Special Scotland Decides Edition

Firstly I would like to say I think the efficiency of Australian elections is unheralded – elections are held on a Saturday, polls close at 6pm and you’ve got a pretty good idea of where the result is heading by 7.30pm (even with our slightly complicated preferential voting system).  The counting for the Scottish independence vote took bloody ages but I guess that's what happens if you insist on holding an election during the working week and the polls have to be open until 10pm so as many people as possible get the chance to vote after work. It seems they also wait until all the votes are counted before phoning in the numbers so the ultimate result isn't known until the wee small hours.  And because it is a school night you can’t even have an election party because people have to go to work the next day.  The polls had been closed for close to two hours before the first numbers came through from (the wonderfully named) Clackmannanshire…it was just yes or no guys, not the Australian senate.  And I saw footage of the polling booths - there wasn't a sausage sizzle, cake stall or anything in sight.  Australia:  making democracy fun since 1901.  But back to voting Scottish style.

  

The votes are in (eventually) and, despite plenty of commentary saying it was too close to call, Scotland voted to stay with the United Kingdom and quite decisively, too with 45% for independence and 55% against.  From a poll watcher's point of view, this was always the most likely outcome.  While polls are fallible, they can give  a clue regarding trends and the “no” case was always in the lead.  The "yes" vote was never ahead except in one or two later polls where the pollsters fiddled with the numbers a bit and even then it was only ahead by a wafer-thin margin.

Here’s a point of conjecture but if the “yes” vote had won but only by a slim margin, that may have been the worst result - a decision as momentous as seceding from the United Kingdom should ideally be the result of a groundswell of support and agreed to by a thumping majority, not just squeaking in over the line because of a weak campaign by the other side.  A small victory for the “yes” case (or the "no" case for that matter) would have suggested ambivalence and even a divided nation.  As it was, the independence vote came about because the Scottish National Party won government from the Labour Party, who thought they had a lock on the Scottish government (there are no conservative MPs in Scotland - yay for Scotland!) and took the Scot's support for granted, became slack as about running the joint and were given a kicking as a result.  The Scottish National Party formed government and as independence is part of their policy platform, the British government had to hold an referendum on the matter.  So really, this is all British Labour’s fault.  As for why the “no” vote was always in the lead, I think no one ever really articulated an imperative for independence.  Or they just didn't want to lose the British pound, which is fair enough - it's buying US$1.63 today.  Or they hold David Bowie in really high regard.

However, observing from some distance, I did pick up that the “no” campaign, called “Better Together” was muddle-headed  and riddled with own goals.  The "yes" campaign had passion for its cause plus a strong leader in Alex Salmond, and managed to whittle down the gap between yes and no to such an extent that panic must have set in and the "no" mob were forced to FOCUS!!!  The complacency that characterised the “Better Together” campaign might have reminded the Scots of everything they hated about being bound to Britain and being governed from the South of England as well. 

As it is, in the panic of the last couple of weeks of the campaign, the British Government offered Scotland something called “devo max” which sounds like an energy drink but is in fact a further devolution of power so Scotland will have more autonomy.  Even better, devo max will extend to Wales, Northern Ireland and, for the first time, England.  And now that Westminster has had a shot over the bow from the Scots, at the very least, things will be shaken up, hopefully for the better.  So everybody wins.  Especially David Cameron who now doesn't have to look for a new job.

Now, if you're still feeling down in the dumps about the result, here's a photo of a basket of Scottish Terrier puppies.