Hmm, 231 votes in 25 minutes flat? On a Thursday evening? Looks like somebody out there is repeatedly demonstrating how they feel about this.

Oh, sorry, I should have said DG - many of the other WC members have posted this - some have had it up since this morning. You can't vote more than once from the same IP.

That would makes sense.

So... the poll is a representative sample of people reading blogs written by bloggers who believe that the current constitutional settlement is disadvantageous to England.

Sorry if, statistically speaking, I'm less than impressed :)

Blue Witch is right, there's no jiggery-pokery going on here. About ten blogs have this poll on them.

If you would like to put the poll on your own blog then you can do here.

The more the merrier. And you can write your own preamble to the question that way, if you so desire.

But you have a biased sample.
It's like the Sun and Daily Mail getting together to run an opinion poll on the death penalty and then trying to claim the results are nationally representative.

Indeed. Isn't that how all pop polls are constructed? (most people never think about these things that trouble us statistically inclined people) :)

But I don't think anyone is saying the results of this will be representative of anything.

I don't think Gordon Brown should be PM, but those aren't the overriding reasons.

I don't think many, if any, of the politicians I know of should be PM.

BW for Prime Minister! ;)

Hang on a second..... is this valid? Question 1 - Do you think that if ooor Tone resigns, Gordy should take over without a vote? Ans: Yes, because that's the way things work here. I may or may not like it but at the end of the day we in this country vote for a party NOT a president (however much it is getting like that). Question 2 - Are you a Labour voter and would you vote Labour if Gordy was heading it up? Ans: I don't give a monkey's cuss. Question 3 - Are you an undecided voter and would Gordy be more or less likely to get you to vote for Labour. Ans: ditto

"But you have a biased sample."

Stop complaining about it and put it on your own blog then.

Toque - my blog has a biased sample too.

I wouldn't dream of wasting my blogspace on it, sorry.

OK - let's be clear - the reason I posted this was two-fold:

1. I suspect that many people are totally unaware of this issue. By posting it here, I felt it would get more exposure than if posted just on other Witanagemot Club blogs which tend to be more political.

2. People like polls. Give people something to click and they might process (so remember) the info at a differnt level.

There was never any intention, or pretension, that this was a rigorous piece of research.

If *one* more person is now more aware of the current inequality in the political system in the UK, then it was worthwhile.

What really depresses me about this is that when Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party, before devolution had even happened, the English papers kept saying that Brown couldn't be the leader because the English wouldn't vote for a Scot to be PM. Brown accepted this and stood down for Blair despite the fact that Blair is an intellectual lightweight and couldn't command any significant level of support in his party without him.

The West Lothian question is just an excuse, quite frankly. The Scottish Parliament can't deal with immigration, any kind of economic policy or foreign policy and these are the important issues which Westminster should be dealing with - and which Sots are perfectly entitled to have a reasonable say about. I honestly don't think that national governments should be fiddling around with schools and hospitals which are better dealt with at a more local level.

If the English can't stand the idea of a Scot as PM they should just be honest and say so - as they did in the 1990s.

'He will have no such power over the Scottish government that affects his own constituents in Scotland, the people to whom he is democratically accountable.'

Ha ha! If you really think that, you know nothing about Scottish politics. Brown's power base is huge.

Caroline:

If the English can't stand the idea of a Scot as PM they should just be honest and say so - as they did in the 1990s.

Given the opportunity of an election rather than having to watch Gordy assume power by the back door, I'm sure the Englsih would.

And your second comment - I don't think you've understood what Toque was saying correctly.

And I say give the job to Gordon now! Why wait?

Thank you BW. I understand what Toque was saying perfectly well. As many Scottish MPs are also MSPs, , and many MSPs who aren't MPs may aspire to thatGordon will have ample opportunity to use his powers of patronage and persuasion to get them to fix anything in Scotland he happens to want fixed.

I suppose the sooner Gordy gets the job, the sooner we have a change of colour in charge NiC. That can only be a good thing :)

Jesus, we're not Mori. We are trying to highlight an issue, not claiming that our poll is indicative of public opinion.

Diamond Geezer, you run polls on your blog, are you suggesting that your readers are representative of the public at large? If you don't want to host the poll then fine, but don't get on your high-horse and start spouting nonsense about biased samples. Any poll conducted on the internet is a biased sample - see YouGov.

I suspect that if you did run the poll on your blog the %age results would not be greatly affected anyway.

Toque - you probably need to know that DG and I have known each other for a long time (pre-blog days). What may look to you as criticism is, I suspect, just him trying to wind me up a teensy weensy bit as I'm always the first one to shout, "Not statistically reliable or valid!" at the slightest provocation.

Thanks, I realised that BW. I rather suspect that DG's objection is to the poll itself rather than its objectivity.

Yeah but, one can only wonder whether the future of the country, or the lack of working chocolate machines on tube station platforms is of more concern ;)

I've yelled my next comment very loudly at the screen.
I thought it best not to write it down.
Shall we move on now?