THE headline on the wing column of Thursday’s Herald front page was virtually howling for the story underneath to be read immediately. In five decks of what looked like 36pt type it stated: “Trump and Putin fare better than SNP with Brexit voters.” As such, it had carried out its professional responsibilities to the letter and may even have enticed sacred undecideds browsing in the newspaper section of one hundred newsagents.

Yet, if the sub-editor who handled it had been given just slightly less space to play with, the heading might reasonably have read: “Trump and Putin fare better than the SNP.” With two fewer words the impact would have been much more dramatic and possessed the world of a difference. For any political party to be deemed to be less popular than two of the most reviled political figures on the planet would have caused the SNP’s Matalan army of political advisers to set their iPhones to "Malky".

To be regarded in a dimmer light than the Chuckle Brothers of global politics by people who voted to leave the EU is an entirely different matter, though. You could work with the implications of that and perhaps even build a wee strategy around it: “If the Brexiters fear us as much as this then we must be doing something right.” A similar degree of difference would exist between, oh I don’t know… between Pope Francis being regarded favourably by members of the Church of Satan and being regarded unfavourably by them; the devil, as it were, is in the detail.

The story itself reported the results of a YouGov survey which found that, among people who voted to leave the EU, just 10 per cent regarded the SNP favourably. Furthermore, 21 per cent of those voters were somewhat unfavourably disposed to the Nationalists and a further 52 per cent "very unfavourably" so. Working on the matrix of the polling company, this all translates to an approval rating of -63, making the SNP slightly less popular among the anti-Europeans than Mr Trump or President Putin.

Given that the poll surveyed only 1,704 people it probably won’t be sufficiently meaningful to use the numbers to re-launch his faltering bid for the White House. Nor, I suspect, will President Putin whip it out the next time he is being attacked by Theresa May and Angela Merkel over his policy in the Ukraine. And I’d hazard a guess that the First Minister herself won't cite the findings when she delivers her keynote address to the SNP faithful at October’s autumn conference in Glasgow. Nor should she or her followers revile those who now apparently consider her to be part of the axis of evil.

The story made me recall a couple of recent trips south of the Border to take the temperature of some people in the north of England on the two big constitutional issues that continue to dominate UK politics. In 2014 I found myself in a bar in Manchester’s edgy Moss Side district seeking the opinions of local people about the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence. Unionist friends of mine beforehand had attempted to belittle this exercise. “Ordinary folk in England aren’t remotely interested in our little skirmish,” they all more or less said.

They were all wrong, though. To a man and woman, every person I spoke to that evening in Moss Side was very engaged in the referendum debate and acutely aware of its potential implications for the rest of the UK. As with many similar communities throughout the north midlands of England and in the north-east and north-west, no one in the Westminster political classes had deigned to ask them. To a man and woman also, each person I spoke to backed Scottish independence and wished us all well, no matter the outcome: “We 'ave no time for London either and London 'as no time for us.”

On the day after the Brexit vote I visited a pub in Hartlepool, a solid Labour town which had voted 70-30 to leave the EU. Again, I encountered only goodwill towards Scotland but there was an edge to the conversations that hadn’t been evident on Moss Side two years earlier. There was a palpable resentment at what people regarded as favourable treatment and opportunities for migrants while their own community suffered continuing economic decline. They were even more resentful that many among the affluent, liberal, chattering classes deemed them to be racist for expressing such a view. “You Scots probably think we all are too,” I was told.

Like the Moss Side residents, they felt alienated in their own country; not by the presence of immigrants but by the perceived absence of any interest in their lives from London. The EU referendum gave them a rare opportunity to make their voices heard and immigration became a convenient vehicle for an anger and frustration that had been boiling away long before Boris Johnson and Michael Gove had used it as the main means of carrying out a putsch in the Westminster Conservative Party. It was an anguished cry for help.

I suspect, too, that some of those I met on Moss Side and in Hartlepool might have shared the opinions expressed in the YouGov poll and viewed the SNP less favourably than President Putin and Mr Trump. This, though, does not indicate that their goodwill towards Scotland has been replaced by fear and loathing. Rather, I think, it signals finally an acknowledgement that Scotland is set on a course away from the rest of the UK and there is resentment at that. This, though, isn’t a resentment born of bitterness and hostility but one born of weary resignation: “We understand why you want to leave this broken country behind with its twisted sense of what is fair and its laughable claim to be a democracy but we resent that you are abandoning us to endure the whims of London alone.”

These resilient and generous people and ones similar to them whom I met in places like Hull, Grimsby, Durham and Bishop Auckland have all seen the hearts of their communities ripped out by Margaret Thatcher. To have then been ignored by Tony Blair’s Labour party and considered an embarrassment added to their sense of internal exile. They were prey to the worthless promises of the Brexiters because Messrs Johnson and Gove provided them with an easy target and linked it to their economic travails. It was a cruel confidence trick used by a class whose personal fortunes would leave them untouched by the consequences of Brexit to dupe a class whose lack of money left them clutching at straws. It’s what the Tories have always been good at.

In Scotland there are still far too many communities impoverished by the unchecked voraciousness of the free market. Yet, so far they have largely resisted the temptation to blame "others" for their situation. Many voted Yes to independence not because they were Nationalists but because living in an independent Scotland couldn’t be any worse than existing in 21st century Britain and might, just might, be better. It is an option.

In Manchester and Hartlepool, in Sunderland and Grimsby they have no option but to find other outlets for all their gathered fury.