Scotland’s Yes campaigners ‘beside themselves with joy’

One can but imagine Rupert Murdoch’s glee in New York on Saturday as he penned a Twitter message that caused consternation within moments on the other side of the Atlantic.

“London Times will shock Britain and more with reliable new poll on Scottish independence. If right on 18th vote, everything up for grabs,” he wrote.

By 10pm, the YouGov poll figures had emerged. Excluding undecideds, it reported that 51 per cent of Scots polled now favour independence; 49 per cent were against.

Numbers like that had been expected from early Thursday - but not from YouGov, a pollster that has consistently brought in lower numbers for Yes than competitors.

Since his arrival in London in the 1960s, Murdoch has seen himself as anti-establishment, even if a score of Britain politicians have felt the need to bow at his court.

Scottish first minister Alex Salmond has spent much time currying favour, but none of them casts doubt over the figures since they follow the trend of an earlier YouGov poll last Monday.

Never impressed by David Cameron, Murdoch will have chortled at his discomfiture, particularly since Cameron received the numbers as he arrived in Balmoral for dinner with Queen Elizabeth.

Labour sought to make Murdoch the issue, not the polling figures; emphasising the media mogul's power and influence as it fought back.

Labour MPs have been ordered to Glasgow on Thursday to campaign in the city’s seven House of Commons constituencies that are all held by Labour; six of them with more than 50 per cent of the vote.

Significant numbers, perhaps a third if the polls are correct, have drifted to the Yes camp. Tens of thousands of them have now to be won back.

Polls are but polls; but the Yes campaign - which urged its people forward last night - has been given crucial momentum in the final ten days.

Over recent months, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats produced individual promises to increase Scotland’s Home Rule powers if voters said No.

The Conservatives, ironically, were probably the most ambitious; while Labour is divided between a Scottish leadership that wanted significant change and one in London that did not.

The Liberal Democrats - whose forebears in the Liberal Party more than a century ago promised Home Rule for Ireland and Scotland - returned once more to their dream of a federal United Kingdom.

However, there was no agreement between the three parties on a final package of measures. This week there will be, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne vowed.

The united front illustrates the alarm now existing at the highest levels of British society - the question now is whether it will be enough to return votes to the No fold.

However, it could just as easily be seen as panic - a version of events that Alex Salmond and a host of other Yes campaigners were quick to drive home tonight.

The coming days will require discipline from Labour, which is on the verge of turning in upon itself in a blaze of bitter recriminations about the way in which the battle has been fought.

Labour’s existence is threatened by the loss of 41 Labour MPs from Scotland, a message that will be driven to its heartland in the frenetic days ahead.

Before Saturday’s numbers emerged, No. 10 Downing Street had explained Monday’s YouGov figures - which showed that the margin down three percentage points - as emotion winning over rationality.

Scottish voters, The Irish Times was told, were behaving like those in Quebec's independence referedum in the Nineties, but more cold-headed reasoning will come, the source said.

From a debating point of view, the argument is coherent. However, the No side must first win a hearing for its new pledge - something not guaranteed with emotions running so high.

Meanwhile, No voters - many of whom have felt intimidated by a vibrant Yes camp - must choose whether they should march towards the sound of political gunfire.

Silence will not save the United Kingdom, if it is to be saved - a campaign that has struggled to be effective, never mind one that offered an optimistic message - has to be both within days.