Donald Macintyre's Sketch: David Cameron love-bombs the Welsh (in case they’re next)

Scottish news editors have long commanded reporters to “put a kilt on it” – find a Caledonian angle, in other words, to a story that lacks one it its original form.

It seemed inevitable, given that next week’s referendum was at the front of every MP’s mind yesterday, from the Prime Minister down, that someone would want to “put a kilt” on his statement about the Nato summit.

This was a serious challenge since the statement was mainly about Ukraine and Isis. David Cameron confirmed that Britain is arming as well as transporting weapons to the Kurds and (more or less) promised that MPs would have a vote if Britain was to join in any US action to be announced by Barack Obama this week. Secondly the summit had taken place in Wales.

So Cameron was fulsome in thanking Newport council, the Welsh Assembly, the First Minister (who heads a government the PM normally castigates for making a mess of the NHS), Gwent police and indeed the entire Welsh people for their “incredibly warm welcome” to the potentates of the alliance. So fulsome in fact that for a wild moment you thought he had already resigned himself to losing Scotland and was now making desperate efforts to stop the Welsh – who, he said pointedly, had “done the United Kingdom proud” – from following suit.

But no. Presented with the Scottish angle, Cameron rose to the occasion as best he could. Yes, a number of people at the Nato summit had raised “concerns” about the outcome of the referendum. He himself believed in a “proud and strong Scotland with strong institutions and a powerful place in the world”. The alternative was “separation and such uncertainty about all these organisations, not knowing if you would have a place in the EU or Nato”. The “patriotic choice” was, he repeated, a “strong proud Scotland within the United Kingdom”.

It had fallen to the MP for Aldershot, Sir Gerald Howarth, to ask the relevant question about the impact of “Scottish secession on the defence of the rest of the UK”. He had done his duty in the Commons. That said, Sir Gerald, though no doubt a passionate unionist, is a right-wing English Thatcherite Conservative, exactly the kind who should be kept as far away from Scotland as possible for now.