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[/audioplayer]At this time of year, whenever you see a British politician looking particularly busy, you can take it as a sign that they are about to go off on holiday. In this puritanical age, nearly all political leaders are afraid to be seen enjoying themselves, and few dare take a break without making sure we all know they’ve earned it. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg are splitting their summer holidays in two this year to avoid being accused of slacking off.
Any sensible politician should make sure of a proper rest this summer. It’s their last chance before the general election campaign begins. For the rest of this month the Scottish referendum will rightly dominate national debate. But if the Scots vote no on 18 September, as the polls suggest, the party conferences that follow will mark the beginning of the 2015 campaign season.
A Scottish no vote cannot be taken for granted, however. The British Election Survey calculates that if those telling pollsters they are undecided continue to divide as they are currently doing, then the no campaign will win by 53.6 per cent to 44.6 per cent. That is too close for comfort. And it confirms Alistair Darling’s position as the Admiral Jellicoe of this referendum: the only man on either side who can lose the campaign in an afternoon — or, to be more accurate, in a couple of hours on Tuesday evening, when he will take part in a live TV debate against Alex Salmond.
Darling has had an unenviable task as the leader of the cross-party unionist campaign, Better Together. He has had to put up with off-the-record Tory criticism, the usual Scottish Labour intrigues — and Gordon Brown, who is making the post-Downing Street Ted Heath look like a ray of sunshine.
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