Please note: LOCAL. Pissed off with Tony Blair? Think David Cameron’s a nob? Don’t like the way the Lib Dems got rid of Charles Kennedy? Against the Iraq war? Fine. Don’t take it out on your local councillors – unless they deserve it.

For non-Brits, you may have missed the whole “the United Kingdom could come to an end” scare story that’s been one of the major space-fillers for journos in the run-up to this election – because it looks like the Scottish National Party may become the largest in the Scottish Parliament, which could lead to an end of the Union, a little bit over 300 years after Scotland and England became (legally) as one.

A scare story is all it is. There’s no way the SNP will be able to get a Scottish “independence” referendum bill through the parliament, and it’s highly doubtful the Scottish people would be silly enough to vote for it even if they did – not even all supporters of the SNP are after full “independence”, after all.

Still, it makes for nice “what if?” type articles – some based on a Mel Gibson-style view of the land of Sir Walter Scott, others a little more objective, some comparing it to local issues, yet others blatantly party political, and others making the case for maintaining the Union – something increasing numbers of English people are, apparently, not overly keen on what with the perceived over-representation of Scottish MPs in Westminster, tales of £10 billion per year subsidies for the land north of the border, etc. etc.

Personally, I’d be quite happy with a UK-wide referendum on independence – not Scottish, though: for Northern Ireland. A bloody chain around our ankle for far too long, that one – and anywhere about to be run via a power-share between a raving psycho and a known terrorist sounds to me like the sort of place it’s best to have very little to do with. Scotland, on the other hand, is great – it may be my Scottish ancestry (my great-gandmother being a Colquhoun, and great-grandfather a Kirkpatrick), but haggis and good single malt remain two of my favourite things. It’d be a shame if they went independent, but meh. The joy of the EU is that it’d probably mean that I’d be able to get whisky cheaper here in the south…

Update: From the comments, this strikes me as the best election day ever. I am quite insanely envious.