As we waited in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle for the arrival of Moses, sorry, Robert Mugabe, sorry Alex Salmond, there was much chatter about Tuesday's now infamous Newsnight interview in which Jeremy Paxman compared Alex Salmond to Zimbabwean dictator and suggest that he wanted to set up a one party state in Scotland. The FM wisely refused invitations to criticise Paxo - since the interview has probably added a couple percent to the SNP's poll ratings. Instead he ticked off BBC Scotland for axing a lot of its political output, including the respected Newsweek Scotland programme.
This was as sure-footed a performance as we have come to expect from the First Minister on these occasions. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard Alex Salmond launch constitutional consultations, but this was Eck's Biggest Day Out ever. With the hall packed with international television hardware, and press from over forty countries, the political theatre couldn't have been more dramatic. As the winds howled around the Castle, Salmond confidently forecast victory in the 2014 independence referendum. Surrounded by massed weaponry of warfare in the frankly militaristic Great Hall, Salmond was right to assure the assembled international media, that Scottish nationalism - unlike say Quebec, Basque or Corsican separatism - has always been a peaceful pursuit. There has “not been so much as a nosebleed” in the last hundred years of home rule agitation. Though I notice the FM didn't mention injury to letterboxes.
The biggest gag was The Question itself. “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?” Is that it? No dodgy phrases, no weasel words, no devious circumlocutions. And no second or third questions either, unless civic Scotland gets its act together to formulate one. Here was Salmond doing precisely what he had been urged to do by the UK government and the opposition parties: seek a straight answer to a straight question. No need to invoke the Canadian Clarity Act. The UK Electoral Commission will have its say on the question, Salmlond confirmed, and would oversee the referendum, reporting to the Scottish parliament.
