'Cut out the middle man, get the Sturge here now'
All hail Queen Nicola!
What the Scottish monarch does today, England does tomorrow. She's astute, she's a politician, she's a woman, and she knows what she wants.
What do I want? Scottish independence! When do I want it? As soon as I can have another referendum that I am sure we can win!
And if we lose, we'll just have another one a bit later.
On everything from her handling of coronavirus which has made north of the border an acclaimed beacon of excellence in public health matters (apart from a Scottish drugs death crisis, a test backlog for 100,000 cancer patients, etc, etc), to her groundbreaking and pioneering U-turn over Scottish exam results, The Sturge has been showing the rest of the UK the way.
No wonder everybody is looking to her for guidance. With top level confusion and uncertainty south of the border about what ordinary people will put up with, Nicola and the Nationalists just get on with issuing Scottish state diktats.
In these difficult times we need a firm hand, and it's certainly not the time for lame "jokes" from so-called comedians which might cause insult or offence.
Yet again, Nicola's utopian land leads the libertarian way with her crackdown. Scottish prisons are ready and waiting to lock up entertainers who cross the line in the SNP's new law which empowers the wig-wearers in frocks to sit in judgment on what humour is acceptable.
For those who don't want a stay at Her Scottish Majesty's Pleasure in Barlinnie, the cautionary watchwords are: Don't Be Rude About Holyrood.
Even Boris Johnson has pitched his tent in her fiefdom, obviously hoping that by breathing in the same air that she breathes he can be infused with some of her wisdom.
This pandemic has been the greatest boost to the cause of Scottish independence since Bannockburn, Flodden, Culloden, and Wembley 1977.
But here's the rub. After the experience of the last few months, and the tidal wave of fawning admiration for Nicola's Way – and they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – can England afford to let her go?
Probably, given that truckloads of UK dosh are travelling up north in constant convoys to plug the Scottish government's massive financial deficit.
In Westminster, SNP MPs don't really want to be there but even though their ambition is to break up the UK they nobly make positive and constructive contributions to its running.
Although none come immediately to mind, I'm sure there have been lots.
When Nicola finally steps down, she must be offered gongs and ermine gowns, if only to give her the opportunity indignantly to reject them.
In the meantime, it makes sense for her to speak not just for Scotland, but for England too, as it would save time and cut out the middle Boris.
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A few years ago there was an international outcry after a female Russian pop group with a dodgy name were sentenced to two years in jail after staging an anti-Putin protest in a church.
Of course it couldn't have happened here. Except that it could, and they could face jail here too, probably two months for disrupting a service, but up to seven years if a charge of religious hate crime could have been made to stick.
Back in 1998 Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, faced jail when he appeared before court for interrupting the Archbishop of Canterbury's Easter sermon. The magistrate recognised it as a stunt and he was only fined £18.60, which seemed a reasonable and proportionate outcome.
There seems to have been very little discussion about the man jailed for six weeks for failing to obey self-isolation rules on the Isle of Man, and the man serving a 300-day sentence imposed by a Guernsey court for the same thing after he couldn't afford the fine.
Call me a big softie. But where's the outcry? Are we living in Putin's Russia?
When Tony Blair launched the Iraq invasion he clamped down on doubting voices by saying or implying they were "giving succour to Saddam Hussein." But questioning such ludicrously harsh sentences does not mean you condone what they did.
It seems making an example of such people is the fashion, in the same way instant jail sentences were imposed on drunken students making moronic, but ultimately harmless, late night tweets not so long ago.
When Brits are arrested abroad there is an immediate assumption that they will face substandard justice, but much as we would like to think that our judicial system is the best and fairest in the world, there is a long list of domestic miscarriages of justice which should make us think twice.
And sometimes it is not miscarriages of justice which raise the questions. Here's the scenario. It's the dead of night. You see a young couple in a town centre doing you know what. So you get out your camera and film them. Discuss rights and wrongs.
The answer is that if the camera is a CCTV then it is the couple who will be brought to court, even if no member of the public has observed them. There has been more than one court case across our patch on that basis.
They'll be jailing people for not wearing face masks next, you'll see.
