Surveys

I fill in surveys. For money, let me say.

There was a time when surveys were carried out by nicely-dressed, well-spoken, middle-aged women who came to nice middle-class doors and asked householders for their reactions to their questions. I remember being caught once by one such woman when I'd just come in from work. Could I answer a few questions? I was knackered. A few questions might get rid of her. Her survey was about insurance. Did I have insurance? Yes. Car and house contents. House building? No. Look around. This is a flat. In Scotland if you live in a flat the factor deals with building insurance. How about life insurance? Critical illness insurance? But I wasn't going to answer questions like that for a total stranger. She wasn't happy. She flashed a set of cards in front of me. Could I say which companies these pictures represented? In  a word, no. I failed to identify the logo of LV and many others, and she got annoyed when I said I didn't like this trend of doing away with names anyone could identify and going for initials that meant nothing. After her visit, I stopped allowing anyone else in.

And then about ten years ago these visits died away, to be replaced by online questionnaires.

Today's online survey was about the last Holyrood election, the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 UK general election, the 2016 EU referendum and my voting intentions in future Scottish and UK general elections and any future Scottish independence referendum - including what year I thought the referendum should take place in. Hell's teeth. Was anyone in the UK asked questions like this before they voted to sweep the Tories into power or take us all out of the EU on pretty dubious grounds? Or is this kind of questioning reserved for rebellious Scots?

I answered all the questions faithfully, sometimes taking ages to go over them and even then not being sure I'd answered the way I wanted to. So if Theresa May decided to 'grant' Scotland a second independence referendum, would I agree this was a good idea (0 or 1) or a bad idea (2 to 10)? Well, of course, I don't even accept the premise that Mrs May has the right to grant or refuse Scotland a referendum. In fact, my own view is that Mrs May can go and take a flying #$%^ to herself. Some of us don't think we are beholden to Westminster for permission to hold a referendum because UDI is a possibility. But there wasn't a space on the survey form for that opinion.

The irritation factor in these surveys (I do them for several companies) is unbelievable. One asks which region I live in and lets me choose from north-east, south-west, etc. I keep telling them I live in a country - it's called Scotland - not in a region, but nothing makes them change the survey. All of these companies assume that Great Britain/the UK is the same as England, so surveys about education, health, the law, social work, all refer to England and they clearly see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as part of England. By the way, Great Britain is the name of the largest island in the British Isles and is also a political entity consisting of three countries: England, Scotland, and Wales. It's not a political statement of how great Britain is or used to be. Honestly.

Not once in ten years have I seen an indicator in any of these surveys that Scotland has a different legal and educational system. And that frankly makes me suspect the survey results are to be questioned. Today, a Scottish newspaper announced that a poll it had carried out suggested that a third of people in Scotland thought the BBC was biased against Scottish independence. I had two reactions to that. First, you mean only a third of people thought that? Where have they been living? But then I thought: isn't there something ironic in an anti-independence newspaper (all but one of 35 newspapers in Scotland is anti-independence) having the brass neck to tell us this?

Until this week, I was convinced we should put off an independence referendum till we're sure - or as sure as we can be - that independence is within our grasp. But now I wonder if the disarray (that's a polite word) caused by Brexit might not be the best moment to just go for it. If you're a unionist, you may want to ask yourself: what kind of country will the UK/Great Britain be in 2030? Myself, I have an idea it's not going to be great within the UK or outside it, within the EU or outside it, and old Socialist ideals of solidarity are not going to help, but I'm still prepared to take my chances on us.

You know, US. The people propped up by the British state, unable to support ourselves. US, the lazy and uneducated people of north Britain who somehow managed to colonise vasts areas of the new world for our masters, discover their riches and pass on their culture to the next generation. That'll do for me.