Scotland

I suspect I might be one of the Scottish journalists Iain Martin considers keen to make a melodrama from the independence referendum. Ten weeks ago I warned in this magazine that Alex Salmond could well lead Scotland to independence. Stuff and nonsense some folk said then. Well, perhaps. But nothing that has happened since has persuaded me I was wrong.  Sure, the polls still show the No side leading but the general picture is clear: the Yes side are closing the gap. Of course there’s no law demanding that current trends continue indefinitely but, nevertheless, these are nervous times for the Unionist cause. And for good reason. Consider the poster at

Politicians always manage to take some crumbs of comfort from opinion polls but, if you are Alistair Darling, it would be difficult to find anything positive in the dramatic new poll published by Scotland on Sunday this morning. According to the poll, by ICM, the No camp’s lead has shrunk to either three or four percentage points – depending on whether the ‘don’t knows’ are counted. Ladbrokes has responded by cutting its odds on Scottish independence to 9/4, the shortest in its history. The overall ICM/SoS figures are No 42 per cent (down four points on last month), Yes 39 per cent (unchanged on last month) and ‘don’t knows’ 19 per cent, up

First Sea Lord Admiral Sir George Zambellas has said, in the Telegraph, that the sum of the Royal Navy’s parts is not greater than its whole. Scottish independence, he says, would weaken the naval power of the nations of the British Isles. Sir George also appeals to our shared naval history – nearly a third of Nelson’s men at Trafalgar were Scottish, the Grand Fleet was stationed at Scapa Flow and the Soviet menace was monitored from bases in Scotland. The positive, emotive arguments done, Sir George issues a warning to Scottish voters. In the event of independence, Sir George says that the rump UK’s navy would be able to

Was it Philip Hammond who told the Guardian that Britain would discuss a currency union with an independent Scotland? Fleet Street is asking that question after the Defence Secretary said: ‘There will be nothing non-negotiable; everything will be on the table… You can’t go into any negotiation with things that are non-negotiable. You can go with things you intend to make your principal objectives in a negotiation and, when you have issues about which you are not prepared to be flexible, invariably you have to give way on other things in order to achieve your objectives.’ Downing Street has said that the Defence Secretary was speaking as the Defence Secretary;

There are only five months to go to the Scottish referendum and the Cabinet is becoming increasingly agitated about the state of the Unionist campaign. At Tuesday’s meeting there was a frank and realistic discussion about its problems. The government’s concern is prompted by the fact that it has fired its biggest gun, telling the Scots there’ll be no currency union after independence, but the Nationalists are still standing. Indeed, they appear to have strengthened their position. The coalition now thinks that part of the problem is that there are not enough purely Scottish voices making the case for the Union. They fear that even Scots with Westminster seats are,

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Angus Robertson debate the shared values of the English and Scots” startat=32] Listen [/audioplayer]‘What country, friends, is this?’ We’ve been wrestling with Viola’s question almost from the moment she asked it. It was barely a year after Shakespeare had scribbled out those words, in the first Act of Twelfth Night, that James VI of Scotland inherited England’s throne, beginning a 400-year confusion over national identity that has led to the present referendum on partition. The new monarch wanted to amalgamate his two realms. In his first address to the House of Commons, James asked — in his noticeably Scottish accent — ‘Hath not God first united these

Look up complacency in the dictionary and the chances are you will find a picture of a Scottish unionist next to it. For months – no, make that years – politicians at the sharp end of the fight against Scottish Nationalism have been warning about the dangers of complacency. But they might as well have been mumbling platitudes about the weather for all the effect it has had. The unionist side has been complacent, there is no doubt about that. Many in the anti-independence camp seem to have forgotten what this cause means to Alex Salmond and the SNP. They seem to have forgotten that this is all the Nats care about. It is

If Alex Salmond gets his way, this country will be rendered asunder. Once you cross the Tweed, you’ll be in a foreign land. The fact that Salmond is so keen to suggest that even after independence there’ll still be a ‘social union’ between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom suggests that he knows that people are disturbed by this idea. But one of the puzzles of the Scottish referendum campaign is how reluctant politicians have been to make the emotional case for the Union. Instead, Better Together and the government have chosen to concentrate on a series of technocratic argument. This is why Nick Watt’s story about a senior

Hanging. Shooting. Beheading. Defenestration. Take your pick. It doesn’t matter which method you choose but the government minister who told The Guardian’s Nick Watt that “of course” there would be a deal to be done creating a sterling zone shared by an independent Scotland and the remaining parts of the United Kingdom needs to be found, summarily tried, and executed. Game-changing moments, of course, are rarely anything of the sort. Political campaigns do not pivot on individual moments or blunders. Fundamentals matter more. And yet the fundamentals are in turn shaped by the accretion of a thousand impressions. At least in part. The campaigning matters too. Especially in a close race. So this minister

After Nick Watt’s stunning scoop this morning on an unnamed minister saying that an independent Scotland could keep the pound after all, George Osborne and Danny Alexander have released this joint statement: ‘A currency union will not work because it would not be in Scotland’s interests and would not be in the UK’s interests. Scotland would have no control over mortgage rates, and would be binding its hands on tax and funding for vital public services. The Scottish Government are proposing to divorce the rest of the UK but want to keep the joint bank account and credit card. The UK would not put its taxpayers at risk of bailing out a

There are some pollsters who believe nothing has changed since 2011. All the storm and blast, bluff and bluster about Scottish independence has had no impact at all. The settled will of the Scottish people remains settles: more power for Edinburgh but no to independence. Oddly YouGov’s Peter Kellner is one of these pollsters. Oddly because, as the chart above shows, his own polling organisation’s reports show that the race is, as long expected, tightening. There is a small but definite drift to Yes. True, at its present rate it will not be enough to prevail come September. But it is quite possible that the drift towards a Yes vote

English Labour leaders tend to find Scottish party conferences difficult. The Scots tend to be more old-fashioned, unreconstructed and left-wing than their English colleagues which can make it difficult for English party leaders to gauge the mood when they come north. But Ed Miliband actually managed to get through his address to the Scottish Labour Party conference without any major problems this afternoon, primarily because he managed to adapt his One Nation slogan to fit the independence debate. Miliband has been banging on about One Nation for two years now with few people having any idea what he means. But when he refers to the independence debate, the concept suddenly has meaning –

Just occasionally in politics, the mask slips and political parties reveal what they really are – rather than what they would like us to believe they are. Today in Edinburgh we experienced one of those moments. Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour Leader, unveiled her plans for ‘devo plus’ for Scotland – if Scots vote No in September. We expected something technical focusing on the new powers the Scottish Parliament would be gifted by a Labour government at Westminster. Instead, we got something fundamentally red in tooth and claw. Indeed, Lamont could not have taken a harder socialist approach had she grabbed a red flag and waved it from the rooftop