within snatching distance

There you are, Yes folks. Henry McLeish, one of our former Labour Prime Ministers

-let's call 'em that, none of this "First Minister" artificiality, after all Northern Ireland had Prime Ministers 1921-72 -

still as yet a No voter himself, says Yes is still winnable. Wrote it in the Scotsman. For all the stated practical reasons of keeping a socially just line on social services and staying in the EU, that you tell us is what you want to win it for. As good as concedes the Yes case, straight after that naff American pollster was calling its defeat. The No case is not inspiring anyone.

The Yes case is not inspiring anyone either. Leave it as it is, you will miss the chance McLeish has conceded you have. Stop compromising with the tabloids and make the campaign more participative, use the items folks sent in to your consultations instead of going with the British level's keeping them unpublicised, then folks could trust you, then you could snatch back your chances.

No-brainer. Always has been.

Spot on question

Well done Johann Lamont, getting Salmond with the right question at PMQs yesterday.

Yes I will call it PMQs, the contrivance of "first minister" was never used for colonial Prime Ministers or the Canadian provinces or for Northern Ireland's in 1921-72, and a Prime Minster is a first minister.

Salmond needs to be more factual, in his position, than to make up speculations and claim they will happen because they sound sensible to him. Otherwise voters will start to feel he is selling them a dud. Saying that after independence, outside and separated from the UK, we could make the UK give us a seat in the bank of England's structure for issuing the UK's currency. Totally silly. Exactly as Lamont said, he was just crossing his fingers and hoping for the best: and trying to bounce it, too. Most voters, without needing to follow politics, know you can't take for granted without asking, a foreign country will provide you with a facility on demand just because you say it would be sensible. No wonder the Bank of England has said no.

Campaign questions intimately related to the question of honesty over the SNP filtering the public availability of consultation responses. Does Salmond listen to any items voters raise on the position around independence? Will voters get any position out of him on other issues than just those he has chosen for a fudged feelgood campaign for a statehood not fully explained in many of his aspects? So does he actually care where ordinary folks' state of life will be?