In our latest Panelbase poll, we asked the same independence question we asked in the last one, and got much the same answer. (Technically the indy vote went up by about a sixth of one percent, but that’s statistically meaningless.)

That’s a bit disappointing after the events of recent weeks, but also not very surprising – after all, the way the question is framed pretty much guarantees at least 38% of the population will choose the second option straight off the bat.

Much more interesting is the question we asked next.

Because we wondered whether Scotland was the ONLY nation that Scottish people thought was incapable of handling its own affairs, so we ran a few other possibilities past our sample. We chose a wide range, spanning all the inhabited continents and a variety of economic and political conditions to ensure we’d covered all bases.

But the results were remarkably uniform.

Because as it turns out, there are NO countries anywhere else on the planet that even a double-digit percentage of Scots think would fare better if they were run by their larger neighbour.

(Hilariously, the biggest number – still only 9% – opted for Ireland being run by the UK, presumably because the UK is in such absolutely fantastic shape at the moment, and definitely not making a spectacular pig’s breakfast of pretty much everything but particularly its relationship with Ireland.)

Remarkably, there was almost no difference of opinion on the subject between Yes and No voters. In nearly every case their views were more or less identical, with the only disparities being that three times as many No voters (though still only 6%) thought Pakistan should be run by India, and four times as many Yes voters (but still only 4%) thought that Canada would be better off ruled by the USA.

80% of Yes voters and 78% of No voters said “None of the above”. Which means that four-fifths of people who think Scotland should have its governments chosen by the people of England think Scotland is unique on the face of the Earth as a nation that can’t and/or shouldn’t run itself.

That’s despite Scotland being one of the most resource-blessed nations anywhere on the globe, having enjoyed centuries of peace and stability, having no real enemies and having a devolved government popular and competent enough to still be 14 points ahead in the polls after 11 years in power.

Back in 2014, when Johann Lamont said in a TV interview that “We’re not genetically programmed in Scotland to make political decisions”, this site – unlike a lot of Yes types – didn’t make a big deal out of it, because it was obviously just clumsily-phrased, like most things the hapless Labour leader said. She didn’t mean that Scots were genetically INFERIOR in that regard, she was just ineptly trying to say that they weren’t specially genetically SUPERIOR.

But it’s increasingly clear that around half of the people of Scotland really DO believe that they and their countryfolk are idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to be in charge of themselves, and that no other nation in the world is as useless as us.

It’s quite the testament to 300 years of British rule, one way and another.