Cabinet tag
Where are we after a day of cabinet tag up the north-east coast of Scotland? David Cameron has risked reminding people how much oil is within the grasp of an independent Scotland in order to suggest Scotland couldn’t cope with the magnitude of risks and costs involved in a declining but still formidable oil sector. The image of a snake that’s just eaten a chicken keeps coming to mind, its sides distended with a bulging shape.
Alex Salmond insists Scotland has the enzymes to digest the chicken. I think I’ll stop the metaphor there. But Alex Salmond’s boast rests on being able to ride the wild fluctuations of the oil market with stored up funds. When I put it to him he wouldn’t have any stored up funds if there was (as there was only last year) a 40 per cent drop in tax receipts he insisted that wouldn’t require giant cuts and tax rises because he would base his tax receipt predictions on cautious oil price estimates.
Where are we in polling after a series of attempted strikes at the yes camp? There was a school of thought in the Better Together camp that wanted to mount the “no you can’t have a currency union” line ahead of the “white paper” produced by the SNP government last year. Those enthusiasts had to wait.
What many in the no camp expected was that there would be an initial “hurt feelings” impact amongst Scots offended at London telling them they wouldn’t be welcome, sounding hostile or patronising. The expectation amongst some strategists was that that initial pain for the no campaign would then subside as, in the words of one of the senior campaigners, the “harsh realities” sank in. Some think that is what they are seeing.
The yes camp feels it’s still seeing a long term closing of the gap between the two sides. In truth, it’s too early to know if the tide has stopped or turned.
A referendum result in the zone of 57 no to 43 yes is now very plausible. But the no camp set out to vanquish independence, not just to beat it. They talked of keeping yes support in the low 30s.
“Anything above 40 per cent would be an effective victory for Salmond,” the no top table used to say. They’d talk of how it would keep the SNP perky and united, ramp up the pressure for something like devo max and usher in a second referendum in no time at all. I haven’t heard many no campaigners predict the “low 30s” for the yes campaign in some time.
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