In the same spirit I thought I’d do our visitors a favour and warn of a far greater danger … Unionists who don’t want debate, or referenda or democracy. They sneak up on you in many different guises, so here’s my guide to the various types of rabid Unionists. Tongue-in-cheek of course.

The Dinosaurs

THEY love the Queen and Westminster so much that the thought of bending the knee to them brings them out in a cold sweat. They were delighted the Queen joined the debate on the “right” side in 2014 and see them as valuable allies in the current push for a second referendum. After all, the Royal Family are born to rule and no member can do any wrong. Well, maybe Harry isn’t perfect. He married an American and caused an awful stink with all that racism stuff. So maybe Harry is capable of the odd mistake. But every other Royal is blemish free. Prince Andrew was framed. He’ll be exonerated, no sweat.

The dinosaurs don’t hold with all that devolution nonsense and think Holyrood is little better than a parish council. They long for the days we had to salute every time a Conservative walked past.

There is literally no argument that would ever persuade them to give independence a minute’s worth of serious consideration so don’t waste your breathe telling them of all the independent countries represented at COP26 who flourish despite having only a fraction of the natural resources Scotland enjoys.

The Gammons

A LIFELONG political fury was forged after the working-class kid sitting at the next desk got more Highers. Jeez … he couldn’t even speak properly.

The Gammons – think Andrew Neil and Neil Oliver – share one thing: an all-consuming hatred of their own country.

Neil left Scotland as soon as he was able and has spent the years since lecturing us all on our addiction to subsidies from Westminster. Weird that we should ignore the economic advice from someone with the business acumen to become chairman of GB News.

He firmly believes that he knows a lot more about Scotland than those of us who actually live here but that’s because we’re deliberately kept in the dark by our politicians.

In January he told us Scotland was awash with “multiple threats pouring out from legal authorities. I think it’s time to fight back. Watch this space”. We watched. Nothing happened.

Neil Oliver has made a good living by presenting TV programmes on Scotland’s history so it’s hardly surprising that he said in 2014 that he was a great supporter of the status quo. Oliver is all about warnings of the “dangers” of independence, the “failures of the Scottish Government”, Scotland as a “failed state” and, more recently, protesting at restrictions imposed because of the pandemic.

He recently said he would gladly catch Covid if it meant retaining his “freedom”.

The Confused anti-Nat Nats

THIS lot hate everything nationalism stands for just so long as we’re talking about Scottish nationalism. For some reasons British nationalism is the cat’s pyjamas whenever Brexit is discussed or whenever the UK government steals powers from Holyrood, which is often.

The worst offender here is Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary – a post the Westminster government insisted on keeping although devolution made it redundant as a job creation scheme for pet Tories. Jack hates nationalism so much that he denies Scotland is even a nation. Isn’t there a Scottish border? In his eyes that’s “little more than a sign”.

But he doesn’t hate ALL nationalism. He thinks the Union gives us “one great nation” to replace its four constituent parts.

The prominent historian Professor Sir Tom Devine dismissed Jack’s border comment as “nonsensical historically”. But what does he know? He’s only Scotland’s most distinguished historian since Thomas Carlyle, according to the Financial Times.

The Question Time ‘stars’

IF you are an international delegate at COP26 you probably won’t have experienced the delights of BBC’s Question Time so let me explain. A panel of “experts” and the occasional author or rock star answer questions from audience members picked to either reflect a broad range of views or to reflect the political makeup of the area the travelling debate show alights upon.

You probably think the whole point of having a travelling show is that each audience comes from the areas a show is filmed and that each one is different. We used to think that too. Then Unionists started to realise that show’s five-strong panel occasionally includes an independence supporter. They decided they could not stand aside and allow such blatant pro-indy bias.

Soon after that it became apparent that some anti-independence audience members began popping up regularly no matter where the show was filmed.

Ukip candidate Billy Mitchell managed to be in the audience four times between 2013 and 2019. He said he’d been personally invited on and the BBC confessed producers did occasionally go looking for conservative views to give “balance”. But it denied inviting Mitchell to join the audience. He’s far from the only repeat audience member.

The Labour revenge squad

THE Labour Party used to dominate Scottish politics. They sent more MPs to Westminster than any other party. Then they lost their grip. So what happened?

Well they did stand together with the Tories in the Better Together team opposing independence because, you know, denying Scotland a say in its own future was so much more important than redistributing wealth, helping the poor, protecting trade union rights and making sure we stayed in Europe.

Anyway, in the 2015 general election the Labour Party returned just one single MP in Scotland. The SNP won 56 seats. Since then the Labour party has had two aims: standing against Scotland becoming independent and returning to power north of the Border.

Unfortunately for them the first aim effectively rules them out of ever achieving the second. Lots of people have told them this, including former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish, former union ally Len McCluskey and Labour’s First Minister in Wales. But the Labour leaders in London and Scotland know better.

The not right now brigade

OH NO, they don’t oppose independence in principle. Nor do they want to ban a second referendum forever. It’s not as if they don’t understand democracy, they say. It’s just that they don’t think it’s the right time to have a referendum. There’s still a pandemic to deal with after all.

The funny thing is that before Covid-19 struck wasn’t the right time either. There was the looming prospect of Brexit. Wasn’t that enough chaos to deal with?

It quite took them quite by surprise, that collapse in exports and those lorry driver shortages. It hadn’t been the right time just after the EU referendum either but then, it had hardly been a blink of an eye since the first referendum and hadn’t that been – altogether now – a once in a lifetime event.

The pandemic is still with us, they argue … although weirdly none of the pro-Union leaders are seen wearing a face mask at those posh events they like to go to. Masks are just for serving staff. But the virus is still a threat so we can’t have a referendum now.

Of course the great global elite can socialise together at Kelvingrove taking nary a protection but you can’t really compare that with a referendum can you? And talking of COP26, the great climate change threat will still be with us when Covid is but a nasty memory so we can’t have a referendum then either.

Isn’t holding a referendum as the world continues to heat up the modern-day equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burns? So no, we can’t really hold indyref2 until we save the planet by cutting emissions though taking those steps politicians have not yet agreed on and never will.

And even if the world survives, well then we’d really have to have 60% support for a referendum for maybe a year, maybe longer. But they’re not against holding indyref some time. Just not right now.