02/04/2012 Newsnight Scotland

killed more than 100,000 people here. The Government's inability to

cope with the disaster was, people tell you, the wake-up call for him,

alerting him to the country's desperate need for development.

That means putting Burma's huge wealth in Jade, precious stones,

timber, oil and gas to a use other than just making the generals rich

and this is where the election of Aung San Suu Kyi fits into the

Government's plans. The currency here is being floated from today to

encourage foreign investment. Now that Aung San Suu Kyi can enter

Parliament, the government hopes that sanctions will be lifted. The

European Union is to debate the issue later this month.

At a party in Rangoon, I'm introduced to people by name and

then bit number of years they were sentenced to jail. This is the

elite of the generation of 1988, the revolt that started the

campaign for democracy and which launched Aung San Suu Kyi. You were

sentenced to 55 years? Yes. This lady here? And you too for 55

years? 65 years. Between them they spent hundreds of years in jail and

most were released just years ago. What do they expect of the

international community now? This man served 12 years in prison.

TRANSLATION: The European Union should look at the true situation

here and force the government to implement the reform process and

bring about a better government which is in the interest of the

better people. Jimmy spent 15 years in jail.

TRANSLATION: I don't agree with lifting sanctions. Partial lifting

would be OK, but only after the remaining political prisoners have

been released and ethnic conflicts have ended. Only when the true

national reconciliation and the constitution has been amended to

allow full democracy, only then For now, there's rejoicing in Burma

that there has been a genuine political break through here. The

country's opposition party and their leader now have a voice in

Parliamentment -- Parliament. These people now hope that the momentum

will keep going and will bring Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: The

Government is forced into a U-turn on accepting anonymous admissions

to its consultation on the independence referendum. And does

the Conservative and Unionist Party still fully back the Union? Or are

England's Tories increasingly attracted to the electoral

advantages Scottish independence might bring them? Hello, good

evening. It's official, anonymous contributions will not count. If

you want to have your say on how and when the referendum on

independence happens, then you'll have to supply your full name at

the very least. The condition probably doesn't sound that

remarkable and it wouldn't be, except that the Scottish government

only imposed it today, after Labour accused them of trying to rig the

consultation. The UK Government said it never accepted anonymous

contributions to its rival consultation.

My consultation's better than yours. That seems to sum up this latest

spat. It goes a bit like this: Over the weekend, the UK Government says

responses to its consultation were heavily in favour of a referendum

held before Autumn 2014. The Scottish Government's preferred

date. And for good measure the UK Government wasn't accepting

anonymous or multiple contributions. Aha, but the Scottish Government's

consultation was accepting anonymous contributions. The point

I'm making and this is clear, I am making that accusation that the SNP

are looking like they're trying to rig this referendum. I find it

absolutely disgusting that the good people of Scotland who are entering

honestly into this consultation are being talked down and having their

entries minimised and diminished in such a crass way by the Labour

Party. The launch today you're all very welcome to the document.

the Scottish Government said anonymous responses wouldn't be

accepted after all. And in any case, they said only a small proportion

of responses had been anonymous in the first place. Out of nearly

12,000 submissions 414 or 3.5% were from anonymous contribute torz. No

surprises for guessing their response to the move, cries of U-

turn, embarrassment, humiliation. I'm joined live from Edinburgh by

the SNP's Jim Eadie and by Labour's Kezia Dugdale, both of whom are

members of the Scottish Parliament. Let's start first with you Kez,

does any of this have bearing on the referendum that we end up with?

I think it does, yes. This was a serious matter. We're talking about

the opportunity for people to have put in multiple anonymous

contributions. The public want to have faith in this process. In the

referendum that follows too. It had to be fair and transparent and

that's why we called for this process to stop. Jim, if there was

virtue only yesterday in including all comers, why not today? Well I

think what has to be made absolutely clear as your package

rightly demonstrated that there was a very small number of people who

were responding anonymously out of the total number of responses. We

decided today to make a robust process always subject to

independent evaluation and analysis, even more robust. I think that's

something to be welcomed. Do you welcome it? I do. Of course it's a

good move. It was only yesterday we had them on the air waves saying

people could submit whatever however they wanted. Quite right to.

-- too. Today we've seen an embarrassing U-turn. It's a welcome

U-turn. It's a step forward to a more fair and transparent process.

It is embarrassing for the Government, there's no denying that.

If the Government always intended to ensure that anonymous responses

were identified separately, when the analysis was produced, what's

the problem? Because this has never happened before. The Government

never stated that intention. This is a Government that is

increasingly struggling to be straight with people. That's the

fear. People need to have faith this this process and the

referendum that follows. That's what my party's focused on ensuring

is delivered in the end. Are there multiple, identical responses to

the consultation? No, the Government's knead clear there will

be no anonymous submissions and if people make multipulling

submissions from the one computer for example, they will not be

included. Unless you have included your personal IDification details,

when you make your commission, it will not be included or accepted.

Yes, that's not what I was asking about. I accept that the Government

has said today that it will not allow multiple I'dical submissions

from the same person or account, but there are identical

contributions from many different sources? I'm not sure what you're

trying to ask. I can't be clearer than saying that if there are

multiple submissions from one computer they will not be accepted.

If there are anonymous submissions they will not be accepted. People

can have faith in the process, because any anonymous or multiple

submissions will not be accepted as part of the consultation process.

Plet me put it a different way. Has the SNP, for instance, sent around

to members suggested wording that they might want to contribute to

the consultation? I'm not aware of that. What am I aware of is that

the Labour Party, quite rightly, has submitted already from its

website some why in the region of something like 1500 submissions.

your consultation? This is the Scottish Government's consultation

as I understand it. There has been a UK consultation and it may well

be that a similar number of submissions were made to the UK's

consultation. That would account for 50% of the submissions received

to the UK Government's consultation. Let Kezia Dugdale pick up on that,

is that true and if so, isn't it an attempt to skew the outcome of

these consultations perhaps even rig the results? It is true, but I

don't believe it's an attempt to skew the results. Lots of big

charities and campaign organisations use this type of tool

all the time. What we're trying to do is have a process which invites

as many respondants to reply as can be. We've said to people, party

members, the public, here's some ideas about what you might want to

contribute, feel free to edit the text. Every time somebody's done

that, they've sent in their name and e-mail address. So there's no

anonymity there, there's no multiple responses there. It's a

fairway to go forward. Large numbers of people are taking part.

Why is the First Minister reporting himself to the independent advisors

on the ministerial code? Well that's news to me I'm afraid. You

will have to enlighten me. I will answer the question. Well he has

apparently done so in this row about donations to the SNP

following complaints from the Labour Party. Do you welcome this

development tonight? Yes, of course. The public demand the jut most

transparency and scrutiny of large amounts of money being given to

political parties. There are questions Alex Salmond has to

answer. It's right that he's referred himself to himself. He's

referred himself to the former Lord Advocate, we look forward to

finding out what she has to say on the matter. Thank you both very

much for joining us (. Now, the party's official name is the

Conservative and Unionist Party, but for how much longer? Peter

Cruddas has already embarrassed his party with his claim that's donors

could dine with the Prime Minister for �250,000. Now tapes have been

released in which he suggests that the party's support for unionism is

not sincere and there's no doubt that a growing number of English

Tories are asking if the party should really fight to preserve the

union. It was just over a week ago that

David Cameron told the party faithful that the Conservatives

were very much part of Scotland's future, as was the union. For too

long we have let the SNP claim ownership of patriotism. This is

the flag of a proud nation, not the symbol of one political party.

this weekend it became apparent that not all Tories are quite so

sold on the union. We, as a party, have to be seen to be fighting to

keep the union together. Even if we don't agree with it. Because at the

end of it all, if the Scots say they want to go independent, they

can say it's not what we wanted, you can't have this, you can't have

that and you can get on with it. This video confirms what many have

suspected that some English Tory MPs would secretly rather see the

back of Scotland and its tendency to return Labour MPs. I don't know

how popular it is. There's no way of knowing how many people think

this. But it's kind of a view that reflects the fact that in the UK,

the Conservatives, if they got rid of Scotland, would think they would

win election after election. It reflects a reality that they've

known about for quite a long time. And if the union were to separate,

it appears voters down south would be accepting of the idea. Well my

first gut feel is obviously it would be a sad loss.

REPORTER: So you'd want the union to be kept in tact? Yes, but that's

only for sentiment sake. In other ways too, I don't think I'd mind if

they wanted to go on their own, as long as it wasn't to our detriment.

You know, there's different things up there, there's different laws,

certainly different laws and different culture, way of life. So

yeah. I don't, you know, they probably want to get away from the

Tories as much as I wo. I reckon it's quite a good idea. If they

want it, there's no reason to stop them. We're not adding anything or

taking anything from them. If they want to be independent, why are we

to stop them. So far so frustrating for the Scottish Conservatives who

have gone out of their way to emphasise the Unionist part of the

Conservative and Unionist Party. You can't look at politics in that

way. We are citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland. That is our country. And that's the country

that we want to stay citizens of. That's what Conservatives believe,

Conservatives and unionists, it's in our name. It gives us a clue to

what we stand for. That's the way we intend it to stay. So who has it

right? Many Tories have fought long and hard to keep Scotland part of

the union. The former Tory MP Michael for scythe led the campaign

against devolution. There are new MPs in town and not all of them

have a strong allegiance to the union or Scotland for that matter,

after all, there's only one Scottish Tory MP left in Parliament.

So where does that leave the Scottish Conservatives in Holyrood?

It kind of leaves the Scottish Conservatives exposed. They're not

really very sure how to respond to this in terms of what it means for

their attempts to try and campaign and use the referendum. It really

undermines them a little bit, particularly if it's a view that

starts to take feet and legs and becomes a bit stronger. Peter

Cruddas did say that David Cameron had told him he truly believed in

the union. But the former treasurer has got people wondering exactly

what Tories really think behind closed dorz.

-- doors. The journalist David Torrance is at Westminster for us

tonight. I have to correct myself slightly. I guess there is no doubt

that this is talked about in the Tories, but perhaps it's not quite

so certain that this is a growing strand of opinion. What is your

assessment? First of all. I think we are getting slightly carried

away. Peter Cruddas was a party treasurer, not even the main

treasurer. They are appointed because they know how to raise

money not because they're privy to political strategy and policy.

Cruddas certainly wouldn't have been. He was simply mouthing off to

impress people he was trying to raise money from. But I think

there's a strand of English backbench Tory opinion that

probably does think that. I think they're in a minority. Whether they

get any bigger, that remains to be seen. Do you think that the Prime

Minister's unionism is sincere and does that sincerity extend to the

Chancellor too? I think David Cameron's unionism is certainly

sincere. That was pretty much evident in his speech in Edinburgh

and certainly what I understand from people I speak to down here. I

think it's certainly true George Osborne, the Chancellor, is

probably more pragmatic. But that pragmatism extending more power to

the Scottish Parliament whereas David Cameron isn't so hot on that.

Both men are absolutely sincere in keeping the United Kingdom together.

Do you think the voices of ordinary voters in England that we picked up

in the film, do you thi they represent the mainstream view that

there's a kind of shrug of the shoulders, if Scotland really wants

to go independent so be it? Yeah, I think those reflect certainly

public opinion in London in as much as I can gauge it and in England as

a whole. It's a very pragmatic view. If the majority of Scots want

independence, then they should have, it as one lady in your report said,

I'd be quite sad about that, but let them go their own way if that's

what they want. What's missing is a pro-active element in English

public opinion or at least a mainstream pro-active element which

says no, even if they don't want it, let's make them independent because

we'll all be better off. That's not there yet. The so-called backlash.

Yes. Thank you for your assessment. Yes. Thank you for your assessment.

Let's pick up on the front pages: The Scottish Daily Mail is first up

tonight. Growing families targeted in fresh tax grab is the main

headline. Families who want more room at home are set to face a

tripling new tax on property extensions according to tomorrow's

Mail. The picture is of the newly elected MP George Galloway, a

claimed exclusive by the paper, apparently he's married his fourth

wife aged 27. The Scotsman front page in the morning: Motorists

facing new Easter fuel shortages. This is an apparent warning from