By Rab Bruce’s Spider

The Westminster Parties have a cunning plan to bring Scotland back into the Unionist fold. Actually, it’s not all that cunning and it has all the hallmarks of one of Baldrick’s ideas from Blackadder because it contains the seeds of its own failure.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work according to Westminster thinking. What they do is impose draconian cuts to the Scottish budget and to social welfare payments, thus forcing the Scottish Government either to use money it doesn’t really have to counter the effects of the cuts or to allow the cuts to go through, thus affecting the lives of thousands of people living in Scotland. Either way, the Scottish Government can be painted as failing in its duty of care.

"Use your powers!" the Unionists cry, knowing full well that none of the new powers have yet come into force and, even when they do, they are designed so that it will be ordinary Scots who end up paying more, thus providing yet another opportunity for Westminster and their pet media to point the finger and proclaim SNP policies a failure.

"We told you," they will gloat. "An independent Scotland would be a place where everyone pays more tax. This proves it."

It proves nothing of the sort, of course, since an independent Scotland would have power over far more sources of revenue than Income tax alone and would not have a cap on its income as is currently the case.

However, the media attacks continue unabated and Labour are acting as the Tories’ loyal allies in backing the cuts to Tax credits solely in order to damage the SNP. Gordon Brown, who continues to be one of the Tories’ chief stooges, has said that the SNP must either counter the Tax credit cuts or back them. This is, as usual with Brown, arrant nonsense. The SNP are not backing these cuts in any shape or form. It is perfectly possible to oppose a Government policy and yet be unable to do anything to counter it effectively but I suppose you can’t expect a Labour politician to understand what opposition means.

The reason the Tories and Labour are doing this is clear. Eventually, they believe, Scotland will become the economic basket case they have always intended it to be. The Scottish Government will run out of money, services will be slashed and the voters will see sense, electing a Unionist Party to govern at Holyrood. For Westminster purposes, it does not matter whether that Party is Labour or Conservative, as long as it is a loyal Unionist Party. It seems unlikely that they would go as far as forming a Tory / Labour coalition because that would reveal the true extent of their duplicity but nothing can be entirely ruled out. Whichever Party takes over, though, the normal order of things will have been restored, the Scottish block grant can be increased just enough to make some small improvements and Scotland will have been saved once again by the broad shoulders of the union.

It might be slightly more cunning than one of Baldrick’s plans but the indications so far are that Westminster has made one big miscalculation. The latest polls confirm that the Scottish electorate can see right through it. Indeed, only the over-65’s appear dead set against the SNP, a fact which can perhaps be explained by two factors. First, that this generation (or should that be genertaion?) were raised on a diet of British greatness and are unable to throw off their loyalty, and, secondly, that this generation is less likely to access information from alternative sources and so still believe the propaganda thrown at them by the media. All other age groups seem undeterred by the spin and SNP-bashing that is a regular feature of TV, radio and newspaper reporting.

But how can this plan be defeated? Electing another SNP Government at Holyrood won’t stop the cuts and, as we have seen, even electing an overwhelming majority of SNP MPs to Westminster isn’t enough to prevent Scotland being punished for having the temerity to voice a desire to leave the UK.

Which leaves only one option and it’s the one the Unionists seem unable to grasp. Fixated on the result of last year’s IndieRef, they continue to believe that a majority of Scots want to remain in the Union. They appear to have forgotten that the majority of Scots wanted Devo Max and that, by failing to provide this despite their promises, they are forcing more and more people towards the conclusion that full independence is the only way Scotland will ever flourish.

I must admit that I have always maintained we missed our chance last year and that a second IndieRef would not happen for many years. What I failed to take into account was just how vindictive and short-sighted the Westminster Establishment is. By following their cunning plan, they are driving us ever closer to independence and it is now more a question of how much damage will be done to Scotland before enough Scottish voters reach the inevitable conclusion. The signs are that it will not take long. The latest IPSOS MORI poll on independence puts support for a Yes vote at 53%, not far short of the so-called "Decisive" result in the IndieRef which condemned us to Tory rule. One poll does not mean a lot but it is an indication that the Baldricks of Westminster have screwed up their calculations.