First Minister Alex Salmond's military spending plan for Scotland "completely undermines" the opportunity to take a different approach, according to critics in the pro-independence campaign.
The SNP has suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of one of its own former MSPs who rejected the party's praise of the Finance Secretary's budget, opposition parties say.
When I heard Jean Urquhart had withdrawn from the SNP I took a glance out of the window in case there was a blue moon ("Two SNP stalwarts quit in protest after Nato U-turn", The Herald, October 24).