Hold the Front Page

In normal times when newspapers get a big scoop they make a point of milking the story for all it's worth by splashing the news on their front page and often in banner headlines.

But in The Telegraph newspaper the other day, this time honoured journalistic practice appears to have been turned completely on its head - and all because The Telegraph is supporting a No vote in the Scottish independence referendum.

Now that is depressing and sad, and to make things even more ridiculous the paper goes as far as talking up another opinion poll from a rival publication, The Observer, which is unheard of in my experience.

So the Telegraph and the No campaign must be felling pretty desperate, if you ask me.  

Scottish independence: polls show it's too close to call

ICM survey for The Telegraph suggests Yes campaign is in the lead but a Survation poll for Better Together puts the No vote ahead

PR independence trinkets are displayed by supporters outside the Birnam Highland Games in Perthshire, Scotland Photo: AFP/Getty

By Tim Ross, and Peter Dominiczak - The Telegraph

Polling experts said the Scottish independence referendum was “too close to call” on Saturday night as a clutch of surveys gave contradictory pictures of the state of the campaign.

A survey of 705 Scots by ICM for The Telegraph suggested that the Yes vote had opened up an eight-point lead over the No campaign.

Results of the online poll showed 54 per cent of Scots who have made up their minds planned to vote in favour of independence, with 46 per cent intending to vote against.

However, a separate telephone poll of 1,000 Scots by Survation, released by the Better Together campaign against independence, put the No vote ahead by the same margin.

Meanwhile, an Opinium/Observer poll also showed a narrow gap in favour of No.

Excluding undecided voters, the poll found 53% of those questioned plan to vote No while 47% intend to vote Yes.

Martin Boon, the head of ICM Research, said his firm's poll should be seen in the context of a volatile campaign in which results have shifted dramatically.

“Polls can and do go up and down and the fuss an individual poll makes will soon be forgotten when the real result arrives,” he said. “The proper way to analyse this poll is simply to take it as an ‘outlier’ which fits into the overall impression created by all Scottish polls right now: it seems too close to call, and could go either way.”

Professor John Curtice, an elections expert from the University of Strathclyde, said he believed that the No campaign was probably still fractionally ahead. But he added: “If the polls are correct, it is absolutely clear that the race is now much tighter than it was just two or three weeks ago.”

A further ICM poll for The Telegraph questioned 1,865 adults in England and Wales and found an overwhelming majority want Scotland to stay in the UK.

When asked how they would vote if they could take part, 69 per cent of respondents in England and Wales who had made up their minds said they would vote No. Only 31 per cent would vote Yes.

ICM’s headline poll, giving a lead to the Yes campaign, will surprise campaigners after a week in which the No campaign appeared to have regained lost ground. Its survey found that 49 per cent of Scottish voters planned to vote Yes to independence, with 42 per cent intending to vote No. Nine per cent said they did not know how they would vote.

When the “don’t knows” were excluded, the Yes vote rose to 54 per cent and the No vote to 46 per cent. Men and the young were more likely than women and the over-65s to back independence.

On Saturday, the Yes campaign claimed figures from its private canvassing showed a majority will back independence on Thursday. The campaign has been feeding information from an “unprecedented” 25,000 canvass returns each day into its database.

However, according to Better Together, around 500,000 people are still to make up their minds.

Alistair Darling, leader of the No campaign, said he plans to target these voters during the final days.

“Our vote is holding up. We are actually doing well,” he said.

ICM Research interviewed an online sample of 1,865 adults aged 18+ in England and Wales and 705 adults aged 16+ in Scotland, between Sept 10 and 12. Interviews in each survey have been weighted to the profile of all England & Wales and Scottish adults respectively.