Wings Over Scotland

Well, the Prime Minister dropped the hint on the Andrew Marr show, now the Guardian has dropped the bomb – the UK government wants to force the Scottish Government's hand on the timing of an independence referendum, offering the chance to make the referendum "binding", but only if it's held in the next 18 months. It's a dramatic development for sure, but the briefest of glances below the surface suggests that perhaps it's not the apocalypse a lot of pundits on both sides of the debate are presenting it as, for some pretty obvious reasons.

1. It is, so far as we're told, still just an offer. If Salmond says "No thanks, we'll do it in 2015 like we were going to anyway", what will Cameron do? Refuse to accept the result when it comes? Send in the tanks to prevent Scotland leaving if it votes Yes to independence? The idea is ludicrous. Wendy Alexander tried to rush the SNP into a referendum in 2008 and failed, there's no reason to imagine Cameron will have any more success.

2. It's an offer that isn't actually in Cameron's power to offer. ALL referenda in the UK are consultative, not binding. Even if Westminster ran its own referendum it wouldn't be legally binding, so it can't confer that ability on any other authority.

3. The two parties of the coalition both stood on an election platform of opposing a referendum on Scottish independence. They have no mandate whatsoever to bring one forward on behalf of the British people, let alone the Scottish people. (Between them they command a miserable 20% support in Scotland.) The electorate, on the other hand, voted overwhelmingly to give the SNP the power to conduct one whenever it chose.

4. It's a clear show of weakness and fright from the pro-Union camp. Why such a short timespan? What are they scared of? If they were confident that Scots didn't want independence it wouldn't matter when the poll was held. All it will do is fuel the SNP's conviction – and very probably the public perception – that opinion is travelling in the direction of independence, and that they can win the vote on their own terms and in their own time.

All this clumsy intervention is likely to achieve is to anger Scots who don't want to be told by an Eton millionaire how to run their affairs. We're not sure what Cameron's on, but after watching this evening's episode of Sherlock we suspect he might have been strolling in Dewar's Hollow. The name would certainly be appropriate.