Survation datasets confirm a genuine 50-50 result on the independence question, SNP remain on course for overall majority, and pro-indy parties are projected to win 60% of the seats in Holyrood

Some more details have been released from the supposedly "bombshell" Survation poll, and the first thing to say is that this is a genuine 50-50 poll.  Not only is the headline result 50-50, but on the raw numbers it's as close as it can be - after weighting, 380 respondents said they would vote Yes and 382 said they would vote No, which works out as Yes 49.9%, No 50.1%.  Some people are placing huge significance on the fact that, if Don't Knows are left in, the percentages appear to show No ahead by 1%, but a) that's just a random quirk of the rounding, and b) those aren't the headline results anyway (although for some strange reason they're the ones used on Wikipedia's list of polls).  This is a dead heat, and it shouldn't be treated any other way.  The somewhat less good news, though, is that the fieldwork was conducted on both Thursday and Friday, which means the impact of Friday's explosive events will not have been fully factored in.

There are also Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers, which remain exceptionally good for the SNP - 

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot voting intentions:

SNP 50% (-1) 

Conservatives 21% (+2) 

Labour 20% (+1) 

Liberal Democrats 7% (-2) 

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot voting intentions:

SNP 38% (-2) 

Conservatives 21% (+4) 

Labour 20% (-1)

Greens 11% (- )

Liberal Democrats 8% (-) 

Seats projection (with changes from 2016 election): SNP 67 (+4), Labour 24 (-), Conservatives 21 (-10), Greens 11 (+5), Liberal Democrats 6 (+1)

SNP: 67 seats (51.9%)

All others: 62 seats (48.1%)

SNP OVERALL MAJORITY OF 5 SEATS

Pro-independence parties: 78 seats (60.5%)

Anti-independence parties: 51 seats (39.5%)

PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY OF 27 SEATS

It's curious that Labour are still projected to be in second place in terms of seats, even though they've slipped back into third place in the popular vote on both ballots.  That would obviously be a huge symbolic and psychological blow to Douglas Ross, who wouldn't be able to pose as 'leader of the opposition' or get the first shot every week at First Minister's Questions - but whether the voting system really would give Labour a little bonus in that way is hard to know.  As ever, I think it's likely that Survation are slightly underestimating the SNP on the list vote and slightly overestimating the Greens, simply because of the way the question was asked.

Talking of questions, looking through the list of supplementary questions in the tables, it's not hard to see what agenda the Record/Mail were pushing and what results they were hoping to be able to report.  For example, respondents were asked to choose between "the SNP have been in government for too long" and "the SNP have not been in government for too long".  If you think about it, unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool SNP partisan, it's quite difficult to give the "not" answer to that question, because you feel you're being tugged towards a 'correct' response.  I was also intrigued to hear that the Express were apparently able to report the poll on their front page, which suggests that the Record/Mail were less interested in having their own exclusive than they were in circulating the results as widely as possible to cause the maximum discomfort for the SNP and the independence movement.  Does this mean the Record have been 'enlisted' once again?