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Except that Lord Ashcroft's polling also shows that No voters think the referendum should settle Scottish independence for a lifetime, whereas unsurprisingly most yes voters think it should be revisited within a decade.
There were more no voters than yes voters. You are badly missing the point.
If Devo Max isn't delivered as explicitly promised, and the SNP get re-elected with the intention of calling another referendum, this is democracy, regardless of whether people in the London like it or not. Because of the broken promises, and the scale of the Yes grassroots movement, Yes are likely to win it. You're badly missing your own point.
Given the front page of the Times today this is looking more and more likely, and just saying 'never trust the UK's Democratically elected Prime Minister ever' doesn't really a) endorse democracy either, and b) support your own views that another referendum is somehow illegitimate. If the head of the UK lies to the people of one of the constituent countries to get a vote, he's making himself even more illegitimate than the fact that the SNP actually have a larger majority than him, as do the losing Yes side in terms of vote percentage.
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If Devo Max isn't delivered as explicitly promised, and the SNP get re-elected with the intention of calling another referendum, this is democracy, regardless of whether people in the London like it or not. Because of the broken promises, and the scale of the Yes grassroots movement, Yes are likely to win it. You're badly missing your own point.
Yes. If that happens. If the majority of your fellow countrymen (and women) change their minds. I don't think they'd be likely to win it though, I think the silent majority would vote no, again. Personally.
We called the other half's Mum last night, a fervent Yes voter who was 'heartbroken' (her own word) by the No result. But she has thought about it a lot and conceded that the referendum was the No side's to lose and the Yes side's to win, and although it was a stellar campaign by the Yes side (45% was an amazing achievement) she has realised that they spent too much time preaching to the converted and that the strident, almost evangelical tone of the Yes campaign probably put some people off, and that they didn't spend enough time worrying about those who hadn't expressed any preference.
She put this beautifully. She said when they were out canvassing they spent too much time looking at all the windows with Yes in, and merrily noting how few windows had No in. But all along they should have been looking at the empty windows.
The fundamental point you keep avoiding, either deliberately or not, is that the Yes side didn't convince enough people to make the leap, and most people opted for the status quo. This is why there was a No vote. It's very hard to have a reasoned debate with someone who won't concede a single point, accept that they are in a minority or even consider that there might have been failings on the Yes side, so I'm giving up now.
I do genuinely hope that you can have that conversation with the No's because it's a conversation Scotland badly needs to have.
Fox
They're not indisputable, unless you have indisputable evidence? I've not seen any yet...
I'm quite prepared to believe that it may have happened to some degree, but what about the other factors that would have influenced older people's votes? The 57,000 Scots who died fighting under the Union flag in WW2, which many of them lived through? A more conservative approach to breaking up the Union in older people? That wouldn't be surprising: it wasn't that long ago that Queen and Commonwealth were held in such high regard. Outdated now but it may well have affected the willingness of older people to vote yes. Many, many other factors too.
Lesson here being never trust Cameron, ever. But Lord Ashcroft's polling which you like quoting so much shows that most people who voted no knew they were going to vote no well ahead of referendum day. 72% always knew they were going to vote no or had decided a year or more before the referendum.
Pensions was a big reason no voters voted no, but so was keeping the pound: an issue the SNP never properly addressed.
Except that Lord Ashcroft's polling also shows that No voters think the referendum should settle Scottish independence for a lifetime, whereas unsurprisingly most yes voters think it should be revisited within a decade.
There were more no voters than yes voters. You are badly missing the point.