On Saturday 22nd September 5,000 marched through Edinburgh. The population of Edinburgh is around 500,000 and the population of Glasgow central is 500,000 with another 1,250,000 living in the areas around Glasgow – this means a population of at least 2,250,000 are within easy reach of Edinburgh. Given that the SNP keeps telling us that the majority of people are in favour of independence for Scotland it seems surprising that such a small number of people turned out to support the cause on Saturday – despite it being a reasonably nice day weather wise too.
At the rally Alex Salmond spoke about the campaign’s drive to gain 1,000,000 signatures before the autumn 2014 referendum vote. He announced that the campaign had just achieved 100,000 signatures and that this was a significant milestone. Well getting 10% I suppose is a major achievement. There are 730 days roughly before the referendum if we say it’s in two years time – that means the campaign needs to be signing up 1232 supporters a day for every single one of those days to reach that target.
So far just under 10,000 people have “liked” the Yes facebook page which may suggest there is some way to go in gaining the support to get to a million saying yes. However, even if the campaign reaches 1 million by 2014 what does that mean? It means 20% of the population have said they are interested in independence for Scotland in theory – so the minority then? Does a 20% signup somehow signify there is a huge non signed up majority that support the idea – if so I am not sure how you would know this or be able to prove it?
The campaign is rolling on and having had a look at the website the “Get the facts right” section seemed really interesting. Disappointingly there weren’t any actual facts about the campaign there but more on that in future posts!
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