The SNP's historic election sweep last week was as much a protest vote against the old historic parties as one for independence or Alex Salmond

I love it when the egocentric London newspapers periodically remember that there's a place call Scotland somewhere to the north of the M25 and either get into a huff about its demands or say – with equal silliness – that England should sever its ties and good riddance.

It's happening again in the wake of the SNP's historic election sweep against Labour for the Scottish parliament. Yet wily Alex Salmond is one step ahead of his English critics as usual, so this morning's Guardian reports him offering "devolution max" as an alternative to outright independence or the status quo in the referendum he still says he's gagging to stage.

This manoeuvre is dressed up as a statesmanlike compromise. Good old Alex! But it reflects the underlying Scottish reality that only about one in four Scots voters currently favours independence from England, not from the crown or the pound, as things stand.

That's fewer than in the heady days when Scottish oil and Scottish superbanks made it look a more attractive option. The Nats are still keen on "their" oil, not so keen on "their" bust banks. As Lesley Riddoch writes in today's Guardian, voting for Alex – "confidence on stilts" – is a sign that Scotland may be less dour, less miserabilist than it was.

That must be a good thing. But, unless Westminster makes a much worse job of running the UK, independence is unlikely to happen, as Salmond knows.

So why did I describe Salmond in his moment of triumph as one of the few British politicians around whom I find a bit "scary"? It's odd, but every glimpse I have caught of his lap of honour this weekend has reinforced that tremor.

Having thought about it again, I think it's because I don't quite trust him to be straight when handling what is always the Semtex of politics anywhere in the world – light, adaptable, highly explosive – by which I mean the simplistic deployment of nationalism as a solution to problems.

The fact that Salmond's clever and funny makes it worse, a bit like Norman Tebbit whom I also like personally, except that – it pains me to say this – I have always felt I understood what makes Tebbit tick. I trust him not to misbehave more than I do "Wee Eck", as some people affectionately call Scotland's first minister.

In a similar vein I was shocked when I watched William Hague abandon the fuddy-duddy Euro-Conservative EPP and sign up with the Latvian – or was it Laplander? – Ku Klux Klan, simply as a pre-election device for appeasing the Tory right at home.

Hague's clever and funny too – nowhere near as canny a politician as Salmond, mind you – but whenever I now hear him making a weighty foreign policy statement I think of those white sheets.

Trust in politics is a funny thing. All sorts of voters, Lib Dem as well as Labour, are furious with Nick Clegg for what they see as a serial breach of trust. I don't see it that way at all, any more than I did with Tony Blair.

Clegg isn't a fool or a liar, though he's certainly an irritating prig. He just painted himself into a corner where he never expected to find himself: in government after a 70-year Liberal absence. Beware of what you wish for!

I suppose the same could be said of Alex Salmond, who now has the majority in the Holyrood parliament which – in theory – allows him to set the pace towards Scottish separation from England. I note in passing that Labour picked the additional member system (ASM) of "top-up" MSPs precisely to deny any one party a majority in the new Scottish parliament.

It was a self-denying gesture against the incestuous and often-negative record of Scottish Labour which hated New Labour – full of smart ex-pat Scots though it was – but didn't come up with a better idea. A letter in today's Guardian (the writer lives in London) explains that Salmond's appeal is not personal but reflects his socialist policies.

Yeah right. No tuition fees, no council tax rises, free care for the elderly, all financially unsustainable as experts keep telling Alex and – now that he's used the policies to bribe enough middle-class Scots (free scrips for them too!) – he'll probably admit it soon – and blame David Cameron for cutting Scotland's generous block grant.

There's the rub. Scotland has long done better than England – or Wales, though not blood-strewn Northern Ireland – in terms of its financial settlement under the so-called Barnett formula. It was devised as a temporary measure by Lord Joel Barnett (chief secretary to the Treasury 1974-79), now a spritely 87-year-old who has successfully campaigned for a review of his formula – now under way.

There are good reasons for generosity, ranging from the industrial legacy of deprivation to the cost of keeping the vast and lovely Highlands ticking over as one of Europe's great wildernesses. But that shouldn't extend to sentimentality about open-ended free care for the elderly.

Scotland's bad health outcomes are, in part, the product of consistently bad habits on the food and booze front too. It is surely no coincidence that several Labour authors of Scottish devolution – John Smith, Donald Dewar and Robin Cook, all died before their time.

They were far from being teetotallers, I can confirm. But the evidence from NHS reforms suggests that England's willingness to embrace a more competitive NHS regime – contrary to what Nick Clegg is now saying – is delivering better outcomes. Sorry, Nick.

Would Salmond embrace such evidence if it didn't suit him? I'm not sure he would – and might wonder the same about Gordon Brown, whom I also came not to trust very much.

It's always easier to blame someone else, and the great thing about being a minister in a Holyrood government is that it doesn't prevent you blaming the government – the one down in London – magic! In a real sense an SNP vote can also be a protest vote against the old historic parties – Labour and Lib Dem this time – as well as one for independence or Alex Salmond.

Let's assume that David McCameron will ignore hotheads in his own party who want a UK-wide refo on Scottish separation right away to call Salmond's bluff and let the first minister proceed at his own pace. Play him long, is probably Cameron's instinct and – remember – Cameron could well prove an even cannier operator than Wee Eck. Let's see. Salmond is – rightly – in no rush.

That means beefing up the coalition's Scotland bill now before parliament and designed to amend the 1998 devolution laws, chiefly to provide greater power and responsibility for tax and spending to Holyrood.

That's surely healthy – Scots voters can see more clearly who to blame – but Salmond wants the power to vary corporation tax rates too, as Belfast has also claimed because it wants to match Dublin's rates.

You can see at a glance that this is a tricky one. The power to vary income tax by up to 3p in the pound has also existed since 1998 – but was never used. Brussels is very keen to curb Ireland's low rate, which undercuts eurozone allies. The Treasury in Whitehall is not keen.

We'll see what happens. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Scots decided to go their own way, but it would strike me as a retrograde step which would do neither them nor us any good: think of all the blood and treasure we all wasted stealing each other's cattle in the old days.

And the big EU states – full of separatist panacea-merchants of their own – wouldn't be keen either. Rules don't say it has to admit Scotland and it's not as if Ireland, Portugal or Greece are flavour of the month in Brussels or Berlin.

Catalonia, which is the benchmark separatist movement to watch, is currently at loggerheads with the Spanish government in Madrid. But did you notice the other day – I bet Alex Salmond did – that Canada's left-leaning NDP beat the separatist Bloc Québécois in francophone Quebec, the first time that has ever happened.

It has become the official opposition in Ottawa to Stephen Harper's new Tory-majority regime in the process. Does that signal a real shift to the left in Canada's anti-Tory politics? A mere signal of disdain for the Liberals (led by the intellectual Michael Ignatieff) much like the dislike of Labour or the Lib Dems here? Or a rejection of the cul-de-sac of separatism, which never managed to muster a Québécois majority?

I don't know. As in Scotland, we'll have to wait and see.