IT is just as well that this country, unlike the United States, doesn’t have an annual State of the Union address. The Prime Minister would have to confess that the union is pretty fragile - seemingly heading for the knacker’s yard.

The union - the combination of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - was clearly in David Cameron’s mind when, in his election victory speech, he promised to govern Britain as “one nation”.

When first uttered, by Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in 1872, this famous phrase meant governing for the whole of society, rich and poor alike. And, until now, it was always in that sense that it has been used, notably by premier Ted Heath, but also by Ed Miliband in one of his conference speeches.

Excluding the always-thorny issue of Northern Ireland, the thought that we weren’t one nation spanning the historic geographic national borders entered very few minds. What a tragedy that the rise of Scottish nationalism is now spawning the growth of something dangerously approaching racial hatred among our ‘family of nations.’ It hardly seems too far-fetched to envisage the battles of Bannockburn and Culloden being fought again.

It is said that many people voted Tory through fear of a Labour government propped up by the SNP. But the outcome is virtually the same. With Nicola Sturgeon probably knocking on his door with a fresh demand each day, David Cameron will find it impossible to say No more than rarely. For every refusal will be presented by the SNP as a deaf ear to Scotland’s interests and people – driving more voters into the independence camp.

But, equally, every extra power granted to the Scots will fuel resentment among the other members of the ‘one nation’, who might well conclude that that nation is Scotland. Mr Cameron has already promised it more autonomy than any other constituent part of a nation state anywhere in the world. But the SNP is unlikely to be satisfied.

Bearing in mind all that needs to be done across Britain, headed by maintaining the NHS and decent public services, it is nothing less than disastrous that so much energy is going to have to be expended performing cartwheels to please one part of the kingdom, whose charge of neglect by Westminster has (let’s be honest) no stronger foundation than that of many other regions of the Britain. Think only of the Barnett formula, discredited yet still favouring Scotland with £1,600 more of public spending per head than regions like the North-East.

THE VE Day commemorations were all about peace and reconciliation, were they not? In my book a black mark is earned by the western nations for not attending the comparable commemoration in Russia. The Russians lost 27m people in World War II, compared with 400,000 here. The anniversary honours the dead, not any present regime, of which Putin’s Russia was snubbed because of its war-fermenting activities in the Ukraine. Even so, President Putin expressed his gratitude to “the people of Great Britain, France and the United States for their contribution to victory”. Alas, no reciprocation here.

A LOOK forward to the new Government. Top of the agenda, it is said, is redrawing constituency boundaries in way that would strengthen the Tories grip on power. Democracy?