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Newsweek Scotland: Continued debate and confusion...

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Derek Bateman Derek Bateman | 15:57 UK time, Friday, 9 September 2011

I do get confused sometimes. This week I listened to Iain Gray demand to know why the SNP was not holding a referendum on independence. Is that really what he meant? The leader of the largest Unionist party wants a vote on ending the Union... Of course, he is being mischievous in goading Mr Salmond, but it's all so hollow is it not?

He only says it because he feels safe in the knowledge it won't happen. Can you imagine the panic if Salmond changed his mind and said: It will happen in a month's time? Mr Gray would disappear under a deluge of fury from everyone else, for it is surely now clear that there is nothing foregone about a one-off referendum.

Whichever side you're on, this is a dangerous gambit which has as its prize, the future of our country... hardly the stuff of rhetorical games. Perhaps it was a cover for the failure to find anything much in the SNP package to oppose.

So far it seems the first attempts at challenging Mr Salmond are coming from London-based sources, including the Treasury, but that's hardly an organisation with respect to burn in Scotland... The Treasury which oversaw the financial crash, the decline of our pensions and now deep cuts to public spending.

Anyway, we will debate the week in politics with and . While George Osbourne sticks to his guns, we hear if that is likely to be sustainable from .

Meanwhile Obama has blinked and is pushing a massive jobs package at Congress, he'll hope that rescues his grim poll ratings, while the Republicans jostle for position in the coming presidential campaign. We speak to in Washington.

We won't trawl through 9/11, but will pick out the trial of mistakes and bad reactions that haunt the West today in the company of former UN high flyer . And we're in New Zealand where there's a rugby game. At least I'm not confused about that. See you tomorrow morning at 8.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    The is the same Prof John Curtice who predicted 63 Labour seats at the elections in May! Hardly surprising that he could find no comfort for Alex Salmond and the SNP in the latest opinion polls re independence. He saw no significance in a 13% increase in support for independence or in the 60% support for full fiscal powers. Also, he considered it inevitable that the cuts to health and education in England were inevitale in Scotland.. Was this guy thrust upon you, Derek by the "committee"??

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