ANALYSIS

It’s been a long and protracted process. At times it’s looked like we might never get here.

Yet, here we are. A deal on the financial underpinning of the Scotland Bill has been agreed. Break out the bubbly!

While Alex Salmond tweeted about Scotland having “swept all aside” in the World Indoor Tug of War Championships in the Netherlands, the UK and Scottish Governments ended their financial struggle.

This should, in theory, leave us able to move on and talk about how the new powers will actually be used.

We’ve been in a cycle of plodding process during these negotiations, which were initially to be conducted behind closed doors to the highest standards of secrecy but ended up leaking like a particularly efficient sieve.

Spinning continued yesterday as UK sources told journalists a deal had been brokered, a claim Scottish Government spinners furiously countered for two hours until Nicola Sturgeon got to her feet at Holyrood to announce that, shock, all systems were go.

One dampener to put on this otherwise joyous occasion is the question of what happens in five years when we revisit the terms of the deal?

Will we be locked in some kind of 2016 battle re-enactment? Will it be even bloodier if one side decides it doesn’t like the now-agreed system?

And, depending on constitutional circumstances, will a potential cut to the Scottish budget be a major asset to a new independence campaign?

It’s possible the battles have just begun.