There’s nothing like turbulence at Holyrood to get Scots in London in a froth. The two Andrews – Marr and Neil – are both wringing their hands at the events of the past week, the former with angst, the latter with glee.

Former BBC political editor Andrew Marr concludes the current political crisis shows the SNP had become far too smug and complacent for their own good (agreed), but the other Andrew, former Murdoch editor and founding chairman of GB News, insists that independence is “now dead for a generation, if not longer”.

Perhaps it was past his bedtime when he wrote that. How anyone could make such a rash prediction after the events of the last generation in Scottish politics, quite beggars belief.

A generation or longer? Let’s put that in context. It was 25 years ago this month that the Scottish Parliament convened for the first time and the devolution era began. The prevailing assumption then that devolution would “kill nationalism stone dead” (George Robertson) proved to be just a tad off. Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon made it their life’s work to sow discontent with devolution while also skilfully posing as its protector. And it worked.

For five years after December 1999, no poll showed support for independence higher than 30 per cent (the period, incidentally, when one John Swinney was running the SNP). Robertson appeared to be right… only he wasn’t.

By 2014, 45 per cent of voters would back independence in a referendum. By 2020, support for it in the polls would........

© Herald Scotland