Quote:

---

A YouGov poll on the weekend had the yes camp trending at 51% to the no camp’s 49%, excluding the um-don’t-knows – a finding consistent with a growing momentum towards independence in recent weeks.

Going it alone, or being afraid to, has itched at the conscience of Scots to a greater or lesser degree for at least the length of my lifetime. The devolution referendum in 1979 was won, with 51.6% support for Scottish home rule, but voter turnout fell short of the required 40%. Next week’s turnout is expected to be 80%. At the launch of the Scottish parliament in 1999 the country’s debut first minister, Donald Dewar, called devolution “a process, not an event”.

And now we’re at the next stage of that process.

When I was in Aberdeen recently, my home town and Europe’s oil capital, the referendum wasn’t the only topic of conversation. My mum (a would-be yes voter) is dying and will likely be gone by next Thursday; my dad (yes) has his own debilitating health issues; my grandfather (whose parting words to me at the airport were, “Remember your Scottish passport next time”) is juggling infirmity and impending grief. But the topic crept into every conversation, one way or another. How could it not?

There’s a mismatch between the overwhelmingly pro-union media and the swell of pro-yes sentiment on the ground, much of which shows a clear-eyed optimism and positivity befitting a word like “yes”.

I watched the first televised independence debate while over there, during which the predominant no campaign lines (your currency is uncertain, your oil might run out, you can’t survive on your own) were further honed for what has been dubbed – by its architects no less – Project Fear. The no leader Alistair Darling and the patronising Better Together lady have done a brisk trade in repeating ad nauseum how severing ties will be FOR EVER – as in Orwell’s muddy boot stamping on a human face, FOR EVER.

The soft sell has come mainly via celebrities such as David Bowie and Paul Mull-of-Kintyre McCartney, urging Scots not to “leave”, whatever that means. And then there are world leaders. Separatism is bad, says Obama and China’s Li Keqiang. And, of course, Tony Abbott, who reckons those trying to secure self-determination via democratic, non-violent means “are not the friends of justice, the friends of freedom”.

According to Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister and chief proponent of the yes campaign, Abbott “put his foot in it”. I was raised never to kick a man with a foot or any other appendage in his mouth, so I won’t. Suffice to say, many of those hedging geopolitical bets from afar have elevated the art of saying nothing to a new high.

---

Quote:

---

The British like flexing their muscles and have a hard time letting go of any colony or anything that they think belongs to them.

---

Quote:

---

It's only been since the last century that Britain has let go of Northern Ireland.

---