There’s much chatter in Westminster today about the fact that George Osborne is chairing the Cabinet committee on Scotland. Osborne is, of course, the Conservatives’ chief electoral strategist as well as the Chancellor of Exchequer. This has led to some suggestions that he wouldn’t be too upset by a referendum defeat that would make it an awful lot easier for the Tories to win a majority at Westminster. This is unfair: Osborne is a Unionist.
What those around Osborne have long been interested in is the option that the coalition seems to be ruling out: fiscal autonomy. The circle around Osborne have long believed that it is only when Scottish politics is about how to raise money as well as how to spend it that the Tories will revive north of the border.
One other thing to watch is what Labour say about the coalition’s gambit. All we have had so far is this thoroughly ambiguous statement from the new Labour leader north of the border Johann
Lamont:
‘We want the referendum to be held as quickly as possible and we want it to be run in Scotland.
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