FOR a long time, many media people used to invoke the famous Aberdeen Press and Journal headline on the day after the Titanic disaster to ridicule the parochialism of the Scottish press. “North-east man lost at sea”, it said. Except it didn’t. It turned out to be a myth. False history, you could call it, because the paper ran no such story until a few days later.

Last Thursday, however, I was reminded of the headline. Throughout the day, the most popular story on the Herald website was not about the horrific events in London, but a report about outraged politicians condemning a Scottish Government minister for calling into the question the suspension of the debate in Holyrood.

Call me cynical if you like, but some Scottish Tory MPs seemed to be more interested in scoring cheap political points than expressing sympathy for the victims. That, and the popularity of the Herald story, underlined just how feverish the political atmosphere in Scotland has become.

For those who oppose independence that’s a reason to delay the next independence referendum. It would be divisive, says Theresa May. And Ruth Davidson. And Kezia Dugdale. And Willie Rennie.

Yes, well, in the sense that people hold strong opinions on either side, it’s divisive. But then all politics is divisive. That’s why we have rival political parties. That’s why, from time immemorial, politicians have roared, screamed, heckled and insulted each across the benches of the House of Commons.

Politics only becomes divisive in the eyes of politicians when ordinary people start to become as involved in the debates as they do. It’s OK for MPs or MSPs to decry, criticise, censure and condemn their rivals – sometimes over the most trivial lapses, as the Scottish Tories demonstrated in Holyrood last Thursday. But woe betide any voters that become as excitable as the politicians.

In any case, it’s illogical to argue that a referendum will be damaging and divisive – so should be delayed by a further couple of years. Do Ruth, Kezia and Willie really imagine that they can turn people’s passions on and off like a light switch?

For the past five years, Scotland has been highly politicised, and that won’t be subdued by delaying the next referendum. Many politicians on the pro-union side have found that difficult to deal with.

They’d rather ordinary people channelled their fervour into football or rugby, and leave the political elite to attend to the serious matters. They’d like nothing better than a modern version of the Roman Empire, in which “two things only do the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.”

I see it differently. People of all ages and backgrounds have started to think seriously about the future, and have become educated in complex matters that were previously of interest to political anoraks such as me. Some may see that as divisive – I see that as a healthy flowering of democracy.

AND that in turn is a great insurance policy for the future. Demagogues throughout history have exploited political ignorance to elevate themselves to power. Donald Trump rose from reality TV to the White House, not because large numbers of small-town Americans were engrossed by politics but because they were estranged from it. On a smaller scale, the success of Nigel Farage in parts of England was rooted in apathy and despair.

After last week’s disruption, the Scottish Parliament will hold the delayed vote on a second referendum tomorrow.

Ruth Davidson will tell Nicola Sturgeon to stick to the day job – even though Theresa May has spent almost every waking minute since becoming Prime Minister dealing with the consequences of the Tory Brexit referendum.

Then she will furiously insist that the people of Scotland don’t want another referendum – even though in the most recent poll, conducted by YouGov between 9-14 March, 52 per cent of people in Scotland said that Theresa May should agree to a second referendum, and 48 per cent said she should refuse.

A second referendum is unstoppable. All that’s at stake now is the timing. The Tories want to prolong the process because they imagine that if they can delay the vote till beyond 2021, they might just manage to scrape a Unionist majority in the next Holyrood elections.

But they really need to study their own history. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher took 47 per in England and 31 per cent in Scotland. By the 1987 general election her support in England still remained firm at just over 46 per cent. But in Scotland it had slumped to 24 per cent – and it has never recovered since.

Delaying a referendum won’t hold back the flood gates, but will heighten resentment in Scotland, and, as it happens, deepen divisions.

Ruth Davison – sadly supported by Kezia Dugdale and Willie Rennie – would like to freeze history and pretend the last three years have never happened. In 2014, many people believed the referendum would, one way the other, settle Scotland’s future for many years, if not decades to come.

But that all changed, even before Brexit. No-one in the early hours of September 19 2014 could have imagined – in their wildest fantasies or their worst nightmares – that within six months the SNP would win 56 of 59 Scottish seats at Westminster and wipe out Labour in its heartlands.

Let’s consider what would have happened (and this I warn will require a creative imagination that would put JK Rowling to shame) the situation had been reversed, and Scotland had voted Yes – but the Tories had then won 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the 2015 general election. Would Ruth Davidson be calling for a fresh referendum to reverse the previous result? You bet your life she would.

So, let’s get real and stop pretending that since September 2014, we’ve all been living happily ever after. We need to move on in one direction or another, as soon as possible.

Even the most ardent nationalists understand that a second No vote would keep us within the UK for a long time to come. If we can’t win independence in this time frame, then we will just have to accept second best, make what we can of it and leave the struggle for Scottish independence to a future generation. I’m confident however that things have changed so decisively that a fresh vote in 2018 or 2019 will deliver a clear Yes vote. And I’m pretty sure that Davidson, Dugdale and Rennie agree with that prognosis – otherwise they’d be reviving the old slogan of Wendy Alexander: “Bring it on!”