Since the referendum another major plank of the “Yes” platform has come seriously unstuck. During the campaign, the separatists had claimed that an independent Scotland would be economically viable on the basis of an oil price of $110 per barrel. Critics had warned of the vulnerability of an independent Scotland’s economy to the volatility of oil prices. These warnings, like so many others, were breezily dismissed as “negative”. A mere four months later, however, the price of oil had plummeted to $50 per barrel, which rudely intruded an £18.6bn shortfall into the “Yes” campaign’s tax-and-spending forecasts for the first three years of independence. Pressed on this point during First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood in January, the best response that SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon could muster was to recite her blind faith in nationalist dogma: “I believe and always will believe that the best way forward is to be in charge of our own resources, so we don’t have to be subject to the kind of cuts coming at us from the UK government, but instead could be masters of our own destiny.”

The reckless irrationality of the case for Scottish independence of the kind hawked by the SNP is plain to anyone with the eyes to see. Notwithstanding this, 44.3 per cent of those casting votes last September opted for it. And then in last May’s general election the Scots chose to put SNP candidates into 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats. What on earth were they thinking? If they wilfully insist on shielding their nationalist faith from the facts, then there’s really no saving them. Maybe the only way of bringing the Scots to their senses is to give them the rope to hang themselves. At least that would stop their interminable bleating.

Exasperation is understandable. I have heard it from others south of the border, and Anglo-Scot and unionist though I am, I have muttered it myself. However, as Lord Canning wisely resolved in the wake of the Indian Mutiny, we too ought not to govern — or do politics — in anger. Besides, things are importantly not as they seem.

It is true that the SNP enjoyed an electoral landslide in May’s election. However, they did so with only 50 per cent of the vote: half of Scotland’s voters did not support them. The landslide happened primarily because of Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system. Had some kind of proportional representation system been in place, the Scots would still have returned 30 SNP members of parliament, but they would also have returned 14 Labour members, nine Conservatives and four Liberal Democrats.

What is more, it has long been observed that a small minority of those voting for the SNP do not actually want independence. There are some good reasons to suppose that that proportion became larger in May. It would have been rational enough for some unionist voters to reason that, with a decisive vote cast against independence in September, it was safe to support the SNP for other reasons in May — the most of obvious of these being to maximise Scottish clout in negotiations over further devolution of powers within the Union.