Will this desperate last-minute tactic save the ‘No’ campaign?

The Nationalists are of course right: this is a desperate last-minute tactic that the anti-independence camp never thought they’d have to dig out before 18 September. But with polls continually showing that the result is now too close to call, further powers on taxation and welfare, revealed by Gordon Brown last night, are an essential desperate last-minute tactic that the anti-independence camp needed to wheel out. Surgeons sometimes have to do desperate, last minute procedures to stop a patient dying in theatre, and sometimes those last-ditch attempts work. But no-one ever wants to be in that position.

But is this promise of more powers – still quite technical – the only tactic? Brown’s speech last night was passionate and appealing. It was the sort of thing many who wanted to see Better Together’s human, emotional side, wish there had been more of throughout the campaign. The TNS poll says 18 per cent of Scottish voters are still undecided (among those certain to vote, both sides are on 41 per cent), and the question is whether they will be swayed by emotion or by the change in the ‘No’ offer from voting to stay in the United Kingdom to voting for devo max as part of what looks like a federal United Kingdom.

The problem with desperate last minute tactics, however, is that sometimes their implications are not thought through. These constitutional changes are the sort of thing that politicians would prefer either not to do or to park into a very long series of commissions and committees. They’d certainly prefer not to promise such a speedy timetable, as Brown set out last night. But even constitutional upheaval and last-minute desperation are better than the Union being rent asunder.