Independence Debate
A story in the Tory supporting Telegraph newspaper which tries to 'monster' Alex Salmond hardly amounts to news, but I suspect these tactics are going to backfire.
Because I think most Scots are fair-minded and reasonable even if there are people out there like Carole Mungall who can come up with nothing better than an idiotic analogy which compares independence to 'buying a car without an engine'.
I wonder what this charming lady had to say before the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999 - was he one of the many Telegraph readers who opposed and voted against devolution?
Now Mrs Mungall appears to be a business woman and if so, I imagine it cannot have escaped her attention that the greatest depression in living memory came as something of a surprise to the Westminster Parliament which, of course, has control of economic policy for the whole of the UK.
I can't think of the Scottish Parliament making a similar hash of things over the past 15 years and that covers a period when the SNP, Labour and the Lib Dems have all been in government at Holyrood.
Women turn their backs on Salmond
Alex Salmond has a 'woman problem' with only a fifth saying they would vote Yes, compared to nearly a third of men
Dancers compete during the Highland Games at Ballater on Royal Deeside Photo: Ian Rutherford for The Telegraph
By Tom Rowley, in Ballater - The Telegraph
In a muddy field in the Cairngorms National Park, Carole Mungall is putting the final touches to her stall, splaying home-made Harris Tweed handbags and purses across a trestle table. For 500 yards in either direction, other traders are laying out scarves, jumpers and bagpipes. They stock almost any colour you could think of, so long as it’s tartan.
This is the 150th Highland Games to be held in Ballater, a small town tucked beneath the mountains, and Scottish distinctiveness is on display everywhere, from the Scottie dog with a Saltire painted on its head to the kilt-clad young men warming up to toss the caber. A good hunting ground, you might think, for Alex Salmond and his campaign to mirror this cultural gulf with political separation from Britain.
Until you speak to the people here, that is. “Alex Salmond has not said anything to convince me,” says Mrs Mungall, who will be voting No. “He doesn’t answer questions and he just looks smug.
Carole Mungall at her stall (Ian Rutherford for The Telegraph)
“He is too vague. If you are buying a car, you want to know there is an engine under the bonnet. There is a large romantic notion about independence, but you don’t vote for something when you don’t know how it will turn out.”
Worryingly for Mr Salmond, this view is not unusual. With a month to go until his long-cherished dream of a referendum on independence finally becomes reality, the debate is not going quite as he might have wished.
All the most recent polls show that not only is the Scottish First Minister on course to lose the vote, he is likely to be thrashed. One poll conducted last week showed the No campaign leading by 20 per cent, while even two more favourable surveys showed a 13 per cent margin for No.
Given such dire numbers, few sections of the population are staunchly in favour of independence. But the Yes campaign will be particularly concerned by its failure to woo women voters. In the latest Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, published last week, only 27 per cent of women were in favour of independence, compared to 39 per cent of men, the largest gender gap ever recorded in the survey and double the differential in recent years.
When the precise question to be used in the referendum was put to them, only a fifth of women said they would vote Yes, compared to nearly a third of men. Mr Salmond, it seems, is suffering from a “women problem”. Regardless of the veracity of his opponents’ jibes about his supposed “bully-boy tactics”, his dominant personality is alienating some female voters.
None of this surprises Jackie Townsend, 70, who has been coming to the Ballater Games in Aberdeenshire with her twin sister, Marion, every year since the age of seven, and sits in the front row to greet the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall as they tour the field. In fact, she argues, Mr Salmond has been the “main problem” with the Yes campaign.
“I think he is very pompous,” she says. “He doesn’t seem to be able to listen when someone answers back; he seems to have made his mind up.
“If you ask people to say what politician they would like to spend an evening in the pub with, they say Alex Salmond. But this is a very different question – you need different qualities to persuade people.”
This difficulty persuading women to support his cause is so crucial because they are much more likely than men to be undecided “floating” voters. Up to a sixth of voters have still to make up their minds, but it is increasingly clear that the Yes campaign’s attempts to coax them into plumping for independence are failing. Even in the measured academic language of the survey, statisticians concede that Salmond has “not necessarily been the Yes campaign’s greatest asset with women”.
“It is unquestionably a Salmond issue,” says David Torrance, author of an authoritative biography of the First Minister, Salmond: Against the Odds. “He is essentially an alpha male. When pollsters ask women what words they associate with him, they say he is 'arrogant’ and 'aggressive’. They like Nicola Sturgeon [his deputy] much more, although they think she is very ambitious.”
Politicians at Westminster have gone to great lengths to portray themselves as modern men, as keen on domestic duties as work in the office. Nick Clegg, for example, has often let it be known that he shares the school run with his wife.
Yet, although Mr Salmond has been one of Scotland’s most prominent politicians for more than two decades – earning the nickname “Wee Eck” (Alex) – he has done little to present an attractive picture of his private life. The one and only joint interview he ever did with his wife, Moira, was a disaster. “He can’t cook, is reluctant to do housework and still hasn’t put up the new pole for her curtains, even though she’s had it for six months,” according to the account. “His mum did everything for him,” said Moira. “I’ve just fallen into the same pattern.”
The Yes camp latched on to this problem early, giving Ms Sturgeon a greater profile in the campaign and launching “family friendly” policies such as pledging 30 hours of child care each week in an independent Scotland. They also supported Women for Independence, a campaign group organising rallies across the country to target the female vote.
Yet, according to last week’s figures, none one of this has shifted perceptions. “Their sustained efforts to woo female voters haven’t worked,” says Torrance. “The end result is that women who were suspicious of Salmond have remained suspicious of Salmond.”
Dislike of Mr Salmond, however, is not the only reason women are less likely to support independence. In fact, the statisticians behind the social attitudes survey claim that there would be a gender gap of some degree whoever led the charge for separation.
“Women are more likely to say that the consequences of independence are uncertain,” explains John Curtice, a politics professor at Strathclyde University who has helped to run the survey for 15 years. “One argument says that women are simply being rational – indeed the future is unpredictable. Another argument says that women are probably rather more risk-adverse than men [in general]. To some degree, people have to be willing to take a risk to vote Yes.”
On almost all measures, men are more likely to think independence would alleviate Scotland’s problems than women. For example, more than half of men think there would be more “pride in Scotland” were it to separate, compared to 43 percent of women. According to the survey, around a fifth of women simply do not know whether they think independence would improve or weaken Scotland’s economy or how it would affect inequality.
Elaine C Smith, convenor of the Scottish Independence Convention, a cross-party lobby group for separation, is also in Aberdeenshire for a Yes campaign meeting. Independence, she concedes, “is a much bigger problem for women”.
“Maybe those arguments about what independence will do for them haven’t been articulated well enough,” admits the actress who is best known in England for playing “Mary Doll” in Rab C Nesbitt, the Nineties sitcom.
Mr Salmond’s performance in a recent head-to-head debate with Alistair Darling, leader of the pro-unionist Better Together campaign, was derided by most commentators as weak, but she thinks, ironically, this will bolster his image among women voters.
“From a Yes point of view I wanted Alex to come out swinging and go and have a boxing match,” she says. “You want your man to do that. But actually for a lot of people – particularly women and older voters – to see him more vulnerable is not a bad thing.”
She even issues a plea to women considering voting No because they dislike Mr Salmond. “Please don’t base your argument on that,” she says. “I don’t even see it as saying 'hold your nose’ – he is not the movement. What are you going to tell your grandchildren? You voted no because you didn’t like a guy whose name you won’t remember in 20 years’ time?”
Regardless of the polls, she remains optimistic. “Women are still making up their minds,” she notes. “It is all up for grabs. A week is a long time in politics.”
Reputations, however, are forged over years. And, fairly or not, the women of Scotland appear to have made up their minds about Mr Salmond, if not yet about independence. He could, of course, still win on 18 September – but he has a Wee Eck of a mountain to climb.
Additional reporting by Helena Kealey
“He is too vague. If you are buying a car, you want to know there is an engine under the bonnet. There is a large romantic notion about independence, but you don’t vote for something when you don’t know how it will turn out.”
Worryingly for Mr Salmond, this view is not unusual. With a month to go until his long-cherished dream of a referendum on independence finally becomes reality, the debate is not going quite as he might have wished.
All the most recent polls show that not only is the Scottish First Minister on course to lose the vote, he is likely to be thrashed. One poll conducted last week showed the No campaign leading by 20 per cent, while even two more favourable surveys showed a 13 per cent margin for No.
Given such dire numbers, few sections of the population are staunchly in favour of independence. But the Yes campaign will be particularly concerned by its failure to woo women voters. In the latest Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, published last week, only 27 per cent of women were in favour of independence, compared to 39 per cent of men, the largest gender gap ever recorded in the survey and double the differential in recent years.
When the precise question to be used in the referendum was put to them, only a fifth of women said they would vote Yes, compared to nearly a third of men. Mr Salmond, it seems, is suffering from a “women problem”. Regardless of the veracity of his opponents’ jibes about his supposed “bully-boy tactics”, his dominant personality is alienating some female voters.
None of this surprises Jackie Townsend, 70, who has been coming to the Ballater Games in Aberdeenshire with her twin sister, Marion, every year since the age of seven, and sits in the front row to greet the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall as they tour the field. In fact, she argues, Mr Salmond has been the “main problem” with the Yes campaign.
“I think he is very pompous,” she says. “He doesn’t seem to be able to listen when someone answers back; he seems to have made his mind up.
“If you ask people to say what politician they would like to spend an evening in the pub with, they say Alex Salmond. But this is a very different question – you need different qualities to persuade people.”
This difficulty persuading women to support his cause is so crucial because they are much more likely than men to be undecided “floating” voters. Up to a sixth of voters have still to make up their minds, but it is increasingly clear that the Yes campaign’s attempts to coax them into plumping for independence are failing. Even in the measured academic language of the survey, statisticians concede that Salmond has “not necessarily been the Yes campaign’s greatest asset with women”.
“It is unquestionably a Salmond issue,” says David Torrance, author of an authoritative biography of the First Minister, Salmond: Against the Odds. “He is essentially an alpha male. When pollsters ask women what words they associate with him, they say he is 'arrogant’ and 'aggressive’. They like Nicola Sturgeon [his deputy] much more, although they think she is very ambitious.”
Politicians at Westminster have gone to great lengths to portray themselves as modern men, as keen on domestic duties as work in the office. Nick Clegg, for example, has often let it be known that he shares the school run with his wife.
Yet, although Mr Salmond has been one of Scotland’s most prominent politicians for more than two decades – earning the nickname “Wee Eck” (Alex) – he has done little to present an attractive picture of his private life. The one and only joint interview he ever did with his wife, Moira, was a disaster. “He can’t cook, is reluctant to do housework and still hasn’t put up the new pole for her curtains, even though she’s had it for six months,” according to the account. “His mum did everything for him,” said Moira. “I’ve just fallen into the same pattern.”
The Yes camp latched on to this problem early, giving Ms Sturgeon a greater profile in the campaign and launching “family friendly” policies such as pledging 30 hours of child care each week in an independent Scotland. They also supported Women for Independence, a campaign group organising rallies across the country to target the female vote.
Yet, according to last week’s figures, none one of this has shifted perceptions. “Their sustained efforts to woo female voters haven’t worked,” says Torrance. “The end result is that women who were suspicious of Salmond have remained suspicious of Salmond.”
Dislike of Mr Salmond, however, is not the only reason women are less likely to support independence. In fact, the statisticians behind the social attitudes survey claim that there would be a gender gap of some degree whoever led the charge for separation.
“Women are more likely to say that the consequences of independence are uncertain,” explains John Curtice, a politics professor at Strathclyde University who has helped to run the survey for 15 years. “One argument says that women are simply being rational – indeed the future is unpredictable. Another argument says that women are probably rather more risk-adverse than men [in general]. To some degree, people have to be willing to take a risk to vote Yes.”
On almost all measures, men are more likely to think independence would alleviate Scotland’s problems than women. For example, more than half of men think there would be more “pride in Scotland” were it to separate, compared to 43 percent of women. According to the survey, around a fifth of women simply do not know whether they think independence would improve or weaken Scotland’s economy or how it would affect inequality.
Elaine C Smith, convenor of the Scottish Independence Convention, a cross-party lobby group for separation, is also in Aberdeenshire for a Yes campaign meeting. Independence, she concedes, “is a much bigger problem for women”.
“Maybe those arguments about what independence will do for them haven’t been articulated well enough,” admits the actress who is best known in England for playing “Mary Doll” in Rab C Nesbitt, the Nineties sitcom.
Mr Salmond’s performance in a recent head-to-head debate with Alistair Darling, leader of the pro-unionist Better Together campaign, was derided by most commentators as weak, but she thinks, ironically, this will bolster his image among women voters.
“From a Yes point of view I wanted Alex to come out swinging and go and have a boxing match,” she says. “You want your man to do that. But actually for a lot of people – particularly women and older voters – to see him more vulnerable is not a bad thing.”
She even issues a plea to women considering voting No because they dislike Mr Salmond. “Please don’t base your argument on that,” she says. “I don’t even see it as saying 'hold your nose’ – he is not the movement. What are you going to tell your grandchildren? You voted no because you didn’t like a guy whose name you won’t remember in 20 years’ time?”
Regardless of the polls, she remains optimistic. “Women are still making up their minds,” she notes. “It is all up for grabs. A week is a long time in politics.”
Reputations, however, are forged over years. And, fairly or not, the women of Scotland appear to have made up their minds about Mr Salmond, if not yet about independence. He could, of course, still win on 18 September – but he has a Wee Eck of a mountain to climb.
Additional reporting by Helena Kealey
