Scotland

Many people, I’m sure, will already be calling the first TV debate in Alistair Darling’s favour. That is a fair point to make but it was not quite as straightforward as that. I think a truer reflection would be this: Darling won on substance but lost on style, while Alex Salmond won on style but lost on substance. That may seem a bit pedantic, but it matters. First, the question of style: Salmond was – as we knew he would be – calm, composed and articulate. Darling was – as many in his camp feared he would be – anxious, shouty and irritable. The former Chancellor looked nervous. He had trouble getting his message across. Indeed, even his eyebrows kept darting up and down as if constantly looking for a way out.

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP deputy leader, is busy claiming that post the Glasgow games the momentum will be with the Yes side in the referendum. But this claim is contradicted by the Survation poll in today’s Mail on Sunday which shows support for Yes marginally down on last month. The Yes campaign’s last best chance to gain the ‘big mo’ that it needs comes in Tuesday night’s debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling. Alex has written about why he doesn’t think this debate will be a game changer, but with a million Scots expected to tune in, Salmond isn’t going to have a better opportunity to try and turn things round. But the dilemma for Salmond is how to approach this debate.

There are many ways to commission fat-headed political analysis but, in my experience, by far the easiest is to ask a novelist his (or her) opinion on the great issues of the day. Better still, ask several. That way you can be sure you'll get something even the student version of the Socialist Worker might think twice before publishing. There are, of course, exceptions. Some of them quite close to home, in my view. Nevertheless (as Miss Spark so often said) the general rule applies: asking writers for their views on politics is no more useful or sensible than asking gravediggers or sheep shearers their opinion. It may be interesting; it is not likely to be valuable. Or, to put it more kindly, expertise in writing fiction does not necessarily translate into expertise in analysing politics.

The future of Britain is at stake, but you wouldn't know it from how ITV is behaving. On Tuesday, STV will broadcast a live debate between Alex Salmond and the leader of the No campaign, Alistair Darling. This promises to be one of the pivotal moments in the referendum campaign.  But, depressingly, the only way anyone outside of Scotland will be able to watch it is on the internet via STV Player. The failure to put it on ITV across the whole of the UK reflects the failure to understand that, while only the residents of Scotland may have vote in the independence referendum, the result will affect all of us. If Scotland votes for independence, the rest of the UK will be much diminished. It won't be Great Britain anymore but little Britain.

Because the Commonwealth Games are a thing and because newspapers need to fill their pages every day it is natural, even unavoidable, that they have in recent days been stuffed with pundits pontificating on the political significance of the games. Being a mere and humble freelance hack I wrote one such piece for the Daily Mail earlier this week even though I also stand by my suspicion that the political implications of these games are much too easily and keenly exaggerated. But that does not mean all such commentary is worthless or lacking interest. Here, for instance, is Lesley Riddoch writing in today's edition of the Scotsman: [A] subtle and powerful political point has been made with every waking moment of these Games.

If Scotland goes independent in September, who knows what patriotism will feel like. This may be a last chance to savour some of this magazine’s most passionate expressions of British pride. In 1828, this article laid out the difference between a ‘genuine Briton’ and a Liberal. ‘The disposition of a genuine Briton is to make up his mind upon what he ought to do, and having once determined that, to adhere to his resolution with a fixedness of purpose, which more frequently proceeds to the length of obstinacy, than deviates into vacillation and uncertainty.

Dominic Grieve was a worthy attorney-general whose career was helped by this magazine: nine years ago, he was named Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year, beneath the nose of David Cameron, then nearing the end of his successful campaign for the Conservative leadership. But Grieve’s remarks this week, in which he suggested that the Prime Minister would be seen to be as bad as Putin if he pursues proposals to give Parliament ultimate authority over laws in this country, underline why his position as a member of the government had become untenable. One of the few redeeming features of David Cameron’s reshuffle is that it added a certain clarity to our position with the European Court of Human Rights.

In choosing this September for the Scottish referendum on independence, the SNP was presumably hoping Scots voters would be basking in the glory of a successful Commonwealth Games. There is every reason to hope that the games, which opened in Glasgow this week, will emulate the London Olympics for organisational skill and, moreover, will help to sell an often-maligned city to the world. But why does it follow that Scotland needs to be independent of the UK to organise and enjoy such an event? If these games had been marred by pettifogging bureaucracy or financial constraints imposed by Whitehall, or if someone in London had trampled on Glasgow’s bid and put forward London or Birmingham instead, there would be every reason for Scots to feel aggrieved.

There really isn’t much time left. From today, there are just nine and a half weeks until we go to the polls in the independence referendum. Also today, we have the latest ICM poll for Scotland on Sunday. The main figures are: Yes 34 per cent (down two points), No 45 per cent (up two) and don’t know 21 per cent (unchanged). If the don’t knows are excluded, the figures are Yes 43 per cent (down two), No 57 per cent (up two). [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/Z2duc/index.html"] Suddenly, that nine-and-a-half week window looks pretty small for the Yes camp. It means that Alex Salmond and his colleagues have just 66 days to overturn what has become a stubbornly immoveable lead for Better Together. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.

If Scotland did leave, it would be a disaster for the rump UK that would be left behind, I argue in the magazine this week. We would go from Great Britain to little Britain. Every time the Prime Minister of the rUK raised his voice on the world stage, he would be met by a mocking chorus of ‘you couldn't even keep your own country together’. Beyond this, there are the slew of practical problems that Scottish independence would raise. Where would Trident be based? In the best case scenario you would end up with the submarines in Devon while the actual nuclear weapons were stored three hours’ drive away in Berskhire. In the worst case scenario, the successor state would either have to unilaterally disarm or ask the French to store the weapons for it.