Canny Scots to say NO

Last night’s televised debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling, was very illuminating, despite the big questions remaining unanswered.

After the previous debate, where Salmond’s tactic was to appear statesmanlike, this one revealed the true Salmond, the man of anger who doesn’t respect the right to reply.

While the bullish performance may have saved his position as First Minister and leader of the SNP, and surprised Alastair Darling, his comments will be scrutinised and analysed in the cold light of day, and cause him more damage.

Answering questions with questions, lying, shouting over Darling, and interrupting were just few of the tactics used last night.

After a fairly predictable debate two weeks ago on STV, where the big hitter topic of currency left him flummoxed, Salmond attacked the man rather than the ball on several occasions, rebuking Darling’s personal record while in office.

You’d be forgiven for actually forgetting the purpose of these debates was to inform voters of their options in the referendum; what a Yes vote will do, and what a No vote will do, as Salmond attacked Labour, and the coalition government about poverty, in a clear attempt to appeal to the left, and to tug at the heartstrings, despite him offering no tangible and costed way to address the issue.

While we’ve come to expect less than courteous dialogue in this debate, Salmond’s approach to threaten the rUK to default on our share of the country’s debt unless we get a currency union will not have endeared him to those he would expect to engage with, should he succeed in getting a Yes vote.

Essentially he has threatened to hold the rUK government to ransom over debt to maintain a formal currency union with the UK. It is clear he is confident that the rUK would come to that table, in order that an iScotland pays it’s share.

Despite Darling asking what the other options were, and Ed Balls stating last night that there would be no currency union, Salmond continued to steamroller the question, with emphasis on forcing a currency union, and trying to bully rUK with a Yes vote being seen as a mandate of the Scottish people that should not be ignored.

Despite their being 57.8M people in the rest of the UK, to 5.3M in Scotland, he failed to recognise that the needs and desires of that 57.8M cannot be ignored by the Westminster government because that’s the way Salmond wants it.

When Darling pressed him on his Plan B if no currency union was agreed Salmond wittered about the “mandate” again, and brazenly stated that he was getting 3 plan Bs for the price of one, despite his options actually being 2 variations of one plan (currency union and sterlingisation), and a plan B that he didn’t want to call a Plan B, which is using sterling until either creating a new currency or joining the Euro. The long term Plan B in the event of there being no currency union was still never answered.

With one day before postal ballots get delivered, there is still no clear Plan B for the very foundation of everything we would do in an iScotland.

With Nationalist assertions also that rUK will order warships from Scotland, one can only deduce that Salmond also thinks Westminster will fold on this also.

It’s clear that he just wishes to steamroller all in Westminster to roll over and accept his demands, and then stir up resentment and anger when it doesn’t happen. It’s a dangerous game, to stir up tensions and engineer division, but that would only be an escalation of what is already happening in Scotland.

Any mandate that Salmond is seeking is built on false promises that have no substance, and a steadfast belief that the rUK government will ignore the wishes of 90% of its population, in the event of a Yes vote.

The NHS lies got an airing again last night, and Darling quite rightly pointed out that this political opportunism, preying on the fears of voters was not a priority of the SNP until last week, when they believed it would shift hearts and minds towards them.

Salmond also failed to clarify the position clearly on pensions (and how they could be funded long term), the set up costs of an iScotland, how much it would affect Scotland leaving the EU, or the public funding gap, not to mention how the country would deal with a refusal to be accepted to the EU, or NATO.

Salmond was on comfortable ground with strong soundbytes in areas of interest but very light on detail, and while Darling failed to capitalise on this, Salmond also failed to make a positive compelling case for Independence, nor tackling Salmond on the Better Together’s promises for further devolution.

All in all, it appeared that Salmond’s strength of personality, and his decision to shake off previous attempts to appear statesmanlike have deflected from the areas of concern, and I doubt if any undecideds will have now chosen Yes, on the basis of an aggressive performance that told us nothing.

My belief is that canny Scots will see past the superficiality of the TV debate, and deduce that they have not been given enough confidence that Independence will make any of us better off in any sense, in the short, medium or long term.


Bill