WHEN we first learned that the UK Government had set up a special Union Committee to fight the growing support for Scottish independence, I thought the whole thing seemed like a waste of time.

The save the Union unit, chaired by Michael Gove, certainly has lofty ambitions. It’s perhaps too early to assess its effectiveness but to give due credit to the committee lads, they are good for a laugh, if nothing else. There were reports at the weekend that one of the ideas dreamed up by Downing Street’s best and brightest is to move His Royal Highness the Earl of Forfar (Prince Edward) and his family to Edinburgh.

If you are anything like me, your first question upon hearing this news will have been “which one is he again?”. The answer is that he is not the important one nor the truly odious one.

Edward is the Queen’s youngest child. He seems likeable enough. But then, compared to Prince Andrew, that’s not exactly difficult. Yet, there is no immediately obvious reason for why he is the man for the job.

READ MORE: Prince Edward should live in Scotland to stop SNP and save Union, No10 says

If the idea is that having a member of the Royal family living in Scotland will somehow enchant wavering Yes voters and teach them the error of their ways, then it matters who is chosen to go northward to tell Scots to think again.

He may be one of the least well-known Royals, but there must be a reason the UK Government chose him. They wouldn’t have just plucked a name out of thin air, surely? These are the people that brought us the “eat your cereal” advert. Their political nous knows no bounds.

Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, I took to Google to do some research. I wanted to unearth something – anything – that would make this bizarre turn of events make sense. What I uncovered was 3D chess levels of strategy. The UK Government’s plan is devilishly simple yet striking in its brutality.

They are trying to bore us into submission.

What better way to counteract an energetic movement for self-determination than to send the Royal family’s most dull representative to live among us?

LETTERS: No 10 plan to use Prince Edward as a Union-saving puppet is beyond a joke

When researching Prince Edward I swerved the UK press, which tends to be more deferential to the UK Royals than oversees outlets. Americans love scandal and gossip, so when I saw an Oprah Magazine piece entitled “Eight facts about Prince Edward”, I was intrigued.

My excitement quickly dissipated when I discovered that one of the facts listed was that Prince Edward is the Queen’s son and another was that he likes horse-riding.

This cunning scheme is further proof that the UK Government will stop at nothing to deny Scotland its independence.

Have we not suffered enough? We have been stuck indoors for the best part of the year, living on a diet of Netflix and heavy carbs and now this comes along to kill off what was left of our mojo.

That’s not to say that having a member of the Royal family based in Scotland would necessarily be a bad thing.

But give us somebody we can work with, for feck sake. Give us Fergie or Camilla – at least they seem like they’d be up for a post-pandemic sesh. Those two you can easily imagine cutting about Sauchiehall Street at 2am, demanding chips and cheese and an afterparty. They would probably fit in quite well. But then again, they’d definitely end up as Yessers so you can see Downing Street’s logic on that one.

In response to the reports, a palace spokesperson said they were “unaware” of the proposal. It looks as though this madcap scheme has been abandoned before it even got off the ground. Which makes you wonder, what will they come up with to replace it?

With the Union in a state of established disintegration, we can expect all manner of wild and wonderful (and ultimately, ineffective) strategies employed to try and save it.

We already know that the save the Union committee is obsessed with the notion that if you put a flag on enough things, support for independence will die off.

​READ MORE: Boris Johnson claims to be ‘voice of the Scottish people’ despite Union Unit chaos

The security guards at Holyrood should be on high alert. I wouldn’t put it past Michael Gove to contract out a guerrilla lighting squad to make our Parliament glow red white and blue. Maybe they’ll do a backroom deal to ensure Ruth Davidson is our Eurovision entry. They could hire a Nicola Sturgeon doppelganger to front their pro-Union TV adverts.

Or – if we allow ourselves to imagine a worst-case scenario for a second – they might even decide that the situation is so grave that it warrants hitting the big blue button.

What if the only way to “prove” to Scots how loved and respected they are is to call up the moving vans and transfer Boris here permanently?

We all knew the last gasps of the UK would be turbulent, but could any of us have dreamed that they would be quite so entertaining?