As with most of my attempts at short-odds Yankees, my coupon was burst by the first leg of my four-way bet last week with the SNP just missing an overall majority. Did I say it was each-way?

But since last week’s extraordinary turn of electoral events there has been much talk of the “Ulsterification” of Scottish politics, in particular the need for the Scottish Conservative party to shed more of what some see as its English clothing to consolidate its new position as the main party of opposition to the SNP.

The most obvious problem with this analysis is, thankfully, that this is not Ulster with all of the brutal connotations that represents. It’s previous history as the Scottish Unionist Party notwithstanding, it is entirely fanciful to see the Scottish Conservatives mutating into an equivalent of the old Ulster Unionists,

For one thing, as the party of the respectable Right, the UUP has been smashed by the populist Democratic Unionists, a party whose approach to governance rests on the level of subsidy it can squeeze out of Westminster and in that sense are far closer to old Glasgow Labour than the new Scottish Conservatives.

It is seductive to see parallels in the constitutional arguments on either side of the Irish Sea but beyond the Red, White and Blue the modern manifestations are very different, most particularly that the Irish Nationalist movement remains in the minority and its aim is to swap one larger entity for another, not self-determination.

There are no positive lessons to be learned in Ulster for the Scottish Conservatives, and the last thing they need is any kind of association with anti-Irishness which so held it back over the years and made the Scottish Tories one of the few right-of-centre parties in Europe not to have the support of the Catholic Church.

If anything, the events of recent years and indeed weeks should allow the Tories to stake a claim for the support of small ‘c’ conservative religious groups everywhere, where church-goer Ruth Davidson can appeal to all but the most unreconstructed.

Perhaps, Bavarianisation is a better way of putting it, and the relationship between the Bavarian Christian Social Union and the German Christian Democratic Union was cited in the unsuccessful leadership campaign mounted by Murdo Fraser as a model the Scottish Tories should follow on the basis that the Conservative brand in Scotland was beyond rescue.

The argument now goes that having doubled its representation at Holyrood, the Scottish party can now reinvent itself from a position of strength and that in fact Ms Davidson’s success has been built in part on her willingness to differentiate herself from London when she sees fit.

But the biggest danger lies in any headlong rush by the Scottish end of the UK parties to further distance themselves from London as a reaction to the still towering domination of the SNP. There is a very easy way to make sure the old Labour mantra they so skilfully prepared for the SNP, of Scotland not getting the government for which it votes, always comes true; make sure no parties standing here can form part of the UK administration.

It was one of the strongest positive pro-UK messages that far from being disenfranchised, Scots of all backgrounds regularly took a direct route to the highest offices of the land to the extent Jeremy Paxman was able to complain Britain was being run by Scots. And only a few years back in the era of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, George Robertson and John Reid he wasn’t far wrong.

The SNP’s old spin doctor-in-chief Kevin Pringle wrote at the weekend that the next opportunity for a second independence referendum would come in 2020 when even four years out no-one is betting against another Conservative administration even though no-one knows who the Prime Minster will be.

But the devolution settlement we have now provides the answer to the Bavaria question; allowing the Scottish parties to decide what is best for them at Holyrood and evolving distinctive positions according to particular circumstances.

And with a raft of new powers yet to be tested – and indeed more than a few of the existing powers untried too – it’s no wonder Labour deputy leader Alex Rowley found himself isolated after his call for Home Rule, whatever that means now.

The events of the past ten years have given Scotland a proper parliament with real clout, a governing party with power far beyond the Border and opposition parties able to carve out their own distinct agenda. And without a shot fired. Ulsterification? No thanks.

John McLellan is a former Director of Communications for the Scottish Conservatives.