Alex Massie

I preferred Grant Shapps when, as Michael Green, he was just another loathsome internet huckster peddling obviously quackish get-rich-quick schemes. He did less damage then. That is, he played a smaller number of people for fools back then. This morning Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, made the remarkable claim that "Alex Salmond is threatening to undermine a government chosen by the British people". (Note to Mr Shapps: the Scottish people are British too. We had, as you may recall, a vote on this. Quite recently.) I assume Shapps is the member for Codswallop-on-Stilts because this is nonsense. Worse than that, it is dangerous nonsense. Which in turn means it is hard to decide if it is worse that Shapps does not know this or that he does know it and does not care.

One of the most notable features of Alex Salmond's account of the closing stages of last year's referendum campaign is his hatred of the press and, indeed, the media more generally. Newspapers which run inconvenient stories are 'anti-Scottish' and journalists who ask awkward questions are accused of 'impersonating Alistair Darling'. Salmond cannot quite decide whether the press are an obsolete irrelevance or the primary reason the Yes campaign fell short. His greatest vitriol is reserved for the BBC which is accused of being a fully-owned part of the No campaign. Of course Salmond was so convinced Yes were going to win that it comes as some surprise to discover that Scotland actually voted No. It certainly seems to shock him.

It is always useful to remember Robert Conquest's suggestion that The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.  No, I don't know why David Cameron would amputate his authority before he runs for re-election either. But that's what he has done today by ruling out running for a third term in office.  I dare say it was an honest - and spontaneous - answer to a simple question. But still: what a bizarre thing to do, not least because no-one expected him to run again in 2020 even if, by some good fortune, he returns to Downing Street on May 8th. But there is every difference between common knowledge inside the village and broadcasting that knowledge to the wider world.

I long ago accepted that the Conservative party has lost its mind on immigration but until recently I still hoped it retained its decency. Alas, such charity seems ever more sorely misplaced. Responding to a question from Andrew Green, the MigrationWatch campaigner inexplicably elevated to the peerage by David Cameron, in the upper house yesterday, Lord Bates, a Home Office Minister, suggested immigration needs to be further restricted because too many foreign-born women residing in Britain are having babies. Damn their ovaries, damn it. This is a remarkable thing to say.

This election is going to be fun. Not because of the talent on display  - this is not the Champion's League - but because most of the players are so hopeless their flounderings almost become endearing. There's something wrong with each of them. Pick your favourite cripple. Nicola Sturgeon is one of the more impressive performers which is why her lecture speech in London is, as always, worth paying attention to. Despite this, it was her remarks about her preferred outcomes that will draw more comment. Because, however unwittingly, the First Minister revealed how this election may yet chump us all. All across the country, you see, voters are confronted with imperfect choices. More noses may be held than ever before.

The latest Scottish polling conducted by Lord Ashcroft is another reminder, should you still need it, that this year's election looks like being an unmitigated disaster for Unionism. The noble, if mischievous, Lord's research reveals that, as matters stand, the SNP are still on course to all but wipe Labour - and everyone else - off the political map. It will be a bloodbath; a night of the long claymores. Gordon Brown's Kirkcaldy seat? Gone. Alistair Darling's Edinburgh constituency? Taken. Charlie Kennedy's Highland fortress? Sacked. Even Jim Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat is threatened by the Nationalist insurgency. So too is the last remaining Tory MP in Scotland, David Mundell.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-snp-threat-to-westminster/media.mp3" title="Alex Massie and Sebastian Payne discuss what an SNP victory will mean for the union" startat=42] Listen [/audioplayer]Anyone seeking to understand the strength of the SNP should look to those parts of Scotland where the party is supposed to be weakest. At the last election, the nationalists took just under 10 per cent of the vote in the Scottish Borders. This year, Tory canvass returns suggest the SNP may treble its share of the vote in one of the most staunchly unionist seats in Scotland. For months, opinion polls have made unremittingly gloomy reading for unionists. The nationalists are heading for a victory on a scale still not fully comprehended in England.

Today's Scottish Conservative conference in Edinburgh proved unexpectedly interesting. No, really. Or, rather, yes, really. Or whatever. David Cameron spoke, you see, and so did Ruth Davidson and they said very different things. For important Prime Ministerial timetabling reasons (ie, he needed to get back to London) Cameron spoke first and thus, unusually, served as the warm-up guy. Which merely helped emphasise the difference between what the Prime Minister said and what the Scottish Tory leader had to say. Some of this was a question of substance.Cameron declared that the national question is "settled" whereas Davidson warned that "This isn't over and it hasn't gone away". Only one of them can be right and it's not the Prime Minister.

In some respects David Cameron has been a lucky politician. Lucky that his predecessors had failed so completely that his initial brand of so-called modernisation seemed a punt worth taking. Lucky that he faced Gordon Brown, not Tony Blair. Lucky that he could pivot from 'sharing the proceeds of growth' to 'we're all in it together' without too many people noticing (or caring too much). Lucky, above all, that he now faces Ed Miliband. Because however you dress it up, this has not been a happy government. In economic terms - the defining issue of the age - his party has missed many of its most important targets. Functionally-speaking, George Osborne's record in office has followed Alistair Darling's 2010 plans more than it resembles Osborne's own projections from five years ago.

You will recall that when Talleyrand died, Metternich is supposed to have asked 'What did he mean by that?' Say this for Nigel Farage: he's no Talleyrand. Subtlety is not part of the UKIP genome. Take, for instance, a Kipper press release issued this afternoon. I confess I had not hitherto been aware of UKIP's alliance with the RSPCA and the British Veterinary Association. So it was good to discover that Mr Farage's party is calling for a 'ban on the non-stun slaughter' of animals. I wonder what they mean by that? Oh. You see: "We find the government response to this issue is [sic] weak, lazy and bordering on spineless.