The interesting thing is the extent to which Salmond has faded from public life. His attacks, if/when. He decides to make them may turn some SNP supporters against Sturgeon, but I doubt very much that it will affect the wider public, particularly given the weakness of all of the Unionist parties up here.

The Scottish Office is meaningless in Scotland, as it seems unable to put forward a persuasive case for the benefits of the Union. Mind you, I don’t think the PM will fare much better in the next referendum. The sight of him telling us that Scotland is much better off not Taking Back Control will be a joy to behold.

That will go down marvellously well up here if the SNP manage to take over 50% of the vote next year.

I honestly don’t really care if all of them, regardless of party, are fined, or if they are all let off, but the blanket denial from the government over Cummings is really galling to me. Cummings knew more about the guidelines than most people and he should have shown more integrity. I’m actually shocked that so many people think it’s fine.

Even today at the press conference, the PM had a chance to make a graceful half-apology: “yes, I’m sure it would have been better to have worked out better arangements for Dominic in London, but given the circumstances, he genuinely felt it best to deal with the problem within his family circle. However I’m sorry for the offence this has caused to people who didn’t have the options he had, and for any lack of clarity in the guidelines. The British people have responded magnificently to an unprecedented situation, and I know they will continue to show the same sense of civic responsibility as we move forward together.”

It wouldn’t have won over everyone, but I think it would have drawn a line, because he would have given a little ground to his critics (some of whom voted for him in December) without losing face himself. Instead, he steam-rollers on with a blanket denial, which sounds ever-more ridiculous, and sends cabinet ministers out every day to tell blatant lies about something that is fairly trivial.

It’s The lies, and the disrespect they show for the electorate, that are the issue for me. I’ve been disillusioned by Westminster for a long time, and it just makes me think that Scotland should take control of its own affairs, for better or worse.

His wife could have driven? He could have asked for advice on driving from the doctors he says he discussed his health with (I’m assuming they wouldn’t have recommended an experimental test drive)? He could have asked Downing Street to send a car? He could just have worked remotely?

This is all quite unimportant now, as the PM is determined to keep him in Downing St, but there is part of me that is not able to get over the fact that Mr Cummings and various government minister have treated the public as idiots. No sane adult puts their child in the car if they fear they are unfit to drive. No reasonable person tests their eyesight by going for a drive, despite Gove protesting that he himself has done so.

The whole story is an insultingly poor lie, and the strange thing is that the only person who it serves is Mr Cummings, who is not even a Conservative. Large swathes of the public now associate this ludicrous fiction with Shapps/Gove/Hancock and Boris himself, and regard them as liars. All the unity forged by this crisis has been wasted, and the PM hasn’t even won. He has kept his aide, but his sheer desperation to keep him makes him look weak.

I think if anything has become clear this week, it is that Mr Cummings is a very important man, indeed so important that many members of the cabinet have been willing to make themselves look like fools and liars in the eyes of the electorate to try to defend him

Police do not say someone has committed a crime. They say that a case can be made against someone. It is then up to a judge to turn a conditional “might” into a declarative “did” or “did not”.

All the police can say is what action they would have taken under the law. So, even if they issue a fine, the person who gets it either tacitly admits the offence by paying, or the case escalates to a judge/magistrate to reach a judgment.

Police statements do not say that someone has committed an offence, only that the police believe someone has a case to answer. The police leave judging to a judge.

What rules said that you could test impaired vision by driving your family to a pretty town on your wife’s birthday. Is this covered by an exemption.

Quite honestly, it’s the insult to intelligence which is so irritating. If Cummings had appeared on Monday and said that he and his wife had been cooped up for 2 weeks and just wanted to go slightly further afield now that they were out of quarantine, I honestly think many people would have accepted a reasonably sincere apology.

Instead we got a man who seemed irritated to have to explain himself, and who told a ridiculous story that doesn’t even seem designed to be believed.

If I am ever asked why I am no longer a Scottish Tory, I will confess that I just unable to believe in a country whose government can pretend to believe that a 60-mile drive is an eye test.