By golly, they're bitter at the moment, aren't they?
Bitter about the Olympics, bitter about the continued failure of referendum polls to move in their direction.
But nowhere more bitter than over the leadership's attempt to dump the party's historic opposition to NATO membership. It's still being kept fairly quiet, but it's becoming clear that behind the scenes there is the beginning of a ding-dong, membership-card-tearing, People's Front of Judea-type rammy.
For example, have a look at this fairly prominent Nat blog:
"I regret that since I began arguing the case against NATO, a rather large number of SNP supporters have demonstrated the kind of unwillingness to tolerate dissent of any kind, on Twitter, on YouTube, on the blog, and, I regret to say, in violently abusive comments which I have removed at the pre-moderation stage, and in abusive emails.
(I had heard such accusations made against a sector of the party support, but always argued it was an unrepresentaitve minority.)
I'm sad about that, not for myself but for the 'nice' party's image.
Of more concern is the apparent inability to engage with any debate above the level of sloganising and protestations of undying loyalty to anything the party says or does, or with complex, detailed arguments, and the 'magic wand' approach to independence.
This is matched only by the uncanny silence of the party hierarchy and professional communicators, who nonetheless produce, daily, a blizzard of press release on just about anything under the sun - except defence matters and NATO.
As I said, I will continue to campaign for independence, but almost certainly outside of the party - and also against Scotland's membership of NATO. It is really only a question of whether to wait for the October vote or leave now. In the light of the face of the party that I have experienced recently, I think it will probably be the latter."
I would say to Mr Curran that he ought to consider more carefully those he associates with. The record of political parties which behave like cults, in which dissent from the leadership is suppressed, in which the paramount aim is power first and sort out the details later, is not good. It never ends well.
Still, it might discourage Mr Curran from writing "Alex Salmond is a great statesman" in bold red type in every other blog he writes, which can only be a good thing.
(Eagle-eyed readers might noticed that I've updated my blog list for the first time in months. There are some hilarious new ones there; some intentionally so and some, er, probably not.)
