OK, here are the rules of the dance. They're pretty straightforward.
Starting position : Britain's decision to leave the EU has made an early Scottish independence referendum very likely, with the most probable dates being 2018 or 2019. Almost no-one is seriously talking about the possibility of a referendum in 2017.
First move : You'd really like a poll showing that Nicola Sturgeon is under pressure to drop the idea of a referendum, so you get on the blower to BMG.
Second move : You start to worry that you might not get the result you're looking for by honest means, so instead of simply asking the public whether they want a referendum, you ask a ludicrously narrow question about whether they want a referendum in 2017 - which everyone knows is not a realistic possibility anyway.
Third move : You get your hollow 'anti-referendum majority', and run a story about how it's a blow for Nicola Sturgeon that the public don't want her to do something she was never planning to do anyway.
Fourth move : You try to retain your composure as a bemused Nicola Sturgeon points out that the poll result is an irrelevance because, as everyone knows, she never had any intention of calling a referendum in 2017.
Fifth move : You run a hysterical headline pretending that Nicola Sturgeon's statement of the bleedin' obvious is a climbdown caused by the result of your own poll and the extreme pressure it put on her.
Sixth move : You try very, very hard to maintain that innocent look on your face.
Seventh move : Congratulations! You've turned into the Daily Express.
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