The Spectator’s Notes | 18 October 2012

Probably it will all be all right. Probably the Scots, rightly offered an either/or rather than a third way, will vote to stay in the Union in 2014. But there is something unhappy about the choreography of this week’s announcement of a referendum agreement. It is not clear why David Cameron had to negotiate this with Alex Salmond. Votes on the future of the United Kingdom are not a devolved matter. They should be settled by all MPs with, in this case, a decisive role for Scottish MPs. Obviously it was prudent to seek Mr Salmond’s views, but the process has contrived to make him look like the leader of his nation’s liberation struggle. When Mr Cameron was filmed shaking hands with him in Edinburgh this week he had the colonial air of an Englishman embarrassed by his country’s arduous commitments in a foreign land. Tubby little Mr Salmond, though he lacks actual power, seemed somehow in charge.