Neck and Neck

An opinion poll in The Sunday Times has the independence vote neck and neck as the campaign enters its final stages, so it looks as though the 14% of 'don't knows'  will become the deciding fact over the next few months.

I still regard myself as a 'don't know' at this stage, but I have to say I am increasingly fed up with the Westminster Parliament which I think has become unfit for purpose with its hugely unrepresentative House of Commons (due to the lack of proportional representation) and its bloated, unelected House of Lords.  

MPs at Westminster seem unconcerned by public opinion or the need to observe normal standards of behaviour and 'honourable' members seem to think it's perfectly OK for them to make up the rules as they go along - if Gordon Brown and Maria Miller are anything to go by.

Maybe the only way Westminster will be ever be reformed and democratised is if Scotland decides to become an independent country.

Because that would surely signal the end of the House of Lords (as the Scottish Parliament has no second chamber), the end of First Past The Post (FPTP) elections and introduction of proportional representation, as well as providing the impetus for MPs to clean up their act over expenses and complaints.     

Scotland Yes vote now neck and neck

Jason Allardyce and Gillian Bowditch - The Sunday Times



SUPPORT for Scottish independence has hit a record high with the yes and no campaigns almost neck and neck five months from the referendum, according to a new poll.

With the cross-party no campaign under pressure to sharpen up after a series of gaffes, the Panelbase results show the unionist lead among voters has been cut from more than 24 points last year to six points this weekend.

The findings by the polling company, which had been the first to identify an SNP lead ahead of Alex Salmond’s surprise landslide Scottish election win in 2011, give credence to private claims by nationalists that the yes vote could be in front by July.

The poll for the pro-independence political website Wings Over Scotland finds that when the 14% of voters who are undecided are excluded, 47% intend to vote yes and 53% no. It is the nationalists’ best rating so far this year.

It follows polls by ICM, Survation and YouGov last month that put yes on 45%, 45% and 42% respectively. While Panelbase’s results were considered more favourable to the yes side than others last year there has been convergence this year.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said the findings are “yet further evidence that the no side’s attacks ...have failed to reverse the narrowing of the no lead evident since the new year”.

It is likely to spark fresh concerns among senior Conservative strategists who have warned for months that complacency in the unionist ranks could allow Salmond to pull off a victory.

As The Sunday Times disclosed in December, Lynton Crosby, the prime minister’s election guru, and Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, are among those who have voiced doubts about the campaign.

Tory critics believe that Better Together, the cross-party no campaign led by Alistair Darling, the former Labour chancellor, has been lacklustre and too negative, focusing heavily on the economic risks that an independent Scotland would face.

David Cameron has limited his campaigning role and allowed the Conservatives to take a back seat because the party is deeply unpopular north of the border with only one MP while Labour has 41 of the 59 seats.

Yesterday Cameron told delegates at the Conservative spring forum in London of his love for the “incomparable” United Kingdom as he set out what he described as a “positive vision” for preserving the union.

He hailed the shared history of Scotland and the other nations of the UK building the industrial revolution, fighting two world wars, creating the NHS and staging the Olympics — and dismissed Salmond as a “man without a plan” whose proposals for an independent Scotland were “all over the place”.

A vote in favour of independence would provoke a constitutional crisis and months of negotiations over how national assets would be divided up on either side of the border.

Last week Cameron came under pressure from worried Tory MPs to ban the 59 Scottish constituencies from taking part in the general election if Salmond wins the referendum in September.

It follows a warning from Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat Scottish secretary, that Scotland is in danger of sleepwalking into a split from Britain unless the pro-UK campaign becomes as sharp as the yes camp.

The no campaign has been hampered by gaffes. Better Together was left reeling last month when an unnamed UK minister reportedly dismissed one of the British government’s central messages on independence, that Scotland would not be allowed to share the pound with the rest of the UK.

Darling’s leadership of Better Together came into further question last week when he suggested that a shared currency might be the subject of an English referendum.

The yes campaign is also outspending Better Together, with lottery winners Chris and Colin Weir expected to confirm a second £1m donation to the nationalists’ cause later this month.

Some members of the business community have been wary about donating to the no campaign, fearing a backlash from customers and the Scottish government.

“It’s easier at the moment to come out as gay than it is to come out as a unionist,” said Rory Bremner, the Edinburgh-born impressionist.

He added that George Osborne’s threat to bar Scotland from using the pound had been “completely counterproductive”.

“The first lesson they have to understand is that Scots, and I include myself in that, won’t be told what to do,” he told Scottish Field magazine.