Brace yourself: Boris Johnson will throw everything at the independence movement

He, also had a junior ministerial team to whom were delegated various dauds of the portfolio. Thus we had the glorious era when the rather posh chap looking after Ag and Fish, was also in charge of the ­nation’s culture. Presumably on the grounds that the latter could be done with the help of any old skill set to hand. Cows? Art ­Galleries? Pretty much the same thing, don’t you know.

His shadow, in contrast, had nothing much to live off but his wits. A bit of a grind during the 18 years when there were serial Tory governments until the blessed Tony broke the spell in 1997.

Even in those days, Tory secretaries of state paid at least lip service to the view that they were Scotland’s champion in the cabinet, rather than the cabinet’s agent ­provocateur in Caledonia.

George Younger, a rather posh chap in his own right, bought himself more than a few brownie points, when he publicly ­advised the Lady Thatcher that if Ravenscraig was binned, he was for the off as well.

In the end of course, that offer of ­political self immolation failed to save the ­Lanarkshire steelworks from going the way of so much of Scotland’s heavy industry. And, for towns like Motherwell, the pile of ­rubble left by the iconic towers coming down, proved a powerful visual metaphor for a community with its heart cut out.

Younger’s immediate successor, ­Malcolm Rifkind, was another chap who took some brave pills and tried to suggest to his ­glorious leader that devolution need not be the devil’s work. I understand his scars have finally healed.

When the guard finally changed in the 1990s, the late Donald Dewar got the red box he had long craved, having put in some thankless hard yards in Social Security and elsewhere. And of course, he graduated into first First Minister following the ­success of the 1997 referendum.

So post-Holyrood, you might ­reasonably ask what the hell is the point of a ­Secretary of State for Scotland, given that the ­country in question has its own government, ­complete with a matched set of ­cabinet ­secretaries and assorted ­helpmeets.

Yet the post prevailed during Labour, and Conservative and Lib Dem coalition governments, though sometimes it was tacked on to other departments like Transport, a tacit admission that Scotland didn’t need much more than a job share in this brave new devolutionary world.

So you might have found it more than a little galling when the post morphed into what we might call the Secretary of State against Scotland, given the track record of recent incumbents. Not least since they hail from the ranks of a party the Scots have chosen not to give a majority since the 1950’s.

However the less this anachronistic ­office has to do with the actual ­governance of Scotland, the more staff it seems to need plus greatly enhanced premises. The less essential the job, the more grandiose is its conceit of itself.

Thus we have the seven story edifice near Waverley, a lovely new home for ­current Secretary of State Alister Jack, and his chum the Advocate General.

Not that it’s billed as such; pray silence for the first of two UK Government hubs – another is en route in the Dear Green Place – which will house many thousands of civil servants who will re-locate from England. And it even has a cabinet room for when Boris feels safe enough to visit again.

This is hub as Trojan Horse.

IT’S all of a piece with the current “charm offensive” on behalf of the union, which I daresay most natives will find rather more offensive than charming. Not least when they calculate that they are coughing up their personal taxes so that a lot of expensively employed folk can get to tell them how and why they’re getting everything wrong.

Not only is there a new Union unit ­being staffed at prodigious expense – knowledge of Scotland desirable but not essential – but the Scotland Office’s own staff has burgeoned to over 80. You might idly wonder what they all do with their days, “idly” being not randomly selected.

However we do know that the department within a department dealing with what is coyly called “comms” these days, has increased more than threefold. These are the minions who are hired to tell you just what a wonderful thing the Union is, how much we depend on the largesse of Westminster and, shortly, having grabbed lots of Holyrood’s powers and dosh post Brexit, how many lovely projects they will be funding.

This is perhaps the most insidious strand of the UK government’s ­determination to subvert any plans for Scotland to ­secede from planet Johnson. It is what you might call a bit of an ­upgrade on sticking ­union flags on innocent packets of ­Scottish grown fruit and veg. This time what will be wrapped in the flag are initiatives ­designed to put flesh on the upcoming ­report on “Union Connectivity”.

You will recall that one of the PM’s ­specialisms is coming up with big, bold, fancy notions which cost eye-watering sums at the planning stage but never ­actually stagger to fruition.

There was that lovely garden bridge to be built across the Thames; clearly essential since that poor neglected waterway boasts only 200 odd existing bridges, 27 tunnels and six public ferries. And what about Boris airport, also to be constructed in the Thames estuary, rather than have another runway at Heathrow – a plan to which the PM was so hostile that he promised to lie in front of the tractors paving its way. Until the Supreme Court okayed it at the back end of last year.

But hold hard. There is an even bigger, bolder Boris brainstorm to hand. One which will surely bring these whingeing jocks round to his point of view. ­Nothing less than a tunnel from Scotland to ­Ireland coming in at a mere £20bn. For the moment. I cannot advise you whether someone has mentioned to the blondster that the seabed in question is currently ­littered with jettisoned munitions.

READ MORE: Scottish independence: Boris Johnson's Union Directorate 'to triple in size'

No matter. What counts is something else about which an announcement can be made with proper fanfare, secure in the knowledge that by the time the project unravels he will doubtless be long gone from Downing Street.

MAKE no mistake. All this frenzied activity coming to light a mere three months before the next Scottish election is no kind of accident. Everything but the kitchen sink will be hurled at Project Scotland in the immediate weeks and months ahead.

And those folk in the Union unit not busy assuring the tartan electors that all manner of goodies are en route if they will only stick with their lovely big brother will be beavering away at their calculators, using whatever arithmetical tricks they can find to “prove” that we are in no fit shape to go it alone.

Yet the Scotland they would woo with promises of undying devotion, the country they would endeavour to keep joined at the hip, has long since got their ­ number.

This much I know. The last two Tory Secretaries of State “for” Scotland have been little more than spine-free mouthpieces for their Lords and London ­masters.

Just as the remnants of the Scottish Tory presence at Westminster have been characterised by a band of shameless brigands voting against Scotland’s best interests at every and any turn.

Turn off the fake charm, guys, or I’ll get seriously offended.