You are forgiven if you have stopped noticing that the Scottish Government has kept ploughing on with its series of papers on just how absolutely fabulous life would be if only Scotland were a separate nation.

Luckily I have read the latest paper for you; it is a very turgid read. On the one hand it is utterly laughable but on the other it is so obviously believed - despite being ludicrous - by the nationalist cult that is dangerous, because it is a plan to assault the living standards of the Scottish public.

The paper is about the SNP's wizard plan to tear us out of the properly functioning British Union and stick us into the not-very-effective European one. Scotland did not vote for Brexit, neither did London, neither did I but to claim, as the paper does, that Scotland and Scots would be better off by Scotland leaving the UK and joining the EU instead is absurd.

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The paper is probably the most grotesquely one-sided piece of propaganda I have read in years. That our Scottish Government wastes our (not its) money on producing such a false prospectus is itself a disgrace.

The document contains the usual twisted mantra that Scotland and Scotland alone is unique in Europe as a nation that entered a voluntary political union. What utter rubbish. The valid comparison is how the modern states of Europe were formed. Germany comprises a number of principalities brought together in the 19th century. A Corsican or Breton considers themselves quite distinct from Parisians. A Yorkshireman's commitment to his county is as strong as the Scot's to his country. Events have brought about the modern nation states which make up Europe in many different ways. Scotland has no valid claim to be uniquely special.

The paper's lapdog adoration of all things European skips over the fact that the EU was borne precisely out of the conflicts which destroyed Europe. The EU is above all a mechanism for the continent to put behind it the evil regimes which gripped many of its countries in the last century and in which the United Kingdom played a notable role in bringing light where there was darkness. The UK gets no praise from the SNP but its contribution to European history is an honourable one and Scotland should be proud to be part of it.

The paper is much the poorer for being constructed through the distorted lens of Scotland special, UK bad, EU good but there are some specific nonsenses.

The paper is in raptures about Scotland having unfettered access to the European single market but simply ignores that such access will necessarily involve a restriction of access to the much more effective UK single market with which Scotland's trade is three times greater than our trade with the EU. A reduction in access for Scotland to the UK single market would be a catastrophe for Scotland.

On currency the paper repeats the usual hopeless SNP muddle. The fact is that SNP policy would require three currencies as a separate Scotland left the UK and re-engaged with the EU.

When we would join the euro is indeed not set in stone but that we would have to join at some point is. Before that we would initially have the pound sterling but without the backing of a central bank. Between sterling and the euro we would then have to create our own currency. All this would take time and cause disruption which would have a material adverse effect on Scotland's economy and people.

We would have to reduce our budget deficit to a level acceptable to the EU but without the flow of funds which comes from the UK to Scotland and our ability to trade freely with the UK we as a separate country would endure a ballooning of both our trade and fiscal deficits. Extreme squeezes on spending and higher taxes would be not optional but inevitable.

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The paper sets out yet again the SNP's favourite comparison between Ireland and Scotland which appears to show Ireland's economy has done so much better than Scotland's. As always the inconvenient truth is ignored. Ireland's apparent economic miracle is a lot less miraculous than it seems. Much of it comes from counting the earnings of US corporations who made Ireland home for their European operations because they pay little tax as "Irish". The Irish Central Bank has published its own analyses which strips out this effect and shows Ireland's performance and actual living standards as only middle of the pack within Europe.

The paper points to us being an integral and important part of EU decision-making, suggesting we would have 14 MEPs. There are 750 MEPs in total which shows how peripheral our influence would be and compares unfavourably to our position in the UK where we have 59 MPs out of 650 and where Scotland's MPs have frequently been pivotal to who forms the Government of the UK.

These papers are a joke, an expensive ridiculous joke. The Scottish Government should be embarrassed to put their name to them.