IN SCOTLAND where we are forever caught in the braided memories of ancient myths it’s never been unfashionable to create new ones. Before, during and after the first independence referendum, the Unionist side drew heavily on this rich heritage to create some of their own.

Thus the nation’s elderly were told their pensions would be vulnerable in an independent Scotland and that the only way to retain our membership of the EU was to vote No.

In our cities, the roofs of our tallest commercial buildings would see scenes reminiscent of Saigon in 1975 as panic-stricken executives fought each other for seats on the last helicopters out of town.

Since the referendum, the alliance of the Labour Party in Scotland and the Conservatives has grown ever stronger and the compendium of myths and fables has grown longer. A slew of joint bulletins have ensued in both their names about oil production in the North Sea, the fiscal deficit of an independent Scotland and the overwhelming popular opposition to a second independence referendum.

Thus, North Sea oil reserves are diminishing and will probably cost us money.

Scotland’s place in the geological record books would therefore be assured as the only country in the world to be financially distressed by having oil.

The GERS figures (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) for an independent Scotland were so bad that they make Greece look like a Xanadu of stability and prosperity. Meanwhile, the UN was recalling peacekeepers from trouble-spots around the world to be on standby for a referendum that was being forced on a reluctant population by a one-party state.

This is what the Conservatives and Scottish Labour both insist Standing up for Scotland looks like. God help us all if we ever get on the wrong side of them.

Over the course of the last few weeks though, all of these have been rendered a little less potent.

The massive oil discovery reported recently in the Lancaster field west of Shetland was said to have been greeted with scenes of wild and unabashed apathy in Scottish Tory and Labour headquarters.

A few days ago the Unionists’ favourite amateur economist conceded this to the John Beattie Show on BBC Radio Scotland: “Nobody suggests that the GERS figures show what a future independent Scotland would look like.”

Meanwhile, all the most reliable opinion polls suggest support for having a second independence referendum remains at more than 50 per cent.

In the last few days another Unionist myth has been exploded: that Ruth Davidson had single-handedly “de-toxified” the Tory brand in Scotland.

For some reason this fiction was allowed to fly in the face of statistics that showed the reviled Margaret Thatcher to have garnered more support in Scotland at the height of the poll tax years than Ms Davidson ever has.

This myth was embedded in the outcome of the 2016 Holyrood election which saw the Tories replace the Labour Party as distant runners-up in the election to the runaway SNP. In that poll, however, all but a mere handful of the Conservative candidates were overwhelmingly rejected in their constituencies where they were about as popular as cross-dressers in Texas.

Still, though, the myth of the indefatigable Ms Davidson prevailed. Here she is in her Territorial Army gear atop a military vehicle in one photocall. And look; here she is again all pink and giggly as she makes another cheeky appearance on a television light entertainment show.

And now it’s thoughtful and human Ruth as she talks about her family and her church. “A kick-boxing, Territorial Army-trained, gay Christian with working-class roots, Davidson has taken the stereotype of a Conservative politician and tossed it into the Clyde,” the New Statesman gushed. and the rest of us marvelled at how elastic the term “working class” had recently become.

Now, though, it’s the kick-boxing, territorial Army-trained, gay Christian who thinks is right and proper that a rape victim should be ordered to beg for extra child tax credit by revealing in some detail the circumstances surrounding her violation.

The UK Government said it was seeking to ring-fence rape victims – and any children conceived as a result – from the effects of their reprisals against their favourite victims: the UK’s most vulnerable people.

Prime Minister Theresa May, just like her Scottish lieutenant, has also chosen to make much of her Christian beliefs.

That is breath-taking even by the wretched standards of the Conservative Party.

In trying to mitigate the effects of having to fill out an eight-page entreaty and naming the third child, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) really did say this: “We have always been clear this will be delivered in the most effective, compassionate way, with the right exceptions and safeguards in place.”

The rest of us know what DWP “compassion” looks like, though, in case after case reported by Disability Benefit claimants.

Two days ago we learned of the DWP’s “compassion” towards one woman, Alice Kirby, who had encountered mental health problems.

She was asked by DWP assessors why she hadn’t killed herself. Ms Kirby’s experience of DWP “compassion” mirrors that of many others all over the UK.

Figures just released show private companies which make assessments on behalf of the DWP will make around £700 million from lucrative, five-year deals with this wing of government.

They won’t earn that level of financial reward by being “compassionate”, one would imagine.

Yet when vulnerable people as a community are regarded as commercial units then human decency quickly becomes subordinate to the market.

I shudder at the prospect of a rape victim, perhaps someone who is still trying to process what happened to her, being forced to fall on the mercy of these jackals operating on behalf of the DWP.

Ms Davidson would have caused less offence if she had simply said she was following the party line and that she was confident women in these situations would be treated properly.

Instead, she summoned her spokesman from his Easter break and told him to do it instead.

When realising she had made such a serious misjudgment she then tried to make the responsibility for this the First Minister of Scotland’s. “If the SNP Government believes this to be of such importance, then it can act,” she declared.

Clearly, Ms Davidson doesn’t think that treating victims of rape in this way is of “such importance”.

In that sentence she betrayed the essential vindictive and deeply unpleasant nature of her party.