Roll on the (independence) referendum!

Well that wasn't as drawn out as we all thought it would be. Once the Easter holiday weekend is over there's just the Royal wedding to ignore and then it's straight on to Alex's coronation. Of course, there's the small matter of a couple of TV debates, when the nation gets yet another chance to ignore Tavish, have a wee laugh with Annabel, have a big laugh at Iain Gray and look for a chink or two in Alex's armour, but other than that it's all over bar the declarations.

Thus the big issues of the campaign seem to have been the celebrity endorsements, which parties the newspapers - the Sun in particular - are supporting and Iain Gray's handling of a protester who seemed a couple of sandwiches short of a branch of Subway. Oh aye, there was a frisson of excitement every now and again about the opinion poll figures. And now the blogs and papers are full of analysis about the size of the SNP's majority, the magnitude of Labour's wipeout and the various coalition permutations.

Of course, there was a wee bit of policy along the way, with Labour stealing the SNP's clothes, the SNP merely upping the ante a bit to take them back and, voilà, it's a second term for the Nationalists.

Indeed, there has been a wee bit of substantive critique along the way as well - in particular regarding the crudity of Labour's knife crime policy - but what about the anointed one and his party? What about the affordability and deliverability of the five-year council tax freeze, the reality of the student funding situation and the fact that climate change targets belong on planet earth rather than planet soundbite. Something will have to give with that lot, surely, but of course it'll be a few years down the line, whereas all that matters now is short-term electoral advantage.

And what about the SNP's record in office such as the Scottish Futures Trust failure, the kicking of local income tax into the long grass and the party's addiction to spending while heaping all the blame onto Westminster when the bills have to be paid?

Naturally there has been some debate regarding these meatier issues, but otherwise it's all been lost in a miasma of celebrities, ridicule, opinion polls and manifesto gloss, with that clearly being sufficient to move electoral mountains in a couple of weeks and render the contest cut and dried with the best part of a fortnight until the vote itself.

Thus roll on the independence referendum - assuming Alex doesn't bottle it again - which might actually engender some substantive debate.