Stands Scotland where it did? Damned if I know. But it is no longer a country afraid to know itself. Somehow, the air seems different. Most Scots I’ve come across in the last seven hectic day, from the right of the political spectrum as well as the left and all points in between, seem really rather pleased by last week’s landslide vote for the Scottish National Party. Or maybe I just haven’t bumped into all those committed unionists who represent majority opinion in Scotland according to the polls. They seem to be laying pretty low.
Yesterday, David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions called on drowsing unionists to get off their backsides and “make an optimistic and uplifting case” for Scotland to stay in the Union. It’s not enough, he said, just to frighten Scots by telling them that “small countries can’t make it on their own”. Well, he’s got that bit right anyway, even if you could hardly hear the PM for the noise of stable doors banging shut. It seemed a bit late to be making the case for the Union at the very moment when, in Holyrood, Alex Salmond was leading his 69 MSPs in swearing - somewhat reluctantly - their oath of allegiance to the Crown
Unionism has been caught off guard, we’re told, and needs to get its act together. Call in John Reid, Douglas Alexander and Gordon Brown (ok maybe not him) and have them get together in a big, bold British is Best campaign fronted by David Steel and Charles Kennedy with Malcolm Rifkind and Michael Forsyth bringing up the rear... But just reading the names tells you that any such a referendum campaign is doomed. These are all men of the past - heavyweights from a different era. They aren’t like the wiry young women and men who were taking their seats in Holyrood yesterday and already sorting out the mechanics of independence. Power has shifted in the last seven days, and the UK already feels a different place.
