11/07/2014 Daily Politics

Welcome to this special edition of the Daily Politics,

So, will the Kingdom stay united or does Scotland go it's own way?

The polls and the bookies favour the union.

But Nationalists say don't underestimate this man, Alex

He has a habit of confounding the pollsters and the bookies.

Scottish voters have been bombarded with stats and spin.

Many say they're also bamboozled - and some have even managed to avoid

the whole thing all together, as our Adam's been finding out.

You don't know what it is? The independence referendum? I've never

heard anything of it. And here in Westminster, a committee

of MPs says the taxpayer lost ?1 Was the 500-year-old business

sold off too cheap? Is the Government's flagship

universal credit programme Labour say so -

the Government insist not. And with us

for the whole programme today are Lesley Riddoch from the Scotsman

and Alex Massie from the Spectator. Ten weeks to go. Some of the state

of the campaign as you see it. There are two campaigns, the official one

full of party leaders, Alex Salmond, keynote speakers. There is a

grassroots one happening all over the country. I've been at 107

meetings since September the 9th. I've been counting. That's a lot!

Change happens in different ways. It can happen a little all over the

place and underneath the radar. Is there a difference between the two

campaigns? A difference in tone and what is being said? Yes. The yes

campaign is a generally optimistic, buoyant one. It has to be because it

is looking to a different future. But the no campaign is a might is

right campaign. How would you sum up the state of the campaign ten weeks

to go? Well, the state of the campaign is that the yes side are

losing. On that everyone agrees. There is a difference between

pollsters as to exactly by how much the yes campaign are losing but, at

the moment, it's quite clear that no are winning. It's a bit like if

you're playing roulette. You have ten spins of the wheel and if the

yes side bets on red, they need Reg to come up seven or eight times of

ten if they are to prevail. They say the polls are long, are skewed, not

capturing the mood on the ground. That could be true but this is not a

question where you have 100 things the pollsters have to try and find.

Are you worried that the yes campaign has lost momentum? They

seemed to have been doing very well in the spring and then the gap began

to widen again. I know people say this when they are perceived to be

on the losing end of opinion polls but they do fluctuate a locked and

the key things are, for example, things like the missing million.

There are folk who have never voted in Scotland in the large housing

estate. They've been canvassed by some young folk and they have been

incredibly insubordinate independent if they turn out. Which is

interesting, and we don't know. -- incredibly supportive of

independence. Has there been a compelling and agreed case for the

union? That is a concern. It runs on the

risks of uncertainties of independence but they are not

necessarily a case against independence or for the union and

it's true that the no campaign has relied more on dreary pros rather

than Ellie element of pro-tree. -- any element of poetry. The

referendum is on September the 18th. The campaign has been going on

for ever. But we'll soon be moving

into the final stretch. So let's have a look

at how the polls are shaping up. Only those on the Scottish

electoral register can vote. They will be asked

a simple question - should Scotland But in together each of the last

polls put together by this six main polling comprising Scotland and

leaving aside those who don't know, 43% intend to vote yes to

independence with 57% intending to vote no. 48% of men said they would

vote yes, compared to 38% women. Older people need more persuasion on

the independence merits. 64% of over 60 said they would vote no with 36

saying they would vote yes. This will be the first national action

where 16 and 17-year-olds are able to vote. What do they think? That is

not good news for the yes campaign either. Taking out the undecided,

36% said they would vote yes and 64% said no. What of English people

living in Scotland? There are nearly 400,000 people born in England but

living in Scotland, about 8% of the population, with only about a

quarter of them intending to vote yes for independence.

We're joined now by Professor John Curtice,

from Strathclyde University, who knows exactly what Scotland thinks,

Your latest poll of polls has yes on 43, no on 57, so roughly 65 and 40.

That would suggest the campaign hasn't changed much. -- 60-40. But

it has been generating excitement and interest. If we go back to last

Christmas before the Scottish Government published its White Paper

on independence, the polls were pointing on average to something

like 61% for no and 39% four yes. All the opinion polls agree that

during the winter, the yes side made progress such that by the end of

March we were all looking at around 53% for the yes side. The worry for

the yes side is that it's much less clear that they've made much

progress since the end of March, in other words the second quarter of

2014, which is not looking anything like as good as the first quarter

and with just over two months to go, they have a long way to go. The

second reason we have uncertainty and why this campaign will be fought

very strongly to the end is that the polls do not all agree with each

other. 43% is an average of some polls that say it is between 45 and

47 and a poll out this morning says it is 47, another says it is 41, 42.

We don't know which of those sets of results is more accurate. If only

men had the vote, Scotland would be independent. If only men had the

vote there would be a very tight race. Some of the polls suggest that

a majority of men are in favour and there is an enormous gender gap and

this is a gap which has long been noticed in Scottish politics so far

as willingness to vote for the SMB and support for independence. That

gap seems to have remained constant. -- the SNP. Does the polling tell us

why women are more resistant? Two reasons seem to emerge. One is that

women are more likely to feel the consequences of independence are

uncertain and voters who think they are uncertain are less likely to

vote yes, weathermen or woman. Secondly, women seem to be less

convinced that independence will bring economic benefits to Scotland

and all the issues the campaign is about, the one that matters most to

voters is whether they think independence will be economically

beneficial or not. If the yes side are going to win, that is the issue

on which they need to make progress above all. Why is the independence

campaign struggling to get women's votes? Or women are more able to say

when they don't know than men. You think a bigger number of them are

saying they don't know? They are more likely relatively to say yes.

If I can get a word in... The point is that when you say something, you

can get folk jumping down your throat. It is very much easier to

keep your powder dry and hide behind what ever vote responses going to

keep some distance and allow you to have time to think things through

and I think it's no coincidence that Christmas allowed a bit of a Philip

for the yes campaign because it allowed intimate, ordinary campaigns

between people that were sincere and less localised. You get the very

contested public space and I think tactically everyone ran screaming

from it. They are not running, they are saying no. The view on the yes

side is that if you can move people a little bit over time, that is

good. Time is running out but the opinion polls wouldn't have even put

us here because they wouldn't have predicted the last two SNP election

victories. Has it come predicted the last two SNP election

Alex Salmond that young folk are not anywhere near as enthusiastic about

independence as he thought? It might be a disappointment but in truth it

was always a mistake to assume that the SMB and franchised 16 and

17-year-olds on the grounds that it would be to their benefit. I think

we have to accept that they believe in principle that they should have

the vote. I'm suggesting to you that it was not the principal

motivation. Here is one example where probably a government did

something because it believed in it rather than necessarily because it

simply thought it was to its own benefit. Are you surprised that

young people are distinctly less in favour of independence than their

parents? Not necessarily because young people have grown up in an era

where you have the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, where some

of the political aspirations of the Scottish people have been met,

whereas people in their late 30s and so on were the generation that were

campaigning for that Parliament and so the institutional apparatus of

Scottish politics is perhaps more important than it is for newly

franchised young people. It's also the case that we don't really know

exactly how many 16, 17 and 18-year-olds are all that engaged

with politics anyway. They tend not to vote in huge numbers but I'm

surprised that they are not more nationalist minded. There is still a

large chunk of those who don't know in all the polls, a decent amount.

The Nationalists are kind of betting the farm on the don't knows skewing

their way. But I noticed a recent polls adjusted they were actually

falling away of people that had already made up their minds. We had

a couple of opinion polls today and one last weekend which suggest that

the number of don't knows, which are not particularly large, look as

though they are beginning to come down and the truth is that so far

the evidence is that if they are coming down it isn't making any

difference at all to the relative strength of yes and no so if the yes

side were hoping to gain from the decisions of the undecided, there

isn't any evidence of that so far. One final question. You hear it said

again and again by those in favour of independence and the SNP and

their supporters in the media that in 2011, ten weeks before the

Hollywood elections to the parliament here, Labour had a

double-digit lead over the SNP but Alex Salmond went on to win by 18

points. Is that relevant to where we are now? Not entirely because it is

very clear that why that happened in 2011 is that the Labour Party messed

up its election campaign and it was a judgement on the failure of the

Labour Party, together with the fact that people think the SNP have been

rather good at governing Scotland. But if you look at what happened to

the opinion polls during that campaign, you discover that they did

identify a swing to the SNP but at the same time no swing in terms of

more people being in favour of independence. The SNP won because

they were regarded as capable of providing Scotland with government,

not because it was a vote in favour of independence. Thanks for joining

us. Let's go back to Joe in London. Now, here in Westminster a

cross-party group of MPs is accusing the Government of making a royal

mess of the Royal Mail sell-off. The Business Select Committee says

that poor advice and a fear of failure

on the Government's part caused the Royal Mail to be significantly

undervalued - depriving taxpayers Business Secretary Vince Cable,

who oversaw the sale, was defended by his boss Nick Clegg

on LBC radio this morning. Share prices gyrate wildly and the

Royal Mail's share prices have gyrated wildly and will continue to

do so, I suspect the stop there has been a 25 per cent drop in the share

price. The idea that Vince cable, wise though he is, should be a

soothsayer and should have been able to predict that, I think is

something... And by the way, in the process, he's given thousands of

people working in Royal Mail a piece of it.

Well, here in the studio are Billy Hayes, General Secretary

of the Communication Workers Union, which represents postal workers,

and Adam Memon from the Centre for Policy Studies - a think tank

Welcome to both of you. A stake in the Royal Mail. The taxpayer me have

been short-changed but postal workers got almost 3500 free shares

each in a workers got almost 3500 free shares

done well. Postal workers were given the Royal Mail. The taxpayer me have

been short-changed but shares as an attempt to buy them off. When we

polled our members, they were against privatisation. Vince Cable

says it is all about hindsight. What is clear is that Vince Cable never

had foresight. He lost the British public ?1 billion. If you are a

postal worker and you lost an important package and you face the

prospect of the SAC... Vince Cable has an opinion on everything. Postal

workers have done well, haven't they? If you calculated how much

they would make, they would make ?5,000. Not many people would say

that was a bad deal. I think they would. Really? ? Only 368 turned the

shares down. They did not have a choice. They did not have to do

anything. The shares were put in their pay packet. Both the workers

were against the sale of Royal Mail. 60% of the British public from all

parties were opposed to the sale of Royal Mail. Vince Cable made a

botched sale, he panicked, he did not have the foresight and he is

trying to blame everybody else. It looks a bit of a disaster for

taxpayers of a committee of MPs have said it was -- it was undersold.

This is ?2 billion that taxpayers have got which they otherwise would

not have. As the National Audit Office says taxpayers are no longer

liable for the losses Royal Mail me or may not make. If you look back at

what Royal Mail was doing in the past, yes, they are making profits,

but after so many decades of trying to do that, finally the government

has been able to do this, and the ordinary people who have bought

these shows, many of whom have not bought shares before, these are

average people who have benefited. If you are saying it was a

successful thing to do, the price has rose as high as 1600 and 18p,

how did he get it so wrong in terms of how to price it? The share price

is a reflection of expectations of future earnings. Partly it is

because of the fact that so many employers decided to accept --

employees decided to accept these shares which meant strike action was

unlikely and it was more stable and investors see that and see it as a

better bet and a good opportunity to invest. The fact that the share

price has gone up is not a bad thing. It means the 700,000 people

across the country are benefiting. These are not institutional

investors, these are people on average incomes. What do you say to

that? I know you have said hindsight is a wonderful thing, but could you

or I have estimated how much we could have got for selling off Royal

Mail and the figures that have been given sure that long-term it could

be very successful? I am not a city banker. I am not an institution

advice in the government on the sale and then another section of my

company making a profit on the sale. I do not know if you run a business,

but if I had something for sale that was worth ?3 billion and I sold it

for ?2 billion and then I argued that is good for me because I made

?2 billion... It was sold. There was a doubt about whether you could

sell. Absolutely. It was almost free money. The company was worth a lot

more. City institutions got it wrong. 24 times oversubscribed. The

great British public lost ?1 billion. The point you made earlier,

the company 's which were advising and the companies which sold

them... The indication was there was a conflict-of-interest. That is

quite a big allegation. I do not know, but it seems odd to me that a

company that is advising on the sale on one hand and another part of the

company is benefiting and the select committee said there was not... You

think there was? The ordinary person in the street would not understand

somebody advising and benefiting. It is wrong of you to say that. There

are firewalls. If you are saying they have broken firewalls and

committed mass corporate fraud... I am saying if there was not a problem

why has Vince Cable ask someone to come in and look at what happened?

Everybody recognises it was botched. Not everybody. The National Audit

Office. Vince Cable himself is looking at the sale and that is a

little bit like judging your all homework, but the fact is that ?1

billion went adrift. Let us ask about the pension liability, that

had to be put onto the taxpayer. That is not great for the taxpayer.

Not in the long term but obviously it is not desirable but it had to be

done to get the Royal Mail into the market. It is a necessary cost

because of the benefit of having the Royal Mail in the market in terms of

the freedom it gives it and the people who benefited from

investing, the employees, all of that is worthwhile. We only have a

few seconds, you said it would destroy the Postal Service, has it?

Look at what has happened to Post Office counters today. It is going

to cause major problems. It has not done so, has it? They are talking

about universal sale, Vince Cable should be sacked.

Labour used to rule the roost here in Scotland.

In 2011 the Nationalists did what the voting system was

They won a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish Labour is now the largest opposition party.

I'm joined by their leader, Johann Lamont.

Alistair Darling said this week that the red percussion is of a yes vote

would be worse than the 2008 banking crisis for Scotland. More of the

same scaremongering. I do not think it is scaremongering. I think it is

important to be put out there what the consequences are. How would he

know? Regardless of what the consequence would be people would

want Scotland to be a separate country, I understand the passion,

but on the other said it is important for the ball who are not

sure to understand the scale of the challenge we would be facing --

people. There would have to be cuts or taxes. That may or may not be

true but that is not a 2008 scale banking crisis. How would anybody

know that would be a consequence? He was a great deal closer to the

banking crisis than I was so I would respect what he says. I love the

fact that I live in a country where I can be Scottish, proud of my

identity, my many identities, a Glaswegian and an islander, and be

part of the country where we can work together, find ways of sorting

out our differences, and in tough times we can share a re-source, and

cool resource and risk. There are many people who feel the same and

said to me, please tell people we feel is passionately about being in

the United Kingdom as the yes people feel about Scotland leaving. Only

23% of Scots regard themselves as British. What label you put on

yourself is not the same as how people feel... It tells you how you

feel... You feel Glaswegian. I call myself Glaswegian because it is

where I was born. I, is self an islander because that is where my

heart is. I know that very many people look at the United Kingdom

and think we have achieved something pretty special. It is finding a way

of protecting our Scottish institutions... As John Curtis

explained to us, Labour was well ahead in the polls against Alex

Salmond, you spectacularly collapsed and Alex Salmond won an overall

majority. What is to stop another spectacular collapse? That is why we

are far from complacent, out every gay. -- day. We know that in our

hearts we do not have the confidence just to say that the polls are OK.

The polls tell us something important but it will never be a

substitute for talking to people and arguing and listening to what they

are saying. The polls tell us that although you are the leader of the

biggest party against independence only for 2% of Scots now you do you

are -- who you are. That is a work in progress. I will have a critical

role, but the debate is beyond party. One of the things that has

come to this is that when politicians argue with each other

people stop listening. We need to make sure that the voices that are

here are the people who understand the consequences for them and their

families. How long have you been leader? Two and a half years. 64% of

people in Scotland think Ed Miliband is doing badly. Why should they

listen to him about independence? I was out with Ed Miliband on two

occasions in Scotland. At the time of the carrier being launched and

four armed services day and what struck me was how popular he is. The

extent to which people want to come and speak to him. 64% of bee pollen

Scotland said he is doing badly -- people in Scotland. The Scots think

worse of him than in London. If you ask people what they think of as

idea of taking on the big energy companies ripping them off, people

support him. They are behind him on some of the very big issues. Talking

about zero hours contracts, he is on the side of people and I see it

myself in working with them. He has that passion to make sure that

politics is about a different kind of way of doing business. It is not

getting through in the polls. You may be right. If Scotland votes no,

can you tell us, can you commit to what extra devolution Scotland would

get? Our commitment is to add proposal... Two things, on one side

is the importance, if you have a Parliament that does not have

accountability for raising money you end up not taking on the really

difficult debates. That is how your party designed it. We have to face

that... I think in the early stages we put in tax-raising powers. The

SNP allowed them to fall into disuse. It was not... The SNP said

we could not use them. I think we should have tax raising powers. On

the other side, I think the argument about powers should not be about

institutions arguing with each other it is about how these are used. That

is why we also talk about what it would take to meet the needs of

cities so that we can have strong economies and what we do in the

island communities. You say you want more tax-raising powers, dead Ed --

did Ed Balls veto that? No. What we said in our interim report was that

we would be ready to look and we tested it and what I wanted was on

the one hand fiscal accountability at on the other hand you do not

break that sharing, you do not create unnecessary tax... What about

Phil devolution of income tax? We came to a conclusion that we struck

the right balance between making sure there is accountability but

also that we did not put ourselves in the place where we were losing

the benefits of sharing resources. What was Ed Balls view on film did

-- Phil devolution of income tax? I do not know. You cannot do it

without the Shadow Chancellor agreeing. Of course we do. What did

he say? Through the period between the interim report and the full

report the conclusion became too across a united movement was that

was the way to strike the balance. Your party told us that independence

would be killed stone dead with Scottish devolution. That did not go

according to plan. Why would more devolution kill independence? That

was not the purpose. I was very clear, I said, the first thing the

SNP will says it is not good enough. It's a more fundamental question. We

would told by the Labour Party that if Scotland had its own parliament

with a limited array of powers on domestic matters, that would kill

independence stone dead. That was 1999. This is 2014 and we're having

able referendum on independence. I didn't say would kill independence

stone dead because you will never kill something stone dead simply by

setting up an institution. You have to win the political argument. The

argument is not between institutions but how they use power, how you get

people involved and that's the debate we have to have, rather than

one that just asks with stitch -- which institution is stronger. Let

me get some thoughts on our journalists. You see the

intellectual bankruptcy of the party which hasn't had a decent idea in

years. Labour haven't really recovered from the shock of losing

in 2007, let alone in 2011. It was a party that had the arrogance and

complacency to think it spoke as the voice of the people. It turns out

that the people actually don't think the Labour Party represent them. The

SNP is Goldie of some of the same mistakes but Labour's devolution

proposals are utterly incoherent. On the one hand they say that while we

need to do something with income tax, they put in a mechanism that

says they could only increase it, not decrease it. A quick thought

from you? Scots have been voting for your party for the best part of 80

years. That is distinctly different. A lot of folks south of the border

can recognise that. It's not distinctly different. If I could

finish... Andrew asked me a question. That's not the

distinction. The reason we're sitting here today is not just

opinion polls. It's not all of the rest of that. The question is, don't

you recognise that the Scots want a social democracy and the rest of

Britain doesn't? I don't see the world in that way. I think what has

happened, when people rejected Tory politics across the UK, in some

parts of England, historically, people in the North voted Labour and

people in Scotland did. The SNP afforded people to vote for an --

afforded people an opportunity to vote for another party. I can't

accept your construction that says the people in Newcastle and Glasgow

and Cardiff don't believe in the same things and warrior at the same

things. Wires Gordon Brown not involved in the no camping? He is.

He does his own thing. That's not true. He was at a Better Together

event. He was at one recently. We were having a discussion. He is a

powerhouse of ideas. A powerhouse? Yes, in terms of this campaign, as

has Alistair Darling been. Are they speaking yet? Of course they are.

More importantly, ordinary people right across the country are saying

they want to hear more about this debate. Baxter Jo in London.

The Government's flagship welfare reform - the introduction

of a new universal credit, which it's promised will ensure that

people are always better off in work, has been a long time coming.

The Prime Minister has made it clear he was happy to see

the project phased in slowly, to ensure any problems are ironed

But this week more questions have been raised about universal credit's

long-term future - with confusion over whether or not the Treasury has

Labour tabled what's known as an urgent question

There has been so much beating about the bush that it feels as if this

House has been misled by a Government engaged in a deliberate

act of deception. The truth is that the department is relying, month by

month, on hand-outs from the... The truth is, the department is relying,

month by month, on hand-outs from the national food bank. How ironic!

Mr Speaker, that has been the most pompous, ludicrous statement that I

have ever heard. I know what the right honourable gentleman did. He

wrote this down before he heard the answer. I made it quite clear - and

I stand by what I said - the strategic outline business case

plans for this Parliament have been approved.

We asked the Department for Work and Pensions for a minister

I'm joined now from Leeds by Shadow Work and

Welcome to the programme. We heard in that film but Chris Bryant -- we

heard that film from Chris Bryant. Well see right or wrong when he said

the House had been misled by the Government? He is absolutely right

because four months, Iain Duncan Smith has been saying that universal

credit and on budget and it clearly isn't and it took a civil servant to

servant to come to Parliament last week and expose the fact that the

Treasury still hadn't signed the business case. Universal credit is

this Government's flagship welfare reform, merging six benefits and tax

credits into one. We've always supported this in principle but so

far the Government has been spending taxpayers' money for a benefit that

now just over 6000 people are claiming it should have been over a

million by now. There are serious questions to answer, which is why

we've said the Government should call in the National Audit Office to

do independent review to find out whether we can achieve value for

money from this project or whether it should be abandoned. But you seem

to be conflating two issues. On one hand, you say you support the

universal credit programme in principle, on the other you say it's

cost a lot of money, and then you say they haven't been given the

money by the Treasury. As far as I understand it, the money has been

released but it has been released in a gradual way. Surely you would want

the programme to be given a blank cheque? I would want it to be rolled

out gradually, absolutely, but before you start spending money on

something you have to do a business case to work out whether you think

the project is value for money. That happens in businesses and I worked

in the business sector before I was an MP. You wouldn't start spending

money on a project before you had confidence you were going to get

value for money. That's what hasn't happened in the case of universal

credit. New business case was submitted - because the first one

had to be rewritten - at the end of last year and we are now into July

and it hasn't been signed off and yet taxpayers' money is still being

spent on this project, even though we have no reassurance that it is a

chilly going to deliver value for money. That is the issue and the

Prime Minister and Iain Duncan Smith need to urgently get a grip of this

flagship welfare reform. But they are releasing the money, albeit bit

by bit, and you've made your point about the business case, but what

real difference does it actually make to the emperor mentation of the

programme? As it's being rolled out, it gets the money every three or

months. It doesn't actually change anything materially to the

programme, does it? First of all, you shouldn't be spending

taxpayers' money, our money, unless we have that certainty that it's

going to deliver value for money. The second problem is that this is

being rolled out at such a gradual rate that so few people are on it,

?600 million has been spent so far and it has rolled out to just 6000

people. That is around ?1000 per person... Sorry, ?100,000 per person

on universal credit. It is costing a huge amount of money without that

certainty that it is going to deliver value. Yes, roll it out

gradually, but let's make sure that we're getting value for money and

not throwing good money after bad. Would you argue that some of the

programmes rolled out under Labour the last government were successful,

like the tax credit system or the NHS IT system? If you look at tax

credits, it helped to lift more than 600,000... But was the roll-out a

success? There were massive problems. This Government need to

learn from mistakes of the past and I'm not saying the last Labour

government got everything right, but what I am saying is that this

Government should not be spending money on a project when there no

reassurance as it is going to deliver value for money and they

need to learn lessons from past IT problems. We have said right from

the beginning when the Government embarked on this in 2010 that there

were very serious risks and that they needed to understand the risks

before they started spending money. This is a ?12.8 billion programme,

the largest IT project this Government is pursuing, and we know

now - because of what a civil servant told us, not because of

ministers - that the business case has been signed off and that is a

huge worry. Of course cynics would say that you agree with that in

principle and are using this to score points against the Government.

You have called for a three-month pause in the universal credit

roll-out if you come to power. How will that help it? At the moment,

the Government are spending millions of pounds every month on universal

credit. How would your pores improve the roll-out? If we paused it and we

stopped spending that money, we could bring in the National Audit

Office and do a full review of universal credit. That would cause

chaos. What is causing chaos is a system where money is being spent on

a project and we don't know if it will deliver value for money. Let's

pause the spending of money and bring in the National Audit Office

to assess whether the project can succeed. And if it said no, you

would stop the? If they say it can't succeed, I'm not going to throw good

money after bad. What about all those people that would have been

put on the universal credit? A complicated manoeuvre as it was, you

would stop it dead in its tracks? And what would you do with all those

people who were on universal credit? As you know, fewer than 6000 people

are on universal credit but if universal credit didn't succeed, the

existing benefits that are still being paid today... Universal credit

is only being paid out at a very small number of job centres for a

tiny subset of claimants, so single people on job-seeker's allowance

without children who don't own their own homes. It's only going to a

small number of people. You could move people back to the existing

benefits. We want universal credit to succeed but we think it will only

succeed if we have greater transparency, and that's why we

would pause it and call in the National Audit Office. That's how

you get value for money for taxpayers. Thank you and with that,

time to go back to Andrew. The turnout is predicted

to be very high. But have most already made up

their minds? Will the don't knows break

differently from those who What do voters feel

about the campaign? We sent Adam out with

his scientific mood box. I've come to the seaside town of

Largs on the West Coast of Scotland but don't worry, I've remembered the

mood box. We are going to ask people if they feel informed or not about

the referendum, though I'm not sure it's going to work on here!

Informed or not? Yes, I am informed. Informed enough? Informed enough, I

should think. I think he needs to give us some more answers, Alex

Salmond, but I think we know a lot about it. Thank you very much. Where

have you got most of your information from? Some through the

postal stop I had a phone call. Who phoned you up? The SNP. Do you feel

informed? Not totally because I still don't think they're telling

the whole truth about the financial side.

still don't think they're telling the whole truth about the I don't

really know. I don't really think about. You don't even know what you

don't know about? You don't know what it is? The independence

referendum? I haven't heard anything of it? Have you been living in a

cave? I don't really know until we actually make the decision. What

does the UK Treasury say the union is worth per person in Scotland? The

UK Treasury says ?1400. He is well-informed! That is what they

say. What does the yes campaign say in return? I think they were trying

to bump it up a bit. There is a Yes Scotland shop over there. I wonder

if we will see any campaigners come to vote. Have you been doing a

referendum at school? Yes. What have you learned? It's complicated. That

is a very good summary! What is the most unbelievable thing you've

heard? We can carry on with the pound. They save that we are going

to have it on all the English guys are turning round and saying we're

not, so what's it going to be? It's started raining. I know the perfect

place to take cover, a famous Largs landmark.

Do you feel informed and simultaneously not informed enough?

Exactly. Informed. You are an expert? Oh, definitely. People are

getting so overloaded, they're getting fed up with it. Everyone has

their own opinion so I'm just waiting. I might say that's a little

bit lazy. It's lazy but also... waiting. I might say that's a little

Well, yeah, it's lazy. It's stopped raining now. Here comes the ferry

from the island so loads of people should be about to get off. Do you

feel informed about the referendum? Have you got enough information? No.

What would you like to know? Everything. What is the crucial

piece of information you'd like to know? How it's going to affect me

and my grandchildren and the next one is coming up.

About 50% of people say they don't feel very

well informed about the referendum. No, I have left it behind!

Bye! With us now is Blair Jenkins who

leads the Yes Campaign. Why, according to the polls, our

young Scots rejecting your independence message? That is not

what the polls show. Normally we do well. It is 2-1. Not samples. --

some polls. You have lost in every school in the country. That is

untrue. I have taken part in some personally. You have lost the Bates.

The average is that young Scots are to do one against independence. Why?

I find that young Scots are very open to this debate. People are

capable of changing their minds and move around perhaps more than the

older part of the population. I am confident that young Scots will vote

yes. Why are women rejecting the arguments for independence? I think

women are going to make their minds up later than men, that may a

sweeping statement. It is funny, I was in a public debate with someone

who said that he thought 70% of the population were up for grabs, people

who might change their minds -- Levantine percent. You would not

push the parallel too much. It is the case that the gender gap for

people who are going to vote SNP closed by polling day. It is

worrying the Labour Party. You can see that. Maybe one of the reasons

is uncertainty or risk because you say an independent Scotland should

keep the pound, still have monetary union with the UK, continue seamless

membership of the EU, membership of NATO, these are things Scotland has

at the moment as part of the UK and although that is what you want, you

cannot guarantee a single one of those things. You're right, and a

couple of those at least it is not possible to be absolutely certain

but the reason is evident and I think people are switching on to

this, the reason for some of the uncertainty for things like the

precise method by which we continue in EU membership is because the

British government is the only one that can get that clarified at EU

level and will not do it. You may say this is perfectly legitimate, we

are up against the campaign whose main strategy is uncertainty and to

maintain as much uncertainty as possible. As you sit here today,

there's not one of these you can guarantee an independent Scotland

would have. What we can guarantee is that an independent Scotland will

get government it elects. I understand that. You cannot

guarantee any of these things. I accept entirely for instance that

the currency union is one. People are going to have to make up their

minds who they trust. From every single poll that has been done

people of Scotland trust the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish

Government more than they trust the Westminster government. Let us take

Scotland's membership of the EU. It is the Scottish Government's

intention that it would do these negotiations, it says it would have

to renegotiate while the negotiations with London are going

on. EU membership could not be taken for granted. That is what the

commission president said. He has said it could be very difficult.

They -- he was dismissed but the new president has said that he agrees

with him. Are you going to dismiss him? What he has been trying to do

this week in various meetings is to say as little as possible about the

Scottish referendum. He has said it is a decision for the people of

Scotland that he and their EU will respect the outcome. You know what

else he said? He has said many things. When asked if he agreed did

not agree, with the President of the commission, he said, they were

perfectly clear, I do not have to change a word as far as they --

their declarations are concerned. Earlier this year when that was said

we had people distancing themselves from his remarks. The reality of

this is that there is will not be a legalistic decision taken by civil

servants in the commission. It is a political decision which will be

reached in the future of the EU. Are you dismissing what he said? I think

he was very diplomatic. He agrees with his predecessor. I think it is

incredible. It is incredible to think that the Beeb all Scotland

exercise their right of self-determination, as I believe

they well, that this will somehow lead to hostility, exclusion. That

is not the issue. The issue is how long it may take. How -- what you

may have to renegotiate and the different terms you may get. Getting

a share of the British rebate. All the Scottish Government's

calculations depend on oil revenues making up for the loss of public

spending money that currently comes from the London Treasury. Every

calculation the Scottish Government has made has overestimated oil

revenues. Why should we trust you? Lots of people have it on different

future projections. I am not talking about future projections. I am

talking about projections the Scottish Government made in

2010-2011 up until now the real malady of the revenues they got is a

lot less -- reality. There were particular reasons. There are always

reasons. That is right. Why should we trust you? The future off oil,

one cannot be certain about the price, but one can be certain about

the volume of oil that remains and the companies operating there are

making regular of investment. There is every reason to believe that

North Sea oil, which is not the basis of the argument for Scottish

and -- Scottish independence, is very important. Higher than the UK

average, the government is saying, we will get the oil revenues which

currently go to London, we will be able to afford it, but if you're

projections, you were out by almost ?4 billion... Not me personally. Not

you personally. If you are owed by that much you cannot guarantee that

these revenues will pay for your public spending. There were

particular circumstances where at the companies were unable to take

advantage of the investment they had made is to reduce tax liability so

that resulted in the loss of revenue. You knew that when you made

the projections. I did not make the projections. There are highly

credible people in the industry themselves to have much more

optimistic projections than the UK Government. A forecast today on the

current lines, you would probably be denied the existence by the time we

get to the temper -- September 2018. Now, if you have vote on Scottish

independence and you're still undecided,

despite the best efforts of any of Our Giles has been

following the campaign. You know, for some, because, let's

face it, not everybody is fussed, the dream of Scottish independence

or the concept of Britain as The tartan glitterati have not been

shy of raising their proverbial kilts and showing us what they

really think on the big question. Brian Cox, the gritty Hannibal

actor, not the boyish physicist, You are in favour of Scottish

independence. As for coming together,

Alan is not so sure. After independence,

and I am a supporter and I hope it We will still be a part

of the British Isles. However, Mike Myers is

so ogre the idea of independence. Shrek wants what the will

of the Scottish people want. That is interesting, and conclusive,

coming from a man who is Canadian Captain Jack Harkness from

Doctor Who and Torchwood. Let's stand together and let us not,

like snarling currs, Apparently that meant he is

for unionism. Harry Potter author JK Rolling

conjured up a ?1 million donation to And brought herself a bout

of online abuse. We are in the middle

of a huge terrible terrifying I think now is the time

for stability. That is a magic that is not working

on Irvine Welsh, who has been spotted boarding a train leaving

the British union station. That sense of Britishness,

I do not think it is served Frankie Boyle agrees,

funnily enough, or unfunnily I've kind of romanticised about

Scotland being this foreign country. Our culture is actually very vibrant

and something we should try to Thinking of culture, there is

even musicians in each camp. The first pop stars with thick

specks and huge mouths when they We are voting yes

for an independent Scotland because we believe we should take

responsibility for our own lives. We are voting yes for an independent

Scotland because we want to see You will recognise him

at these awards coming up. He is the one who is not there and

is being represented by Kate Moss. The big issue is not

so much will they won't they, He told a magazine he absolutely

supported David Bowie's viewpoint, especially if Miss Piggy could

become the Queen of Scotland. Are these celebrities making any

difference? It is astonishing that there is even 40% still considering

voting yes, but when David Bowie came out with that we had the

greatest fun. Everybody was looking at the titles. We had the man who

fell to Perth. Let us hope not. Why not? The idea that someone's vote on

something of this importance should be influenced by what some two bit

actor, pop star or other reality TV consistent as disease strikes me as

being beyond depressing. Thanks to our guests,

especially Lesley and Alex. We'll be back in this spot

in September, when we'll be just In the meantime,

I'll be back on Sunday with the Sunday Politics, when I'll be

speaking to Scotland's Deputy First DRUMBEATS CONTINUE

WITH SWELLING, DRAMATIC MUSIC