Westminster

Lord Ashcroft's post-referendum Scotland poll gives politicians claiming they've 'heard' voters a number of clues if in reality they're still a bit confused. It suggests that those last few days of panic from the 'No' camp didn't really shift as many voters as some might have thought. The poll says 28 per cent of 'No' voters made up their mind within this year. 72 per cent had already decided before September 2013. Only nine per cent had settled on 'No' in the past week. And the reason more frequently cited for voting 'Yes' than any other was 'disaffection with Westminster politics', with 74% of those in favour of independence naming that, then 54 per cent also picking the NHS, followed by 33 naming tax and public spending.

As I left Edinburgh this morning, en route to Inverness, I passed about four ‘yes’ activists cheerily wishing me good morning, asking if I have voted and would I like a ‘yes’ sticker if I had. It worked: on the way to Waverley, people were wearing the ‘yes’ stickers with nary a ‘no’ to be seen. If I were a 'no' voter heading for the polling station, I may wonder if I was actually on the wrong side of history. That a party was happening in one room, and I was heading to another - but that there was still time to change my mind. You have to hand it to the ‘yes’ team: its discipline, messaging, voter targeting and morale have been a sight to behold.

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?

I don't want to appear too immodest but, you know, I told you so. Back in February I wrote an article for this paper warning that Scotland's independence referendum would be a damn close run thing. That was true then and it remains true now. Today's YouGov poll reports that, once undecided voters have been removed from consideration, 47 percent of Scots intend to vote for independence while 53 percent will back the Unionist cause. If the odds remain against Alex Salmond it's also the case that the price on independence is shortening. Paddy Power's over/under calculation of a Yes vote now stands at 46.5 percent. A few weeks ago it was at 42.5 percent. It's a kind of quickening.

Awkward, especially here, I know, but there you have it. But, look, if any other high-profile politician were suggesting the burden of proof in criminal trials should be switched from the accuser to the accused we'd be properly - in both senses - appalled. So we should be appalled that Boris suggests in his Telegraph column today that anyone travelling to Iraq or Syria should be presumed a jihadist unless and until they can prove otherwise. The state will not have to make a case you convict you but you must make a case to avoid conviction. And, lo, centuries of criminal law are undone. Worse still, I think, Boris considers this 'a minor change' to the law. What, one wonders, would constitute a major change? 'It is hard' Boris laments, 'to press charges without evidence'.

David Ruffley has announced that he is standing down as an MP at the next election. Ruffley’s decision follows the story about him being cautioned by the police following a domestic incident with his partner going from being a local story to a national one, driven in large part by the indefatigable Guido Fawkes. Ruffley’s decision to resign has spared the Conservatives what would have been a difficult decision. On the one hand, there was the issue of domestic violence and its total unacceptability. On the other, there was the duty of care that the party owed an MP who has had some difficulties in the past few years. But the new chief whip Michael Gove has handled the issue adroitly and come up with the best possible solution to a very difficult problem.

If Scotland votes No on September 18th, it won't be the end of the matter. The Unionist campaign and all three Westminster parties have all promised that more powers will pass to Holyrood if Scotland rejects independence. Cameron himself has endorsed a radical extension of the tax varying powers of the Scottish parliament. This will exacerbate the West Lothian Question, the unfairness by which Scots MPs can still vote on devolved matters at Westminster. Traditionally, the view has been that the answer to the West Lothian question is to stop asking it. But, as I say in the column this week, this position isn't tenable with Ukip on the march. Ukip is already committed to an English parliament in a federal UK.

You would normally have to pay thousands of pounds for the pleasure, but Mr S and the Westminster hack pack were treated to a Gordon Brown speech for free on Monday lunchtime. In a rare Westminster sighting, the former Prime Minister had his gawky fake smile glued in place as he reflected on his tumultuous relationship with the media while he addressed the Parliamentary Press Gallery about the campaign to save the Union. Brown has clearly seen that wind will blow the way of the No campaign and is getting involved late in the day – just in time to grab the glory. He once claimed to have saved the world, and saving the United Kingdom will nicely complement that honour.

With apologies to John Rentoul, Can Ed Miliband save the Union? is a question to which the answer is God help us all. I admit to a blind spot vis a vis the Labour leader: Looks like Gussie Fink-Nottle, thinks like a Marxist Madeline Bassett. Clever enough in a droopy kind of way but, ultimately, a gawd-help-us kind of fellow. I wasn't very impressed last time Mr Miliband came to Scotland and so I wasn't inclined to be impressed by his most recent trip to Glasgow. Which is dandy because I wasn't. I dare say Miliband's belief that Scottish independence would be a bad idea - for Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom - is sincere. That this belief is in his own narrow, strategic, sectarian interest is beside the point.

Well, yes, Hamish Macdonell is correct. A coherent devo-max option could win the referendum for Unionists. Some of us, ahem, have been arguing that for years. There were, of course, good reasons for insisting that the referendum vote be a simple Yes/No affair. A single question cuts to the heart of the issue and, notionally, should produce a clear outcome. Nevertheless it also greatly increased the risk - or prospect, if you prefer - of a Yes vote. A multi-option referendum would have killed a Yes vote. But if Hamish is correct I am not, alas, so sure the same can be said of Comrades Forsyth and Nelson. James writes that: The lesson of devolution is that we tamper with the constitutional framework of the United Kingdom at our peril.