Cameron's legal expert endorses independence timetable. Are the Unionists trying to lose?

     Is there a nationalist mole in Whitehall, an evil genius undermining the case for the Union?    On Monday, the UK Coalition published its legal advice on the status of Scotland after independence.  Scotland would be a new state, the government lawyers concluded,  after also identifying the religious leanings of the Pope.  There would be a lot of renegotiation to do, which is great for the legal profession, who stand to make a fortune disentangling the strands of union. 

   Better Together pronounced the death knell of independence.  "This shreds to pieces" declared a UK Coalition spokesman, "Alex Salmond's fantasy that Scotland would be waved through into every international institution on a 'no questions asked' basis".  The fantasy being the SNP's 18 month timetable for transition to independence published last week.  But the UK Coalition's own legal adviser, Prof. James Crawford of Cambridge University, seems to be living in fantasy land also, because on Tuesday, the co-author of the Coalition's legal advice,  admitted on BBC Radio that Scotland already fulfilled the requirements and the Scottish government's timetable for EU renegotiation was “realistic”. The headlines about Scotland having to negotiate 14,000 separate treaties also turned out to be the usual concoction of speculative half-truths. They could all be wrapped up in around 18 months.  So much for this weeks' scare.  

Salmond gets the numbers wrong. But it's all Mike Russell's fault.

  “Facts are chiels that winna ding” is one of Alex Salmond's favourite Burns quotes, so it was with particular relish that Labour's education spokesman, Hugh Henry, flung the words in the FMs face on Thursday when it became clear that Salmond had got his facts wrong on college funding. At First Minister's Questions Salmond had said repeatedly that further education spending had increased when it had actually fallen. A humbled First Minister returned to the debating chamber later that afternoon to apologise for misleading parliament. “Ding, dong!” said Henry.Now, the education secretary, Mike Russell, has agreed to come to parliament today to set the record straight. 

It seems the Scottish government's omnibourach moment is not over. This is the third time in a month that leading figures in the government have found it necessary to make an emergency statement before the close of play in parliament. In October Alex Salmond was forced to answer accusations from opposition leaders that he'd been “lying” over claimed legal advice on European Union membership. He apologised last week for inadvertently misleading parliament on college spending.  This could be habit forming.

   What with "Plan McB" wilting under the impact of recession, unemployment rising and support for independence waning,  things seem to have stopped going Salmond's way recently. Following the climb-down on the second referendum question, and the unexpected resignation of senior nationalists after the conference debate on Nato, Labour sense that Salmond may finally be outstaying his welcome, both in the SNP and in the country. Mind you, they've said that often enough before and the FM's popularity has remained stubbornly high.