‘OBSERVE due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”

It was Hesiod, the Greek didactic poet, who was probably one of the first to articulate what Alex Salmond hinted at yesterday: timing is everything.

There will be a second independence referendum... we remain pretty convinced of that. Indeed, if we had any doubts, we’d as well pack up our desktops, try for a refund on our Photoshop licence and retire to a shack in the Highlands to write dark poems about austerity.

Independence, as you well know dear reader, is sort of our thing.

So while we were pleased to hear our former first minister spook the Unionist parties by telling Andrew Marr that another ballot was “inevitable”, we find ourselves instead concerned with a question just as important as whether there will be a second poll: can we win it?

Despite all that we have been through in the past 10 months – the Tory majority, austerity, the impotence of Labour, an imminent EU referendum – we have yet to see a consistent series of polls putting Yes in the lead.

These results will come, we are sure. Independence is championed, as it was in September, by a big majority of those under 55.

Now, after the SNP’s 56 have started so impressively at Westminster, another majority at Holyrood looks even more likely.

But Nicola Sturgeon will not be so shortsighted as to call for another vote unless she is certain of a different outcome. The earth is shifting slowly underneath our feet ... but has it moved far enough to try again in the next Holyrood term?

We suspect the “material change in circumstances” oft-referenced by Sturgeon and the SNP is likely this: a surer chance at victory.

Salmond is right. A second referendum is inevitable.

We can wait, if waiting means we win.

Jeremy Corbyn offers best hope for Labour and the electorate

HE has been compared to the late Tony Benn and is seen by many in Labour as the “bogeyman of the Left”.

Yet Jeremy Corbyn is the unexpected front-runner in Labour’s leadership battle, and gave a confident, relaxed and assured performance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme yesterday, though the contest itself could best be described as farcical.

Corbyn repeated his desire to bring the railways and utilities back into public ownership, saying that we, as taxpayers, have spent billions on the infrastructure for these monopolies, so why should private companies run them and reap the benefits?

He also said Labour had become “too close to big business” and had lost the General Election because it was “incapable of offering Labour voters and the majority of the electorate a real alternative”.

These sentiments are not unreasonable, and we say that not because we want him to fail, but the opposite. We believe having him as leader could re-establish Labour’s left of centre position and provide an ally for the SNP at Westminster.

We suspect there is more than a grain of truth in the tweet from SNP MP John Nicolson, which reflected on the Labour Establishment suggestion that Corbyn was winning because of “Tory infiltration”.

“Might it not be because he actually believes in something?” he asked.

We suggest the answer is: “Yes.”

Alex Salmond: A second referendum is inevitable ... it's just a matter of timing





David Mundell: ‘I won't make contingency plans for second referendum’



Letters to The National, July 27: Are we seeing the end of the Labour Party?

The National View: Jeremy Corbyn offers best hope for Labour and the electorate





Calls to postpone Labour leadership race after outsider Corbyn becomes favourite

Ken Macintosh defends his Scottish Labour leadership campaign