With the matter of the UK government’s orders for warships to be built on the Clyde having been such a vexed and contentious one over the last few years, you’d think that any significant developments in the story would be big news in Scotland.

So yesterday, when it was revealed that BAE systems definitely wouldn’t be building the five cheaper Type 31 frigates – which had replaced the originally-promised Type 26s – in Scotland, in a move which the shipbuilding unions described as a “betrayal”, we sat back and waited for the Scottish media’s outraged blanket coverage.

We didn’t really, of course. We’re not idiots.

Because despite the move being announced in a press release yesterday morning, the papers appear to have taken a vow of silence. So far as we can tell not a single one – other than the pro-independence National – features the story at all in their print editions, and most don’t even have an online piece.

The Daily Record – nothing in print or online

The Scottish Sun – nothing online (print unconfirmed)

Guardian Scotland – nothing online (print unconfirmed)

BBC Scotland – nothing online, or broadcast that we’ve heard, or in the Scottish papers review either, despite it being on the National front page.

(The BBC does, however, know about it. If you look under News > England > Regions > North West England > Liverpool, you’ll find it in a piece which makes no reference to the previous promises to build the ships at Govan.)

STV News – nothing online (that we can find – bizarrely the website has no search facility), or broadcast that we’ve heard

Scottish Daily Mail – nothing in print or online

Scottish Daily Express – nothing online (print unconfirmed)

The Scotsman – nothing in print, though as we were writing this article an online piece appeared at 11.19am.

The Times does have an online piece (which weirdly claims that the three Type 26s so far commissioned for Scotstoun will keep the yard in work for 20 years), but the only paper in the entire country that we can confirm as having anything in print is the Herald, which commendably devotes half of page 2 to the story.

It’s a doubly remarkable oversight when you see the feeble stories that HAVE made the front pages. The Record splashes big on someone’s 47-year-old granny taking an unscheduled trip to London, STV leads with a ban on smacking, the Express thinks the biggest news in Scotland is Theresa May spending 10 seconds giving a half-arsed defence of Douglas Ross at PMQs, and the Sun, bless its heart, goes with “BOOZY BRANSON TOUCHED MY WIFE”.

Then again, we suppose most of the papers would face some pretty uncomfortable introspection were they to honestly report the latest episode in the ongoing collapse of a pledge they all blared loudly and stridently during the indyref and afterwards.

The categorical, unequivocal, unambiguous promise that a No vote would secure “13 Type 26 frigates” has slowly crumbled in stages to “eight plus five cheap ones”, then “three plus MAYBE five more later plus five cheap ones”, to just “three with a possibility of another five at some undefined point in the future”, with negotiations for the contract not due to even begin for another half a decade. If we worked for BAE on the Clyde, we wouldn’t take on any expensive mortgages.

You might even call the shredded order book “scraps from the UK table”. Or at least, you might if you ever heard about it in the Scottish press.