Power play
It remains one of the mini-marvels of politics that the Treasury has been conjoined to concede new borrowing and additional tax powers to the Scottish Parliament in the Scotland Bill.
In Scotland, at Holyrood, the debate may be over whether these powers will be successful in bolstering fiscal responsibility - or whether, as the SNP asserts, they may be so inadequate that they end up causing Scotland to lose out financially.
Within the grandiose HQ of the Treasury in Whitehall's Great George Street, these matters are seen in rather simpler terms. Devolution means the Treasury giving up power. Which they are now doing, reluctantly.
However, it seems that there are limits to the Treasury's new found sense of liberal detachment. Up with Scottish bonds they will not put.
Bonds? An idea, remember, advanced by the Holyrood committee under Wendy Alexander as part of a plan for extending the proposed borrowing powers for the Scottish Parliament.
The idea was that Holyrood would be able, should MSPs choose, to issue bonds in order to raise funds in the money markets.
The Bill to revise Holyrood's powers is presently under scrutiny by the Commons. Its committee stage, as a constitutional Bill, is being taken on the floor of the House itself with all MPs potentially involved, rather than "upstairs" in a limited membership committee.
As I write, MPs are debating the issue of the voting system at Holyrood with a cadre of Labour back-benchers advocating First Past the Post (they dislike list MSPs). Their chances of success are limited.
But the bigger issue remains finance. And last night the Treasury Minister David Gauke said no to bonds, for now.
Snag is, he said, that bonds would be currently a relatively bad financial deal - and would add to the UK's borrowing requirement.
To be fair to Ms Alexander, she and her committee acknowledged that precise point. She did not envisage bonds being used instantly. Rather, it was an issue of long-term trust.
The response of the Treasury still remains one of pained disquiet. Look, you can almost hear them saying, is it not enough that we are conceding borrowing powers at all? But bonds?
I'm 
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