Less than ten hours before Holyrood votes on the SNP's second Budget, and it could still go either way. In particular, they have not yet persuaded us to back them, despite the increasingly firm pledges from Labour and the Liberals to vote against at 5pm. It's pretty extraordinary, given that almost four months ago we approached them with seriously affordable and sensible proposals on insulation and home energy, enough to get Robin and Patrick to overlook the actively undesirable aspects of their proposals. I can only assume Alex Salmond, John Swinney & Bruce Crawford like a white-knuckle ride.
Beyond that, I'd love to go into all the ins and outs of the negotiations, but it would be bad form. It'll have to be saved up for the (otherwise frankly dull) memoirs. At least this hectic phase will all be over by 5pm. Assuming it doesn't fall, that is, in which case we'd be doing it all again almost immediately.
Sending you good vibes for today