A one-vote win from 29 ballots is as close as a referendum gets, and the topline 52-48 split disguises just how evenly this chamber was torn on devolution. Strip out one age band and the rest of the electorate is essentially deadlocked — 25-34s tied 5-5, 55-64s tied 3-3, gender split near-identical for men and women alike.
The exception is instructive. The 16-24 bracket broke 4-1 for Yes, the single clearest signal in the data, suggesting the youngest voters here are readiest to back radical constitutional rearrangement, even as their elders in the 35-44 bracket leaned the other way (2 yes, 3 no). It is a small sample, but the shape of it — youthful enthusiasm for shaking up the centre, older ambivalence — tracks a familiar generational fault line in British politics on questions of change versus stability.
Beyond that, gender told us almost nothing: men split 9-8, women 5-5, both essentially coin-flips. That the overall result hinges on such thin margins across nearly every cohort makes this less a verdict on Burnham's devolution push than a portrait of a country, or at least this self-selected slice of it, still arguing with itself over how much power Whitehall should give up.
In the end, Yes carried the day, but only just — a result that mirrors the messy, contested politics of devolution itself.
2 Opinions
Can't see this working. How many times have we heard about the "Northern Powerhouse", sounds like just the same thing,
How well did the ONS do after moving to Wales? Generally, the best civil servants want to be in London.