Anyone want more Sturgeon or Salmond?

The Beckhams, Kim Kardashian, anyone from The Only Way Is Essex: All people who could be said to thrive on publicity. However, none of them craves media attention quite so much as a Scottish nationalist.

In the run up to the last Scottish independence referendum in 2014, the SNP and their supporters were never far from the media spotlight, spouting off to anyone who would listen (Nicky Campbell, more often than not).

Like needy toddlers or the worst kind of pub bores, the nationalists want us all to look at them again NOW! What with all the recent media focus on Brexit and that shameless publicity‑seeker Donald Trump, they’re feeling a bit neglected.

So, what better than to hold another referendum.

The masterstroke here is the long lead‑in time for the vote, which is unlikely to be held for at least another year and a half. So, that’s a full 18 months (more likely longer) of Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond and co. touring the TV and radio studios and rehashing the same arguments we all heard three years ago. It’s like a comeback tour by people who never really went away.

The BBC recently announced that Scotland would be getting a new TV channel and a dedicated news programme, which I vainly hoped might be able to contain the endless screen‑hogging of the nationalists, without straying over the border. Sadly, it doesn’t launch until late next year.

And so we can look forward to the Scottish nationalist perspective on everything from North Sea oil revenues to the Eurovision Song Contest. No doubt we will hear how the UK has been let down for the last 20 years by a succession of failing English‑dominated entries and it’s time for the Proclaimers to have a go.