"It appears that the electorate in Scotland is far more progressive than in England"

I would be very interested in hearing what your basis for that is Joe, as the political "map" of an independent Scotland is as predictable as the current political "map" for California, and I would venture for precisely the same reason - centres of population.

If out of the six proposed there are only two that would be "Democrat" and therefore four that would be "Republican", yet California as currently configured normally votes and returns a Democrat (2012 Election of the 18,245,970 registered voters in California 43.7% were Democrat; 29.4% Republican; 6% Other parties & 20.9% unaffiliated) then the Democrats must live in two fairly substantial solid clumps.

70% of the Scottish Electorate are concentrated in the Dundee-Edinburgh-Glasgow Belt and are solidly socialist -and post-YES vote Referendum that will dictate and colour the politics of Scotland.