You Wouldn't Have the Clout of the Westminster Banana Monarchy

If nothing else, Daveybloke's little Syria crisis has provided the Better Together campaign with a new and delightful comedy turn, which was delivered in Glasgow by Gordon Brown's little Darling. The New New Labour ex-chancellor, still struggling to gain a retrospective veneer of competence even after three years of George Osborne, gave vent to oracular warnings about an independent Scotland's position in the world. Boiled down, they amounted to little more than a proclamation that, the next time a Syria happens, it will all be the fiend Salmond's fault. An independent Scotland would not have a seat on the United Nations security council, and therefore would not be able either to assist the United States in trampling international law or to fume impotently while the evil Russians, the perfidious French and the Heathen Chinee exercised their purely technical veto.

Nevertheless, Darling also noted that "Scotland has very many talented people", so that it should hardly be beyond their competence to produce a dodgy dossier when required. Darling called the Scottish government's formal prospectus a "remarkable work of fiction", although it will not be published for another fortnight: an amusing echo of the Reverend Blair's attitude to mere evidence.

Despite all that, Darling was very nearly upstaged by the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, who had the nerve to invoke the National Health Service. An independent Scotland might just possibly allow its citizens to be treated, but "if there's not a specialist unit in Scotland, you can go to a unit in Newcastle or elsewhere," and provided the Union remains intact "there is nothing that gets in the way of that", except Serco, the whims of the market and her colleagues in Westminster.