The National:

INDEPENDENCE is normal. Unionists want it to seem like a huge leap into the dark – and when they’re reminded that this is nonsense, they go into self-defence mode.

This time, it was Alex Cole-Hamilton taking point.

When we spotted Wheatus – responsible for iconic hit “Teenage Dirtbag” – taking an interest in Scottish independence, we thought it’d be interesting to hear their views on the state of affairs in the UK, as seen from America.

READ MORE: What would indy feel like with a border between Scotland and rest of UK?

Artists do often weigh in on politics, after all, and the more normal independence becomes as an idea, the more celebs we see coming out in support of it.

At The National, we take the feedback and views of our readers very seriously and our inbox is always open to those messages.

The National:

What does not affect our editorial policy, however, is seeing Unionists on social media get upset about our output – be that our annual republication of the McCrone Report, Roberto Mancini resting the Euro 2020 trophy on top of The National or Alex Cole-Hamilton getting wound up because we make fun of him for his thin skin.

Wheatus frontman Brendan B Brown set out to us exactly why Boris Johnson is so unsuitable for his position of power.

“Pulling out the big guns” mocked Alex Cole-Hamilton in reply. That would be the leader of the Scottish LibDems suggesting someone else is irrelevant.

(As an aside, Wheatus have 3.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify. If you add up every vote the Scottish LibDems have ever received in Holyrood elections, both constituency and list, it's still hundreds of thousands short of that figure.)

He accompanied his tweet with a low-quality GIF – it’s good to see he hasn’t gone off those, after previous incidents.

Unionist commentator Duncan Hothersall got in on the action too, writing: “That's me persuaded. The economics might be disastrous and the implications for ordinary families grim, but if the lead singer of Wheatus thinks independence is a good idea because Boris Johnson is really awful, that's good enough for me.”

We must confess that Duncan is not at the top of our priority list for converting to Yes, and he may not have been one of the lucky one million to receive a copy of last year's eight-page pro-indy special. 

It should also be said that the only disastrous economics would be staying in the Union so it can squander more Scottish resources.

Still, it’s amusing to see the side that wheels out Gordon Brown on an annual basis questioning someone's relevance.

Perhaps Alex and co would be more interested in our new Land Detective column by Andy Wightman?