Snp

Friday

Alex Massie

Remember The Alamo!

March 2nd is the anniversary of the Texan Declaration of Independence in 1836. Some of my more left-wing American chums rather wish Texas were still either a part of Mexico or an independent state of its own. Be that as it may, the Declaration is a grand thing that both beats anything the Scottish National Party has yet produced and, for that matter, like most declarations of independence, is a reminder that the differences between the constituent parts of this island are tiny in the grander sweep of things. Anyway: happy birthday Texas! Here, for those of you unfamiliar with the document, is the original Texas charter arguing that The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Cameron Ducks His Own Scottish Question

Since the NHS is a subject even more boring than American healthcare, I was more interested by the Prime Minister's response to a question from Angus MacNeill that, though I might have worded it differently, was a perfectly reasonable query that deserved better than the non-answer given by the Prime Minister. This was their exchange: Angus MacNeil: Last week in Edinburgh the Prime Minister said there were more powers on the table for Scotland but couldn’t name any. A few months ago he mocked the idea of Scotland controlling its own oil wealth. In the Scotland Bill, even the Crown Estate was too big. Can the Prime Minister now name one power that he has on his mind from his latest u-turn. David Cameron: I didn’t think that the SNP favoured devolution.

Friday

Alex Massie

Can Cameron Deliver on His Promise to Scotland?

Well, Pete, I'm not so sure that David Cameron done brilliant in Edinburgh yesterday. To put it mildly, he has complicated an already complex situation. How does the Prime Minister think Scotland should be governed? How much Home Rule does he think is enough Home Rule? What "further powers" does he mean? Neither his speech nor his answers to questions give us any real idea at all. As I said yesterday, at least we have a reasonable - if still imperfect - idea of what Alex Salmond means by independence. Cameron's preferences? An utter mystery. Moreover, if, as he plainly concedes there is a reasonable case for "further powers" then why must we wait until 2015 to discover what they may be or have a proper debate about the next phase of Home Rule's evolution?

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s new offer for Scotland could mean a new offer for England

The consensus opinion across most of today's papers appears to be that Dave done good in Scotland yesterday. And now the Prime Minister's cause has been helped that little bit more by the Lords Constitution Committee. ‘We are firmly of the view that any referendum that is held must be a straight choice between full independence or the status-quo,’ says the committee's chairman Baroness Jay. ‘A third “devolution-max” option is clearly something every part of the UK must have a say in as it has the potential to create different and competing tax regimes within the UK.’ The strange thing is, a UK-wide referendum on ‘devo max’ could actually produce the sort of result that Alex Salmond would want.

Thursday

Hamish Macdonell

Cameron’s risky move could play into Salmond’s hands

Not many politicians would conjure up the spectre of Alec Douglas-Home to scare the Prime Minister, but that is exactly what Alex Salmond did today — to some effect. The Scottish First Minister was responding to David Cameron’s ‘jam tomorrow’ offer to the Scottish people. ‘Vote “no” in the independence referendum,’ Mr Cameron effectively told Scots today in his latest attempt to make some progress in the independence debate, ‘And I’ll see that you get major new powers for the Scottish Parliament.’ It was one part bribery, one part political strategy and Mr Salmond was on to it quicker than the average Scot can order a haggis supper.

Alex Massie

David Cameron Abandons The Tory Diehards

David Cameron's apparent willingness to contemplate greater devolution after an independence referendum (pithily summarised by one SNP MSP as: Vote no to cake today so I might give you some cake tomorrow) really is both sensible and startling. As recently as last month the official UK government position was, if I remember it correctly, independence or nowt. Now it is some kind of souped-up Home Rule or independence. This is quite a dramatic, sudden shift. Has anyone told Ruth Davidson about this or asked her opinion? Those of us on the right of Scottish politics have reason to welcome the Prime Minister's shift. Again, just last month Downing Street "sources" were telling the press that greater fiscal powers for Scotland were simply "inconsistent" with life within the United Kingdom.

Alex Massie

David Cameron Opens the Door to Devo-Max

At this moment, I dare say industrious hacks are searching for politicians to condemn David Cameron for "selling the jerseys" on the question of further powers for the Scottish parliament after an independence referendum (assuming that Alex Salmond is defeated). Isn't the Prime Minister in danger of conceding what Salmond really wants? Well, maybe. But what if he is? Perhaps Mr Cameron is less beholden to out-of-date Unionist shibboleths than you might think. Or, of course, perhaps he knows not of what he speaks. His speech in Edinburgh today is not, in fact, a bad one. It is better than his article in today's Scotsman. In fact, it was One Nation Dave in excelsis. This is, in policy terms, the key passage: And let me say something else about devolution.

Alex Massie

Alex Salmond, Supply-Sider?

Today's Chat With Dave is all very well and good but Alex Salmond's speech to the LSE last night was just as significant. Much of the wrangling about Scottish independence has, for respectable reasons, concentrated on matters of process leaving the substance of what an independent Scotland might actually be like for another day. This too is reasonable since so much is speculative at this stage and, in any case, one should not necessarily presume that the SNP would dominate post-independence politics. Nevertheless, it is useful to have an idea of what Alex Salmond considers important. What he emphasises now is the best available guide to what might be emphasised in a best-case scenario in the future.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Westminster’s attention heads north again

The debate over the referendum on Scottish independence will take centre stage next week. Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary, will see Alex Salmond in Edinburgh on Monday and then Cameron will head north a few days later. It appears that the coalition is ready to give way to Salmond on the date of the referendum but not on the fact that it must be a straight yes or no vote. Moore tells The Times (£) that ‘There absolutely must only be one question.’ Quite what the coalition will do if Salmond goes ahead with his own refrendum on devo max remains to be seen. I suspect that Salmond's ideal result would be the surpeme court in London stopping a Scottish referendum.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Scottish Labour Embrace the Logic of Independence

One of the problems with the Scottish parliament is that all gathered there must pretend it is more influential and vital than it really is. In fact, as has been observed often enough, it has few powers that were not previously available to the Secretary of State for Scotland. What the parliament did, then, among other things, was establish a clear and plainly Scottish link between the electorate and the people charged with those responsibilities. Now the parliament is here there is a tendency to argue about, for example, the annual budget as though the Finance Minister at Holyrood is in some way comparable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Westminster. Thus Ken MacIntosh - remember him, Mr Miliband?

Friday

Alex Massie

Mike Russell and the Mythical Anti-Scottish Conspiracy

Mike Russell is a genial chap who, most of the time, is not much of a fool. Most of the time is not all the time, however, and this week he has, inadvertently, illuminated some of the reasons why the SNP struggles with what the Americans call "high-information*" voters. Mr Russell, the Scottish government's education minister, became the latest senior SNP figure to accuse his opponents of being "anti-Scottish". This is an increasingly tedious line of attack and one suggesting both a certain defensiveness and a bleak lack of imagination. There is also a Boy Who Cried Wolf problem: kneejerk suggestions that policy differences are motivated by anti-Caledonian spite or treachery diminish the salience of the real thing.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Alex Salmond’s problems with women (and the wealthy and the old)

Like the Peat Worrier and Kate Higgins, I think the headline figures on polls asking Scots whether they fancy independence or the Union are much less interesting than the numbers lurking beneath the surface. For it is these that reveal where Alex Salmond has the upper hand (at least for now) and where he most certainly does not. The latest Ipsos-Mori poll reports*, as Brother Jones noted the other day, that 39% of Scots certain to vote in the referendum favour independence. That's dandy but not all that intriguing. Poke beneath the surface, however, and you find this: 45% of men back independence; just 30% of women do so.  45% of 18-34 year olds back independence; just 30% of Scots over 55 do so.

Jonathan Jones

What difference the Scottish independence question makes

A very useful contribution from Lord Ashcroft this morning, in the form of a poll he’s commissioned on Scottish independence. What sets Ashcroft’s poll apart from previous surveys is that he asks three different questions to three different sets of around 1,000 Scots.   The first is the question Alex Salmond wants on the ballot paper at the referendum: ‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?’ 41 per cent say ‘Yes’ and 59 per cent say ‘No’. The second alters the wording only slightly, to ‘Do you agree or disagree...’ and finds 39 per cent agreeing (i.e. supporting independence) and 61 per cent disagreeing.

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Freedom for Shetland!

If Scotland can claim independence — and a 'geographical share' of the oil regardless of population — then why can't Orkney & Shetland? It's the Up Helly Aa festival in Lerwick tonight, where men dress up as vikings and set a longship ablaze. Not a very Scottish festival, but when your nearest city is Bergen how Scottish do you feel? Laurance Reed, a former Hebridean resident (and ex-MP), has a piece in this week's magazine pointing out that, by the Salmond doctrine, there is nothing to stop the Scottish islands breaking off, claiming the oil wealth and becoming the Dubai of the north. His piece is below. Freedom for Shetland!

Jonathan Jones

A poll to darken Salmond’s day

It looks like Fraser was right to question Vision Critical’s recent Scottish independence poll. That poll surveyed just 180 Scots and found 51 per cent saying they would vote ‘Yes’ to Alex Salmond’s referendum question – ‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?’ – and just 39 per cent saying ‘No’. Today, Ipsos MORI has released a somewhat more reliable poll, sampling 1,005 Scots. It finds 50 per cent saying they’d vote ‘No’ and just 37 saying ‘Yes’. So, it looks like even if the referendum asks Salmond’s leading question, the Nationalists are likely to be defeated.

Monday

Alex Massie

Scotland: A Land Where Conservative Principles Die

For some time now we have been told - by the editor of this magazine among other, less distinguished, commentators - that David Cameron and the Downing Street machine view Scotland as a rum, far-off place about which they know little and which, on the rare occasions they pay attention to it, perplexes them mightily. One would like to think this were not the case but it seems a dispiriting and accurate appraisal. Why - indeed why-oh-why - do Conservatives abandon the principles of Conservatism when discussion turns to Scotland? On Sunday "sources close to the Prime Minister" apparently ruled out any talk of fiscal autonomy, devolution plus, devo max or anything else you care to call the useful accumulation of greater revenue powers at Holyrood.

Alex Massie

Can Home Rule Solve Scotland’s Problems?

This is not a Question To Which the Answer Must Be No. I too saw the headline Now 51% Back Independence and thought, "Well, that's interesting but implausible". Then I noticed it was a Sunday Express splash and revised my appraisal to "That's obviously cobblers". And so it is, making it mildly foolish for SNP types to boast of a breakthrough on the back of a sample of 200 Scots that's harldy more dispositive than polling, say, my Facebook pals. Nevertheless, Fraser's post yesterday won't quite do either. For instance, the boss writes: My hunch is that Cameron’s intervention will not have helped Salmond.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

A skewed response to a skewed question

‘A clear majority of people in Scotland now back independence, according to an exclusive poll for the Sunday Express. Using Alex Salmond’s preferred referendum question, the Vision Critical survey found 51 per cent would vote ‘yes’ with 39 per cent against. If such a dramatic result were repeated in the autumn of 2014, the First Minister would have an absolute mandate to negotiate an end to the Union with England.’ So runs the story. CoffeeHousers may have spotted two of the snags: the poll uses Salmond’s laughably loaded question, and seems to have been conducted by a chain of opticians.

Thursday

Alex Massie

How Sound is Salmond’s Scottish Pound?

One of the more tiresome aspects of the SNP's vision for the future of Scotland is its fondness for breezily sweeping away awkward questions as though important elements of Scotland's prospects as an independent nation were nit-picking details that need not delay anyone from setting out on the road to Independence. It sometimes seems as though weather warnings do not exist or, if it is conceded they do, they should be seen as what they are: biased forecasts designed to prevent Scots from reaching their bright future. There are, you see, few clouds and fewer storms to trouble our bonny and blithe travellers. But some of these warnings are important and reasonable.

Wednesday

Hamish Macdonell

Salmond lays the ground for his referendum

So now we have it: the ten words which Alex Salmond hopes will end Scotland’s 300-year-old membership of the United Kingdom. ‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?’ The First Minister unveiled his consultation paper on an independence referendum today and, to the surprise of many, actually did what David Cameron has been asking of him. He came out with a short, simple, clear question on independence which he wants to put on the ballot paper. The debate will now rage as to whether this question is fair (is it, for example, too positive? Should it perhaps include something about the United Kingdom?), but this does mark a fairly big step on the road towards agreement.