Having spoken to the deputy leader of the SNP recently about justice policy and nodded furiously to pretty much everything he said – he seems genuinely committed to prison reform – I was interested to see what he’d say in his speech to the party conference. Would the word “Tory” feature, I wondered. Would he welcome the genuine possibility of an alternative and better government in Labour? Let’s see.

The answer my friends (I’ve noticed politicians keep saying “my friends” in their speeches these days so I thought I’d give it a go) is that yes, Keith Brown would use the word “Tory” lots of times as part of an attack on the UK Government (and quite right too). As for the possibility of a Labour alternative, Mr Brown apparently would not welcome it, although it was interesting to see Nicola Sturgeon soften the rhetoric on the Sunday politics shows (also quite right too - can the SNP attack Labour as just as bad as the Tories and still sound credibly progressive?)

Of course, we know why, deep down, the SNP does not want a Labour government: independence would be harder to achieve without the Tory bad guys. Sadly for them though, they’re now having to face the real possibility/probability of Starmer as PM. Just look at the polls, of which there have been many. Support for independence is pretty much where it’s been for eight years. There is likely to be a Labour government. And the SNP is unlikely to get more than 50% in its “de facto referendum”. This is not good for the SNP, hence the “Labour = bad” narrative.

However, I think this approach is a problem for the SNP for the good reason that most Scots, except perhaps the dead ones, can see that Starmer would be an infinite improvement on Truss. And so hearing Mr Brown and others going on about how terrible Labour is seems to lack realism. In his speech, Mr Brown said the idea that a Labour government would be better for Scotland was laughable. But I can’t hear anyone laughing. Can you?

The greater point is that, having just been through a couple of weeks in which the economy has been put at risk by a PM knee-deep in unrealistic expectations, most Scots, perhaps even the dead ones, crave a leader who is calm, sensible, cautious and above all realistic. Ms Sturgeon can be all of those things, but she also said on Sunday that “I believe that there is an appetite for a referendum”. Why say something like that? It undermines her credibility. It’s unrealistic.

To be fair, all politicians do it. It’s called projection and it’s the idea that because I believe something, everybody does as well. In Ms Sturgeon’s case, it means that because she has an appetite for a referendum (in public at least) she’s convinced Scotland feels the same way. In fact, there is no consensus and Scots are divided on independence. We know this. We’d like politicians to accept it. We’d also like them to be realistic, especially after two weeks in which unrealism has been taken to the height of farce by the Tories. The only trickle-down effect round here is from the leaky pipe over our heads that could burst at any moment.

And the desire for realism must surely go further. The problem with the Brexit campaign was that it claimed, based I would say on a romanticised view of Great Britain, that the EU was broken beyond repair and leaving it could take us to a post-EU idyll, and the SNP say much the same of the UK. In his speech, Mr Brown said the Westminster system was “broken beyond repair” and suggested it could take us to a post-UK idyll. An independent Scotland, he said, would be wealthier, happier and fairer.

Again: where is the realism in this? Having a Tory government for 12 years is not the same as Westminster being broken beyond repair; I would’ve thought that was obvious. I also fear that, like the Brexiteers who hold a romanticised and ultimately fictional vision of Britain in their heads, Mr Brown and his colleagues do something similar with Scotland. Not only can we be better, we are better. It is, I’m afraid, the ultimate lie of the nationalist.

Part of the problem, I think, is we’re all a little bit susceptible to it. The other day I re-watched Local Hero for a piece about the 40th anniversary of the making of the film and I could feel its power, still, even after all these years, particularly the American oilman falling in love with Ferness (in reality Pennan in Aberdeenshire). But even as I was enjoying it, I was cautious too - cautious about what you might call the Local Hero effect.

The film itself is actually perfectly aware of what it’s doing. In one scene, the oilman gets stuck in the mist and only sees Ferness when the mist clears the next day. It is a conscious nod to Brigadoon and the difference between the fantasy version of Scotland on the other side of the mist and the real Scotland that we actually have to live in. The movies have a lot to answer for in that respect. Brigadoon. Local Hero. Braveheart. And at the other extreme, Trainspotting. Scotland is either stags, whisky and heather, or dugs, heroin and high-rises. Neither is wholly true.

What I’m saying is that any political vision based on romanticised visions – a Scotland we can only see through the mist – will never appeal to the likes of me. It lacks realism about where we are and where we should be going. It is realistic to say that we are in a crisis because of the Tory Government. It is realistic to say a Labour Government would probably be better. It is realistic to say Scotland should be independent if a big majority of Scots want it. It is unrealistic to say that, like a post-EU Britain, a post-UK Scotland would solve all our problems.

The point is that politicians talking unrealistically about the present and the future is exhausting and governments that were more consciously diverse might help. Liz Truss made much of the fact that she is the first Prime Minister to come from a comprehensive and it stands out because Tory MPs tend, still, to come largely from the middle and upper classes. Has it really taken until 2022 to have a Tory PM from a comp?

However, it strikes me that, turned the other way, a similar problem exists with the Scottish Government. The vision of Scotland that the movies gives us is Local Hero or Trainspotting but the real Scotland is much more diverse. Perhaps the problem is that government politicians like Ms Sturgeon, who grew up in the post-industrial parts of the country changed profoundly by Thatcherism, find it hard to see it that way. Perhaps they can only see two Scotlands: the enslaved and the freed. But I suggest they look for the real one instead. It’s the one we have to live in.