Sketch: a Scottish uprising at PMQs For once, Ed Miliband was not David Cameron's main target at Prime Minister's Questions. It was the Scottish National Party, represented in the Commons yesterday by a small, scowling clan of MPs. Mr Cameron accused them of delaying the proposed referendum on independence. "It's not a referendum they want," he chortled, "it's a never-endum!" By the look of them, what they really wanted was a punch-up outside a chip shop. At both PMQs and the half-hour of Scottish Questions which preceded it, the SNP's proud guerrillas heckled ceaselessly, noisily and for the most part unintelligibly whenever the topic of Scottish independence was raised. "Give way!" they bawled at Mr Miliband. "Shut up!" they bawled at Mr Cameron. When the Prime Minister said he and the Labour leader agreed that the United Kingdom should remain united, they applauded ironically. They sounded like a vanload of football fans on a day trip south of the border for a match against the Auld Enemy. If they couldn't defeat the English, they could at the very least tear down the Wembley goalposts and make off with chunks of the turf. Some of them had prepared more diligently than others. Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) announced during Scottish Questions that the referendum would definitely take place "in the autumn of 1914," a time surely inconvenient to voters, many of whom will be otherwise engaged at the Western Front. Angus Robertson (Moray) hauled his party back on track during PMQs, by asking a question that combined a boast about the SNP's supposedly "overwhelming mandate," an irrelevant swipe at Margaret Thatcher, and the claim that the English were "dictating to Scotland." It was as though he were the caller in a game of SNP Cliché Bingo. If he'd mentioned North Sea oil I'd have had a full house. Throughout the arrow-shower of abuse raining down on him from these smart-suited Bravehearts, Mr Cameron seemed unruffled. Of course, these are early days. For example, as the Scottish Secretary Michael Moore admitted, it's still to be decided whether Scots who live outside Scotland will be allowed to vote. Presumably they must, if only to avoid excluding the SNP's biggest celebrity supporter, Sean Connery, a man who loves Scotland so much he lives in the Bahamas. All this squabbling meant there was less pressure than usual on Mr Miliband. Despite a wretched start to the year he appeared to be in reasonable spirits. Normally the Labour leader looks like a man wearing an itchy jumper two sizes too small for him, but here he seemed, if not cheerful, then at least not suicidal. He and Mr Cameron bickered over which government's fault it was that train fares have shot up. It was a debate that, in a sense, both men lost, by looking at it solely from their own viewpoint rather than the public's. No one pointed out that passengers are surely past caring who put fares up first; they just want them to come down again. Mr Cameron's attacks on the Opposition were largely restrained, although on the question of executive pay he accused the last government of doing "sweet nothing." Probably he was muddling the romantic term "sweet nothings" and the rather less romantic term "sweet FA." If he has a habit of confusing the two, one dreads to think what he whispers into the fragrant Samantha's ear.