Were you to walk on to any rail station concourse in Scotland today, you would find them: hunched and wretched, gripping empty WH Smith sandwich packets and half-drunk Diet Coke bottles. Every few minutes they would peer at the destination board, then sigh, shake their heads, and stare off into the middle distance.

These are the lost commuters of Alba, poor souls at the mercy of a railway system that has effectively ceased to function. All they want, like Griffin Dunne in After Hours, is to get home. As Griffin Dunne found, this is easier said than done. The trains don’t turn up, or are cancelled at the last minute. They are forced to take Kafka-esque journeys in the opposite direction to the one they intend, in search of a route that is faintly rumoured to get them to their destination.

It is wearying to say it again, but Scots were given the opportunity to throw all this up in the air in 2014 – only eight years ago – but decided instead to retain Westminster sovereignty, which they had also approved in the 1997 referendum. Brexit, which is the main reason we are back here again, was certainly an affront to the 62 per cent of Scots who rejected it, but still – and Sturgeon cannot get away from this – there is no clear public support for a second referendum. Largely, people are getting on with the many challenges they currently face, aware that the Union has economic and social advantages as well as weaknesses. 

Want to see how Scotland benefits as part of the UK?