Watch out – David Cameron's about. So all the big political beasts of the jungle are in Edinburgh today. I spent this morning in the BBC's Edinburgh studio hopping from a radio studio with Times Scotland Editor Magnus Linklater for a piece at the tail end of the Today programme to a TV studio to do the same thing on BBC World. Having just come back from the deep snow of sub-zero in Munich last night I wasn't exactly dressed for the piece – sweltering away under the TV lights in my fur lined boots. But it's exciting to be in the midst of it all. Cameron is apparently off in a not-to-be-disclosed location in Fife at the moment which could be the Quaker Oats factory in Cupar (porridge – Scots geddit??) and will come back for a press conference in a Grassmarket hotel which overlooks Edinburgh Castle (where Big Lec launched the independence referendum document a fortnight ago – geddit!)

Clearly symbolism is us today. Or – as Scotsman Assistant Editor Peter McMahon observed after a Sky interview outside the Scottish Parliament (see the folk you meet sailing past on your bike?!) he's meeting cheese with cheese. A wee reference to Alex Salmond's predilection for slightly corny venues. Anyway I'm not sure how easy it will be for an independent, freelance journo to get into the Cameron gig, but I'll give it a go. A few things strike me about the Cameron visit so far. If Alex Salmond doesn't get smug or act belligerently towards Cameron today then it's bound to be a victory for him – however Cameron performs. The status the Prime Minister's visit gives the cause of Scottish independence is immeasurable. The unionist strategy of ignoring "separatism" until it goes away is now clearly over. In the long march of ideas, another phase generally follows. As Gandhi observed "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

Now the rather rotund Alex Salmond is now Mahatma Gandhi. Scotland is not India. Colonial rule in the subcontinent last century (often presided over by Scots) is not the same as devolved governance here in the 21^st. But I'd say Cameron is definitely trying to match ideas with ideas.

Look at his choice of words today. He's suggesting the British people are "better together" –obviously derived from "we're all in this together." Strange that he thought it worked forst time around – but there you go. His other choice of words is more interesting. A "shared home under threat," is a direct lift from the Swedish, Folkhemmet (the people's home) -- a political concept that helped Sweden emerge from WW2 as the world's most successful social democratic nation. Ironic isn't it. But when Goran Persson (the last Swedish SD leader) came across to London a few years back during the dog days of the Brown government it was Cameron and his entourage and Not Labour who spent time talking with the former Nordic leader and learning about the "Middle Way" Sweden's conception of a folkhemmet underpinned as midway between capitalism and socialism. The basic vision is that the entire society should act like a small family, where everybody contributes – ring any bells? Big Society anyone??

I've a feeling the Tories have taken more than Free Schools from the Swedish model – just as Alex Salmond has taken his Oil Fund from the example of Norway. Sadly there is so little working knowledge of our Nordic neighbour's recent history that the Nordic connections go largely unobserved and unchallenged.

But a couple of things are for sure. Firstly, you can't just copy the odd policy or slogan from another society – Nordic feelings of family-like solidarity and involvement in governance are not accidents. Actions speak far louder than words, and the Swedes and Norwegians acted in the 1920s and 30s to make equality the lynchpins of their society, changing tax structures, pay rates, the welfare state and educational systems to make sure that happened. Do David Cameron – or indeed Alex Salmond – plan to copy that? Every Swedish workplace is part run by a works council composed of trade union, co-operative and management reps who meet every week at least. Do Dave and Lec want that? Hmm. Thought not. And what about grassroots power – the key feature of Nordic life – where meaningful local communities (of between 3-20k people) largely run themselves. Their tiny but powerful municipal government contrasts with our big, clunky and remote "local" councils whose average size is a whopping 162,500.

Sorry – ranting again!

Anyway – not sure Scots will agree with Cameron that they are safer in a UK that conducted an illegal war in Iraq or insists on spending £100 billion on a replacement for Trident. The idea of leaving the "economic success story of Britain" ought to be equally laughable. The UK maybe the 6^th wealthiest nation on earth in GDP – but who is at number one? Not massive China but tiny independent, oil-rich Norway. And yet the banking collapse and Alex Salmond's Arc of Prosperity parallels with Iceland scared the living daylights out of everyone in Scotland. Particularly the sober, sensible folk who were brought up in the traditional Scottish way never to be in debt.

Och it's a long complicated business trying to figure out the mood of a nation, isnt it? Anyway, I'm off now to try and gatecrash the Cameron gig. I'll pass on the cheese.

What is going on at BBC Radio Scotland? Not content with raising one helluva row over axing the Janice Forsyth Show – hot on the heels of two controversial current affairs changes – it seems Mary Ann Kennedy's Global Gathering is now also for the chop. I've generally hesitated before commenting about BBC Scotland decisions. When you write critically about a previous employer people can't be sure if your point of view is entirely objective. And to be honest – after 25 years working for Aunty in one guise or another – I'm sure I am a detached observer of the BBC or indeed the wider debate about how we debate Scotland's future. Can I humbly suggest that similarly engaged people are precisely the kind of folk people want to hear on Radio Scotland? And yet these are the kind of people being purged by inexplicable Radio Scotland decisions -- folk with a background, an opinion worth hearing and a long-standing professional commitment to Scotland.

Why replace the characterful Newsweek Scotland with grumpy and incisive Derek Bateman at the helm just to have another instalment of Good Morning Scotland? And how can democracy be served by axing the only detailed analysis of the Scottish parliament (Scotland at Ten) and replacing it with music? As for Janice Forsyth v more football swop – NO!

Doubtless there are cuts to be made and bluffs to be called. People who say they will never listen to Radio if a certain change is made adapt cheerfully to the new output within weeks. The current public outcry is not such a minor stooshette. It's the build up of disappointment with a radio network that has gradually but steadily dumbed down and currently doesn't deliver sufficiently good, vibrant and engaged analysis of Scottish lives. Mary Ann Kennedy not only knows her stuff – she's a pivotal part of the folk scene. What can the justification possibly be for axing Mary Ann to play more classical music. That's what the whole of Radio 3 delivers every morning, noon and night. But if Radio Scotland doesn't play Scottish traditional music – who else will? That's not to say it isn't sufficiently high quality to get coverage on Radio 2 or indeed on foreign stations like RTE. But think about this a minute. Can it be right that Scotland doesn't promote what is unique about Scotland? Unless this is a high risk strategy to gain profile for some of Scotland's best loved broadcasters – you'd better believe more folk are listening to Janny on the Tranny since the rammy kicked off – the changes reveal some very strange priorities quite out of kilter with what licence fee payers expect.

Here's an extract from today's Scotsman column – you can read the rest by joining the free 30 day trial of the Scotsman App (click through from the website www.scotsman.com)….or buy the paper!!

So Scottish independence will be won or lost by the female vote. What a powerful position for women in this macho little country. The delicious irony was revealed (Scotland on Sunday 12.2.12) in a Strathclyde University survey of SNP members which suggests the average supporter is male and 60 – not a youthful, anti-Trident teenager as we've come to believe. The survey was conducted 5 years ago and the method of postal response may simply favour the older and more traditional type of correspondent. But the message isn't telling the SNP anything they don't already know. Female voters are more dubious about independence. Why should that be? Are risk-averse women predisposed towards the status quo? Are worldly-wise women sceptical about claims that better lives will be delivered by any new set of power-brokers? Are fist-banging men too prominent in the SNP? Of course, women are a diverse bunch. But we have some common defaults. Women are generally dubious about men with an overriding sense of mission or a throbbing vein on the forehead when they speak. Toughing out controversy and appearing to spoil for a fight may earn respect from male commentators and small armies of cyber-angry, anonymous men. Clever dick answers, snide-sounding put downs and swaggering arrogance turn off watching women as swiftly as they appear to engage watching men. And that's not an accusation solely directed at Alex Confidence Salmond himself. So can the SNP attract female voters without endangering their core 60-something, male support? Yes – and it's a change that must also involve broadcasters. The focus of debate needs to shift away from personal rammies and fisticuffs over constitutional minutiae towards the big life issues that plague all Scots. After appearing on the BBC TV's Burns Night Referendum Debate the single biggest subject of correspondence on email, twitter and facebook was my mention of the shameful evidence that some Scottish babies are genetically damaged by poverty before they are even born. Later at my hairdressers the pre-determined fate of Scotland's poorest babies was also the only point of interest that emerged from the previous night's hour-long debate. All those clever, clever challenges about timing, powers and devo-max were dismissed as mere theatrics. And these women were right. If nationalists can't demonstrate how independence can tackle child poverty, there's no point bothering. But equally, unionists need to demonstrate how another decade of devolution will reverse Scotland's near epidemic of self-harming behaviour. At the moment, the cart is before the horse – party leaders are debating constitutional solutions before publicly analysing the origins of Scotland's deep-seated health, social and confidence problems or the underlying reasons for optimism about Scotland's abundant resources in energy, people, landscape and culture. The destructive wrought by inequality will not stop itself. Resources that have remained largely untapped for generations will not develop themselves. But somehow the chaps that run parliaments and the media (north and south of the border) have no confidence that such big and basic issues will captivate viewers and listeners or produce more than worthy platitudes from politicians. It's a classic and dangerous Catch 22. Every minute constitutional nit-picking and ego-ridden banter are allowed to pass for truly Great Debate, voter confidence is further eroded.

I was in the Scottish Parliament on Weds for the debate on the Private members motion opposing the designation of the Sound of Barra as a Special Conservation Area (SAC) by Tory Highland MSP Jamie McGrigor. I came in a wee bit after the start but what I saw was a very high quality debate with cogent, well-argued contributions from Labour's Claire Baker (a gal to watch), Alison Johnstone for the Greens (who back the SAC), Tavish Scott for the Lib Dems (who quoted my Monday Scotsman column on this very issue) and a Highland-sounding SNP MSP I'm ashamed to say I didn't recognise. He made a point I've wanted to set straight – that SNH are to some extent piggy in the middle of this Hebridean rammy. Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson surprised me when he said relations between SNH and the Barra people had broken down completely. I haven't been out to sceptred isle lately, but I'd hazard a quess there really aren't any relations to be broken down. There is no SNH office on Barra and apart from the odd visit to count corncrakes on the SAC at Eoligarry or check seal numbers – a task possibly delegated to seal experts like the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) from St Andrews University -- SNH may not figure in the everyday lives of Barra islanders very much at all. And this is part of the problem. SNH only arrive to say no –you can't do that – inadvertently echoing a long inglorious Highland and Island history where people have been at the bottom of the pecking order of species and deer, sheep, seals and eagles have all been far higher up. That history is not SNH's fault. But people were cleared until 130 years ago to make way for animals and the memory – and enduring impact of empty glens -- rankles still. Largely because some of the over-arching, feudal-style control once enjoyed by generally feared and often absent landowners has been handed to SNH not devolved to savvy, self-reliant, capable communities like Barra. That too is not SNH's fault.

A question needs to be asked of the Scottish Government. How can SNH be expected to be nature's advocate, a government advisor and a neutral adjudicator on an SAC proposal – all at the same time? It isn't possible. And one role harms the other. SNH guys – temperamentally reserved as a breed anyway – cannot cosy up to islanders when they must appear to be "at arms length". Doubtless some bright spark in government will devise yet another quango as a solution to oversee part of SNH's multifarious role. The proper long term solution is staring government in the face. Give local communities (at a sub-council level) planning control. Trust the people. This would demand a framework to deliver just such community level control across Scotland – I say high time, even if some might regard the present moment as bad timing. To paraphrase John Lennon badly, democracy is what happens when you're making other (referendum) plans. Scotland needs engagement, excitement, involvement, participation and above all a sense of ownership by people. The SNP is interested in such feelings and arguments at a Scotland-wide level but not at the local level where it could make a massive immediate difference to lives. Is that because most politicians, civil servants, commentators and decision makers form a professional class that regards itself as lifted beyond place? A class that doesn't really live anywhere in particular, doesn't use local shops or engage with hobby-based groups, societies or campaigns and therefore doesn't rate local aspects of life (except for gathering votes)? Or is the problem exactly the opposite – MSPs spend their lives sorting out petty problems of local rivalry and animosity and therefore can't imagine such people having any greater say than they currently do? Or is it because the SNP want all the bottled-up frustration of passive, disempowered Scots to find expression in the independence referendum process?

As one of the original members of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust I'm a firm believer that cometh the hour, cometh the people. It will be a bumpy ride, but decentralising control within Scotland to create communities that can heal and develop themselves is the only social and political battle worth fighting in my book. The SNP are starting to frame a Local Empowerment Bill which may simply make it easier for communities to own assets (good) but could go further to pilot some trial areas with some council functions devolved to community control (even better). That won't be an easy road. When people themselves come to the realisation local control is the only way forward (and fight for years to achieve it a la Eigg, Gigha or Assynt) they invariably hit the ground running. When people have had such power (and responsibility) suddenly visited upon them, a vital stage of consideration, consolidation and local determination is missed out (a la island of Rum) – so the "community" must still develop, with all the growing pains of the normal teenager, as the community control project takes place. Disagreements and fallouts are then inevitable. But unless we want all communities to become battle-hardened first through eviction, threat, loss of population and sub-standard housing –as they were on Eigg – we must accept that most communities will not be as tightly knit and well organised when they take over the reins. That's where Development Trusts come in – as a brilliant way for communities to start flexing their organisational muscles. About 300 trusts exist in Scotland – most members of the umbrella group DTAS– to run assets like land, wind turbines, housing associations, village halls, local transport schemes, food co-ops, community petrol pumps and community orchards. They allow local people to get organised, get the feel for managing money, structuring projects, planning ahead and keeping the community with them. The Islands of Eigg and Rum are effectively run by Development Trusts – so too Neilston and Govanhill in Glasgow and Fintry in the Campsies where wind turbine income has already been used to insulate local homes and replace a bus service withdrawn by the local council. Indeed, soon development trusts – springing up organically all over Scotland – will be unpicking the present top-down structure of governance from the grassroots. Once community wind schemes have paid off the costs of turbines in 5-10 years, they will start earning relatively big money. Why should it be used simply to replace council expenditure while community members continue to pay council tax? Should such go-ahead communities be exempted some council tax – or divert it to their own ultra-local community council instead – or should they be more involved in the decisions made by the existing "local" council? Is it democratic for communities with development trusts to have more clout than those without? All of this lies ahead. Government and political parties can be ahead or behind the curve. Meanwhile, SNH should be freed up to perform only one task -- protecting nature. SNH should not sit as judge and jury on its own recommendations – their view and the view of an empowered local community should be considered along with all the other voices of society and decided upon by the Minister for the Environment himself.

I woke today humming "Let the Sideshow begin" after a dream involving a guy who resembled the aptly named Barry Biggs and claimed to have been in my class at school. Weird. Late night viewing of TOTP2 is a dangerous business. Mind you mid-evening viewing of Borgen has become compulsive. Last night's two episodes brought this run of the Danish series on BBC4 to a close – the story resumes this winter. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. Having decided TV was not for me over recent years I was coaxed back in by Being Human (embarrassing but true) and stayed tuned for Sherlock, The Killing, Frozen Planet, Merlin (more embarrassing) and lately Borgen. Now what? The series about life, love and power in the Danish parliament through the eyes of its first female Prime Minister final episodes brought back painful memories for anyone who's been through a separation. Without any glib messages, Borgen has managed to chart the difficulty facing any young mother and wife trying to hold down a big job in public life. Birgitte's smart, funny and attractive New Man husband Philip is left doing the domestic chores and cheerfully taking care of the kids – for a while. He is head-hunted for a new top job and accepts. But Birgitte's determination to be squeaky clean in politics leads her to insist that Philip gives it up. His company is a supplier to a controversial defence project approved by her government. He resigns – through gritted teeth – and their marriage goes downhill. The growing awkwardness between them is horribly accurate. By the end, it's impossible to know if the marriage can survive. The final scenes did remind me of the fabulous portrait of Elizabeth 1 by Cate Blanchett when she finally realises she cannot have an emotional life, shaves here head, adopts the unflattering ginger wig and paints her face an unearthly white before emerging – shorn of her beauty, femininity and vulnerability -- as the "Virgin Queen." Better feared than loved – in the words of Machiavelli, extracts of whose classic book The Prince, feature at the start of each Borgen episode. Is this the best women or indeed people in public life can hope for? Sham marriages of convenience where the endless demands of political life reduce personal life to a box-ticking exercise? The general divorce rate suggests marriages outside the political sphere can just as easily go pear-shaped too. So far in Borgen , Birgitte has found a way out of every tricky situation where the weary conventional response is regarded as the only viable alternative. Can she and Philip get out of this one – or are the script-writers going to make the strongest possible statement about the impact our current dog-eats-dog public world has on loving personal relationships?

Meanwhile – just to prove we dinnae sit in watching the TV all the time – a great Average White Band concert on Friday at Celtic Connections. I thought the once all-Scottish funk pioneers were a bit hesitant at the start – maybe Scottish fans signed off after Pick up the Pieces in the 1970s and just didn't recognise the later stuff recorded after they left Scotia for America. The sound quality was so bad in our seats on the section E balcony right above the stage that we had to move to the back of the auditorium. I didn't even recognise one of my fave tunes from Cut the Cake till we shifted! Anyway, the guest artistes Hue and Cry, the fabulous Michael Marra (a wee black-bereted beacon of positivity) and the encore more than made up for it. The whole Concert Hall rose as one gyrating --if slightly stiff -- 50-something Funkmeister when Pick up the Pieces kicked in. Nice. And weegie founder Alan Gorrie looked chuffed with the home reception. Also nice.

The lone woman on the top table surveys her fate! This was a very jolly Burns Supper in aid of the Cornerstone charity in Dundee last week. I'm flanked by two of four Calder brothers -- the white-haired baby of the family, Finlay (heroic Rugby Grand Slam winning Captain of the 1980s) and his Tam O'Shanter delivering brother John. Beyond Finlay is Jim Brown the MC who put Fettercairn thoroughly on the map and Roger Benton the gutsy Ode to the Haggis man. Have you ever seen a more fluorescent piper than Jimmy Doig? A good time was had by all! I do really relish this annual ritual – it is a bit like Christmas with regular highlights and the occasional surprise. This year I find I've been haunted (in a good way) by Green Grow the Rashes O, sung brilliantly by Eddie Reader. But it's the version by Dundee's own Mike Marra with the utterly brilliant Mr McFall's Orchestra that keeps going round in my head. Partly because of Mike's intro where he observes this must be the only song that call's God a "she." Mike is on at Celtic Connections on Friday 3^rd Feb with the Average White Band. I'll be there as the Number One fan of Scotland's greatest male feminist. There are still some tickets at https://etickets.celticconnections.com/EventSeatBlockPrices.aspx

Iceland's home-made Constitution – lessons for Scotland; Committee Room 1, Scottish Parliament 6-8.30 March 29. Hosted by the Icelandic Embassy

Iceland has made a steady recovery since the banking crash of 2008 when the country was placed on the UK Terrorism Register. Slowly but surely this Nordic nation of just 300,000 people has been making sure such a crisis can never undermine the whole country again. The 1944 Constitution needed major revision. A random sample of the population set the framework for a Constitutional Council (ICC) composed of 25 ordinary folk elected from 550 self nominating volunteers. The ICC took 4 months to write the world's newest Constitution with input by e-mail and social media (2/3s of Icelanders are on Facebook). The resulting People's Constitution will be voted on this summer. How did Icelanders manage to take the political initiative? What lessons can Scots learn as we embark on our own constitutional referendum process?

Sign up for this Nordic Horizons event in the Scottish Parliament on March 29 hosted by the Icelandic Embassy with economist Professor Thorvaldur Gylfason who won the highest number of votes in the ICC -- and Scottish speakers to be confirmed. Journalist Lesley Riddoch will chair the round table discussion. Places are free but Parliamentary security means we must provide a list of those attending. Email Dan nordichorizons@hotmail.co.uk. Or visit the Nordic Horizons Facebook page and click "going" to this event NOW.

Many people have been in touch to find out more about Professor Elizabeth Meehan – I quoted her suggestion of ranking preferences in the Scottish indy referendum in today's Scotsman column. I'd give the website address but it's made the page go crazy every time I post and I'm not smart enough to fix it! So guess if you're interested! Anyway Elizabeth has given me permission to publish this whole section of her speedy response to the Referendum Consultation. And the good news is she's coming to be part of the March 29^th Nordic Horizons event on the Crowd-sourced Icelandic Constitution (you'll have to guess that website too! Doh.)

8. What are your views on the question or questions to be asked in a referendum?

There is strong evidence throughout the world that offering only binary choices over constitutional issues rarely works well. I know that one of the experts on multi-option voting is responding to the consultation document and I do not want, simply, to replicate what you will be told by him. My views, stated here, stem from points in the consultation document and my sense of the 'will of the people of Scotland'. These support the idea of three options on becoming independent, remaining in the UK as now, and remaining in the UK but with more autonomy.

The consultation document sets great store on the fairness of a referendum. In general, its references to fairness are about procedures and oversight. But, so far as I remember, the speech by the Secretary of State in which he announced the consultation also referred to another form of fairness – democracy. Likewise, 'democracy' features in the Labour Party's support for the Coalition Government's approach. I can see nothing 'fair' about denying voters an option that, according to opinion polls and my own knowledge of family and friends, is the one for which most of them want the opportunity to vote. That is, one about so-called 'devo-max' – though, because of its greater sense of entrenchment, I prefer the term that denoted the long-standing Liberal constitutional preference; 'home rule'.

The consultation document (p. 19) insists that independence and devolution short of independence are separate things and, hence, that the latter should not be in a referendum about the former. But I, and many others, see them as about the same thing; the constitutional status of Scotland. It is not beyond the wit of voters to know that a winning vote for independence would make Scotland a separate state from England, Wales and Northern Ireland; and that a vote for 'devo-max' would leave the UK state intact, albeit with some more federal-type elements.

On the same page, the consultation document expresses fear that voters would be confused by four campaigns; presumably, independence versus the status quo and more (possibly entrenched) devolution versus the status quo. This could occur but only under a non-preferential vote. Under a referendum to be decided upon by a preference vote (see below), there would be three campaigns; one for independence, one for 'devo-max' and one for the status quo. Four or three, no matter; the assumption behind the forecast seems rather to patronize voters. In general elections, voters are asked, at least in theory, to choose from at least three competing visions of how best to order society. In practice, of course, voters often think 'they are all the same' (except Caroline Lucas's supporters, perhaps!). Given the nature of the proposed referendum on Scotland's constitutional future, it seems bizarre to think voters would be unable to see the difference in what each set of campaigners was attempting to communicate.

Despite my scepticism about the consultation document's claim that a vote for independence would be 'straightforward' while one of 'devo-max' would not, I do sympathize with the concern about how to draft a question on the latter. Not only will further devolution take place when the current Scotland Bill is enacted; there will be little time, especially for a referendum 'as soon as possible', to develop, through a democratic process, agreed further powers. (The Scottish Constitutional Convention deliberated for ten years.) But I think that the issue is capable of sensible resolution by a question such as the following: 'Should Scotland have greater power and freedom in the UK, powers and freedoms that would be decided upon through extensive public consultation and participation?' (Or, possibly, 'recommended' as a result of consultation and participation).

This would be one of three questions:

1. Should Scotland become independent?
2. Should Scotland remain part of the UK along present lines?
3. Should Scotland have greater power and freedom in the UK, powers and freedoms that would be decided upon through extensive public consultation and participation?

I also believe that voters should not be asked to choose one but to rank their answers in order of preference. For the sake of legitimacy, it would be much better if the people not getting their first preference got their second and that this was seen by the whole electorate to be so. So far, the talk in Scotland of multi-options has been limited to the possibility of using AV – which can have capricious outcomes. But there are other systems that are better at uncovering a consensual result; for example, the Modified Borda Count.

I fear that, if the government does not listen to all the concerns that I have expressed so far (which, I believe, are widely shared), the proposed referendum will not only be unfair (undemocratic) but also indecisive. Here, I recall the 1979 referendum. This did not fail merely because the usual practice of majority voting was qualified by the requirement that the majority vote (just won by the 'yes' campaign) should equate to 40 % of the electorate. It also failed because voters did not like the Bill upon which they were asked to vote. About one third voted 'no' because they thought it a bad Bill; just over a third voted 'yes', many on the ground that, though a bad Bill, a 'no' vote would remove the topic from the political agenda for the foreseeable future; and about a third, seeing the logic of both positions, stayed at home, thereby depriving either side of much hope of winning support from 40% of the electorate.

I fear that something similar will happen again if the proposed referendum is confined to one question (or two, if independence and the status quo each get one of their own). On the one hand, if people do not like the either/or choice given to them, they may well stay at home in large numbers. This would diminish the legitimacy of the referendum whatever the outcome – for or against independence. Another possibility is that people (whether or not supporters of the Scottish National Party) may interpret an insistence on one question as an exercise, not designed democratically to ascertain the wishes of the people of Scotland, but to frighten them into voting for no change. This could push them from staying at home into voting 'yes' to independence, especially if they are sceptical, as I suspect many are, of assurances by the Coalition Government and the Labour Party that the 'different issue' of further devolution will be taken seriously once the choice of independence is 'out of the way'.

This could be compounded by a further factor. Whether or not in favour of independence, many voters in Scotland (obviously) see the SNP as a more competent governing party for Scotland than the others. Such voters do not, I think, take kindly to the view of other parties (especially the traditional 'home-rulers', the Liberals) that a 'devo-max' question is a 'Salmond wheeze' to 'cover his back', should he lose on independence. Consequently, insistence on a single question soon is likely to be seen, not as a legitimate way of permitting self-determination, but as a cynical means of trying to wrong-foot the SNP.

Difficult to put this podcast into one simple category. Lesley explains the difference between TV and Radio audiences and their effect on debates. And there is a brief explanation about the new Icelandic constitution which was written using social media and which will be the subject of a Nordic Horizons presentation in March.