The Herald, at its worst, distorting the truth to make the place it lives in seem somehow inadequate.

First, contrary to the headline this was not a poll of ‘Scots’ but an online panel-based survey by Scotpulse, an STV market research subsidiary on behalf of a trade union, the Royal College of Nursing.

Scotpulse gives prizes to respondents but neither they, the RCN nor even the STV reporters seem able to tell us what we need to know if we are to take any of their percentage results seriously.

Reporting percentages only is a sign that the sample size is too small to be significant.

Not telling us about the sample is a sign that it was not structured but based on accepting just anybody who wanted to respond, thus skewed and not reliable or representative of the wider population of ‘Scots.’

Not telling us what questions were asked or how they were asked is a sign that they may well have been ‘leading’ the respondent toward the responses the client, the RCN, wanted.

Finally, not reporting the actual background data on staffing is a sign they do not want you to know anything their client doesn’t want you to know, like this from April 2019:

‘Scotland has 50% more nurses!’