ONCE upon a time there was a vow. It was not just any common or garden vow, oh no, it was superdooper, cast in iron, and guaranteed by the word of Gord. It was a wowsie vowsie, a holy and sacred thing. A couple of days before the referendum Jackie Bird told us, not once but repeatedly, on BBC Reporting LabourScotland that we were being vowed Devo Max. Was it not, Jackie asked, devo max times 10? Was it not devo max with sugary sprinkles?

The Lord Gord, who she was interviewing at the time, looked down from his cloud and noddedly sagely. It was going to be the closest thing to full-on federalism possible, like page three but with the nipples discreetly hidden in a sexy and coquettish pose. And to be fair, that sort of thing is very difficult for Gordie to pull off, although he does have the pout off pat.

Well I say that Jackie was interviewing the Gordie, but it was an interview in the sense that a fanzine writer interviews the object of his or her late-night fantasies just before scribbling a story that gets published on a specialist website whose readers usually don Spock ears before accessing it.

And because fantasy was infectious, Davie Cameron even indulged Gordie in the fantasy that he was still prime minister and actually had some power to do the things he promised. Flush as he was with the mighty power of self-delusion, Jackie cooed and oohed as Gordie vowed to give Scotland the earth, the moon, the asteroids and everything in the solar system except the gas giants. And they were only omitted because they already have seats in the House of Lords.

Getting into his stride, because there’s nothing a galactic ego loves more than unquestioning reverence – except possibly the black hole at their centre – Gordie swore blind that he’d personally torture the leaders of the three main parties by forcing them to watch re-runs of indoor bowling from Coatbridge presented by Dougie Donnelly until they complied and delivered home rule.

Scotland was going to get absolutely everything except its paws on the TV remote control, so Jackie’s BBC bosses’ jobs were safe. And just so there could be no doubt, there was going to be a very special edition of a tabloid newspaper, with faux parchment writing and everything. Jackie nearly fainted. Oh Gord.

Voters in Scotland can remember all this clearly, because the great majority of us were not sniffing glue at the time, and were fully aware that the hallucinations were not ours.

And so it came to pass. There was a No vote, and the vowsie began to leak air more rapidly than a balloon that’s been burst by a pin and is hurtling across the room as quickly as a Labour MP in search of an invoice which can be claimed on expenses. Never has a reputation plummeted so far and so fast since Rolf Harris was arrested.

FIRST came the Smith Commission, which proceeded to fillet the vowsie with every phone call from Labour, Tory and Lib Dem HQs in London. The vowsie was bayonetted by the MoD, sanctioned by the Department of Work and Pensions, and sworn at by uncivil servants. Oh no, they chorused, that vowsie will never do. You can’t put the interests of Scotland above the interests of a Whitehall mandarin, it’s just not British. So the Unionist parties turned the Smith Commission negotiations into a game of devolution Jenga, each one trying to remove as much as possible without toppling the entire edifice, hollowing it out and neutering it in the grand British tradition of screwing the voters behind their backs. It’s what we voted No for.

And then, finally, the report was published. Scotland reacted with the same resigned apathy it displayed during the latest Royal Wedding, although with relief that this this time we didn’t have Nicholas bloody Witchell on the telly 24 bleedin’ hours a day telling us to rejoice.

Scotland was to get some unusable tax powers, a tangerine in its stocking at Christmas, control of road signs, and Westminster would make a pinkie promise that it wouldn’t ever abolish Holyrood. The reality of course being that if it ever tried, Scotland would become independent quicker than you could say: “You know where you can stick your sovereignty of the crown in parliament, pal.”

The Smith report disappeared into the maws of Westminster, which then managed to prove that it is in fact possible to gut something that had already been flayed, defleshed, and boiled until nothing was left but bone. Westminster, the MPs and Lords opined, couldn’t possibly give a guarantee that Holyrood could never be abolished, what with the absolute sovereignty of the Westminster parliament and everything. And wasn’t it terribly unfair that Scotland was to get a tangerine when England, Wales and especially Northern Ireland had their own citrus-based demands as well.

Scotland can’t possibly get control of road signs, because the format of road signs on the A9 near Inverness must be discussed in detail in a planning meeting in Leighton Buzzard public library. People in Clacton and Croydon have deeply held views about the spelling of the Gaelic language version of “Give Way”. Scotland must give way to the control freaks of Westminster, again.

The public must be consulted, said the MPs and Lords, who have previously shown little inclination to consult the public on anything. And Westminster must debate and cogitate on whether these proposals should be introduced at all. Meanwhile Gordie the guarantor was nowhere to be seen, vanishing from public view along with Alistair Darling as their party’s influence on Scottish public life evaporated like a Labour Party listening exercise.

All over Scotland there is a growing rumbling of muttered voices as Yes voters say to No voters: “Told you so,” and No voters reply: “Oh shut up, don’t rub it in.” And a determination grows that if Westminster politicians won’t deliver on their promises, then Scotland will replace them with politicians who will actually represent what the country wants. The only thing Gordie has guaranteed is his party’s destruction.