Last Days Of The Union

Political Map of Scotland December, 2011

Salmond operates with the freedom of one who knows that there is no one commanding opponent to challenge him - at least not yet. David Cameron, so nimble in a crisis and so fluent, is the only politician in Britain who could be his match but he has larger problems: in spite of his Scottish surname, he knows that as an upper-middle-class English Conservative - Eton-educated and plummily poised - he would in all likelihood be received with derision in Scotland as and when the time came for him to go up against Salmond in the pulpit.
Then there is Gordon Brown, who keeps his silence at home in Fife. "He's lost confidence," I was told by one of his former aides. "He keeps asking himself - 'What was that all about?' He can't quite believe what has happened to him and to Labour." (not quite the) Full story.