HAS Boris been replaced by a Russian bot? Why else would he fulfil the dream of every independence supporter by promising to follow up today’s “blink and you’ll miss him” Scotland visit with a tide of appearances by his hopeless cabinet colleagues, all in a bid to undermine a First Minister enjoying unprecedented personal support and a rising tide of support for independence?

Boris clearly doesn’t do information (even about something as serious as Covid) and has Trump-like belief in the persuasive power of his own personal charm. So, naturally the Prime Minister believes his magical presence and reassuring words delivered in those soothing, mellifluous tones will somehow undo the wanton destruction of his premiership.

Sorry, mate. Not even Nanny McPhee could pull that off.

Maybe Boris thinks Scots should feel a little bit flattered that such a great man will momentarily walk in their midst? Have none of his minders got the nerve to tell truth to power? Were none of them around for last year’s Boris encounter with the First Minister at Bute House in July of last year, and his subsequent encounter with the building’s emergency exit – a visit which served only to launch a hundred “Backdoor Boris” headlines and a million Janey Godley voiceover views? Boris is toxic in Scotland – and he knows it.

Not just because Ruth Davidson barred him from the Scottish Conservative conference in 2019. Hell, Ruth was always agin him and anyway, she’s history. But in December the Daily Mail reported that Boris phoned senior Scottish Conservatives to acknowledge “the huge challenge the party faces” in Scotland and the hostile reaction to him personally and his Government’s Brexit agenda.

So, the Prime Minister knows how well he and his Tory cabinet go down in Scotland. But still they come.

So, can we expect the constitutional War of the Worlds to erupt during Johnson’s visit or will it be “all gong and no dinner”, as my mother used to say?

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Boris will doubtless attack the case for independence and maintain that only Britain’s deep pockets could produce the furlough scheme that’s protected Scottish jobs. Some of us know about the equally generous schemes delivered in far safer Covid circumstances by Scotland’s small Nordic and north European neighbours and Antipodean cousins. But it’s vitally important the SNP media unit is primed to do some lively and fact-based rebuttal.

Will Boris repeat there “is no Border” – a line so stupid it earned him pelters from his own side in the London press and media? Will he insult our collective intelligence by trotting out the redundant line about a “once in a generation” indyref? Will he talk up the bridge to Northern Ireland (for which no feasibility study has yet been commissioned)? Will he attack the FM and the BBC for daily briefings that’ve helped Scotland achieve a Covid infection rate five times lower than England? Will he insist that the Internal Market (Power Grab) Bill is only there to help Scottish plumbers get work across the Border post-Brexit?

In short, are we about to witness an end to the (supposed) Boris “Mr Nice Guy” routine and the start of Captain Tough? If so, the timing is disastrous.

Never has a Prime Minister’s “back catalogue” looked so weak.

The delay in lockdown, the failure to supply PPE, the failure to sack Dominic Cummings, the failure to tender properly for Covid-related contracts and their subsequent award to Cummings’s well-connected pals, the failure to count Covid deaths properly – I could go on. All of this makes Boris Johnson unfit to be Prime Minister in the eyes of serious-minded Scots. And as Boris is about to discover, there are a heck of a lot of us north of the Border. We take our politics seriously. We take our Parliament seriously. We take scientific evidence and solidarity seriously. We take society seriously and are seriously committed – Yes and No voters – to keeping public services like the NHS in public not private hands.

All that we hold dear is threatened by Boris Johnson and his probable No-Deal Brexit. The latest Survation poll found almost two thirds (65%) of Scots surveyed regret the Brexit result and 62% would rejoin the EU as an independent country (excluding don’t-knows).

Will we hear the Prime Minister address that inconvenient truth?

AND what about clipping the wings of Holyrood, and taking control over all subsidies in the Internal Market Bill aka The Power Grab? No, that nice man Alister Jack didn’t sweep away many doubters with his weekend TV interview.

And what about recent revelations in the Russia Report?

Far from taking back control through Brexit, Boris Johnson and his Tory predecessors have presided over a steady abandonment of British sovereignty to Chinese investors and Russian oligarchs. Laundromat London, Londongrad – it would be funny if it wasn’t so very serious. How many prominent members of the British establishment have been bought and sold for anyone’s gold?

Sic a parcel o rogues in a nation.

But thankfully, not our nation.

The Imperial Masters trekking north may have impressed a frightened few back in 2014 – though even that’s debatable. But now their northward march serves only to emphasise their absence and their otherness.

Johnson’s distance from Scottish opinion and absence from Scottish life stand in stark contrast to the constancy and savviness of our First Minister. Folk north and south of the Border have been comparing the two leaders and drawing the same conclusion – that there is no comparison. The approval ratings attest to it and, far more importantly, Covid infection and death rates attest to it.

Yet despite trailing this cloud of mismanagement and lost trust behind him, Johnson thinks he can head north (we understand) to Tory-held Moray and hoodwink the soft northern natives with a bit of bluster here and a blandishment there.

Of course, it’s true that Highlanders are generally quietly spoken and dislike confrontation. Many Moray locals hail from south of the Border, work at local military bases and, for that reason, many voted No in 2014. It’s quite possible anti-Boris chanting would only stiffen the resolve of such voters, and Boris’s minders will certainly ensure he meets no others.

But I dearly hope there is a dignified, static, socially distanced display by Yessers of the kind organised by All Under One Banner later today in Elgin, or somewhere else in the parish and near the cameras.

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Someone’s got to let Boris and the wider British public know the truth.

Johnson’s blustering schtick may still convince parts of England. God knows why. But it’s never worked here. And since the Prime Minister last came to Scotland, the sense of moral offence created by incompetent, obfuscating politicians has become palpable and visceral.

Scots have finally developed herd immunity to the imperious manner, the born-to-power voice and the empty, rhetorical speech. Still it’s vital that no matter how weary his lines, the SNP and Yes movement are ready to rebut them with hard facts and better arguments.

So, Boris, thanks.

You are still the Number One recruiting sergeant for Scottish independence.

Your visit will give us momentum, focus and a much-needed kick up the backside.

So, believe me when I say it. Haste ye back.