A TEDIUM of SNP shills have been exulting about the sunny numbers of a new independence poll. The Ipsos Mori survey for STV News put support for Yes at 55%, its largest lead since the Scottish election. Nevertheless, you were left to wonder “where’s an independence referendum when you really need one?”

A few days earlier, Nicola Sturgeon had finally caved in to increasing pressure from supporters in her own party by mentioning “independence”, “process” and a specific date all in the same sentence. No matter that she did so in the manner of a child who’s been asked to play nicely with the psycho hair-puller who sits beside her. This sounded purposeful. Even more significantly, this wouldn’t be contingent on the end of the pandemic.

Yet, 55% would be a lot more meaningful if it had emerged in the same neighbourhood as a referendum. By the end of 2023 more than nine years will have elapsed since the first referendum. Nothing the SNP has said during this period has suggested that a second one will be happening any time soon. Perhaps they mean it this time.

If you were being curmudgeonly you might want to see some evidence of a strategy that doesn’t end with asking Boris Johnson politely to agree. Have they done some secret legal work on examining the boundaries of Holyrood’s powers in this area in preparation for having a crack at the Supreme Court? Might they entertain the notion of effectively making the 2024 Westminster Election an independence referendum? Have they commissioned their pet lobbying firm to crunch some numbers around currency? How will future border arrangements work?

At the very least you might have expected the SNP to come clean with their supporters about the prospects of re-joining the EU following independence. Lacking any currency plan or moves towards a central bank, these are currently in the range of slim to non-existent.

This startling upturn in fortunes for pro-independence backers has come in the midst of a wretched period for UK Tories. In recent months the Boris Johnson administration has looked and acted like a government concerned only with the feelings and prejudices of middle England. Using fighting talk to target boatloads of vulnerable migrants and blaming the sleekit French has always been a fool-proof strategy for the Tories whenever they encounter political turbulence. The STV poll would suggest that the sewage that seeps out from beneath this malodorous party is beginning to invade the senses of Scots who might not previously have been persuaded by independence.

A lot can happen in the two years before Nicola Sturgeon says she intends to “begin the process” of seeking a referendum. There are signs of revolt among Tories getting edgy about Boris Johnson and their slim constituency majorities. Nor is it being cynical to suggest that the Tories are never more than a successful vaccination roll-out away from quelling restlessness.

Perhaps we shouldn’t quibble. Even if it is an outlier poll, as professor John Curtice surmised, it shows that the 45% who were supposed to have evaporated after defeat in 2014 have stuck with the project. They have continued to trust that Nicola Sturgeon is serious about independence, even if she might not be able yet to show how she intends to get there.

Unfortunately for the SNP leadership, they didn’t have long to bask in the comfort of this week’s opinion poll. They are dealing with a backlash over a national health and well-being census for children containing sexually explicit questions. Almost a third of local authorities have signalled their concern over the nature of this exercise. Whoever first thought that indiscriminately asking 14-year-old children about their sex lives and introducing many of them to the idea of anal and oral sex should be getting a visit from Police Scotland right now. That’s if the plods can find time from collaring those insidious foodbank collectors outside Celtic Park.

The concept of corporate malfeasance exists to hold companies to account, even if the consequences were unintended. Perhaps corporate grooming of minors could be included in this. It may not be for anyone’s personal gratification but it quietly and subversively introduces explicit sexual content from the adult world to children and familiarises them with it. Did Nicola Sturgeon actually give the green light for this questionnaire to proceed with the imprimatur of her government?

Someone would doubtless suggest that this was all part of the “wider policy framework” of tailoring future sexual health initiatives to the needs of vulnerable groups. Real people with real families seeking to help their children deal with early onset adulthood would describe it more brutally: inappropriate sexual approaches.

And where were all the so-called ‘decent’ people in the Scottish cabinet when this questionnaire was being promoted as a viable resource? Did they think this was acceptable? Let’s be honest here: folk like John Swinney and Kate Forbes and Michael Russell – in addition to their various ministerial responsibilities – are there to offset the trumpet factor of people like Patrick Harvie, John Nicholson, Pete Wishart and James Dornan. Their presence reassures us that the SNP hasn’t lately become a job-creation scheme for sanctimonious roasters and idlers.

This is the most egregious example yet of the SNP’s obsession with the intimate customs and habits of the Scottish people. In the past this has included the way in which parents choose to discipline their children and the absurd Named Persons proposals which were nothing more than a middle-class fetish for checking up on those rough types on the council estates.

The SNP recently sent information packs to its supporters that included a greetings card adorned with nothing other than a big, doe-eyed picture of Nicola Sturgeon. If some of them experience the uncanny feeling of the First Minister’s eyes following them around the room there might be a reason for that.

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