New poll boost for No camp
Yes loses You Gov lead as the First Minister attacks Treasury over ‘dirty tricks’
THE fightback unleashed by the Westminster party leaders and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to save the Union appears to have helped the No campaign regain the momentum in the referendum battle.
YouGov last night gave Better Together a four-point lead over Yes Scotland in a poll for The Times and The Sun.
It came five days after the same polling organisation put the Yes camp in front for the first time, two points ahead of the pro-UK campaign.
The latest survey shows the No camp leading 52-48, excluding undecided voters. It represents a rise of three percentage points for the anti-independence campaign, and a similar drop for Yes Scotland on last Saturday’s poll.
Voters were questioned between Tuesday and yesterday, after Mr Brown had outlined a cross-party deal on extra powers for Scotland and Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband travelled to Scotland to fight for the Union.
Better Together campaign director Blair McDougall said: “Every voter has the power to tip the referendum either way.”
Yes Scotland chief executive Blair Jenkins said: “We are in touching distance of success next Thursday.”
The poll came as First Minister Alex Salmond accused Whitehall of launching a dirty tricks campaign over Scotland’s banks and supermarkets in an effort to gain a late political advantage as the referendum campaign enters its final tense week.
The First Minister alleged there was collusion between the Treasury and the BBC in an attempt to spook the financial markets over the plan by Royal Bank Of Scotland to relocate its headquarters to London in the event of a Yes vote.
He also claimed Mr Cameron “actively tried to undermine” Scotland’s economy by having secret talks with supermarket bosses, encouraging Asda and John Lewis to suggest yesterday independence would lead to higher prices at the tills.
The Treasury declined to comment on the claim, while a BBC spokeswoman insisted it had “exercised normal editorial judgments” in the matter.
No 10 confirmed the Prime Minister had met supermarket bosses in Downing Street, but later reports said his attempt to persuade them to say prices would rise under independence had occurred in one-to-one conversations.
Earlier, Andy Clarke, chief executive of Asda, which employs 22,000 people north of the Border, warned of cost implications if Scotland voted Yes. Sir Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, also predicted Scottish shoppers would be likely to face higher prices in the event of independence.
Almost 4.3 million people have registered to vote on September 18 – 97 per cent of the adult population; the largest electorate ever for a ballot in Scotland.
Last night, Mr Salmond called on Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood to investigate why a Treasury source had discussed Royal Bank Of Scotland’s plans with the BBC several hours before it was announced to the markets.
In a letter to Sir Jeremy, he said the apparent involvement between the corporation and the Treasury in the leaking of market-sensitive information was a serious matter and a possible breach of the Ministerial Code, but it was “also hard to escape the conclusion the motivation in this collusion was political; to secure an apparent news advantage in the referendum debate”.
At a press conference for international journalists in Edinburgh, Mr Salmond, who boasted Scotland was on the “cusp of making history” with a Yes vote, urged the BBC to co-operate with the inquiry given the matter was of such “extraordinary gravity”.
Some members of the audience applauded when the First Minister referred to the corporation’s “impartial role as a public-sector broadcaster”. Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, was heckled from the audience when he questioned Mr Salmond.
In a separate development, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon seized on BBC reports that Mr Cameron had met supermarket bosses to pressure them to make public statements against independence. She said it was now clear
Mr Cameron was personally co-ordinating a scare campaign to force Scottish businesses to come out against independence.
Last night, Keith Cochrane, chief executive of Weir Group, the FTSE-100 listed engineering firm based in Glasgow, warned it would be able to keep its headquarters in Scotland only if there was certainty over its operating environment.
Earlier, RBS joined Tesco Bank, TSB, Lloyds and Clydesdale Bank in announcing contingency plans in the event of a Yes vote: moving their registered HQs to London.
Scottish ministers dismissed the market notices as merely “technical.” Yet Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney appeared to concede the banks’ profits could be taxed in the rest of the UK.
Sir Jeremy told Mr Salmond last night the Treasury had merely been confirming its understanding of RBS’s plans after details were reported elsewhere. He wrote that, having, consulted with the PM, “he is clear there has been no breach of the Ministerial Code”.