Michael Gove is reportedly conspiring with Gordon Brown to jointly head off the SNP’s demands for another referendum. As a consequence Brown is back in the spotlight making a bogus case for a constitutional boondoggle of a “Commission on Democracy” that would “review the way the whole United Kingdom is governed”. This is transparently a ruse to delay any revisiting of the legitimate question of Scotland’s independence.

On Sky News this morning when Niall Paterson accused Gordon Brown of deceiving Scottish voters in the previous referendum over “the vow”, Gordon Brown denied saying the specific quotes attributed to him by the presenter and then claimed bizarrely “they should read the small print”. Guido’s video above shows Brown making the very deceptive claims he denied making. He lied to them in the last referendum, he lied to them this morning. Why should Scots believe him now?

The SNP are riding high in the polls and the unionist Tory-Labour coalition is looking likely to be in the minority at the polls. A narrow (49% versus 48%) majority of even Scottish Tory voters tell YouGov they would be “pleased” or “not bothered” if Scotland left the UK. Is Gordon really the right man to convince them that wasting years and millions on a Commission is really worthwhile? The promise of a Commission is an obvious con, they don’t need to read the small print on this…