New Panelbase and ICM Scottish polls

There are two new Scottish polls in Sunday's papers, an ICM poll for the Scotland on Sunday and a Panelbase poll commissioned by the Yes campaign. These are only the second and third polls that we've seen conducted wholly after the debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling, the first one from Survation suggested a significant move towards NO, but these two paint a different picture.

Taking the Panelbase/Yes Scotland poll first, topline figures are YES 42%(+1), NO 46%(-2), Don't know 12%(+1). Excluding don't knows this works out at YES 48%(+2), NO 52%(-2). Changes are from the Panelbase/Sunday Times poll in July. Compared to last month it's a slight move towards YES,

but is not particularly significant by Panelbase's standards: their penultimate poll also had YES on 48%, and they've have YES on between 46-48% since March.

The ICM poll in the Scotland on Sunday has topline figures of YES 38%(+4), NO 47%(+2), Don't know 14%(-7). Excluding don't knows this works out at YES 45%(+2), NO 55%(-2). It's a bigger NO lead than Panelbase are showing, but the same modest movement towards YES. As with Panelbase, it's not a massive change from the longer term trend - so far this year ICM have had YES between 43% and 48%, and YES 45% is right in line with the average of all ICM's Scottish polls this year.

So, two polls, both show a modest movement towards YES since last month, but neither a significant shift from the longer term trend. What it does mean though is that the movement towards NO in Survations's post-debate poll has not been echoed in other companies' polls.

(Incidentally, I'm on leave this week, having a break before the long slog to the general election, so expect light blogging for the next few days)