SO the era of unbroken No majority polls that Ruth Davidson was so excited about, which stretches all the way back to ... well, less than a month ago, has been brought to an end.

In truth, public opinion has been hovering at around 50-50 in every poll since late February, and the new Opinium survey is no exception. Due to the margin of error, a reported 51% Yes vote could mean that Yes are in the lead, or that No are in the lead, or that there’s an exactly even split.

However, that fact simply underscores the absurdity of Unionist jubilation about earlier polls in which there were literally just two or three more respondents in the No column than in the Yes column.

But even if we can’t be sure that Yes is back in the lead to stay, what we can now say with confidence is that the swing to No has stalled. It looks like the drop in support for independence ceased a few weeks ago, and that public opinion has been relatively stable since then.

READ MORE: Yes regains the lead in latest poll on Scottish independence

If anything, 51% for Yes in the latest poll raises the hope there may have been a modest bounce back – but the evidence for that isn’t strong as of yet.

The other main story from the poll needs to be treated with caution. The seats projection suggests that the SNP are on course to fall one seat short of an overall majority – but that does not necessarily mean that their support has fallen, because there are no Opinium baseline numbers to measure the trend from.

There would still be a comfortable pro-independence majority once SNP and Green seats are combined.

However, we are now firmly in territory where the pro-independence majority could be at risk if there’s a relatively modest swing to Unionist parties over the course of the campaign, so there’s no room at all for complacency.