Scotland

If Scotland can claim independence — and a ‘geographical share’ of the oil regardless of population — then why can’t Orkney & Shetland? It’s the Up Helly Aa festival in Lerwick tonight, where men dress up as vikings and set a longship ablaze. Not a very Scottish festival, but when your nearest city is Bergen how Scottish do you feel? Laurance Reed, a former Hebridean resident (and ex-MP), has a piece in this week’s magazine pointing out that, by the Salmond doctrine, there is nothing to stop the Scottish islands breaking off, claiming the oil wealth and becoming the Dubai of the north. His piece is below. Freedom for Shetland!,

‘A clear majority of people in Scotland now back independence, according to an exclusive poll for the Sunday Express. Using Alex Salmond’s preferred referendum question, the Vision Critical survey found 51 per cent would vote ‘yes’ with 39 per cent against. If such a dramatic result were repeated in the autumn of 2014, the First Minister would have an absolute mandate to negotiate an end to the Union with England.’ So runs the story. CoffeeHousers may have spotted two of the snags: the poll uses Salmond’s laughably loaded question, and seems to have been conducted by a chain of opticians. Further inspection gives a sample size of around 2,000 people,

So now we have it: the ten words which Alex Salmond hopes will end Scotland’s 300-year-old membership of the United Kingdom. ‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?’ The First Minister unveiled his consultation paper on an independence referendum today and, to the surprise of many, actually did what David Cameron has been asking of him. He came out with a short, simple, clear question on independence which he wants to put on the ballot paper. The debate will now rage as to whether this question is fair (is it, for example, too positive? Should it perhaps include something about the United Kingdom?), but this does mark

Cartoonists like to portray Alex Salmond as a modern-day Braveheart preparing to charge the English enemy. But, in truth, Salmond’s strategy is far more subtle — and dangerous — than that.   The SNP leader’s piece in The Guardian today — a preview of the Hugo Young lecture he’s delivering tonight — downplays what a dramatic step independence would be. At times the article reads like an argument for ‘devo max’, not independence. He bemoans that devolution ‘left Scotland with fewer powers than the German Länder, most American states, parts of Spain or, within these islands, the Isle of Man’.   Salmond also wants to suggest that not that much

It’s far from the first poll on Scottish independence in recent years, or even in recent days, but YouGov’s effort for Channel4 this evening contains some noteworthy findings nonetheless. What is does is replicate the conditions that — for the reasons that Peter Kellner explains in a very useful blog post here — Alex Salmond would like in 2014. Which means two questions, one after the other. First, status quo or ‘devo-max’? Second, status quo or full independence? And the results? By YouGov’s count, 58 per cent of people are in favour of ‘devo-max’ for the first question, with 42 per cent against. And, for the second question, 39 per

With Scottish independence very much the issue of the week, we thought you might enjoy this Spectator leader from 1979, arguing for a ‘No’ vote in that year’s referendum on Scottish devolution: To preserve the Union, 24 February 1979 ‘So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement?’ ‘Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.’ The Scotland Act, which comes before the judgement of the Scottish people on Thursday, is certainly laughable. Would that it were no more than that. If the Scottish Assembly is instituted it will be the most important constitutional change the United Kingdom has known since the Irish Free State came into