Project Fear Max - Project Fear re-launched, UK-wide. I had hoped for more this time from the Better Together parties.

It's hard not to conclude that many people in the UK, sadly Scots among them, can't stomach the idea of Scotland forging its own way forward, a way that might be more successful than the exhausted, superannuated UK formula. Devo-Fail is their preferred option.

I suppose the return of the fear game was inevitable. Reeling before the surge in SNP support, desperate Better Together has fallen back on its default negativity.

We've even had our own 'Zinoviev letter' moment. An attempted smear which recklessly involved a foreign ambassador. What else can we expect though from the daily foghorn of colonel blimps and city spivs?

But Miliband jumping so eagerly on the bandwagon of a rag which amends its editorial policies to suit big business advertisers? I hope he was watching the 'Gogglebox' edition which featured his endorsement of these outrageous allegations. "Don't believe it, Ed. Don't go there," cried his armchair supporters.

Miliband is in good company. It's not just John Major and the right-wing press who despise a re-energised Scotland. The virulent detestation of the SNP demonstrated by the so-called 'liberal' media down south has been one of the more remarkable features of recent years.

Such 'progressive' organs sympathise with Syriza and Podemos. But a Scottish anti-austerity movement? No, that's beyond the pale.

Osborne's unfunded fantasy of an extra £8 billion for the NHS was treated with kid gloves compared to the cudgelling each and every SNP policy receives. London 'progressive' opinion, it seems, won't tolerate any threat to the UK status quo.

Wouldn't it be nice to see a responsible Better Together campaign? One that concedes an independent Scotland would be a prosperous, just society - but argues it would be even more prosperous, even more just by remaining in the UK.

Maybe it's simply too hard to make that case. How much easier to fall back on dire warnings and nightmare scenarios

So we end up with Scots celebrating the fall in the price of oil - because of the harm it will do Scotland! "See? Too wee, too poor."

One wonders what would the likes of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria etc. give to be in possession of oil at $46 a barrel (March prices)?

Heavens, what would Germany, the powerhouse of Europe, give to be sitting on half a century of such a resource? At $53 a barrel too (April prices).

One thing is certain. None of these sovereign states would have frittered away such a bounty the way the UK did. Nor would they paint a price movement as the curse of doom.

Over the past ten years, the price of oil, despite dramatic, temporary fluctuations up and down, has risen steadily from $50 to $100 a barrel. There's no reason to expect that long term trend to change.

Where were the sackcloth and ashes routines when the price went from $140 in mid-2008 to just over $40 twelve months later? The SNP was only a minor irritant then.

Anyway, Better Together Jeremiahs can dismiss long term trends in oil prices. After all, the North Sea wells, they tell us, will be dry in a few years. How they'd love to prove all the whisky will evaporate away too.

The Unionists' current panic alarm is the £7.6 billion "Black Hole" they allege would result from Full Fiscal Autonomy. Admittedly, they have considerable expertise when it comes to financial Black Holes.

Like Labour's £150 billion budget deficit in 2010-11. After five years of the worst austerity in a century, the Coalition government managed to get that down to under a mere £100 billion. Between them, Tories, Labour and Lib Dems have landed the UK with £1.5 trillion of debt.

Why is fiscal autonomy the new curse of doom? Is there a Norwegian movement I haven't heard of urging re-unification with Sweden? Are the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands queueing up to hand back their powers to Westminster?

For the SNP, FFA would provide the necessary economic levers to borrow sensibly and to grow, invest and train Scotland out of austerity and into higher living standards and better public services. This is an inspiring, hopeful vision.

What's the alternative? The further £30 billion in cuts voted for by Labour as well as the Tories? £100 billion on Trident? More privatisation, more inequality? The hollowing out of the welfare state?

What could be blacker and more of a hole than such a prospect?

Nor does the Smith Commission point a promising way forward for Scotland. We now know its work was closely monitored and its recommendations approved by the Treasury. Its proposed mix of very limited taxation powers to the Scottish Parliament and the decimation of the Barnett Formula looks increasingly like the proverbial poisoned chalice sunk in the proverbial honey trap. The pledged Devo-max, it ain't.

That's why the SNP is right to advocate full fiscal autonomy. Independence is off the cards for the foreseeable future. Next month's election is about ensuring effective devolved powers for Edinburgh and a muscular presence for Scotland in the UK parliament.

This is terrifying the London Establishment and its Scottish allies. They not only want the SNP to fail. The Holyrood parliament. The Scottish economy. It would be useful if these failed as well. Normal service resumed. The Scots back in their box.

There's one way to stop that. One way to close down Project Fear permanently and shut up the prophets of doom for ever. The election of dozens of SNP MPs on 7 May.