With the Tricentenary of the Act of Union coming May 1 and the election of MSPs to the Scottish Parliament just two days later I hope this was not his idea of the best way to calm independence rumblings. The Labor Party is already expected to lose it's small majority in the election, but whether or not the SNP will have the votes to call for a referendum on independence and whether that would pass is another matter. Polls on the referendum question are all over the place.
Blair like all Unionists is left in the bind of trying to stress the importance of the Union enough to convince voters to keep it, without making the issue provocative enough to fan separatist sentiment. And mollifying Scots with more devolution will probably not do much to convince them of the necessity of remaining with Great Britain.
The Guardian doesn't do much to help with comments such as these (italics mine).
In Edinburgh, the (SNP)party's leader, Alex Salmond, likened Mr Blair and Gordon Brown to the "parcel of rogues" who, according to contested history, agreed to union without the people's consent - the phrase of Robert Burns alleges Scottish parliamentarians were bribed with English gold.
That there is anything "contested" or "alleged" to the corruption involved in the original vote is news to me. But it no doubt has to do with Whatley's book.
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