Latest from Coffee House

As I type this, Alex Salmond and Mark Carney are chowing over porridge at Bute House, the First Minister’s official residence in Edinburgh. There is always the risk of exaggerating the importance of these things but this morning’s meeting with the Governor of the Bank of England may be the most important encounter Alex Salmond has this year. The question is simple: will an independent Scotland be able to forge a currency union with the rump United Kingdom? The answers, for all the First Minister’s bland assurances that such a union is in everyone’s interests, are not so simple. Like poker players, politicians often have a “tell”. When Salmond offers

‘It has given us a good, old-fashioned kick up the backside,’ said one member of the ‘No’ camp yesterday. He was being charitable. It could end up being an awful lot worse than that. The ‘it’ in question was the new ICM poll which, suddenly and unexpectedly, has put the Yes campaign right back in the hunt for Scottish independence. At a stroke, all those complacent certainties about the No camp wiping the floor with the Nationalists have been discarded and, this morning at Holyrood, the talk is of little else. ‘It is game on,’ said one Nationalist with a smile. Just to emphasise how important this new poll for The Scotsman

Alex Salmond might not wish to be compared to Gordon Brown but there is one sense in which the two dominant Scottish political personalities of the age are more alike than either would care to acknowledge: they each love a good dividing line. In Edinburgh yesterday Salmond announced that all pupils in their first three years of primary school would henceforth be entitled to a free school lunch. This, he claimed, would save parents £330 a year per child. A useful benefit for those parents whose offspring do not currently qualify for free meals; a means of ending, the First Minister suggested, the stigma presently endured by those children who

A mischievous question, I know, but one prompted by Janan Ganesh’s latest Financial Times column. It is eight years since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party and three and a half since he became Prime Minister. He may only have 18 months left in either post. We know – or think we know – a lot about Cameron. He is what he seems to be. Decent fellow, capable in a crisis, unruffled. A better-than-average product of his class and background. Thought he should be Prime Minister because he reckoned he’d “be good at it”. And yet the thought nags: what is he for? What is Cameron’s ministry about? As Ganesh

In Dublin, where I am writing this, people are watching the Scottish referendum campaign more closely than in London. Despite the polls, they almost expect a Yes vote, but most do not want one. People fear that Yes would weaken the UK and therefore make it a less useful ally for Ireland in the EU. They also think that an independent Scotland might overtake Ireland as a cute little place for foreign investors who like the combination of kilts, bagpipes and general Celtic carry-on with tax breaks and commercial access to the Anglosphere. Finally, they worry that Scottish independence would reopen the Irish question. At present, the Republic enjoys the

Danny Finkelstein’s column in the Times today is characteristically elegant and incisive. In politics as in life he writes, “whatever apparent power and temptation lies with the adoption of the identity of victimhood it is ultimately destructive”. Since Finkelstein is pondering lessons that may be drawn from the life of Nelson Mandela it may not be immediately obvious that the conclusion he reaches has some relevance to the campaign for Scottish independence. I better elaborate, then. Much has been said about how and why Unionists need a better “narrative” when making the case for Scotland as part of the United Kingdom. This is true. There is a need for a positive, optimistic,

I don’t really understand why politicians spend so much time talking to journalists. Most of the time little good can come from doing so. Of course, from a personal or professional perspective, this is fine and adds greatly to the gaiety of trade and nation. Nevertheless… Take, for instance, the reports in today’s Financial Times and Daily Mail in which “senior” government sources stick their shivs into Alistair Darling. The leader of the Unionist campaign fighting next year’s referendum on Scottish independence is, we are informed, “comatose most of the time”. A different (I think) Downing Street figure complains that Darling is a “dreary figurehead”. Meanwhile in the Mail, Gerri Peev finds

It is not surprising that the first Scottish opinion poll to be done since Alex Salmond published his White Paper on Independence last week would slip by almost unnoticed. After all, the attention of the Scottish media was somewhere else. It was focused, quite rightly, on events in Glasgow and the aftermath of the terrible helicopter crash there. As a result, the Progressive Scottish Opinion for the Scottish Mail on Sunday appeared and then, somewhat understandably, faded away quite quickly. It was a poll which, on most weekends, would have carried the front page for the paper. However, it was relegated to page 14 by the tragedy in Glasgow. It is,

It’s bad enough being lectured by politicians from Edinburgh or even London. That, I suppose, is to be expected however. Irritating but normal. It’s rather different when foreigners – real foreigners – decide to interfere in our own constitutional rammy. It smacks of impertinence. When that intervention comes from the leader – to put it in Sun-speak – of a nation of donkey-slaying, rock-coveting bankrupts it’s even less respectable. So the suggestion made yesterday by Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister of what we still call Spain, that an independent Scotland would, by creating a new country, need to reapply for EU membership is hackle-raising stuff. You’re tempted to reply jog on, pal. Of course

The argument about Scottish independence which, it should be said, is not a new one is best understood in terms of the Overton Window. James Overton, an American political scientist, suggested that the general public is only prepared to contemplate a relatively narrow range of political opinions and policies. Those that fall outwith this window of plausibility are discounted; the task for politicians and other advocates is to shift the window so that ideas once considered heretical now appear orthodox common-sense. Overton suggested there were six phases to this process. A idea would move from being unthinkable to radical to acceptable to sensible to popular before, finally, becoming policy. Scottish

This is not as obviously a Question to Which the Answer is No as it may initially seem. The Mayor of London is, in fact, well-placed to play a significant part in the campaign to persuade Scots their interests still lie within the United Kingdom. In the first place, as the titular leader of europe’s greatest city he has no obvious or immediate dog in the fight. Neither Boris’s reputation nor his future will be dented by a Scottish vote for independence. His Prime Ministerial plans – for we all still assume he has such plans – will not suffer if Alex Salmond wins next year’s referendum. They might even benefit

The UK government knows that it plays into the SNP’s hands if it does anything which could be seen as trying to bully the Scots into voting no to independence. So, it has not said that the Scots would not be able to use sterling after independence but merely stated that this would be an issue for the rest of the UK too. The Welsh First Minister, though, has now come out and said that he would veto the creation of a sterling zone. This intervention by Carwyn Jones is one that the UK government had been waiting for, and expecting. It gets the message across without risking the accusation

Somehow I managed to miss Iain Martin’s praise for the manner in which David Cameron has “handled” the referendum on Scottish independence. Happily, John Rentoul has prompted me to take a keek at Iain’s article which, somewhat uncharacteristically, concludes that the Prime Minister has “played a blinder”. This, as Mr Rentoul cautions, is premature praise. We are asked to believe that Cameron has pursued a policy of masterly inactivity. It is also suggested that securing a single-question referendum was a masterstroke rather than, well, the obvious outcome of a negotiating process between Edinburgh and London that was much less dramatic, and much less important, than everyone agreed at the time to

You should never, these days, under-estimate peoples’ ability to be outraged – outraged, I tells you – by the most innocuous event. Never. There are, after all, a depressing number of chippy morons in this country. Even so, I confess to being surprised by the hostility with which plans to commemorate the First World War have been met. At least in some quarters. I had thought, naively it is now clear, this commemoration would be uncontroversial, what with the First World War being, by any reckoning, an episode of some seriousness and consequence. That’s hardly to say that the war’s arguments have been settled. Far from it. Interpreting or understanding

Something quite remarkable happened last week. David Cameron proposed a major change to the constitutional fabric of the United Kingdom and barely anyone noticed. The fact that Cameron’s proposal, subject to a referendum, to let the Welsh Assembly vary income tax rates garnered so little interest is a sign of how inured we have become to constitutional tinkering. But these constant constitutional changes are putting the Union at risk. If Scotland votes no to independence that won’t, as I say in the column this week, be an end to the matter. Everyone from Cameron to the Better Together campaign have reassured the Scots that if they vote no, more powers

The sorry truth of the matter is that Glasgow has been in decline for a century. 1913 was the city’s greatest year. Then it produced a third of the railway locomotives and a fifth of the steel manufactured anywhere in Britain. Most of all, it built ships. Big ships and many of them. A ship was launched, on average,  every day that year. In 1913, 23% of the entire world’s production of ships (by tonnage) was built and launched on the river Clyde. It was an astonishing achievement and the high-water mark of Scottish industrial prowess. Ship-building, more than any other industry, became part of Glasgow’s essence. The locomotives and

It is a good thing that government ministers come to Scotland sometimes. It is a bad thing that they insist on opening their mouths when they do. Earlier this year we endured the spectacle of Philip Hammond making an arse of himself; today it has been Theresa May’s turn to make one wish cabinet ministers would, just occasionally, contemplate the virtue of silence. The Home Secretary was in Edinburgh to warn that an independent Scotland would be a dangerous place. It would, in fact, be left out in the cold. It would not, you see, be part of the English-speaking-world’s Five Eyes intelligence-poolling network. The UK, United States, Canada, Australia

First things first: a reshuffle in which only one cabinet minister is sacked redeployed is a reshuffle in name only. It means the action – if you can call it that – is confined to the replacement of ministers of whom most of you have never heard with other MPs of whom you are most likely equally ignorant. A day of low drama in Westminster then. Secondly, ejecting Michael Moore from the Scotland Office is not, I think, a reflection on his performance. If he was an accidental Secretary of State whose elevation to the cabinet was the result of David Laws’ disgrace, Moore still carried out his duties diligently

Eddie Izzard’s alleged mayoral ambitions have been well documented, although he’s coy of going on the record about any plans. But mayor of where, exactly? There’s been lots of noise about London; but Izzard has been surprising people at parties recently by speaking with a Scottish accent. Tongues have been wagging. Is the funny man who believes in ‘equal clothing rights’, the political activist who enthusiastically endorsed the Euro, Gordon Brown, Yes2AV and Ken Livingstone, seeking a political career north of the border? It seems not. Izzard explained, with a Caledonian drawl, to my mole that he ‘was in character’ while preparing to play a Scotsman in a BBC drama.

What price a Scotsman’s vote? About £500 apparently. Beneath a headline claiming ‘New poll gives Yes campaign hope’ The Scotsman reports that support for independence, as measured by ICM, rises to the giddy heights of 47 per cent if voters are told that they will be £500 a year better off in an independent Scotland. If this seems a disappointingly mercenary reason for voting Yes the same poll finds that many supporters of independence have their price. Only 18 per cent favour independence if, hypothetically, it were to leave you £500 a year worse off. The Incorruptible 18 per cent! Almost everyone else, it seems, has a price. Upon such things does the

What do Scottish voters think about the Scottish Parliament? Nothing particularly pleasant, according to Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling. The Tory peer has asked 12,000 Scots over the last few months what they think about their Parliament, the work it undertakes, its leaders and the notion of independence. The resulting picture isn’t a very happy one. Firstly, the role of the Scottish government. Just 14 per cent claim to have a ‘very good idea’ of how power is divided up between Holyrood and Westminster, while 40 per cent claim to have ‘very little idea’. Just over half think  Scottish Parliament elections are of equal importance to Westminster and 18 per cent

On Sunday an opinion poll was just a poll. Nothing to be too excited by. Unreliable too. The real poll – the one that counts – is still a year away. So put not your faith in numbers. Disappointment that way lies. On Monday the mood in the Scottish nationalist camp changed. Opinion polls now offered a persuasive and necessary reminder that Scotland’s on the march. A march that ends in freedom and liberty and whisky next September as an ancient country reasserts her prerogatives  and takes here rightful place in the family of nations once again. Polls are pure dead brilliant, don’t you know? From which you will gather