When faced with a hungry crowd, it is always best to make sure you have some meat with which to feed it.
Nicola Sturgeon stood before the assembled delegates at the SNP’s annual conference and announced an independence referendum bill would be unveiled next week.
The followers salivated as if a juicy steak has just been placed in front of them. They were seeing what they wanted to see.
It increasingly looks like the First Minister is set on a path towards a second vote on whether or not Scotland should be part of the UK but she is leaving plenty of wriggle room.
She knows how to fill her audience’s collective stomach.
This is done using parliamentary process as starchy carbohydrates.
Publishing a consultation is another step towards a second independence ballot but it is just that, one step.
The cheering, whooping and standing ovation which accompanied it was almost as baffling as the enthusiasm which followed the spring announcement of an “initiative” to persuade No voters to vote Yes in the future.
For clarity, these are moves towards taking the constitutional question to the country again but they hardly qualify as full steam ahead.
This is because there are difficulties for Sturgeon and the pro-independence movement in general.
One is simply a result of the UK Government’s incompetency at outlining a coherent Brexit plan.
If the SNP doesn’t know what it is arguing against, how can it make a convincing case for anything?
But the Tories aren’t the only ones who don’t have answers to the tough questions about uncertainty in a brave new world.
John Swinney hinted the failed proposal of a currency union with the UK could again be the SNP’s policy if we go back to the polls.
This shows there is still some thinking to be done within the party when it comes to solving the problems which put voters off last time round.
Sturgeon genuinely abhors the xenophobia which marched out of the Conservative conference last week but it has also bought her some time.
She can rightly rally against the worst of the language used by some who should know better and some who will never learn, keeping the focus on her opponents’ shortcomings rather than her positive arguments.
Yet the way the SNP are currently playing their hand, they will need to know hard facts about the shape of the UK’s deal to quit the EU before even decide whether they are going to call a referendum.
This could prove tricky if, as it the FM indicated, the vote would take place before Brexit is formalised.
Independence is very much still on the table but there is the distinct possibility it might not be the tasty feast demanded by the faithful.
