All Fired Up
The opinion polls all say that it's too close to call and that the referendum on Scottish independence will go right down to the wire, but there's no mistaking the fact that the Yes campaign has real fire in its belly and a spring in its step.
The best that the No campaign can do is to wheel out its 'heavy hitters' who include Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander - yet these politicians are all past their best in one way or another and they have all opted for the cosy life at Westminster instead of doing battle in the Scottish Parliament where the battle for hearts and minds was first engaged.
Labour's two most senior women politicians (Johann Lamont and Margaret Curran) have both been relegated to the sidelines which says a lot about them as well as in-fighting that seems to be breaking out on the Better Together side.
Now nothing's certain as yet, but the Yes campaign definitely has its tail up and how pleasing is it to see the ugly 'bayonet the wounded' comment from Ian Davidson coming back to haunt a third rate Westminster MP.
Scottish independence: 5 reasons yes is winning
There's been an eight-point shift in the polls: how can it have happened, when the odds seemed so stacked against yes?
By Mike Small - The Guardian
‘Aye' cakes at Browning Bakers in Kilmarnock. ‘Famously the no campaign has to pay volunteers' expenses. No such problem affects yes.' Photograph: Robert Perry/EPA
None of this is supposed to be happening at all. Better Together is supported by every major media outlet in Scotland as well as in London. It has the full research resources of the British government and the backing of big business. Yet there now seems to be an irresistible momentum towards yes.
This week saw polls showing a massive eight-point swing to yes in the last month alone, with women and Labour voters leading the way. Photos of people queueing up to register to vote in Glasgow have been circulating. Maybe they were people queueing up to defend the union? Aye, right.
Here are five reasons why yes is winning.
1. It is a movement, not a campaign
This has several consequences. It is broad and deep and richly textured. It is motivated by core principles. In contrast, the no campaign doesn't seem to know what it's about. This week Conservative MSP Ruth Davidson defended the need for a British nuclear deterrent using an analogy of Russia invading Ukraine. It was an idea so laughable that someone tweeted: "Help the Ruskies are coming to steal our Tunnocks Tea Cakes".
Famously the no campaign has to pay volunteers' expenses. No such problem affects yes. Yet grassroots movements are more agile, it seems. When Better Together unveiled dreadfully crude posters declaring that if you loved your children you'd vote no, yes, which owns social media, was able to destroy the opposition's ad aimed at women with a hashtag.
On a purely practical level yes is just better organised. As the New Statesman points out: "The yes campaign is winning on almost every front. It has delivered more leaflets, put up more posters, set up more stalls and knocked on more doors."
This has several consequences. It is broad and deep and richly textured. It is motivated by core principles. In contrast, the no campaign doesn't seem to know what it's about. This week Conservative MSP Ruth Davidson defended the need for a British nuclear deterrent using an analogy of Russia invading Ukraine. It was an idea so laughable that someone tweeted: "Help the Ruskies are coming to steal our Tunnocks Tea Cakes".
Famously the no campaign has to pay volunteers' expenses. No such problem affects yes. Yet grassroots movements are more agile, it seems. When Better Together unveiled dreadfully crude posters declaring that if you loved your children you'd vote no, yes, which owns social media, was able to destroy the opposition's ad aimed at women with a hashtag.
On a purely practical level yes is just better organised. As the New Statesman points out: "The yes campaign is winning on almost every front. It has delivered more leaflets, put up more posters, set up more stalls and knocked on more doors."
2. It reaches disaffected voters
Yes knows that it has to reach beyond traditional engaged voters to win. This isn't a campaign strategy though, it's a political aspiration. This work has been going on for months.
Jonathon Shafi, co-founder of the Radical Independence Campaign, which has focused its activities over the past week on registering unemployed people to vote in the referendum at jobcentres, has said: "We think across Scotland at jobcentres over the past week we've registered at least 1,500 people. In three hours on Saturday at our Glasgow Takeover in the city centre, we had 300 people register to vote. That's people giving their full details to someone who they have most likely never met before, because they want to make sure they can vote yes on 18 September. And that's just a snapshot of what's going on across the country – we believe there's a political earthquake happening."
Yes knows that it has to reach beyond traditional engaged voters to win. This isn't a campaign strategy though, it's a political aspiration. This work has been going on for months.
Jonathon Shafi, co-founder of the Radical Independence Campaign, which has focused its activities over the past week on registering unemployed people to vote in the referendum at jobcentres, has said: "We think across Scotland at jobcentres over the past week we've registered at least 1,500 people. In three hours on Saturday at our Glasgow Takeover in the city centre, we had 300 people register to vote. That's people giving their full details to someone who they have most likely never met before, because they want to make sure they can vote yes on 18 September. And that's just a snapshot of what's going on across the country – we believe there's a political earthquake happening."
3. The no campaign presumes victory
We were told it was all a write-off. Charmingly, Labour MP Ian Davidson argued months ago that all that was required was to "bayonet the wounded". But the ingrained sense of entitlement that the no campaign's key staff and supporters exhibit is a crucial weakness. For some in the media elite, and for many of the political classes, this is just so absurd as to be given any real consideration at all. Tories in Dumfries were exposed as having organised a champagne celebration party for 19 September. As someone said, they were "counting their pheasants before they hatched".
They live in such well-established network of self-reinforcing mythology that the idea of independence hadn't quite struck them as being feasible until a few days ago. Befuddled by anger, they want to believe its all an SNP plot. If your prejudices make you think that Alex Salmond is Mugabe, you are so detached from reality you can't possibly create a winning campaign strategy.
We were told it was all a write-off. Charmingly, Labour MP Ian Davidson argued months ago that all that was required was to "bayonet the wounded". But the ingrained sense of entitlement that the no campaign's key staff and supporters exhibit is a crucial weakness. For some in the media elite, and for many of the political classes, this is just so absurd as to be given any real consideration at all. Tories in Dumfries were exposed as having organised a champagne celebration party for 19 September. As someone said, they were "counting their pheasants before they hatched".
They live in such well-established network of self-reinforcing mythology that the idea of independence hadn't quite struck them as being feasible until a few days ago. Befuddled by anger, they want to believe its all an SNP plot. If your prejudices make you think that Alex Salmond is Mugabe, you are so detached from reality you can't possibly create a winning campaign strategy.
4. It has passion
There's a feeling that the yes movement is defending the fabric of society against the austerity union, while the no campaign is defending a right to live in the 1950s. It makes a difference.
There's a feeling that the yes movement is defending the fabric of society against the austerity union, while the no campaign is defending a right to live in the 1950s. It makes a difference.
5. It has multiple points of leadership
The yes movement has hubs which in turn have their own network. This breeds trust and unity but also allows spontaneity and diversity. While the no campaign has a few outliers it would prefer not to mention, yes has outliers that bring strength and fresh clout, not a sense of shame.
While David Cameron lurks about in the background of the no campaign, and Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling nurture a historic visceral hatred, yes is filled with unlikely new voices, many of them young, bright and articulate. No doesn't know who its leader is and it craves leadership. Yes doesn't know who its leader is and it loves it.
But beyond all of this there is the now clear realisation that the no campaign represents entrenched interests and values. Every ruddy-faced landowner that puts up a no sign in their field tells you this. Every blustering lord that preaches about democracy reinforces it.
As the slogan goes: "Britain is for the rich. Scotland can be ours." It almost is.
The yes movement has hubs which in turn have their own network. This breeds trust and unity but also allows spontaneity and diversity. While the no campaign has a few outliers it would prefer not to mention, yes has outliers that bring strength and fresh clout, not a sense of shame.
While David Cameron lurks about in the background of the no campaign, and Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling nurture a historic visceral hatred, yes is filled with unlikely new voices, many of them young, bright and articulate. No doesn't know who its leader is and it craves leadership. Yes doesn't know who its leader is and it loves it.
But beyond all of this there is the now clear realisation that the no campaign represents entrenched interests and values. Every ruddy-faced landowner that puts up a no sign in their field tells you this. Every blustering lord that preaches about democracy reinforces it.
As the slogan goes: "Britain is for the rich. Scotland can be ours." It almost is.
Bayonet the Wounded (3 March 2014)
"In September, at a conference in Orkney, Better Together's Ian Davidson MP declared that the No campaign had already won and all that was left was "to bayonet the wounded".
Imagine if Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon had said that? It would have dominated the headlines for weeks. David Dimbleby would not have been amused. But even though I was present at the time, I refused to take offence at Davidson's remark, which was obviously not serious."
Now I'm quite prepared to accept that Ian Davidson's words were meant in jest, but I can't help feeling that only a very strange mind is capable of conjuring up such ugly humour and while I don't take any great offence I think it would be much better if our politicians made a point of choosing their words more carefully.
