The Kingdom to Come: Thoughts on the Union Before and After the Scottish Independence Referendum by Peter Hennessy

Author:Peter Hennessy [Hennessy, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: European, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9781910376232
Google: zVcrDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 25245924
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Published: 2015-05-01T10:31:33+00:00

Sunday 17 August 2014

Talk to Tam Dalyell on the phone, following up our brief chat on Wednesday. He and Kathleen, Tam said, think ‘there’s a helluva reason for anxiety. I think there’s a considerable danger that it’s not going to be all right. All these youngsters who have been canvassed have no conception of the havoc it would cause. Divorce, if it happens, is going to go very sour. I think there would be a run on sterling straight away and the English will be furious.’

Tam has been anxious for decades. He recalled the late 1960s when the Conservatives, then in opposition, moved towards the idea of a Scottish Assembly and he talked to Iain Macleod, Reggie Maudling and Enoch Powell about it.

‘Tam, none of my doing’, said Macleod.

‘Trouble, old boy. Trouble’, said Maudling.

‘Folly’, said Enoch [Tam told me about he and Enoch coinciding in the Commons Table Office in pursuit of parliamentary questions. Tam’s was on the Falklands and he said to Enoch he and the clerks needed a knowledge of iambics to get it right. ‘You need a knowledge of iambics for everything in life’, said Enoch, and walked straight out erect, as if nothing more needed to be said].

The great Tom Devine has come out in favour of a Yes in this morning’s Observer as ‘there’s very little left in the Union except sentiment, history and family’. Tom says he finally made up his mind only over the past fortnight. Previously he’d been a devo-max man but,

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