Up until recently every opinion poll (and there have been hundreds) had shown a healthy lead for the No vote. There's been something of a late surge for the Yes campaign and at the weekend we saw the first ever poll giving Yes a lead, albeit a small one which is within the margin of error. There's no doubt that Yes has the momentum so it's possible that the Scots could vote to leave, but the smart money is still on a No and that's what the bookies odds are saying. I'm a lot less confident than I was this time last week though.

Wales is much less likely to go the same way. Scotland is a potentially viable state with oil and other successful industries. The same doesn't really apply to Wales, which would be a complete basket case if it were to try and operate as an independent state. Northern Ireland is a different case altogether, complicated by the sectarian divide. There's still a protestant/unionist majority in NI and while that remains the case then it's hard to see anything changing up there. Eventually they may vote to unify Ireland, but that looks like being a long way off.

And as far as your Conservative Party's leadership, I thought one of you said the old rules--allowing a sitting Tory leader, even if PM, to be deposed like Thatcher was---were changed so you cannot do that anymore?

Nah, it can still happen, it's just more difficult to do. In theory the rules make it very tough to depose a sitting PM, but in practice it probably wouldn't be so hard. It requires 35% of the Parliamentary party to write a letter to the chairman of the 1922 Committee (I could explain what this is but it's not terribly important, an internal Tory party thing) calling for a leadership contest. Once they get enough letters it triggers a contest. Cameron would obviously be able to stand as a candidate if that were to happen. In reality however it's hard to see how he could carry on once it became clear that he'd lost the confidence of his MPs. It's more likely that he'd have to resign.

That's the nuclear option of course. Before it came to that it's likely that he'd face the prospect of party power brokers having a quiet word with him about his future. I can see it happening, although he may well be saved by the looming prospect of an election next May.

Sassenach wrote:Wales is much less likely to go the same way. Scotland is a potentially viable state with oil and other successful industries. The same doesn't really apply to Wales, which would be a complete basket case if it were to try and operate as an independent state.

I think a Yes would provide a significant boost to Plaid (the Welsh nationalist Party, formerly called Plaid Cymru). It may not be an immediate leap to independence, but I suspect that there will be a greater clamour. While Wales is not on the face of it a major economy in the making, there are smaller and weaker independent nations.

Sassenach wrote:Northern Ireland is a different case altogether, complicated by the sectarian divide. There's still a protestant/unionist majority in NI and while that remains the case then it's hard to see anything changing up there. Eventually they may vote to unify Ireland, but that looks like being a long way off.

I think if there is a Yes in Scotland, the rest of the UK should suggest they take back NI. After all, most of the Unionists in Ulster are descendants of Scots planters from before the formation of the Union (it started under James VI of Scotland in the 17th C).

The real actual issue is what the reaction will be in England. If the result is an increased call for English devolution and seperatism (an English Parliament, for example), that could result in greater fragmentation of the Union.

Sassenach wrote:

JimHackerMP wrote:And as far as your Conservative Party's leadership, I thought one of you said the old rules--allowing a sitting Tory leader, even if PM, to be deposed like Thatcher was---were changed so you cannot do that anymore?

Nah, it can still happen, it's just more difficult to do. In theory the rules make it very tough to depose a sitting PM, but in practice it probably wouldn't be so hard. It requires 35% of the Parliamentary party to write a letter to the chairman of the 1922 Committee (I could explain what this is but it's not terribly important, an internal Tory party thing) calling for a leadership contest. Once they get enough letters it triggers a contest. Cameron would obviously be able to stand as a candidate if that were to happen. In reality however it's hard to see how he could carry on once it became clear that he'd lost the confidence of his MPs. It's more likely that he'd have to resign.

Interestingly, the 1922 dates from the last time part of the UK left the Union. After WWI, and while Ireland was in open rebellion, there was a coalition between the Tories and a section of Liberals, under Lloyd George. The Tories had more MPs, but Lloyd George had been PM since the middle of the war and was popular. However, when in 1922 it was agreed to grant Home Rule to Ireland (the parts that wanted it), the backbench Tories met in a committee room and outvoted their leadership in a debate about whether to continue the coalition. The government fell, an election was called and the Tories won.

So it's interesting that nearly 100 years later the same committee is crucial to the future of a PM in a coalition government that may preside over the loss of another part of the Union.

Sassenach wrote:That's the nuclear option of course. Before it came to that it's likely that he'd face the prospect of party power brokers having a quiet word with him about his future. I can see it happening, although he may well be saved by the looming prospect of an election next May.

If they think the election is lost regardless, then they will keep him. If they think it is lost with him, but can be won with an alternate, they will dump him. If they think he can lead them to victory (which seems very unlikely) they will keep him.

This may seem obvious, but it does inform the likely outcome. As the election seems unwinnable at the moment, they need to have a clear alternative in mind to think they can turn it around. Which means that it comes down to whether they think the situation can be salvaged enough to at least remain largest party, and whether Cameron is the man to do it.

I think they will keep him in place, and then after the election, assuming they are not in government, will dump him hard. This also gives them an opportunity to wait for Boris Johnson - the Great White Dope

JimHackerMP wrote:Perhaps the Commonwealth would break up?

The Commonwealth is a very different thing. Scotland could, if it wants, join the Commonwealth. But if it does not that isn't a disaster (although I suspect they will as they want to retain the Queen as head of state). The Commonwealth is actually larger than it used to be. it's a 'club' for countries that used to be in the Empire, some of which still recognise the UK Monarch as head of state, but others of which are republics. And there are some members, like Mozambique, who joined recently despite no real connection to the British Empire.

I can't see any real knock on to the Commonwealth.

Dumping someone after a general election seems like locking the barn door after the proverbial horse has bolted.

I heard on BBC radio that (though implied not actually said this way) that members of HMG are ferociously campaigning in Scotland to vote No.

Why would members of the government bother to show up in support of a No vote, so ferociously (that's actually my word for it, not BBC's) if there were little danger of a Yes outcome? Does not seem logical that you'd put the effort in for something that wasn't likely anyway. Right? I could be wrong after all, you are there and I am not.

Also, the Commonwealth, per se, doesn't really amount to a hill of beans most of the time, does it? You have the "Commonwealth Games" that's like the Olympics. Except, since the United States is not involved, Canada, Australia, etc, get more gold medals than they normally would.

Just joking....

However, from where I sit, the only incentive to a Commonwealth country not going republic is that it allows the prime minister to appoint the real head of state. In Trinidad and Tobago, on the other hand, the President is elected by popular vote, independent from the prime minister. Long gone are the days, I am told, where the GG would have been "London's Man" sent over from England and actually appointed by the Crown, by actual choice (not a local "recommended" to the Queen by that country's PM).

And as far as I know the only Commonwealth club members who retain the Queen as the legal head of state are Canada, Australia, NZ, Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize, Antigua & Barbuda...can't remember the rest. I know it's almost a dozen or so besides the UK itself. I could look them up one by one in the CIA World Fact Book but I don't feel like it, right now.

I don't recall saying there was no chance of a Yes vote. Quite the opposite in fact, we were both commenting on how Yes has been closing the gap and how there's a very real chance it winning, and then speculating on what the consequences might be for the current PM.

But anyway, is there something wrong with the idea that our politicians should be campaigning furiously to prevent the breakup of the nation ? Wouldn't they be doing the same about now if California was holding a referendum on secession ?

JimHackerMP wrote:Dumping someone after a general election seems like locking the barn door after the proverbial horse has bolted.

Yes, but:

a) Chances are it wasn't going to change the result if you dump them before, so only that leader get associated with the loss, and their replacement starts anew
b) often the defeated leader resigns anyway
c) there's always another election coming around the bend.

I heard on BBC radio that (though implied not actually said this way) that members of HMG are ferociously campaigning in Scotland to vote No.

Why would members of the government bother to show up in support of a No vote, so ferociously (that's actually my word for it, not BBC's) if there were little danger of a Yes outcome? Does not seem logical that you'd put the effort in for something that wasn't likely anyway. Right? I could be wrong after all, you are there and I am not.

Indeed - there was a trend towards a 'Yes' vote in the polls, which if it continued (and it appears to have slowed slightly but is still there) would point to a win. The reality is that the Westminster politicians were expecting that the No campaign would be able to cope without them going up there, and all the tough questions about the currency issue and uncertainty with the economy etc would be enough. So to an extent they panicked when things looked like they may reverse in the last few weeks.

Also, the Commonwealth, per se, doesn't really amount to a hill of beans most of the time, does it? You have the "Commonwealth Games" that's like the Olympics. Except, since the United States is not involved, Canada, Australia, etc, get more gold medals than they normally would.

Just joking....

More importantly, we let each nation in the UK (and places like the Isle of Man and Guernsey) compete as their own team, so Scotland gets to win more medals that it will ever get at an Olympics as well. As does England, which topped the table this year - Scotland hosted.

It's also a 'club' with cultural links, which meets at various levels up to governmental on all kinds of issues. The main emphasis is on promotion of democracy and freedom, the rule of law, anti-discrimination, peace, love and all those nice things (and apple pie, of course, which is British and a proper pie, not that silly American flan thing ). Trade does come into it as well, but mainly it is a prestige thing.

But members are supposed to democracies (so we suspended Zimbabwe over that and they left, and Gambia left after it decided democracy was too 'neo-colonial'). The only other country to leave and not come back is Ireland, and basically they have lots of close ties to the UK without membership and without having to be seen as selling out their rebel heritage by being in the club.

One thing that it does is to look after the war graves of Commonwealth soldiers from previous wars (which as you can imagine from WWI and WWII are all over the world).

Until this year, writers had to be from a current or past Commonwealth country to be put forward for the Booker Prize. Now they have let Americans in

There are 16 nations that recognise the Queen as head of state. The ones you missed are other island states in the Carribean or Pacific, including Papua New Guinea.

b) often the defeated leader resigns anyway

They almost always resign. The last defeated party leader to retain his post and end up fighting a second election was Neil Kinnock after losing in 1987. The last defeated PM to retain the party leadership was Harold Wilson after he lost in 1970 (I'm not counting Heath in 74, since there were two elections in that year and he was out after losing the second of them).

[quote="Sassenach"]It used to be a bit more common for leaders to stay on. Churchill, Attlee, Baldwin, MacDonald... all carried on leading defeated parties for some time and all became PM after losing a previous election.

Now that Boris Johnson has been selected for Uxbridge, I suspect that the Tories will not move to push Cameron out straight after a Yes vote*. While some may not want BJ as leader, there would need to be a critical mass, and they may also figure that anyone chosen now would still have to face Boris after May.

*The Sottish polling is still very close, and it does really depend on things like relative turnout, whether there are "shy No" voters (given the scorn heaped upon prominent No campaigners I can well believe there are) and what the undecideds do. A few months ago I would have been certain of a No with a margin of about 60-40 or more. It will likely be closer, and while I hope that No will still come out on top, and think the chances are it will, it's not worthy of a gamble.

I seem to remember William Hague was the main opposition leader (when Tories were in Opp. & Blair was PM) and when Conservative lost to Blair/Labour in the late 1990s, I think; Hague was no longer sitting on the front bench, which I guess means he was booted by the Conservative party as leader of H.M. Opposition. But now, he used to be Foreign Secretary under Cameron/Clegg until.....I forget what the press release was dated on the No. 10 website...July? So I guess you're not "cooked" when you lose an election as Opp. leader, are you?

But I understand that, after a discrete interval, a disgraced PM or opposition leader is "kicked upstairs". Correct?

What about an MP, even a prominent cabinet member, screws something up big time, does he still get kicked upstairs eventually? for example:

In the 1 hour special Christmas Episode of Yes, Minister (styled "Party Games") the Home Secretary, who had just started a "don't drink & drive campaign" for the Holidays, and a "get tough" policy from the police, is caught drunk driving himself. Hacker asks what will happen to him, and Sir Humphrey, the new Cabinet Secretary (actor: Sir Nigel Hawthorne) explains:

"Well, I gather he was as drunk as a Lord, so after a discrete interval they'll probably make him one."

In the U.S. it's a bit different. Lose a general election for President and you're done as far as running for president ever again. Lose a primary, that's OK (just ask the incredibly optimistic Harold Stassen). But a general election for prez, you're done. Kerry was done after losing to Bush (but remained Senator, and now Secretary of State), and Romney is done as far as most people are concerned, just as Al Gore was done after losing (let's spare the E.C./Second Stolen Election debate, please) to W in 2000. We've only ever had one non-consecutive president, so I guess back in the late 19th century, the situation was different.

In the 19th Century however, the presidents between Jackson and Lincoln, nobody got a 2nd term. In fact, none of them were even re-nominated by their own party; somebody else ran in their place...[that phun phact brought you by the letter O and the number 44.]

Until this year, writers had to be from a current or past Commonwealth country to be put forward for the Booker Prize. Now they have let Americans in

Well, there goes the neighborhood. (Excuse me: neighbourhood)

There are 16 nations that recognise the Queen as head of state. The ones you missed are other island states in the Carribean or Pacific, including Papua New Guinea.

So I got, what, eight of em? Hey, 8 out of 16 ain't bad and, since I can locate Mexico on a map (let alone eight Commonwealth realms), I am doing rather well for an American. I had forgotten about Grenada...actually, the best place to find this stuff out is in my copy of The Standard Catalog of World Paper Money even more than the CIA World Factbook. The only confusion arises from finding which of the countries that use the "East Caribbean Dollar" are Commonwealth Realms or just Members (republics). This is what i have so far, the first seven are the ones I missed (had no idea about PNG, that was a surprise to me):

Solomon Islands
Papua New Guinea
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Barbados
Grenada
New Zealand
Australia
Canada
Antigua and Barbuda
Jamaica
Bahamas
Belize
the UK

Which is 15 so who am I missing? I checked and Fiji's a Republic, but they currently have a Junta running things. Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are listed as "Crown Dependencies" not "Commonwealth Realms" or "Territory of the UK" (there were a bunch of those in the Caribbean, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda). Another phun phact, the Bahamas is the only country in the world to have (or have had) a $3 bill. (Before that, when using Bahamas pounds not dollars, they had a 4-shilling note instead of 5 shillings; also unusual.)

And yeah, how come the UK gets three teams for everything? Should the Scots vote "Aye", nothing will change, sports-wise. Cricket, Soccer (sorry Football), Rugby, etc., there's a team for Scotland, a team for England, and a team for Wales.

JimHackerMP wrote:And yeah, how come the UK gets three teams for everything? Should the Scots vote "Aye", nothing will change, sports-wise. Cricket, Soccer (sorry Football), Rugby, etc., there's a team for Scotland, a team for England, and a team for Wales.

We get up to four teams (and not including the smaller islands).

When we were starting many of these sports (as they originated mainly in England), we would play national level matches within UK members. It does differ slightly by sport:

Football - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each has a team, each has a national association. For many years they have resisted suggestions we should form a GB or UK team. The smaller associations (rightly) do not want to be absorbed by the English FA.

Rugby Union - England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Ireland covers both Northern Ireland and the Republic, because the Irish union did not split on Irish independence (and in doing so it more closely mirrors the Irish GAA which is also pan-Irish.

Cricket - England, Scotland and Ireland. England includes Wales, and the Irish is also pan-Ireland as for Rugby. The evolution of cricket was at county level in England, and Glamorgan in South Wales was a county that broke through to the Championship nearly 100 years ago. The rest of Wales is united into a Minor Counties league team that plays against the third-tier counties in England. Scotland and Ireland have only recently been national teams - often cricketers from Scotland would play in English teams (Douglas Jardine being perhaps the most famous/infamous), and so have Irish players.

John Major was leader of the Tories right up to 1997 when he lost the election to Blair. Hague was his replacement, he'd not been in a major ministerial post before then - He was Secretary of State for Wales.

When he lost the election in 2001, and was replaced soon after as leader by Ian Duncan Smith (who didn't even last until the 2005 election), and did indeed spend some time as a back-bencher. He was invited back a couple of times and accepted when Cameron took over in 2005. Since then his brief has been Foreign Secretary.

However, I would expect that he is unlikely to be leader again - and particularly not from opposition.

Hague was in his 30s when he became Tory leader, he was something of an unusual case. At the time he became leader he was far too young for the job and woefully underprepared for it. Over time he gained more experience and grew into the role of elder statesman and so it was possible for him to make something of a comeback, although in truth he was always reluctant to do it and his replacement as Foreign Secretary this year was largely at his own request. Most party leaders who lose an election tend to view it as a good time to step right back from frontline politics and go off to make a shitload of moneyin the private sector instead. They'll often continue as a backbench MP for a while but they rarely get back involved in senior positions. The current government includes two former leaders (Hague and Duncan-Smith), but this is very unusual.

Most party leaders who lose an election tend to view it as a good time to step right back from frontline politics and go off to make a shitload of moneyin the private sector instead

Yeah I think Tony Blair now works as a geopolitical consultant for JPMorganChase. And I reckon he makes a shitload more than he did as Prime Minister. What's your PM get paid, anyway?

30s sounds young to be a party leader, heck I'm 36 myself and haven't done anything. Admittdely tho, I was rather young when I ran for the School Board (a very powerful position in Maryland counties). And the candidate I worked for this primary was 27. Though I understand that's not terribly unprecedented in your country. In fact, there was a hilarious episode of Blackadder making fun of Pitt the Younger (emphasis on "younger").

Charles Kennedy was elected to Parliament at the age of 21. Then there was Claire Ward, elected during the Labour landslide of 1997 at the age of 24. She was still living with her parents at the time and had never held down a fulltime job.

Hmmm I wonder if your voters would have elected me as an MP (then again the Board of Education is in some ways more powerful than Congress )

Well, today's the big day, no? Almost 3:40 (or 15:40) now. When do the polls close in the Scottish referendum? I hear turnout is pretty huge so far.

Polls close in about 5 hrs I think. We should know the outcome by about 6.30am, although it's quite possible that the general picture will be known much earlier than that. I'll not bother to stay up for it.

Well since we're 5 hours behind, I won't have to stay up. I'll keep it on BBC America (we have satellite) and watch for the results. I understand a lot of people world wide watch our elections, too.