Tom Holland

Tom Holland’s diary: Alex Salmond is the Scottish referendum’s answer to Shane Warne

Plus: Saving Asian tigers, and taking on the Vatican

[Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images] 
issue 13 September 2014

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[/audioplayer]I feel a bit about the Scottish referendum as I did about the 2005 Ashes series. In both cases, those of us in the know were gripped with a nervous tension right from the very beginning. Shane Warne, Alex Salmond: the same smirk, the girth, the same potentially lethal form. That whole summer of 2005 I was on the rack, following every convulsive twist and turn, hoping against hope that England would manage to cling on to a precarious lead until stumps were drawn on the final day of the series. Tracking the Scottish referendum has been a similarly nerve-jangling experience. Now, as the climax approaches, the whole country has at last caught up with my obsession. Just as crowds snaked round the Oval in the September of 2005, so suddenly does everyone seem to have a view on sterlingisation and devo max.

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