Cameron's "Carlisle" Principle...

I have nothing against Cumbrians, but yesterday, with just over two weeks of the campaign to go, the Prime Minister enlisted the good folk of Carlisle into his campaign to stoke up as much grinchery and hysteria as possible about the possibility of the SNP exercising any influence in the UK parliament. 

David Cameron calls this the "Carlisle principle", and in his efforts to press the Jockophobic advantage with the English electorate, Cameron announced that any Treasury under his control would go snooping to see whether Scotland was deriving unjustifiable benefit from pursuing sensible devolved policies north of the border. "This is about making sure we understand the impact that devolution is having and make sure that rest of the country never unwittingly loses out," he said.

In this morning's National, I point out that the Prime Minister's assumption that Scots are greedy public spending gannets tells only half the story. If we look at detriments, we must also look at ways in which the UK exchequer benefits from devolved choices. The UK Treasury has consistently resisted giving Holyrood its due, giving the Scottish Parliament back the windfalls of its spending decisions, and as a consequence, incentivising good decisions as opposed to those which keep the cash away from the control of the central government. The Treasury's position has, since the advent of devolution, been given to petulance, tight-fistedness, and a refusal to recognise the ups and downs of Scotland adopting distinctive ideas and policies.  An excerpt:

Holyrood has not had its troubles to seek with Chancellors and their apparatchiks when decisions of the Scottish Parliament poured cash into the UK exchequer or didn’t fit neatly into the bureaucratic categories of the British state. Even Jack McConnell had his share of quiet tiffs with Whitehall’s controlling mandarins of finance.

Why? Because the Treasury is all too happy for the Scottish Parliament to part with its cash and to fund programmes, but has been remarkably reluctant to pass the financial benefits of sound choices back to Holyrood. Want to introduce a fairer system of local income tax? In that case, we’re keeping your share of council tax relief. 

Want to introduce publicly funded childcare to liberate more people to pursue jobs, increasing economic activity and bringing in more tax receipts? Capital notion. But we’re keeping the extra cash that will generate. Your block grant will not be adjusted accordingly. What’s that? Funding free personal care for the elderly saves the exchequer a shedload? Well, bully for you. But we’re not adjusting your budget to reflect the UK gains made on the back of your sensible choices. Your block grant may go up a quid of two, but you won’t see anything like the full fiscal benefits of your spending. That has been the Treasury mantra.

You can read the whole piece here.

The Vow+?

This morning, the Labour Party launches its 2015 manifesto in Manchester. It pledges to hold a UK wide "people-led" constitutional convention and commits any new Labour government to additional Scottish devolution. The key paragraph reads as follows:

"In September 2014, people across Scotland voted overwhelmingly for change. Labour will keep its vow and implement the Smith Agreement in full. And we will go further, with a Home Rule Bill to give extra powers to Scotland over tax, welfare and jobs. Rates of income tax will be set in Scotland. Billions of pounds of social security spending will be devolved, including benefits that support disabled people. The Work Programme will also be devolved along with a greater ability to invest in capital projects.

The new devolution settlement will recognise the strength and security offered by being part of the United Kingdom. We will maintain the Barnett formula, and Scotland will continue to benefit from pooling and sharing resources across the UK."

For all of its superficial conclusiveness, this paragraph leaves urgent questions about the contents of the "vow plus", advanced by Gordon Brown and Jim Murphy, unanswered.  Labour pledge to "go further" than Smith, but go on to list only policies which the Smith Commission agreed to devolve, and which we already find in the draft clauses of the Scotland Bill published by the Scotland Office.

There is nothing here which the Tory and Liberal Democratic coalition have not proposed. So what more are Labour proposing? What precise elaboration on the Smith heads of terms are they planning? Smith came to the conclusion that housing benefit could not be disentangled from the universal credit. No mention of housing benefit here. So what is the scheme, Jim? Ed?

Nothing in today's manifesto affords even a speck of illumination. We are left where we started with Labour: no minimum wage, no pensions, no employment law, no Equality Act, no national insurance, no housing benefit, no universal credit, no broadcasting, no corporation tax, no inheritance tax, no capital gains, no renewable energies, no oil.

The draft clauses of the Scotland Bill were clearly Treasury work: grudging, minimalist and controlling. There are a number of different ways in which the broad, airy proposals of the Smith Commission might be realised, some bolder, others more cautious and limited. The devil is, proverbially, in the legal detail. And in drafting that detail for Alastair Carmichael, UK civil servants adopted the most restrictive alternative at every turn. In the light of today's manifesto, I increasingly wonder if the Murphy/Brown "vow plus" rhetoric really amounts only to this -- a commitment to give effect to the Smith Commission in a very slightly more ambitious way than the outgoing coalition has proposed. Haud me back...

Stewart Hosie: "Our New Scotland – The Next Step…"

Like many folk in the party, I remain undecided about which of the three candidates for Deputy Leader of the SNP I should support. How do their visions differ? What are they all about? Having a wee platform here, I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask all three to write me up to 1,000 words on the thinking behind their bids to replace Nicola Sturgeon. Newspapers only have so much space. On telly and on radio, one has next to no time to say anything at all. On blogs, we can afford to be a bit more leisurely and considered. On Monday, we heard from Transport Minister, Keith Brown MSP. Today, it is Dundee East MP, Stewart Hosie's turn, to make his pitch.

The Labour Party in Scotland is in meltdown.

That’s an unusual way to start an article, but as we approach the next challenge the SNP and the wider Independence movement faces - it is important - because that next challenge is the 2015 General Election.

This should not, in my view, be a re-run of the referendum. Instead it is the Scottish people’s opportunity to hold Westminster’s ‘feet to the fire’ and force them to fulfil their promises.

So remember what they told us. “We’re going to be, within a year or two, as close to a federal state as you can be.” (Gordon Brown, 14 August 2014). Which, sounds very similar to the pledge (or vow) made by the Prime Minister. “If we get a No vote …, that will trigger a major, unprecedented programme of devolution with additional powers for the Scottish Parliament.” (David Cameron, 15 September 2014)

But the proposals published so far by the UK parties neither meet the public demand for “devo-max” or the expectations raised during the referendum campaign. 

Their proposals would devolve barely 30% of Scotland’s revenue base, or to put that another way, less than half the funding requirements of the Scottish Parliament. These are not “extensive new powers”, that is not “federalism”. Rather those are extremely modest proposals and likely to disappoint not just the 1.6 million who voted Yes, but the large number of those who voted No in order to secure substantial new powers.

The only way to make unionism sit up and take heed – and to secure substantial new powers – is to elect the largest number of Independence supporting MPs to Westminster ever. While we may win seats from the Lib Dems, and they deserve to lose them, our primary opponents in most seats in Scotland are Labour. That is why their all too public collapse is important. That and the fact their devolution offering is even weaker than the Tories. So far, so self evident. The question is how do we win these seats?

In my view, it hinges on keeping the Yes Movement together to campaign for Independence supporting MPs and for more powers while at all times making the case for Independence. And in arguing for real maximum devolution (everything bar defence and foreign affairs), we would reach out not just to those who voted Yes, but 25% of those who voted No expecting substantial new powers for Scotland

I am certain that the best way to make sure Westminster delivers will be to return the largest ever number of Independence supporting MPs to Westminster. I’m equally certain that many of the wonderful, talented people who emerged through the Independence campaign will contest the next election. But The SNP will be the engine of the campaign and with over 80,000 members it will be a turbo charged one. However, the wider Independence movement can provide further fuel and momentum to that campaign. 

In practice that means looking at ways of working beyond party interests to maximise the participation of those who campaigned and voted for a better Scotland by offering them an opportunity to campaign and vote again for change at next year’s General Election. I have no doubt that the SNP can and will send the largest ever number of SNP MPs to Westminster at next year’s general election, but if we build a Yes Alliance, there is an opportunity to do even more than that.

What is clear is that whether we campaign on a joint platform of maximum powers for Scotland, or select candidates from the range of hugely talented people who emerged through the referendum campaign, the SNP should show the same willingness to work with individuals and organisations to make sure the largest number of Independence supporting MPs is delivered to Westminster next May. 

By turning the strong desire for change into votes for change next year the Scottish people can sweep aside the vested interests of the Westminster old guard. This will deliver the best chance of substantial new powers for Scotland.

It is for agreement as to how formal or informal such cooperation would be, but what a powerful alliance we could deliver to stand up for Scotland. Of course any broad campaign will require approval from not just the SNP but many of the other parties and organisations involved in Yes but it is important that we begin build that alliance now to deliver for Scotland.

2015 is just the next step for Scotland. There will be many, many miles to walk to Independence after that. But it is an important step in a very important year. I believe I have the skills and experience to help offer some leadership over this period, which is why I have put myself forward as a candidate for Depute Leader of the SNP.

All the hopes and dreams we have for a richer, fairer, greener, more socially just society need Scotland’s people to take the next step and demand more powers. Let’s make sure the Independence Movement is united and sure-footed as we campaign, together, to take this most important next step.

Stewart Hosie MP

Keith Brown: "Stands Scotland where it did?"

Today, I bring you the first in what I hope will be a series of guest posts from the three contenders to replace Nicola Sturgeon as Deputy Leader of the SNP. I'm open minded about that contest, and persuadable, so wanted to provide an open platform to each of the candidates to articulate their visions and set out their values. First up, Keith Brown MSP makes his case....

L'Ecosse est-elle restée fidèle à elle-même?

Well, you can't start a guest post on Lallands Peat Worrier without a spot of French, can you? Stands Scotland where it did?

Scotland did not die; we did not collapse in September and we did not lift ourselves above the ordinary and soar in the clouds of independence. We stood, instead, in the full glare of the world spotlight and decided 'not yet'. They turned the spotlight off and we looked to ourselves again and defied explanation. The Yes campaign, defeated, gathered its strength and got back to its feet within hours. 

In days the membership of the independence parties rose exponentially, the Greens reaching 6,000, the SNP surpassing 80,000. Post referendum Yes demonstrations collected food for those less fortunate, showing the solidarity and social communion that elevated the Yes campaign. We're told we should accept the result, revel in the record electoral registration and marvel at the 85% turnout. Alternatively, we're told that the 45% should fight again, that the 55% were lied to and believed it, and that one last push takes us where we need to go.

I don't hang my coat on either side of that argument, I've got more hope and more ambition for my country than that - tempered with a bit of realism. We watched our country rise to the biggest democratic challenge that any nation can face and our achievement was not the registration or the turnout, and it was neither the 45% nor the 55%. We showed that political debate could be better than the skinking fare that jaups in Westminster luggies; we showed that political debate - the biggest political debate - could be conducted well and with good humour for the most part. 

We showed that the people can own the debate, that they can claim it as their own and that politicians can be and must be a part of the people's debate rather than thinking that they can rule without consent and participation, that somehow they are above the people. Scotland showed that politics can, in that time honoured phrase, be of the people, for the people and by the people. 

That is our achievement; we have raised politics to the level of the people and the greatest failure we could ever have is to let it fall back and become, once again, a playground for the rich, the ignorant and the uncaring. Westminster retains the right to govern, for now, but it cannot dictate how Scotland does politics. Indeed, it the task of all of us, to make sure it doesn't. Survival of the fittest may be how evolution works but society should aspire to something better.

We don't do that by fixating on the past, we do that by inventing the future. We have to look at what we can do now, argue in the Smith Commission for the powers to do what we need to do in the near future, and keep agitating for independence. So we have to prioritise and plan and keep dreaming. We have to be realistic about what we can do but never settle for thinking that it's all that should be done or all we can ever do. Let's keep lifting our eyes so we can see further, make sure we always believe in the strength of people and their imagination, and make sure we trust each other. We need government brave enough to dream and smart enough to face reality, a party hard enough to stand up in the face of the storm and flexible enough to change in the face of changing facts, and a movement still imagining a better future but working for a better present.

So while we dream of eliminating poverty and the need for food banks; while we work to improve education and campaign to get rid of nuclear weapons, what else falls to us to do? Scotland faces debilitating welfare cuts, indifferent economic management and an assault on human rights by the UK Government - including the undercutting of equalities legislation. and a Westminster elite, acting with unfamiliar alacrity to demonstrate that it has 'done Scotland'. Business as usual means looking forward to tax and welfare violence from the UK Government

We've seen John Swinney move to ease the pain of the Bedroom Tax - he can't change the benefits system, though, and that's the problem. We can spend Scottish Government money on one chase after another but there will come a time when we can't. At some point we have to start asking what else we cut to keep mending the wounds caused by Westminster - health? Education? Local Government? 

If we don't control the benefits system we can't change how they work and if we don't control tax we can't find the money to control the benefits system. We need to be able to control both systems just to get some sense of decency back. We don't have those powers now and the chances of the Smith Commission delivering them are fairly low; we'll need independence for that.

We need to be able to get people off of benefits, too - by creating jobs. Bringing forward the capital investment programme brought jobs to our communities but while we're constricted by Westminster rules on borrowing and spending that's a limited bounty. If we can't change the rules around employment we can't make a real difference to job creation, though; that needs independence.

Equality legislation suffers the same problems - someone will be saying that we can't have different laws governing equality here than in the rest of the UK. There won't be any rationale offered for that - just an assertion - but it will be taken to be true. There's no real reason at all why Scotland can't have control of equality, of basic human rights, but it will be 'too difficult' to manage or deliver. The real reason will be that it's too hard for Westminster to let go of anything they hold - any power they have they will seek to keep.

If you want an example of how there is a disconnect between Scotland's powers and the powers we need there's a perfect example in a decision I had to make recently. I'm Transport Minister and had to award the Scotrail franchise; I could award the contract to a public sector company but not a Scottish public sector company - it's illegal for us to own our own railway service. We've got some power over the railway provision but not all of it. I think that the deal I managed to get shows that we do what we can with what we have to get Scotland the best deal possible but the fact that we can't set the basic terms for making the deal points to the real flaw of devolution - you may appear to have power but if someone else has control over the framework you have no real power.

So we'll continue to work with the powers we have and we'll argue in the Smith Commission for the additional powers we need to improve the lives of Scots across the board but we cannot let it lie there. Devolution is the management of power, not the possession of it and that is simply not good enough for Scotland - it never has been. We have to reinvigorate the SNP and the larger campaign that the SNP is part of; we have to be part of a society that refuses to allow the poor to starve and stands up for all of our fellow citizens; we have to be part of a movement that refuses to lie down and allow nuclear weapons to be housed in our waters.

We have to govern well with the best interests of Scotland at heart and that means looking outwards and finding ways to improve the services we offer, we must never be content with how our NHS works, or our education system, or our Justice system. There will always be something that can be done to improve them and we have to look for that; in our newly expanded party membership there will be people who have expertise in all kinds of different areas and we should tap into that and the connections that they have. 

Our policy-making should be owned by our members and I want to give it back with regional policy forums, an online policy discussion site, regular National Assemblies and more open policy formulation. We have to have confidence in our members and in our activists and they have to have confidence in what they're doing. I want to set up training sessions and provide support material for our organisers, activists and local office-bearers. We have to build a party that is connected to every aspect of Scots society and reaches out internationally and that takes work.

Never again should Westminster feel that it can take Scotland for granted, either; we have to continue to agitate for more power to be devolved but we'll also have to continue to campaign to rid our country of nuclear weapons, to have our voice heard internationally, to encourage, social justice, fairness and equality. Independence remains the goal, remains the one major change which will give us the tools to really improve Scotland, and we have to keep working towards it.

Independence will come when the people of Scotland say it does and a new referendum will be called when the time is right because a referendum is the only way in which we can be sure that the people are with us in making that change. In the meantime we have to keep on persuading people, we have to speak to the 55% who said No, find out why they weren't persuaded and work to change their minds. We have to keep making the case for independence, keep campaigning to make Scotland a better nation, and keep working as if we live in the early days of that better nation.

Govern well now, improve Scotland as we can, but reach for the stars. A beacon of hope and aspiration shone across this land and it's our job to keep it lit; it's our duty to plan a better future and build a better present. I want to be a part of that and I can help organise towards it; that's why I want to be Depute Leader of the SNP - our task is not yet done - and I hope you'll join me on that journey.

Keith Brown MSP

Scottish Labour: in the beartrap?

A question of low, cynical politics: what happens to the Smith Commission on enhanced devolution if and when Labour drags its feet? What do the Liberals and the Tories do? In Westminster's recent debate on English votes for English laws - oh, and #devosomething for Scotland - William Hague told the Commons:

"The enactment of what we are all talking about on Scottish devolution is of course after the general election. Draft legislation in January, a bill to be introduced whoever wins the general election in May. So that is to be enacted at the beginning of the next parliament. I believe that we can, the country can reach a decision."

A guileless reading of this comment suggests that the UK government is committed to "constructive cross-party working" - which is really to say, getting Labour onside with whatever the Smith Commission comes up with. The Greens and the SNP can go hang. The critical question is: who might hold the keys to Downing Street? The possibility - even the likelihood - of a hung parliament being elected in 2015 significantly complicates this question. But it also opens up opportunities for political mischief - if the coalition parties prove sufficiently Machiavellian and are willing to play fast and loose and ruggedly political with the constitution. 

There was a certain sinister grace to the way in which, after the referendum result, Cameron drew a dagger on the Labour Party. Osborne's fingerprints were all over it. The quid pro quo for enhanced Scottish autonomy? English votes for English laws. By hook or by crook, Labour looked buggered. Which of these unpalatable choices would sir prefer? 

If Labour ratted on additional autonomy for Scotland to save its Westminster skin, Miliband's 35% strategy would be bust by ructions in his Scottish heartlands. If not, and the party endorsed the idea of constricting the voting rights of its Scottish MPs, there is a real possibility of Labour being in government but not in power when it comes to the English domestic agenda of health, education and so on. Alternatively, as recent weeks have seen, Labour could choose to box itself in on the issue, stammering out unconvincing accounts of why their representatives from Glasgow should be allowed to impose their preferences on tuition fees and models of health service delivery on the English people. Quite the predicament.

Hague's conciliatory comments might suggest that Cameron's unanticipated backstab was a rare lapse in the consensual tone which will predominate in the discussion of more devolution for Scotland. I'm not so sure. If we take Hague seriously, then the Smith Commission would have to settle on whatever lowest common denominator the reluctant representatives of the People's Party are willing to agree. But what if Hague's comments are not the innocent, good faith commitment they seem, but a canny bit of expectations management, anticipating another blow of the stiletto to an unsuspecting Labour's soft underbelly?

If Labour's willingness to endorse additional autonomy for Holyrood falls significantly short of the level the Liberal Democrats and the Tories are willing to accept, they are presented with a clear political opportunity to sideline the Labour Party, to sow discord internally, and to imperil the base strategy which seems Miliband's best hope of seizing back power. And with a general election pending, why not take it? Labour's submission to Lord Smith goes no further than their Devolution Commission. Complacent as ever, Labour's scheme seems to be to huddle behind the guarantee that the Commission is a cross-party process, sheltering the party from its own lack of ambition, secure in the belief that they must be kept on side, come what may. This may prove a serious political misjudgment.

If I was a Tory, pondering the general election, I'd have mischief on my mind. At present, I'd be quietly cultivating the idea that this cross-party coalition would deliver. You've got to keep your options open, after all. It might come off. Perhaps the Labour negotiators will be willing and able to advance from their pre-referendum position, only too happy to use the escape hatch of the Smith Commission process to flee from and forget their bungling past plans for enhanced autonomy. But if Labour lives down to expectations, participating in a grudging spirit of mendicancy and paucity of ambition, there's a political bear trap ready to be sprung, and few reasons for the Tories and the Liberals not to spring it.

If the outward show is anything to go by, the governing voices in Labour seem to think a lowest common denominator deal will cut it. But what if the Tories and the Liberals take a different tack? What if, instead of scurrying to whatever squishy middle Labour is willing to occupy, they sideline the People's Party entirely, collapsing the all-party Smith Commission and endorsing a newer, more radical vision of Scottish autonomy which excludes Labour and denounces them for a nest of  useless fearties?

If this was to work politically, they'd have to make the collapse of the Smith Commission look like Labour's fault, and justify it on the grounds that Labour lacked ambition for Scotland. A summary survey of the newspapers this morning suggests that this is a story which many folk would be only too willing to accept and believe. You can imagine David Cameron's speech, delivered in Edinburgh, more in sorrow than in anger, gleefully appropriating Labour's devolution vocabulary and giving them another dose of Osborne's dagger:

"We entered this process in good faith. As the record shows, we always hoped and believed that a common sense deal could be struck which would reflect the aspirations of the Scottish people, and which all of us, every UK political party, could endorse. I made a solemn vow. I promised the Scottish people that we'd get this done, and I will keep faith with them.  

It would be a dereliction of duty on my part, to allow the Labour Party's lack of ambition and vision to stand in the way of honouring our promises to the Scottish people.   

It is with some regret, therefore, that I today announce that it has not been possible to include the Labour Party in our radical plans for Scottish Home Rule. We want to see a powerhouse Scottish Parliament, responsible for what she earns, able to take big decisions about public services and welfare. Labour, by contrast, want a second-rate assembly with powers not fit for Scotland's place in the United Kingdom in the 21st century. That is not acceptable to us, and I believe, is not acceptable to Scotland. 

At every turn, Labour as blocked good ideas for Scotland, and good ideas for the United Kingdom. Because of their lack of vision, and their lack of faith in the Scottish people's capacity for greater self-government within the United Kingdom, we had to leave them behind. Scotland and Britain expect more than this discredited, clapped-out Labour Party is able or willing to offer them. 

But we are not disheartened. Our plans go further, are bolder. We are ambitious for Scotland, and for the United Kingdom. And if we are re-elected in 2015, we will give Scotland the powers she needs. Part of this country, but able to set her own priorities. Part of Britain, but with real home rule." 

Cue hilarious turmoil in Labour's back yard in Scotland, as the "party of devolution" is well and truly trolled. Do the Tories stand directly to benefit in terms of additional seats and MPs? Probably not. But Labour's campaign in Scotland in 2015 is already shaping up to face formidable difficulties. Things don't have to go calamitously badly for Ed Miliband in Scotland to put his position in Westminster at risk.

If Labour hopes to run the general election as a base strategy + alienated Liberal Democrats, anything the Tories can do to disrupt and imperil Labour's base of support looks worth doing. If they support the devolution schemes anyway, why not try to squeeze partisan political benefit from it and screw over your opponents at the same time? I know what I'd do.

If Labour prove reluctant and unambitious negotiators in the Smith process, there's obvious space for a counter-intuitive Tory strategy here, and a golden chance to fling a lit firecracker into the powder magazine of the Scottish Labour Party. Don't be shocked if they take it.

Acknowledge it now

The starting point for the Scottish National Party, going into the Smith Commission on further devolution, must be a maximalist one. We are the party of Scottish self-government. We cannot pretend otherwise. If independence is our first preference, our esto position is the greatest level of autonomy for Scottish institutions which it is possible to be gained within the United Kingdom. 

As Ruth Davidson made clear yesterday, "devo max" as it has conventionally been understood - responsibility for nearly all of Scotland’s domestic affairs, including taxation and welfare benefits, while foreign affairs and defence would remain the responsibility of the UK government - is a non-starter. 

While this comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the devo-schemes offered in the months before the referendum by the Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat parties, it will come as something of a rude awakening to those moved by the rhetoric and the representations of the "new powers" apparently on offer which saturated the final weeks of the campaign.  

But over and above the narrow party debates and Westminster recriminations on the balance of welfare and tax competencies, the pro-independence minority have particular interests which they we must argue to be privileged in the Smith process. We've got to come down to brass tacks, and quickly. The Greens and the SNP have just over a week to submit their views on more powers to Lord Smith of Kelvin. The rest of us have a little longer. 

I'm sure folk are beavering away behind the scenes, but we also need practical ideas circulating out there, in the ether. If, as Alex Salmond has argued, the custodians and guarantors of further devolution are millions of our active and agitating fellow citizens, those citizens need quickly to master the Scotland Act - at least in outline - to understand what is doable and what is desirable, what is already devolved and which powers Westminster still stubbornly - and sometimes unjustifiably - clings to.

The welfare red lines I suggested last week are one such practical idea for Nationalists. Here's another: we need to seize the opportunity of the Smith Commission to put the legality of any future referendums beyond dispute, and vigorously resist any proposal to entrench the Union along the lines suggested by Jack Straw last week.

Although there was a good deal of nonsense and shadowboxing on the topic back in 2012, as loyal and long-term readers of this blog will recall, without Westminster's 2013 section 30 order under the Scotland Act, the legality of the 2014 referendum hung by a very shoogly legal thread. Calling a referendum was arguably within Holyrood's powers, but no higher than that. Without getting the nod from Westminster, the referendum was vulnerable to legal challenge, the outcome unclear, and risked putting the Presiding Officer - who must certify that Bills fall within the Scottish Parliament's powers - in an impossibly difficult place. 

Even kicking the referendum can several years down the line, with September's defeat, these issues return with a vengeance. If there was an arguable case that the referendum fell within Holyrood's devolved powers before the Edinburgh Agreement process, that case is now much weakened. The UK government imposed a number of restrictions on the 2014 poll. Firstly, they insisted that the referendum should be an either/or affair, a Yes or a No to independence. They also time-limited Holyrood's authority to call such a poll. It lapses on the 31st of December this year. Bottom line: on the current law, future independence referendums called by Holyrood, without securing London's agreement, are now almost certainly unlawful. Jack Straw's wheeze is entirely surplus to requirements. So what are we going to do about it?

From a democratic perspective, this restriction cannot be justified. Future referendums any time soon cannot be a priority and cannot seem like a priority for the Scottish Government and the Scottish National Party. But we have a responsibility to the very substantial minority who voted Yes on the 18th, and to the principle of Scottish self-determination recognised by the 2014 referendum, to ensure that future generations have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. And to do so lawfully, peacefully and democratically - at the ballot box. There can be no question of changing the rules of the game now. Jim Sillars is dead wrong about that. All we must seek is to give permanence to the basic principles, recognised by the UK government in facilitating the 2014 referendum.

Nor is this special pleading, or an unprecedented or unreasonable recognition of minority sensibility. The first section of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 recognises that "Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the United Kingdom and shall not cease to be so without the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll" but "if the wish expressed by a majority in such a poll is that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament such proposals to give effect to that wish as may be agreed between Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of Ireland." 

The rules governing such a border poll are set out in the first Schedule to the Act, and are not unproblematic in their details - but the basic principle recognised by the legislation is a sound one. If Northern Ireland's right to determine its constitutional destiny within the United Kingdom can be respected and reconciled in law with continuing Union, why not Scotland's? Surely a will to self-determination expressed in an orderly, civic movement has at least as much moral and political authority as the hard and harrowing process in Northern Ireland which culminated in the 1998 settlement.

The case for recognising Scotland's right to self-determination in primary legislation is unanswerable. It isn't good enough to leave the question vulnerable to cynical political manipulation and Machiavellian legal position-taking. Our first priority in the Smith Commission must be securing greater autonomy in tax and welfare to make a real difference to folk's lives. 

But it is crucial not only that Holyrood's powers are extended, but that the democratic principles which flowered in this referendum also endure. Securing the inalienable right of Scots to decide their own political future - giving legal force to the principles articulated in the 1989 Claim of Right - must form part of that. The new Scotland Bill could do worse that incorporating this thought into its first section: "We acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs". 

This is the challenge to the other parties to the Smith Commission: many of you acknowledged it then. Acknowledge it now.

Red lines

It is time for clear, and perhaps counter-intuitive, constitutional thinking. The SNP have nominated John Swinney and Linda Fabiani to the Smith process to hammer out the post-referendum devosomething deal with the Tories, Liberals, and Labour Party. They'll have to apply themselves to a broad gamut of legal and political issues. Much of that conversation will focus, inevitably, on the distribution of competencies between Westminster and Holyrood around taxation and social security. 

Much of the debate hitherto has focussed on current UK taxation and welfare schemes. We've not been talking about new, potential approaches to tax and welfare very much, but who controls the schemes we already have. Who has the final say over housing benefit levels and entitlements? Who sets attendance allowance? Bartering over the specifics is important - but I wanted to flag up one key concession which (a) ought to be uncontroversial and (b) which, to my mind, the SNP team should treat as a red line in this negotiation: building more flexibility into the Scotland Act in the field of social security. The position as it stands is a wee bit tricky: brace yourself for the Law Bit.

The Scotland Act 1998: Holyrood's (very) limited say over social security

Head F of Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act makes a very broad reservation of powers to Westminster in the field of social security, with certain exceptions. Remember, the Scottish Parliament cannot legally pass legislation which "relates to a reserved matter". If Holyrood produced an Act of Parliament, purporting to abolish the Westminster legislation which consolidated social security entitlements into a universal credit, or to vary the rate of incapacity benefit paid in Scotland, it'd be no law at all, beyond Holyrood's "legislative competence," and struck down by the courts. And fair enough, to some extent, so long as core UK benefits remain centralised. 

But the social security restrictions written into the Scotland Act go much further than only preventing Holyrood meddling in Westminster's powers: it blocks the Scottish Parliament from introducing its own, distinct, social security schemes. Winning that flexibility is critical in the Smith process. 

Say the Scottish Government wanted to invest public money into a new welfare scheme to provide financial assistance to some sub-set of the public which they felt have fallen through the cracks of the UK system, or who they believe are getting an raw deal from the UK social security system. Say, for example, Scottish Ministers felt that disabled people should be entitled to an extra £2 a week - a supplementary Scottish disability rate - above and beyond the penurious incapacity benefit shelled out by the central government. Could it be done? As things stand, the answer is a resounding No.

Under the current devolution legislation, any such scheme, however desirable, would be illegal. We'd be toddling up the road to the Court of Session, only to be told that ye cannae do that, quick as you like. The Scottish Parliament can run its own prescriptions charging policy, and abolish university fees, but it isn't allowed either (1) to supplement centrally-devised levels of UK social security, or (2) to authorise new schemes of public spending for targeted welfare purposes, according to political priorities and perceptions of need. Why not? If the Scottish Parliament wants to use its limited budget in this way, what argument of principle if there to prevent them?

Why not give Holyrood greater flexibility in welfare?

In contrast with, for example, devolving incapacity benefit wholesale, introducing additional flexibility to add to but not to subtract from welfare spending in Scotland sits entirely comfortably alongside the Labour party's "pooling and sharing" conception of what the Union is for. You'd be entitled to the same UK minimum levels of social security in Carlisle and Carluke, but the Scottish Parliament would be able to identify and enact different spending priorities insofar as their budget allowed and their priorities dictated.

Such a scheme wouldn't undermine the social contract between workers north and south of the border, it wouldn't powderkeg the "sharing union" which so animates Labour's Devolution Commission report. It wouldn't represent a race to the bottom in welfare, but potentially, a mechanism to encourage fairer settlements in social security spending across the UK. What's not to like? If the Scottish Parliament wants to supplement levels of UK benefits, that could be disbursed using existing systems. If MSPs want to create a new scheme, they'd have to soak up the cost of its administration. Those are challenges, practical challenges, but hardly insuperable.

The only route I can see for Labour to object to this additional flexibility would be the jealous and thoroughly pointless insistence that such questions are for Westminster alone. But as Labour's own limited plans to devolve housing benefit and attendance allowance concede, social security schemes are not and should not only fall within the UK parliament's purview. The screws have already fallen out of that ramshackle argument. 

Critically, there are also some signs that this reform could carry the balance of opinion in the Smith process. The Conservative Strathclyde Commission half-recognised that the status quo of the Scotland Act was unnecessarily prescriptive in the welfare field, noting that the current:

"... strict reservation of social security schemes to Westminster is rather rigid. It may be that a better approach would be for the Scottish Parliament to have the power to supplement existing welfare benefits legislated for at the UK level. Everyone in the UK – wherever they live – should be entitled to at least the social security provided for in UK legislation at Westminster. But, if the Scottish Parliament were to take the view that, from its own resources, the UK entitlement should be supplemented in Scotland, it may be that Holyrood ought to be able to legislate accordingly." (pp. 16 - 17)

It's important to be vigilant about the gap separating (a) the Strathclyde Commission's limited endorsement of the idea of Holyrood  supplementing benefits and (b) giving Holyrood the more general green light to work up its own Scottish social security schemes, distinct from central UK welfare measures. Swinney and Fabiani should be agitating for both in the course of the debates presided over by Lord Smith of Kelvin.  

In practice, public spending restraint will clearly put a cap on how much good Holyrood would realistically be able to do with this new flexibility in the short to medium term - but that's a debate for the future. It is a question of governance, not policy. In principle, the case for greater Scottish welfare flexibility is unanswerable. As the SNP pulls together its constructive response to the post-referendum future, building on the lukewarm Strathclyde Commission recommendations, loosening the ties that bind here must be a major priority.

The party of Scottish self-government

"Absolutely no one will run the affairs of this country better than the people who live and work in Scotland." 

The words are Alex Salmond's, but the sentiment resonated throughout the Yes campaign. We lost on the 18th of September. Scotland will not be an independent country any time soon. But as we take stock, and the SNP doubles in size with inflocking new members, reassembling its leadership around Nicola Sturgeon, it seems to me that we should pin this statement to the wall in bold, bright letters. In black and gold, if you like.

"Absolutely no one will run the affairs of this country better than the people who live and work in Scotland." 

That cause endures. It is not a statement of principle for an independent state alone: it is the red blood of the argument for Scottish devolution within the United Kingdom. During the referendum, in proprietorial mode, the Labour Party would occasionally trot out the line that the SNP don't believe in devolution, keen to erect a wall of fire between aspirations for a separate Scottish sovereignty and the demand for greater autonomy within the United Kingdom. In one, very limited sense, they were right. Independence is, in some important respects, categorically different to devolution of power within a larger state. In international law, states are a distinct sort of entity. They do things which a region within a greater polity - forgive the term - cannot do. States sit at tables which Scotland will not now be invited to. That's beyond dispute.

But this pettifogger's distinction obscures more than it illuminates. The broader claim that seeking greater Scottish self-government has no connection to ideas of independence -- that's poppycock. Anybody who has been paying attention during the last two years cannot but have detected the overlapping logics of devolution and independence. The connecting tissue of the two arguments is a belief in greater self-determination. The difference, really, is one of degree. Certainly, full-fat home rule is different from the semi-skimmed version now available to us, but the idea that the pro-indy bod has nothing in common with the devo-thusiastic has the distinct ring of pish to it.

It is now up to the SNP to be the party of Scottish self-government, making the case for the greatest level of Scottish autonomy within the United Kingdom. Marco is absolutely right. Put all talk of future referendums from your mind. Give it a rest. That battle is over for the foreseeable future. We must win the peace declared by the two million people who voted to remain in Britain last Thursday.

We must be constructive but critical, ambitious but realistic, holding the covenanted people of the No campaign to their undertakings with ferocious tenacity. After the sapping ennui, the activity. We don't have the time to mope or to stand still. And we must take heart. In many respects, we remain in a remarkably strong position for a defeated campaign. And for this, we have the fretful temporising of our opponents to thank.

There are some times in negotiations when it pays to hold back and allow your opponents to show their hands. This isn't one of those times. The territory of aspiration for greater Scottish self-government, the gap between the promises of the Better Together parties and the impression they allowed to be cultivated, is up for the claiming -- but only if we're speedy. The initiative is there to be seized -- if we're quick. Will we get everything we want? Not a snowball's chance in hell. But better for the Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats to dance to our tune, than to wait for them to fluff the melody.

This commitment is not at odds with the logic of the Yes campaign, but simply its application to our new circumstances. The case for Scottish independence was not rooted in national identity, but in the virtues of national self-government. It was not a case from romantic feeling, but of practical concerns of democratic control of our affairs. It was an argument not for separateness, but for finding new, more satisfactory ways to work together in these islands to realise the political aspirations of the Scottish people. The people have chosen to continue that work within the United Kingdom, and they are never wrong.

That work may initially be contemplated by Nationalists with little enthusiasm, and with a good deal of pessimism about Westminster's willingness and capacity to transform itself. But this founding axiom - maximising Scottish self-government - can carry us through and structure our engagements with this process. It is even a moderately exciting thought. As Nicola recognised in her statement launching her leadership bid yesterday, we can be disappointed, but we must not be discouraged. There's no good in us hanging back, waiting to be foiled, bathing passively in the embalming fluid of low expectations, met.

Smooth equivocations to the contrary, in the dying days of the No campaign, its movers and shakers gave out the distinct impression that Scotland could expect significantly enhanced autonomy if independence was rejected. Devo-max. Devo-super-max. Real home rule. Almost federalism. Everything short of the key functions which the UK needs to exist. Much greater autonomy or an end to the Union, went up the cry.

On any register, this patter was calculated to leave the impression that there would be a significant advance on the proposals set out by the Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour devolution commissions. Now that independence is safely defeated, the sleekit are attempting to reverse ferret, and to insist that these modest proposals were always the be all and the end all of their devo-something offers. 

That won't do. They know it won't do. Britannia, once again, finds herself between Scylla and Charybdis. Remarkably, the No parties have worked themselves into a position where they may well deliver on their plans for enhancing Holyrood's powers, but where they are more or less predestined to disappoint not just the Yes voting 45%, but the wider community who believe in "significantly enhanced" Scottish autonomy within the Union. As political achievements go, it is a beezer.  Mugged by the sea monster and kicked in the teeth by the scowling beast of the rocks. That's our opportunity. 

So, in these negotiations, let's use Gordon Brown's criterion. He told us that we could expect the maximum devolution compatible with continuing Union. Cameron and Miliband gave him the nod.  Let's take them at their word. In discussing the new settlement, the critical question cannot be "why should that power be devolved?" but "why should this power be reserved to Westminster?" Let's go through schedule 5 of the Scotland Act. Foreign affairs, currency, defence, imports and exports, immigration and extradition - sure, they must remain at the Westminster level. But misuse of drugs? Control of the Crown estate? Firearms? Elections? Equal opportunities? Elections? Insolvency? Energy? Embryology and the cutting edge of medical research? Are they the glue holding the state together? I struggle to see it.

Applying Brown's test, where no reasoned or compelling case can be made for a power's retention, going to the heart of the Union, the power should be devolved. That's our opening gambit. In some areas, the SNP has a snowball's chance in hell of achieving consensus. This, it should frankly be admitted, is the key limitation of the all-together-now structure set up under Robert Smith by the Prime Minister.

And to be franker, our key problems is the stubborn dunce in the room, wearing the big red jacket. What if the best consensus capable of being formed excludes the Labour Party? Which value do you privilege? Are we to proceed at the pace of the slowest student in the class? Must we dawdle as we wait for the Labour Party to recover any kind of ambition for Scotland or coherent idea of why it supports devolution? Will the parties formerly known as Better Together privilege their own coherence, and a united front, or aspire to the greatest level of self-government possible?

In the current atmosphere, it is difficult to say for sure. Smarter sorts in the Labour Party might regard it as a kind of relief: a rare opportunity to pry themselves from off the wretched hook they spiked themselves on with their pitiful and incoherent devolution plans. Nobody will even gloat about it.  But we owe it to ourselves, and all those across this country who voted for greater autonomy, to bash on, undiscouraged. 

Any process which involves the Labour Party will almost certainly not achieve anything like "extensive" new autonomy for Scotland in welfare and social security. Their instrumental case for the Union, and (largely unconvincing) disavowal of British nationalism sets Labour precisely at odds with any such devolution of power. That before we've factored in the universalising ambition behind Iain Duncan Smith's consolidated UK universal credit, which makes hiving off particular strands of social security particularly challenging. To my mind, the Strathclyde Commission proposals represents the minimum floor beneath which the Better Together parties cannot fall without ratting on their vows. But they must be encouraged to go further. 

The challenge for the Westminster parties is to explain to the Scottish people why, in the fields of tax, welfare and social matters, they're better placed to take these choices, to explain why the Union's life depends on excluding them from the Scottish Parliament's sway. But Scotland expects, vows have been uttered, and the SNP has a good answer: "Absolutely no one will run the affairs of this country better than the people who live and work in Scotland." 

Prove us wrong.

Gramsci's dictum

This morning, the Herald come out against independence, arguing that a federated Britain, with greater Scottish autonomy, is the precondition for its endorsement of continuing Union. They conclude:

"Substantive autonomy for Scotland's parliament and government could unify Scotland. Such autonomy is not merely an aspiration: it is a demand."

In its critique of the Yes campaign, the paper notes that:

"Antonio Gramsci, the Italian philosopher and politician, famously advocated pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. The Yes campaign, understandably, has emphasised the latter but effectively ignored the former."

The newspaper's case is characteristically lucid, reflecting some of the ambivalences I was blogging about yesterday. But given the state of the Westminster debate on "more powers", and the precariousness of the editorial's own reasoning on this question, you've got to wonder whose intellect is insufficiently pessimistic. Cutting to the heart of it all, the paper today endorses a No vote on the basis that Scotland must secure a form of devolution which nobody is offering, and which nobody in UK politics has ever shown any willingness to part with. Now that's what I call optimism of the will.

Let's survey the evidence. Nobody, not a single political party in this country, is offering, has offered, or shows any coherent willingness to embrace the kind of reform the Herald say is the precondition of their backing for the Union. Labour, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats - every one has been given umpteen opportunities to realise a more extensive devolution. Between 2009 and 2012, the great grey federalist hope, Gordon Brown, and his Downing Street successor, knocked back almost every Scottish Government proposal to elaborate Holyrood's economic powers and authority over social security and welfare.

No crown estate revenues, no allocation of oil revenues, no corporation tax, limited income tax powers, no pensions, no minimum wage, no housing benefit, no jobseekers allowance, no disability benefits. Some borrowing powers and the ability to ban airguns is all very well, but it was hardly a radical endorsement of Scottish autonomy. These gentlemen were in high office. They had the parliamentary draftsmen at their beck and call, to deliver a bolder autonomy to Scotland. They were invited to do so. They declined. So what's changed in a couple of years? All three Westminster parties had their chance, had multiple chances, and at every turn, all three have chosen to cut minimalist deals, preserving Westminster's prerogatives, leaving the centre of British politics unreformed.  

Perhaps they've had a change of heart? If so, they've kept the news gey quiet. In the course of this campaign, all three parties scurried off to their libraries and redoubts and came back with platforms for greater devolution. But all produced platforms which are still more readily described by what they refuse to devolve to Holyrood than the powers Westminster is willing to part with.

Still bugger all in the way of welfare autonomy, and a still undisclosed, unagreed degree of flexibility in the collection of income tax. And that's more or less your lot. The Institute for Government produced this vividly illustrative chart, comparing the balance between devolved spending and devolved revenue control in all of the scenarios currently under discussion. The discrepancy between the parties' offers and maximalist devolution should be particularly noted.

And then there are the practical considerations. Even the family magazine of the Conservative establishment report that Cameron's unruly band of backbenchers aren't happy with the idea that their status quo has been "swept away" without so much as a by your leave, and can be expected to cut up rough.

The Labour Party's case for the union has, if anything, amplified their "one nation"  rhetoric, placing critical emphasis on the idea of British uniformity in social provision. Their instrumental case for a No vote is, in essence, having the same benefit entitlements in Carlisle as you do in Cumnock. Against that background, without junking a half decade of rhetoric and thinking, it is difficult to see how Labour could ever coherently endorse the "much greater fiscal devolution and powers of decision-making in areas such as welfare" which, in the Herald view, is the precondition for folk considering a No vote. 

Without a radical transformation of attitude for which there is no evidence, and with no detailed or categorical commitment in these panicked last weeks of the campaign, all the evidence suggests that both key parties in Westminster remain inveterately opposed to shelling out anything approaching the kind of autonomy the Herald demands. Minimum bribe level: one turnip. Vote No.

And it is apparently the Yes campaign which has failed to observe Gramsci's dictum? Fetch Sancho Panza and a mule: the naive federalists of the Herald, Guardian and the Scotsman have a few remaining windmills to tilt at. I can understand the frustration, the sense that a better Britain ought to be possible, capable of accommodating Scottish aspirations for greater autonomy.

But but for the nervous gestures, the manipulative and hollow trick of rechristening bloodless Calman-plus plans "devo-max", and hastily drawing up a timetable to realise these very, very limited new autonomies, none of this has any credibility. A federated United Kingdom is a plan without a constituency, without a committed political proponent, without any depth of support across much of Britain, running contrary to the declared instincts of politicians from both big London parties, faced with a dizzying array of rhubarbing and powerful dissenters on both the Labour and the Tory benches.

 Whur's yer pessimism of the intellect noo? 

Devo-Max? Devo-Won't..

As a lawyer, you get used to the plasticity of language and anxiety about definitions. What do we mean by that precisely? How are you using that term? They're always important questions, as there's always somebody trying to make the slipperiness of language work to their advantage. 

Yesterday, I argued that the tin-ear of the new wave of advocates for continuing union represents a potential problem for the No campaign. These nervous blow-ins don't know their audience, don't understand and haven't been following the referendum debate, and are likely to mis-pitch their arguments. Enter Boris Johnson, stage right, with a bizarre cri de coeur in the Telegraph yesterday, replete with disturbing "English rose complexion" digressions, to prove the point.  The Mayor of London's article isn't seriously pitched to persuade anyone of anything: it is just an anguished shriek.

But this morning, we see the other, rosier side of the complacent neglect of the referendum campaign for Better Together: the belated reappearance of the language of "devo max". Columnists and commentators across the UK airwaves and papers are tossing around the claim that if we vote against separation, "devo max" is to be our concession prize. Characteristically, few of the folk using this term hazard to define it, and most seem unaware of much of the detail of the diffuse Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat proposals for further devolution which has been percolating quietly for months through the debate north of the border.  Too quietly, perhaps, for Better Together to get much good out of them, but percolating none the less.

If they had attended to this detail, however, they'd soon recognise that Scotland is being offered nothing like the accepted definitions of "devo max". Professor Paul Cairney of the University of Stirling blew this conflation to bits months ago. Whether or not you think independence or further devolution is desirable, this is simply a statement of fact. It is time the UK media, trying to get their bearings, caught up and mastered the language. Take this definition, used by the What Scotland Thinks glossary, as being uncontroversial:

"This term has become short hand for the idea that the Scottish Parliament should become responsible for nearly all of Scotland’s domestic affairs, including taxation and welfare benefits, while foreign affairs and defence would remain the responsibility of the UK government."

Over-spun as a radical federalist break on Sunday, in fact, what seems to be on the table is simple a rushed, implausible timetable to realise the lowest common denominator consensus between the three Westminster parties for more powers. Short version: what we're being offered is the expedited chance to realise Labour's crap devolution proposals, and no real opportunity to improve them. Be still my throbbing pancreas. I'm yet to meet a Labour member willing seriously to defend the proposals of their party's botched, incoherent, nakedly partisan devolution commission. 

An up-not-down income tax policy which even its party leader cannot explain, unassailable resistance to any devolution of corporation tax, and no allocated share of oil revenues. Don't get me wrong: there are reasoned, reasonable arguments against devolving some of these issues, from a Labour standpoint, but the report, in its totality, was an unmitigated disaster precipitated by complacency, a lack of ambition, and tawdry internal compromise. Whatever this is, "devo max" it ain't.

But a critical thread running through the document, not always consistently, is the idea that shared social security systems, shared social and economic entitlements, is the glue holding the Union together. The unemployed or disabled person in Tayvallich and Tyneside can expect the same level of support from the state, whichever part of the UK they call home. Unless it upends its thinking entirely, and rats on a key pillar of its referendum rhetoric, Labour cannot support welfare devolution in any serious way. 

In his senior statesman bit yesterday, Gordon Brown put welfare first in his list of new powers which Holyrood might gain. But what precisely are Labour and the Tories proposing? How is the universal credit to be untangled? Start with an easy one. Unemployment benefit? Nope. Disability entitlements? No, not those either. Pensions? Don't be daft. Minimum wage? You must be kidding. Pool and share. Pool and share.

The greater welfare powers we're promised are ... well, is ... housing benefit. And inconveniently, that too has been folded into the universal credit project. We're assured that it can be pried out of Iain Duncan Smith's universal credit system, but nobody seems quite clear how. Oh, and attendance allowance. And that's it. Important decisions which touch many people's lives, without question, but if you think controlling housing benefit even begins to approach "devo max" as it has conventionally been understood, you've come up the Clyde in a banana boat.

Tackety boot Unionism

“What Scots have got to realise is this isn’t a general election.” “This is one poll, but people in Scotland have to recognise that this is forever, the break up of Britain.” “I wonder if that’s really sunk in.” “I don’t think they’ve fully understood the implications of this.” Etcetera, etcetera. Over the last couple of days, the UK media has crackled with sentences of this kind as, as the Daily Mash put it, the UK media rouse themselves to the fact that “Scotland having some sort of referendum, apparently.” What a difference a poll makes. 

Cue a jungle column of political explorers, wending their way north from London, to prognosticate on the future of the Union and the chances of victory. In their train, we can also apparently expect a band of UK “heavyweights”, in the political patois, to press home the case against independence. Both enterprises, the commentary and the campaigning, are fraught with a kind of peril. On the media side, some pieces of writing have been much better than others. Folk like Paul Mason have shown a real interest and sensitivity to their subject. Others rather less so, like the pith-helmeted imperial anthropologists, who gain a superficial knowledge of their subjects, and trump off to pen the authoritative tome, shot through with their own problematic assumptions and cultural blind spots. 

The strange inarticulacy of the rash of tin-eared UK paper reviews and columns on Scotland tells its own story. Do you think, after three years, anybody with half a brain in this country is in danger of conflating the referendum with a general election? Do you think anybody earnestly considering putting their cross in the Yes box can’t countenance the idea that independence means independence? Why assume, on the basis of no real information on the poll, that for the Yes campaign to have run Better Together close means that the punters are nitwits who haven’t been applying themselves in a serious-minded, considered way to the range of alternatives, facts, arguments and uncertainties which have been presented to them? “I know nothing much about the referendum, but if you are inclined to vote Yes, you must have neglected the homework that I’ve… um… never done on the subject.” 

This is a reheated version of an auld sang we’ve heard many times before. Independence is bonkers and unthinkable, and if close to a majority of folk living in Scotland are willing to countenance it, they must either be in the grip of a childish and petulant “anti-politics sentiment”, have been beguiled by that mischievous peddler of villainy, Alex Salmond, or have failed really to understand what they’ve been asked. All of which might be more impressive, had the incredulous scribbler composing it shown any interest or sensitivity to the Scottish question these last many years, or a decent level of respect for the intelligence and responsibility of the public. 

Casting the Scottish electorate as ignorant saps is just another way of avoiding the interesting and significant implications of the referendum for the whole of the UK, whether Yes or No carry the day. It is an expression of a serious lack of self-reflection and self-analysis which has characterised the astonishing complacency and indifference with which the referendum has elicited in the circles of convention British power. In more prosaic terms, it also presents significant potential hazards for Better Together, in making their case in the final ten days of the campaign. I wrote this during the first big Union wobble of the campaign. If anything, it is truer this morning than it was back in May. 

Crumbling certainties confuse and they upset. And the No campaign across the UK doesn't have the luxury of much time to recalibrate its emotional and intellectual resources. The imaginative gap, alluded to by both Massie and Rifkind, separating the Westminster-dominated politics and the debate in Scotland, remains one of the Yes campaign's most significant structural advantages. 

The best advocates always understand their audience, its quirks and assumptions and reactions. They know which levers to pull, which switches to turn and which to leave well alone. Now and then, the talented amateur may get lucky, but it is a risky business. For the increasingly-anxious political actor, steeped in London-centric politics and hoping to have an impact on how Scots vote in September, the prevailing disunities within the UK make the job that much harder. For Better Together's supporters, they can but hope that none of their fretful, tinkering amateurs presses any big red buttons before September. 

The good news for the No campaign is that the United Kingdom has finally woken up to the Scottish problem: that’s also the bad news. In the wake of yesterday’s panic, many, many more people will be hovering around the big red buttons of the campaign, wanting "to do their bit," but deaf to the years and months of conversations and arguments which have gone before. 

If you can’t begin understand your opponent, can’t empathise with where they’re coming from, you are hobbled from the get-go. Tackety boot unionism is the last thing Better Together need at this stage of the campaign, but if the last few days are anything to go by, our late constitutional visitors and observers have few resources of experience to make an informed, sensitive case to an informed, sensitive public. Like yesterday's collapsing federalism shtick, the late renewed interest in Scotland is at best a mixed blessing for the No campaign, and potentially a whole new petard to be hoist by.

A bout of the Ol' Gils

"Please, have the new powers we explicitly ruled out extending to you just a few months back, and wouldn't give you as recently as 2012." According to the Observer this morning, that, in a nutshell, is the wizard scheme which has been concocted to make safe the Union. George Osborne was on the telly this morning, making the same case. "You will see," he said, "in the next few days a plan of action to give more powers to Scotland. More tax powers, more spending powers, more plans for powers over the welfare state." So much, so vague.

Better Together's misuse of its potentially powerful devosomething arguments has been amongst the most curious, and perhaps ill-judged, phenomena of this lengthy campaign.  Months ago, all the talk was of the swithering middle, whose strong first preference was for greater powers for the Scottish Parliament. 

These people, begging for a excuse to vote No, have heard next to nothing from the No campaign on these issues for months. Darling came to that critical debating platform with ammunition to wound Salmond on currency, but his magazine was bare on more devolution. Not only couldn't Darling explain anything about any of the Better Together party's devo-plans with any coherence, ("... um ... road tax..."), the opportunity to exercise greater autonomy within the Union formed a peripheral part of his rhetoric, rather than being front and centre throughout. He gave the distinct impression that he'd rather be talking about other things.

Better Together need no advice from me, bur this was madness. Labour and the Tories didn't repair to their devo yurts to think about addition powers for the craic of it, and they certainly didn't do so out of systematic and coherent ideological commitment to a stronger Holyrood. Their object was nakedly strategic from the get-go: how do we pitch a devo offer which could transform a No vote into a positive opportunity for additional powers? How do we reshape the negative into a positive case for the Union, which will meet most voters where they are: keen on greater autonomy, not convinced by independence? This shouldn't have been a high bar to leap over.  But they've only now just started their run up.

Many folk are, understandably, unclear about the boundaries between devolved and reserved powers. That lack of clarity could be readily exploited, to suggest that greater autonomy was being offered than was actually the case. And when people want to believe something is true, want to believe that more autonomy is a real possibility, that desire easily fudges the detail. The No campaign was pushing on an open door. Or, could have been pushing on it, but has unaccountably failed to do so with any energy or conviction -- till now. 

From a Yes perspective, there are key limitations of the Conservative and Labour devolution proposals which we haven't yet nailed. In part, this reflects the No campaign's voiceless devo-agenda. If they aren't talking about it, choosing to fight their battles on the territory of change vs the status quo, that suits us fine. But now the pips squeak, the issues come back into focus. Careless claims continue to slosh around that some sort of "devo max" forms the Westminster consensus. This simply isn't true. Neither of the new schemes promoted by the two big parties comes close to the generally accepted definitions of devo-max. 

It remains unclear from the Chancellor's Shelley Levine impression this morning to what extent Osborne's fretful last minute flurry of promises represents any meaningful advance on the Tory and Labour proposals floated earlier this year. But the methodology is crackers. This has been a long campaign. The parties took their time, took evidence, deliberated -- and came up with nothing approaching the panicked wheeze which they seem to hope to roll out in the next week. Now, if the Observer is to be believed, all of that work is to be upended in the referendum's febrile final days.

Their purposeful and reflective consideration ruled out the devolution of most taxation, almost all welfare decision-making - and all of that is, apparently, to alter. This despite the fact that the Labour Party has made the shared provision of (some) social security a key plank of its case for the Union, and has firmly rejected any proposals for Scotland's welfare system to enjoy any autonomy from the Westminster agenda again and again. Darling underscored the theme again in the last debate. Is he to be gazumped? Can Labour really have any credibility, or will, to endorse substantial welfare devolution which it has set its face against consistently for the duration of the campaign? Good luck with that one. They're only hints, but if, as Osborne says, his colleagues want to extend Holyrood's "power over the welfare state," I can't see how Labour could coherently support it. This is meant to be a united platform to save the Union. It also has a great deal of potential to blow new rifts in Better Together's façade of uniformity.

The No campaign's real credibility gap on more powers doesn't derive from 1979, but from the behaviour and choices of its composite parts in 2012, 2013 and 2014. When they were putting together the Scotland Act 2012, rounding off the Calman Commission process, the UK government tinkered with the groups proposals, enacting some ideas, rejecting others, and going further in the devolution of some areas.  The Scottish Government pitched for a range of additional powers to be included, and were mostly knocked back by this UK Government. So what's changed since 2012, to convince you that actually, the SNP had a point all along? Answer came there none.

 

Any gap between the last-ditch temptations of next week and the devo-offers of the Tories and Labour pose the obvious, even more uncomfortable question for Johann Lamont and her colleagues: what has changed between March and September of this year, to convince you that your lukewarm prospectus for more devolution was wrong? The arguments haven't changed. The practical and political challenges are largely unaltered. Squirm out of that one, if you can. It is an impossible, embarrassing bind, and a measure of the anxiety gripping some quarters this morning, as misplaced complacency finally dissolves into blind panic. In life, it's important not just to get things right, to get them right at the right time.

You had your chance. You blew it.