SCENES from the independence debate: I took my son, Jamie, to the very excellent Stand comedy club shortly after New Year.
It was a packed and raucous show, with a mostly young audience. The compere – a tubby guy from Edinburgh whose name escapes me – launched into an obscene rant about Alex Salmond and Scottish Nationalists who, apparently, are people of a sordid sexual disposition who need to be put down in various brutal ways. And anyway, he said, the Scots "could never govern themselves 'cos they are totally and completely f***ing useless". As a punchline, he bawled out: "Does anyone here support independence?" Not a soul spoke.
You can't judge the politics of a country by its comedy, but if this had been Barcelona, that comic would have been lucky to escape unharmed. Catalans, who are also having an independence referendum in 2014, are fiercely proud of their abilities, whether they support independence or not, and would have taken exception to this affront to their national dignity. Now, don't get me wrong: it's good that we laugh at ourselves (though if the compere had been funny it might have helped). I only offer this as a random insight into Scotland's frame of mind as we enter 2013: the insecurity and awkwardness many Scots feel about the whole idea of independence; the lack of confidence in their ability to govern themselves; uncertainty about whether they even want to bother with it. It's Yes Scotland's biggest nightmare: the credibility gap.
Opinion polls confirm that Scots still just don't get independence. At least, not yet. The most striking thing about the referendum debate thus far is how little change there has been in Scottish attitudes to independence since the SNP's landslide victory in 2011. Scots still oppose independence by around two to one – a ratio that has remained constant for the last 20 years, give or take the occasional poll giving independence a marginal and transitory lead. It's hard to look at the evidence and not conclude that the Yes campaign has lost even before the campaign has started. Labour and the Better Together campaign are already awarding themselves battle honours and talking of getting three million No votes.
The Yes campaign team insists it is relaxed about the polls and points out that the SNP's landslide victory in the Scottish elections in 2011 was incubated largely during the campaign itself. In the year running up to the Holyrood elections, Labour had a comfortable lead in the polls and it was only after the campaign started that Scottish voters decided that Iain Gray was toast.
