... the numbers in the present blindfolded sleep walk towards the pro-independence "Yes" vote precipice continue to grow.
It's all very well many Scottish residents feeling good about the country after not too bad a summer(anything less than dire is quite good), a successful and good humoured Commonwealth Games, the stimulating and entertaining Edinburgh Festival and Fringe and countless heartwarming and stirring ceilidh's with singing and plentiful refreshment far into hazy late light evenings. From that happy state of mind a heady "Why not give it a go" feeling can gently wash over the smiling voter who then sets foot for the polls full of national enthusiasm and optimism. The X goes on the paper and they stride out, maybe back to the pub for the hair of the dog.
The next morning on waking to initial results indicating it's a "Yes" for independence it all might suddenly feel terribly different. A mistake maybe. What then? Can we predict something like the morning after any very cheery and well fuelled party. "Oh my God. We're on our own. Did my vote make the difference?Was it me?"
The second TV debate went badly for the Darling the"No" man who did much better in the first. The "Yes" leaning BBC Scotland's studio audience had helped give the shouty SNP leader the impression of having "won". That though is just one debate and should be meaningless in the context of the real big issue.
The big issue. There's the rub. There's little sign of it. Anywhere. Not just in this debate. There's little about what what the UK really is how and why it punches above its weight internationally, the advantages to Scots ( and everyone else) of being an integral part of a bigger entity in which the country and its people have played a prominent part for several centuries. There has been nothing about the scope the UK gives for wider and better employment and powerful roles. This absence of well drawn pictures of the real big issues has allowed the debate to descend into the narrow cul de sacs of health ("our" NHS) and to a lesser extent education, benefits, free this and that and whether Scots are a few hundred quid a year better off one way or the other. Then there is also the "Let's make the country Tory proof" which appeals across both the "Yes" and "No" camps and pushes some of the latter into the former. Forget that. Scotland is Tory- proof anyway. It's a state of mind thing and includes things like a paranoia about privatisation and countless things that could deliver modernisation. Like many of the country's perceived ills these things are wrapped up in a bundle and dropped at Margaret Thatcher's feet.
Objectively the the current greater UK normally works pretty well for all its constituent parts. It's not perfect or going to satisfy everyone and the north v the south and London arguments are just as valid points for debate as the ones about Scottish independence. In reality the Scots, with their own parliament, have a large amount of freedom already without the downsides of being on their own .They will certainly get more after the Referendum whatever the outcome.
Even now it looks as if "NO" should come in with a majority ,even if a slim one. If it doesn't it's going to take a very brave heart to genuinely say through that morning after hangover "That's wonderful". The even worse news is that five or ten years down the line the sufferer is likely to be saying "Why on earth did we do that?" Then that awful rebuff: "Too late".
Meanwhile down south, with Ed Miliband in his bid to woo the Scottish left promising us all a high tax socialist nightmare, the English may well be shouting "Vote Yes" but that's another story. We will come back to it.
It's all very well many Scottish residents feeling good about the country after not too bad a summer(anything less than dire is quite good), a successful and good humoured Commonwealth Games, the stimulating and entertaining Edinburgh Festival and Fringe and countless heartwarming and stirring ceilidh's with singing and plentiful refreshment far into hazy late light evenings. From that happy state of mind a heady "Why not give it a go" feeling can gently wash over the smiling voter who then sets foot for the polls full of national enthusiasm and optimism. The X goes on the paper and they stride out, maybe back to the pub for the hair of the dog.
The next morning on waking to initial results indicating it's a "Yes" for independence it all might suddenly feel terribly different. A mistake maybe. What then? Can we predict something like the morning after any very cheery and well fuelled party. "Oh my God. We're on our own. Did my vote make the difference?Was it me?"
The second TV debate went badly for the Darling the"No" man who did much better in the first. The "Yes" leaning BBC Scotland's studio audience had helped give the shouty SNP leader the impression of having "won". That though is just one debate and should be meaningless in the context of the real big issue.
The big issue. There's the rub. There's little sign of it. Anywhere. Not just in this debate. There's little about what what the UK really is how and why it punches above its weight internationally, the advantages to Scots ( and everyone else) of being an integral part of a bigger entity in which the country and its people have played a prominent part for several centuries. There has been nothing about the scope the UK gives for wider and better employment and powerful roles. This absence of well drawn pictures of the real big issues has allowed the debate to descend into the narrow cul de sacs of health ("our" NHS) and to a lesser extent education, benefits, free this and that and whether Scots are a few hundred quid a year better off one way or the other. Then there is also the "Let's make the country Tory proof" which appeals across both the "Yes" and "No" camps and pushes some of the latter into the former. Forget that. Scotland is Tory- proof anyway. It's a state of mind thing and includes things like a paranoia about privatisation and countless things that could deliver modernisation. Like many of the country's perceived ills these things are wrapped up in a bundle and dropped at Margaret Thatcher's feet.
Objectively the the current greater UK normally works pretty well for all its constituent parts. It's not perfect or going to satisfy everyone and the north v the south and London arguments are just as valid points for debate as the ones about Scottish independence. In reality the Scots, with their own parliament, have a large amount of freedom already without the downsides of being on their own .They will certainly get more after the Referendum whatever the outcome.
Even now it looks as if "NO" should come in with a majority ,even if a slim one. If it doesn't it's going to take a very brave heart to genuinely say through that morning after hangover "That's wonderful". The even worse news is that five or ten years down the line the sufferer is likely to be saying "Why on earth did we do that?" Then that awful rebuff: "Too late".
Meanwhile down south, with Ed Miliband in his bid to woo the Scottish left promising us all a high tax socialist nightmare, the English may well be shouting "Vote Yes" but that's another story. We will come back to it.
