THE economic future may be bleak, grey and wrapped in sackcloth and ashes but in the bar of the Royal George Hotel in Perth the future of the SNP looks young and in good health.
Lounging on a green leather sofa, Alex MacLeod, a fifth-year pupil at Tain Royal Academy, is stylishly dressed in pin-stripe suit, tie and trainers. Alongside are David Lunden, 18, a senior case worker for John Mason, the SNP hero of Glasgow East, a
nd Lewis MacAskill, 17, who is on a gap year before embarking into the realm of physics at Edinburgh University.
These teenagers are crucial parts of a party on the rise, young men whose tone of polished confidence and the certainty of their national ambition is unscratched by the calamitous events in the financial markets of the previous few weeks.
And, despite their youth, they believe they understand the Prime Minister's weakness.
"It's that smile of his – and he never normally smiles – he seems to relish the problem we're in because of the boost it's given him," says Alex, 16.
David says: "The government is going to hit a stumbling block. People will remember who got them into this mess."
The group's mature, confident tone was set by the older man in the next room. Alex Salmond was on a sofa, surrounded by SNP staff and his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, as he phoned the party's 10,000th member, an Asian woman who joined four years ago, to tell her that the party had just signed up its 15,000th member.
The SNP leader had just presented Andrew Pyle, whose 18th birthday it was, with his membership card, watched by his proud mother, Jean, who took a picture using her mobile phone, while assuring The Scotsman that he came from a balanced family: she was a Nat, his father was a sheriff, so politically neutral, one brother was a Labour member, "while his granny is Conservative".
The weather report may insist that storms are upon Scotland, but the atmosphere at the SNP conference, was indomitable, like holidaymakers rolling out the towels and blowing up the beach ball, and intent on having a good time regardless of the whipping wind and the sand in the sandwiches.
The engines that had got them so far and had been designed to drive Scotland to an independent paradise were spluttering to a halt: RBS had been nationalised, HBOS was being bought out, while oil prices had plummeted. This might have been expected to produce a few frowns.
Meanwhile, the arc of prosperity of Iceland, Ireland and Norway has, argues Labour, become an political own-goal, rechristened the arc of austerity. Yet the typical SNP delegate is hardy and more than able to turn the worst economic crisis in a generation into an advertisement for independence.
To an indifferent outsider, the past few weeks could be viewed as a repetition of the Darien adventure, the economic bubble that burst and bankrupted the nation to the point where union was the most viable option. Shielded by the Union, Scotland's banks are being bailed out with the bill shared among 60 million instead of five. Voters may imagine what would have happened if independence had arrived a few years ago, and not be comforted by the picture.
Inside the conference venue, the accoutrements of power were on display in a specially converted tent at the entrance. Here all those companies and organisations anxious to curry favour and influence policy sat side by side. Despite the hullabaloo at the appearance, for the first time, of the Coca-Cola Company, which, delegates were informed employs 400 people in Scotland and generates £20 million, they did not see fit, sadly to provide free samples.
The Terrence Higgins Trust, was generous with what looked like condoms and lollipops, while the Young Scots for Independence dispensed iced cup-cakes and sold a fine T-shirt with Mr Salmond morphed into Che Guevara, and the tag-line: 'mon the Revolution.
The counsellor to the Cuban Embassy, who was among the delegates, could not be reached for his comment on the creation.
It was clear that the patina of power has yet to be chipped off the SNP. In the foyer, Bill Ramsay, a delegate and member of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), explained that he came from the left of the party but was pleased with the cabinet's handling of government.
"I have no complaints, but we are now going to face a recession and we have to focus on what we can do to help the life of the people." he said.
"The public services will have a big part to play. Professor Tom Devine spoke at a recent EIS conference and he talked of the 'sheet anchor of public services'." Mr Ramsay said that the country was heading into a storm but he was confident of the leadership.
Among the stalls was an impressive display of books brought by Yeardon, an independent book store in Banchory, whose most popular titles provided a temperature gauge for the conference.
The current best-seller was Flag in the Wind by John MacCormick, about the early days of the independence movement, which was followed by Ian Hamilton's The Stone of Destiny. However the next two were comic asides, The Broons annual and The Complete Book of Mince. "That'll be about the economy", quipped a member of staff.
Back in the chattering citadel of the Royal George Hotel, two old ladies were talking, over tea in china cups and saucers, of the worries of the winter. The heating, they agreed, would have to be turned down a little and the pennies counted with extra care. Were they, I wondered, elderly advocates of the cause. No, just members of the public worrying about the worsening weather.
