FIRST they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

After Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, maybe that famous maxim should be amended to include a new stage. Before they fight you, they slight you. Or at least, they try.

Consider the Prime Minister’s petulant performance.

Small slight number one – Boris called the Scottish Government the Scottish “administration” several times. How pathetic. It’s 13 years since Alex Salmond replaced the old “Scottish Executive” badging with the more substantial (and accurate) “Scottish Government” and it wasn’t just a semantic change. Nicola Sturgeon is running a government not an ‘administration’ – that’s why she can present legislation, raise taxes, run a budget and direct a parliament. Obviously. It’s a weary old barb. And the great news – it’s so plain daft it hardly even offends.

Verdict – Boris, try harder.

Serious slight number two – Boris suggested there will be new spending for Scotland as part of his New Deal. He just couldn’t quite think of any particular example in the heat of the moment – more information next week in the Chancellor’s statement. Honestly, pull the other one. Scots aren’t stupid. We know there won’t be any new spending for Scotland because most of these New Deal announcements are just recycled parts of last year’s Tory manifesto, and the genuinely new spending doesn’t generate Barnett consequentials – a Scottish share. So not a new penny for Scotland. Totally unacceptable. But not even seriously discussed.

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Instead, there was slight number three – as Boris denied that one of his minders laughed at Kate Forbes’s request for extra borrowing powers. Scotland’s Finance Secretary has been appealing for this permission since lockdown began as a way to help Scotland build its way out of the Covid-19 crisis. She sent a formal request to the Treasury last week but has still had no proper response. So, a journalist asked the Prime Minister’s official spokesman about the stand-off and he “simply laughed” in response. Oh no he didn’t, said Boris Johnson. Oh yes he did, insisted the Daily Record, who ran the story. And whether the minder laughed, cried or sang hallelujah, the important thing is that now we know. Number 10 is intent on prising Scotland’s hands off the lifeboat. The Scottish Government won’t be allowed to follow a better-than-Westminster Covid recovery with a better-than-Boris economic plan. On the plus side, forewarned is forearmed.

Then there was slight number four, when a Boris spokesman claimed Nicola Sturgeon had actually been consulted on his “air bridges” plan. The poor deluded fella said: “We do continue to work with the Scottish Government on this. On the issue of quarantine, we have taken a four-nation approach. We work closely with devolved admins at all times.” This is so obviously a lie – let’s not waste time on rebuttal. Suffice to say that if Mark Drakeford of Wales and Nicola Sturgeon both say they weren’t consulted and Boris says they were – I know who I believe.

Slight number five – Boris sidestepped Ian Blackford’s question about the cruel decision to reintroduce benefits sanctions and talked instead about the amount spent on Universal Credit. Mhairi Black had already explained in The National that the moratorium on penalties for missing appointments ends when Jobcentres reopen this month. It’s a vitally serious subject for claimants across the UK, but Boris batted it aside as if the SNP Westminster leader hadn’t even spoken.

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This was warming up for slight number six. Responding to a planted question from Scots Tory MP Andrew Bowie, Boris said Nicola Sturgeon hadn’t been in touch about her “astonishing” idea of restricting border traffic. Of course she hadn’t, because the FM hasn’t got active plans to do anything – yet. And if and when she does, it won’t be an act of border warfare, but a calm decision made on public health grounds, like the British Government’s belated action in Leicester. Indeed, the FM’s simultaneous announcement of a cross-border unit to tackle the minor cluster of Covid cases around Gretna proved rather the opposite – her instinctive commitment is to work with Scotland’s neighbours, not start petty politicking against them.

NO wonder Boris has taken to snubs and slights. Ignoring her Government hasn’t worked. Laughing at her ministers hasn’t worked. And clearly, yesterday’s slights and insults were also falling on fallow ground.

So, the Prime Minister felt compelled to finish with the mother of all wind-ups – the Trump-like claim that there actually is no border between England and Scotland.

Journalists beyond the independence camp found this completely laughable. Peter McMahon of Borders TV tweeted a picture of himself saying: “This is me yesterday in Coldstream – that’s the Tweed. The border.”

Precisely.

Boris beware. Belittling Scotland irritates Scots of every political persuasion; just as the huge contrast between the Prime Minister and First Minister impresses itself every day on Scots of every political persuasion.

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On the one hand there is even-handed, calm Nicola Sturgeon talking only about Covid-related issues in daily news briefings, on the other there is blustering, pugnacious, badly briefed Boris Johnson, who cancelled his Number 10 briefings to spare the blushes of his flailing fellow travellers.

That’s how different the two governments have become. One deals in vague claims, the other in detailed explanation. One is patronising and evasive, the other informal and practical. One is offhand and blustering, the other strategic and determined.

It’s become a pattern and that pattern is clear, predictable and impactful. Even BBC commentators are catching the mood, culminating in a magnificent moment on Radio 4’s PM programme midweek when Sarah Smith was asked why Sturgeon was considering border restrictions. She simply replied: “Why not?” Indeed.

It’s not just a case of two different leaders or even two different personal communication styles any more. Boris and Nicola so evidently inhabit two different political and personal planets. And all the evidence is that the Scottish public gets it.

But if Boris Johnson’s contemptuous treatment of Scotland makes him look ridiculous, then why does he do it? Habit? A Bullshit Bingo bet with Priti Patel?

Who knows? Clearly, though, slighting the Scots gets easy laughs from fellow Tory MPs.

It also makes independence supporters so hot and bothered that we might miss the main point – that no new cash or borrowing powers are coming to Holyrood. Unfortunately for the PM, though, we spotted that amidst the barrage of snidey wee remarks.

Furthermore, the tactic of treating the Scots as an irritating cloud of political midges may only serve to further boost burgeoning support for English independence. After all, why should voters longing to “take back control” from Brussels in December, spend another minute “subsidising” ungrateful whingeing Jocks?

So, keep on talking Boris. It’s water off a duck’s back. Your insults tell us one valuable thing. When the time comes to present the independence case to Scotland’s voters again, you know we’ll win.