These Islands

Robin McAlpine asks why the SNP doesn’t try to win over the people of Scotland. There is no mystery to this: on all the key questions about what it really means (for currency, pensions, public spending etc…) telling voters the truth about independence turns them off the idea.

“Everybody in this movement wants to get handed the trophy on a nil-nil draw.” Robin McAlpine says the unsayable, which also happens to be undeniable.

This whole evidence session was deeply disappointing. Not because of the witnesses, but because of the MSPs. There are loads of interesting angles to explore on the ScotWind auction. But most of them didn’t even get a mention because the MSPs were fixated on the wrong questions.

Reminder: Neil Gray is a serial offender when it comes to keeping information from parliament.

Good question from @LiamKerrMSP. Stephen Gethins seems unwilling to accept that building infrastructure in Scotland could ever be in conflict with lowering energy bills. With this kind of dimwitted understanding of energy, we should be very grateful that his powers are limited.

The Chief Executive of Crown Estate Scotland explains why ScotWind lease options were not “sold off on the cheap”. His last point, about the complete absence of a secondary market in the lease options, is something people should think about very carefully.

The letters page of @ScotNational continues to be in despair on currency. This problem is intractable because the only possible solution - a new currency which sharply devalues - is immensely painful and electorally toxic.

If readers of @ScotNational cannot stomach your currency plan, what chance has it got with ordinary voters?

This was a cross-party failure. The bill which allowed it to happen passed unanimously - a damning indictment of the quality of scrutiny in the Scottish Parliament.

John Healey says something with massive significance for the renewables industry in Scotland, and Nicola Sturgeon then chides him for saying nothing of any significance. Presumably because she lacks the political antennae to understand the significance of what he said. #BBCLauraK

Kate Forbes remains shackled to SNP dogma on offshore wind & transmission charges. These grievances cannot be reconciled with the idea that independence would lower bills. Interrogating that quandary really would be an interesting column, but is Kate Forbes capable of writing it?

A very simple question that anyone who understands GERS can answer. Year after year, Scotland gets back in public spending all the North Sea revenues, plus substantially more on top.

This will be fascinating. New projects in Scotland will certainly be disadvantaged. The SNP will be outraged. They will claim that with independence, these expensive projects could go ahead and lower bills in Scotland. A preposterous argument… but that won’t stop them making it.

Another sensible letter on currency published by @ScotNational. Far from solving the currency conundrum, Tim Rideout has simply reminded everyone that no pain-free solution exists.

Jenny Gilruth has now provided the written response to the technical question on the bond programme asked by Michael Marra in quoted tweet. She conspicuously fails to answer the question.

The full 5 minutes of today’s FMQs remake of Jeremy Paxman vs Michael Howard, starring Russell Findlay as Paxman and John Swinney as Howard.

Awkward moment at FMQs as Jack Middleton launches into an enthusiastic round of applause for John Swinney, but hardly anyone else joins in.

As an independent country, Scotland would have to put up with energy bills soaring higher still, and budget cuts that would make a £5 billion black hole look like a trifling matter.