The Settled Will

By the time that you get to nineteen opinion polls in a row, over the course of more than a year from several different polling companies, all of which have shown a lead for a vote for independence in a referendum, it becomes legitimate to posit that a desire for independence is now the settled will of the people of Scotland.

It’s certainly true that at 51% for yes, the most recent poll does not show as commanding a lead for independence as some previous polls, which have put support for independence as high as 58%, but this categorically does not mean that support for independence has gone into decline. Opinion polls work, insofar as they do work, because questions are asked of a sample of people who are believed to be representative of the wider population. However different polling companies have different strategies for arriving at a representative sample…