In yesterday’s Independence Referendum, Scotland voted decisively to remain Better Together.
Or to put it another way, following Cameron, Milliband and Clegg's last-minute avowed 'clarification', all 3,619,915 Scots voted for changes of some sort. Some of these will affect 44,294,793 registered voters in the rest of the UK who didn’t take part in the Referendum (based on Office for National Statistics figures, December 2012).
In the Edinburgh North and Leith constituency at the 2010 General Election, some 47,356 people voted. Using that figure simply to gain some sense of scale, imagine how influential we locals have just been.
We have brought about changes which will affect, proportionately, 580,000 people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who didn't have the chance to vote either for or against them. That is a number greater than the combined total of all those who actually did vote yesterday in Glasgow and Dundee.
Democracy is a wonderful thing, as are the backs of fag packets and 20-20 hindsight. But Spurtle is reminded of a moment during the first of the local Referendum debates back in the spring (Breaking news, 15.5.14) when a member of the public wondered: 'Why is it ethical to be able to "punch above our weight"?'
We suspect this is a question many elsewhere in the UK will be asking of Scotland in the months to come.
Do our maths and reasoning stack up? Tell us what you think via spurtle@hotmail.co.uk @theSpurtle Broughton Spurtle