So, there we go then… The gloves and masks are off and all it’s done is expose the hypocrisy and incompetence of each and every party involved in the Scottish independence “debate.”

I use the term advisedly as there has been no real debate whatsoever. That would imply a degree of tolerance for divergent opinion which has definitely not been manifest over the last year or so.

This column has been largely quiet on the issue of Scottish independence, which seems to have whipped most of the media into a jingoistic frenzy.

This is mainly because of one important factor… we’re not Scottish.

But, when everyone else and their borrowed sporran appear to be wading in, sod it!

When it comes to nationalism or patriotism your humble scribe is very much of the same opinion as George Bernard Shaw that it is the last refuge of the scoundrel. In particular it has no time for that two-faced chancer Alex Salmond and his chums. Any political organisation with National, in the title is one to be held at arms length.

I wouldn’t trust Salmond as far as I could toss a caber but then I wouldn’t trust any of the other main players either.

And what exactly is going on with the Better Together mob?

Has there been such an ill-judged campaign since the Jimmy Savile-is-innocent debacle?

Do they really want Scotland to remain part of the union?

You wouldn’t think so from the way they’re patronising the life out of people on either side of the border. 

Fear mongering and intimidation one minute, ineptly cajoling the next. We’ve had blackmail, both political and economic, with various major firms threatening to pull out if a Yes vote occurs — the latest being those fine upstanding people at RBS who have done so much to boost the British economy. 

They’ve done everything except claim that Irn Bru will disappear from the shelves the day after a Yes vote. 

England is very much the abusive spouse in this relationship.

Having brutalised Scotland for centuries, plundering its wealth and treating it as very much the poor relation, it’s now appealing for another chance, claiming it will be different this time round.

It has swung wildly between sneering contemptuously that Scotland would be nothing without England to sobbing, “We really love you, honestly. Don’t go. It won’t happen again.”

There have been few more nauseating sights in recent times than that of Cameron lachrymosely appealing for unity this week.

The PM attempted a spectacularly ill-judged quip about the referendum not being used as a chance to “kick the effing Tories.”

That’s practically the national pastime in Scotland.

“I care far more about my country than I do about my party,” he went on, which makes you wonder what he thinks about the Tories because he sure as hell doesn’t give a toss about the rest of us.

“I would be heartbroken if this family of nations we have put together — and we have done such amazing things — was torn apart.”

That’s a hundred thousand votes to Salmond in a single sickening sentence…

Sending Cameron, Clegg and Miliband up there was the ultimate insult and will assuredly swing the vote in the contrary direction.

As if deploying this ghastly trio would have a favourable impact on the wavering Scots.

“Well, I was going to vote Yes but having heard a blubbering Tory toff pontificate about the virtues of the union I’ve changed my mind.”

They’re the very embodiment of why the Scots want to leave in the first place.

They don’t even make a good impression on the English electorate so quite why they thought they would sway anyone north of the border is beyond comprehension.

Mind you most of what this shower do is beyond comprehension.

Former Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble weighed into the row this week saying that a Yes vote would send a dangerous signal to the nationalists in Northern Ireland.

To be honest I think it’s a bit late for that now.

And speaking of such matters, it was only a matter of time before the Loyal Orange Order decided to add its own particular brand of community relations to an already highly toxic sectarian soup.

Yes despite the appeals of, well, just about everyone, the Brethren will march through Edinburgh this weekend.

“One thing you can’t say about the Orange Order is that it’s dispassionate,” Ian Wilson, convenor of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland’s “strategy group,” said on Thursday with a fair degree of understatement.

Who knew they had a strategy?

If they have it seems mainly to consist of marching up and down singing kick the Pope songs while refusing to listen to anyone.

“It’s a thoroughly democratic way of expressing our views,” he claimed, showing yet again that the order is a total stranger to irony, logic and the Oxford English Dictionary.

There are few situations that can’t be made worse by the Clockwork Orangemen turning up, especially if they’re claiming to be on your side.

Still in a way I suppose it will provide a useful barometer. If you can stomach that and STILL want to remain part of the union you’re really bloody determined to stay put.