Nicola Sturgeon is taking Scottish nationalists for a ride

There’s an episode of Father Ted in which the simple but endearing Father Dougal gets stuck on a milk float booby-trapped with a bomb. The finest clerical minds in Craggy Island convene to devise a solution and as they discount each increasingly far-fetched fix, the well-meaning Father Beeching pipes up: ‘Is there anything to be said for another Mass?’.

Nicola Sturgeon evidently studied at the Beeching Seminary for Crisis Management. Every time there’s an SNP conference looming, her advisors agonise over how to string along the Yes faithful a little longer, until the boss sighs: ‘Is there anything to be said for another Indyref 2 statement?’

The Scots Nats gather in Edinburgh tomorrow for their Spring conference and, what do you know, Sturgeon has delivered a statement on Indyref 2. She has not, as has been reported, announced another independence referendum for 2021. Instead she strung along her followers once more with a heavily-caveated pledge to call for a fresh vote sometime in the next two years, subject to certain circumstances.