Reveals true heart
a debate with Salmond – an acknowledged political pugilist – is likely to inflict considerable political damage on the Prime Minister that he can ill afford. Either way, Salmond is the likely winner.
But referendums are also about winning the centreground and about showing that your position coincides with that of the swing-voters. Back in the 1970s Harold Wilson – one of Salmond’s political idols – successfully followed this strategy in the referendum on EEC (now the EU) membership. By making the referendum a vote on the welfare state and other policies that resonated with the mass of the electorate, Wilson famously turned a threatening 20 per cent polling deficit into spectacular 30 per cent victory.
Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to lower fuel prices, and Salmond’s promise that an independent Scotland would be a “country where we make work pay not by humiliating those with disabilities but by strengthening the minimum wage . . . a country where key public services remain in public hands”, are attempts to reach out to Labour and Liberal Democrat voters by basically equating independence with the social liberal utopia. It is not unlike what Wilson did in 1975. Seen in a historical perspective, Salmond may have chosen exactly the right strategy – if only a bit too late.
Gone are the days of the lukewarm and uninspired reassurances that Scotland can still keep the pound, have the Queen as head of state and be a member of Nato.
The Salmond who spoke to his supporters on Saturday is a man who wants to make changes and who invites his compatriots to come with him.
One does not – to use another quote from Salmond – need focus groups to conclude that the vast majority of Scots “seek a country which judges its contribution on how useful it can be to the rest of humanity not on how many warheads in can balance on a Trident submarine”.
By painting himself and Yes Scotland as the standard bearers of the aspirations and hopes of the Scottish people, and by contrasting his position with English politicians who want to keep Trident, the Bedroom Tax and higher gas prices, the SNP have set the agenda for a battle. It will be difficult for David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg to respond to these challenges.
The polls still show that it will be an uphill struggle. Not everybody will be enamoured by the First Minister’s polished and poetic words.
When listening to Salmond’s speech I was reminded of a definition of the statesman drawn up by the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who said: “The task of the statesman is to take the people from where they are to where they have never been. This requires vision, as well as courage. Vision, because every leader is grounded in the present moment and courage because no-one knows the consequences of new ideas.”
The Salmond who – a few months ago – spoke about the pound, the Queen and Nato did not show the vision and the courage. The man who stepped down from the lectern to rapturous applause on Saturday evening showed vision and courage rarely seen in these isles. His speech was one that has the potential to “to take the people from where they are to where they have never been”. l Dr Matt Qvortrup teaches politics at Cranfield University