AS the old BT slogan used to have it “it’s good to talk”. However, there are ground rules. Firstly a conversation implies two participants are involved, and that each has signed up to listening as well as broadcasting.

I fear the UK Government may have mislaid the memo on this. All through the debacle of Brexit “negotiations”, we were assured that the nations of the UK would be full partners in what will be the most massive and crashing change of economic gear since Adolf tried to reshape European geography.

Yet all through the Brexit talks, the so-called Joint Ministerial Council was given the kind of ready access and status usually reserved for tradespeople vainly trying to gain entrance through the back door. To paraphrase regular dispatches from Michael Russell, supposedly our man in the front line, to call this council a meaningless piece of window dressing is an affront to the blinds industry.

Meanwhile, Kate Forbes, Scotland’s Finance Secretary, has had a series of dizzies from the UK Chancellor in her equally vain attempts to meet and find out his thinking before his public statement this Wednesday. Finally, she sent him a lengthy letter, outlining her concerns – not least the fact that Sunak is continuing the recent unfortunate Number 11 tradition of postponing his actual budget beyond when Ms Forbes will have to produce her Scottish one.

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This matters. It matters because it’s almost impossible to fashion a credible Scottish budget without knowing the extent of the available dosh. Just one more telling argument as to why the Scottish Government needs full borrowing powers. (You know, the kind you have when you’re an independent country.)

In the meantime, Scottish Tories queue up to tell us how incredibly grateful we should be for UK largesse, as if, uniquely, Scottish taxes were not part of the equation. The same kind of dodgy accounting much in favour during the oil boom years when hundreds of millions slopped over the Border into the Treasury coffers.

Which brings me to Mr Alister Jack, Secretary of State for Scotland – aka Downing Street’s friend in the north. This is the chap for whom the Scottish taxpayer is footing the bill for massive new “hubs” in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The more obsolete the post, the more it costs to run, it seems.

Mr Jack took to the public prints at the weekend to enumerate the manifold bounties bestowed on Scots by the precious Union. All part of this new task force, (or whatever they’re calling it this month), I expect. Just a pity that when Messrs Jack and Ross had girded their conference loins, their boss decided to override his natural inclination and tell the truth. No amount of papering over the resultant cracks will persuade Scottish voters “devolution in Scotland has been a disaster” is not the private Johnson publicly unmasked.

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And of course devolution IS disastrous if you’re a Prime Minister bound and determined to clasp every available power to your own ample bosom, not excluding those previously enjoyed by the devolved administrations pre-Brexit. Then, just as you’re on the verge of enacting an Internal Market Bill to further emasculate any forum not called Westminster, some fool goes and sabotages the plot. Oh, hang on, that appears to have been me.

One of the most irritating paragraphs in Mr Jack’s latest promotional leaflet, suggests that the post-Covid economy can be more “innovative, inclusive and stronger” than before. “But this will only be possible if all parts of the Government work together with a shared ambition to ensure every part of our country thrives.”

It takes a fair amount of brass in the neck to urge togetherness with the very administrations you’ve just frozen out of any and every meaningful consultation. Indeed whilst you’re simultaneously trying to dream up new wheezes to caw the feet from under the elected government of Scotland. The Scottish voter, by and large, did not come up the Clyde on a biscuit. (Please insert waterway of choice.)

This “every part of our country” thing fair gets on the nerves too. Britain is not a country. Never was. Any fule know that. Even Mr Jack’s own London-based colleagues have learned to parrot “four nations” of late, most especially when they’re urging other governments to fall in line with whatever novel strategy London happens to be piloting.

Which brings me to their current favourite four-letter word: Xmas. According to the various lines carefully planted in the Sunday media, Santa Johnson and his somewhat intellectually challenged elves are super keen that everyone signs up to his plan of a Christmas ho ho holiday. This is madness on stilts.

We have more than enough evidence of what immediately happens the instant we’re all given a bit more freedom. Lots of folk take it as a green light to get down the pub or throw a party or both, after which there is the inevitable spike in virus transmission. Some of these modelling types have worked out that for every day of relaxation, we’ll have to pay with four or more locked well down. That would be unfortunate.

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Unforgiveable would be causing more families to lose the life of a member. Or go through the very real horror of artificial ventilation. Or cause more delays to conventional health care because the hospitals become crowded with Covid victims. Or put our already stressed frontline medical staff under new, unnecessary pressures.

This “four nations in lockstep” stuff died a Covid death long since. All the nations and regions have been subject to different measures, and the festive season should be no different. We’ve all made huge sacrifices these last months. It seems crazy to me to risk every gain – with the vaccines on the way – in order to pull a cracker, sometimes with people we see a couple of times a year.

It would only be humane to devise a way of those in care homes – who may not have many Christmases to come – to be able to be visited and embraced by a family member. But for grannies and grandpas desperate for a hug – not to mention the rest of us – let’s hang in there. It looks like we’re finally in the home straight.