Hamish Macdonell

How Osborne’s tactics drew Standard Life into the independence debate

In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. It is worth bearing this in mind when considering George Osborne’s ‘you can’t keep the pound’ speech and what has happened since.

There were many (including some senior Lib Dems) who were quick to criticise the Chancellor after he ruled out a shared Sterling zone with a independent Scotland earlier this month. Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish Secretary, even went public to suggest it may well have been ‘wrong from a tactical point of view’ to goad the Nats in this way, particularly as the Yes camp received a noticeable surge in support as a result.

But it now appears as if there was a clear calculating method in Osborne’s approach. Senior sources inside the No camp have revealed that the timing of the Chancellor’s declaration was carefully planned.

The Chancellor had been prepared to rule out a shared currency for some time but it was decided that this had to be done in February, close enough to the referendum to have real impact but also – crucially – ahead of all those springtime annual meetings and reports of Scotland’s big financial companies. So

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