Saturday's SNP demo: A Scottish homage to Catalonia or a tartan Clochemerle?

Last weekend almost a hundred thousand folk took to the streets of Scotland to celebrate Team GB. It was a demonstration of affection and pride in our athletes who contributed so much to the success of Team GB at London 2012.

Nobody organised buses for them and there were no political parties urging their supporters to attend, nor twitter or facebook campaigns to whip up support: just normal Scots demonstrating their appreciation for the athletes of Team GB.

So, you would imagine that with all their resources and their boasts about the slickness and efficiency of their digital campaigning the SNP will be able to match these numbers at their demonstration in Edinburgh this weekend.

In fact, if the SNP are to breathe life into their moribund Yes campaign then it's critical that they do exactly that. However, as Saturday approaches the organisers are beginning to realise that the numbers at their celebration of separation - dubbed GirnStock by nat-watchers - are going to fall well short of those who came out to support Team GB.

However, it is not just the lack of numbers which is giving the nats a headache; it is the pressure of ensuring that those who do turn up manage to subdue their more outre prejudices and whackjob conspiracy theories and behave themselves - 'Scottish Not British' banners and anti-English chants will sink them and the SNP highheidyins know it.

Already, the SNP have demanded that a small group of tartan trots with a taste for flag-burning and armed insurrection stay at home. However, for every excommunicated wild-eyed trot there are scores of SNP members who will quite cheerfully describe the union flag as a butcher's apron and declare their hatred of all things British: shamefully, that goes for plenty of SNP MSPs too.

And that should be a worry for them.

The SNP should be very concerned that their planned family-friendly day of fun and tartan celebrities on Saturday could very quickly degenerate into a demonstration of all that is bad with nationalism: bitterness, bigotry and blind prejudice.

So far the SNP have successfully gagged their lunatic fringe - but for how much longer can the nats rely on the silence of their bams?

Don Salmondo and his soft shoe shuffle

Proof that there's a shit-storm heading towards the NHS in Scotland came today when Nicola Sturgeon - wee Salmond's golden girl -  was moved out of Health to take control of the SNP's stalled and discredited campaign for separation. And in a move right out of The Godfather Wee Salmond's one time rival, Alex Neil, was handed the health brief. "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer" whispered Don Salmondo.

Make no mistake, having this job can seriously damage your political health. Poor wee Alex Neil, one of the more entertaining pantomime dames at Holyrood really should have noticed the smoke billowing out of the health brief and as for that ominous ticking sound...now it's only a matter of time before we hear that Alex Neil is sleeping with the fishes. 

And moving quickly along from political whack jobs to out and out whackjobs; what about poor wee Johnny Swinney on Newsnicht last night?

 Reduced to stuttering bluster and lying through his teeth when asked to explain why, if independence was the solution to all Scotland's woes, didn't he want the referendum to be held sooner. 

This is the man who the nats want to have responsibility for a separate Scotland's finances: somebody who  looks like a constipated rabbit caught in the headlights when asked a question he can't answer and and who blurts out lies when he gets flustered. 

Good choice, Bravehearts!