The SNP’s Depute Leader John Swinney has been so moved by the death of Her Majesty that he’s spent the weekend sounding more like a Scottish Tory than Douglas Ross. Yesterday Swinney spoke about how Scotland occupies an “absolutely central constitutional position within the United Kingdom”, moving far away from the SNP’s usual moaning that Scotland is a put-upon nation with no voice, no power and no influence over the country:

“I thought that when I watched the accession council in London yesterday because right at the heart of it was the significance of Scotland’s place within the Union and the extraordinary significance that was attached to that and the declarations and commitments that the King made and the fact the Secretary of State for Scotland, the First Minister of Scotland, the Lord Advocate of Scotland, the Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland, were signatories to the documents which essentially facilitate the accession.”

This morning, Swinney went even further in irritating the most ardent of Scottish nationalists, stating the SNP would continue to have the UK monarch be Head of State in the event of independence, as they promised during the 2014 referendum:

“The monarch should be the head of state of an independent Scotland. It’s what we argued in the referendum in 2014 and it’s what we will continue to argue.”

Will the death of the Queen accidentally cause a cooling of temperatures in the Scottish independence debate?