The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. Absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Cindy Yu and I'm joined by James Forsyth and Katie Balls.

So is Scottish independence a foregone conclusion? Perhaps not. James, today there have been two new polls

showing that maybe unionism has more hope yet. Yeah, so I think there were 20 old polls in a row that

showed the pro-independence side ahead. And the nationalists used to make much of this say that this

proved that independence was becoming the settled will over Scottish people. Now, politicians

always like to say that they don't talk about polls, but it's very hard for Nicolsturgeon to say it's because she used to tweet quite enthusiastically about these polls showing independence ahead.

But that narrative of independence was becoming the kind of settled will over Scottish people has been disrupted by the latest polling.

There's another poll out today a hugo poll for the

times showing the union side ahead that follows a couple which we had earlier this week and one at the

weekend showing the same thing there's also a poll in the scotsman suggesting that the smp might not

win an overall majority at hollywood now i think, as I say in the magazine's week,

it's important to keep a shift in the polling in perspective. As one of those involved in the

government's attempt to save the union said to me, you know, look, she couldn't have had worse

headlines because of a salmon affair. The UK government couldn't have had a better story in the

vaccine rollout. And we're still looking at polls, which suggests that the SMP, you know, A, with

the union side only a point or two ahead, and polls that suggest that the SMP might still win an

overall majority after 14 years in power, an electoral system designed to stop any one party from

winning an overall majority. But I do think that given where expectations got to last year, but even if the

SMP come back to Holly Reader's the largest party, even if there is a pro-independence majority

when combined with the Greens, the fact it is not an outright SMP majority will be seen as a

...