Uk politics

Normally the default response in the Labour party to a rough couple of weeks is to blame the Shadow Cabinet. They're not pulling together, they're thinking about their own future leadership prospects rather than backing Ed Miliband and so on and so forth. But while the Shadow Cabinet is looking weak this week at their party conference, for once it is not their fault. They are standing under a banner that announces 'Labour's Plan for Britain's Future', but then say no more about that plan. They are all being sent naked into the conference hall. All they are being required to talk about is their values, and what they have already announced.

The referendum campaign was a mixed experience for the Scottish Tories. On the one hand, it was a reminder of how much they are still hated in Scotland: End Tory rule forever, was one of the more frequently heard Nationalist battle cries. On the other, they had one of the campaign’s most effective advocates, Ruth Davidson and were accepted in as part of the cross party campaign. Indeed, it was telling that the Better Together campaign together rather than hiding Davidson away used her more and more as the campaign went on. In his Scotsman column today, the former Labour spin doctor John McTernan declares that ‘Ruth Davidson’s campaign has detoxified’ the Scottish Conservatives. This is a particularly striking statement coming from a former Labour partisan.

This is an extract from a speech delivered by Tory MP Conor Burns at a Conservative association dinner in Chris Grayling's constituency tonight: It would be extraordinary if I did not mention what is going on in Scotland this evening. I represent, as self-evidently, does the Lord Chancellor beside me a constituency in England. I have watched events in Scotland through that prism of course. But I have also watched as a staunch Unionist. I have always given equal weight to the full title of our great Party: Conservative AND Unionist. I was born and spent the early years of my life in Northern Ireland into a Catholic family with broadly romantic nationalist sentiment. Yet I knew early in my life that I rejected nationalism and embraced Unionism.

Anyone listening to Alex Salmond's final pro-independence rally tonight in Perth might have been forgiven for thinking the 'Yes' campaign was in the lead in the polls. He used most of it to congratulate his side for running such a successful campaign and for changing Scotland before the final result had even been declared. There was much less of a pitch for any undecided voters watching, unless the First Minister had concluded that anyone who was still wavering would be swayed by the idea that his guys had already won. listen to ‘Salmond: The referendum is 'our opportunity of a lifetime'’ on Audioboo He told the audience that 'what has emerged in this campaign is something very new; it has changed Scotland forever'.

I've just spent a couple of hours on the Burnhill estate in Rutherglen watching a group of Labour 'No' campaigners knock on the doors of voters to find out how they'll be voting on Thursday. Burnhill is a tidy estate of mostly social housing and a Labour council ward. The local Labour MP Tom Greatrex and his colleague Graham Jones, visiting from Hyndburn, were part of the group. I was surprised by the number of 'No' posters on display in the windows. I was expecting a plethora of 'Yes' placards, but fewer indications of the households whose inhabitants plan to reject independence, but on this estate at least, it's not the case. The activists say many, many more 'No' posters have appeared in the days since the shock Sunday Times poll that showed 'Yes' moving into the lead.