ECK PULLS ANOTHER SWIFT ONE

Dyson Cleans Up 1320 - 1320 • Published 17 Jun 2009 13:19

HE doesn"t hang about, does our First Minister.

Wee Eck didn"t waste time in turning around the Calman Commission"s plans to his own ends.

And again it is more to do with the understanding of people and how to play them at their own game, rather than having a particular political idea which will sweep the nation"s consciousness.

I said in this week"s paper that the unionist parties who had combined to bring about the Calman Commission"s report had taken a wee bit of a leap having brought something new to the plate with recommendations on the likes of Scottish tax-raising powers and suchlike.

The SNP could have been left looking like one trick ponies. After all, we"ve heard all the arguments for independence, so this report was a breath of fresh air, relatively speaking.

But Alex Salmond seems to have trumped the lot of them once again.

Instead of simply dismissing the report, he has told the Labour, Tories and Lib Dems that he will happily lump their proposals in together with an independence option in a referendum.

But the unionist parties, again seeming to be less than confident in their own policies, have bottled out of it.

Of course, it is just political expediency. The Lib Dems claim that there is no need for a referendum as there was no political opposition to Calman.

All they, Labour and the Tories want is to avoid giving the SNP any look in with a referendum.

However, they fail to accept that there might just be a preference for one or the other.

For the unionist cause it is always going to be easier to duck the issue.

A win in a referendum could bury the issue for generations though. Confidence, as they say, is somewhat lacking and they will not step where the bold do go.

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