We've had the synthetic outrage - but this time it's for real. In the past the SNP appears to have looked for fights with Westminster in an attempt to portray Scotland as losing out, whether it be over council tax rebates or the perceived risk to the future of the Scotland football team.

Now as the country struggles with the economic downturn, a massive infrastructure project that everyone agrees needs to be built as a matter of some urgency has become bogged down in the kind of cross-border warfare that has become all too familiar in the new Scottish politics.

If the SNP was able to work out the detail of its Futures Trust the new Forth crossing would have been a testament to its financial acumen. Instead the Nationalist administration has boxed itself into a corner, having ruled out using PFI without providing a credible funding alternative for the infrastructure projects that could help the country through the current downturn.

The UK Government may be right to say that it cannot bring forward money from budgets which have yet to be set but the current crisis has seen it rip up every other economic rule in the book. The Treasury's refusal to accede to the SNP's request appears at odds with the Prime Minister's determination to increase spending on big projects to keep the economy moving.

This row, more than all the others, risks cementing suspicions that the SNP government will opportunistically blame Westminster for every problem - even those of its own making - and that the UK Government will do everything in its power to help people through the financial crisis, providing they're not nationalists.

Meanwhile, away from the politics of the playground, a £2billion bridge vital to Scotland's economy is still waiting to be built.

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