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And so our watch is all but over. Who knows what comes tomorrow but at least and at last the final reckoning is upon us. It is choosing time and there's no escape. Few people would wish the campaign any longer. Many voters tired of it some time ago. Their minds were made-up and would not change and they just wanted to move on to the next story. Whatever it may be. But I can't agree with the people who fret that this has been a nasty and divisive and awful experience. It hasn't. I mean, of course it's been divisive and of course passions have been running high but that's because it matters. You can't have a non-divisive referendum. This is a good thing I think and I think this is an argument we've needed to have. If not now, when?

George Galloway announced his support for Gordon Brown as First Minister of Scotland last night. Galloway’s endorsement came as Brown turned up at an event at Usher Hall in Edinburgh that Galloway was compering. The endorsement was met with a broad grin by Brown. But behind the humour, there is a serious point, Scottish Labour knows that it has given Salmond and the SNP far too easy a ride at Holyrood. As the former Labour Minister Brian Wilson acknowledged at last night's event, this referendum is happening because the SNP managed to win a majority in the Scottish Parliament and Labour must take some of the blame for that. That this referendum is so close is also because so many traditional Labour voters are now backing independence.

Only yesterday, Jim Sillars was being paraded by Alex Salmond as a nationalist heavyweight who has been taken back into the fold. He had once fallen out with the Alex Salmond but the two were, apparently, good friends again. A photoshoot, above, consummated this reconcilliation. Sillars is a former SNP deputy leader but now not part of the apparatus-  so he can speak freely. All too freely, as it turns out. Here’s what he has said today. “This referendum is about power, and when we get a Yes majority, we will use that power for a day of reckoning with BP and the banks. The heads of these companies are rich men, in cahoots with a rich English Tory Prime Minister, to keep Scotland’s poor, poorer through lies and distortions.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3" title="Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union" startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]Once upon a time, a long while ago, I lived in Dublin. It was a time when everything seemed possible and not just because I was younger then. The country was stirring too. When I arrived it was still the case that a visa to work in the United States was just about the most valuable possession any young Irishman or woman could own; within a fistful of years that was no longer the case. Ireland was changing. These were the years in which the Celtic Tiger was born. They were happy years of surprising possibility. Years later I lived in the United States and my perspective changed.

“It’s part of the energy of nationalism,” sighed Jim Murphy on Newsnight. “They’re never knocked down.” He’s right, and that that is why the Scottish referendum polls show the gap between the two narrowing - YouGov has that gap at 6 points, down from 22 last month. If even Labour’s Jim Murphy accepts that the momentum is with the nationalists – and says that the momentum is with them because they are nationalists – then it’s a rather depressing state of affairs. Where is the passion and energy of the campaign to save the United Kingdom?

The first ‘yes’ campaign volunteer knocked on my door towards the end of last year. She was a member of the Scottish Socialist Party. I glanced at her dog-eared tally sheet — in my old block of 40 flats, only three residents had said they would vote no. In this neglected pocket of Edinburgh there are men who roll up their tracksuit bottoms to show off their prison tags. It is made up of decaying towers and pebble-dashed tenements. The people here are going to vote for change. Who can blame them? Now that I have moved to a more genteel suburb outside of the city, a further three yes activists have attempted doorstep conversions. I have heard appeals to my head, my heart and my wallet from nationalists who are as dogged as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Way back in the olden days, Scottish Labour won the 1999 elections to the Scottish parliament, at least in part, on the back of the slogan Divorce is an Expensive Business. (The SNP's promise to raise income tax - the naffly named 'Penny for Scotland' - helped too. The Nationalists have never since risked making an overt case for higher taxes.) Anyway, these costs run both ways. That's made clear by new polling from England in which the extent of the oft-threatened, never-yet-delivered, English backlash to devolution is revealed. It makes depressing reading for Unionists. True, only 19% of those surveyed think the UK would be better off without the troublesome, whining, Jocks.

If, like me, you missed Andrew Neil's BBC programme exploring What the Hell Happens to the United Kingdom if Scotland Votes for Independence Next Month you might be interested to know that it remains available on the BBC iPlayer here. Prudently, dear reader, I liked it. It's a film best viewed as a companion piece to James Forsyth's Spectator cover story published last month. A call to arms to England - and Westminster in particular - to ponder the consequences and implications of Scottish independence. There is little sign that much thought has been devoted to these issues.

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.