Until last week, almost nobody outside Scotland took very seriously the possibility that Europe's most stable and durable nation, the only big country on earth not to have suffered invasion, revolution or civil war at any time in the past 300 years, might soon be wiped off the map.
It now seems quite conceivable that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will cease to exist after the referendum on Scottish independence to be held Sept. 18.
The prospects for Scotland and Britain changed abruptly on Sept. 2, when YouGov, one of Britain's most authoritative polling organizations, published a survey showing the unionist lead narrowing to just 53-47, compared with typical margins of 10 to 20 percentage points in previous polls.