Tomorrow's News, Today

As support for Scottish Independence hits 40%, with 44% against, an early draft of a political story certain to appear in tomorrow's Daily Mail/Daily Record/Scotsman etc reaches me. I hope they won't mind if I steal their thunder by posting it up here in advance...

SALMOND REELS AFTER FRESH INDEPENDENCE VOTE BLOW

The SNP was left reeling last night after a fresh opinion poll showed that a majority of Scots continue to resist their separatist agenda to rip Scotland out of the UK.

In a political body blow to First Minister Alex Salmond, the results of the survey, newly released by pollsters TNS, show that support for independence has soared by a disastrous 9% since 2009, rising from 31% to 40%. Support for the union meanwhile continues to remain steady, dropping to 44%, with 16% of respondents unsure.

Phillip McCludgie, Labour MSP for Brigadoon Central, last night said that the result was 'another nail in the coffin' for the SNP's dreams of a separate Scotland.

“Alex Salmond will be choking on his porridge this morning. These results are a disaster for the SNP, and confirm that even after his Mugabe style power-grab in 2007 when he unfairly managed to persuade more people to vote SNP than Labour, he still hasn't managed to convince Scots to back his mad plans.

“Everyone knows that independence would be a disaster, with higher debt and spending cuts needed to bail out global banks with the word Scotland somewhere in their name. This would obviously be different from the higher debt and spending cuts of the LibCon Coalition, and very different from the much fairer higher debt and spending cuts which Labour would have brought in if we'd won the election.

“A referendum would just be an excuse for those haggis-bashing wierdos to run around shouting 'och aye the noo' at one another, and distract everyone from the important task of sorting out the complete hash Gordon Brown made of running the economy... er, I mean securing recovery in these difficult times for hard-working families.”

Scottish Conservative Leader Annabel Doily welcomed the results as a boost ahead of next year's elections, and said it proved how 'obvious' it was that Scots continued to reject independence.

“These figures just go to show that the SNP is living in a fantasy land”, she said. “It's obvious that independence remains hugely unpopular with ordinary Scots. That's why we're right not to have a referendum, because if people did vote for independence, then it would upset the overwhelming majority who time and time again say in these polls that they oppose separatism.

“It's time that Scots stood on their own two feet and took some responsibility for their future. We in the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party will never resile from our long-standing and solemn commitment to do everything we can to get in the way of that happening.”

We couldn't be bothered to get a quote from anyone in the SNP at the time of going to press.

© All Scottish Newspapers, between now and May.