Hell hath no fury like a man scorned. Like a disgruntled thesp overlooked for a lifetime achievement award, Alex Salmond has been strongly hinting to anyone who’ll listen that Scotland would have had a second referendum by now if he’d been in charge after 2014 instead of that awful Nicola Sturgeon.

In Salmond’s blockbuster counterfactual, he would have pressured Westminster to allow another independence referendum, while also brilliantly negotiating Scotland’s entry into the European single market.

Quite how he would have achieved this while registering some of the worst popularity ratings of any senior politician in Scotland, isn’t clear; perhaps he will explain that in due course. The important thing is that we all understand he has all the answers and Nicola Sturgeon got it all wrong.

Read more Rebecca McQuillan

His cunning plan for achieving a referendum? That the Scottish parliament should have legislated for a referendum to be held on whether the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold a referendum. Confusing, slightly? Processy, off-putting? Yes, but it doesn’t matter apparently.

Sharing his insights with us on the airwaves yesterday, Mr Salmond explained as if to a class of toddlers: “You’ve got to make it less attractive for Westminster to say no than to say yes.”

You see? In his Holyrood mini-referendum, the people of Scotland would have voted yes, panic would have ensued in Downing Street and Theresa May’s signature on the dotted line of a second Edinburgh Agreement would meekly have followed.

Great idea, big guy. One problem: what if the Scottish........

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