Alex Salmond has a dream: That Scotland should be a free and independent country financing its wealth by gaining direct control over the North Sea oil and gas resources off its shores.
The leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), which won control of the regional government in Edinburgh last May, believes that Scotland could become the sixth-richest nation in the world if a fully-independent administration - and not the British government in London - was able to reap the full benefits from its resources.
Scotland, so Salmond's dream goes, could move up from being the European Union's 10th most prosperous country to its third. On the back of currently high oil prices, the lure of even greater wealth might well be music to the ears of Scottish nationalists, but realists will understand that the oil will run dry and a nation of 5 million could perhaps - after all - be rather insignificant.
The SNP's dream of independence received a major boost from the 2007 election to the regional parliament in Edinburgh, where Salmond's nationalists ended 55 years of dominance by the Labour Party, and now proudly refers to itself as the "Scottish government."
Scottish pride has never been happily accommodated in the 300-year union between England and Scotland, a fact recognised by London's Labour government in the late 1990s, when then prime minister Tony Blair's policy of devolution sought to enhance the powers of the regional governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
But critics maintain that rather than strengthening the Union, devolution has weakened the ties between central government and the regions which won a greater say on domestic policies - except on taxation, defence and foreign policy.
The SNP's independence rhetoric has angered the Labour government now led by Gordon Brown, a Scotsman himself, while the opposition Conservatives have turned the tables by calling for an "English parliament."
The tussle has sparked arguments over generous central government funding of the regions under the so-called Barnett formula - from which Scotland derives particular benefit. It also revived the 30-year-old "West Lothian question" - an anomaly that allows Scottish members in the Westminster parliament to vote on English domestic policies while English parliamentarians have no influence over Scottish issues.
The situation has allowed Scotland to introduce free care for the elderly, better healthcare, better schooling and free university tuition - for Scots only - and to the envy of its neighbours south of the border.
While in the south, some leading Conservatives have called for the formation of a "democracy task force" that would tackle the perceived "over-funding" of Scotland and address the "unfairness" in voting rights, the SNP has recently toned down its fiery independence rhetoric.
As opinion polls show that Scots are divided over independence, Salmond, whose SNP does not have enough parliamentary support to pass a bill on a referendum, planned for 2010, is busy seeking backing from rival parties to realise his dream.
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