When is a plan not a plan? When it is in an election manifesto! Especially, it would seem, an SNP manifesto. The party loyalists will greet the announcement of a 'plan' to increase healthcare spending by £1.6bn with ecstatic cheering and hagiographic praise for their glorious leader. More thoughtful people will read on.
Reading on, the thoughtful person discovers that the 'plan' is nothing more than woolly-minded wishful thinking wrapped in a tissue of pontifical bloviation. John Swinney might just as well have declared that if we all vote for his team, he will pull £1.6bn from his backside.
Come to think of it, this would be a considerably more credible 'plan' than expecting the British government to massively increase spending on a service they are running into the ground as a prelude to privatisation just to oblige a devolved administration they are determined to undermine at every opportunity. Aye! On reflection, it's much more likely that the money will come from the same place as this 'plan'.
One of the reasons thoughtful people (not party loyalists) conclude that politicians think we're all thick is their tendency to essay transparently obviously ploys in a manner which suggests they consider them more than artful enough to fool the masses. This 'plan' is a prime example. The SNP is desperate to get people talking about anything other than the constitutional issue. Because their 'plan' for restoring Scotland's independence is, if you can believe this, even less credible than the 'plan' to magically transform the British state into a fiscally responsible institution with a functioning social conscience.
On further reflection, this bit of wizardry probably seems like a dawdle to those who believe an adult human male can by the power of their will, metamorphose into an adult human female. It may well be that John Swinney and the rest of his coven genuinely believe they've devised a sure-fire scheme for improving healthcare funding. Either that, or they reckon they've cobbled together a ruse devious enough to deceive those who bookmark magic bean comparison websites.
They are probably right. On both counts. Some people will be distracted by Swinney doing a magician's flourish using a piece of paper with £1.6bn scribbled on it. Some people will be persuaded that the 'plan' is real and feasible. Some people give their bank details to Nigerian princes emailing them to ask a wee favour for which they will receive, coincidentally, recompense totalling £1.6bn.
They do it because it works. The Nigerian princes and the politicians, I mean. Their tricks may seem risibly crude to thinking people. But when you deploy the scam to several million people simultaneously, you'll always find a few who are ripe for being duped. In an election, those few could well be the difference between glory and ignominy.
It's not only the SNP, of course. They're all at it. They're all lying to us. They're all trying to deceive us. We constantly elect liars and deceivers because elections long since ceased to be a contest of ideas and principles. The prize of power goes to the most proficiently dishonest and effectively deceitful. The rest will be history.
All I can say is let's see who wins both here and in London, and then let's wait a few months then see what exactly they are going to deliver.