So, slightly to our surprise, we actually just got a reply from Blair McDougall to our email offering to put on a debate between Alistair Darling and Dennis Canavan at a mutually-convenient time and location and with a neutral host.
You can read it below.
Obviously we tried ringing “Better Together” ourselves again this morning, just before 10am, but once again Blair McDougall was unavailable, and the person we spoke to couldn’t tell us when would be a good time to catch him as he’d be “in and out” of the office throughout the day.
We took that to mean that he was currently out, so we called him on his mobile.
(We’ve blanked the bit where he gives out another “Better Together” mobile number, as we don’t know if that one was publicly accessible like Mr McDougall’s was.)
We’ve sent an email to the specified address. We’ll try a text after that.
As alert readers will be aware, we’re having an inexplicably hard time getting hold of “Better Together” campaign chief Blair McDougall at the moment. Although the No camp constantly claims to want “debate” and we’ve already got the Yes side’s agreement, for some reason Mr McDougall still hasn’t accepted our invitation to have BT’s official spokesman, Alistair Darling, go up against his Yes counterpart Dennis Canavan in a public head-to-head at a mutually convenient time and location.
Despite our trying to get in touch with Mr McDougall every day for the last week, he always seems to be out or “in meetings”, even if we call 60 seconds after he’s just posted a tweet. And when we leave messages with BT staff, he never gets back to us.
Obviously we’re pretty busy and can’t just sit here redialling every two minutes, so if any of you get a spare moment to call the BT office today, can you ask them – very politely, please – if he’s in, and if so whether he’s got an answer for us yet? Ta.
That number again: 0141 225 6288.
We’re now in the sixth day of our attempt to arrange a public debate between the respective chairmen of the Yes and No campaigns, Dennis Canavan and Alistair Darling. Yes Scotland director Blair Jenkins accepted on behalf of Mr Canavan some days ago, but despite his “Better Together” counterpart Blair McDougall initially agreeing (on the misunderstanding that we were inviting him rather than Mr Darling), he’s yet to respond to several further enquiries.
We rang the BT offices in Glasgow just after two o’clock this afternoon, but Mr McDougall was “in meetings” (though he was posting tweets two minutes beforehand) and the person we spoke to couldn’t tell us when we might be able to get hold of him. We left a message asking him to get in touch when he had a minute. We’ll let you know when we hear anything.
We just had to have a lie down after wading through Tory councillor Tom Kerr’s speech in Bathgate last night. We don’t know if we dare inflict the full incoherent horror of it on you, to be honest. But something quite interesting happened after it.
A local activist stood up and asked Blair McDougall if David Cameron was prepared to debate Alex Salmond on independence, and his answer was enlightening.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
