New Scottish Independence polls

There are two new Scottish independence polls in today's papers - ICM for Scotland on Sunday, and Survation for the Sunday Post, both conducted just after the SNP's conference last weekend (though as ever, correlation should not necessarily imply causality.)

ICM in the Scotland on Sunday has topline figures of YES 39%(nc), NO 42%(-4). Getting rid of the don't knows brings us to YES 48%, NO 52% - leaving aside the SNP commissioned poll with leading questions last year, this is the highest level of YES support recorded so far.

Note that there was a slight shift in ICM's methodology from last time - rather than just weighting those with a declared 2011 recalled vote to the correct proportions of the 2011 vote, they are now also weighting the sample so the correct proportion of the sample claim to have voted in 2011. This should have the result of increasing the proportion of won't votes and don't knows, but won't necessarily have any impact on the proportions of YES and NO.

The second poll for Survation has topline figures of YES 38%(+1), NO 46%(-1). Without don't knows the YES vote is at 45%. This is a slight move towards YES since Survation's previous poll a week and a half ago, but looking more widely it's more of a "no change" poll, Survation also showed YES on 45% in March and February.