Better Together must call up the big guns

WITH his masterful command of the figures, Alistair Darling has landed telling blows on an SNP that all too often relies on calculations apparently scrawled on the back of an envelope. But, as we have said before, Mr Darling was not brought in to head Better Together as a passionate orator who would fire up the masses.

So while he will continue to play a role in the campaign, it has to be good news that Better Together is – at the insistence of both senior figures within the Labour Party and Downing Street – getting a fresh injection of talent as we enter this final, critical stage of the referendum fight. Better Together has thus far fed us a steady diet of negativity. Much of that was necessary to counter the SNP’s pie - i n- the- sky talk of currency unions and Scotland strolling in to Brussels as a fully fledged EU member within days of leaving the United Kingdom. Now is the time to turn the heat up on the swaggering Yes campaign.

There is a gloriously positive message to be brought to the Scottish public about the manifold benefits of staying within the most successful and mutually beneficial political union in world history. This newspaper fervently believes victory for Better Together is the best way forward for this country. While it is true that the gap between Yes and No has narrowed, no poll has ever shown the Yes vote in the lead. That means Douglas Alexander and the other big guns now lining up for Better Together are inheriting a healthy position.

Writing here in the Mail, Mr Alexander showed he had the measure of how dangerous a man Mr Salmond is when he highlighted his ‘dogged obsession with narrow nationalism at all costs’. He must immediately inject a large dose of adrenaline into the campaign and seize back some of the initiative from the Nationalists by accentuating the positives of unity. His task could not be more urgent. There is still enough time to save the United Kingdom from sleepwalking to oblivion – but only just.