Throw your hands in the air
Hands up those who believe that the SNP will deliver on their manifesto pledge to reduce class sizes in Primary 1, 2 and 3 to 18 pupils or fewer.
Ok, OK, let's try another tack. Hands up those who believe this was a misguided or undeliverable policy in the first place.
Fine, hands down. Now hands up those who feel that the Scottish Government is making a gallant effort to trim class sizes - and that in P1 is part of that.
Ministers say the cap will give legal protection to those councils facing troublesome placing requests which threaten to undermine class size targets. They say they're moving towards their target, not running from it.
Opposition critics say it's a hideously embarrassing climbdown which proves that the manifesto promise was a con in the first place.
It's a legitimate controversy, a decent row. Welcome to those who want to add to it by responding to this blog.
Me, I'm intrigued by a wider question. Public spending in the period ahead is going to be tight, really tight.
Fragile recovery
We may be about to witness "savage cuts" (copyright, Nick Clegg) in the comprehensive spending round which will begin from 2011.
Yes, there are signs of extremely fragile recovery in the economy. But the tentative end to the recession will not obviate the necessity to reduce the huge level of accumulated government debt.
That means cuts in spending or increases in taxation or probably both. That isn't politics. It's arithmetic.
So just when is the political debate in Scotland really going to engage with that?
When is it going to focus upon serious constraint in spending rather than controversies over whether a particular sweetie has been delivered in a quarter pound or half pound bag?
To be fair to John Swinney, his most recent draft budget featured cuts in some programmes, most contentiously .
However, he was dealing with existing, historical spending patterns. Party manifestos for the next Holyrood election in 2011 will have to be predicated upon sharply reduced spending levels, certainly in real terms, quite possibly in cash terms.
Excise waste
The debate at Westminster has now, finally, moved from competitive spending offers to a faintly macho contest as to who is the toughest in delivering potential constraint.
Hence the Tory insistence that they will promise real cuts. Hence Nick Clegg's savagery. Hence Gordon Brown's carefully modulated promise to excise waste and cut certain programmes.
By the very nature of devolved politics, where Holyrood's budget is dependent on Westminster, the debate in Scotland is subordinate.
It inevitably lags behind the Westminster controversy. That is not partisan politics. That is the Scotland Act 1998.
But, sooner or later, the debate at Holyrood is going to have to change too.
At a conference in Edinburgh today, Alex Salmond said that Holyrood needed to make the "transition from a lobbying culture to a determining culture".
Mr Salmond was making the case for the Scottish Government and Parliament to play a real role in, for example, the upcoming global climate summit in Copenhagen.
Enhanced powers
But his remarks work just as well in the context of spending decisions.
The Scottish Parliament may not presently have full powers. That debate is, of course, at the core of politics in Scotland.
However, Holyrood is already a spending polity. It makes choices, admittedly within a largely fixed budget.
Over the medium to long term, there is a debate to be had over the wisdom or otherwise of altering the means of settling that budget: enhanced tax powers, full independence.
In the short term, at the next Holyrood election, there will be another choice.
What can Scotland afford to spend? On class sizes, on hospitals, on transport, on fighting crime.
I'm 
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