Thrills and spills on the Glasgow subway

It may be Super Tuesday over in my 'other' country, but I haven't got the energy for anything other than a very short post tonight. A few hours ago I took one step onto the moving walkway at Buchanan Street subway station, went flying and fell flat on my back. I then got up, took one more step, went flying and fell flat on my back. I think the girl behind me thought I was drunk, but in fact it was my hopeless trainers that were to blame. Not exactly being an avid rugby player or boxer, I'm not used to those kind of tumbles, and hitting a hard metallic surface twice in the space of twenty seconds was a bit much.

Bizarrely, two minutes later I found myself sitting directly opposite Wendy Alexander on the train. I'd never want to offend anyone, so if by any chance she heard me groaning, I do hope she realised it was because I was in excruciating physical pain, and not because I'd just remembered the Hungry Caterpillar speech.

When will Gray be forced to simply admit : "I disagree with Wendy"?

I don't have a huge amount to say about tonight's BBC leaders' debate, which unfolded pretty much as anticipated. Gray didn't quite live down to his snarling, finger-jabbing worst, but if anything Salmond was also better than before, so the gap between the two remained intact. I can give Tavish Scott some credit this time for finally dispensing with his 'have his cake and eat it' approach to whether or not he wants to be associated with Clegg and the London government, although I have a feeling he might still have lapsed back into it if he'd been pressed. There was, however, an unfortunate repeat of his indignant "this is so unfair" moment from a previous debate when Salmond suggested that the unionist parties talk Scotland down. I'd have thought that charge was fairly unanswerable - after all, we've heard within the last week from Ed Balls that an independent Scotland is a "crackers" idea that would lead to "catastrophe". No-one can pretend that's an insult to the SNP as a party - it's a straightforward denial of this country's capacity to govern itself competently under any leadership.

Although I was glad that Glenn Campbell prodded Gray on Labour's recent inconsistency on an independence referendum, I still long for the day that an interviewer properly nails the Labour leader on his absurd insistence that his current stance on the issue is in some way perfectly reconcilable with Wendy Alexander's. Yes, Wendy said she wasn't signing a blank cheque on the wording of the question, and yes, she said she preferred an early referendum to a later one - but the bottom line is that she clearly indicated that a referendum wouldn't be blocked, even if it occurred as late as 2010. Gray straightforwardly, unambiguously reversed that policy upon becoming leader, and it's staggering that he's repeatedly been allowed to get away with the fiction that he didn't.

Here's how I rated the performances this evening -

Alex Salmond 9/10
Annabel Goldie 7/10
Iain Gray 6/10
Tavish Scott 6/10

'Independence is not everything'

A sentiment which many of the fundamentalists within his own party have of course long suspected Alex Salmond of treacherously harbouring, so it's somewhat ironic that his uttering of those words at the SNP conference heralded a reorienting of the party's strategy towards making a full-blooded case for independence. It's a paradox that in order to do that you really have to start off by declaring that independence is not the be-all-and-end-all, but as the First Minister acknowledged in his speech, it's quite possible that many people are under the false impression that nationalists do merely hanker after the sterile trappings of statehood, such as flags and anthems. In fact, I'd go further - I'd suggest that impression is so deeply entrenched for some voters that they will be extremely resistant when they hear Salmond make a passionate case for independence in economic and social justice terms. They'll instinctively suspect that this is a phoney after-the-fact rationalisation for the nationalist impulse.

So what can the party do in the face of such scepticism? The successful 2007 strategy was to essentially opt-out of the problem - using the prospect of the referendum to 'quarantine' the issue of independence, and instead making the election about what could be achieved within the devolved powers of the parliament as they stood, or possibly as they would be under 'devo plus'. Make no mistake, if today's speech was a declaration of intent, that strategy is now defunct, and the SNP's mission will in future be to tackle head-on the cynicism and apathy encountered in various segments of the electorate about the cause of independence. It's a mammoth task, and perhaps even one that is not wholly achievable in the space between now and the election - but making a start now could pay long-term dividends, regardless of who wins power in May. I'm sure the SNP leadership have been acutely aware for some time that a strategy designed to secure a referendum on independence could be spectacularly counter-productive if the groundwork to win that referendum has not been done in time.

With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps one thing we can be grateful to Labour for is that in their foolishness of replacing Wendy Alexander's (admittedly chaotic) imagination on the subject of a referendum with Iain "the Snarl" Gray's knee-jerk rejectionism, they may well have bought the SNP more time to make their case. Due to the economic climate, winning a referendum on the planned date this year would have been a long-shot - it looks like Salmond, shrewd gambler that he is, is resolved to ensure that the odds are firmly in the SNP's favour whenever the referendum does finally come.

The Labour 'we'

I've just had a look at Kezia Dugdale's take on the deferral of the local income tax legislation. My first observation is that it always makes me wince slightly to see someone like Kezia use a title such as 'how stupid do they think we are?'. The implication here being that 'they' are the establishment and 'we' are the general public. But Kezia, as I understand it, is a Labour activist. I think most of 'us' - if I can put it that way - can see there's a slight distinction between the general public on the one hand and Labour activists on the other, and indeed for all 'we' know the SNP might well regard one of these groups as being rather more stupid or intelligent than the other (in broad terms).

But as for the specifics of Kezia's complaint, she feels that the SNP's argument that there is no point in introducing legislation for which there is no 'stable majority' doesn't hold water, because they still plan to introduce the independence referendum bill, about which the same could be said. But that's not quite an accurate comparison, is it? Because in the case of the local income tax there has in fact been a stable majority against all along. Whereas in the case of the independence referendum, the state of play seems to change every five minutes - and Kezia needs look no further than the utterly chaotic internal politics of her own party to find the explanation for that. Until there's some sign of 'stability' in the opposition parties on this issue (and I mean for longer than a few months), the SNP have every reason to be optimistic that their powers of persuasion can triumph. After all, if a woman as intelligent as Wendy Alexander could suddenly and unexpectedly be persuaded of the merits of a referendum, why shouldn't we imagine such a thing could happen again?

War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Labour is United

"No-one is saying Gordon Brown takes an identical position to Wendy Alexander," says Malcolm Chisholm in the Scotsman today. "That's what devolution is all about." What are you on about, Malcolm? Everyone knows their positions are identical. Gordon Brown does not want a referendum, and Wendy Alexander completely agrees with him. On the other hand, Wendy Alexander does want a referendum, and Gordon Brown completely agrees with her too. So now they agree with each other twice over. That's why Labour have emerged from last week more united than ever.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. Labour is United.

And if you're still not convinced, David Cairns is available for further interviews.

Yet another twist...

The spin in all the Sunday papers this morning was that Gordon Brown had finally won his tug-of-war with Wendy Alexander, and forced her into a humiliating climbdown, removing an independence referendum from Labour's agenda. But then, Wendy appears on the Politics Show for the second week in a row, and basically restates her original position that she is fairly likely to allow the SNP's referendum bill to pass in 2010. You really couldn't make this up...

On the same programme, David Cairns tells us that he's not the sort of politician to pretend that everything is wonderful when it quite obviously isn't. Funny that, because he's done an astonishingly good impersonation of exactly that sort of politician up till now - not least in the run-up to last year's Holyrood election fiasco.

Wendy-don't-speak

I suppose I should write something about Labour's total meltdown over an independence referendum, but I'm almost speechless (a state of being Gordon Brown must wish Wendy Alexander would emulate for a few days). It's extraordinary how this issue has crept up on everyone - in retrospect it all started with Wendy's appearance on the Politics Show, but as you can see from my post on Sunday, what she said on the subject of a referendum didn't even leap out at me as being the most noteworthy part of the interview.

On an unrelated political matter, I was saddened to hear of the death of Ray Michie, the former Liberal Democrat MP for Argyll and Bute. She was one of the last of a dying breed of politicians who seemed almost too nice and principled to be in parliament (and I mean genuine nice, not any sort of 'Blair Babe' synthetic niceness).

Wendy-speak

In Scotland today, there are four notable languages spoken - Gaelic, Scots, English and Wendy-speak. Fortunately, the latter of these is the easiest to learn. It's almost identical to English (albeit with a strange system of tones and related facial expressions that are known to grate on non-native speakers), but with one key difference - if you want to convey that you don't have a bloody clue what the answer to a question is, you instead say "well what I'm saying to you is..." Witness the textbook examples on Newsnight Scotland tonight.

"Ms Alexander, do you want an independence referendum to be held in twelve months' time?"
"Well, what I'm saying to you is..."

"If Alex Salmond said let's compromise and have a referendum in 2010, that would be all right with you, would it?"
"Well, what I'm saying to you is..."

"So when do you want a referendum?"
"Well, what I'm saying to you is..."

Something's afoot...

Oooh, what's going on? First, Wendy Alexander says on the Politics Show that she won't "rule out" a referendum on independence, now Douglas Alexander says he is "not afraid" of one. When the Alexanders achieve something vaguely approaching inter-sibling co-ordination, you know something's afoot. Rest assured, though, by next week they'll have changed their minds again and decided that a referendum is "a distraction from the people of Scotland's priorities" after all (translation - we've had a proper think about it and we are actually quite scared).

Curiously, Wendy is continuing with her stubborn insistence that the one thing she won't countenance is Alex Salmond's suggestion of an STV-style multi-option referendum. But surely that's what would suit her best? The alternative is a straight yes/no vote, and all the polls show that format produces the most favourable outcome for independence, and sometimes a majority in favour. Is Wendy shooting herself (and the Union) in the foot here?

Just one thing, Wendy...

Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander appeared on the Politics Show on Sunday, and took the opportunity to crow about her party increasing its share of the vote by 5% in the Abbey local council by-election on Thursday. That more than makes up for total annihalation throughout England and Wales, apparently. She also claimed that the SNP's vote in the by-election had flatlined (translation - it was exactly the same as the record high last year). But strangely, she neglected to mention there were in fact two by-elections in Scotland on Thursday - and that the SNP won the other one with a whopping 15% increase in its vote share. Funny that, must have completely slipped her mind.