Building a new Scotland should not require Westminster's permission

Part of that “need for change” script was used in Rutherglen and Hamilton West too. The Tories unsurprisingly went for a ­different take: “Governments always lose by-elections”. Some do, right enough, but not with such extraordinary regularity as the current Conservative crew. Or so ­spectacularly.

The public don’t always notice, but ­parties of all stripes strive to find “a line” they hope to sell in both triumph and ­disaster and dutifully pass it down through their elected ranks. It’s not just that party animals subsequently sound on the ­airwaves as if they’re reading from the same script, they really, really are!

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The Tories also took a leaf out of the SNP’s playbook and complained post-Tamworth and Mid Beds that their ­voters had merely stayed at home, and, said their chairperson, they needed to find new ways to energise them. Good luck with that, Greg Hands.

Yet, to be frank, the SNP also need to find a way to re-motivate their troops. Their conference, whilst successful, didn’t quite manage to paper over all the recent cracks.

(I don’t include in that recital of ­political accidents the defection of an SNP MP to the Conservatives. To make that ­particularly perverse journey, you’ve either been sailing under false colours or you decided to jump prior to being shoved overboard. Or both.) The SNP depute leader Keith Brown lauded the fact that they had the team, the membership, and now the strategy to move on from process and sell the real message of independence.

Well, up to a point, Mr B. It’s ­certainly important that a positive vision of ­independence is both fashioned and sold. The independence family would assuredly welcome some thoughtful flesh attached to indy bones.

They’ll welcome too the promise to get a serious campaign under way properly this very year. I’ve long argued that the dial won’t really move until and unless the SNP leadership launches a meaningful drive, and welcomes serious contributions to the debate from all Yes-supporting quarters.

There were some welcome signs of that in Aberdeen, but I hae rather mair doots than Keith Brown that it has landed on a workable, strategic path.

It’s not a new notion that ­winning a ­majority of seats offers up a ­democratic mandate. What is rather more ­problematic is going on to suggest that circumstance is a gateway to negotiations with a Westminster government.

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There are two problems with this ­assertion in my book. It’s not just ­Unionist-minded naysayers who note that it takes two parties to enter into ­negotiations. Plus, implicit in that ­strategy is the ­continuing idea that Westminster is ­entitled to operate a veto on whatever the Scottish people and their government ­decide.

Astute observers will have noted that ­almost the solitary Scottish reference in Sir Keir Starmer’s speech in ­Liverpool was to Labour’s by-election victory. No ­mention of Gordon Brown’s magnum opus on devo-max version 3.0.

That’s largely because Sir Keir’s only real interest in Scotland is getting enough tartan seats to ensure he gets his feet ­under the Downing Street cabinet table.

Of course, the Labour leader (below) did flag up the intention to base “Great” British ­Energy north of the Border, given our track record of indigenous innovation and all.

It was instructive to hear that ­gambit translated by the Labour ­victor in ­Rutherglen and Hamilton West as he ­outlined how he envisaged this ­masterplan actually operating.

Michael Shanks (below) assured us: “GB ­energy based in Scotland can supply the UK’s needs, oil and gas, clean water and a slimmed down Scottish Government which puts Britain first with no prospect of separation.”

In other words, let’s continue this happy situation where Scotland supplies all the UK’s energy needs while paying through the nose for generating it in the first place.

And, not at all by the way, let’s slim down Holyrood even further so that it’s not so much a parliament, just an always compliant, shilpit wee relative without any powers that matter.

Several cats leapt out of Shanks’s bag during these observations. One was that the dismantling of the Scottish ­Parliament was no Conservative accident but a very specific policy he’d be content to reprise.

A specific policy, as evidenced by ­ignoring the devolution settlement and the Sewel Convention by handing out beads to cash-strapped council natives.

Oh, and pretending the Internal Market Act was actually an attempt to roll out a level playing field rather than a means to hobble any administration getting ideas above its lowly station.

Not even to mention coming straight in with the tacketies any time the Scottish Parliament exercises what was supposed to be its right to pass its own legislation.

Not even to mention building two ­hugely expensive UK Government hubs in our two major cities, because after all you need somewhere to house the UK ­Cabinet when it tours to its northern ­fiefdom. Has anyone seen them in either building?

Me neither.

It’s because of all of this that it makes me more than a mite nervous when ­people talk about negotiating ­independence with Westminster. Firstly because neither a Conservative government nor a Labour one has the smallest interest in such an exercise. See above.

Either party is as likely to say: “On you go then, good people” as I am to win the Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles. It’s time for us to acknowledge that ba’ is well and truly burst. Asking nicely got us ­precisely nowhere. Ditto bending the knee to ­ London politicians.

We can already see from the ­contributions of the increasingly risible George Foulkes and other house Jocks that there is vanishingly little point in continuing to play the Westminster game at any level.

Least of all the House of unelected peers which Labour first promised to abolish early in the last century. This time to be replaced by an elected body of the “nations and regions”. Haud me back.

THE outlines of the upcoming UK General Election campaigns are already quite visible. Scottish Labour will tell us that only they can turf out the Tories. It is a potentially seductive pitch, given how cordially that latter party is loathed in most of our country.

But here’s the thing. This is OUR ­country. We are not some kind of ­electoral makeweight put on this earth to make sure that England gets the right result.

We do not need local mayors (mayors!) to take decisions which should, in any case, be down to the local community, not some party apparatchik-appointed overseer.

We are not some pesky region to be fobbed off with whatever new ­variation on devolved government may or more probably may not ensue, if Labour ­decide to give Gordon a few sweeties to keep him happy.

We have heard all these auld sangs too many times before. As we are constantly being reminded, the crashed UK economy will leave a Labour chancellor with very little room to manoeuvre. That’s why so many promises have already been binned.

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That’s why Labour have already signed up to Tory spending “plans” and serially ditched the protections usually offered to what were once traditional Labour voters.

The idea that Scotland or Scottish ­policies will be made any kind of ­priority in this scenario is strictly for our ­feathered friends. In any event, haven’t we had enough of London calling the shots for us?

Are we so cowed by all these decades of Westminster rule that we lack the capacity, the smeddum, the ambition and the courage to build and renew our nation?

Let’s give Scotland’s future back to Scotland’s people.