MARCH 18, 2015, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

In London, Chancellor George Osborne is delivering his Budget, an event only rivalled in Westminster for armpit-dampening excitement by the approach of summer recess. In Glasgow, seen from high above the city streets, the citizens go about their business regardless. Their phones are trilling with Budget tweets and updates, the airwaves are thick with news of this increase in the tax threshold and that boost to savers, but life goes on without pause.

Although it is meant to be one of those truly must-catch national events, like the old Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials or the first Lottery draw, the Budget long ago ceased to be anything more than early panto for the nattering classes. The somewhat fading stars are known, the reviews are written beforehand (how many leaks this year? I lost count after the umpteenth), and all that remains is to go through the well-rehearsed motions. Look out Chancellor, your career may or may not be behind you.

In Glasgow, Manchester, Plymouth, any city outside London, the Budget functions as background noise and a few headlines. Out here, politics marches to its own beat, and never has Scotland seemed more out of sync with London than on Budget day this year. Yes, there were some announcements tailored specifically to the area north of Yorkshire, as the Chancellor might think of it. Help for the oil industry, a nudge upwards in Barnett cash, a cut in spirits duty; all are important and have their place. But stop anyone in that Glasgow street yesterday, today, or next week, and ask them to nominate the hottest topic in politics at the moment, and what would they say? Assuming they have a view one way or another, chances are they will select independence rather than interest on savings. Not that such things do not count. Of course they do. Pound for pound, as the Tories know, the goodies and gewgaws in the Budget will buy votes here and there, especially where they are most needed in the marginals. But such matters do not weigh on the heart and mind up here as much as independence and the next referendum.

There, it is said. The next referendum.

The Americans, as is their way, have a charmingly direct way of cutting through the verbal noise on a subject. They term this public service "calling BS" on something. So, for example, if someone is waxing lyrical about how much Barack Obama has achieved in office, a critic might "call BS" on it and tell it straight about his failures. I shall leave it to you to decide what the initials BS stand for, but those of sound mind and clarity must surely be at the point of calling BS on the notion that we are done with referenda. Never mind the one on EU membership looming if the Tories are returned. The next independence referendum is just around the corner of time too, certainly within five years at most.

Some called BS on the "no more referenda" notion seconds after the result was declared. Others waited a while and made it official in their memoirs. One such is Alex Salmond, whose book The Dream Shall Never Die was officially published yesterday. He writes: "The Scottish people can, if they so wish at any Scottish election, vote for a party or parties who wish to put the issue to the touch once again." Then comes the money quote. "After all, everyone deserves a second chance. Every person and every nation." Such generosity of spirit. Not a loser, certainly not a sore loser, but a winner in waiting.

Mr Salmond's successor is, as in many other things, infinitely more subtle. Not content with selling out the Glasgow Hydro, Nicola Sturgeon now bestrides the studios of the Lorraine show on ITV and the lecture halls of the LSE. By flattery and design, by speech and cross-Border initiative, she is preparing the way for the next referendum as surely as her old boss. So far, proceedings have all been terribly civilised, but the way ahead is being laid out, the debate is being framed, norms are becoming established. As a study by the University of Edinburgh this week found, support for another referendum within five years does not even reach the quarter way mark. Yet almost 70 per cent thought the Union was done for anyway. Matters seem to be progressing inexorably, whatever the majority might want. Never mind a velvet revolution, this one is as smooth as silk.

What happened at Westminster on Wednesday only affects the process in as much as it hastens matters along. The tone and direction of this Budget was such as to make one wonder if Mr Osborne is a secret Yes man. All budgets are never what they seem at first, with those that prompt the biggest cheers often the ones to garner equally loud jeers a week later. George "Pasty Tax" Osborne has more form on this front than most chancellors. So it was yesterday when, having declared springtime and happy days were here again, the Chancellor was pressed on how he would find £12 billion in welfare cuts in the next parliament. In other words, it is likely that those already busy food banks in our communities are each going to be the size of Fort Knox if Mr Osborne has his way. Does Scotland care about this any more than the rest of the UK? Will Scots, like millions of others, put pounds before principles when it comes to voting? It is 49 days until we find out.

Just as one might fancy Mr Osborne is a Yes man on the quiet so the uncharitable could begin to harbour doubts about his Labour counterpart and the Labour high command in general. What kind of Shadow Chancellor worth the batteries in his calculator says he is not going to reverse anything? The kind by the name of Ed Balls apparently. With this sort of alternative government in waiting, bereft of ideas and lacking in energy, is it any wonder the only show in town up here is the next referendum, something the majority, going by that Edinburgh University research, do not want.

Politics abhors a vacuum and in Scotland the space where a viable opposition should be is being filled by the prospect of the next independence referendum. Regardless of which side one is on, we should all be troubled by the notion of sleepwalking into another independence poll, for no other reason than a decision made in a less than wholehearted and informed way is a questionable decision in every sense. It would hardly be the start of a positive new era for Scotland if a large part of the population feels it has had little real say in the matter. "Everyone deserves a second chance, said Mr Salmond. "Every person and every nation". Choice and time to reflect are just as essential. Is it too much to ask for those as well?