It is probably not what my party’s press office want me to say on the eve of the SNP conference opening, but I am going to let you into a secret - I dislike party conferences.

I have been attending my own party’s annual conferences for the best part of two decades now but the prospect of spending three days in a windowless auditorium, clapping endlessly to speeches you profoundly agree with and largely echoing similar thoughts and ideas with colleagues does not strike me as being a great use of time.

Aside from being something of a petri dish for autumnal colds and a dreadful backpacking holiday for political journalists, conferences have three main aims - raise cash for party coffers, gee up the activists to get out and campaign and, finally, to capitalise on the media coverage by disseminating your party’s message.

If you are a politician like me, party conference season can be all consuming. Who is up? Who is down? Whose speech flatlined? Who said something outrageous to a journalist after one too many glasses of wine at a late-night fringe meeting? 

Conference season is basically like Glastonbury for politicians, but the toilets aren’t quite so bad.

However, conferences can only be deemed a success if your party’s main message cuts through to the voters.

It would be fair to say that the Tory party conference in Birmingham this week has been a total car crash. I’ve lost count of the number of gaffs, squabbles and u-turns which have happened down in Brum.

In reality, the Tory conference was always going to be a difficult one after the British Government served up a not-so-mini-budget, which turned out to be as popular a gherkin on a McDonald’s cheeseburger.

If you followed the media coverage of the fiscal statement, the most criticised decision was to cut the top rate of tax from 45p in the pound to 40p. That would have led to a millionaire receiving an income tax cut of £55,000. Such a move would have cost the UK Treasury about £2bn in total.

My own opposition to the cut in taxes for the highest earners wasn’t just the fact that the Treasury could have spent the £2bn to help better fund hospitals, schools and councils. 

Fundamentally, it was the political symbolism of Tories doing what the Tories do best - feathering the nests of their rich pals and donors whilst Joe Public here at home in Glasgow tries to get by on just the two warm meals each day rather than three.

After a pretty calamitous media round on Sunday morning, the Prime Minister and chancellor finally decided to abandon their plans to slash income tax for the richest in society. They concluded that the 45p tax cut was distracting from their conference message on all the other wonderful things in their fiscal plan.

So, what were they? Lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses, slashing corporation tax for big businesses and cutting stamp duty on properties up to almost half a million pounds. Hardly the big answers to the cost-of-living crisis that we face as Glaswegians.

Binning the top rate tax cut was the right thing to do. However, doing so only saves £2bn. 

The big thing I’m concerned about is the plan to reduce corporation tax from 25% to 19%. Doing so would cost about £18bn which is more, far more, than the Scottish Government spends on the National Health Service in a single year. 

The British Government says the corporation tax cut will help attract companies to base themselves here in the British Isles. 

The big fly in that ointment though is that our near neighbour, the Republic of Ireland, already has a corporate tax rate of 12.5% so there is no point in indulging in a race to the bottom on business tax cuts. 

Of course, the other attraction of companies basing themselves in Ireland is that it is a full member of the European Union.

The British Government’s disastrous mini-budget has highlighted just why so many people have given up on Westminster and now look to Scottish independence as the only way to deliver an economy that is fair, just and more equal.

So, if party conferences are an opportunity to send a message to the electorate, then the one from the Tories this week can be heard loud and clear: Scotland, you need independence because Truss and the Tories are determined to trash the economy.