
Scottish Independence Referendum Data Map - wf
http://vis.oobrien.com/indyref/
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mark_l_watson
I was talking about Scottish Independence today while hiking with two friends.
Both of them thought that independence was a bad idea, but could not provide
much reason for this. Maybe a slant in USA news media, with a pro-England
slant?

I bet England does make them pay short term if there is a YES vote, but if
being a small and independent country saves them money on military spending
then long term it might make sense, in addition to national pride.

Way off topic, sorry, but: it is really interesting to think about the USA
someday balkanizing. After the dollar is no longer the reserve currency, and
when we can't afford our gigantic military expenses anymore, it might make
sense to have smaller regional countries, with EU style trade and mobility
agreements. Small seems more efficient.

~~~
untog
One reason against voting yes is quite simple: having no idea what will
happen. There are definitely economic uncertainties with independence, and I
think it's a valid viewpoint to be concerned about them.

There's no guarantee that change will be a good thing, and the actual benefit
to independence is pretty intangible - it is primarily emotional rather than
calculated (Scotland already have a parliament, that will be given more powers
even if the vote results in a "no")

~~~
collyw
The guarantee is with the No vote. More of the same right wing policies,
growing inequity and non-representative politicians.

Its interesting to note the high turn out for this referendum, where a simple
yes / no vote means no pandering to swing voters, or tactical voting.
Politicians have always claimed low turn out was due to voter apathy.

~~~
mike_hearn
> The guarantee is with the No vote. More of the same right wing policies

The UK has entirely socialised health care, relatively high taxes and a large
population on welfare. It is hardly a right wing country by international
standards (you need to look at the USA to see what that means).

The reality is that compared to many countries and even its own recent past,
Scotland is not doing so badly. That's the status quo offered by the no vote.
In the event of a yes vote absolutely nobody knows what's going to happen
because Salmond and co haven't thought it through at all. Anyone who asks him
difficult questions gets labelled a biased bully. Anyone who suggests that
separating a tightly integrated part of a country might be a teeny tiny bit
complicated is labelled a scaremonger.

This absolute refusal to fill in the blanks means that the Yes campaign has
instead let people fill in those blanks with their own hopes and dreams,
indeed, Salmond has heavily encouraged this. Yes has come to represent
everything to everyone regardless of what their actual underlying beliefs are.
But that's not a foundation for a country or even a political party.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
However, England is vastly more right-wing than Scotland. The only Scot I know
supports yes simply because since WW2, Scotland has been under a Tory-ruled
Westminster and having to implement their policies for roughly half the time,
while never actually voting for them. As far as he's considered if Cameron and
all his kind simply went away he'd be happy to be part of the UK.

~~~
jiggy2011
You could say the same about every part of the country that did not vote for
the current government. In a democracy you often don't get what you want.

~~~
xtrumanx
> In a democracy you often don't get what you want.

According to Tuna-Fish's complaint, the Scots never got what they want for 70
years and now suddenly there's an opportunity to change that. Seems to be the
better alternative than continuing with the status quo or following in William
Wallace's footsteps.

~~~
jiggy2011
Not true, there was a labour government for 13 years! Also many parts of
England and Wales vote in a similar way to Scotland but they don't get to
secceed.

~~~
collyw
The Labour party was corrupted by Blair. Its almost as right wing as the
Conservatives. Inequality continued to grow for those 13 years.

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chippy
Background blog post: [http://oobrien.com/2014/09/scottish-independence-
referendum-...](http://oobrien.com/2014/09/scottish-independence-referendum-
data-map/)

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baxter001
Just got back in from my visit to the polling station at a local scout hut a
few minutes ago, with the largest population centres of Glasgow and Edinburgh
declaring so late into the morning I'm not sure what large benefit is to be
gained from live tracking.

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eric_bullington
Interesting map, but if the person who created it happens by, you should
consider setting constraints[1] on your zoom, so that your subject remains in
view. It's very easy to zoom out to continental zoom level, which doesn't show
any useful information in this context.

1\. [http://openlayers.org/en/v3.0.0/examples/zoom-
constrained.ht...](http://openlayers.org/en/v3.0.0/examples/zoom-
constrained.html)

~~~
arethuza
For the more sparsely populated areas (e.g. Highlands, Moray, Aberdeenshire,
Perth & Kinross) placing the marker in the "geographical" center rather than
on the main town looks a bit odd to me - especially as the Moray marker seems
to be located on top of the Macallan distillery rather than at Elgin.....

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JimA
Anyone able to explain how to read this?

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Gormo
Why are the circles colored to indicate voting results if none of the results
have been announced yet?

~~~
arethuza
It's SNP voting levels from 2012 elections - not a particularly appropriate
measure in my opinion!

Edit: The reason why I don't think it's appropriate is that it is a simple
"Yes" or "No" and a lot of people who may have traditionally voted Labour or
Lib Dem might be voting "Yes" even though the national UK parties have all
been pushing the "No" side of the campaign.

~~~
Malarkey73
Agreed. That's way off base. SNP voters won't make up half of the YES vote.

Its unpredictable as it's all down to how the Labour and previous non-voters
fall.

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skeletonjelly
Another version: [http://www.abc.net.au/news/scottish-
referendum/results/](http://www.abc.net.au/news/scottish-referendum/results/)

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llamataboot
Pretty nifty map of #indyref tweets over the past 7 days
[http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w](http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w)

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lazylizard
i'd have thought running a government is a massive hassle..if they could have
the english do it for them for free, why would they want to do it themselves?

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chippy
The numbers in the circles at 21:00 BST time show the likely time when the
results will be announced.

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tptacek
Interesting. Why is the Highland council area so red?

~~~
arethuza
Probably based on the level of SNP support in either the local council,
Scottish or UK parliament elections - traditionally the Liberal Democrats were
strong in the Highlands.

Not sure picking SNP support in an area is a great basis for predicting
tonight's results though - a lot of people who would never vote SNP seem to be
supporting the "Yes" campaign.

I plan on fast-forwarding through the next few hours with some help from our
local _water of life_.

Edit: This might be a good source for where those number come from:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/vote2012/council/S12000017...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/vote2012/council/S12000017.stm)

As it was a council election there appear to have been a lot of independents -
so the proportion of seats won by the SNP looks relatively small even though
they were the largest political party.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Council_election,_2012](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Council_election,_2012)

~~~
tptacek
So yeah, that's what I thought, but are there reasons why the Highlands don't
affiliate directly with the SNP that are orthogonal to their likely vote?

