It was David Maddox who spelled it out so succinctly.

On the Scotsman journalist’s Twitter feed, he remarked the following:
‘SNP need a better referendum strategy than going on about Tories and saying all their opponents are Tories’

The man has more than a decent point there.

Lamont’s ‘something for nothing’ misnomer to one side, the SNP need to define, and regularly redefine, what it is for and what its vision for an independent Scotland is much more clearly than it is currently doing. Befuddled Scots are looking to the governing party for answers and no amount of throwing ‘you can have the Queen, we can keep the pound, we’ll still be British really’ our way will distract us from wanting to know the answers to the more pertinent question – yes, but what’s actually going to change?

It is a simple philosophical logic that asking us to vote Yes instead of No means that there is a difference between the two outcomes from the coming referendum. It’s still not abundantly clear what that difference is. There is admittedly a risk that the SNP’s challenge becomes the unachievable winning a referendum and winning the an independent Scotland’s first election, but more is certainly required than the current performance.

NATO is a prime example of the lack of direction that the SNP is suffering from right now, expending considerable energy on arguing how alike the status quo things will be after a referendum victory. So what’s the point in voting Yes then?

I’m happy to be in NATO, happy with the pound and happy enough with the Royal Family. I still want independence because it appeals to my adventurous side and I think it would instil confidence, fairness and pride in a nation where not enough currently exists. That’s closer to the message that the SNP should be spreading right now, and it shouldn’t be too tough a sell against the backdrop of the direction the UK coalition is taking us in, but it’s just not getting through, seemingly due to timidity.

If you’re not playing offence then you’re playing defence, and so it has proved with Ed Miliband and David Cameron successfully stepping into the void created by the SNP’s lack of proactive campaigning in these past few weeks. If the unionist camp can with this referendum by mentioning the Olympics and getting a bit jingoistic about the UK, then it’s the SNP’s fault for letting it happen. I’m sure One Nationism doesn’t sound too bad to many wavering Scots out there.

NewsnetScotland has fallen into the trap as well, calling today for the unionist camp to explain what a No vote means. Well, no. The onus is on the SNP to explain what a Yes vote means and although that is difficult, shirking from that duty by lazily trying to box Labour and the Tories into a difficult corner just won’t cut it.

The opportunity may come from the ‘blond-haired mop’. Boris Johnson is plainly on manoeuvres and, if the rumours are true, won’t want to wait too long before making his move into Westminster and to the top job. David Cameron after all has never looked weaker – bizarrely unwilling or unable to sack Andrew Mitchell after plebgate, shackled to his best buddy Chancellor whose deficit reduction plan isn’t working and struggling to hold onto the central ground from a resurgent Labour party.

It wouldn’t be glorious or even particularly attractive, but the SNP thrives against opposition that is in disarray. Labour will do very well to conjure up a narrative that prevents this referendum being a choice on whether we want to live under Tory Governments or not so a posh boy scrap between Cameron, Osborne and Johnson over the PM position, not particularly helped by Ed ‘common as muck I am’ Miliband merrily jumping on the bandwagon. (I lived just up from Haverstock in London, it ain’t no Drumchapel I’ll say that).

It’s not the preferred platform for building a new country but for a party that seems intend on taking the easy route, Tory infighting may well be the SNP’s beat chance of victory. I do hope they opt for the high road, the difficult road, in the years to come though. The strategy just doesn’t seek right at the moment.

It’s not surprising that independence polls are derisory at the moment. ‘Scotland’s not buying what Salmond’s selling’ was how Lamont put it and, not for the first time in the past few weeks, the lady has a point.

Ed Miliband delivered a fine leader’s speech a couple of weeks ago and Cameron did the same yesterday.

I’m looking forward to Salmond’s contribution to conference season next week with his own leader speech but if he indulges in more Tory-bashing rather than selling Scotland a dream of an exciting, ambitious future, don’t expect those polls to be moving upwards any time soon.

There’s an episode in the West Wing where, in the madness of a crowded rope line, President Jed Bartlet accepts a copy of the Taiwanese flag from a member of the public. Given Jed is such a wily political operator, the assumption is that he did this on purpose to invite the consternation from China and provoke a debate on Taiwan independence. He didn’t, he just made a mistake and didn’t see what someone had put in his hand. 

One has to wonder if that other wily political operator, President-in-waiting Alex Salmond, has played yet another strategic blinder in not getting Devo Max onto the ballot paper or whether he’s simply messed up. 

On the one hand, Salmond has seemingly been pushing for something that he and his party claims to not want but his political opponents do and, in losing ‘his’ second vote, he may well have cleverly won much of the would-be Devo Max voters as future Yes voters by fighting their corner and offering them some sort of change, rather than simply the status quo. 

Further, through this push for a Devo Max option, the First Minister has certainly helped paint Labour as anti-devolutionist and helped sew some internal rancour over whether they should back a second question or not. It’s well worth noting that the Devo Max referendum option has disappeared before Johann Lamont has even started her promised commission on devolution which is (was?) to focus on extending Holyrood’s powers.

On the other hand of course, Alex Salmond has opened his party up to the possibility of a devastating defeat in 2014 with no consolation prize and also opened himself up to ridicule here and now. Unwarranted ridicule that is, but when has that ever stopped the Scottish press. The First Minister was portrayed as wanting something but he didn’t get it. Cue exaggerated terms such as ‘humiliation’, ’embarrassment’ and ‘making chumps’ of those who want Devo Max. (A neat, if rather desperate attempt by Willie Rennie there to try to wrest back the Lib Dem reputation as being the most pro devolution party, though it does indirectly make him sound like Head Chump). 

I personally believe Alex Salmond genuinely wanted that second question, that it wasn’t all just political cross-dressing smoke and mirrors, and that he’ll be bitterly disappointed that a more fortuitous result was not reached during the time that he created for a second question to emerge. However, when someone doesn’t get the first win from their win-win situation, it’s more than a stretch to label it a defeat. Alex Salmond no longer has a legacy-defining backup plan for his circa 2014/15 retirement. That doesn’t really change much for the rest of us.

The quid pro quo for Salmond relenting on his push for a Devo Max option on the ballot slip is seemingly a mercifully straightforward, Westminster-sanctioned, legal framework in which to hold the referendum.

This is all to be welcomed, because the sooner the ultimately frivolous and childishly conducted discussions over how many questions, what the question(s) will be, timing etc are out of the way, the closer we will get to the real debate sparking to life, Scots having constructive conversations about their collective future, politicians on all sides being forced to talk about substance and, most appealingly (and to use another West Wing analogy), the Yes campaign letting Salmond be Salmond, unleashing their prized weapon when he’s at his best – winning votes on the campaign trail. Unless he stuffs up and unwittingly takes a Union flag as a gift at an inopportune time, of course.

So no, it’s not at all clear who the absence of a Devo Max option is a defeat for, and we have a way to go to find out.

I’m not gay. Not that I’d think any less of myself if I was, although my fiance might be less than impressed by such a revelation.

Despite not being gay, I recall always being quite taken with Will from the excellent US comedy Will & Grace. Here was a man who was down-to-earth, calm, run-of-the-mill but doing well for himself and, for desperate want of a better word, normal. And gay.

Such was (and still is sadly), the lamentable portrayal of LGBT individuals on TV and the wider media that this character was terribly intriguing for those twin pedestrian reasons – gay and normal.

I daresay a comparison could be made to the mental image much of the public has (and certainly the media’s regular portrayal made of) those who intend to vote Yes in the referendum in 2014. How many minds have wondered, or mouths spoken out loud even, ”You support independence? You? But you’re normal’.

It’s easy to be pro-UK at the moment, expected even. The Olympics were a veritable slam dunk, the Queen has somehow conjured up some credible goodwill despite her constant crabbitness and London’s deep pockets have saved our wayward banks for which we are to be eternally grateful, or until after the referendum at least. It takes a strong nerve to say out loud and against expectation that you’d rather Scotland was its own country.

And yet, the more one looks at the polls and the more one considers the lay of the independence campaign’s lands, the clearer it is that more of the silent Yes voters are going to have to speak up to win the referendum. They don’t have to dress up like Braveheart, put on a funny voice or act in any way different to how they acted before, but, like gay Will, they do need to make their presence known. Come oot, if you will.

Margo MacDonald convinced me of this fact when she said yesterday “If a third of Scots believe in independence, then every one of us has two years to persuade another Scot, and we are home and dry” Well, we can’t be leaving it all to the tartan loonies, can we? And let’s be honest, there was a fair few on display streaming down the mound yesterday, mercifully outnumbered by families, refined couples and friends out having a good time and calmly making themselves known.

The problem in coming oot and getting people to join us in that regard (my Yes colours are pretty firmly labelled to the mast) is that there seems to be an irrationally deep-seated intransigence to even considering anything other than the status quo. I don’t mean genuine disagreement, which is to be very much welcomed. I mean a hard-headed ‘No!’ that carries no rhyme nor reason.

Take, for example, a very brief chat I had with a kilted worker in one of the Royal Mile’s finest kilt hire stores. Having noted that he was wearing Scots Nationalist tartan, I gambled with a bit of small talk, lost and was left thoroughly, thoroughly confused:

Me: ‘I see you’re wearing the Scots Nationalist tartan?’

He: ‘Aye’

Me: ‘You’ll be sad that you’re missing the rally then?’

He: *tut* ‘I don’t think so. If this country ever gets devolution, I’m leaving’

Now, where to begin. You work in a kilt shop, are clearly passionate about tartan, you’re wearing the Nationalist tartan infact, but if we ever get devolution independence, then you’re out of here? I never said anything of course, just gave a non-committal blank look and we parted ways. Sorry Margo, my ‘one’ will have to be somebody else.

We’ve heard similar rhetoric before of course, homeruleophobia I’m minded to call it.
Michelle Mone made the really quite ludicrous and pointedly public assertion that if Scotland were to be independent then she would take her Bravissimo bra company down south (effectively sacking on the spot those hundreds of workers who wouldn’t want to relocate from Glasgow).

I can understand any Scot being ardently pro- or anti- independence and I can equally understand any Scot being easy-oasy on the subject, but there seems to be a conditional patriotism at play whereby certain unionist Scots will only support and play a part in Scotland if they get their way, irrespective of what the democratic majority may decide. It’s not much of a team spirit if you ask me.

That conditional patriotism doesn’t seem to exist on the other side of the debate. Scots who have longed for independence have made do within the United Kingdom for 300 years with a quiet resolve and relatively little fuss, particularly if you look at other scarred and charred countries around the world. Or over the water, even.

I’m not even necessarily criticising those seemingly proud Scots who would nonetheless reject their nation if it were independent, I’m just striving to understand them. Conditional patriotism; it eludes me, but it’s out there.

Not that people stepping back should stop others from stepping forwards, and that was my take away from yesterday given a turnout that was high when set against expectations but low when set against an electorate. The enthusiasm of a relative few can go a very long way. One wonder how many would turn out for a Better Together No rally? I bet even the conditional patriots would stay at home.

So, there may be an immovable, implacable unionist object in the way, but that’s no reason why more and more Yes voters shouldn’t come out and help try to build an unstoppable force. And if that force is to be beaten, let’s hope that it was the mountain of counter-arguments that was insurmountable, rather than the limitations of our collective ambition and imagination. Or even just deep-seated prejudice against an imagined enemy, much like homosexuality, that has been battled and largely beaten before, with as much help from the quiet Wills of this world as the louder, colourful protests.

I couldn’t make yesterday’s march despite briefly walking against and alongside it on two different occasions. I’m already looking forward to next year’s though and standing proud, if not terribly loud, as a part of it.