IN interviews, Nicola Sturgeon usually manages to mask her incompetence with her trademark articulacy, but even she was reduced to pretending that the line had broken to give her a few more seconds to think in the course of what proved to be a very uncomfortable interview with Justin Webb in this morning’s Today programme on Radio 4 (April 30). Mr Webb said that the UK, like many other countries, has only managed to get through the current crisis by engaging in quantitative easing and pointed out that an independent Scotland which still used the pound sterling would not have that option. She repeatedly failed to answer the question, saying Scotland would have its own central bank, oblivious of the fact that the primary role of central banks is managing the currency and monetary policy. She also had no answer to the problems associated with a hard border with England, were Scotland to rejoin the EU.