Hypothetical questions have become all the rage.
For this blessing, thank David Cameron. His speech on Europe involved so many uses of the conjunction "if" it resembled higher maths. Now they're all at it.
Ruth Davidson of the Scottish Tories was very iffy yesterday. If Scotland votes for independence, and if there is a demand for a referendum on the EU, would Mr Salmond grant it? If not, why not?
Then there was Willie Rennie, heading the massed ranks of LibDems. If Scotland votes No in its referendum, would the First Minister "engage with other parties" to win more powers for Holyrood? If not, why not?
Labour's Johann Lamont kicked things off by asking if Mr Salmond had held talks with Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. If not, on what basis had the First Minister promised such a meeting?
Behind it all lay the hypotheticals of the hour: if there is independence, and if Scotland has an automatic right to EU membership. Since the latter depends on the former, and as Unionists maintain the former is a dead duck, things got a bit silly.
Before 20 minutes had elapsed, we had heard from the Czech foreign ministry, a former European Court of Justice judge, the Prime Minister, two think-tanks, and the tabloid newspaper that wrote Davidson's apocalypse-now question.
Mr Salmond seemed to be enjoying himself though. Given that the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey reports a continuing decline in support for independence, this might have seemed odd. But here was a man for whom every cloud bears silvery brocade.
He'd be off to see Barroso tomorrow, if only the London government made a chat possible. He'd have accepted a more-powers question on the independence ballot, if only Rennie's lot had agreed.
Above all, he will salvage Scotland's future as a European nation if Mr Cameron steers the UK towards the exit. It's called positioning. Mr Salmond needs to get his poll numbers up, but he's happy enough.
In opposition while in power: such, it seems, is Mr Salmond's working hypothesis on the road to 2014.
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