The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Sunday 14 September 2014
AD [Alistair Darling] was poor on Marr, and knew it. He called me afterwards and said he had felt really tired. Salmond was given an easy ride. Also John Reid f ***** up. Main line: “If you don’t know, vote No,” and he said: “If you don’t know, don’t vote.” Annoying but we would get through it. Alistair looke exhausted, grimaced rather oddly a times. Douglas said that the GB constitutional changes idea had been the usual mad toing and froing. Bu Cameron was desperate and so happy to let him do whatever he wanted to. Number 10 and others had bee badgering me for ages about gettin Alex [Ferguson] involved. I had reall tried, and Fiona [Millar] thought my persistence might be the reason he ha seemed so chilly of late, though he ha still been taking my calls, talking away, but definitely not as warm. He had bee saying how desperate he was for No to win, but when I said he could do something to help, he pulled back. He said he didn’t want to get involved because the people putting their heads above the parapet were getting shot at. He saw the abuse that JK Rowling and others had been getting, and he was no up for it. It was lose-lose. Unsure that a intervention would help, but sure that he would get dog’s abuse. When I discussed it with Fiona, she said jus leave it, stop pushing him so hard. So I did, though I did point out the one thing everyone knew about Alex was that he pushed as hard as you had, to get to what he wanted. The whole thing was really strange. Maybe Fiona was right, that Jason had stirred it, I don’t know. Jeremy Heywood asked if I thought call from Cameron would help. I sai definitely not. He could not stan Cameron. In fact that might be the other thing holding him back. He had a couple of times asked me why I was helping Cameron. I said I wasn’t; I was helping the campaign to stop Salmond breaking up the UK. Train up to Glasgow, working on the book.
Monday 15 September 2014
Alistair and Douglas came round for a meeting and we planned out a few things. GB out again today which was helpful. Douglas said Alistair was a bit shot and I had to try to bolster him just to get him through the last few days. Douglas told me that he was definitely getting out of politics after this, that he no longer enjoyed it and he needed to get himself sorted with something. I asked if he had enjoyed any of it. He said not really. “Campaigning is not really my thing because you’re endlessly having to turn it all on for people.” Every time I suggested Jim Murphy for something, Douglas baulked. Jim told me later the campaign had been a shambles.
We had a real problem with workingclass Catholics so I was trying Neil Lennon, Scott Brown [Celtic player], also Joe Miller [agent] who looked after former Celtic players. Lennon was friendly and onside but said he got
o s n to it. Brown was really friendly, wished me well and all that, but said he was contractually not allowed to get involved…trying to get up the story that English Premier League would shut the door on Scottish clubs if Yes won.
I worked a lot on words for Alistair for the last few days. Also general message and then started to work on his words for after the event. Need to heal and reconcile. Things getting quite edgy on the streets.
Tuesday 16 September 2014
I went to my first Better Together morning meeting. Not as bad as I was led to believe but Catherine said afterwards that was because I was there and they were trying to be grown-up. Paul Sinclair [adviser to Scottish Labour] had got up a good story on the NHS and planned cuts post-referendum which was going big and which Alistair pushed well. I was worried tomorrow’s events were not big and booster-rocket enough. We worked on a final rally with GB, Alistair, Scottish leaders and five real people. Also trying to get No projected on to landmark buildings, which they managed to do fine, if a bit late. Also late, Clinton finally delivered really good words thanks to TB’S
. se ra times. It must have hurt that they so clearly didn’t want him involved. He would have been able to make the case better than most, but it was clear that Iraq was one of the issues in the background.
TB – seeing GWB of all people today, so I said get him to come out for Yes fast – was confident the Scots would see sense but couldn’t understand how it had been allowed to go so close. He thought Salmond had stuffed Cameron on the negotiations, but also that it was “evil” the way he was using these nationalist and divisive tactics. The NHS SNP bandwagon was stalled a little, but Salmond was amazing for the way he would just bat away inconvenient truths. The NHS tactic had been highly effective, even though it was simply not true that independence was the only way to guarantee no privatisation etc. Paul Sinclair was the main GB point man and he said – as did Douglas – that he was as difficult as ever.
Today for example, he demanded the David Dimbleby interview was prerecorded, then wanted an earlier time, then said it was too early. Douglas said that at one point GB had said: “Danny Alexander is a total f ****** madman!”
, took part in the meeting and was very calm, very affable. Also had a sense of humour about himself, as when I said he needed to cover the Cairngorms with a No banner. Later he called in and said he was.
Alistair got a bit hot under the collar with Torsten because he was pushing for GB tomorrow at the final rally and Alistair was worried it was becoming too Labour. Torsten was pretty firm and didn’t mind upsetting people, but Alistair said he was not taking lectures on divisions. He clearly felt that a lot of people had just let him do the heavy lifting, without really helping, and spent the whole time criticising.
Blair Mcdougall and Rob Shorthouse [director of communications, Better Together] struck me as a lot better than I had been told. Interesting to see how well the different parties got on. I had a private chat with Danny Alexander who said he thought in the end it would be a 10-point lead for No. We talked about the next election. He said that he did not think either the Tories or Labour could win, so “provided we do not get obliterated, I think we will be holding the balance of power again”. He felt Ed M [Miliband] was just not cutting
throug u we go e num ers t e Libs would go with them again. He felt part of the problem with politics was that everyone pretended there were these huge differences between them but actually there weren’t. There were fairly small differences, and a pretence. He said: “I probably agree with someone like Douglas on 90% of issues”. He said Clegg was definitely staying and actually still enjoyed it and was looking forward to the campaign.
Wednesday 17 September 2014
Alistair excellent on Today. Salmond was given an easy ride by [James] Naughtie [presenter], e.g. when he swatted away Spanish PM quotes in the parliament today that they could get automatically into the EU. Greg Nugent and Eddie Izzard came over for breakfast at Catherine Macleod’s. I was giving Eddie lines for his introduction role at the final rally at Maryhill. E.g. No is not a negative word if you are stopping something negative. “No to apartheid” was positive. Reminded him Glasgow was the first city to give Mandela its freedom. Also the lines from the Clinton statement about Scotland showing we can co-exist in unity despite differences. Round to the morning meeting. Douglas was very edgy. All focused on the final ra y, a w ic n e en d brilliantly, passionate and full of great argument. The whole event went pretty well but we still looked a bit weak in the afternoon which meant Salmond had the last big event, Perth, good words and pictures.
Their people definitely looked like they felt they could win. [Scottish Labour MP] Frank Roy’s son Brian took me through the numbers and because of the lead in the postal votes he was clear that Yes would really have to get all their support out, and have the undecideds fall to them, if they were to win. They would need to win big in Dundee and win in Glasgow. He felt it was unlikely. Annoyingly, Cameron did clips on good jobs figures so was on the news, which was the last thing we needed. I did AD final words for the rally, which he memorised and delivered well, but GB stole the show. It was going to be galling for Alistair to have GB portrayed as the man who saved the Union, but there you go. He really found his voice today. Absolutely at his best.
Thursday 18 September 2014
Did a blog on lessons for politics more broadly, to post when polls close. Had an exchange with Kevin Pringle [adviser,
SNP] who felt they were on for 51.5%. But Frank Roy was sending me updates suggesting we were winning in Glasgow, which Yes had to win to win overall. Andy Murray [Scottish tennis star] came out for Yes. Texted Alex, who said: “Won’t make a difference; he doesn’t have a vote.”
Was keeping in touch with Frank and Brian Roy who despite one or two worries were confident it was going to be OK. Turnout was huge which some saw as good for Yes, thinking it was people who had never voted coming out to vote for change, and others felt was a sign of the silent majority coming out as expected. Danny Alexander had said to me he felt it would be a 10-point win for No and that is what happened. 45% wanting the country to leave the UK though was not to be messed with or misunderstood. I wrote a blog saying politics had to learn the lessons, and some of them offered real hope, but there was little sign either of the main parties really got what was happening. Stayed up most of the night as the results came in.
Friday 19 September 2014
Cameron out at 7am in Downing Street, and he came up with his nonsense about English votes for English laws. Talk about not heeding the lessons. Straight into his own tactics rather than heeding the message of change. Depressing. Likely to trouble Ed though which was largely the point. Salmond announced he would be stepping down and Nicola Sturgeon would be a shoo-in. She had had a good campaign, as had Ruth Davidson [Conservative leader in Scotland]. Talked to Jim Murphy, who was thinking about standing up there. Going to be difficult for Labour. SNP would get a big boost and they would carry on portraying Labour as the same as the Tories, which was why Cameron’s move was so annoying and stupid. Saving the Union and his job by the skin of his teeth, and he dives straight into another constitutional mess, short-termist nonsense.