David Cameron gets into bed with a crocodile

On Thursday the Telegraph brought us details of David Cameron's deal with the Ulster Unionists; to bring their MPs under the Tory whip and make the Conservative Party truly a party of the Union. The article left us hanging with what seemed like a throwaway line: "Mr Cameron is hoping to employ a similar tactic to win votes in Scotland." We wondered, what could that mean, and I jokingly mentioned the Tartan Tories.

Imagine my surprise to read this in today's Daily Mail:

I can reveal, allies of Cameron have entered into informal talks with the SNP over recent months.

Their objective is to save the union by working out a new kind of constitutional settlement for Scotland.

Details are sketchy, but it is possible to indicate the main outlines.

An incoming Tory administration would need to meet Alex Salmond's demands that the Scottish Parliament should have massive new powers over taxation and public spending.

In domestic terms, a Scottish administration would be entirely self-governing and have complete command over economic policy.

And yet the union could be maintained through the retention of shared armed forces, and foreign policy, and the monarchy.

These talks are complex. Alex Salmond is demanding control over business taxation, for example.

Yet such a concession would be desperately unpopular south of the border, because it would allow Scotland to attract British firms by offering lower taxation.

Salmond also wants to get rid of the Trident independent nuclear deterrent, which is based in Scotland - unthinkable for the Tories, who pride themselves as the party of defence.

This is a staggering piece of news. Cameron is attempting to forge a new British constitutional settlement with a deal between the UK and Scotland, presumably - once again - without asking England. We can see what's in it for the Scottish nationalists, but what's in it for Cameron: The promise of SNP support in the event of a hung parliament, or a slender majority; or is it another attempt to "kill nationalism stone dead"; or an attempt to revive Tory fortunes north of the border?

The problems with this plan is that the Scottish nationalists will always want more, and under the slippery slope hypothesis will surely get more if this plan is implemented. And also, the future of the Union is not Cameron and Salmond's to decide bilaterally, there are 50M Englishmen and women, so far denied their say, who might just think that yet more constitutional privilege for the ungrateful nation to the north is just too high a price to pay for Britain.