New Panelbase and ICM Scottish polls

There were two new Scottish polls in the Sunday papers. One was by Panelbase for the SNP, one for ICM in the Scotland on Sunday. The Panelbase poll has topline figures of YES 43%, NO 46%, Don't know 12%. Excluding don't knows that works out at YES 48%, NO 52%. The previous three Panelbase polls asked using this version of the question showed NO leads of five points, so the change here is well within the normal margin of error, but the direction of travel is once again towards YES and is the closest Panelbase poll we've had yet.

The ICM poll had topline figures of YES 36%, NO 43%, Don't know 21%. Excluding don't knows that works out at YES 45%, NO 55%. Compared to their poll last month YES are up two points and NO are down three. However last month's ICM poll was something of an outlier, showing a sharp shift towards NO, and I suspect this one is largely just a reversion to the mean after a freaky poll a month ago. While ICM have messed about with their methodology in Scottish polls this year, a crude average of their leads to date is 8 points. Today's isn't that different to the average.