Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — Unionist gold and the coalition’s new economic strategy

Have Alex Salmond’s hopes for Scottish independence died, thanks to the Olympics? In this week’s cover feature, Iain Martin writes that the national pride and spiritual unification emanating from the 2012 games have finished off the SNP’s hopes of a break from the union. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Iain recounts when he first realised Salmond had a serious problem:

I was sitting on Friday and Saturday on the shore of Loch Fyne in the Highlands watching Team GB do these extraordinary things. I felt a wonderful feeling of togetherness and it seemed to me that it was the perfect riposte to narrow nationalism and the peevish attitude of Salmond and the nationalists. Salmond knew when the Olympics started this was going to be a problem for him.

James Forsyth also discusses his political column on the changing times within the Tory party, following this week’s worsening of coalition relations.

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