IN the four years or so that have elapsed since the starting gun was fired on the campaign for Scottish independence, I’ve been conducting a rudimentary poll among friends and family representing all political stripes and loyalties. “Have you ever heard of the McCrone Report into the effects of North Sea oil revenues on Scotland’s economy?” There is a supplementary question that I rarely get to ask them. “What do you make of it?” The second question mainly goes unanswered because most of them answer “No” to the first question.

Now, I’m not claiming here that my circle of friends and family is more than usually knowledgeable about politics and current affairs, but when elections and referendums come around they give the loud impression that they are all across the issues, man. Yet, of the 50 or so people to whom I’ve put these questions, a mere handful – fewer than 10 – have ever heard of it. Among those few only one was able to provide an accurate summation of its contents. The rest offered a loose approximation of it as being “something about oil that the SNP sometimes bangs on about”.

Too damn right it’s about oil, I say. “It basically says that if Scotland had control of its oil revenues the country would possess one of the richest economies in the western world. And the probable reason why you haven’t heard of it is because after it was written in 1974 it was suppressed by successive Labour and Conservative UK Governments. “Aye right,” they say. “Aye right enough,” say I. “It was suppressed because the people who run the UK feared that if the true extent of what Scotland has missed out on was known then we’d be independent before you could say ‘bring me another one of those £9bn Trident missile systems, if you don’t mind, sunshine’.” As many of these conversations tend to take place in circumstances where drink has been taken, the word “shafted” is often deployed.

The recent revelation that Norway has amassed a one trillion pound oil fund in the years when UK governments have been using it to pay off entire industrial workforces (yet still amass a one trillion pound debt) means that those words “oil”, “McCrone” and “shafted” will be getting another run-out. The head of Norway’s pension fund Yngve Slyngstad said this week: “The growth in the fund’s market value has been stunning. I don’t think anyone expected the fund to ever reach $1 trillion when the first transfer of oil revenue was made in May 1996.”

There will be other opportunities in the months ahead to discuss oil and the Scottish economy but the story about this squandered windfall occurred in the midst of another of those weeks when it seemed that the case for Scotland determining its own destiny was being screamed out in bold block type everywhere you turned. I sincerely hope that when Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP come out from underneath the covers and start talking about independence once more that they decide this time to spell out to the nation exactly what they have been missing out on.

As the true extent of the Norwegians’ black gold Klondyke was being revealed we have also been given a glimpse of what the UK Government will probably look like once the Tories put Theresa May out of her misery and decide that she has outlived her usefulness. Boris Johnson penned a 4,000-word application to become the UK’s next Prime Minister in the Tories’ house newspaper. Do not be lulled by the squawks about back-seat driving coming from May’s cabinet;

Johnson has got serious support inside the party. This will grow as it becomes ever more obvious that the Europeans are running away with the Brexit negotiations and backing David Davis and his boss into a far softer version of it than the chaps would like.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is also amassing a power base amongst those Tories that think Britain has gone to the dogs since they banned pillorying miscreants in the stocks and dooking old women they suspect of being witches in the nearest river. Unfortunately, some Scottish commentators who masquerade as liberals sought themselves to pillory Rees-Mogg for all the wrong reasons. A deep strain of animosity towards Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular runs through the tartan chatterati and so they chose to attack Rees-Mogg for his faith rather than his political views. The irony here is that whereas Rees-Mogg has stated he would never force his religious views on the UK legislature he would most certainly press his politics on the rest of us without a moment’s hesitation. Thus rather than see food banks as a social evil that highlights the effects of corporate greed and social inequality, Rees-Mogg thinks they are a good thing that showcases kindness and compassion. He espouses this in the manner of a child petting a lamb in a field.

Boris Johnson thinks that the banks should be encouraged still to hand out massive bonuses to their senior executives. To do otherwise, he believes, runs the risk of failing to attract the world’s top financial necromancers. He skates over the finicky fact that it was these people who crashed the UK economy in 2008. Rees-Mogg opposes any suggestion of easing DWP benefit sanctions while supporting tax and inheritance relief for multi-millionaire families such as his. This pair believes that at this point in Britain’s history their time has come. That is scary enough. What is more so is that a significant number among the party of government agrees.

In civilised countries characters such as these disappeared with pirates and powdered wigs. Together they are sworn to defend and uphold the class system which ensures that power remains vested in a tiny cabal who have benefited from inherited wealth and unearned privilege. It underpins and pervades their entire belief system and fuels their remorseless drive to deliver a hard Brexit. If they can finally rid us of any outside influence then the quicker they can bring the UK to that 18th-century destination in which they believe their narrow and iniquitous interests and influence most thrived.

We in Scotland are being granted a future glimpse – a vision if you like – of the social and cultural apocalypse that awaits us unless we take matters into our own hands. While a pro-independence majority prevails at Holyrood there will always be the possibility of avoiding this whirlwind. It remains to be seen if Nicola Sturgeon and her ministers are capable of exploiting these golden opportunities being offered up monthly by a UK administration that has become morally bankrupt.