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Despite a contented year studying theology at St Andrews, I am not, I confess, an expert in the terminology of the afterlife.

Perhaps that is because I was a mere passing tourist in the divinity faculty en route to an arts degree.

Still, something stirred as I heard Derek Brownlee of the Conservatives declare that the Scottish Government's Budget Bill presently resides in "purgatory".

Presumably, that means that it remains open to Finance Secretary John Swinney to expiate his sins and so attract the votes he needs in a fortnight's time, at Stage Three.

Not sure Mr Swinney looked in a particularly devotional mood.

He had spent a pretty turgid morning trawling through his plan to impose a levy on large retailers in the company of the local government committee. (Limbo, perhaps?)

He then spent the afternoon urging sceptical and hostile MSPs to support his budget.

Ex-levy

The session opened with a point of order from Mike Rumbles. Joy unbounding for Swinney, J.

Firstly, that levy.

It has now been opposed in committee. It will presumably be opposed when the same arithmetic is constructed in the full chamber. It has had it. It is an ex levy.

Unless. Unless Ministers can think of some way, any way, to persuade a rival party, perhaps Labour, that the levy is the least miserable option in the age of austerity.

Might they offer, for example, to hypothecate the thirty million quid raised by the levy for a key Labour project, such as apprenticeships for young people?

They might - but Labour still sound mightily sceptical about the levy, about the way it was introduced, about its economic equity and, frankly, about the entire budget.

Election dates are influential here.

Urban regeneration

All the opposition parties are currently stressing the need to enhance growth. Fine, says Mr Swinney, but how. Precisely, how.

Answers are beginning to emerge. From Labour, retain the future jobs fund, boost urban regeneration.

From the Tories, boost housing to support contruction and reshape public services. From the LibDems, bolster college bursaries and trim top pay to release resources.

But, self-evidently, more negotiation is required before Mr Swinney's budget can enter a state of grace.

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