Uncle Salmond.

Mr Smith read Douglas Fraser's article in today's Herald with puzzlement.

"Scotland now ‘like US colonies in 1770s’ ... Alex Salmond went to the home of one of America's most revered founding fathers yesterday to invoke the spirit of revolution against rule from London. The First Minister visited Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson lived, and delivered a speech at Virginia University, which compared Scotland's position now with that of the 13 American colonies in 1776."

Now Mr Smith's recollection of US history may be a bit rusty but he's not sure that the view of most people in the US in the 1770s would have been to support independence for the Colonies from Britain. He suspects the bulk of support was for an even more limited form of devolution than Scotland currently has, centred around the concept of "no taxation without representation," pretty much the reverse of what Scotland has at the moment, where at Holyrood arguably we have "representation without taxation."

Think the parallels between Scotland now and America in the 1770s are pretty limited. Think you need to get out more First Minister or get a new speech writer.