"Wir sind keine Nationalisten"

Last month, you may recall there was a bit of a hoo-hah following the SNP's baffling banning of the word "independence" in their rhetoric, which coincided with Angus Robertson's apparent denial that the SNP were nationalists (incidentally raising the obvious question: who are you, and what do you want?). The latter came from an interview in an Austrian newspaper, Wiener Zeitung. Union Jock thought it would be interesting to read what the Austrians are being told about the Scottish independence debate, so, armed with Google Translate and a smattering of schoolboy German, tracked down the article in question.

Opening with the usual nationalist gag of referring to the Queen as Queen Elizabeth I of Scotland, Robertson goes on to claim that Scotland should be independent because it has the same size of population as Denmark, Finland, Norway or Slovakia. Of course, he doesn't mention the German states of Baden-Württemberg or Bavaria, both of which have more than twice the population of Scotland, never mind North Rhine-Westphalia, which is about three times the size of Scotland. Are their independence accepted as self-evident too?

He goes on: Scotland has its own football and rugby team, we have our own churches, and even its own pound notes, there is no doubt that Scotland is a nation of their own. Sure, if you believe that grown men playing with balls in parks, the ever-diminishing relevance of the Church of Scotland, and the historical curiosity of seven banks in Northern Ireland and Scotland still retaining their 19th-century rights to issue their own promissory notes are the cornerstones of national identity.

We would definitely be more cooperative than the United Kingdom. Unlike the UK, Scotland has always been understood as a European nation. Well, being much smaller than the UK, Scotland wouldn't really have much alternative, as an EU member, to being co-operative with whatever Brussels decrees. And as for "always being understood as a European nation", it sounds like Mr Robertson is beginning to believe his own party's absurd propaganda about how we've always really been part of Scandinavia and never really had much to do with those people who live on the other side of the Cheviots.

However, he later returns to the purely political angle, citing the Conservatives' sole Scottish MP elected in the 2010 general election. Of course, no mention is made of the 11 Scottish LibDem MPs (or indeed the 6 SNP MPs). That would be as if the Austrian government would be dominated by Germany he says. A nice soundbite guaranteed to attract the attention of Austrian readers. But the relationship between Germany and Austria isn't particularly analogous to that of Scotland and the rest of the UK. Austria existed as a nation-state (and indeed an empire) long before Germany did, and its current size and status was determined by the outcomes of the First and Second World Wars.

No one has asked us whether we want to fight in Iraq, whether we want to have nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons on our soil. Well, actually we were asked when we had the 2010 general election. The fact that only 6 SNP MPs were elected presumably tells us the answer.

Robertson does however, proclaim himself to be a monarchist, and looks forward to Scotland being demoted from a part of the United Kingdom to a dominion of the Commonwealth (and the 22nd largest member of the Commonwealth at that, just behind Sierra Leone). Apparently that would cure the "disgruntled tenant" complex that we all suffer from. Hmmm.

And finally, he ends with: We Scots are open, friendly people, we are citizens of the world - therefore the German translation of my party annoys me: we are not nationalists. Open and friendly, except towards the other Inselaffen we share our islands with? The German translation he refers to is Schottischen Nationalpartei, which seems like a fairly obvious translation to me. I wonder what he would prefer - Schottischen Jeder außer England Partei maybe?

The Big Debate: Ladies' Night

So for the third in the series of Big Debates (curiously, only a month after the last one - did the SNP demand a rematch after their previous disappointing performance?), BBC Scotland decided to have an all-female planel, chaired by Brian Taylor injecting some much needed jocularity for a change.

Fiona Hyslop showed herself to be very adept at talking a lot but saying little but was at least slightly less annoying than La Sturgeon. Following Patrick Harvie's untimely yet predictable exit from the SNP's Yes Scotland fiasco, it must have been galling for Hyslop to hear Margo MacDonald, one of Scotland's better known and longest serving nationalist politicians, admitting that she declined to have anything to do with the ill-starred campaign.

Margaret Curran seemed a little shrill and defensive at times when trying to put her point across - no great improvement on Johann Lamont's previous appearance. In contrast, Annabel Goldie sounded very confident and authoritative. In fact, following her colleague Ruth Davidson's appearances in previous Big Debates, the Tories have proved to be the most skillful debaters so far. Goldie also raised the important point that the "geographic share" of oil revenues that now seem to be an implicit presumption in the SNP's promises of future prosperity would face a minefield of negotiations, both constitutional and commercial.

But the star of the show must have been the scary-looking guy with the bad teeth and the "Scottish not British" T-shirt, sitting at the back of audience, who managed to get two questions in. What a great advert for Scottish nationalism!

Walt gets patronage, but the Dalai disnae.

So Wee Eck decided it was more important to pitch up at the Hollywood premiere of the latest Disney fairytale cartoon, resplendent in his tartan trews, than it was to receive the Dalai Lama on his visit to Scotland this week. But then the flame-haired heroine of the computer-generated pseudo-Caledonian fantasy (who, puzzlingly, seems to be named after a town in Spain) is according to Slate, a disappointingly stereotypical redhead: "rebellious, quick to yell, obstinate, easily offended." Sounds more like a stereotypical SNP supporter to me, frankly. No wonder he's so keen on the film.

Peaking too soon?

Union Jock read an interesting article in the New Scientist the other week. Surprisingly, Deutsche Bank's lead oil analyst reckons that global demand for petrol will peak in 2015 and then enter "an inexorable and accelerating decline". Global demand for crude oil will subsequently peak around 2020. By 2030, they say, US petrol consumption will be almost halved compared to today. This will be due mainly to the increasing numbers of hybrid and electric vehicles, and increasingly efficient internal combustion engine design. It has to be said that some other economists aren't quite so bearish in their predictions, but DB is backed up by automotive consultancy Ricardo, who also anticipate global oil demand peaking at the end of the decade, and falling by 10% by 2035.

So the "bright future" Wee Eck promised on Tuesday for the industry that has "powered the Scottish economy over the last 40 years" could well fizzle out much sooner than he thinks.

The Big Debate, round 2.

Well, that was another disappointing, badly chaired shouting match. But it was worth watching just to see Sturgeon looking distinctly uncomfortable in her inability to provide convincing answers. What are the chances that her first words to Wee Eck after the show were "You bloody do it next time!"? Even her chum Harvie, who was there at the Declaration of Cineworld on Friday, was singing from quite a different hymn sheet at times. It would appear that the Greens, whilst declaring themselves non-nationalist, see Scottish separation as an opportunity to create some kind of anarcho-syndicalist collective enclave where they can shun big business and sit around knitting muesli all day. I can see their alliance with the SNP is going to be an uneasy one.

Interesting that most of the audience questions seemed to be from a Unionist perspective - given that the BBC assure us that the audience were carefully selected to give a balance of opinion, I can only assume that the nationalists were quite satisfied with the vague promises of a future Caledonian Utopia offered on Friday and thus had no further questions?

Is that it?

So, the "Yes Scotland" campaign (how exactly are you supposed to parse that? Isn't there a missing comma there?) has now kicked off. Seems like a slightly presumptuous slogan, given that the wording of the referendum question has yet to be settled and a "yes/no" format is seen as biased by the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee. But I digress.

According to Wee Eck, if they get one million pledges of allegiance to their cause, then the referendum is won. Not sure how he worked that one out - maybe they intend to rig the referendum so that only 19% have to be in favour of separation?

So what does this declaration they want us to sign say?

"I believe that it is fundamentally better for us all if decisions about Scotland's future are taken by the people who care most about Scotland, that is, by the people of Scotland.

I think you'll find quite a lot of decisions about Scotland are already taken by the people of Scotland who have been elected to the Scottish Parliament. And even more of them will be taken after the Scotland Act 2012 comes into play.

"Being independent means Scotland's future will be in Scotland's hands.

Or in other words,  "Being independent means Scotland will be given enough rope to hang itself". Doesn't sound quite so exciting?

"There is no doubt that Scotland has great potential. We are blessed with talent, resources and creativity. We have the opportunity to make our nation a better place to live, for this and future generations. We can build a greener, fairer and more prosperous society that is stronger and more successful than it is today.

Stereotypical airy-fairly political speech boilerplate. Replace the word "Scotland" and it could be the output of any presidential candidate's speechwriter.

"I want a Scotland that speaks with her own voice and makes her own unique contribution to the world - a Scotland that stands alongside the other nations on these isles, as an independent nation."

Getting a bit anthropomorphic here - quite typical of nationalist rhetoric of course. Isn't Scotland's greatest asset its people? And are their voices, talents, creativity and ability to contribute to the world somehow diminished by having "British Citizen" printed in their passports?

The SNP's attempt to create the facade of a cross-party alliance was less than convincing - Patrick Harvie's declaration that "Greens are not nationalists" must have dampened the atmosphere somewhat, and Colin Fox's presence was surely slightly awkward given his recent criticism of Salmond as an untrustworthy puppet of big business.

And what of the dazzling array of celebs they were expected to wheel out?

• Sean Connery - Probably Scotland's most famous wife-beating tax exile.
• Alan Cumming - New York resident and US citizen. Well if you wanted to be in movies, why would you stay in Scotland?
• Brian Cox - previously a lifelong Labour supporter who reportedly only switched his allegiance last year over free higher education. Also a resident of New York.
• Pat Kane - '80s has-been, and ex-husband of that infamous embarrassment to the SNP, Joan McAlpine.
• Liz Lochhead - who seemed quite pleased with the nice shiny badge she had been given.
• Some bloke who used to be the BBC Scotland news boss.
• An actor from Greenock you've never heard of.

So no great surprises there then. And some of them didn't even bother to pitch up in person. If you thought things couldn't get any more clichéd, then you would have been proved wrong when they even got Dougie McLean on to sing his mawkish drivel, so that we could be treated to the unedifying spectacle of Wee Eck having a wee greet to himself.

Someone at SNP HQ is clearly bereft of new ideas if this damp squib was the best they could do.

Back soon...

You may have noticed Union Jock has been rather quiet of late, but fear not, I'll haven't gone away!