Life is full of small puzzles which never add up - a kind of eternal sudoku designed by someone with a wonky calculator. Why is our local supermarket in deepest Scotland proudly flying a gigantic Trinidad and Tobago flag in its entrance area? I would be surprised if there was a resident of those two Caribbean islands within fifty miles.

The solution is that the First Minister of Scotland, one Wee Jack McConnell, born and brought up on the Isle of Arran and therefore constitutionally incapable of grasping the greater picture, when asked which football team he would be supporting in the World Cup, opined that he could not, ever, support England, but would support Trinidad and Tobago. Why? Because one of their players is named Scotland!!

Scotland of course failed to qualify for the World Cup Finals, which for a country whose love of football is unequalled, except in some more advanced third world countries, and whose antipathy towards their southern neighbours probably matches that of North Korea, has stuck in the collective craw like month old Forfar Bridie.

Sensing this, and evidently fearing a Nationalist upswing based on the usual sense of collective under-achievement, McConnell thought he could make a cheap point at the expense of the English.

Not a very good move.

Scotland is highly dependent upon English money and good-will, which McConnell knows only too well since his particular political party faces an election in a year's time which may well coincide with the country's ever highest fuel prices and lowest growth rate of any comparable European region. There is a limit to the number of political gaffes the unholy Labour - Liberal alliance can pass off on even the Scots public. Together they have elevated the term uninspiring to new levels of meaning.

But it doesn't add up. Why deliberately go out of your way to piss off the English when a diplomatic word or phrase of half-hearted support was all that was needed? Or, why, if the thought of even been vaguely supportive was so repulsive, just not say anything at all? It can only be that McConnell believes himself either to be untouchable or immortal or perhaps both?

Since England not only holds the purse strings but also the real political power in Scotland in spite of devolution, we can only wait with interest just what form the retribution will follow. When it becomes popular and expedient to clip the Scottish lame duck's wings then the mere coincidence that McConnell and Blair (or Brown) share the same political party won't matter. Scotland cannot afford either McConnell's petulance or his government's continued lack of both leadership and results.

Better to clear the decks and get rid of the pretence of governing Scotland by a coalition empowered by a proportional election system which produces not representation but eternal mediocrity and go back to a system of directly elected representation. McConnell might get elected for Arran. He could probably manage that. Barely.