Are the parties of the Union in Scotland in the midst of completing a confidence trick on their London masters? Ever since the SNP annexed Scotland at last year's Holyrood election, the Labour party and the Tories have pledged to fight against Scotland being separated from the United Kingdom with every fibre of their being. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here, for perhaps they are simply being coquettish and refusing to reveal too early the armoury with which they will fight to save the UK.

Last week, Alex Salmond chose to voice what everyone else in Scotland knows instinctively: that David Cameron is the best weapon the pro-independence movement possesses. He could have gone further. For in any photograph where Cameron is joined by George Osborne and their Downing Street fag, Nick Clegg, the SNP tally men can notch up another, say, 5,000 votes in favour of separation. Indeed, faced with such a photograph of smug, ill-earned indolence and privilege, most of us would gladly take refuge in a political and cultural union with Uzbekistan.

With the addition of Scots such as Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury and Michael Moore, the Scottish secretary you have, to paraphrase Churchill's description of Clement Attlee, two sheep in sheep's clothing. If anyone were to sit through back-to-back speeches by this grotesquely over-promoted pair then many of us, quite literally, could find ourselves sleepwalking towards independence. Around two-thirds of Lib-Dem voters have abandoned the party since Clegg sold its soul for a few private chauffeurs. Everything they touch instantly turns to ash, so having them at the forefront of a "Save the UK" campaign will not instil confidence.

Those of us who thought that the take-no-shit style of Ruth Davidson, the new, young leader of the Scottish Tories, might help build a vanguard for the Union can forget it if her speech last week was anything to go by. Her rallying call to hapless members was memorable only for a bizarre championing of German values as a means of protecting the Scottish economy.

It was like listening to some little lavatory company executive at a Saturday night dinner party in the chardonnay estates. "We need to be like the Germans, you see. Zero unemployment, no strikes, most productive economy in the world and average take-home pay of £250,000 and an unbeatable deep lying sweeper system at World Cups. You can't beat Teutonic efficiency." Not once did Ms Davidson mention the Union. Anyway, for many Scottish Conservatives, life in an independent Scotland would be full of interesting possibilities for the party.

Not long ago, it was believed Jim Murphy, Labour's former Scottish secretary, would become the natural leader of any pro-Union movement. During his tenure at the Scottish Office, he consistently wrong-footed Mr Salmond and became one of Labour's most articulate media performers. But that was before the Scottish Labour leadership contest and a perceived haughty disdain in his demeanour at the mere prospect of swapping Westminster for Holyrood. His juvenile assertion recently that he would never share a pro-Union platform with David Cameron delighted the SNP. It's not as if a yawning political chasm separates the two. Mr Murphy merely revealed himself to be supercilious and possessed of a disproportionate sense of his own gifts.

Johann Lamont, Labour's new leader in Scotland, has had a promising start to her tenure. She had been dismissed as being too harsh and insufficiently tactile to take on the mantle in the post-Clause 4 Labour party. Yet in her initial public appearances she has been robust and eloquent. She would be ill-advised to refuse to share a Unionist platform with the Tories, no matter how much it may chisel at her olfactory senses. Scottish voters long ago wearied of the politics of the sixth-form common room.

In four months' time, the local council elections will give Ms Lamont an opportunity to observe any signs of life in her long-inert party. The town hall polls may also provide the rest of us with an indication of just how potent the acclaimed SNP political machine has become. The party have long coveted Glasgow and in the west of Scotland it is still seen as their holy grail. Decades of Labour neglect and incompetence have brought Scotland's major city within the sights of the SNP. Last week, the party's formidable organiser, Angus Robertson, could scarcely keep the glee out of his voice as he once more displayed his pride and joy: the IT system that reveals to the SNP exactly where each of their supporters lives and, very possibly, the elasticity quotient of their foundation garments.

Even if Labour were to take delivery of a similar model tomorrow, it would take them half a political generation to feed in sufficient data from which to draw reliable conclusions. Even then, glancing along Labour's frontbench, you could never be confident that some of them would not simply throw their dirty washing into it and look for the "on" switch. Meanwhile, the leadership of Ed Miliband at Westminster has been utterly uninspiring and he will have his hands full repelling his party's men in grey suits to be bothered too much about fighting to save the Union.

For Labour to lose control of Glasgow City Chambers to the SNP is nigh unthinkable and akin to waking up one morning and finding that Ian Paisley has taken control of the Vatican. In an unprecedented move, local party chiefs have sacked more than a dozen sitting Labour councillors whom they deem unfit for what will be a bitter struggle in May. Yet many of these worthies are well-known in their council wards and are regarded affectionately. If they were to act in concert as a de facto independent Labour force they would play right into the SNP's hands and wreck any Labour/Lib-Dem attempt at tactical voting in those wards.

The words of a Scottish Labour activist during our conversation last week will warm the SNP's hearts. "I don't know of one single party member who will actively campaign to save the Union. Most of us will be too busy fighting for our jobs and blaming the Tories to be bothered fighting for the UK."