Tomorrow, the Spectator and six guest speakers (including Kelvin MacKenzie, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Margo MacDonald) will debate the question, ‘Is it time to let Scotland go?’. You can find more details and information about tickets here. Below, Hamish Macdonell gives his take on the launch of the pro-Union campaign yesterday.
As the pro-Union politicians filed out of Edinburgh’s Napier University yesterday, they passed an Independence Scotland ad-trailer. The lorry with the huge pro-independence poster on the back had been forced to pull over, just outside the campus where the ‘Better Together’ campaign had been launched, it’s progress halted ignominiously by a flat tyre.
Like the ‘Yes Scotland’ campaign itself, the ad trailer promoting the benefits of independence had been put off the road by yesterday’s events — but only temporarily.
Mr Darling and his Lib Dem and Conservative allies succeeded in rallying the pro-Union cause. They launched an event which was solid, unspectacular and more than a little dull — but they did so without any obvious gaffes. The pro-Union campaign is up and running, which is just about all that can be said of it.
The ‘Yes Scotland’ campaigners, like their ad trailer, will be shunted to the sidelines for a day or so but then it will be back to normal, except that now the battle lines are drawn, on both sides. The former Labour Chancellor has always been the obvious choice to lead the pro-Union campaign. He is from the Labour Party, which is vital in mobilising the anti-SNP vote in Scotland, he is still highly respected (he didn’t suffer the crushing deflation of reputation that Gordon Brown HAS endured) and he comes with the gravitas of years served in high office at Westminster.
But what Mr Darling is not, is an orator. He seemed genuinely taken aback to be greeted with a crescendo of applause when he walked to the podium. ‘I’m not used to this,’ he said and it was clear he wasn’t. He delivered a speech that had clear pauses marked in for applause without once stopping to let the audience show their appreciation. It was solid, it was fine and it got the job done (rather like the event itself).
There was a slight ripple of interest from the media when it became obvious that Charles Kennedy hadn’t managed to make the launch, as promised. Where was he? We demanded. Mr Darling didn’t know. It didn’t look like a good sign. But then it emerged that Mr Kennedy’s father was ill and the Highland MP couldn’t make it through because of that. So no gaffes there either.
The rest of the event was dominated by ‘real people’, which is all very well but never produces much in the way of copy. But that was part of the intention. Mr Darling and his aides were determined that the ‘Better Together’ campaign would be totally different from the celebrity-driven, glitzy ‘Yes’ launch which sparked so much criticism, and they succeeded. One ordinary person after the next came forward to explain why they loved Britain, which was fine. We were also shown a film — featuring all those ordinary people — and a Big Country track played on a long loop in the background, sounding uncannily like exactly the same track the ‘Yes Scotland’ crowd pumped out incessantly when they launched last month.
At the press conference afterwards, Mr Darling was asked where he was getting the money from for the campaign, and he wouldn’t say. There have been suggestions, which haven’t been either confirmed or denied, that the initial cash for this venture has come from Tory donors who have made it clear they will stump up at the start but they won’t continue to bankroll this operation for ever.
But the real problem for Mr Darling and his unionist allies is going to be enthusing Scots about something which is pretty much un-enthusable — the status quo. While Alex Salmond is out there inspiring his supporters with visions of a nuclear-free, green, democratic utopia, all Mr Darling has to work with is more of the same. ‘We want no change and when do we want it, for the foreseeable future,’ is hardly the most captivating of ideas, and Mr Darling has to sell it.
Also, to do that, he has to find a way of getting politicians from three parties who loathe each other to work together for two and half years without coming to blows. One Tory MSP admitted as much afterwards saying how hard it was to remain friendly and smiling alongside people you really didn’t like. Then there is the name. ‘Better Together’ is alright and the slogan, ‘Best of Both Worlds’ is actually very good but with one camp under the ‘Yes’ banner, Scots would expect the other side to campaign for a ‘No’. That was seen as too negative, apparently, and, as a result Scots have now been left in the odd position of having two partial ‘Yes’ campaigns for a referendum for which the question, or questions, haven’t been decided.
Still, at least the campaigns are both underway now which is as much — and as little — that can really be said.
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