Double trouble | 16 March 2017

Theresa May is a cautious politician. She has risen to the top by avoiding unnecessary risks; no one survives 18 years on the Tory front bench by being a gambler. But few prime ministers have the luxury of choosing their battles, and she would not have chosen the two that may now define her premiership: successfully negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union while saving the United Kingdom. If she achieves both, she will join the pantheon of great prime ministers. If she fails, she’ll be keeping Lord North company in the history books.

Unlike David Cameron, May has been preparing for a new Scottish referendum from the moment she entered Downing Street. Sturgeon made it clear on the day after the EU referendum that she regarded another independence vote as highly likely — her party’s membership has trebled since 2014. It is no coincidence that May’s first words on the steps of No. 10 were about the Union’s personal importance to her. She made sure that she travelled to Scotland straight after becoming Prime Minister, ensuring that the Nationalists could not easily paint her as a Little Englander. But she now finds herself in a political duel with Sturgeon that only one of them can survive.

James Forsyth and Alex Massie consider Theresa May’s options:

So we have two cautious women both pushed into taking career-defining risks because of the gambles of their male predecessors: May because of David Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum on EU membership; Sturgeon because Alex Salmond encouraged the SNP membership to believe that a referendum on independence would be won next time.

Sun Tzu would approve of Downing Street’s approach to Sturgeon’s demands for a second independence referendum: No. 10 aims to win without fighting. When I asked one of those intimately involved in Tory preparations for ‘Indyref 2.0’