The most intriguing thing about Alex Salmond's scheduling of legislation for a referendum this year is the lack of excitement it has caused.
The blogs are not full of it, nor are the comments columns in newspapers nor even the letters pages, where you would expect to see the nat letter-writing teams trying to whip up a false furore in favour...
Why is that? On the face of it, the SNP administration's only reason for wanting power (and therefore for voting them into power) is to get this referendum. But when it comes, indifference rages. Nobody seems to care...
I think the main reason is the shallowness of support for independence. When questioned by pollsters a certain number of people will always say that they are “in favour” of independence. But when you probe a little deeper you find that it is not their top priority, or even their tenth priority.
What people really want, their real priorities, are more jobs (or in the recession job security) and better health care and education and roads and policing and housing. If I, or a close friend or relative, lose my job or have a serious health issue, it can be the talk of the steamie. A referendum? On idependence? Yawn and yawn...
So the voters are not really engaged by the idea of a referendum. It's a distraction, a waste of resources and a misdirection of political energy. It shows that the SNP has got its priorities all wrong and out of kilter with the real needs and desires of the Scottish people.
The SNP is playing political games while the economy struggles and Scots are losing their jobs and are just not all that interested in a referendum on independence.
They have other priorities, and it is these priorities that the SNP administration should be addressing instead of wasting their energy, and ours, on a futile party political exercise.