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[/audioplayer]I’ve just arrived in Edinburgh, where I’ll be handing out copies of the new magazine on Princes St from 8am tomorrow morning (helped by two readers, who kindly answered my appeal on Twitter). It’s a rather special edition: for the first time our 186-year history, the cover story has been written by the readers. We asked them to write a letter to Scots, telling them what they thought – rather than rely on the message being conveyed by the politicians. The volume and quality of the replies has been remarkable. And it deserved a few hundred extra copies, which I’m here to deliver. James Forsyth, who’s also passionate about the union, will arrive here a bit later.
We have fitted as many readers’ letters as we could over three pages. They’re not necessarily the best ones, just samples of the kinds of arguments being made. Made by people of all ages, from all parts of the country and (as you’d expect of Spectator readers) from all political persuasions. We have one left-leaning reader asking Scots if they really want to condemn Liverpudians and Mancunians to perpetual conservative government. Whither fraternity? Quite a few say they’re as exasperated with Cameron as the next Glaswegian, but pointing out that change in Westminster comes when people unite – not divide.
The replies have kept coming in. So we’ve decided to keep publishing them – after all, our online readership in Scotland is bigger than our print readership. I’m hoping to do my bit to boost the latter tomorrow. We’ll keep publishing these in the run-up to the referendum, so do keep emailing them.
PS: Judging by my Twitter timeline, the ‘yes’ praetorians hate all this: it upends their narrative of 18 Sep being a vote against a callous Westminster elite. This is, of course, nothing less than a vote about whether to give up on the greatest country ever created.
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