Today in the Referendum: Hillary Clinton steps in

FOR the second Friday in a row, an intervention by a high-profile American politician dominates the referendum headlines. Find out why, and catch up on the rest of the day’s referendum news in a round-up from our dedicated Scottish Independence site.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Picture: Getty

• Get the latest referendum news, opinion and analysis from across Scotland and beyond on our new Scottish Independence website

After Barack Obama’s statements on the Union last week - and subsequent revelations that the President may have been prompted to make them - Hillary Clinton has now stated her position.

Clinton, former US Secretary of State, told Jeremy Paxman she would “hate” to see Scotland leave the UK. You can watch her full interview with the BBC here.

Closer to home, Gordon Brown has generated plenty of coverage with his comments on public service broadcasting after independence. The former Prime Minister has claimed that a Scottish Broadcasting Service would “inevitably” require higher licence fees than the BBC, or be forced to carry adverts. Meanwhile Joyce McMillan gives her reaction to Brown’s call for federalism - find out what she thinks of the Fife MP’s suggestions here.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Here’s a round-up of some of the top opinion pieces on the #indyref debate from yesterday:

• Ruth Wishart claims that online slurs are unlikely to have a material impact on the referendum campaign, in an article for The Guardian’s Comment is Free site. Read it here.

• Scotland should vote for independence to escape the “disproportionate and destabilizing influence” of London on the UK’s economy and politics, according to Scottish-born, US-based academic David Speedie. His take first appeared on Scottish Global Forum.

• “Responding to OUTRAGE with your own OUTRAGE is, in the end, a pointlessly unproductive way of carrying on”. That’s the take of Alex Massie on the ‘trolling’ row that followed JK Rowling’s donation to Better Together.

COMING UP LATER:

• Better Together leader Alistair Darling is set for a trip to the Girvan Distillery in Ayrshire. The former Chancellor is making the campaign visit “to highlight the benefits to businesses of Scotland remaining part of the UK”.

• The Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont will go head-to-head in a referendum debate in Glasgow. The event is the third in a series organised by Evangelical Alliance Scotland - here’s their report on the first debate in Perth.