Are Scots being presented with two ways of looking at each issue that arises in the independence campaign when in most cases there should be three?
A pattern is beginning to emerge. The Scottish Government issues figures pointing to an unremittingly bright future under independence. The UK Government scoffs. Sometimes it is the other way around. The UK Government produces material concluding that Scottish independence would be an exorbitantly expensive inconvenience at best and an economic disaster at worse. The response from the SNP is to accuse the UK Government of negativity and adopt a casual, almost nonchalant, stance. Clearly it is in the Unionists' political interests to overplay the downside of independence and in the Nationalists' interests to downplay it. Yet the bald truth in most cases lies somewhere in between.
Yesterday was a case in point. The UK Government published a list of 200 bodies it says "may need to be replicated in a new independent Scottish state". The list is clearly intended to look daunting. It includes everything from the Cabinet Office to the British Hallmarking Council. The challenge to the SNP administration at Holyrood is to explain how it would replace these bodies or augment existing ones to take on their functions, with price tags on each.
Instead, the Scottish Government insisted it had much of the infrastructure in place already and other bodies would be unnecessary.
Yet even interim arrangements would come at a price. And the set-up costs and loss of economies of scale for bodies such as the Department of Work and Pensions and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs present serious questions that demand serious answers.
On the other hand, Scotland has equivalents of a number of these bodies already. Scottish Development International and UK Trade and Investment are a case in point. And in other cases, such as the transplant service, it is simply not in either governments' interests for Scotland to go it alone.
There was a similar situation in Edinburgh yesterday when Foreign Secretary William Hague prefixed his speech on the UK being "stronger together", by claiming that he was "not here to make dire predictions or to issue dark warnings".
Yet he went on to speak of the burden and inconvenience of an independent Scotland having to "start again in world affairs" in terms of diplomacy, security and defence. What would it cost Scottish taxpayers to replicate MI5 or the UK's 267 diplomatic posts in 154 countries, for instance?
The response from the SNP's Westminster Foreign Affairs spokesman, Angus Robertson, fails to engage with any of the issues but talks vaguely about independence enabling Scotland to make for itself a place in the world to match the aspirations of its people.
This debate badly needs some honest realism and straight talking to arbitrate between the voices of alarmism and complacency.
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