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The Unionist side in Scotland's separatist referendum is noisily bouncing back today with big banks and oil companies being pushed off the fence to warn of the pitfalls of a decision to break up the UK. It prompted me to wonder if Alex Salmond hadn't woken up in a sweat from a dream in which the yes campaign had won and begged them to save him from the consequences.
All right, it's a joke and Salmond has duly denied scare stories. But, like all serious jokes, it conveys an underlying truth, namely that the first minister's sights were once set on what we now call Devo-Max – greater devolved powers for Edinburgh, rather than the SNP's formal goal of full independence from the rest of the UK (rUK).
All sorts of people, including the Guardian's intrepid Scotland correspondent, Severin Carrell, get a raspberry whenever they point this out. The veteran Scottish commentator, Magnus Linklater, did so again in the Times this week when he wrote that a yes win would be the result "neither side wants ... a crisis that both Cameron and Salmond would like to avoid" – not least because Salmond the economist knows the myriad risks an independent Scotland would face.
Linklater's argument reflects what I was told by a prominent public official and acknowledged expert on the detailed background to the drama – a pro-devolution, anti-independence Scot, incidentally. The way he tells it is: "Alex Salmond did not want to have this referendum in the first place. The promise was in his 2011 manifesto for the Holyrood elections, which he did not expect to win. He was saddled with it."
Salmond had been running a minority SNP regime at Holyrood since 2007 after the post-Iraq, post-Blair puncturing of UK Labour and the lacklustre record of its Scottish leadership. The Scottish Labour party is a gloomy, fratricidal set-up ("the least comradely I have experienced around the world", says a Scottish leftie friend), but Scots Blair and Brown largely left it to its own devices while they governed Britain.
The once-dominant Scottish Tories (they won half Scotland's seats in 1955) had imploded as a result of Brand Thatcher – though they still polled 412,000 votes to the SNP's 491,000 in 2010, they got only one seat. But as a result of David Cameron's failure to win a Commons majority in 2010, he was forced to entice the Lib Dems into a coalition at Westminster.
Scotland had its chance to register disapproval the following May. Salmond's team hadn't bust the bank in government, it had even done popular things like bribing the middle class on student fees, NHS scrips and end-of-life care (all free!), and gained ground. What made the difference between a modest win and the SNP's 69-seats-out-of-129 majority was the collapse of the Lib Dem and minor parties – mostly on the left – in the second "top-up seat" vote. Labour lost seven seats, the Tories five, but the Lib Dems 12. Here are the details.
So if Scotland breaks the Union the Nats should build a statue of Nick Clegg next to William Wallace's monument at Stirling, next to Salmond's as well.
But what of Devo-Max? It had been talked about, but not included in the SNP's 2011 manifesto. The UK government's consent to the referendum was needed and given, but Cameron sensed that a let-out soft option which allowed the Nats to come back for more would be a concession too far. He insisted that Salmond stage the yes/no referendum promised in his manifesto – not a three-option choice. What may have looked smart in 2012 may not look smart next Friday morning.
Of course, if yes wins next week, then Cameron may be putsched by his own party, and may in any case pay the price for his miscalculation and complacency at rUK's general election on 7 May.
Prof Alan Trench, the tireless constitutional analyst, has even suggested it may suit rUK to speed up Scottish independence to 7 May 2015 – a year before Salmond's high-speed date. That strikes me as wishful thinking.
Trench has gently outlined the post-yes negotiating problems, mildly observing that rUK does not want an unstable failed state on its northern border and holds most of the negotiating cards. The polite word he uses is "asymmetrical".
So whatever the SNP finance minister, John Swinney, said again on Thursday about having a mandate to negotiate a currency union if Scots vote to leave the one they have, Cameron doesn't have one. Why should rUK shoulder the downside risks Scotland has voted to create?
Before catching my train at Edinburgh Waverley last week, I spent an enjoyable hour in the nearby Scottish National Gallery. My pleasure was dampened by the recurring thought: "I wouldn't like to be the person who has to sort out the ownership of this lot."
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