"Most Scots want to stay part of United Kingdom"

This is a frontpage story in today's Scottish print edition of The Daily Telegraph (no online link found yet) and relates to a YouGov poll in Scotland done for the Telegraph. The main analysis article is on page 8 of the print edition (again I can trace no online link).

The poll is interesting, but unsurprising - except perhaps to the fantasists of the SNP! The most important question, which gets right to the nub of the question:

I feel British as well as Scottish and do not want to stop being British AGREE All voters - 57 per cent Pro-Union Voters - 81 per cent Pro-Independence Voters - 29 per cent DISAGREE All voters - 34 per cent Pro-Union Voters - 16 per cent Pro-Independence Voters - 63 per cent

Another of the questions is quite interestiong, too:

It's simple: the Scottish people are a separate nation and they should have their own independent country to reflect that fact AGREE All voters - 44 per cent Pro-Union Voters - 18 per cent Pro-Independence Voters - 88 per cent DISAGREE All voters - 41 per cent Pro-Union Voters - 70 per cent Pro-Independence Voters - 5 per cent

- and the Scottish people are free, tomorrow, to vote for this outcome (via a vote for the SNP) if they wish. They have conspicuously failed to choose this option so far.

There are fifty-nine seats at Westminster from Scotland. How many is it likely the SNP will win tomorrow? If this poll is a guide, roughly what they have now, perhaps a few more. Of course Scotland has a long future and who knows where we might be in fifty or a hundred years, but I think it safe to assume that Scotland's place within the United Kingdom is safe for a while yet.