Michael White's Blog, page 37

Labour conference diary: no thanks for no vote, Gordon

Conspicuous absence in those whom Ed Miliband thanked for helping anti-independence vote in Scottish referendum

A militant pensioner disrupted proceedings on the burning issue of the moment: devolved powers for English regions to match those granted to the Celtic and London fringes. Many Labour types in Manchester feel guilty about their own failure to address the anomaly thrown back up the agenda by Scotlands referendum. Voters rejected elected mayors (2011), the coalition canned regional development agencies (2010). But it was Blairite sabotage that ensured the 2004 referendum defeat (by 78%) for an elected Geordie assembly in the north-east, so ITNs Chris Ship reminded party worthies on the conference fringe. Because they werent given any powers, the buggers in cabinet wouldnt give them any, roared a familiar voice from the back: John Prescott has spoken.

Dennis Skinners memoirs, Sailing Close to the Wind, are winning the battle of the conference books, 200 copies signed and sold, reports Blackwells. But Harry Leslie Smiths account of a lost Britain at 91 hes nine years older is giving the Beast of Bolsover a run for his money, well ahead of ex-mod Alan Johnsons second volume, Please, Mr Postman. Whats not selling well? Any book about Scotland.

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Alex Salmond and Jim Murphy unite in praise for teenage voter turnout

Pair also urge Westminster to extend lower voting age across UK in time for next year's general election

Within hours of the polls closing in Scotland's hard-fought referendum, both first minister Alex Salmond and a key Labour rival, Jim Murphy, expressed delight at the unprecedented involvement of 16 and 17-year-olds and called on Westminster to extend the UK-wide franchise to 1.5 million "excluded" teens before next year's general election.

It will not be easy in such a short time, not least because the annual autumn revision of the electoral roll is already under way and politicians' hands will be full dealing with the extensive promises made to devolve power. Critics protest that the move would only lower voter participation levels even further despite Thursday's uniquely high 84.6% turnout in Scotland, because younger voters tend to be much less likely to turn out in general elections than older people.

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The 'vision thing' competes with the fear factor on Scotland's big day

The yes camp's supporters seemed to be making all the noise on Thursday but the quieter no voters were no less determined

As his car swung past the bus station in Gordon Brown's home town of Kirkcaldy on Thursday a young man waved a clenched fist out of his car window and shouted "Ayeee" at no one in particular. "I think he's a yesser" explained a passerby helpfully.

With Scotland voting in record numbers on the greatest existential challenge to the British state since Spitfire dogfights in 1940, not every Scot felt quite so gleefully uninhibited. Far from it. Along Kirkcaldy's High Street, some no supporters heading to and from the Philip hall polling station were decidedly more reticent.

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Scottish referendum: will we wake to a hangover on Friday?

The genie of nationalism is out of the bottle and politicians will struggle to meet the expectations that have been stirred

Live blog: Wednesday's developments in the campaign

On Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday, Better Together's dour leader, ex-chancellor Alistair Darling said that his fellow Scots had emerged as " a more self-confident country" than it was a generation ago, partly thanks to devolution, and should nurture that confidence within the British union. Half an hour later, Yes's irrepressible chieftain, Alex Salmond, agreed, but draws the opposite conclusion.

Is it an under-remarked fact that radical change often happens when things are getting better, the "revolution of rising expectation", as I was once taught to regard events in France in the 1780s? More recently I remember John Smith, briefly a self-confident Scottish leader of the Labour party before his death in 1994, saying that he'd expected Neil Kinnock to lose the 1992 election, despite the recession, because people play safe in hard times.

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Scotland may regret ignoring foreign policy in the independence debate

Voters in the referendum would do well to remember one or two of Scotland's past disasters: foreign policy can bite

I've been waiting all summer for foreign policy to surface in Scotland's independence referendum campaign. There is excitement over Westminster's pledge. But the debate seems to have been too parochial, too self-absorbed, on both sides to have permitted more than the occasional flick, apart from yes camp admiration for its idea of the Scandinavian social democratic model.

This is odd, partly because the world is currently such a dangerous place that separatism to give it its more potent name seems an odd sort of priority in 2014. Robert Mugabe, the boy king of North Korea and "anti-imperialist" demagogues in Iran or Argentina may favour dissing the Brits, but major states are alarmed for obvious reasons. Most have their separatists.

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Devine makes rational case for Scotland but 'we're different' claim lacks facts

Historian's suggestion of diverging cultures disproved by studies showing English, Welsh and Scots think alike on most matters

Liveblog: Monday's developments on the Scottish referendum

Ever since the eminent Scottish historian Tom Devine came off the independence debate fence in the Observer in favour of a yes (the Observer remains on the fence), historians have joined politicians, economists and poets in the fray in greater numbers. In Monday's Guardian, Devine himself provides some elegant context for the disengagement from the union he now endorses.

We can't have enough information of all different kinds, especially the calm, rational kind. Devine explains how the once-solid union, built around Protestantism, defined by would-be European conquerers, cemented by trade and Anglo-Scots empire, underpinned by the Kirk, have all faded since the 1960s. So have Scotland's old heavy industries for which Margaret Thatcher is a convenient scapegoat while the welfare state is under pressure. Europe makes England less important too, he says.

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Scottish independence: yes may be the result Alex Salmond never wanted

The first minister had once set his sights on greater devolution. The referendum is a crisis he would have liked to avoid
Scottish referendum latest developments

The Unionist side in Scotland's separatist referendum is noisily bouncing back today with big banks and oil companies being pushed off the fence to warn of the pitfalls of a decision to break up the UK. It prompted me to wonder if Alex Salmond hadn't woken up in a sweat from a dream in which the yes campaign had won and begged them to save him from the consequences.

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Effing Tories give themselves a kick | Michael White

The derogatory party nickname has a long and noble history. On past form, David Camerons epithet might well stick

When David Cameron referred to those effiing Tories in his save-the-union speech in Scotland he combined Etonian faux-self-deprecation with a personal tendency to push at the boundaries of the acceptable which may be Etonian too. It is hard to imagine Harold Wilson or Ted Heath likening his postponement of a major speech on Europe to tantric sex on the grounds that having to wait will make it better. The PM also made a twits-and-twats joke, of which Mrs T would not have approved.

But colourful language, even without risque overtones, is risky as Theresa May found during her brief tenure as Tory party chair (2002-3). She bravely told her party conference activists that they must change in order to shed the taint of being the nasty party. Many activists rejected her offer and sloped off to Ukip, but her opponents pocketed the soundbite and trot it out regularly. Not helpful.

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John Major is right on independence: there's much to fear from a yes vote

Former Tory PM makes strong points albeit chippishly on the geopolitical problems Scotland would face post-independence

LIVE blog: all the latest from the yes and no campaigns

John Major is a decent man who has entered the Scottish referendum debate because he is alarmed at the prospect that the UK might break up, causing serious problems for us all not least Scots. But he is wrong to blame Labour for the looming crisis. It's not the right time for recrimination, and besides (how can we put this gently?) there have been failures of leadership and vision in all parties.

In Wednesday's Times (paywall), Sir John's main thrust is that Labour's "deadly legacy" was the one-sided 1998 Devolution Act, which did not address the governance of the rest of the UK that needed devolved powers and still do.

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If Scotland votes yes, will the Tories rule for ever?

Here are the likely consequences of Scottish independence for the rest of the UK

The prospect of Scots separatists winning next Thursdays referendum has belatedly shaken English complacency in many ways that will thrill hardcore SNP supporters. One that ought to trouble them is the fear that Labour may never win power again at Westminster without those vital Scottish votes. Permanent Tory rule in rUK, as George Galloway warns.

But is the fear justified? Not necessarily. As with much of the yes/no debate that has engrossed (some) Scots for decades, those who speak with exaggerated confidence on both sides are bluffing. All we do know is that much will change throughout Scotland and rUK and in ways few will have predicted. The Tory-Labour duopoly 97% of the votes cast in 1951, just 65.1% in 2010 has been crumbing for 30 years. The looming breakup might finally trigger radical realignment and sweeping constitutional reform.

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