Welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman. On this week's episode, we'll be

questioning whether Nicola Sturgeon might be tempted by a second independence referendum,

discussing the increasingly frosty relations between the USA and Russia, and asking whether

city dogs are a menace to sheep.

First, Theresa May was in Scotland this week for meetings with Nicola Sturgeon ahead of the Scottish Tory conference.

Thanks to Brexit, the Scots appear to have another opportunity to try and go it alone.

But with support for independence still routinely polling below 50% will she pull the trigger?

I'm joined to discuss this by the spectators Scotland editor Alex Massey and our editor Fraser Nelson.

So Alex, how confident are you that Nicola Sturgeon is going to push for a second independence referendum?

Well, I think she is certainly going to do so at some point.

The question is when? The idea that the referendum in 2014 put the issue to bed for a generation or that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as the SMP once promised, has since been contradicted by events. Brexit really has changed the game. It has delivered an opportunity for the Scottish

nationalists to push for a second referendum to be held at some point in this Parliament.

And there is increasing speculation in Scotland in a widespread sense that time is running out

for there not to be a referendum, that the nationalists have sort of talked themselves into a corner

from which the only available way out is through another referendum,

which isn't something that Gladden's many hearts in Scotland,

because there is still, as yet, no majority in favour of the second referendum.

And, you know, having been through the experience in 2014,

and then through Brexit in 2015, there's a degree of referendum fatigue. But it's increasingly clear that the

constitutional question, the national question, has not been settled and that actually Brexit

has reopened it, albeit in ways that complicate matters for both the nationalists and for

unionists.

...