Scotland is an ingenious country saddled with the most witless politicians in Europe. Why give them more power?

It would be all too easy this week to argue that the case for Scottish independence is falling apart. Alex Salmond is an able politician and a peerless mischief-maker, but he tends to fall mute when confronted with the myriad contradictions of his own policies. It happened this week, when George Osborne said that it is ‘unlikely’ that the rest of the UK would enter into a formal currency pact with an independent Scotland. No matter, says Mr Salmond, an independent Scotland would use sterling anyway.

This would be a strange form of independence. It would reduce Scotland to the status of Panama, which uses the US dollar without the approval of the US government. It is not proving a happy arrangement for the Panamanians. As the US Treasury, like the Bank of England, rolls the presses in an attempt to print its way out of economic crisis, it is exporting inflation. Panama is powerless to stop this, because it has no control over its money supply.

This is just one of the many problems. How would an independent Scotland defend itself? It is hard to remain part of a UK military if (like the SNP) you disagree with most interventions. What happens if its major banks go bust? That’s hardly a hypothetical, given that the Bank of Scotland and RBS are both owned by the UK taxpayer. The biggest unanswered question is even simpler: would any of Scotland’s many problems be solved by secession? And since devolution has done little for Scotland in the past few years apart from saddle an ingenious country with perhaps the most witless bunch of politicians in Europe, what possible benefit could accrue from giving them even more power?

Yet for all this, the ‘No’ campaign still has a fight on its hands in the run-up to the referendum planned for 18 September next year.