But there is another SNP face which has loomed into view again. Alex Salmond has returned with a vengeance. There is an unforgettable video clip in which he claimed that he knew that Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, wasn’t writing the Labour Budget because he (Salmond) was. That was a joke, he says. Of course it was – but what kind of joke? If he had said, “To hear Cameron tell it, I’m writing the Labour Budget”, that would have been a jibe at the absurdity of the Tory attack. Instead, he made a swaggering, cock-of-the-walk, bullying sort of joke: like the upstart in the office who brags to the juniors that he is in control of their prospects – and then claims that “it was only a joke” when he causes offence. Maybe this is the moment when the country decides that the clowning has gone on long enough.