PMQs: Independence, referendums and the fastest milkman in the West
David Cameron in the Commons just referred to a Labour MP living in “fairy dairy land” and I saw a few blank faces around the House.
For the uninitiated I should point out that this literary allusion comes from Benny Hill’s No. 1 hit, “Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in the West.” I think it was one of the PM’s discs in his Desert Island Discs appearance.
The session started with a Labour MP trying to take a pop at the SNP. It looks right now as though the SNP could well win in Edinburgh, though maybe more narrowly than some predict.
One question on Friday would then be: has the SNP got enough MSPs to pass the Bill it promises on a referendum on independence? The Greens support it, as does the Independent Margo MacDonald.
And if it has the majority, does the SNP really want one? It would force them to wear colours they tend to keep relatively hidden of late. And, of course, the polls still suggest they wouldn’t win it.
They would probably be tempted to go for it as late as possible in what will be a five-year term (rather than the normal four years), hoping that feelings against London might have heightened over time.
But lose a referendum and you must wait – as Nick Clegg acknowledged yesterday in a different context – a long time for another. A flame is, if not extinguished, then much dimmed for a party’s activists.
The SNP think they have a cunning plan to get round all that: a multi-option referendum that offers “devo-plus” (something short of independence but with massive new tax-raising powers for Scotland), as well as full independence.
The idea would be that you could vote for more than one option. SNP supporters could honour the independence cause but also back an option that might stand a better chance of success.
Whether this all happens could hinge on a much reduced and tremulous Lib Dem presence in Holyrood. Scottish Lib Dems have moved their position from opposing a referendum to not ruling one out.
Scotland could be the most interesting story of the results and not quiet in the years ahead.