Sorry to be so repetitive..

...but if the No campaign and their friends in the media can't help themselves, why should I? From the Guardian -

"Darling, chairman of the pro-UK campaign Better Together, told the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland (Icas) that the Scottish government was moving into 'very dangerous waters' if it set out to instruct the rest of the UK on the terms of future independence talks."

So let me get this straight. The Scottish Government do not have the right to "instruct" London...but the Welsh Government do? Those are the rules now?

This whole brazen exercise in hypocrisy is starting to remind me of Tony Blair's concepts of "reasonable" and "unreasonable" vetoes at the UN - a "reasonable" veto being one used by the US or UK, and an "unreasonable" veto being one that is used against a resolution supported by the US and UK.

* * *

In the light of the special day tomorrow, I wonder if Ruth Davidson can "guarantee" (to coin a term) that Scotland will continue to receive Doctor Who if we DON'T become independent? I mean, what if the BBC cancel the show again, like they did in 1989? I take it from the way Ms Davidson is talking that the Scottish Tories and Better Together have some sort of control over the decision-making process?

Compare and contrast

Scenario A - The SNP First Minister of devolved Scotland expresses a mere opinion on the likelihood that the London government would agree to sharing a common currency with an independent Scotland.

Reaction of the anti-independence campaign : "Jumped up parish councillor! Embarrassing his country by getting ideas above his station! It would almost be funny if it wasn't so tragic..."

* * *

Scenario B - The Labour First Minister of devolved Wales makes the patently ludicrous suggestion that he would somehow "veto" the sharing of a common currency between the UK and an independent Scotland - a power that he simply does not possess.

Reaction of the anti-independence campaign : "THE LORD HAS SPOKEN."

A few more constructive things you can do with your time and money

These Indiegogo fundraising campaigns for pro-independence causes seem to be sprouting up all over the place now - which is perhaps hardly surprising, given the astonishing success of all the previous ones!

Newsnet Scotland are seeking £40,000 to expand their operations. I know some of us are a touch ambivalent about the site - it could do with having a slightly less blatant 'propaganda' feel (although to be fair so could most of the mainstream media at the moment!), and by all accounts it has a ludicrous moderation policy that almost makes James Mackenzie look tolerant and reasonable. But we mustn't lose sight of the bigger picture here. Newsnet fulfils an almost unique role in the pro-independence online world because it's not a blog, or a site restricted to comment and analysis - it's a fully-fledged news website that can (and already does) directly rival the websites of leading newspapers and broadcasters. And let's not forget that this fundraiser will also help pay for more outings for the intrepid Duggy Dug, as voiced by Brian Cox (the Hollywood actor I mean, not the TV physicist). To donate, or to read more about the aims of the campaign, click HERE.

Bella Caledonia are also seeking £40,000. I'm sure this one will be a very easy sell for most readers of this blog - Bella is quite simply an unalloyed Good Thing, and if it didn't exist someone would have to invent it as a matter of some urgency. Donate or read more about the campaign by clicking HERE.

As ever, it's worth bearing in mind that these campaigns are only beneficial if they supplement rather than detract (or distract) from the Yes campaign's own fundraising efforts, so for the sake of completeness HERE is where you can go to donate to Yes Scotland!

Now for something that won't cost you any money, but is arguably even more important. The BBC Trust are seeking responses to a public consultation on the draft guidelines that are intended to ensure impartial coverage during the referendum campaign. This falls very much into the "speak now or forever hold your peace" category, so to read the guidelines and to submit your suggestions as to how they can be improved, click HERE.

Last thought - isn't it encouraging to hear about all these university debates that are resulting in huge numbers of converts to the Yes campaign? It's a pity we can't squeeze the entire population of Scotland into a lecture theatre, because at this rate we'd have the whole thing sewn up in an hour. Alas, that isn't possible, but at least we're getting further strong indications of just how soft the No vote is, particularly among young people.

Wisdom on Wednesday : I suppose we all thought that, one way or another...

"I seem to remember that OGH's last lauding of a Scottish Lib Dem was to say that Willie Rennie was the man the SNP fear. Have we any polling to indicate how far down in their trenches the SNP should be cowering from 'Death, the destroyer of Worlds' Rennie?"

PB poster TheUnionDivvie, raising an eyebrow or two at Mike "can't be arsed" Smithson's seemingly genuine belief that Alistair Carmichael will be the hero of the referendum campaign, wipe the floor with Alex Salmond in a series of TV debates, and triumphantly emerge as the next leader of the UK Liberal Democrats.

Why do some sections of the media seem unable to take 'Don't Know' for an answer?

We all know that the London media love to count Don't Knows in independence referendum polls as firm Nos, but the website Tennis Earth seems, for reasons best known to itself, to be taking the practice into a whole new dimension.  In a short piece on Andy Murray's recent political comments, they accurately quote him as saying that he has yet to make up his mind whether to support independence or not -

"As it gets a bit closer to the time, I think we need to do what’s best for the country – what’s best for Scotland. Nearer the time we will start to see in more detail what is the best decision, and I’ll make my decision based on that."

So how on Earth do they reconcile that with the headline "Andy Murray against Scottish independence", and the introductory comment : "Without hurting the sentiments of his fellow Scots, former World No.2 Andy Murray has put his weight behind a unified Great Britain with Scotland being an integral part of the Union and not as an independent nation."

What? Where? When? If you have the exclusive quote, guys, don't be bashful about it - there's not much point in getting the scoop of the year and then using a quote of him saying the complete opposite, is there?

I tried to leave a comment to set the record straight (although to be fair Murray had already done it for me in the article itself!), but the website demanded a ridiculous level of access to my Twitter account - the right to follow new people on my behalf, no less. I wonder if one of them would have been Blair McDougall...

Advantage Independence

One piece of advice you sometimes hear tennis commentators giving is that if you get your opponent break point down, the first thing you should do is go for a little walk.  Let the reality of his predicament sink in for a while.  What he wants to do is very, very quickly get a big serve in, and forget the crisis ever happened.  If you don't need to even rely on your racquet skills to prevent him from doing that, what is there to lose?

It seems to me that Alex Salmond and the Scottish Government borrowed from the same book of tactics when deciding on a long timescale for the independence referendum.  You could tell from the word go that anti-independence activists sensed the danger, even as they failed to come up with a convincing explanation for why the tactic was supposedly illegitimate.  (The faintly pathetic whine of "does Mr Salmond really have to BORE us for the next three years?" was the best they could do.)  We're beginning to see clear evidence that their fears were well-founded.  Alex Mosson's decision to become the latest Labour heavyweight from west-central Scotland to come out in favour of independence might well not have happened if Salmond had opted for a snap referendum during the honeymoon period after the 2011 election win.  In that scenario, instinctive tribalism could easily have set in across the parties, and the vote would have been over before a great many people had even thought the issues through properly.  As it is, everyone has had - and will continue to have - ample opportunity to take in the reality of the choice that lies before Scotland, and some interesting and unexpected things are happening as a result.  Below the surface of the headline opinion poll numbers (which, as we've discussed many times before, are nowhere near as favourable for the No side as the anti-independence media have convinced themselves), there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that any gradual movement going on is from No to undecided to Yes, rather than in the opposite direction.  The ever-fickle Alex Massie (I mean fickle in terms of his assessment of the state of play, rather than his politics) makes precisely that point in his Spectator blog post of a couple of days ago.

Massie also highlights the other advantage of a long campaign for the Yes side, which is that their opponents have a much more limited repertoire than they do.  Project Fear have shot the bolt too early - the public have been exposed to so many scare stories now that they're beginning to respond with a disbelieving laugh when they hear the latest claim that the Black Death would return to Scotland after independence, or whatever.  That wouldn't have been the case in a quick campaign - witness the outrageously daft scare stories that voters fell for hook, line and sinker during the AV referendum (and that, I'm sorry to say, includes members of my own family).

To return to Alex Mosson, although there are no downsides to his decision, I can't help wondering if it would have been even better if he'd stayed within the Labour Party while campaigning for Yes, as I gather Sir Charles Gray plans to do.  It's ironic, isn't it?  In normal circumstances, we as SNP supporters would be delighted if anyone 'saw the light' and departed from Labour.  But in this campaign, what will be even more valuable is the normalisation of the sight of current, card-carrying Labour members campaigning for independence.  We're getting there.

What to look out for in the independence referendum polls

Because there has only been one poll so far this year showing an outright lead for the pro-independence campaign, it's been easier for the overwhelmingly anti-independence media to gloss over the huge differences in the results produced by different pollsters.  Panelbase's most recent poll wasn't all that far away from 'statistical tie' territory, while on the other extreme the last two polls from Ipsos-Mori have shown very substantial leads for No.  The four other major pollsters have come up with various shades of grey in between those two extremes.  To put it in a nutshell, the polls are all over the place, and we simply don't have a clue what the true state of play is.  However, one thing that has remained fairly constant is the extent of difference between each pollster.  There's the odd exception to that rule (for example TNS-BMRB reported a dramatic change in public opinion last year that no other pollster detected), but in general we all know that an Angus Reid poll will tend to be more favourable for the Yes side than a YouGov poll, but less favourable for Yes than a Panelbase poll.

The point being that it's very important not to look at any given Ipsos-Mori or YouGov poll, and think "oh, this means Yes needs to gain another X amount of support".  It might mean that, but there are very strong reasons for doubt.  What would probably be more useful is to use the poll for an extrapolation of what we'd expect other pollsters to show, based on the assumption that the now-familiar differentials will remain stable.  Here, for example, are various benchmarks for interpreting Ipsos-Mori polls -

If Ipsos-Mori show a 20 point lead for No, then Panelbase would probably be showing a very small Yes lead.  Angus Reid would be showing a small No lead, and the other three pollsters would be showing No leads of between about 8% and 11%.

If Ipsos-Mori show a 15 point lead for No, then both Panelbase and Angus Reid would be showing leads for Yes (albeit in Angus Reid's case only just).  ICM, TNS-BMRB and YouGov would all be showing very modest leads for No, of between 3% and 6%.

If Ipsos-Mori show a 10 point lead for No, then Panelbase, Angus Reid, ICM and TNS-BMRB would all be showing leads of various sizes for Yes.  YouGov would be showing a tiny No lead.

So although it would be wonderful to go into polling day with a lead for Yes across all pollsters, it isn't essential.  In Ipsos-Mori's case, we just have to get the No lead down a bit - the company could still be showing a double-digit lead for No, while four of their five competitors show leads for Yes.  Without a crystal ball handy to tell us which pollster is going to be proved right, that would be more than enough for us to reasonably conclude that we have at least a very good chance of prevailing.

Practically identical, yet again

Those among the anti-independence commentariat who like to peddle the idea that there's nothing much to choose between public opinion in Scotland and public opinion in the rest of the UK have been dealt a blow by the results of yet another poll.  YouGov asked respondents whether they supported or opposed the Bedroom Tax, and these were the results -

GREAT BRITAIN :

Support 42%
Oppose 45%

SCOTLAND :

Support 26%
Oppose 63%

Of course Scotland is part of Great Britain, so what we really need for purposes of comparison are the figures for England and Wales, and unfortunately they aren't provided.  However, I did a very rough extrapolation based on the breakdowns we do have, and it looks like England and Wales come out as either 43% support and 44% oppose, or 43% support and 43% oppose (it depends on the rounding).  Still, a 37-point lead for opponents of the Bedroom Tax in Scotland, a dead heat south of the border....these are fairly similar numbers, right?

*  *  *

On a not totally unrelated theme, I have a new article up at the International Business Times.  I wrote it a couple of weeks ago, and it was inspired by a brief Twitter exchange I'd just had with David Aaronovitch.  You can read it HERE.

Questions to which the answer is 'do you know what, I would LOVE to answer your question, but I've just remembered I've got to read Anna Karenina, and there isn't a second to lose'

As has been pointed out by several people already, Labour's excuse for dozens of their MPs (including their deputy Scottish leader) failing to show up in the Commons to vote against the Bedroom Tax doesn't actually make sense. The rules stipulate that the pairing arrangement with the Tories cannot be used on votes of great importance. So that leaves only two possibilities - either Labour are saying that the Bedroom Tax is not a matter of importance (which would utterly destroy their credibility in the eyes of many Scots), or those MPs should have turned up to vote.

But it's always a huge mistake at a time like this to underestimate the inventiveness of Scottish Labour's one-man online presence Duncan Hothersall. When all the plausible excuses have run out, have no fear, Dunc will still find an implausible one to cling to with all his strength. Here's what he dreamt up for the occasion this time -

Duncan Hothersall : No surprise; when the Tories and the Lib Dems vote in favour of the #bedroomtax, in Scotland it's Labour who get the blame. #brokenpolitics

Natalie McGarry : There is no other commitment an MP has at the moment more important than voting against #bedroomtax - even if Unwinnable.

Duncan Hothersall : How much public money are you prepared to spend on transit for an unwinnable vote? Money that could pay for public services.

Now let's try and suppress our guffaws for a moment (I must admit it was the '#brokenpolitics' hashtag that really cracked me up), and do Duncan the courtesy of working his point through to its logical conclusion. The thing is, of course, that the vast majority of votes at Westminster on contentious government policies are 'unwinnable' for Labour. (The reason they're unwinnable, let's not forget, is the Neanderthal tribalism displayed by the likes of Duncan's hero Tom Harris, who helped to sabotage any possibility of cooperation between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the days after the 2010 general election, thus ushering into office a majority Tory-led coalition.) So, according to the Dunc Dinktum, all Labour members outwith the immediate vicinity of London should be saving valuable funds for public services by not attending any of those votes.

Simple question, Duncan - why don't they do that? And if you actually believe what you say, why aren't you angry that they don't do that?

Simple answer - because you don't believe what you say. Not one word.

The Donaldson files

Back in the halcyon days when, by sheer luck, I hadn't yet been banned by the delightful Stormfront-lite website Political Betting for the heinous crime of being both left-wing and Scottish (I'm merely one of the many offenders who were eventually weeded out), I used to be repeatedly taken to task by the rather more upstanding contributors, who to this day continue to prove their indispensable value to the site by displaying the wholesome PB virtues of abusiveness and casual racism. One point they often used to make was that I am, let's face it, a bit of a Nazi - because I'm both a "nationalist" and a "socialist". (Yes, their jibes were that original.) It's a fair cop, guv - so that'll be me, Clement Attlee and Mahatma Gandhi, all happily goose-stepping together in the Nazi gang.

Their favourite piece of supporting "evidence" for this 2 + 2 = 22 theory about the nature of Scottish nationalism was the extremely brief internment without trial in 1941 of future SNP leader Arthur Donaldson. A few militant anti-independence publications have also occasionally experienced flurries of excitement about this obscure historical episode, but it's never really gone anywhere, because the inconvenient fact they can't shake off is that Donaldson was released after just six weeks on the order of Scottish Secretary Tom Johnston, who seems to have been distinctly unimpressed by an internment that was provisionally authorised without a shred of credible evidence. But Donaldson was, of course, the easiest of targets for an authoritarian London government that had suspended habeas corpus - he opposed conscription, supported neutrality, and wanted to see the democratic dissolution of the British state. That hardly made him a Nazi, but it did offer a flimsy pretext for the detention of someone who the establishment had every interest in putting out of the way.

By contrast, it was psychologically very hard for the establishment to send any of their own to jail - and yet they did so, and for much, much longer periods than Donaldson's six weeks, because they really had no choice. If you want to know which high-profile British politicians were authentic 'National Socialists', you won't find them in any SNP membership lists. You will, of course, find them in both the Tory and Labour ranks -

Archibald Ramsay was Conservative (or technically Scottish Unionist) MP for Peebles and Southern Midlothian. He was the founder of the antisemitic and explicitly pro-Nazi 'Right Club'. He came within a whisker of costing Britain the war through his association with Right Club member Tyler Kent, who stole documents from the US Embassy which, if publicised, would have destroyed the credibility of Roosevelt and made limited American support for the war effort impossible. Ramsay was arrested in the nick of time, and interned for over four years - but throughout that time remained an MP.

Sir Oswald Mosley was a Conservative MP between 1918 and 1922, and a Labour MP between 1924 and 1931. As Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he was arguably the most senior non-Cabinet minister in Ramsay MacDonald's second Labour government. Just one year after leaving Labour, he was leading an openly fascist movement that went on to call for Britain to become an ally of Nazi Germany. He was interned without trial for three-and-a-half years during the war (and subsequently placed under house arrest), because his parliamentary experience with both of the major London parties made him the obvious candidate to lead a puppet government after any successful German invasion.

In complete contrast to Arthur Donaldson, both men listed above could perfectly reasonably be described as 'National Socialists', because, quite simply, they were fascists. Both Labour and Tory parties seemed to be breeding grounds for such beliefs in the 1920s and 30s.

* * *

As regular readers will know, Marcia and her friend Tom helped me a few weeks ago to look through the files relating to Arthur Donaldson's internment that are held at the National Archives in Kew, and also some other historical documents relating to farcical government snooping on the SNP and the wider national movement. My original plan was simply to transcribe the highlights, but then I got cold feet because I wasn't 100% sure about the copyright rules. My next plan was to write a post summarising the story that the files tell, but that would be an enormous undertaking, and I've been putting it off for so long now that I'm beginning to think I might never get round to it. So I'm going to go back to Plan A. I've read up on the copyright rules as best I can - as far as I can see, the files are covered by crown copyright, and it's allowable to reproduce crown copyright material without seeking specific permission, as long as the National Archives are listed as the source and the document reference given. However, if anyone reading this has good reason to think I'm wrong about that, I beseech you to let me know as soon as possible. I'm thinking about prescheduling a whole batch of these (I might even space them out between now and the referendum date), and the last thing I need is to get myself into an unnecessary pickle!

Letter from Tom Johnston to Arthur Donaldson's wife (11/6/41) -

My Secretary wrote to you on the 2nd June, promising that I would let you have a reply in a few days to your letter of the 10th May about your husband's detention under Defence Regulation 18B.

I have gone very fully into all the circumstances of the case, and after careful consideration I have, as you will know by the time you receive this letter, come to the conclusion that I would not be justified in ordering your husband's continued detention under Regulation 18B. I am proposing to make a statement, of which I enclose a copy, to this effect in the House of Commons tomorrow.

Yours faithfully,

T.J.

Letter from Tom Johnston to the Earl of Rosebery (11/6/41) -

I am writing in confirmation of our telephone conversation to let you know that, after the most careful consideration and examination of all the available material, I came to the conclusion that I would not be justified in ordering the continued detention of Arthur Donaldson under Regulation 18B. For the reasons with which you are familiar, the decision in this case was a particularly difficult one to come to, and, in the end, I had to choose between compromising a police informer on the one hand, with a fair presumption that by so doing the Advisory Committee would still not recommend Donaldson's continued detention, and on the other hand releasing him from prison. I hope you will agree, that in the difficult choice, I reached the right conclusion.

Undated document -

Sir David Petrie.

Case of Arthur Donaldson.

You are familiar with the history of the recent case of Arthur Donaldson, against whom the Scottish Regional Commissioner made an Order of Detention under Regulation 18B which, on consideration of the case in consultation with the Home Secretary the Secretary of State for Scotland did not feel able to confirm. The case raised a number of points of unusual difficulty and, as I think you know, caused, and may still cause, a certain amount of Parliamentary trouble in addition to a good deal of protest on the part of people in Scotland with Nationalist sympathies.

The Secretary of State for Scotland has been in communication with the Home Secretary about the position; and with the concurrence of the Home Office I am writing about two special aspects of the case, which we feel ought to be followed up with a view to preventing a recurrence of the same kind of difficulty.

In the first place, trouble in connection with the case arose from the publication in the Press of reports of the simultaneous searches, carried out in a number of police areas in Scotland, of the houses or premises of 17 members of the Scottish Nationalist (sic) Party. These searches were, I understand, initiated and concerted by MI5 and while the Scottish Law Officers were aware that a number of them were in contemplation, they were not aware of their full extent. The result of the searches was, I understand, to reveal comparatively little evidence of real value from the security point of view.

We fully appreciate, of course, that in arranging for the searches, MI5 were not directly concerned with the Scottish Nationalist sympathies of the persons involved. It seems clear, however, that police searches on the scale in question against people of known Nationalist sympathies could not have failed to produce a good deal of political trouble for which the Secretary of State, as the Minister responsible for the Police in Scotland, would have to answer in Parliament. In these circumstances it would, we feel, have made the subsequent difficulties very much less for all concerned if the Secretary of State had been informed beforehand of the action proposed and had had an opportunity of making suggestions as to the most circumspect way of handling a situation of some difficulty.

Might I suggest, therefore, that in any comparable circumstances in the future the Scottish Home Department in Edinburgh, through which the Secretary of State's functions in relation to the Police are discharged, should be confidentially consulted in advance before MI5 initiate police action.

The Donaldson case also raised in an acute form the question of giving away the identity of a police agent, and Brooman-White was good enough to send us a copy of the letter you addressed to Newsam of the Home Office on 10th June about this question. We understand it is the view of MI5 that, except in the most special circumstances, the identity of their agent should not be given away to a suspected person as a result of the particulars with which the Chairman of the Advisory Committee under Regulation 18B is required to furnish him. In the case of Arthur Donaldson, it would not have been possible to state these particulars without compromising the police agent, as he and another witness, who was regarded as quite unreliable, were the only two people in a position to testify to one of the main allegations against Donaldson. This was the consideration that caused us the greatest difficulty in dealing with the Donaldson case. Lord Rosebery has asked the Lord Advocate, who advises him in these matters in Scotland, to let him have his views on the lessons of the case, and, after discussion with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Home Secretary the Lord Advocate has written to Lord Rosebery in the terms enclosed.

Source : The National Archives.  Document reference : HO 45/23801