Gaun yersel, David Cameron! I, for one, welcome the intervention of our Westminster overlords.
The Prime Minister’s recent agitation about Scottish independence has provoked the following response from Alex Salmond: “The date for the referendum has to be the autumn of 2014. That's because this is the biggest decision that Scotland has made for 300 years. If you are going to do things properly and have the debate in the way it must be had then that is the date that we are going to move towards."
His Eckness added: “This has to be a referendum which is built in Scotland, which is made in Scotland and goes through the Scottish parliament.”
The First Minister’s comments came after assorted viceregal sabre-rattling from Cameron, Michael Moore et al about a Scottish parliament referendum not being binding and hints that Westminster would insist on a plebiscite being rushed through.
Splendid: an old Etonian, whose party boasts an impressive total of one MP north of Border, wants to dictate to the Scots how to decide their future. In this he is aided by a party whose entire Scottish parliamentary group can fit inside a Nissan Micra.
I can’t imagine that the electorate are impressed at being told by London that they can’t have a devo-plus-plus option on the ballot. Nor at the defenestration of the concept of the right to self-determination.
What better way to make the argument that Westminster is not the best guardian of Scotland’s interests? At this rate, the Yes campaign won’t have to dip into that £2m-plus warchest. They can spend it all on sweeties and have the world’s biggest scramble after the poll. Every time Cameron appears on the telly to get the uppity Jocks into line, support for independence will bounce up 5 points. The Tories will have done all the hard work in convincing Scotland to bid a fond “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” to Ingerlund.
There is also a fatal flaw in a lot of the analysis about this issue. That is the reliance on opinion polls, which consistently show support for independence running at yadda yadda you know the rest. The assumption is that the Unionists want to hold the poll now before support for independence gathers momentum. The problem is that the opinion polls don’t get Scotland. Only one “rogue poll” managed to predict an absolute majority for the SNP at the last election.
I think there’s something else going on here. I’ve read a lot about the backlash to the Westminster mob’s footering and how it’s all backfired.
But I have read my Marcus Tullius Cicero and I think nothing has backfired at all. Nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, the interference by the southern ConDems government has certainly given a huge boost to the pro-independence vote. I’m very happy about that. I just happen to think that under the waffle David Cameron might be very happy too. Behind the backs of his LibDem allies. You know, where the knives are kept.
The Caledonian Mercury readership are far too clever to need reminded that Cicero was fond of the principle of cui bono: asking who benefits in order to ascertain responsibility and motive.
Who benefits if Scotland is independent? (Aside from Alex Salmond and the Scottish people, who will escape the Thatcherite, Eurosceptic hellhole the ConDems are creating.)
Who benefits most in UK politics?
Without Scotland, the Lib Dems lose 11 seats at Westminster. (They face political oblivion anyway so it’s all irrelevant now.)
Without Scotland, Labour lose 41 seats and - along with them - any realistic chance of ever being in Downing Street. Further, the people’s party are all at sea over this issue. North of the Border they have yet to twig that lining up with the Tories and waving the Union flag is not the best political strategy. From their ranks only Henry McLeish seems to be capable of engaging with the constitutional issue in a sensible way - and he is a peripheral figure. South of the Border, Labour are too busy watching Thingy Miliband flounder to worry about the distant future, like, for instance, 2014.
And what of the Tories? If Scotland goes its own way, they will lose precisely one MP from Westminister. And I’m sure with time and possibly counselling they will learn to manage without David Mundell.
Consider that and then wonder again if Cameron’s ill-judged interventions are quite as ill-judged as they appear.
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