We’ll try a breathing exercise to get started.

Exhale through your mouth then take a long breath in through your nose.

Can you smell that? That’s the smell of fear from Scotland’s anti-Independence parties.

A week today we elect the Scottish Government and all opinion polling points to a fifth consecutive SNP victory.

Of course, the accuracy of polls can be iffy, but it would be quite the collective failure if the whole polling industry called this election entirely wrong.

And the result is still dependent on converting positive sentiment into votes cast, so activists will keep calm and carry on campaigning.

The big unknown remains the scale of SNP victory. Will they secure a majority for the second time in 15 years?

Crippled with anxiety

For strategists in the Westminster-led parties, that potential outcome is crippling them with anxiety because it puts their politicians in a predicament.

Based on fairness, honesty, and moral integrity, they can’t deny an SNP majority would be a legitimate mandate for IndyRef2. To do so would undermine the foundation of the very thing they cherish most – bally good old British democracy.

So, for the final week they will revert to the same despairing message: “Vote for us to end the........

© The Courier