Lord Ashcroft on the lessons from Scotland.
Lord Ashcroft has an interesting comment about results of his poll on the Indyref and the lessons for GE2015, called Victory for Project Reasonable Caution - But lets not learn the wrong lessons.
His polling found that the most important reason for the 'No' vote was that
“the risks of becoming independent looked too great when it came to things like the currency, EU membership, the economy, jobs and prices”.
"Nearly half (47%) of No voters said this was their biggest consideration.
"This was echoed in the more specific issues people said had played a part in their vote. The pound was the single most important of these, mentioned by more than half (57%) of all No voters. Nearly four in ten (37%) were concerned about pensions, and 36% cited the NHS (as did more than half of those who voted Yes)."
Polling also showed that the Union was saved by older voters. He goes on:
"As soon as I published the poll on Friday my Twitter timeline filled with indignant nationalists claiming vindication for their view that the result amounted to a victory for “Project Fear”: the campaign of humbug, scaremongering and outright lies supposedly perpetrated by the establishment and the right wing media (which apparently now includes the BBC: welcome, by the way) that successfully bamboozled the credulous."
There was also a disturbingly large number of comments to the effect that old people “who will be dead soon” – such nice people, the nationalists, don’t you find? – had trampled on the hopes of the young by selfishly voting against independence (though presumably, if young people had succeeded in abolishing the country their grandparents had known and loved, that would have been just fine)...
"A political movement never flourishes by blaming its defeats on the media, or by deploring the motives or gullibility of the electorate."
"Blaming opponents for spreading “fear” about your programme is also unlikely to get you very far. It might be more accurate to describe the No campaign as Project Reasonable Caution or Project Sensible Scepticism, but even so, fear serves a useful evolutionary purpose. I would not leap into shark infested waters, or invest in a company with a hazy business plan, and nor had I been eligible would I have voted for Scotland to become an independent country with no idea what currency it would use. Doubt was a big part of many people’s decisions but the doubts were not unfounded."
After considering the relative merits of positive and negative campaigning he concludes
"But to focus on Labour’s flaws without answering people’s qualms about the Conservatives would be fruitless. A large part of the reason for the incomplete victory in 2010 was that the Tories spent too long telling people that Gordon Brown was not a very good Prime Minister (something which they had largely noticed for themselves) instead of addressing their reservations about the Conservative Party and whose side it was on."
"Each side in the referendum campaign has a lesson for the Conservatives. From the No side we see the value of understanding potential voters’ real concerns and campaigning accordingly. From the Yes side we see what happens when the questions in voters’ minds remain unanswered."
You can read the full article here.
His polling found that the most important reason for the 'No' vote was that
“the risks of becoming independent looked too great when it came to things like the currency, EU membership, the economy, jobs and prices”.
"Nearly half (47%) of No voters said this was their biggest consideration.
"This was echoed in the more specific issues people said had played a part in their vote. The pound was the single most important of these, mentioned by more than half (57%) of all No voters. Nearly four in ten (37%) were concerned about pensions, and 36% cited the NHS (as did more than half of those who voted Yes)."
Polling also showed that the Union was saved by older voters. He goes on:
"As soon as I published the poll on Friday my Twitter timeline filled with indignant nationalists claiming vindication for their view that the result amounted to a victory for “Project Fear”: the campaign of humbug, scaremongering and outright lies supposedly perpetrated by the establishment and the right wing media (which apparently now includes the BBC: welcome, by the way) that successfully bamboozled the credulous."
There was also a disturbingly large number of comments to the effect that old people “who will be dead soon” – such nice people, the nationalists, don’t you find? – had trampled on the hopes of the young by selfishly voting against independence (though presumably, if young people had succeeded in abolishing the country their grandparents had known and loved, that would have been just fine)...
"A political movement never flourishes by blaming its defeats on the media, or by deploring the motives or gullibility of the electorate."
"Blaming opponents for spreading “fear” about your programme is also unlikely to get you very far. It might be more accurate to describe the No campaign as Project Reasonable Caution or Project Sensible Scepticism, but even so, fear serves a useful evolutionary purpose. I would not leap into shark infested waters, or invest in a company with a hazy business plan, and nor had I been eligible would I have voted for Scotland to become an independent country with no idea what currency it would use. Doubt was a big part of many people’s decisions but the doubts were not unfounded."
After considering the relative merits of positive and negative campaigning he concludes
"But to focus on Labour’s flaws without answering people’s qualms about the Conservatives would be fruitless. A large part of the reason for the incomplete victory in 2010 was that the Tories spent too long telling people that Gordon Brown was not a very good Prime Minister (something which they had largely noticed for themselves) instead of addressing their reservations about the Conservative Party and whose side it was on."
"Each side in the referendum campaign has a lesson for the Conservatives. From the No side we see the value of understanding potential voters’ real concerns and campaigning accordingly. From the Yes side we see what happens when the questions in voters’ minds remain unanswered."
You can read the full article here.
Comments
People were concerned about being able to keep the pound (well more actually about having a stable currency, at least as stable as a fiat currency gets), He heard he would not be able to, so started answering with - "Yes we can", - "oh no you can't", - "oh yes we can"
if he had learned one single thing from the ROI he would have created a new currency, pegged to the Pound. (like the Irish Punt)
this would have given his voters more confidence in that single area alone.
think about that, that single thing would very possibly have won him his referendum.
but still, the vote was hardly a huge win for NO, sure it was Huge enough, but No 2,001,926. Yes 1,617,989
or from 3,619,915 votes
55.3% said NO, 44.7% said Yes
would 13% of tipped the scales?
I know you can never be sure and all but the pound/punt example well thats just the start, thing about all the other policy issues that he could have done had he had any forsight at all, and you see, you see what i am getting at?
(they used to teach us in the RAF the 5P's - Poor Preparation leads to P*** Poor Performance)
so you see, whilst his performance was hardly poor, it was a respectable result he lost on, not a landslide by any means) but he had the emotion seekers on side, a little better preparation and what could he have done?
p.s. anonymous... yeah we will be having another referendum, it may be in 2017 or it may be closer to 2021, either way we will be having one, though the question wont be about about scottish independence, its more about In/Out of the EU (2017) or Yes/no to the new treaty (2021)