This week’s budget had a noisy political backing track. The cynical (or Hugh MacDiarmid) might have called it a wheen o’ blethers.

However, let us be charitable and say that our elected tribunes were simply reflecting popular economic anxiety.

Consider tax. The revenue changes in this budget are relatively – I stress, relatively – slight, if complex.

However, there was broader substance for Opposition parties to attack.

The First Minister, Humza Yousaf, said the tax hike for higher earners was in line with his administration’s values. But why then freeze a regressive council tax? Where is the consistency?

Similarly, why refuse to curb business rates, as in England, while providing relief to hospitality firms in the islands?

I get the concept: a fiscal apology for absent ferries. But, again, consistency? If it is value driven?

This budget was motivated rather by pragmatic necessity, not least decisions taken by a pre-election UK Government.

It was smothered by a persistent crisis: the UK again at risk of recession and Scotland’s onshore GDP contracting in October.

But, boy, was it loud. Labour’s Anas Sarwar condemned the budget as “devastating”. For the Tories, Douglas Ross lampooned the FM as “High Tax Humza”, drawing a mild rebuke from the chair. In response, Mr Yousaf appeared at one point to be visibly snarling.

Amid all this clanjamfrie, the dog that didn’t bark. Or, rather, the hound which generated little more than a surreptitious whimper.

Read more: Brian Taylor: Independence, devolution – and the tensions within this United........

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