Scottish independence: poll gives no camp 6-point lead - as it happened

Q: Have you peaked too soon?

Salmond says he regards the yes campaign as the underdogs.

But they have a positive campaign, he says.

And that’s it.

Salmond was not asked directly about the Daily Record poll, but it seemed to be one his mind as he gave his final answer.

• Salmond said he still regarded the yes campaign as the underdogs in the referendum battle. He spoke as a new poll showed them six-points behind no. He told BBC Scotland:
  

I regard the yes campaign as the underdogs. Why? Because we know the Westminster establishment will throw everything – the kitchen sink and probably most of the living room – at the Scottish people over the next week.

But I’m also confident in this sense. I’m confident because we’ve moved beyond scare-mongering, and that vision of a more prosperous country, and also a more just society, is a compelling one. And nothing, absolutely nothing, that the no campaign can offer can rival that message from the yes campaign.

Alex Salmond is on BBC Scotland now.

Q: Is it fair to demean the no side as “Team Westminster”?

Salmond says he was talking about today’s events. David Cameron and others came up from Westminster.

Q: You said they were panicked. Were you panicked when you went to Carlisle recently?

Salmond says he does not cancel questions in the Scottish parliament. Earlier this week we were told Cameron would not be coming to Scotland, he says.

• A Survation poll for the Daily Record has given the Better Together camp a six-point lead. Here’s the start of the Record story.

The fight to keep the UK together received a much needed boost tonight after a dramatic new poll showed support for independence has stalled.

An exclusive survey for the Daily Record gives the No side a six point lead - the same margin as two months ago.

But the Survation survey of 1000 Scots showed 47.6% plan to vote No a week tomorrow with only 42.4% voting Yes.

When the 10% of people still to make up their mind are removed, that would give a referendum result of 53% No to 47% Yes.

• Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, has dismissed a warning from Standard Life that it may move some of its business from Edinburgh to London if Scotland votes for independence. He told reporters:
  

I think that is nonsense. On the way here I came past St Andrew Square, and in the corner you will find a substantial new office block being developed. I think it’s a £90m development which is being financed by Standard Life Investments. That doesn’t look like the actions of a company that has any intentions whatsoever of pulling out of Scotland.

• Alistair Darling, the Better Together leader, has attacked Salmond for deriding David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clgg as “Team Westminster”. He told the BBC:We know what he is hinting at here. That somehow people who are not on his side don’t deserve to be heard. That they are not truly patriotic, not truly Scottish. It is deeply offensive to a number of people in Scotland. It is deeply divisive and it is wholly unnecessary.

• Ed Miliband has said that Labour is committed to preserving the union because a belief in solidarity is a key party value. Although he spoke in a different city from Cameron, at a different time, both leaders positive, emotional arguments for keeping Scotland in the UK, in what seems to be an attempt to recalibrate the no camp’s argument.
  
  
• Nick Clegg has promised that an “exciting chapter” of de-centralisation not just for Scotland but England and the rest of the UK would be ushered in by a no vote.
  

Here’s my lunchtime summary.

And here’s my verdict on whether the Cameron/Miliband/Clegg visits made any difference.

What difference did they make? That’s the only question that matters about the Cameron/Miliband/Clegg “Better we’re not together on the same platform” trip to Scotland. But it is very hard to very hard to make an assessment.

Despite my appeal for help earlier (see 10.49am), sadly neither Better Together nor Yes Scotland have leaked me their focus group research about the impact these three have on Scottish voters. And it is far too early to pick anything up in the polls. Mostly people will react on the basis of what absorb from the media, and sensible people have been at work, not watching Sky News all day.

Obviously, campaigning can make a difference. That’s why politicians have been doing it every since democracy emerged - and long before.

But, for campaigning to make a difference, you have to have a message that people find convincing, and a messenger to whom your audience can relate. The problem for Cameron, Miliband and Clegg is that they are all Englishmen whose appeal to voters in Scotland is limited, to say the least. That’s why YouGov found recently that Scottish voters are far less likely to trust Cameron and Miliband than Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon (pdf). YouGov did not even bother to ask about Clegg.

But, if the messengers weren’t ideal, the message they had was a bit more potent. Here are some quick thoughts about Cameron, Miliband and Clegg - and Lord Prescott.

Cameron: His speech was good, mainly because it was sincere. It is clear that he really does like the Scotland (not least, perhaps, because his wife’s family owns a nice slice of it) and his decision to admit that the “effing Tories” were unpopular added a healthy dose of realism. But, as George Eaton points out at the New Statesman, that line may just have reminded the Scots that they have been kicking the Tories at election time for years, and that half the time they still get a Conservative government anyway. And the real problem was that Cameron was talking to bankers. He should have been in the street. Doubtless there would have been heckling, and perhaps some aggro, but it would have looked as if Cameron was taking his argument to the public. And aggro would have been counter-productive. The aggression directly at Jim Murphy damaged the yes cause - which is why the perpetrators abandoned it.

Miliband: As a campaigner Miliband doesn’t have the confidence that Cameron does, but his speech was the best of the day, because he linked his support for the union with his family background and his faith in Labour. You can read the whole thing here. This passage was particularly good.

For me the third set of arguments are perhaps the most powerful.

The arguments of the soul.

Our movement was founded on solidarity.

That is what it is to be Labour.

My parents were internationalists.

But because of ties of history, geography, connection we are not just citizens of the world, but citizens of the United Kingdom.

Clegg: His was the lowest-profile visit of the day, although his attempt to cast himself as a latter-day Gladstone was ingenious. (See 2.46pm.)

Prescott: His contribution was bizarre. From the excerpts I saw on Sky News (I may not have seen the whole thing), he did not have a very coherent message about devolution or independence, and joking about merging the Scottish and English football teams is highly risky. That probably prompted this:

In the bit I saw, Prescott only really became animated and clear-headed when he was attacking the Tories. And yet ... at least he did sound passionate about something. And hating the Tories is probably not a bad message to have if you are campaigning in Glasgow.

Overall, though, this does not feel like a day that will have made a difference. Alex Salmond said the joint visits were a sign of “high panic and desperation”. That doesn’t sound unfair.

According to Sky News, government whips are making contingency plans for a yes vote. They are contacting MPs to find out where they will be after 18 September in case there has to be an emergency recall of parliament.

Sky News also says Number 10 has confirmed that David Cameron will return to Scotland to campaign on Monday next week.

You can read the Alex Salmond/Alistair Darling Mumsnet debate here.

It was rather good, although I don’t think it contained any mega surprises. But here are some answers I found interesting.

• Salmond suggested he would like to have been able to give Scots living in the rest of the UK the vote. This is what he said in reply to a woman who complained about her Scottish husband not being able to vote because he lives in London.

NoRoomForaLittleOne, I would have loved to have had a broader franchise but it was agreed between both governments that we should use the same franchise as in the 1997 referendum and the Scottish elections because it would have been difficult to fairly define any other electorate except on the basis of residence. There are two exceptions to this, that is members of Her Majesty’s Forces or people on Crown Service who have to work where they are sent and therefore have the right to vote. It is the thing that caused me most difficulty in trying to get to a position which was fair.

• Salmond defended his decision to raise the threat to the NHS in Scotland as an issue, even though the Scottish parliament is in charge of health in Scotland.

The difficulty is, while the administration of the NHS is fully devolved, the finance is dependent on decisions made at Westminster. For example, the UK government recently decided to ignore the independent pay review and give nurses and other workers and increase in pay. In Scotland, we made the decision to honour that obligation. That cost around £30 million. Because there was no finance from Westminster to pay for the increase, we had to find it out of other budgets, which was very difficult. That provides an example of why anything under the current system, which impacts on NHS public finance in England has an immediate knock-on effect in Scotland. Thus, privatisation and charging in the NHS south of the border will put great pressure on our public health service in Scotland unless we control both sides of the balance sheet and the finance as well as the administration of our public National Health Service.

• Darling, responding to this point, said only the Scottish parliament could privatise the NHS.
  

The NHS is completely devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Prime Minister can’t privatise it. The First Minister could. Actually, he’s spent more than a hundred million pounds on private provision in the last few years. He might not mention that too often. What matters is that health care is free at the point of need. Not only does the Scottish Parliament have complete control over health policy, but from 2016 it will have power to raise money to spend more on the health service, if it wants to do that. In other words, you can have the changes we need to guarantee health spending under devolution, within the UK. You don’t need to break up the country to do that.

• Darling said civil society would be consulted on plans to give more powers to Scotland in the event of a no vote backed by all main UK parties.
  

The three non-nationlist parties have signed up to a process that will mean consultation with voluntary organisations, churches, community groups and many others. This is too big a decision for politicians alone.

Nick Clegg told Sky News that the decision of all three main UK parties to back further powers for Scotland was “extraordinary” and that it certainly wasn’t a last-minute move.

I really don’t think you should belittle the extraordinary breakthrough that took place on the 5^th August, when David Cameron, Ed Miliband and myself, for the first time ever, said all main parties now believe that Scotland should have significant new powers, in tax, in borrowing, in welfare, in the future ...

When people say to me, ‘isn’t this all last minute’, I tell you, Gladstone was campaigning for home rule back in the 1880s, this has been debated for generations, and finally the prospect of home rule for Scotland within the stability and security of the United Kingdom, beckons, and that process can start on the 19^th September.

You can only do the progressive things that you want, good pensions, decent benefits for people who are vulnerable, making sure we’ve got good public services, a strong and well-resourced NHS, if you’ve got a growing economy, which is secure, where people come and invest here, create jobs, people pay their taxes.

You can’t do that if we start severing and rupturing the ties that have bound the United Kingdom together, and that’s why I think it’s not only of course a momentous decision for Scotland, it a momentous decision for the United Kingdom as a while. I’m absolutely convinced that a UK where we will rip up the bonds that have bound us together for so long, will be weaker, poorer and less secure.

I’ve taken the quote from PoliticsHome.

Ed Miliband is speaking in Glasgow now.

He says he is in Scotland to make the case “head, heart and soul” for Scotland staying in the UK.

• Cameron has urged the Scots not to use the referendum just as an opportunity to punish the “effing Tories”. In a speech in Edinburgh at the Scottish Widows HQ, he stressed his emotional commitment to the union, and he said that he cared more about the preserving it than he did acting in the best interests of hte Conservative party (which would benefit electorally against Labour if Scotland voted yes). He said that the Scots would be taking a decision that would last for 100 years.
  

Sometimes people can feel it’s a bit like a general election, you make a decision and five years later you can make another decision; if you’re fed up with the effing Tories, give them a kick and then maybe we’ll think again. This is totally different to a general election ... This is not a decision about the next five years, but the next century.

He insisted that a no vote would not represent a vote for no change.

Voting no is not voting for no change. If you vote no, if you vote to stay in the United Kingdom in our family of nations, that will trigger another very rapid and very comprehensive to make sure that Scotland has even more powers to determine its own future within the United Kingdom. It’s what I would call the best of both worlds.

He insisted that Scotland was already a nation.

This vote is not about whether Scotland is a nation or not. Scotland is a nation. It’s an incredible nation, it is a strong, proud nation with an incredible history, and incredibly talented people, but it’s a nation that has chosen for the past 300 years to be part of a family of nations.

He said that option to stay within the UK was an emotion matter, not just a rational one.

I like to think the Better Together campaign has made some very strong arguments of the head. But I think it’s also important we make those arguments of the heart, we talk about what we care about and how we feel about this amazing country, the United Kingdom, that we’ve built together.

But he said that, if Scotland did vote yes, he would work with them to make it happen (implying that he would stick to his promise to stay on as prime minister if he lost the vote).

• Alex Salmond has dismissed Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg as “Team Westminster” and said their campaigning efforts in Scotland today are too late. (See 12.22pm.)

• Standard Life has announced that it may move part of its business from Edinburgh to London if Scotland votes for independence. The news came as BP confirmed that it is opposed to independence (see 12.49pm) and Business for Scotland released the names of another 100 employers supporting independence.

• Sir John Major, the Conservative former prime minister, has said Scottish independence would leave the UK, or the rest of it, “immensely weaker as a nation in every respect - morally, politically, in every material aspect”. (See 9.44am.) In an article in the Times, he also implicitly criticised the way Cameron allowed the referendum to take place, and his decision to offer Scotland more powers without assessing the impact on England. (See 8.02am.)

• Rupert Murdoch has hinted that he backs Scottish independence. (See 9.19am.)

• William Hague has told MPs that people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland cannot imagine life in Britain without the Scots. Speaking at PMQs, where he was standing in for Cameron and where MPs from all the parties apart from the SNP stressed their support for the union, Hague said:
  

I hope the message the people of Scotland will hear from this House, where Scottish parliamentarians have made an immense contribution for generations, is that we want to stay together and we cannot imagine life on these isles without them. We are all proud to be British, combining these identities and there is no doubt we would all be diminished if Scotland was separated from the people of the rest of the UK.

Here’s the full statement from Bob Dudley, the BP chief executive, about Scottish independence.

And here’s the key sentence.

As a major investor in Scotland – now and into the future – BP believes that the future prospects for the North Sea are best served by maintaining the existing capacity and integrity of the United Kingdom.

A quick cuts check shows that he has said this before.

Alex Salmond did not exactly hold a press conference this morning (although there is a major one coming tomorrow). But he answered questions from reporters in what we often describe as a “huddle”. Here are the key points.

• Salmond said dismissed David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg as “Team Westminster” and said their campaigning efforts were too late.
  

Team Westminster seems narrowly focused today, does it not, on the leaders of Westminster parties who are more concerned about their own jobs than the jobs of the Scottish people.

I saw a range of interviews with people from Scotland this morning on television and I think that reaction sums it up - they would say ‘too little, too late’.

Too little because what they are offering comes nowhere near the expectations of the Scottish people in terms of maintaining jobs and protecting the health service. Too late because it looks like a last-gasp piece of desperation in the face of the movement in the communities of Scotland towards the Yes campaign.

• He said Team Westminster was “panicking”.

• He said support for the yes camp was growing.
  

We don’t make any assumptions about the poll next week. But the evidence suggests that more and more of our fellow citizens are being convinced by the arguments being put forward by their fellow citizens in the yes campaign.

• He welcomed comments by Professor Alex Kemp, an oil expert, in today’s Aberdeen Press and Journal about potential oil reserves in the North Sea. He described Kemp as “the foremost expert in oil”. Here’s the story. And here’s how it starts.
  

A leading oil economist has predicted a potential North Sea bonanza of 99 new discoveries in the next 30 years.

Alex Kemp, from the University of Aberdeen, has used detailed financial modelling to set out “commercially viable” projects for the industry following the Wood Review.

Standard Life, the Scottish investment company, has announced that it may move part of its business from Edinburgh to London if Scotland votes for independence.

David Nish, Standard Life’s chief executive, has issued a lengthy statement about this today. Here’s an extract.

In view of the uncertainty around Scotland’s constitutional future, we have put in place precautionary measures which would help enable us to provide customers with continuity. This includes planning for new regulated companies in England to which we could transfer parts of our business if there was a need to do so.

This transfer of our business could potentially include pensions, investments and other long-term savings held by UK customers to ensure:

• All transactions with customers outside of Scotland continue to be in Sterling (money paid in and money paid out)
• All customers outside of Scotland continue to be part of the UK tax regime
• All customers outside of Scotland continue to be covered by existing consumer protection and regulatory arrangements e.g. the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and Financial Conduct Authority

David Cameron’s event is starting.

As my colleague Nicholas Watt points out, it is rather different in style from Alex Salmond’s.

In Glasgow Lord Prescott, the Labour former deputy prime minister, is attending a campaign event with Alistair Darling and Anas Sarwar, Labour’s deputy leader in Scotland.

Prescott is clearly having trouble absorbing the “Better Together” spirit. He certainly doesn’t feel better together with the Tories. Brandishing a copy of today’s Daily Mail, which splashes in Scotland with the headline “Cameron: Don’t rip apart our UK family”, he launches into an attack on the Tories for their own policies, which he says rip families apart.

Cameron says don’t rip our family apart. Bloody hell, they’ve ripped our families apart for decades. They are the values of the Tory party which are completely different from the values of the Labour party.

He also joked (at least, I assume it was a joke) about the English and Scottish football teams uniting.

I can’t see that going down well.

Here’s more from the Salmond event.

I’ll post the quotes from Salmond when I get them.

The main event today is the visit of David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, the three Englishmen who lead the main UK pro-union parties, to Scotland.

But what impact do visits like this have? Does anyone have any evidence, from polls or focus groups, that illuminate whether or not appeals from these three leaders can make a difference? Is it true that a visit from Cameron actually helps the yes camp? (See 8.10am.) If you can help, please post a comment below.

Meanwhile, here are two Twitter comments on the Cameron visit.

From Guido Fawkes, the libertarian Westminster blogger

From Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s deputy first minister

My colleague Severin Carrell is at the event in Edinburgh where Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon are campaigning with Jim Sillars and his Margo mobile.

Those on the Margo mobile include Colin Fox, leader of the Scottish Socialist party, Green party MSPs Patrick Harvie and Alison Johnstone and Marco Biagi, the SNP MSP.

The Herald has published a lengthy and interesting interview with Alex Salmond today (subscription). Here are three of the main points he’s making.

• Salmond said this vote would be different because an extra 20% of people, who normally shun elections, are now engaged.
  

The other thing that has moved, which I actually think is more significant, is the spectrum of people who are concerned about this issue - that is to say the spectrum of people who have engaged in politics.

We are now dealing with a political electorate of 80% not 60%. What has moved is the 20% of people who have never spoken before, never in their life thought Scottish politics important or relevant or productive enough to vote for any politician of any political party. These people are about to speak and when they do it will make the Hampden roar look like nothing at all, and it will scare the life out of Mr Cameron and his party and the entire Westminster establishment.

• He said he performed badly in the first debate with Alistair Darling because he was tired.
  

In reality I was tired the first time. By the time I finished the Commonwealth Games I had no idea what a draining process it would be because it’s like a football manager watching a football match, not being in total control of what’s happening on the pitch. But what changed is that I turned up for the second debate.

• He said having Boris Johnson as prime minister would increase support for Scottish independence.
  

I have to say that Prime Minister Boris Johnston would be four words which would galvanise much of the Yes campaign. Prime Minister David Cameron is bad enough. When David Cameron supped his sparkling mineral water in the absence of champagne at the CBI white tie dinner he might have reflected on why Scots see him as the very personification of an establishment that needs to be told to take a hike.

Here’s a quote from what Sir John Major, the Conservative former prime minister, told the Today programme about Scottish independence. I’ve already quoted from his Times article. (See 8.02am.)

I am desperately concerned at what is happening. We would be immensely weaker as a nation in every respect - morally, politically, in every material aspect - if Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom were to part company. This year is the 100th anniversary of the First World War. As we honour the people who fought together then, would it not be extraordinary if the SNP broke up the most successful union and partnership in all history in any part of the world?

And here is some Twitter reaction to his interview.

From Billy Bragg, the singer and leftwing campaigner

From my Guardian colleague Owen Jones

From Sir Christopher Meyer, Major’s former press secretary and the former ambassador to Washington

From Philip Collins, the Times columnist and a former aide to Tony Blair

From my Observer colleague Ruaridh Nicoll

Turning away from Alistair Darling for a moment, I see that Rupert Murdoch - perhaps the worlds’ most powerful quasi-Scot (his grandfather emigrated to Australia from Scotland - has been musing on Twitter about his position on Scottish independence.

I think this means that he’s leaning towards yes.

But it’s not just the union he seems keen to discard. It’s page 3 too.

But on one matter at least, Murdoch does speak for the nation as a whole.

By the way, I’ve just checked with the SNP’s white paper. With a Scottish grandparent, Murdoch would qualify for Scottish citizenship if he wanted it.

Alistair Darling, the Better Together leader, is holding a phone-in on BBC Radio Scotland now. I’ll be covering it in detail.

Q: The timetable offered by the three unionist parties is not guaranteed, is it?

Darling says all three main UK parties have agreed it.

Q: But it is not guaranteed that it will go through parliament.

Darling says, if all three main parties agree, it is pretty likely to go through.

Sir John Major is on the Today programme now. But I’ll pick his comments up later, and instead focus on Alistair Darling, who is on BBC Radio Scotland now.

Q: What is Better Together offering voters? On income tax, all three unionist parties are offering different things. There is no clear consensus.

Darling says the proposals from Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are “not that far apart”. They have agreed to a process that will reach a consensus.

Under these plans, the Scottish parliament will have more powers than most federal governments in Western Europe.

In 1997 John Major campaigned for re-election partly on the basis that voters had 24 hours to save the union. It didn’t do him much good, and the union survived the following 24 hours, but 17 years later he feels that all his warnings about the implications of Tony Blair’s devolution proposals have been vindicated.

He will be on the Today programme at 8.10am, but he’s already set out his views in an article in the Times (paywall). Here’s an extract.

The previous Labour government left a deadly legacy when it passed a Devolution Act that was spectacularly one-sided. It offered Scotland all it asked for and — apart from a small reduction in Scottish MPs — ignored the impact on the rest of the UK. It would be ironic indeed if Scotland voted for separation, and Labour lost all its significant representation in the Commons. If this comes to pass, no one should weep for them.

In his article Major is explicitly critical of Labour and the SNP. But, unusually (because mostly he’s been a loyal ex-leader), he is also implicitly critical of David Cameron, suggesting it was a mistake for him to allow the Scottish referendum to go ahead, and a mistake for him to promise Scotland further powers without considering the wider consequences.

I despair that the SNP promised a referendum without a UK-wide consultation on the implications of independence. It is, frankly, an absurdly inadequate way to bring about constitutional change. But that is what has happened, and I suspect history will judge them very severely on this.

Whether Scotland becomes independent or merely receives more powers from Westminster, the British constitution, which was in flux, will have been up-ended. There will be long-term serious changes as a result of what has been offered to Scotland, even if separation is defeated next week. No one, I believe, has fully appreciated the scale of what this might mean. We face a constitutional revolution.

The Union was, and is, precious. Once broken, it cannot be put back together again. And to break it in acrimony would be the worst possible parting.

Major says it was the SNP who “promised a referendum without a UK-wide consultation on the implications of independence”, but he’s being a tad disingenuous. It was actually it was Cameron who bounced Alex Salmond into holding it, and Cameron and Salmond signed the Edinburgh agreement to allow it to go ahead.

Here are two more extracts from David Cameron’s article in the Daily Mail.

• Cameron said that the “special alchemy” of the UK gave the world democracy, enlightenment and the industrial revolution.
  

When the world wanted representation, we gave them democracy. When they wanted progress, we had the Scottish enlightenment and the industrial revolution.

When slavery bound innocent people, we abolished it; when fascism threatened freedom, we defeated it. A hundred years ago, our boys went off to war together – and they did so as comrades, united by purpose and hope for a better world.

As individuals and as nations, we have done extraordinary things. This is the special alchemy of the UK – you mix together Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland and together we smash expectations.

And that’s just as true today as it’s ever been. Together we ensure that the sick are cared for in our NHS; that no one has to reach for their credit card to get decent medical help.

• He said he “wholeheartedly” supported the timetable for Scotland to get further devolution (in the event of a no vote) set out by Gordon Brown on Monday.
  

This week, the No campaign set out more detail on this. Power for Scotland over how much money it borrows, what taxes it raises, how it spends that money – all agreed by November, all put into draft legislation by January. This is the package that Gordon Brown outlined on Monday. It is one I wholeheartedly support. Because we know that brighter future for Scotland rests not only on staying in the UK, but also on having significant new powers.