Nowadays, the SNP message eschews such vulgar, and oft times frightening terms such as "separate". What they want is for all of us to have a warm, cuddly feeling about breaking up the United Kingdom.
Not that they'd approve of "breaking up", either. I'm not sure that given their present state of mind they'd even admit to wanting to "leave" the UK. That's way too abrasive for the new, avuncular Alex.
What he wants us to believe is that somehow or other Scotland would just glide away from its 300-plus-year-old union with England, Wales and, now, Northern Ireland. And it would happen in such a fashion as hardly anyone would notice that we'd gone. (By the way quite a few English people wish we'd hurry up about it).
He keeps stressing that what he wants, in an ideal world, is for Scotland to maintain what he calls its "social union" with England, in that we could all keep watching Coronation Street and Big Brother but that we'd in some mysterious way be different from our former partners. Not "separate" - that word is banned, just different.
He concedes that we'd be "independent" - that word is still allowed, just, in the new Nat lexicon - from Westminster but that above all else we'd still retain our loyalty to the Queen, as would England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That way instead of the United Kingdom we could have the United Kingdoms.
Call me a grumpy, old, anti-populist, cultural snob, but, in my opinion, one of the very few advantages of
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