Nicely Settled Down

The SNP's legislative programme is worthy enough, but makes no mention of an independence referendum, nor of abolishing the Council Tax (the issue that probably decided the election). It is, overall, a thin affair, most notable for sound, but hardly earth-shattering, populist measures such as the abolition of tolls on the Forth and Tay Bridges.

All in all, Alex Salmond has settled down nicely into a rhetorically pseudo-nationalistic British satrap of the old imperial kind. The K is in the bag, the Big P on retirement likewise assured. Indeed, why doesn't Gordon Brown extend his Big Tent yet further and give either Salmond, or at least someone from the SNP's ruling clique, a job?

And could there now be anything that Sir Alex (or is it His Lordship?) would want less than Scottish independence?