Dancing to a Scottish Jig? Aye, Right.

Och, David, dinna fash yersel’. The chances of Alex Salmond playing a tune for anyone to dance to next year are a good deal slimmer than the First Minister himself. His speech was, like Gordon Brown’s in Brighton, a parochial affair, designed to appeal to the lumpen party memebership, not convince anyone who ain’t already a true believer.

It was, then, absurd. But no more absurd than is the rule at this kind of gathering. Then again, it was, in one sense, a Unionist speech, albeit one cloaked in nationalist rhetoric. Public spending in Scotland has essentially doubled in Scotland since devolution (without, it must be said, doing very much in terms of advancing the health or education of the Scottish people. This is an inconvenient truth best parked and abandoned) and, even allowing for generous nat-friendly fiscal calculations the current level of expenditure would, one feels, be unsustainable in a post-Union, independent future.