The last post but one turned out to be a little unkind. It transpired that Mr Davey had asked that nice Mr Holiland to reply to me again and the letter was waiting for me on my return. See it after the break.

 As well as that, Mr Salmond has sent me the full copy of "Scotland's Future" I asked him for, so I hope to restart my critique of that soon.

It'll something to do in the hotel in the evenings when I get back from advising on a project vital to Scotland's future government (yes, really).

Anyway, back to DECC...

As someone who can't quite remember the 1950's, I grew up in a society which had fairly set views on the world. You played outdoors for hours every day, you did as you were told when you were told, you hoped to grow up to have a good job, and the world only really existed between about  Moffat and Perth. And the concept of independence for Scotland was not a topic for polite conversation, never mentioned in civilised company.  

Then I stopped playing outdoors every day, I did grow up a bit, I became self-employed, I stopped doing what I was told and for a while moved to a country even smaller than the space between Moffat and Perth, but much richer than the whole of Scotland. And while I lived in that small country I learned lots of things that just can't be learned on an island and the experience hugely changed my outlook on the world.
 

Another huge change is that the topic of Scottish independence is now regularly a lead topic on UK news outlets, although not always treated with the respect it deserves. Today's independence furore concerns the opinion of the Governonr of the Bank of England that an independent Scotland may have to cede some sovereignty if she wished to retain Sterling as her currency. Or maybe he didn't quite say that, this speech seems to be more than usually prone to interpretation by news sources. But let's assume he did. Is he right? Maybe not. Remember that Mr Carney is from Canada, a very large country, and that he may not have the range of imagination and adaptability that belongs to people from small countries.

Still not heard from Ed, he must be busy with something. We'll be writing to him again at the weekend just so he doesn't forget.

The independence stushie de jour is all about the UK government's announcement that the Treasury would honour all debts it has incurred by the time of a putative Scottish departure from the Union or, as that rabidly pro-Scotland rag the The Telegraph would have it "Salmond's delight as UK promises to pay Scotland's debts".

What else could the government do? If they had decided to announce that they would not guarantee any debt incurred on behalf of Scotland it would have been impossible to fund any capital expenditure to which they are obliged by virtue of the Barnett formula - that would have played directly into the SNP's hands because we can be sure that suddenly a large number of high-profile public infrastructure projects would noisily stop. 

But let's not get carried away with the notion that Danny Alexander's munificence is unilaterally funding all of Alec Salmond's fondest dreams, despite what many of the Telegraph's commenters seem to think. Although he may just have confirmed one of Mr Salmond's desires...

It's Winter.

That is all.

Thank you for your attention.