Thompson is the MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch and also convener of Christians for Independence (CFI). CFI, which holds its annual general meeting this week, was set up in 2009 as an SNP conference prayer group.

Its key figures – Thompson and fellow SNP MSP John Mason – last year turned it into a cross-party organisation for selling independence to the near 50% of the population who identify themselves as Christians. “We wanted to broaden it out, not just to include SNP people. So we put together a business plan and we submitted it to [Stagecoach founder] Brian Souter,” he explained. Brian Souter agreed, liked our business plan and gave us £100,000, which meant we could employ David Kerr as our director.”

Souter’s role in CFI and the SNP, for which he is also a donor, is controversial.
The Perth-based tycoon funded a referendum in 2000, in opposition to the then Scottish Executive’s policy on homosexuality in schools. Does Thompson agree with the liberal criticism of Souter’s referendum?

“I don’t particularly want to look back at that,” he said, writes Paul Hutcheon in The Herald