Is Scotland the most gullible country in the world? Our First Minister seems to think so. The Sunday National published a rare article written by her yesterday in which she announces that “now is the time to debate independence”. She doesn’t quite explain what makes ‘now’ different from any other time since the first referendum on independence.

After detailing a well-thumbed list of societal provisions made by her government over the last few years, Ms Sturgeon declares that “we will shortly begin publishing an updated prospectus on the opportunities that independence can offer Scotland”.

The First Minister and her senior colleagues have recently begun ramping up the rhetoric on holding an independence referendum before the end of next year. This, I suppose, is a basic requirement when you are contesting a Holyrood election and a local council election within the same 12-month period. It helps to remind your core voters what you stand for from time to time and there’s nothing like the prospect of losing your large salary for focusing the minds of the professional and time-served SNP.

I’m just not sure that “shortly begin publishing” or “updated prospectus” or opportunities that independence “can offer” quite cuts it as a profound statement of intent to hold a referendum any time soon.

Call me a pedantic curmudgeon if you like, but I’d have been looking for something like: “At the start of the new parliamentary term we will formally seek a vote at Holyrood to hold a referendum and will shortly thereafter seek a Section 30 order. We are also working flat out to make a legal case for holding a referendum with or without UK consent and will pledge to fight the next UK election on the sole issue of holding one.

“By the end of this year we will publish a fully-detailed analysis of currency arrangements in an independent Scotland; our future relationship with the EU and our proposals for managing the border with England in light of Brexit and tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol.”

I think I might also be looking for a little more on how Ms Sturgeon aims to improve life for ordinary people in Scotland beyond listing her government’s ‘achievements’ over the last few years. These, after all, are the basics of what you might reasonably expect from an administration at the cautious end of the Left spectrum: a child payment increase; a modest measure of tax autonomy and a National Investment Bank which “will invest £2bn in its first decade” to help Scotland’s “just transition to net zero”.

Ah yes; net zero, the holy grail of Scottish families facing crippling rises in their cost of living and uncertainty about heating their homes. To assist her in getting to net zero, the First Minister audaciously invited two Scottish Greens to become junior ministers in her administration.

Earlier this month the SNP/Green alliance had the opportunity to signal its commitment to ensuring that their policies, in the First Minister’s own words, are “making Scotland a better country to live in”. Yet, rather than back an amendment to the Good Food Nation Bill which would enshrine a legal right to food in Scotland, the governing alliance voted with the Scottish Tories to reject it, insisting it was pointless as it would have no legal effect and that they would be introducing their own legislation in due course.

When future historians come to consider the Sturgeon era they might consider naming it the “due course” years.

The Greens have already delayed implementation of their flagship bottle return scheme which will also, presumably, be delivered in “due course”. Last year, Lorna Slater, the Scottish Greens co-convenor, chastised the Labour leader, Anas Sarwar for meeting with Oil & Gas UK, the industry body which represents the sector but obviously forgot that she too had met with the same body a few months before. The Scottish Greens also seemed to have forgotten their manifesto pledge to halt large-scale waste incinerators.

Perhaps this too will happen in “due course” as they’ve obviously got a lot on their plate, what with helping their SNP partners find a team of shipwrights who can finally complete the job of building two new ferries, a task which has already taken six years and gone £150m over budget. And they can’t be happy about all those cancelled rail services which will force people to use their cars more often.

Ms Slater’s Green ministerial colleague, Patrick Harvie doesn’t seem to think that improving the country includes creating more jobs after he condemned Scotland’s 100,000 oil and gas workers as right-wing extremists for, er … seeking to protect their jobs in the North Sea.

In the days leading up to the First Minister’s seventh (or is it eighth) pledge to “begin publishing an updated prospectus on the opportunities independence can offer” her Education Minister was forced to concede that the task of closing the schools attainment gap has been beyond the capability of this administration. Later this year we’ll be reminded yet again that Scotland has the worst record of drugs deaths in Europe and that the overwhelming majority of these are poor people. Later again we’ll learn that they live in communities that occupy the lowest positions on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, as they always do.

You might have expected Scottish Labour to have exploited the fecklessness of the SNP in this period, but you’d be mistaken. In the year or so since Anas Sarwar became its leader they have completed two tasks: the design of a new party logo and helping the Tories assume control of several local councils.

If I were the Tories I’d be considering taking out one of those cease and desist orders against the Holyrood Left. These are the ones that global corporates issue against corner shops for their cheeky imitations. Perhaps it’s all part of a cunning plan by Scotland’s professional Left to drive the Tories out of business by actually becoming like them.

Boris Johnson’s implacable opposition to a second referendum on Scottish independence is puzzling. The SNP have been doing his job for him admirably for the last eight years. He really ought to fancy his chances more.

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