SCOTLAND may have voted No in the independence referendum, but it's estimated that more than 75% of us want devo-max.

Instead, what Lord Smith's Commission recommends is devo-minimum.

It's the least the unionist parties could concede in a futile bid to fulfil THE VOW.

And, yes, these are only recommendations: they still require legislation from parties that spent two years arguing against them, and that could take until 2017 or even 2018.

I'm no economist, as my wife would confirm, but it seems to me responsibility over income tax is a drop in the ocean when 70% of our overall tax take, and the starting level at which tax is paid, will still be controlled by Westminster.

Add in continued London control of 85% of our welfare powers - such as Universal Credit, child benefit, statutory maternity pay and sick pay - and it's doubtful whether the overall package has sufficient clout to help make significant changes in Scotland.

And we WON'T, as some wish you to believe, be able to "abolish" bedroom tax.

Westminster will graciously allow us to use our own budget to top-up benefits and mitigate the effects of any iniquity they inflict on us, without first seeking their permission.

David Cameron made it clear the Barnett formula will not change - a guarantee causing much angst on both sides of the Commons - but whatever our tax take or our allocation of VAT, the proceeds will come off our block grant.

Behind the smoke and mirrors and unionist spin, Holyrood's budget will remain unchanged. Scotland will get no more cash, just the authority to collect some of our own. In that regard, the prospect of devolving air passenger duty has alarm bells ringing from Leeds to Newcastle. The 2009 Calman Commission made that recommendation, but it was quietly shelved amind Westminster gripes about undercutting north of England airports. APD might not fly this time, either.

Other powers being transferred are administrative, such as lowering the voting age, changing speed limits, licensing frackers, and controlling winter fuel and cold weather payments.

The SNP, with their independence agenda, naturally believes Smith does not go far enough. But non-aligned groups such as the STUC, voluntary, poverty and disability organisations, the students' union as well as the Greens, agree it falls short of any promise.

The authors of THE VOW used Better Together to bolster their lot at Westminster, not Holyrood, and they're doing the same with the Smith Commission.

Leaked documents reveal that agreed plans to devolve abortion law, lotteries, health and safety at work, treatment of asylum seekers, and a greater say in the governance of the BBC (now there's a thought) were dropped after orders from London to their Scottish branch offices.

It didn't take them long to forget that Lord Smith's commission was set up to consider the devolution of further powers to Scotland, not England.

The morning of the indy result, David Cameron declared that Scotland's future must be decided "in tandem" with English votes for English laws (EVEL).

Labour realised they had been conned into fronting Better Together and could see their dreams of power vanish with the expulsion of 40-odd Scottish MPs.

As for a Scot ever again being Chancellor or PM, well, that would be as likely as a pothole-free winter in Glasgow.

On the morning of the Smith report last week, Cameron declared the case for EVEL was now "unanswerable", and vowed to introduce draft legislation in January.

Labour, alone among the main Scottish parties in opposing full devolution, had no option but to accept the report, and avoid conceding another own goal to the SNP.

Ed Miliband, in an act of desperation that has split Labour, agreed a U-turn on tax-raising powers only after the Tories promised to honour the Smith agreement principle that Scottish MPs would retain full voting powers over a UK budget.

And Ed believed them! More fool him.

That U-turn will come back to haunt Labour in the Commons, as much as sharing the Tories' Better Together bed has condemned them in Scotland.

When Ed Miliband accuses David Cameron of being out of touch with ordinary folk, you have to laugh. I can't remember when all three Westminster leaders were so detached from most of society, far less the reality of life among Britain's working classes.

Their cabinets overflow with Eton millionaires and champagne pseudo socialists, who actually despise the voters they're supposedly so proud to represent.

Witness Labour shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry's contempt for England's flag-waving white van man; ex-chief whip Andrew Mitchell calling a Downing Street cop "a pleb"; ex-Tory minister David Mellor telling a cabbie to "get a better education".

Give me Nicola Sturgeon, Ruth Davidson and even Jim Murphy. The devil you know, and all that.