Realistic approach

Former Labour spin doctor Simon Pia flatters to deceive in his criticism of Alex Salmond’s failure to “take the initiative on the referendum and ‘go early’ after the SNP’s historic victory last May” (Perspective, 25 February), on the grounds that an earlier referendum –in breach of the party’s contrary election pledge – would nevertheless have given the party its best chance of final victory on the constitutional question.

In support of his case Mr. Pia cites the speed with which the 1997 Labour administration rushed to hold a devolution referendum “within four months of taking office” but this is not an accurate analogy as for most of the previous decade – since the time of John Smith’s leadership – the top Scottish Labour politicians took the view that devolution was already “the settled will of the Scottish people”.

Regrettably, this is not the case with regard to independence as public opinion poll after public opinion poll has shown that we don’t as yet have even a narrow majority for independence let alone a settled majority. Moreover, many SNP voters – especially first-time SNP voters last May – are not as yet convinced of the party’s case for independence.

Against this background, and from an SNP standpoint, the election statistics quoted by Mr Pia himself – a highly creditable 45 per cent SNP vote share on a mere 50 per cent turnout – do not in fact constitute a firm basis on which to build a successful independence referendum campaign in the immediate future, as indeed he almost gets round to conceding at the end of his article. Could it be that in recognising this reality and accordingly resisting the unionists’ demand for an early referendum, Mr Salmond is not so much a “gradualist” as a “realist”?

IAN O BAYNE

Clarence Drive

Glasgow