I was pleased to see that ITV had commissioned another poll from YouGov; and the results were fairly comprehensively reported in last week's Sharp End, and here on the ITV Wales blog.
But I always like looking at the full information, which has just been put up on the YouGov website, here. I want to pick up on a couple of things from it.
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First, although it is true that only a disappointing 33% of Plaid Cymru voters said they wanted to see an independent Wales, this was in fact the figure for those who would vote Plaid in Assembly constituencies. The equivalent figure for those who vote Plaid in Westminster elections is a much more respectable 45%. The difference is best explained by noting that appreciably fewer people vote Plaid in Westminster elections (165,394 or 11.3% in 2010) than in Assembly elections (182,907 or 19.3% in 2011). Those who vote Plaid in both can be considered as our "hard core" supporters, and they are obviously more likely to want an independent Wales.
The second thing that struck me was the marked variation of opinion about how Wales should be governed according to different age groups:
18-24 25-39 40-59 60+ Overall No devolution 6% 16% 15% 25% 17% Assembly with fewer powers 3% 1% 3% 5% 3% Status quo 28% 30% 32% 31% 30% Assembly with more powers 45% 31% 30% 28% 32% Independence 11% 10% 12% 8% 10%
The 17% who want to revert back to direct government from Westminster in the event of Scotland becoming independent is very heavily influenced by the negative attitude of older voters. Only 6% of young voters would do away with the Assembly.
The percentage wanting to stick with the status quo is remarkably similar across the all ages, so although wanting more powers is the most popular option overall (32%) that figure is much higher among younger voters (45%).
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So the direction of travel is very clear. We're not going to go backwards, despite the 51% of Tory voters who would like that ... even Andrew RT Davies dismissed that possibility. So the only real question is what extra powers we should be pressing for now, and what the timescale should be. As I see it, the Silk Commission needs to produce a comprehensive package of additional powers and responsibilities—together with a larger Assembly and a revised voting system for it—which would be introduced though a new Government of Wales Act to be passed by Westminster before the next UK election in May 2015, and come into effect for the Assembly election in May 2016.
The temptation will be to do nothing until the result of the Scottish independence referendum is known. But that would be a bad idea. If the unionist parties are to have any hope of keeping Scotland within the United Kingdom, they must show that they are prepared to change the way the UK works by offering a radically improved degree of autonomy to its constituent nations. If the best they can offer Wales is a bit of tinkering around the constitutional edges, how will anyone in Scotland believe that the same unionist parties would be able to agree on and deliver some form of devo-max for them?
If, between them, they can't deliver a substantial degree of additional autonomy to Wales, there is absolutely no chance that they will be able to deliver an even more substantial degree of autonomy to Scotland, is there?
