and therefore interest rates would be set by them. That's not Independence. The use of the £ is just one of many questions that cannot produce a straightforward answer. "It depends on" is the opening line each time. And why did Alex Salmond say in the past that he didn't want the £, it was a mill stone, and now its a corner stone. And yes, we all know the vote is not for Alex Salmond but.......he is the face of credibility for this campaign and therefore his views and attitude are very important in the decision making process.
I have become very engrossed in the debate points. Pensions, Border Control, Immigration, Free or not University places, Free prescriptions, Europe and the tone of the debate, especially amongst the folks who simply want to punish the bankers and the London government. You can understand it, the 2008 recession has gone on for a long time and many have suffered. Margaret Thatchers legacy of the council tax won't be forgotten in my lifetime and it is hard to shake of the angst of the past. For those that studied history more than me, it must be extremely difficult to rationalise the impact on Scotland from its bloodied past.
However, a scientist and pragmatist, I take the view that I can measure the worth of the change to Independence and decide if I am Yes or No. Increasingly though the political spin gets in the way. In particular the spin put on the increase in the Yes vote in recent weeks. I am not so sure it has increased but if it has, so be it. It won't influence me. However, again being a scientist I thought "I'll conduct my own experiment, take my own poll from my Facebook friends and closest contacts in the community".
I found 70 willing souls to convey their voting intentions. Here are the results.
51 No - 73%
14 Yes - 20%
4 Undecided - 6%
1 Wont Say - 1%
Some other interesting points from the results.
- In the Yes group there was 1 family of 5.
- In the No group there was 1 family of 4 and 1 family of 3.
- There were no married couples in my Yes group.
- There were 10 married couples in my No group.
- In the poll group there were 5 individuals who's partner voted differently to them.
The walks of life/work places that my poll individuals came from were as follows
- Council employees
- Financial Advisor (mine)
- Farmer
- Financier
- Elected representative in council
- Business owners of varying company sizes from SME's to persons in companies turning over more than £1 million.
- Public Sector employees in Health Service and Civil Service
- Doctor
- Teacher
- Quantity Surveyor/Site Manager
- Retired from Science/ Public Sector / Teaching
- Corporate Financial Fund Manager
- Charity Director
- Property Services Manager
- Estate Manager
- Accountant
- Students - school and college
- Lawyer / QC
- Joiner
- House manager / Mother
- Tree Services Manager
- Human Resources Manager
So that's it on the date of Feb 13th. If I go back to all on my poll list in a couple of months time I reckon I will have as good an indicator as anyone on the status of the voting intentions.
This poll came from The Mirror - it is very different from my poll results.
